The Truth Shall Shackle You Forever
“Helaire, you got mail!”
The voice came flat through the door. Dre swung his legs off the bunk and stood. The slot clanked. A guard’s hand shoved a small envelope through like it didn’t matter what was inside. The flap had already been ripped. Tape with a date and initials stitched one corner where someone had checked and rechecked.
He turned the envelope over in his hands. Cheap paper. Smudged ink. His name spelled right. He slid the card out. Bright balloons. Feliz cumpleaños splashed across the front. Every word inside ran in Spanish, the neat loops tight. It wasn’t anywhere near his birthday.
He looked at the back. Nothing there but the fold. He held the card up to the thin line of light that made it past the bars and the narrow window. Something inside the crease looked wrong, like the paper had a second skin.
He crossed to the desk. The metal hummed under his palms. He turned on the sink and let the water run, then wet his fingertips and rubbed along the card’s edge. The top layer loosened. The cardstock bubbled. He worked at it slowly until the inner seam started to lift. The inside peeled away in a damp curl.
There it was. A narrow sheet, folded tight along the crease. He eased it free and unfolded it twice. He read.
“Hope you surviving in there, Dre. I just want to let you know I did it. I killed your bitch ass cousin, like you should’ve. Watched him die in front y’all mawmaw house. I was the one who had them peckerwoods try to shank you too. Eight soups and four coffees. That’s what I gave that cracker. Because Percy was a snitch, and if you weren’t willing to kill him. Then you were protecting him. And if you protecting a snitch, you a snitch. And snitches gotta die, even if they’re your brother. – Ricardo.”
He read it once more. The letters pressed into the page. He looked at the door. Nothing moved on the other side. The hall was quiet, the quiet that comes late when the block runs out of talk.
He slid a hand under the bunk and found his lighter. Two batteries taped around a bit of foil and a stripped wire, blackened from use. He brought the letter to the edge of the desk and sparked the wire against the foil. The first touch left only a singe. The second kiss of heat caught the corner and turned it the color of rust.
The flame crawled the paper, slowly at first, then quick, orange biting through lines of ink. He held it until the heat licked his knuckles, then dropped the burning sheet into the toilet. The water hissed and puffed a thin gray smoke.
He sat on the bunk. He watched the fire chew through the words. The ash curled in on itself and fell apart. A dark petal drifted up and then down. He waited until the last scrap winked out and the water went still.
The room settled back into the sounds he knew. Distant keys. A cough. A shoe heel somewhere. He reached and flushed. The black flecks swirled and vanished.
He leaned back on the thin mattress. The air tasted like singed glue. The birthday card lay open on the desk, bright and wrong in the weak light.
He stared at it until the color blurred, then closed his eyes. Outside the slit of window, the morning held.
~~~
The sun had the field in a choke from the first step out of the locker room. Heat lifted off the turf in shivers, and the pines beyond the track held their own breath. Caine dragged a sleeve across his jaw and let the salt dry there.
“Let’s start easy,” he said, voice steady. “Run the shit clean. Hit your landmark.”
Jaylen and Javier jogged to the opposite hash, cut to the numbers, then back to the hash like they needed to wake their legs before their hands. Cleats chewed at the turf. A sprinkler coughed two fields over, hung a rainbow in the mist, and shut up.
“Hash to numbers, stick at ten,” Caine called. “Both sides. Jaylen first.”
Jaylen’s head dipped once. He lined up with his inside foot back, body rocking the way receivers do when they are trying not to spring too early. Caine took the snap from air, one-two-three, shoulders square, ball tucked at his right pec. Jaylen pressed vertical, sold a step, and snapped down. Caine put the ball on the outside eye, low enough to protect, hot enough to talk. The smack in Jaylen’s hands sounded right.
“Clean,” Caine said, already flipping another ball up to his laces. “Javier.”
Javier’s break was pretty but a half-tick late. Caine still fired it on time, trusting the spot. The nose whistled and hit him in the chest. Javier gathered, bounce-stepped, and let out a low “damn” around a laugh.
He jogged back, rubbing the heel of his hand where the laces had tattooed a red line. “Bro, you trying to break my fingers?” he said. “You put way more spin on that bitch than Weston.”
Jaylen snorted. “At least the shit on target.”
Caine tilted his chin. “I know y’all ain’t no pussies,” he said. “Don’t let it hit you in the chest if it’s too fast.”
