Iguaron / Ilpiliztli
Ramon pulled up to the curb and cut the engine. He pushed the door open and stepped out, the heat coming off the street and the hood of the car. He shut the door behind him and started up the block toward Ant’s house.
A handful of guys spread across the yard and the edge of the sidewalk, two of them crouched over dice near the walkway, bills pinned under their shoes, the rest posted up along the fence or leaned against the side of the house with their phones out or their arms folded. One of them lifted his chin at Ramon as he passed. Ramon returned the gesture and kept walking.
He took the sidewalk to the porch, climbed the steps, and knocked twice on the front door. He turned around and watched the street while he waited, his hands hanging loose at his sides, his eyes moving over the parked cars and the rooftops and the guys in the yard below him.
The door opened behind him, and he turned to find Ant filling the frame, his eyes flat on Ramon’s face. Ant held them there for a beat, then stepped back and let the door swing wider.
Ramon walked inside, his gaze moving across the room, the couch, the TV pushed against the far wall, the kitchen visible past a half wall. He looked down at the coffee table and stopped. A bottle of perfume on the glass next to a lighter and a half-empty pack of Newports. He picked it up and turned it in his hand, his thumb running along the edge of the cap as he read the label, then turned and held it up for Ant to see.
“You got your girl living in the trap, my nigga?”
Ant’s jaw shifted as he pushed the front door shut with his palm. “Fuck you know about my girl, nigga?”
Ramon shrugged, both shoulders lifting and falling. “Mine know her. That’s it. Talked about her a couple times with me.”
Ant’s chin came up a fraction, the cords in his neck pulling taut. “You better watch what come out your fucking mouth next.”
Ramon held his hands up, then set the perfume back on the coffee table where he’d found it. “From what I heard, Naomi cool people. I ain’t about to talk down on her or nothing like that.”
Ant nodded once and walked past Ramon to the couch, dropping onto it with his weight settling into the cushion and his knees wide. He reached forward, picked up the perfume bottle, his fingers closing around it, and moved it to the end table beside the arm of the couch. He set it down, his eyes already back on Ramon.
“What the fuck you want anyway?”
Ramon stayed standing, his weight on one foot, his thumb hooked into the front pocket of his jeans. “I came through to see how business doing. It been nine months since Trell got put down. Trying to see if you back up and running.”
Ant sucked his teeth, his hand coming off his knee to gesture at Ramon, two fingers extended, before it dropped back. “You know I ain’t. That’s why your bitch ass standing in front of me right now.”
Ramon snorted a laugh. “It’s hard being the king, big brudda. That’s why I keep my ass right where I’m at.”
He crossed to the armchair and sat, leaning his elbows onto his knees, his forearms flat against his thighs. His hands hung between his legs, fingers laced loose, his eyes on Ant across the coffee table.
“You should just clique up with 39, my nigga.”
Ant’s eyes stayed level on him, his arm stretched across the back of the couch. “I don’t know you niggas like that.”
Ramon tilted his head, his mouth pulling at one corner. “That’s probably true, but 39 always looking for some steppers.”
“You extending this offer to them niggas working for me, too?”
Ramon shook his head. “I came to you first. Off the strength. I ain’t talk to Duke about it yet but he gonna be with it.”
Ant leaned back into the couch, one arm stretched along the top of the cushion, his fingers hanging off the edge, his other hand resting on his thigh. Outside, the dice hit concrete and someone’s voice carried through the window, high and sharp, claiming the pot.
“It don’t make no sense for me to do that when I can keep as much of my money as I want.”
Ramon dipped his chin, his thumb pressing into the pocket seam of his jeans. “Probably, but you ain’t gotta worry about the niggas you got on the corners deciding that they bigger than you. Ain’t that shit happen buku times with Trell?”
Ant’s jaw worked to one side, his eyes cutting toward the window where the voices came from before they came back to Ramon. The tendons in his neck tightened under his skin and eased.
“You new niggas don’t know what loyalty mean.”
“Shit, not me, brudda. You already know how I’m coming.”
Ant stared at him long enough that the fan completed a full turn overhead. A car passed on the street outside, the bass from its speakers thumping once through the walls. He sucked his teeth and let his head tip back against the couch.
“I’m gonna think about it.”
Ramon stood, his hands coming up, palms forward. “That’s all I ask, my nigga.”
He walked over and dapped Ant up. He crossed to the door and opened it. The heat off the street pressed in with the voices from the yard. He stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind him.
