Pastor James Sheridan gripped both sides of the pulpit and leaned forward. He was young for the position, mid-thirties at most, with a jawline that still held the sharpness of someone who hadn’t yet learned to soften himself for the congregation. His Bible sat open in front of him, pages marked with two colored tabs. He looked out over the rows and let the silence hold.
“The new year,” he said, and his voice carried clean to the back wall, “is not a gift. It’s a test.”
Behind him, Pastor Hadden sat in the high-backed chair reserved for the senior pastor. His legs were crossed at the ankle, hands folded over his Bible in his lap. He nodded once at the opening line, slow and measured.
“We stand here on the threshold of a brand new year and we tell ourselves we’re gonna do better,” Sheridan continued. He stepped to the side of the pulpit, one hand still resting on the wood. “We say we’re gonna pray more. Read more. Love our families more. We make promises to God on January the first that we wouldn’t dare make to our neighbors because we know our neighbors would hold us to them.”
A murmur passed through the pews and someone two rows back said amen.
“But God holds us to them too,” Sheridan said. He lifted his hand off the pulpit and pointed toward the ceiling, then brought it down, finger tracing an arc that ended at his own chest. “Every promise you make in this house, He writes it down. And He doesn’t forget. He doesn’t lose the receipt.”
A short laugh rippled through the room. Sheridan’s face held steady. He waited for it to pass, then stepped back behind the pulpit and rested both palms flat on the open Bible.
“Obedience,” he said. “That’s what He’s asking for. Not perfection. Not performance. Obedience. The willingness to hear His voice and follow it even when the world is loud and the flesh is louder.”
He turned a page, the sound of it small in the silence.
“Genesis tells us about the very first failure of obedience,” he said. “God gave Adam and Eve everything. Every tree in the garden. Every fruit, every green thing, every living creature under the sky. He said, ‘It’s yours.’ All of it. But He set one boundary. One tree. One rule. And what did Eve do?”
He paused, his eyes moving across the rows.
“She looked at what she couldn’t have,” he said, “and she decided that what God gave her wasn’t enough.”
Pastor Hadden nodded again behind him, deeper this time, chin dipping toward his chest.
“The serpent didn’t drag her to that tree,” Sheridan went on. “Didn’t carry her. Didn’t push her hand toward the fruit. He just asked one question. He said, ‘Did God really say you can’t eat from every tree in the garden?’ That’s all it took. One question. One seed of doubt planted in the soil of desire. And Eve reached.”
He closed the Bible with both hands pressed flat on the cover.
“We’re all reaching for something,” he said. “Every single day, the world puts fruit in front of us that looks good and tastes sweet and fills us up for about five minutes before it turns to ash. Worldly pleasures. The ones that feel like freedom but chain you tighter than anything the devil could forge. Money that costs you your integrity. Relationships that cost you your covenant. Comfort that costs you your calling.”
Tommy’s head turned. Just enough for his eyes to slide toward Laney.
Laney kept her gaze forward. Her hands sat in her lap, one folded over the other, the clutch pressed between her palms. She could feel him looking, but her eyes stayed on Sheridan’s hands, on his fingers pressed into the leather cover of the Bible, on the crease forming between his brows as he leaned into the next line.
“If you want this year to be different,” Sheridan said, “then you’ve got to commit. Not to a resolution. Not to a feeling. To obedience. To saying no when everything in your body is screaming yes. To walking past the tree and keeping your hands at your sides.”
Tommy turned back to the pulpit.
Two seats down, Rylee’s phone screen lit up in her lap. The glow caught the underside of her chin. Her thumb moved toward it, fingers curling around the case.
Laney reached over without looking. Her hand came down on top of the phone, palm flat against the screen, pressing it into Rylee’s thigh.
Rylee’s shoulders dropped. She leaned toward Laney, mouth close to her ear.
“My bad,” she whispered.
Laney pulled her hand back and folded it over the other one again. Her eyes held on the pulpit.
“God is not asking you to be strong,” Sheridan said. His voice had dropped, the edges of it softening for the close. “He’s asking you to be willing. Strength is His to give. Willingness is yours. And if you walk into this new year with nothing else, walk in with that.”
