Damaged Petals.

[Soapy]

Also, a room smelling like shrimp is CRAZY.

Liz was probably surprised to find out Serena's father was still around.

Also, a room smelling like shrimp is CRAZY.

my first thought. Disgusting behavior lmao

Liz gonna make an offhand comment about Serena's family next chapter, BET

gotta clean up those INTs bruddah

maybe i should have clarified that it was cooked shrimp/seafood

Keeping my critiques for that NFL Scouting report but we see what's happening here

Serena, I promise that heart wasn't for you shordy.

she can't get a heart bro? lmfao

Another big conference win. Picks are getting concerning

definitely need to clean them up

[Soapy]

Season 9, Episode 7
The hallway was dark, and the floor was cold. He’d been awake for twenty minutes before his feet ever touched the ground. Lying there in the dark of his bedroom, staring at the ceiling, listening to the house breathe around him. The heater clicking on and off. The faint hum of the refrigerator. The particular silence of a house where everyone else was still asleep.

He’d gotten used to this. Waking up before his alarm, before the sun, before Miss Lafitte’s slippers started their slow shuffle across the kitchen tile. So much so that it didn’t even feel like a choice anymore. His body just did it. Some internal clock set to a frequency nobody had asked him to calibrate.

He padded down the hallway barefoot, the wood cool against his soles. Past the bathroom. Past the guest room where Miss Lafitte slept with the door cracked just enough to let the air circulate. Past the framed photos that his mother had hung up.

The nursery door was already cracked. He pushed it open just wide enough to slip through. A nightlight shaped like a moon cast a soft blue glow across the walls, illuminating the animal decals his mother had applied during one of her visits: a giraffe, a lion, a monkey hanging from a branch. The mobile above the crib had stopped spinning hours ago, the elephants and giraffes frozen mid-turn.

James was asleep.

Brice lowered himself onto the rocking chair beside the crib, the wood creaking softly beneath his weight. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and just looked.

James slept on his stomach, one arm tucked beneath him, the other flung out to the side. His mouth was slightly open. A thin line of drool darkened the sheet beneath his cheek. His chest rose and fell in that slow, even rhythm. Brice watched him breathe.

He didn’t know when this had become the thing. The part of the day that existed outside of everything else. It hadn’t started as anything deliberate. One morning back in the spring he’d woken up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so he’d wandered down the hall and stood in the doorway and watched James sleep for a few minutes. Then he’d done it again the next day. And the next. And now it was almost October, and he couldn’t remember the last morning he hadn’t done this.

He sat there for a while. Five minutes. Maybe ten. The rocking chair didn’t move. He just sat and watched the rise and fall of his son’s chest and let his mind go quiet in a way it only ever went quiet here.

Then he stood.

He reached into the crib with both hands, sliding one beneath James’s chest and the other supporting his head, and lifted him out in one smooth motion. James stirred—a small, involuntary twitch of his fingers, a soft exhale through his nose—but didn’t wake. His body went heavy against Brice’s chest, his head finding the hollow between Brice’s collarbone and jaw like it had been designed to fit there.

Brice sat back down in the rocking chair and adjusted James against him. The baby’s hand curled into the fabric of his sweatshirt, fingers gripping a fistful of that soft cotton.

He rocked. Slowly. The chair making its quiet, rhythmic creak.

Outside, the sky was starting to lighten. A thin gray line at the bottom of the curtains. The street was still quiet. No cars yet. No garbage trucks. No delivery vans. Just the distant sound of a bird somewhere, testing out a note, then going silent.

Brice looked down at the top of James’s head. The soft fuzz of hair. The curve of his ear. The way his eyelashes rested against his cheek.

“Today’s gonna be a long one, little bro,” he said.

James made a small sound.

Brice smiled without meaning to.

“Yeah, I know."

He rocked. The chair creaked. The gray line at the bottom of the curtains got a shade brighter.

“I think I’m doing the right thing,” he said.

He let the sentence sit there for a moment. Let it breathe the way LaPenna always let things breathe.

Then he shook his head.

“I hope I’m doing the right thing. It has to be, right?"

James shifted. His grip on Brice’s sweatshirt tightened, then relaxed. His breathing stayed even.

Brice thought about the letter sitting on his desk at home. He thought about the interception. The fourth one.

He thought about…

"You’re getting a little chunky," Brice smiled as he looked down at James.

James made another small noise. His mouth moved against Brice’s chest, a reflexive suckling motion, then stopped.

Brice pressed his lips against the top of James’s head and held them there for a moment.

“It’s just another day,” Brice said. Quiet. Almost inaudible. “We’ll get through it. We always down."