~~~
Mireya stood outside the McKay Center with her weight on one hip, Camila’s hand in hers. The sun pressed hard into the concrete, the heat sitting heavy even as the afternoon started to angle toward evening. People moved past them in clusters, families and groups still filtering out of the stadium, voices layered into a noise that flattened into one unbroken sound at a distance. A man in a USC polo walked by with a boy on his shoulders, the boy’s legs swinging against his chest. Two women in matching jerseys stopped a few feet away to check their phones, one of them shielding her screen with her palm.
Camila skipped through a pattern on the concrete that only she could see, her sneakers landing in deliberate spots, each hop pulling Mireya’s arm forward or sideways with a force that belied how small she was. Her curls bounced against her shoulders with each landing, her free hand swinging wide for balance.
Mireya ran her hand through her hair, fingers dragging from her temple to the back of her head and adjusted the sunglasses sitting on her nose with her thumb and forefinger. She took a step closer to the building, rising onto her toes, her eyes scanning the people coming through the doors.
“Ven acá, mi amor.”
Camila hopped over to her side, the skip pattern abandoned, her head tilting all the way back to look up at Mireya’s face. “Are you trying to find daddy, mami?”
Mireya nodded, her eyes still moving across the crowd filing out. “Yeah, baby. He’s taking forever because he has to talk to the TV people now.”
Camila’s eyes went wide, her mouth dropping open, her whole body going still. “Like the Saints?”
“Like the Saints, baby.”
Camila’s chin dropped and her voice went low, the words rolling out soft and private, meant only for herself. “Daddy’s like the Saints.”
She went back to skipping, her sneakers finding new spots on the concrete, the pattern restarting from some invisible beginning that she’d mapped in her head. Her arm pulled Mireya’s hand forward, sideways and back as she moved, Mireya’s shoulder rolling with each tug, her wrist bending where Camila’s grip pulled it.
Mireya turned her head. Autumn walked past twenty feet away with three other girls beside her, all four of them in pink and green, their voices carrying over the crowd in pieces that broke apart before they reached her. Autumn’s stride was easy, unhurried, her bag on one shoulder, her hand gesturing as she talked. One of the girls beside her said something that made Autumn turn her head, her ponytail swinging across her back. Mireya’s eyes narrowed behind the sunglasses, her jaw setting, her free hand closing at her side as she tracked Autumn’s path toward the building.
Caine pushed through the doors of the McKay Center with two of his teammates alongside him, the three of them still laughing about something from inside, their voices loose and loud. Caine shoved one of them in the shoulder, his palm catching the fabric of the guy’s jacket and pushing him sideways a step. He said something to them that she couldn’t make out over the crowd and a kid somewhere behind her calling a name over and over. His teammate shoved him back and they started laughing, the three of them splitting as Caine changed direction.
He walked toward Autumn, his stride opening as he crossed the distance between them. He pulled her into his arms, his hands settling at her waist, her body turning into him. He leaned down to her ear and said something that made Autumn’s head tip back, her laugh quick and bright, her hand rising to his chest. He leaned down further and kissed her, his hand moving from her waist to the small of her back.
Mireya’s fingers tightened around Camila’s hand.
“Mami.”
Mireya kept watching them, her weight locked forward on her toes. Her thumb pressed hard into the back of Camila’s hand, the knuckle going white.
“Mami.”
Her grip tightened again, her fingers closing down around Camila’s small ones.
“Mami, you’re squeezing my hand hard hard.”
Mireya’s hand opened. She pulled the sunglasses up onto her head with her free hand, her hair catching in the frames as they slid back and looked down at Camila. “Lo siento, mi amor. Are you okay?”
Camila looked up at her, her eyes wide and steady on Mireya’s face, searching it. She nodded. “I’m okay.”
Caine pulled away from Autumn and turned, his eyes scanning the crowd in a slow pass that moved across the families and the groups and the people still streaming from the exits. The pass stopped when they found Mireya. He held the look across the distance between them, his hand dropping from Autumn’s back.
Camila tugged at Mireya’s hand. “Mami, ¿estás enojada? Pareces enojada.”
Mireya shook her head, her eyes still locked on Caine across the crowd. “No, baby. Mami’s not mad. Your daddy just walked out the building.”
“Yay!” Camila rose onto her toes, her body stretching upward, her chin lifting high, the people standing in front of her blocking everything.