They reset. He ran the same concept mirrored, then a quick out from a nasty split, then hitches into a speed-out tag. He didn’t have to think to find the drop. Ball up, down, out. Left foot picked the ground up where it should. Right hip stayed loaded, then uncoiled. No run-up. No reach for rhythm. It was there.
“Gonna roll out,” he said, nodding toward the far cone. “Don’t drift.”
Jaylen took the motion, crossed formation, settled. On Caine’s clap, he bubbled to the boundary. Caine snapped his shoulders, stepped off the spot, and let his base shrink as he moved. Hips, eyes, ball. He floated right until the cone. Plant off the outside, shoulders still moving, and let it rip without setting the back foot. The ball left his hand with that thin scream it makes when the strings leave a pink line across the pads. It rode a flat line forty yards and fell over Jaylen’s back shoulder where only he could reach. Jaylen turned late and let the ball fold into him like it had been waiting there the whole time.
They cycled again. Slant-flat. Now slant-shoot. Caine took a fake mesh in the backfield just to make his feet lie the way they should, then whipped the slant into Javier’s chest before the second cone. Javier’s “oof” was swallowed by the field.
“Eyes up,” Caine told him, soft. “Look it in.”
Javier nodded, breathing through a smile, shaking his fingers out like he’d touched a live wire. “We might have a summer quarterback battle, huh?”
“Coach already know,” Jaylen said. “They watching.”
The hum reached them first before the cart came into view. White roof, blue body, the front seat stacked with a clipboard and a half-drunk bottle in the cup holder. Coach Fatu drove like the cart knew the path on its own. Sunglasses, sleeves rolled, the calm that made guys try harder because he never had to bark to be heard.
Caine didn’t turn his whole head, just cut his eyes long enough to clock it. He clapped his hands once. “Again. Motion to the nub. Jaylen, I want that angle tight.”
Jaylen pointed to his chest. “Bet.”
The motion came tighter this time, almost on the heels of the imaginary Y. Caine sold the keep, drifted right, then snapped his shoulders against the grain, feet not perfect because he wanted it like that. He let the ball go off-platform again, this time with a slice of arc, throwing the receiver open to grass that wasn’t painted yet. Jaylen’s stride lengthened, hands late again like he’d been coached, and the ball arrived over that back shoulder in a place only he could touch.
Javier whooped. “Shit was clean. Run it back.”
“Run it back,” Caine said, but he didn’t chase the clap with chatter. He just kept the tempo where he wanted it. The cart buzzed past at the edge of the track, slowed, then drifted on. Fatu’s head angled a fraction, enough to say he’d taken in ball path and drop timing, enough to say he’d seen the feet. The cart kept rolling toward the far end where managers were dragging sleds out of a shed.
Javier set for a curl again, hands open. “Turner about to hop in that portal knowing he ain’t even gonna be second string,” he called, smile wide.
“Should’ve left with his daddy,” Caine said, the edge of a grin finally there.
They ran until lungs pulled and the tops of their cleats turned the same color as the field. The air smelled like cut green and rubber and somebody’s laundry trying to dry on a line that wasn’t moving. Sweat slipped down Caine’s spine and caught at his waistband.
The cart hummed past again on the far edge, Fatu still behind the wheel. He didn’t slow this time. He didn’t speed up either. Clipboard never moved. Head stayed forward. The cart took the corner and glided toward the building.
~~~
The bass thumped through the thin walls before they even hit the porch, a slow, syrupy beat that made the windows breathe in and out. The Marrero night wrapped the block in thick air, the kind that stuck smoke to skin and kept a shine on everybody’s face. Ramon wiped a palm along his shorts and kept it moving. Tyree and E.J. were already clowning by the time they reached the door.
Inside was a flood. Heat, weed, sweat, cheap perfume, beer sweet and gone flat. A few dozen bodies pressed together, 39ers dapping their potnas up and heys while women danced in small storms of laughter. Twerk on a chair, twerk against a wall, a glint of a belly ring when someone arched her back and screamed the hook. A ceiling fan clicked like a metronome for sin.
“Damn,” E.J. said, eyes cutting over the crown molding, the glossy floors, the big-ass TV grinning from a mount. “Nice little spot for somewhere a nigga doing dirt is living.”
Ramon kept his voice low. “That’s cause Ant ain’t the one who own it.” He eased past a couple grinding, hand up like my bad.
