Laney pushed the butcher shop door open with her shoulder, the bell above it giving its tired ring as she stepped inside. Cold air from the cases hit her bare arms and settled there. She had the list folded once in her hand, her handwriting cramped and slanted across the paper.
Mr. Hartfield looked up from behind the counter, a towel slung over one shoulder, his hands still wet from whatever he'd been working on in the back. A smile broke wide across his face the second he saw her.
"I hope you're coming in here to tell me that you're ready to leave Tommy and make my boy an honest man after all these years," he said.
Laney smiled, the expression settling easy on her mouth. "No luck for you. I ain't lost my natural born mind yet to do that."
Mr. Hartfield laughed, his shoulders bouncing with it, and held his hand out across the counter. Laney passed the list over and he unfolded it, holding it at arm's length while his eyes moved down the page. He nodded to himself as he read, already turning toward the back, the towel shifting on his shoulder.
"I'll be right back with all of this," he said.
"Thank you," Laney said.
He disappeared through the swinging door and Laney stood at the counter with her purse hanging from her elbow, eyes drifting across the cuts laid out behind the glass, the red and white of them clean under the display lights.
A few seconds later Nevaeh came through the swinging door from the other side, head down, fingers working the strings of an apron behind her back as she tied it. She pulled the knot tight and looked up, her eyes catching on Laney standing at the counter.
"Oh, morning," Nevaeh said. "Didn't think I'd be seeing you here today. Well, I guess it is a butcher and you gotta buy your meat. Did Mr. Hartfield already help you? I guess he did."
Laney nodded. "He got me."
Nevaeh nodded back and walked over to the stool behind the register, pulling herself up onto it and settling her weight with her feet hooked around the legs. She rested her hands on the counter in front of her, palms down, fingers spread against the worn wood. The apron bunched at her lap where she'd tied it too tight. She sat there a moment, her fingers tapping twice against the surface before they stilled, and she looked at Laney with an expression that was working its way toward something.
"I heard Tommy kicked Blake out," she said. "The other day. Not to get in your business or nothing. He just called to try to come stay with me and my mama."
Laney rested her hip against the display case, the glass cold through her jeans. "I ain't gonna lie to you and say I know why Tommy suddenly decided to do that. It's as random to you as it is to me."
Nevaeh sighed, the breath pushing out of her slow and heavy, and shook her head. "He ain't never been able to stay clean. Even though he say he gonna try, I don't think he really be trying, you know? He just says it 'cause it sound good." Her thumb ran along the edge of the counter, tracing a groove worn into the wood. "I don't think he'll figure it out until he's on his death bed."
"Sad as it is, I think you right," Laney said.
Nevaeh looked down at her hands and started picking at the skin next to one of her nails, her index finger working at a small strip of dry cuticle, pulling at it in short tugs. "I wish he could do better. For Josiah." She kept her eyes on her fingers. "I can see he's happier now. Josiah, that is. Because he don't see me high anymore." The cuticle came loose and she flicked it away, moving to the next nail without pausing. "I had to start crocheting to keep myself busy but at least it's better than a needle. But I guess that's a needle, too. Just ain't putting it in my arm."
Laney walked over to the counter and reached across it, setting her hand on Nevaeh's forearm. Nevaeh's fingers stopped moving and she looked up.
"You been doin' a good job," Laney said, her grip firm and still on Nevaeh's arm. "Ain't easy to get that monkey off your back for a couple days, much less months like you have. Just keep on doin' what you doin'."
Nevaeh smiled, the expression small and tight at first before it opened up across her face. "Thank you. For helping me. Even though I told Blake about your thing and kinda blew your whole life up." Her voice sped up and her eyes dropped to where Laney's hand sat on her arm. "I hope you know I ain't mean to do that I just—"
Laney waved her free hand, cutting the sentence off before it could find its end. "It's okay. Really."
Nevaeh shut her mouth and nodded, the motion quick and grateful. She gestured over her shoulder toward the back room where Mr. Hartfield's voice carried faint through the swinging door, something heavy landing on a surface with a dull thud.
"I'm gonna go see if he needs some help," she said.
"Alright," Laney said. "Take your time. I ain't in no rush."
She watched Nevaeh slide off the stool and push through the swinging door into the back, the door rocking twice on its hinges before it settled. Laney leaned her elbows against the counter, the cold of the glass case pressing into her forearms and waited for them to come back with her order.