Outside the room, a cabinet door opened and closed.

Miss Lafitte was up.

The day was starting.

He could hear her slippers now, the soft shuffle of them against the tile. The click of the coffee maker being turned on. The quiet hum of water beginning to heat.

The nursery’s bubble was thinning. The quiet was already giving way to whatever came next. The endless machinery of a life that had been designed, curated, and packaged.

Brice held James a moment longer. He pressed his nose into the baby’s hair and inhaled one more time. Then he stood, carefully, keeping James tucked against his chest, and crossed the room to the crib.

He lowered him down with both hands, the same way he’d lifted him. James stirred again, a small frown crossing his face, his fingers reaching for the warmth that was leaving, but Brice laid him on his back and pulled the blanket up to his chest, and the baby settled almost immediately. His breathing evened out. His hand found the edge of the blanket and held it.

Brice stood over the crib and watched him for another few seconds.

Then he turned and walked to the door.

…

"It wasn’t the wrong read."

"It just wasn’t the best one."

"Yeah," Brice cleared his throat, "Backside came open late. I could have waited. I should have waited. I’ve watched that play like a hundred times now."

LaPenna made a small sound.

“What specifically keeps pulling you back to it?”

“I could have been right on that play,” Brice leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "If I let him cross the linebacker’s face, that’s a completion. If I went backside, that’s a completion. And I don’t know if that’s me thinking too much or not thinking enough. I genuinely can’t tell anymore.”

LaPenna let that breathe for a moment.

“I had a chance to end their season," he shook his head. “We still won. I know we still won. But we won in spite of that throw, not because of anything I did.”

“You’re aware that’s not entirely accurate.”

“I know,” he sucked his teeth. “I know I had a good game outside of that. But that’s the thing, Doc. I can’t even enjoy it. We just beat Michigan. We’re undefeated. That should mean something to me right now and right now, it doesn’t feel like it."

LaPenna sat there.

Brice stared at the carpet. “The noise is getting louder too. That doesn’t help.”

“What kind of noise?”

“All of it,” he spread his hands. “Heisman stuff. Draft stuff. Every week it feels like there’s another article or another ranking or somebody’s got an opinion about where I’m going in April. And I know I’m supposed to tune it out, and most of the time I can, but it’s...”

He paused. “It’s like it’s always in the background now. And then I throw a pick in the fourth quarter against Michigan and all I can think is, scouts saw that. That’s on film. That’s permanent.”

“So the interception isn’t just an interception.”

“No.” Brice let out a short breath. “It’s evidence. That’s what it feels like. Like every mistake is evidence of something.”

LaPenna shifted slightly in his chair. “Before the season started. What did they tell you about your draft position?”

Brice looked at him. “You already know the answer to that.”

“Humor me.”

“CAA said I was a lock for the first round. Probably top fifteen. Said if I had the kind of season people were projecting, there was a real conversation to be had about number one overall.”

“So you came into this season already as a first-round pick.”

“On paper.”

“Not on paper,” LaPenna said, calmly. “That was their assessment of you before a single game this season."

Brice didn’t say anything.

“Let me ask you something else,” LaPenna said. “When you got to Purdue. Freshman year. When we first met. What did you want?”

He thought about it.

“Rose Bowl,” he said. “That was the big one. I wanted to win a Rose Bowl. And then make the playoffs at some point. Actually compete for a championship, not just show up and get embarrassed.” He paused. “First round pick."

LaPenna nodded slowly. “And?”

Brice looked at him.

“You won the Rose Bowl,” LaPenna said. “You made the playoffs. You actually won a national championship. You’re a first-round pick. You accomplished every single thing you came here hoping to accomplish.”

Brice opened his mouth. Closed it.

“The version of you that showed up here as a freshman, what would he think about where you are right now?”

“I don’t know,” Brice shrugged.

“NFL scouts evaluated you as a first-round talent before this season began,” LaPenna continued. “You don’t need to become a different player to be drafted in the first round. You need to be the player they already evaluated.” He paused. “Quarterbacks throw interceptions, Brice.”

“I know that.”

“You threw them last year.”

“I know.”

“It is part of the position and it is part of the game.” LaPenna’s voice stayed even, unhurried. “And mistakes are part of life. You know that better than most people your age.”

Brice laughed.

“I know,” he said. “Like having my parents meet Serena’s parents before I did."

“And how did it go?”

“Good, apparently. She said everybody got along. Her mom and my mom hit it off. Her dad and my dad talked pretty much the whole time.”

"You met with them after?"

Brice nodded and smiled, "Yeah, I did."

"And how did that go?"