They didn’t make three more steps before a skinny dude with tatts roped up his neck and golds flashing set his arm across the hallway like a gate. Another man hung back a little to his right, bored eyes, hands not bored.
“I gotta make sure y’all ain’t bringin’ no sticks in here,” the first one said, chin up, voice pitched to carry.
Tyree looked him from shoes to hairline, then laughed, shoulders loose. “Dez, I’ll bat the piss out you, boy.”
Dez cut a look to his partner. The other man only shrugged like he wasn’t paid enough to be brave. Dez sucked his teeth. “C’mon, man. Don’t make this shit harder than it need to be. Everyone on some cool shit tonight.”
Tyree shook his head slow, grin widening. “You a whole bitch, bruh. I’m not letting you check me for no pistol, ol’ gopher ass nigga. Fuck out my face.”
E.J. snorted, hand to his mouth like he could press the laugh back in. Ramon just stood there steady, eyes moving past Dez’s shoulder, reading exits without looking like he was reading. The music rolled over them, bass dragging across the floorboards, a woman squealing in the back like she’d seen somebody she loved or somebody she would.
Dez shifted his feet. Nerves started showing around his mouth. “Say, for real—”
A shadow slid out the cut and stood in front of them, lean and wired tight. Ant. Fresh out. A beer hung loose from his fingers. His voice came low and steady, almost swallowed by the track. “Y’all got a problem?”
Ramon dipped his chin. “Nah, we good, Ant. Welcome home, big brudda.”
Tyree lifted his shirt high enough to flash waistband and ribs. “Yeah, welcome home, man.”
E.J. nodded, shoulders rolling. “I know three years in the bing wasn’t nothing for a real nigga like you.”
Ant’s mouth didn’t bother with a smile. He brought the bottle up, took a slow pull, then reached to dap each of them, eyes never leaving theirs. “’Preciate y’all coming out to celebrate a nigga, lil’ bruddas. Go grab y’all something to drink. Trell got some strippers coming later if y’all don’t want to fuck with these ratchet ass hoes in here.”
The room had that small pause that happens when the center moves. Heads tilted just enough to clock who was talking to who. Ant turned from the trio to Dez and the other dude. He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t have to. He just looked. Dez was taller by a couple inches and still found something interesting near his own shoes. The other guy watched the floor too. Ant cut his eyes once like that was the lesson, then melted back into the crowd without another word, the space closing behind him like water.
Tyree pointed as they slid past. “You still a bitch, nigga.”
“Chill,” E.J. said, palm to Tyree’s shoulder, pushing him forward into the current. “Stop messing with that nigga.”
“Fuck him,” Tyree said, but he let himself get pulled along.
They sank into the party. Air stuck to the roof of the mouth. Sweat beaded at the hollows of elbows. Somebody pushed a blunt toward E.J. and he passed it along without hitting, tapping the cherry to keep it alive. A girl with lemon-lime nails tugged Tyree’s sleeve and gave him a smile. He let the thread pull him two steps and then let it go. Ramon took the room in pieces. A table groaning under bottles that had been half-smashed and half-saved. A couch with a couple pressed together like they had paid rent on that corner of the world.
They moved through a hot hallway where the paint smelled new and not cheap, then back into a wide room where the speakers sat stacked and dangerous. Sweat was a weather system in here. Phones rose and fell with the hooks, little skies lighting up with camera flashes that made the whole scene look like a storm about to break. Tyree started a call-and-response with a guy he knew, both of them rapping the line at each other. E.J. leaned on a wall, chin up, eyes soft in the haze as he watched bodies orbit the speakers.
Ramon found the corners. He always did. There—Ant again. He had threaded to the far side of the room where the lights dimmed to a darker kind of dark. A man sat in a plush chair calm in the chaos around him, ankle crossed over knee, thumbs skating his phone. In his shadow, behind his shoulder and a half step back, Ant had taken the steel folding chair. Beer between his knees. Eyes working, slow and patient.
Tyree came shouldering in with a plastic cup sloshing and a grin wide enough to show back teeth. “Which one of these hoes y’all think the best eater?”
E.J. laughed. “This nigga gonna be burning fucking with these dirty ass hoes.”
Ramon didn’t answer. He wasn’t hearing much beyond the bass and the small language of men guarding what was theirs. Ant’s chair squeaked once when he shifted, then went quiet again. The man in the plush chair kept texting, bored king posture, shoe rocking in time with the beat. Ant’s gaze slid across the room, past Ramon for a heartbeat, then on to the kitchen cut, then back to the hallway where Dez had finally found enough of himself to look up and look away in the same second.