~~~
Trell came through the front door first and stopped two steps inside. The floorboards in front of him were stained dark where the blood had soaked into the grain, a wide uneven shape that ran from the doorway toward the far wall and thinned at the edges where someone had tried to mop it and given up before the wood would let it go. Ant stepped in behind him and pulled the door shut, his eyes moving across the room in a slow sweep before they settled on the same spot.Trell stared down at the stain. His jaw shifted once, the muscle bunching and releasing near his ear. He shook his head, then kept walking into the room.
The folding table had been set upright again but one of its legs was bent at the joint and the whole thing leaned toward the wall. Baggies and loose product had been swept into a trash bag that sat knotted in the corner, and the scale was back on the table with a crack running through its face. Bleach had been poured across the floor near the baseboards where the blood had spread, and the smell of it sat thick on top of the old chemical stink that lived in the walls. Whoever Yola and Scotty had put on the cleanup had gotten most of it, but most of it left enough behind to read every piece of what had happened in here.
Trell looked at the bent table leg, at the trash bag in the corner, at the bleach marks on the linoleum that faded into the stained wood near the door. A piece of extension cord lay coiled under the table where it had been cut loose from someone's wrists, the orange rubber bright against the floor. He stepped over it, put his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and turned back toward Ant.
"We gonna have to move everything," he said. "Find new spots. Make sure these niggas only know where they supposed to go and nothing else."
Ant nodded from where he stood near the door. "Them country ass niggas really want to take it there."
"Guess so." Trell pulled one hand from his pocket and rubbed his thumb along the edge of his jaw, the stubble scraping under the pressure. "Problem is, they shouldn't have known about this. We ain't bring them to none of the spots."
Ant's chin lifted a fraction. "You think it's one of the new niggas talking too much? Putting too much of our business out there?"
Trell shook his head, his hand dropping back into his pocket. He held Ant's eyes across the room, the stain on the floor sitting between them, and let the answer build in the air before he said it.
"We both know who would do some shit like this."
"Cass," Ant said.
Ant rolled his shoulders once, adjusting his weight against the frame. He crossed his arms over his chest, forearms stacking, and his eyes narrowed as something turned over behind them. His tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek and held there for a beat before he spoke.
"You think she set all this shit up?" he asked. "Work with these niggas from Little Rock knowing she was gonna use them to get at us."
Trell walked toward the window where the box fan still sat in the frame, its blades still and dust caked along the edges. He looked through the glass at the street outside, at the empty block and the parked cars and the morning light sitting pale on everything. A cat crossed the road near the corner, its body low and fast before it disappeared under a parked sedan.
He kept his eyes on the street while he answered. "That's a lot of moving parts to try to have a hold of. Ain't no way to be sure that niggas who barely know her wouldn't just get connected then tell her to fuck off."
Ant pushed off the doorframe and took two steps into the room, his shoes landing heavy on the wood. "We can dead this shit today then. Just say the word and I'll go walk her ass down right now."
Trell turned from the window. His posture stayed easy, hands still in his pockets, shoulders loose under his jacket, but his eyes carried something colder when they found Ant's face. "That ain't gonna stop the war. She gonna get hers." He paused, letting the promise sit where it was. "First, we gotta deal with Meechie."
"What you want to do about that then?" Ant asked.
Trell pulled both hands from his pockets and adjusted the collar of his jacket, fingers tugging the fabric flat before they dropped. "Y'all gonna be taking a trip to Arkansas. Make sure them niggas know they can't come down here and do some shit like this without a couple of their niggas dying."
He turned and walked toward the door, his steps steady across the stained floorboards, passing over the dark shape in the wood without slowing. Ant fell into step behind him, pulling the door open and holding it as Trell walked through, then following him out and letting it swing shut on the room and everything left inside it.
~~~
Cass paced the length of the living room with her arms folded tight across her chest, her steps hard enough that the heels of her shoes hit the hardwood in sharp, even beats that carried into the kitchen and back. The morning light through the blinds cut the room into pale strips across the floor and the furniture and the side of Dez's face where he sat on the couch with his elbows resting on his knees, his hands hanging loose between his legs, watching her move back and forth. Tiff sat in the armchair with one leg tucked under her and her phone turned face down on the cushion beside her, her fingers tracing the seam of the upholstery in a slow, repeating line.