~~~
Autumn stood with Jade, Simone, and Brooke a few feet from the McKay Center doors. Cam had his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Alonzo leaned against the railing with his arms folded, his jaw working a piece of gum.
Autumn turned to Caine, her bag shifting on her shoulder as she faced him. “Am I going to see you this weekend or you gonna be all the way in daddy mode?”
“They leaving Sunday around noon. Come through after that?”
“Alright.” She stepped closer to him, her finger tapping once against his chest. “Don’t do nothing I have to beat your ass for tonight, nigga.”
Caine held his hands up. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”
Autumn held the look on him for a beat, her mouth pulling at one corner, then turned and walked off with Jade, Simone, and Brooke falling in beside her, the four of them merging into the crowd.
Caine turned to Cam and Alonzo and held his hand out. Cam caught it and pulled back, his eyebrows drawing together as he read Caine’s posture.
“Where you going, nigga? We going pregame then hitting a club, a party something.”
“My daughter and her mother here this weekend. You ain’t hear Autumn?”
Alonzo pushed off the railing, his arms unfolding. He rubbed the back of his neck, his jaw working the gum to one side. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, my nigga. I was looking at her homegirl ass the whole time.”
Cam laughed, his hand swinging out to slap Alonzo on the arm, the clap landing hard enough that a woman walking past glanced back at them. “The red one, huh?”
Alonzo’s laugh came through his teeth, his chin dipping as he nodded. “I ain’t even notice she had all that the other day when they came out with us.”
Caine sucked his teeth, his head shaking once. “Y’all starving.”
Cam dapped Caine up, their hands clasping and pulling apart in one motion. “Not everyone already got some fine chick coming check on us, nigga.”
Caine turned around. Mireya and Camila stood on the sidewalk a few yards away, Camila’s hand in Mireya’s, the two of them visible through the gaps in the crowd that shifted and thinned around them. Camila was up on her toes, her curls bouncing against her shoulders as she craned her neck, searching.
“Alright, for real. I gotta go before my kid starts getting mad that I’m ignoring her.”
Alonzo dapped him up, their hands meeting and separating, and then his eyes moved past Caine’s shoulder toward Mireya. He dipped his chin in their direction. “That’s you, right there?”
“Yeah.”
Cam looked over, his head turning slow, his gaze moving from Mireya to Caine and back. “Damn, nigga. This is the greed they talk about in the fucking Bible. How you with a bad bitch and your baby mama a bad bitch?”
Caine snorted a laugh and started to walk away, his stride already angling toward the sidewalk where Mireya and Camila waited.
Cam called after him. “Hold on. Since you with Autumn, hook me up with your baby mama.”
Caine turned around, his feet planting on the concrete, shaking his head. “C’mon, brudda. We ain’t in no fucking NBA. She off limits for you motherfuckers. She got a girl anyway.”
Cam’s eyebrow climbed. “A girl? Like a girlfriend?”
Alonzo lifted one finger, his chin rising with it. “I think it was Louisiana’s own Lil’ Boosie that said ‘I like girls that like girls. That attract me.’”
Cam’s laugh broke open, his hand shooting out to dap Alonzo up. Alonzo grinned and accepted it, his chin still lifted.
Caine sucked his teeth. “Y’all fucking stupid.”
He turned and started walking toward Mireya and Camila. Behind him, Cam cupped his hands around his mouth.
“I’ll find two bitches to fuck tonight in your honor, my nigga!”
Caine shook his head as he crossed the distance between them, a grin pulling at his mouth as he reached Mireya. Camila spotted him first, her eyes going wide, and she broke free from Mireya’s hand. Her sneakers slapped the concrete as she sprinted the last few feet, her arms already out in front of her.
Caine crouched down and caught her as she launched into him, her body crashing into his chest, her arms locking around his neck. He lifted her against his hip, her legs wrapping around his side, her face pressing into his shoulder, her curls warm against his jaw.
“Hola, mi vida. You watch the game?”
~~~
Sena stood at the edge of the group with her cup against her chest, her thumb running the rim. Bass thumped through the floor and up through the soles of her shoes, bodies moving past in waves that pushed warm air ahead of them. Cassidy and Priya had drifted toward Kevin and Paul, the four of them leaned in close enough that their words reached each other over the music. A few feet away, Alex said something close to David’s ear that made him laugh, his head tipping back, his hand coming to her hip.
Sena took a sip from her cup and kept her eyes on the crowd.