Across the room a girl shrieked and started laughing before anybody worried. Somebody popped a bottle and the spray glittered under the track lights, cheap champagne catching in hair and on gold. A man wiped foam off his brow and kissed his girl messy. The floor was tacky underfoot with earlier spills, sneakers peeling when you lifted them.
Ramon lifted his chin once. Ant never stopped working the room with his eyes, jaw set, the tendons at his neck standing when he took another pull. Behind the plush chair, behind the man tapping out messages, he held his place.
Ramon breathed in weed and heat and sweat, and the night breathed back. He kept his eyes on Ant behind the man in the plush chair, and the party kept moving around them.
~~~
She stood too still in the mirror light, the bulbs running hot along the frame. The bra pinched at the strap where her shoulder bone rose sharp. Sweatpants slouched on her hips, elastic tired. The bass from the floor shook the vanity like a quiet heartbeat that didn’t care how she breathed.
Jaslene slid in with a rustle of bills, bag of ones tucked like a purse, glitter catching every bulb. She let out a whistle and leaned against the doorway. “Oye, mami. You fine, fine.”
Mireya kept her eyes on the reflection. The girl in the glass looked like she’d borrowed a body and didn’t know the rules yet.
Bianca sat on the low bench, thumbs busy over her phone. She didn’t look up when she spoke. “Keep it simple the first few times. Nobody cares if you can do tricks on the pole once you get naked.”
The word hit the mirror and hung there. Naked. Mireya nodded once. “Right.”
Jaslene dipped her chin toward Mireya’s face. “You think of a stage name yet?”
Mireya shook her head. She’d practiced different mouths around different names. None of them fit.
“Go with Luna,” Bianca said, still texting. “Since Sol been showing you the ropes.”
Jaslene grinned. “Look at you, learning some Español.”
Mireya pulled her ponytail tighter. “Okay,” she said.
From the hallway came Khadijah’s voice, cutting through music and chatter. “Hey, rookie, you gotta get out there.”
Mireya drew a breath and felt the bra scratch against skin. She flexed her fingers once, twice. Mari reached her before the door, a soft sweep of the robe folded over her arms. “Para después. Suerte,” Mari said, pressing the silk into Mireya’s hands.
“Gracias,” Mireya said. The fabric felt heavier than it looked.
…
The floor gave back heat and perfume. Lamps threw gold across knees and shoulders. The DJ talked over a beat that felt like it had been playing since last year. She moved through bodies to the small table. Early thirties, clean shirt, a basketball team etched in ink on his forearm, a face that wanted to be friendly. He smiled like he’d been waiting only for her.
“Luna,” she said when he asked her name.
He reached for her waist when the song crept up, hands warm and eager. She turned and settled onto his lap. The first touch pulled a wire tight in her back. She set her palms on her knees and eased down, weight measured. Grind with the beat. Count the measures. Don’t stop breathing.
His thumb slid lower. Her elbow wanted to fly. She caught the impulse at the hinge and let it drain into her spine. She pressed the top of her thigh against his jeans and watched the stage instead. Bianca’s heels clicked in time. C.J. climbed the pole with an easy flex, hair a bright fan under the light.
“Damn, Luna,” the man said near her ear. His breath smelled like whiskey mints. “You new, huh?”
She kept the sway steady and gave him a small side smile over the shoulder. “You gonna give me a new girl tip?”
He laughed and put a twenty down with two fingers, eyes on the curve of her back. “Yeah, you got it.”
The beat shifted but didn’t change. Her legs were burning already. Keep the rhythm. Keep the money on the table. She let her hair fall forward and then brushed it back.
She watched Bianca fold herself over at her waist, ass shaking, money raining.
The room breathed heat through her skin. Somewhere a glass broke and nobody cared. Someone else shouted for the DJ to run it back. Mireya counted two measures and rolled, feet planted, hips slow. When he reached again for the waistband of the thong, she shifted his hand and patted the top of it.
“That costs more,” she said.
He leaned back and let his gaze do what his hands kept trying to do. “You got a man, Luna?”
She glanced at the stage again. C.J. spun and landed in a split that pulled a howl from the floor. “You offering?” she asked, “I require an allowance. $5,000 a week.”
He grinned and fished. Another bill folded onto the table. Her body worked the beat.