"That nigga was supposed to hit all of the spots, not just one," Cass said, turning at the window and coming back the other direction without slowing. "Niggas got fucking scared."
Tiff shifted in the chair, her hand resting on the arm. "They said they heard the police coming so they got out of there."
Cass sucked her teeth. "Ain't no police going out to the ass end of the West Bank. That's why Trell got the shit there in the first place."
Dez rubbed his thumb across the knuckle of his opposite hand, pressing into the joint and releasing it. "Better this way anyway. Now, they ain't gonna think that I told you how many niggas they be having in there."
Cass waved the comment off with a flick of her wrist, her stride unbroken, eyes fixed ahead of her as she paced. "That nigga Trell do the same shit P used to do."
Tiff pulled her tucked leg out and planted both feet on the floor, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. "You could've just told him to come over here to fuck and killed him. Probably would've been easier."
Dez's eyes moved from Tiff to Cass and back. "Definitely less bodies and less heat."
Cass stopped at the far end of the room and turned to face them, her arms still folded, her weight settling onto one hip. "That nigga don't even come over here no more. Not with that Mexican bitch letting him do whatever he want to her."
Dez straightened on the couch, his hands coming together between his knees, fingers lacing and unlacing. "Speaking of her, y'all need to make sure that Meechie and them know to not do shit to her."
Tiff's head snapped toward him, her jaw tightening. "Fuck her ass. She broke my fucking nose."
Cass let her arms drop to her sides. "You a simp ass nigga, Dez. She shouldn't have her ass at traphouses if she don't want shit to happen to her."
Dez held Cass's stare, his shoulders pulling back against the couch cushion, his mouth pressing into a line. "If y'all ain't gonna tell Meechie then I'm gonna tell her that she need to not be around Trell for the next couple months until this shit sort itself."
Cass crossed the room in three fast steps and stopped in front of him, jabbing a finger so close to his face that he had to pull his chin back to keep it from touching his skin. "If you fucking tell her ass that she need to not be around Trell then she's gonna tell Trell, pussy whipped ass nigga."
Dez held his hands up. His jaw worked once but his voice came out steady. "I'm just trying to make sure nothing happen to her."
Cass stared down at him for a long second, her finger still hovering near his face, close enough that he could feel the heat off her skin.
Tiff looked at Cass, then at Dez, reading the distance between them and the tension holding it shut. "I'll let Meechie know. Just dead that all now so we don't have to worry about it when they take that nigga Trell out."
Cass pulled her hand back and stepped away from Dez, turning on her heel and starting to pace again, her arms swinging loose at her sides before folding back across her chest. She looked at Dez over her shoulder as she walked, her voice carrying behind her without her turning around. "If you so concerned about that ho, you kill Trell. You drive that nigga around."
Dez's hands dropped to his knees, his fingers gripping the denim there, the tendons in his forearms standing up before he forced them to relax. "I never got a gun on me."
Cass rolled her eyes. "A fucking simp and a fucking pussy."
Tiff looked at Dez from the armchair and shrugged, one shoulder lifting and falling in a motion that offered nothing.
Dez sucked his teeth, leaning back onto the couch and crossing his arms over his chest.
~~~
E.J. slapped the card down on the fold out table hard enough that the bottles near the edge jumped, the face of the spade landing flat in the middle of the pile with a crack that cut through the music coming from the speaker on the TV stand.
"That's me, nigga," E.J. said, already reaching forward with both hands to slide the trick toward his side of the table. "Gimme that shit."
Snoop reached over and dapped him up. "I knew you Louisiana niggas knew how to do a little something on these spades."
Bodie leaned back in his chair and shook his head, the beer in his hand tilted just enough that the liquid swayed against the glass. "Man, y'all niggas been cheating y'all asses off all fucking day."
Chris looked through his cards, fanning them out, then pulled one and played it on the table with a flick of his wrist. "That's why they ain't want to put no fucking money on it."
E.J. reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash folded in half, the bills thick and uneven at the edges, and tossed it onto the center of the table where it landed on top of the played cards. "Shit, we can put the munyun on the fucking table, right now."
Bodie reached into his own pocket, pulled out a roll held together with a rubber band, and tossed it next to E.J.'s stack. The roll bounced once and settled against a beer bottle. "Fuck it. You ain't gonna talk shit in our city like that, my nigga."