Alex looked over at her. The laugh was still on her face as she leaned into David’s ear again, her lips moving against the shape of a whisper, and then she stepped away from him and crossed the gap between them. She stopped beside Sena, her shoulder brushing Sena’s arm.
“You didn’t have to come out just because I asked you to.”
Sena snorted a laugh. “You showed up at my apartment and roped my roommates into it. That’s about as have to as you can get.”
Alex held her hands up, the gesture brief before her right hand came down and found Sena’s wrist. Her fingers wrapped around it, her thumb settling into the groove where the tendons ran. “But you’re here now so you might as well make the most of it.”
“I’m good right here.”
Alex tilted her head, her thumb pressing once against the inside of Sena’s wrist. “C’mon, Sena. Let loose a little. I know you still have it in you. We used to go to all the wildest parties, remember?”
Sena looked at her out of the corner of her eye, her jaw shifting once before she answered. “Yeah, I remember.”
Alex’s hand slipped down from Sena’s wrist to her hand, her fingers sliding between Sena’s and lacing there. “C’mon. Let’s go dance.”
She pulled. Sena’s feet stayed planted, her weight locked into the floor, her arm extending between them as Alex leaned forward. Alex looked back over her shoulder, her eyebrows lifting.
“What’s wrong?”
Sena dipped her chin toward David, who stood where Alex had left him, his phone in his hand, his attention elsewhere. “You’re not worried about what your boyfriend is going to think?”
Alex waved the comment off with her free hand, her fingers cutting the air once before dropping. “He’ll be alright alone for a little while.”
She pulled again. This time Sena’s feet moved. She let Alex draw her through the crowd and onto the floor, bodies closing around them as they pushed deeper into the press of people and noise and heat. The bass sat heavy in her chest, each beat landing against her ribs.
Sena kept a gap between them as they danced, her hips finding the rhythm at a distance, her arms close to her body, her cup still in one hand. Alex faced her with her weight on one foot, her hips rolling loose, her eyes holding Sena’s as they moved. The song built toward its bridge and Alex stepped closer, the gap between them halving. Sena held her ground. Alex’s smile stayed fixed, her eyes bright under the lights that swept the floor in colors that moved too fast to name.
The song ended and the next one bled in on the same beat, the tempo shifting half a step slower, the bass dropping lower. Alex moved into the space between them until her body pressed against Sena’s, her chest to Sena’s chest, her thigh slotting between Sena’s legs. Sena stepped back and Alex’s arm looped around the small of her back, her palm flat against Sena’s spine, her fingers spreading against the fabric of Sena’s shirt.
Sena’s mouth opened and Alex spoke first, her lips close enough that the words landed warm against Sena’s jaw.
“Just let me. Friends dance like this all the time.”
Sena shook her head but her feet stopped moving back. Alex pressed closer, her hips grinding forward against Sena’s, her arm tightening at the small of her back. The third song came in over the second and Alex’s hand moved up Sena’s spine, climbing vertebra by vertebra, her fingers tracing the ridge of bone through the fabric until they reached the back of Sena’s neck. Her palm cupped against her neck, her thumb resting behind Sena’s ear.
“Alex.”
Alex’s eyes dropped to Sena’s mouth. They moved across the shape of her lips, held there, then came back up. “Friends kiss, too.”
“I have a girlfriend.”
Alex’s thumb traced behind Sena’s ear, the pressure slow and deliberate. “Isn’t she in Los Angeles with her baby daddy right now?”
Sena’s mouth opened to answer, and Alex pulled her in by the back of her. Her lips pressed into Sena’s, soft at first, then with a pressure that deepened as her hand tightened in Sena’s hair. Sena’s eyes closed. Her hand with the cup dropped to her side and her body leaned forward into Alex, her mouth opening against Alex’s.
Someone’s shoulder caught her from behind, hard enough to knock her forward a step. Her eyes opened. She turned to apologize and instead found David across the floor, his phone lowered to his side, his eyes locked on her. He stood with his weight back on one foot.
Sena took a step back from Alex, then another, the distance opening between them fast enough that Alex’s hand slid off her neck and dropped to her side.
Alex reached for her. “What’s wrong?”
Sena shook her head, turned and moved through the crowd toward the bar, her path cutting between bodies, elbows and raised glasses. She could feel David’s eyes on the side of her face as she crossed in front of him. Alex was behind her, keeping pace.
She reached the bar and set her cup down on the wood. She reached into her pocket, her fingers closing around a fold of bills and pulled them out. She put the money on the bar beside the cup, the bills landing crumpled and uneven, and turned for the door.