The hook looped twice more. She gave him a small bite of lip as she rose and dropped. She kept her eyes on the stage lights. Bianca flicked ones off her shoe with a toe and didn’t break the line of her hips. Mireya steadied her breathing and turned it into the music. Weight forward. Weight back. The edge of the table pressed a mark into her thigh. The DJ’s voice smeared across the chorus.
She gave him one more whisper. “You look like you had a long week.” It opened his wallet again because it let him talk about himself without asking for anything. He tucked the fourth bill under the corner of the first.
She set a palm on his chest and gave him a slow look. “Don’t get too eager now,” she said, and rolled again. He settled.
The song ran out of road. The lights shifted to another pool of color. She slid off his lap and felt the relief move up her knees. She bent at the waist and picked up the money on the table, the top edges damp from sweat and beer air. She put them together with the others and tapped the stack.
“Another song?” he asked, hopeful.
She gave him the line Jaslene had given her to practice. “Maybe when I come back around. Don’t let nobody take my spot.”
He laughed and leaned back like he’d already bought the next hour.
She turned toward the dressing room and let the crowd close behind her. Music chased her through the hall. Heat clung to the back of her neck. The robe waited where she’d left it. She looked down at the money, hands worrying the edges of the bills.
~~~
The pasture looked empty at first. Headlights swept a flat stretch of grass and dirt, nothing but fence and open night, until Caine caught the shape of a barn and the spill of people outside it. Music leaked from the doorway. Phones blinked in little bursts. Truck beds carried coolers and bodies, tailgates thumping to the bass.
Barry eased his pickup off the rutted track and parked with the others. The engine ticked. Caine hopped out of the back with Jaylen and Keanon, gravel crunching under his shoes. He looked around. The open space pressed in a way the city never did, and the feeling of being out of place was the sharpest it had been since he’d gotten to Statesboro. The guys flowed ahead. He let them.
Dwight noticed him hanging back and stopped. “Yeah, I ain’t used to this shit yet either,” he said, half a grin on. “Out here with the bugs and animals and shit.”
“It ain’t bugs I’m worried about,” Caine said.
Donnie heard them and swung an arm across Caine’s shoulders, tugging him toward the light. “Ain’t nobody gonna do you nothing,” Donnie said. “Unless you start talking and all these white girls out here hear that New Orleans accent. You know how y’all play that shit up for pussy.”
Caine jerked a thumb at Donnie and looked at Dwight. “He mad he can’t act like Kevin Gates to get bitches.”
Donnie stopped and switched voices on a dime. “Say, big brudda. I’m happy to be here, big brudda. I love you, big brudda. Cardiac arrest. Yes, lord! May God kill my children.”
Caine laughed. “You fucking stupid.”
They cut across the dirt to the barn. Two more trucks pulled in behind, doors slamming, a couple girls hopping down in boots and shorts. Dillon and Terrell angled for a table with plastic cups. Ruben clapped Barry and pointed at a cooler like it had his name on it. Carlos dapped up Jaylen, chin to the beat, and they moved inside. Keanon drifted toward the doorway where the music got louder.
They started drinking. Cups swapped hands. Somebody poured clear from a mason jar and said it was nothing. Donnie cracked a joke that had Kordell grinning tight. A circle opened up where the ground had been stomped flat. Kordell stepped in first, trying to find a Louisiana groove in a Georgia barn, knees late, shoulders stiff.
“Look at Kordell,” Donnie said. “Where they do that at?”
“Kordell ain’t got it,” Caine said, smiling now. “They be doing that line dancing shit out there.:
Kordell heard and pointed. “Y’all keep talking like you got it.”
Caine stepped forward. He set his weight low and light and brought his feet up quick, cut left and right, ankles loose, shoulders soft. That New Orleans footwork made the dirt want to slide but he held the line, clipped a few tight steps, then snapped out clean. A couple folks clapped. Somebody yelled, “Do it again.”
“People feet don’t move like that on that side of Louisiana,” Donnie said, laughing.
Kordell fired back, “Your big ass can’t do it either and you right there, so what’s your excuse?”
They went back and forth, jabs turning into laughs, while Caine took a pull from his cup and cooled down. The night air smelled like hay and sweet smoke. The generator coughed behind the barn. A hand pressed the center of his back.
He tensed until he turned and saw Rylee. Cowboy hat tipped. Flannel open over a tank. Short shorts and boots dusty at the toes. She didn’t say anything. She took his cup from his hand and passed it under her nose, eyes on him.