Snoop and Chris both dug into their pockets, Snoop pulling a folded stack from his jeans and Chris fishing a smaller roll from his hoodie, and they threw their money onto the growing pile in the middle. Snoop pointed at the cards scattered under the cash. "Run the game back. Same teams."
E.J. grinned and cracked his knuckles against the edge of the table, the joints popping in quick succession. "Yeah, me and my nigga Snoop about to be walking out here with enough money to have a good ass night at Onyx."
The front door opened and Tessa walked into the apartment, her purse hanging from one shoulder and her keys still in her hand. The smell of weed and spilled beer and the bass from the speaker hit her all at once as she stepped inside and looked at the four of them crowded around the fold out table, cards and cash and bottles covering every inch of the surface.
E.J. looked over his shoulder. "What's up, baby? You got off early?"
Tessa pointed past him toward the carpet under his chair, her finger aimed low. "You spilled beer."
E.J. looked down at the dark stain spreading into the carpet near the leg of his chair, the fibers soaked through where the liquid had pooled. "Nah, that wasn't me. That was Chris bitch ass."
Chris held his hand up from across the table, palm out. "My bad. My bitch got one of them steam cleaner things. I'll bring it to you."
Tessa stood there a beat longer, her eyes moving from the stain to the table to the smoke hanging in the air, then she turned toward the hallway. "E.J., can I talk to you in here?"
E.J. shook his head once and pushed his chair back. He pointed at Snoop with two fingers. "Make sure these niggas don't steal my money."
Snoop leaned forward and looked at the pile, his hand hovering over it. "I might steal that shit."
Snoop, Chris, and Bodie laughed as E.J. followed Tessa down the hallway and into the bedroom, their voices fading behind him as Tessa pulled the door shut.
She turned to face him, her back against the door, arms crossing over her chest. "You can't be turning our fucking apartment into a traphouse."
E.J. spread his hands wide, gesturing toward the closed door and the noise beyond it. "I just got some of my niggas over here playing cards. We ain't trapping out this bitch."
"It's the same shit," Tessa said.
"The same shit as when you got all them bitches from the dentist office here," E.J. said.
Tessa's chin dropped and her eyes sharpened. "Don't call them that." She uncrossed her arms and pressed her palms together in front of her, fingertips touching. "I think you need to go find a legal job. Start trying to set down some roots here."
E.J. sucked his teeth. "I ain't doing that shit. I already told you. I'm a fucking gangster. Plain and simple."
Tessa ran a hand through her hair. "Mom called me. Said Brent got attacked in prison."
E.J.'s expression flattened. "Nigga a chomo. He lucky they ain't start digging all in his ass."
"He didn't do it though," Tessa said, her eyes fixed on his face. "We set him up."
E.J. took a step closer to her, his voice going tight and controlled. "We came to Houston to get away from that shit. Stop fucking talking about it."
Tessa held his stare for a long moment, her jaw working, her fingers curling against her palms where they hung at her sides. Then she sighed and reached behind her for the doorknob. She opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
"I just came back to get something," she said over her shoulder. "I get off at 6. Can y'all be out of here by then?"
"Yeah, we'll go somewhere else," E.J. said.
Tessa walked down the hallway and into the living room, crossing past the table where Snoop, Chris, and Bodie had started sorting the cards into a fresh deal. She grabbed something off the kitchen table, her hand closing around it without slowing, and kept moving toward the front door. The door opened and shut behind her and the apartment settled back into the bass from the speaker and the shuffle of cards on the fold out table.
E.J. came back down the hallway and dropped into his chair, the frame creaking under his weight as he pulled himself up to the table and looked at the money still piled in the center, the cards already dealt in front of his spot.
"Alright, niggas," he said, picking up his hand and fanning the cards out. "I'm ready to take all y'all fucking money."
~~~
Trell pulled up to the traphouse and put the car in park, the engine ticking down under the hood. Mireya sat in the passenger seat with the bracelet resting across the back of her wrist, turning her hand slowly so the diamonds on each end of the white gold cable caught the light coming through the windshield. He reached over and grabbed her chin between his thumb and pointer finger, turning her face from the bracelet toward him.
"You know you my MVP, right?" he asked. "The superstar of this shit?"
Mireya nodded in his hold, the bracelet shifting on her wrist as her hand settled in her lap. "Yeah, I know."