“Sena, wait! I’m sorry!”
Sena pushed through the crowd toward the exit, Alex’s voice somewhere behind her, already lost in the bass, the noise and the bodies between them.
~~~
Autumn led the line through the press of bodies, her step landing precise on the beat, heel striking the hardwood and her body following it in a motion that snapped at the hip and the shoulder. Jade was behind her, then Simone, then Brooke, the four of them cutting a lane through the crowd in salmon pink and apple green, their arms hitting angles in unison, feet stamping the floor hard enough to punch through the bass. Beside them, moving in the opposite direction, a handful of Alphas worked their own line, black and gold, their footwork heavy and deliberate, the two formations passing each other in the cleared space while the crowd pressed in from both sides with phones held high, screens lighting faces in brief white flashes.
The song ended and cut to something slower. Both lines broke apart, the cleared lane collapsing as bodies filled the space from every direction. Autumn turned to Jade, Simone, and Brooke, her chest rising and falling hard under her shirt, her hand coming up to wipe her brow where the sweat had plastered her hair to her forehead. She pushed the strands back and shook her hand dry, the drops hitting the floor between them.
“It’s fucking hot in here.”
Simone sucked her teeth, one hand fanning herself with the collar of her shirt, the fabric pulling away from her neck and snapping back. “It’s because it’s a gang of niggas in here. Surprised we ain’t heard no barking yet.”
One of the Alphas looked over from where his line had broken, his mouth already pulling into a grin. He was tall, his build lean under a black polo, his fade cut sharp. He stepped toward them, his hands loose at his sides, the grin widening as he read the room.
“Don’t say it like that. You gonna summon them niggas.”
Autumn turned to face him, her weight settling onto one hip, her arms folding loose across her chest. “You’re always hating, ain’t you, Brandin?”
Brandin held his hands up. “They always scaring the hoes.”
“You don’t get them anyway. You’ll be alright, nigga.”
“I got you back in freshman year.”
Jade pointed at him, her finger leveled at his face, her eyes narrowing as she placed him. “I know your ass looked familiar. You used to try to grow out some fucking dreads, though.”
Brandin snorted a laugh, his chin dipping as the sound pushed through his nose. Simone stepped forward and grabbed his chin with her thumb and forefinger, turning his head one way and then the other, her eyes moving across his hairline. She tilted his jaw toward the light and then back, her mouth pressed flat, her expression clinical.
“Yeah, the high taper works much better on your head. Everyone can’t rock no dreads.”
Brandin leaned back to pull his chin free, his jaw sliding out of her grip, a smile sitting at his lips as he rubbed the spot where her fingers had been. “Well, I appreciate the compliment.” He turned to Autumn, his weight shifting forward, one hand going into his pocket. “Let me get you a drink. Catch up and shit.”
“I got a man.”
Brandin’s eyebrow lifted a fraction. “You started letting men tell you what to do since the last time we talked?”
Jade leaned over toward Autumn, her shoulder pressing into Autumn’s arm, her voice pitched just loud enough to carry over the music. “Are we forgetting where your man is right now?”
Autumn’s jaw set, the muscle at the hinge visible under her skin. “No, I didn’t forget. He’s spending time with one of his daughters.”
Simone caught that and her laugh came quick, her hand flying up to cover her mouth for half a second before she dropped it. “Yeah, I bet he making daughter number three, too.”
Autumn rolled her eyes.
Brooke shook her head beside her, her arms folding across her chest. “Y’all gotta chill.”
Brandin stepped closer, his hand coming out of his pocket to gesture between himself and Autumn, the motion easy. “Look, I ain’t even paying for it so it don’t count as cheating. It’s just two old friends catching up.” He crossed his fingers and held his hand up between them, the index and middle pressed tight together. “Alphas and AKAs like this anyway. We gotta stick together to maintain the proper order of shit.”
Autumn looked at his crossed fingers, then at his face. She sucked her teeth. “C’mon, but you ain’t fucking, nigga.”
“Nah.” Brandin’s smile shifted. “Not tonight.”
Autumn stopped moving. Her chin dropped a fraction and her eyes locked onto his.
Brandin’s hands came up, the smile pulling back. “I’m playing, I’m playing.”
Autumn shook her head and turned, her shoulder cutting through the gap between two groups, navigating her way through the bodies toward the back of the house.