“How you know I ain’t got nothing?” he said.
She smiled. “Do you?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know if we close enough to be swapping spit, though.”
She didn’t blink. She lifted the cup and finished what was left, still smiling. The music shifted louder from the barn. Someone whooped near the door. Donnie kept arguing with Kordell in the background.
“Those the moves you were gonna show me?” she asked, chin toward the dust where he’d danced.
“Nah,” he said, a laugh caught in it. “I had something else in mind for that.”
“Oh, really now?” She raised an eyebrow.
He shrugged and didn’t say anything.
She flipped the empty cup and tapped it with a nail. “You need another drink.”
He watched her hand turn the cup and looked back at her. “You got a bad boy kink?”
She laughed and shook her head. “There aren’t too many six-foot dreadheads walking around Statesboro that haven’t been snapped up already. I’m thinking I might be tired of farmer’s sons.”
“I’m six-four,” he said.
“Four inches is a lot.”
He nodded once. “Eight is, too.”
Her smile widened a notch. The brim of the hat pushed back with one finger. The barn light threw a soft edge over the crowd as people flowed around them. Jaylen and Carlos disappeared inside. Dillon shouted something about shots. Keanon lifted a cup like a signal. Donnie and Kordell were still running their mouths, grinning now instead of trying to win.
“Come get that drink,” she said.
She reached for his hand. He let her take it. She led him toward the table, past the circle, past the doorway where the music jumped up again as they stepped toward the light.
~~~
It was the dead stretch of night when Mireya eased the door shut with her hip and let the latch catch. The living room was dim. The lamp by the sofa painted a small pool across the rug. The fridge hummed from the kitchen. Out on the street a siren rose and broke apart. Her feet throbbed inside flats she’d changed into in the car, each step a small spark that climbed her calves. Glitter dusted her collarbone and clung to the ends of her hair.
Camila slept on the sofa with a cartoon blanket tucked under her chin. One sock had worked itself halfway off her heel. Her breath came soft, a whisper against the pillow. Mireya’s face loosened. She set her bag on the chair by the door and unzipped it slowly so the teeth wouldn’t scrape loudly. Inside, beneath a spare tee and the lingerie, lay a neat fold of cash. She slid it out and thumbed through it. Just under three hundred after Stasia took the house fees. She stacked the bills into a flatter pile, pressed the edge straight with her nail, and put it back in the bag. The zipper closed with a low run that didn’t wake the room.
Soft steps moved from the hall, the robe’s hem kissing tile to wood. Sara came through without flipping the overhead. She had her hair pulled back and the knot in her robe was a quick tie. She crossed to the stove and set the kettle on the burner with a small metal tap. The gas clicked and caught blue.
“You want some coffee, mija?” she asked, voice low.
Mireya shook her head. “I’m gonna shower and then sleep.” Her voice sounded used.
Sara left the burner and stepped back into the warm part of the room. She reached up and smoothed a palm over Mireya’s hair. “You’ve got glitter in your hair.”
Heat rose at the base of Mireya’s neck. “I— it was—”
“Shh.” Sara’s hand stayed gentle. “I don’t need to know why. I just wanted you to know.”
Mireya nodded and let the air move in and out. The floorboards were cool through thin soles. Camila turned on the sofa and settled again, a faint sound caught in her throat. Mireya watched the blanket ride up and then down.
She kept her eyes lowered. “Why are you so nice to me,” she asked, “when I broke up with Caine?”
“Whether you’re with Caine or not doesn’t change that you’re Camila’s mother.” Sara tucked a loose strand behind Mireya’s ear and let her fingers rest there a second. “You and Caine are so similar. Sometimes neither of you can see it. That’s why you worked.” She paused. “Y es por eso que no lo haces.”
The kettle started to murmur without whistling yet. Mireya breathed through her mouth and tasted the day on her tongue.
“Thank you,” she said, because anything bigger would shake.
Sara pulled her in and held her. The hug was firm and plain. Detergent and the sweet lotion Sara used brushed Mireya’s cheek. Sara kissed her forehead and let her go.
“I was thinking I’d bring Camila to Statesboro to see him,” Sara said. She glanced toward the sofa. “She was asking about him earlier.”
Mireya slid her knuckles under one eye and then the other. “I can do it,” she said, lifting her chin. “Unless you’d rather go.”