"We not gonna be here for long," he said, his thumb pressing once against the underside of her jaw before he let go. "I got some shit I need to handle and I know that you got some school shit to do before you go to work."
"Whenever you're done is fine. I can do the assignments at work between sets or whatever."
Trell smirked, the expression pulling slow across his mouth, and opened his door. He walked around the front of the car to her side, the sun hitting the gold at his wrist and his neck and pulled her door open. He held his hand out. Mireya took it and let him help her out, her feet finding the uneven ground.
They walked up to the front door together, Trell a half step ahead with his hand at the back of her neck. Inside, the traphouse was subdued. A few guys sat around the room, spread out across chairs and the couch, their voices low and their guns out on the surfaces beside them instead of tucked away. A pistol rested on the arm of the couch. Another sat on the windowsill next to an ashtray.
Yola sat in a chair near the back of the room, shirtless, his head tipped back while a woman worked a tattoo gun across his chest. The buzz of the needle cut through the room in a steady, high drone. A shotgun sat on the table behind him, barrel pointed to be leveled at the door if he picked it up.
Trell stopped a few feet from the chair and looked down at Yola's chest where the ink was going in, fresh lines dark and wet against his skin. "You think this the best time for that?"
Yola kept his head tipped back, his eyes on the ceiling, breathing slow and even while the needle moved. "Been meaning to get this tatted for a minute. Figure I should get it before I get clipped."
The woman sucked her teeth without lifting her hand or breaking the line she was pulling. "Mawmaw would kick your ass for saying that."
Yola rolled his eyes toward Trell. "This my cousin, Naya."
Trell shrugged, already moving toward his spot on the other side of the room. He reached under the table and pulled out a box, setting it on the surface with a thud. Mireya stayed where she was, watching Naya work. The lines going into Yola's chest were clean and tight, the needle tracing curves and edges with a precision that held her attention, each pass leaving fresh ink that beaded with blood and plasma before Naya wiped it away with a paper towel and kept going.
Trell opened the box and pulled out a handful of iPhones, the plastic wrap still sealed on most of them and started laying them out on the table in a row. He looked over at Mireya.
"You should get tatted," he said. "Something on your back. That shit would look sexy as fuck."
Yola grinned up at the ceiling. "Especially when a nigga bending you over digging in that pussy."
Mireya snorted a laugh.
Naya sat back from Yola's chest and looked at him, the tattoo gun idling in her hand, the needle still buzzing at a lower pitch. "Nigga, you need Jesus."
She set the gun down on the tray beside her and grabbed a bottle of green soap, squeezing some onto a paper towel and wiping down the finished tattoo in careful strokes, clearing away the excess ink and blood until the fresh lines sat clean and sharp against his skin.
Trell walked back over to Mireya, close enough that his chest touched her shoulder, and leaned down to her ear. "You should get something."
Mireya tilted her head toward him. "I hope you don't think I'm about to get your fucking name on me."
"Fuck no," Trell said. "That's bad luck."
Mireya looked at Naya's hands, at the clean work on Yola's chest, at the tray of ink caps and the tattoo gun resting on its side. "I have always wanted something."
Trell straightened and looked at Naya. "How much time you got?"
Naya shrugged, tossing the used paper towel into a trash bag hanging from the back of the chair. "As much as you paying for. I ain't got any clients at the shop today."
Trell walked across the room and grabbed a folding chair leaning against the wall. He spun it around and set it down in front of Mireya, the metal legs scraping the floor before they settled. Mireya sat down on it backwards, her arms folding across the top of the backrest, her chin resting on her forearms. Trell reached into his pocket and pulled out a fold of cash, dropping it on the table next to the shotgun.
Naya pulled a fresh pair of gloves from the box on her tray and snapped them on, the latex popping against her wrists. She rolled her stool closer to Mireya and settled onto it, picking up a sketchpad and a pen from beside the ink caps.
"You know what you want?" Naya asked.
Mireya nodded against her arms. "Yeah."
Trell dropped into his usual chair, spreading his knees wide and resting his elbows on them, leaning forward. "I got some ideas, too."
Naya looked at him, pen hovering over the pad, then back at Mireya.
Mireya shrugged, her shoulders lifting and falling.
Naya nodded once and touched the pen to the paper. "Alright, then. Let's get something put together for you."