~~~
Mireya lay on her side with her hand in Camila’s hair, her fingers working through the curls in a slow pattern that followed the same path each time, temple to crown to the nape where the hair thickened and caught against her knuckles before she started again. Camila was between them, asleep, one arm thrown across Caine’s stomach and one leg slung over Mireya’s thigh, her body spread in both directions at once, her breathing steady and shallow.
Mireya’s hand stopped in Camila’s hair. She leaned up on her elbow, her eyes moving across the comforter, the nightstand, the floor on her side of the bed.
“You just called mi mama. If something was wrong with Mica, she’d call,” Caine said.
Mireya lay back down on the pillow, her head settling into the indent she’d already pressed into it. Her fingers found Camila’s hair again and resumed their path, temple to crown to nape. “You wouldn’t get it. It’s like I’m tearing myself in half whenever I’m not near her. It’s different than with Camila. Micaela’s so small even though the peds say she’s gaining weight fine.”
Caine’s eyes stayed on the ceiling, an arm behind his head, Camila’s small hand rising and falling with his breathing where it rested on his stomach. “I get it. It wasn’t the same as with Camila. From you getting pregnant to the,” he paused, his jaw working once before the next word came, “yeah.”
“At some point, you going to have to be able to say I died.”
“I ain’t gotta say shit that ain’t true. Unless you trying to get canonized for performing some miracles.”
Mireya snorted a laugh. “I think there’s already a patron saint of fucking sluts.”
Caine looked over at her across the pillow, his head turning on the silk. “You fucking lying.”
Mireya nodded, her mouth pulling at one corner. “There’s definitely a patron saint of prostitutes.”
Caine’s laugh came through his ches. “That sounds like some shit a priest would say so he could fuck on something.”
“Priests don’t have to say anything to fuck.”
Caine shook his head against the pillow and they let the silence come back. Camila’s breathing filled it, each exhale carrying a thread of sound that sat just above a snore, her body warm and loose between them.
Mireya’s eyes came up from Camila’s face. “Creo que me pasa algo raro. Algo a nivel mental.”
Caine’s eyebrow lifted. “Why do you say that?”
“Do you remember when we first met?”
He nodded, his chin dipping once. “Eighth grade, Ms. Mazarac’s class. I sat behind you and whispered ‘apuesto a que suenas muy sexy cuando gimes’ in your ear.”
Mireya shook her head, her lips tipping up, her fingers still moving through Camila’s hair. “If you had said that shit in English, I would’ve cursed you out.”
“Menos mal.”
Mireya’s smile held for a beat, then thinned. “I was fucked up even back then.”
“We all fucked up.”
Mireya turned onto her back, her hand slipping free from Camila’s curls and settling on her own stomach. She looked up at the ceiling where the light bands from the city stretched and shifted. “What do you think about therapy?”
“Laney used to always tell me that I should go to that shit.”
“It’s peak white woman shit to suggest therapy to someone.”
“A hundred percent.”
“I think I need to go talk to someone.”
Caine sucked his teeth, his head turning a fraction toward her. “Why the fuck would you go tell someone all your shit? You never give people shit they could use against you.”
Mireya’s thumb traced a circle against the fabric of her shirt where her hand rested on her stomach. “Sena says it works for her. And ain’t your girlfriend’s mama a therapist?”
Caine looked over at her, his eyebrow lifting again. “You looked her up?”
“Absolutely. I had to know how I stacked up.” Her mouth curved. “La prostituta contra la estrella.”
“Deja de hacer esa mierda.”
Mireya rolled her eyes, her head tipping on the pillow with the motion. “I can’t keep bottling everything up, Caine. I got real fucking issues.”
Caine’s eyes went back to the ceiling. Camila shifted between them, her arm sliding an inch across his stomach, her leg pressing tighter against Mireya’s thigh, then she settled back into the depth of whatever she was dreaming.
“Do it then. Try it, I mean.”
Mireya turned her head on the pillow to look at him, her hair dragging across the silk. “You really think so?”
Caine nodded. “If you think you need it. Get a good one, though. Not some Medicaid ass therapist. I’ll pay for it.”
“What if they say I need to cut you off or some shit?”
Caine snorted a laugh, his mouth pulling at one side. “This trauma bond run deep, mi amor.”
Mireya shook her head. She turned back onto her side, facing him, and her hand found Camila’s hair again. Her fingers slipped into the curls at the temple and started the path over, crown to nape, the rhythm settling back in.
Captain Gaslight does it again.