…

The caulk gun made a slow, sucking sound as Connie dragged it along the seam where the church’s exterior trim met the stucco wall. She kept her line as even as she could. It wasn’t perfect. The gap wasn’t perfectly even either, so she told herself it didn’t need to be.

Behind her, somebody’s phone was playing music at a volume that was somehow both too loud and too tinny to actually enjoy. She’d heard the same song three times in the last forty minutes.

She smoothed the caulk with her finger, wiped her hand on her jeans, and moved the ladder two feet to the left.

The group of volunteers had been assigned to the exterior work. There were seven of them total, counting Connie and Pastor Hector. The other five were all high school age, maybe sixteen or seventeen, and it was clear from the moment they’d arrived that morning that none of them had come voluntarily.

Hector didn’t say anything for a while. He was crouched near the base of the wall, working a putty knife into a crack in the stucco. He pressed in the compound, smoothed it, assessed it, pressed in more.

Then he looked up at two of the boys.

“¿Sabes qué? Cuando yo tenía tu edad, no sabía cómo era quedarse parado sin hacer nada. Quedarse parado sin hacer nada no era algo para lo que tuviera tiempo de intentar.”

One of the boys looked up from the phone. The other didn’t.

“They’re so lazy,” Hector continued in English, returning to the crack in the wall. “I was working every day when I was their age. Not summer. Not weekends. Every day.”

Connie moved the caulk gun along the next seam.

“What kind of work?” she asked.

He scraped the excess compound away with the flat of the blade. “Whatever there was. Construction. Grocery. Whatever could pay the bills."

“You started young."

“Fourteen, fifteen,” he said. “Right around when my Rosa got…how do you say? Embarazada?"

He formed a bump in front of his stomach with his hand.

"Pregnant?" Connie raised an eyebrow.

“Si, yes,” he nodded.

Connie set the caulk gun down on the top of the ladder and reached for the smoothing tool. She kept her eyes on the seam.

“I didn’t realize you guys were that young when you had your children.”

“Oh, yes,” Hector laughed. “We were young. Ninos ourselves."

“You weren’t scared?” Connie found herself asking.

Hector considered this like it was a question he hadn’t been asked in a while. “Sure. Probably. But there wasn’t a lot of time to be scared.”

He looked at the crack in the wall, pressed his thumb along the repaired edge, nodded. “You’re scared, and then you go to work anyway. That’s all.”

Connie smoothed the last of the caulk along the seam and stepped back to look at it. Even enough. She climbed down from the ladder.

“You were lucky,” she said. “That you had each other.”

Hector looked at her. Then he smiled. “Yes,” he said. “That part was lucky.”

He stood up from his crouch, pressing a hand against his knee. He looked at the repaired section of wall, at the boys who’d gone back to their phone, at the girl with the nails who was at least pretending to work now.

Connie picked up the caulk gun and moved the ladder down the wall.

She thought about what it would have looked like. A version of things where she hadn’t made the decision she’d made. Where they hadn’t made the decisions they’d made. Where there had been bills. Where there had been a baby and a life that had reorganized itself around that fact, the way Hector’s had. Where she’d gone to work anyway because there wasn’t time to sit with the fear.

She pressed the trigger and drew the line.

…

The conference room was small. Brice sat on one side of the table, his hands folded in front of him.

Ms. Vega sat across from him. She had a sharp face and dark hair pulled back into a low bun. Next to her, Mr. Cohen was older, maybe sixty, with glasses that sat low on his nose. They’d both set their briefcases on the table when they sat down, and neither had opened them.

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Vega said. “We know your schedule is—”

“It’s fine,” Brice said.

Cohen glanced at the empty chair beside Brice. Then at the door. Then back at Brice.

“Just you?” Cohen asked.

“Yeah.”

The two of them exchanged a look. Brice caught it.

“You were expecting somebody else?”

“We just—” Vega started.

“Given the circumstances,” Cohen said, “we assumed you might bring counsel.”

“I didn’t think I needed it. Do I?”

Another look between them. Vega recovered first.

“Of course not,” she said. “This isn’t a deposition. This isn’t a formal proceeding of any kind. We just wanted to have a conversation.”

Brice nodded.

Vega leaned forward slightly. “Brice, we want to be transparent about why we’re here. Nia’s case is moving toward a potential resolution. The prosecution has indicated they’re open to discussing a plea agreement, but those discussions are influenced by a number of factors. One of those factors is the victim’s perspective. And in this case, there are multiple people affected by what happened.”

Brice didn’t say anything.