The kettle rose to a thin edge. Sara studied her face. She reached up and cupped Mireya’s cheek. Her thumb caught the tear before it could fall. “You should go. It’d be good for you to get out of New Orleans for a couple days.”
Mireya nodded. “Okay.”
Sara turned back to the stove and shut the flame under the kettle before it screamed. She set it on a cold burner where the metal clicked and settled. “Go take your shower,” she said. “Don’t worry about the hot water.”
Mireya’s eyes drifted to the sofa again. Camila’s hand had worked out from under the blanket, fingers splayed. Mireya tugged the edge back over her daughter’s shoulder. Glitter flashed at her hairline when she leaned in the lamp light. “I won’t be long.”
Sara nodded. She rubbed her forearm like the night had set a chill in her. “If she wakes, I’ll get her back down.”
“Thank you.”
They stood in the quiet a moment and let the house sound like itself. A car passed outside and then the block sank back into its hush. The clock on the microwave ticked over another minute in a soft hop.
Mireya picked up her bag by the straps. The cheap leather squeaked. She shifted the weight to her shoulder and felt the strap find the tender spot it always found. The glitter on her chest itched where sweat had dried. She tried not to scratch. It only made the sparkles smear and stick.
Sara stepped aside to open the hallway a little. “You need anything?”
“I’m okay.” Mireya took a step, then another, feeling the aches talk and quiet with each move. She paused and looked back at the sofa. Camila’s breath stayed even. The curl at her lip lifted and fell. Mireya pressed two fingers to the blanket, a touch light enough not to wake her.
The hallway caught the warmer light from the kitchen and shaped it into a low glow. Family photos watched from the wall, glass shining with a dull sheen. Mireya didn’t look at them long. She set the bag on the floor outside the bathroom and turned the knob. The switch clicked and a tight bar of light cut across the tile.
She stepped in and shut the door with her hip. Tile was cool under her soles. She leaned her hands on the sink and let her head hang. The mirror held a girl with glitter dusted along her hairline and clinging to her lashes. She didn’t look away. She let one breath out slow. Another followed, a little steadier. A third found its place. The house hummed on the other side of the door.
She reached for the shower handle.
~~~
They hit the door still kissing, Caine’s back catching the handle before it shut. Rylee’s legs were already locked around his waist, boots knocking against him with each step. He shifted her higher and carried her through the short entry, breathing hard, the hat brim bumping his cheek.
The light over the stove blinked a low stripe into the room. The TV played on the far wall, always on. The sofa was there, cushions still a little slumped from the last time he’d crashed on the sofa. He lowered her onto it in one motion, hands steady at her hips. She pulled at his shirt like she meant to tear it, fingers sliding under the hem, mouth still on his until she broke off to laugh against his jaw.
Her flannel hit the floor first. The tank top followed, yanked over her head in a quick pull that left static snapping at her hair. She reached for his belt with both hands, metal clicking in the quiet of the place. The cowboy hat slipped when she leaned, then she took it off and tossed it toward the arm of the sofa without looking.
He caught it before it fell. “Keep it on,” he said, voice low.
She grinned up at him and took the hat back. She set it on, tipped the brim with two fingers, and adjusted it until it sat right. “Yes, sir,” she breathed, teasing soft but not stopping her hands.
Her thumbs found the leather again. She worked the buckle and slid the strap loose with a slow pull that made the belt tongue whisper against the hole. The button popped under her knuckle. He watched her hands move, then reached for the hem of his tee and pulled it over his head in one smooth rip, fabric dragging at his shoulders before giving.
She let her palms skate over the lines she uncovered, then went back to the belt like she hadn’t paused. Boots thudded to the floor one by one as she kicked them free. The flannel lay open like a dark square on the rug. The apartment held their breath and the small sounds they made. Her laugh came up again when the hat brim dipped over one eye and she pushed it back with her wrist without breaking rhythm.
He stepped in, close enough to lose any space between them, and bent just enough to kiss the corner of her mouth. She tugged at the zipper and felt it give, the sound neat and sharp in the quiet. His belt ends hung loose. The hat shadow cut across her cheekbones. She looked up through it and smiled like this was the only room left in the world.
He pulled his tee the rest of the way free and dropped it behind him without caring where it landed. The hat stayed where he’d told her to keep it, tilted and sure. She nodded once like that settled it, then set her fingers at his waistband again, waiting only for the second his hands were clear.
Ramon said that's familia, though