~~~
Caine walked out of his bedroom toward the living room, running both hands through his dreads and shaking the locs out so they fell across his shoulders and down his back. The apartment held the low hum of the refrigerator and the faint tick of the heater pushing warm air through the vents. A knock hit the front door, two quick strikes, and he crossed the room and looked through the peephole.Laney stood on the other side with paper bags from the grocery store in both hands, her weight shifted to one hip.
He pulled the door open and stepped back to give her room. She walked past him into the apartment, the bags rustling against her arms, her perfume cutting through the warmth of the apartment as she moved and headed straight for the kitchen.
"What's that?" Caine asked, closing the door behind her.
Laney set the bags down on the counter, the paper crinkling against the granite, and started pulling her jacket off, draping it over the back of a chair. "Tommy took the boys huntin'. Tryin' get a head start on deer season. They ain't gonna be back 'til Sunday so I decided I wanted to cook for you."
Caine leaned his shoulder against the wall where the kitchen met the living room and crossed his arms. "I do know how to cook for myself. Between being Black, Latino and from Louisiana, I think motherfuckers would drag me in the river if I ain't know how to do a little something."
Laney shrugged, already opening one of the bags and looking inside it. "That ain't got nothin' to do with me wantin' to do somethin' nice for you."
Caine walked over behind her, his bare feet crossing the kitchen tile, and wrapped his arms around her stomach, pulling her back against his chest. He rested his chin on her shoulder, looking down at the bags on the counter in front of them.
"You waited until the last couple months of this to start cooking for ya boy?" he asked.
Laney kept her hands in the bag, her fingers curling around a container she pulled halfway out before pushing it back in. "Yeah, 'cause I ain't want to get used to it. Start thinkin' that the domestic shit is somethin' more than it is."
"It is more than it is, Laney," Caine said, his arms tightening around her by a fraction. "We ain't been at this for almost two years and just on some fuck buddy shit."
Laney pulled a block of cream cheese from the bag and set it on the counter, then a package of chicken breasts, then a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, then parmesan, then garlic, then fresh basil in a plastic clamshell, lining each one up against the backsplash with the labels facing forward and even spacing between them. Caine's hand started to rise from her stomach, his fingers reaching toward the row to adjust the gap between the cream cheese and the chicken where it sat a half inch closer than the rest, but the alignment held and he put his hand back.
"You cooking and leaving or you gonna stay the night, too?" he asked.
"I'll need to go back before my mama go for her nightly cigarette so she sees my car there and then I'll come back here," Laney said, pulling a can of chicken broth from the second bag and setting it at the end of the row.
"All you Hadden women got vices, huh?" Caine said.
Laney snorted a laugh. "She thinks no one knows that she smokes. Been doin' that since I was two or three years old. Even my daddy know." She folded the empty first bag flat and set it to the side, then reached into the second one.
"I ain't gonna lie," Caine said, watching her hands move. "I'd smoke a lot too if I had to deal with Pastor Hadden all the time for 30, 40 years."
Laney shook her head, her hair brushing against his jaw. She pulled a stick of butter from the bag and set it next to the broth. "She chose it."
Caine pressed his mouth against the side of her neck once, quick, then lifted his chin back to her shoulder. "So, what you cooking?"
"Marry me chicken," Laney said.
Caine laughed, the sound vibrating through his chest and into her back, his arms pulling tighter around her for a second before loosening again. "So much for not getting used to this."
Laney smiled, her cheeks lifting enough that he could see it from where his chin rested. "You're gonna be the one used to it. Somethin' you can lay awake at night in bed and remember 'bout me." She tapped the back of his hand twice with her fingernails, a small punctuation to the sentence, and went back to sorting through what was left in the bag.
Caine shook his head and let his arms fall from around her, stepping back and turning toward the cabinet above the stove. He opened it and pulled out garlic powder, Italian seasoning, paprika, and salt, setting each one on the counter beside the stove in a row with equal distance between the containers, labels forward.
He grabbed a pan from the lower cabinet, a cast iron skillet heavy enough that the muscles in his forearm stood up when he lifted it one-handed, and set it on the burner with a solid ring against the grate. He walked back over to stand behind her again, his arms landing on either side of her on the counter, boxing her in, his chest close to her back, his hands flat on the surface.
"Alright," he said. "Let me help you."
Laney smiled, her hand coming up to rest on top of his for a second before she reached for the chicken. "Alright."