“We’re not asking you to forgive her,” Cohen said. “We’re not asking you to decide her fate. That’s not your job and it’s not what this is about. We want to understand where you stand. And if you’re willing, we’d like you to provide a statement that we can present to the DA’s office. Something that makes your perspective known.”

“A statement.”

“A letter,” Vega said. “A written account of how the incident affected you. What you think about it now. What you think would be a fair outcome.”

Brice looked at the table.

“How is she?” he asked.

Vega and Cohen looked at each other.

“She’s stable,” Cohen said carefully. “She’s receiving treatment. Both psychiatric and—”

“I mean her state of mind. When it happened. Was she—” He paused. “She didn’t seem right in my house that night."

Vega set her pen down. “The psychiatric evaluation indicates she was experiencing significant distress at the time of the incident. She had been self-medicating. She was not in a stable mental state.”

“Okay.”

“She’s eighteen years old,” Cohen added. “She was seventeen when it happened.”

“I know how old she is.”

The room went quiet for a moment.

“What do you want from this?” Vega asked.

Brice looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“From the case. From the outcome. What do you want to see happen?”

He didn’t answer right away.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Vega wrote something down. Brice watched her pen move across the notepad. Cohen adjusted his glasses.

“How much time would she get?” he asked.

“That depends on the plea,” Vega said. “If the case goes to trial, and she’s convicted on all counts, she’s looking at significant time. If we can reach an agreement, it could be substantially less. "

“Which depends on what I say.”

“It’s a factor,” Cohen said.

Brice leaned back in his chair.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

Vega glanced at Brice Then at Cohen.

“Brice,” Vega said, “can I ask you something else?”

“Sure.”

“What was going through your mind when she showed up at your house that night? With your son?”

He looked at her. “Why?”

“We’re trying to understand the full picture. The emotional impact. Not just the legal one.”

Brice was quiet for a moment. “I was scared,” he said. “I was scared for my son. But I was also—”

He stopped. “She was crying. She was holding him and she was crying and she looked...she didn’t look like somebody who was trying to hurt anybody. She looked like somebody who was lost.”

Vega wrote that down.

“And she brought him back,” Brice said. “She didn’t have to do that.”

Cohen nodded. “No, she didn’t.”

Vega asked another question about the night of the incident. Brice answered it. Cohen followed up with something about the aftermath, about how it had affected his relationship with his son. Brice answered that too, but he could feel the conversation starting to circle. They were asking things they’d already asked, or variations of things they’d already asked, and he was giving them variations of answers he’d already given.

Brice checked his phone. No messages. He set it back down.

“I should probably head out,” he said. “I’ve got practice in an hour.”

“Of course,” Vega said.

Brice stood. He extended his hand to Cohen first, then to Vega. They both shook it.

“Thanks for making the trip,” he said. “I appreciate you coming out here.”

“Thank you for your time,” Cohen said.

He was already turning toward the door when Cohen spoke again.

“Brice, if you could spare just one more minute.”

He stopped. Looked back.

Vega’s phone rang.

The sound cut through the room like a blade. Brice watched her check the screen. Her eyes met Cohen’s for a fraction of a second. Vega answered.

“Hi,” she said. “Yes. We’re here.”

She set the phone on the table and tapped the speaker icon.

The room filled with the sound of someone breathing on the other end of the line.

“Brice is here,” Vega said. “He’s right across from me.”

A pause. Then a voice. Thin. Young. Cracked down the middle like something that had been dropped and put back together wrong.

“Hey.”

[djp73]

Connie soothing herself with caulk

[Captain Canada]

The ending sort of confused me, but maybe that's what was supposed to happen.

I thought the beginning was an indication that Brice was finally going to dump Serena

[redsox907]

Connie soothing herself with caulk

cock got her into this mess and by God, caulk will get her out

That whole meeting was a trap to get Nia on the phone with Brice? lmao. Still thinking that Serena thing on the downward swing

[Caesar]

I'm still seeing the play with Connie. It's crystallizing.

Brice feels himself slipping down them draft boards.

[Soapy]

The ending sort of confused me, but maybe that's what was supposed to happen.

I thought the beginning was an indication that Brice was finally going to dump Serena

The ending was Nia on the phone, cuzzo

Connie soothing herself with caulk

cock got her into this mess and by God, caulk will get her out

That whole meeting was a trap to get Nia on the phone with Brice? lmao. Still thinking that Serena thing on the downward swing

Y'all are too horny

I'm still seeing the play with Connie. It's crystallizing.

Brice feels himself slipping down them draft boards.

Given how sick your mind is, I have no idea what play you're talking about lmao

[Soapy]

on to

[Soapy]

the next one

[Soapy]