He bowed his head and the sanctuary followed, pews creaking under shifting weight. A child whispered and was gathered closer. The furnace kicked somewhere behind the walls, a low hum that settled under the silence.
“Lord, we thank You for another year,” Sheridan prayed. “We ask that You make us obedient. That You strip from us every desire that doesn’t serve Your purpose. That You give us the courage to leave the garden of worldly things and walk the narrow path You’ve set before us. In Jesus’ name.”
Amens came from every direction, overlapping, some loud, some barely there. Sheridan lifted his head. Pastor Hadden stood from his chair and stepped forward, placing one hand on Sheridan’s shoulder. He squeezed once, brief and firm, then released and moved to the edge of the platform.
“Thank y’all for being here this morning,” Pastor Hadden said. “Go in peace and have a blessed week.”
The congregation rose, coats rustling, hymnals placed back in their racks. Voices came up in clusters, greetings and plans and the ordinary sounds of people filing toward the doors. Cold air came through as the first ones pushed outside, carrying the smell of damp asphalt and pine.
…
Laney stood behind Tommy in the parking lot, one step back, hands holding her clutch in front of her. Her coat was buttoned to the collar.
Pastor Sheridan had followed them out and fallen into conversation with Tommy before they’d reached the second row of cars. Sheridan had his hands in his coat pockets, rocking on his heels, face loosened from the pulpit into something younger and easier.
“I’m telling you,” Tommy said, “if they don’t figure out that rotation, it’s gonna be the same story all over again. You can’t go into the season with two guys in the bullpen you don’t trust past the sixth inning.”
“Well, they picked up that left-hander from the Dodgers,” Sheridan said. “I think he’s got a decent slider. Could be the guy they slot in behind the starter.”
“Maybe,” Tommy said. “But you watch spring training and you’ll see. Half these guys fold once they’re in a different clubhouse.”
Laney’s eyes drifted past them. Rylee leaned against the side of her Jeep at the far end of the lot, one foot propped against the tire, phone in both hands, thumbs moving. Her hair caught the wind and whipped across her face.
Laney’s gaze moved. Jesse crossed the parking lot with a girl beside him. The girl laughed at something, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. Jesse opened the passenger door of her car and waited while she got in, one hand resting on the roof. He closed it behind her, walked around to the driver’s side, and got in. The engine turned over. Laney tracked them until the car pulled out of the lot and turned onto the road and was gone.
She shook her head once, small, the movement barely there.
“Delaney,” Pastor Sheridan said, turning toward her. His smile was wide and genuine. “What do you think about how the team’s looking headed into spring training? Your father was telling me that you used to play softball.”
Laney straightened and shifted the clutch to one hand and met his eyes.
“I think they need to be better battin’,” she said. “You ain’t—"
“She wasn’t very good,” Tommy said.
Laney’s eyes flicked to Tommy, held there for a beat, then moved back to Sheridan. The smile she put on was practiced and smooth, arriving on cue.
“I just hope they do alright,” she said. “It’s been too long since they won a World Series.”
Sheridan nodded, already turning back to Tommy. The conversation picked up where it had been, voices layering over each other about free agents and pitching depth and whether the front office had any idea what they were doing. Laney stood where she was and let the words pass through her.
Mrs. Biggs came across the lot. Her purse hung in the crook of her elbow. Her coat was pale blue, pressed sharp at the lapels. She walked straight to Laney and held both hands out, palms up, fingers open.
Laney put her hand out. Mrs. Biggs took it in both of hers, the grip warm, papery and firm.
“Child, bless your heart for agreein’ to go take care of Mr. Pete’s housecleanin’ now his wife’s gone to the old folks’ home,” Mrs. Biggs said. She squeezed Laney’s hand between hers. “You’re a godsend.”
Laney smiled. Her mouth moved into the shape of it, lips pressed together at the corners, chin lifting, but her eyes stayed flat.
“As long as the Lord give me strength,” Laney said, “he gonna use it to put me to work helpin’ people.”
Mrs. Biggs patted her hand once more, then released it and placed her own hand over her chest.
“You’re an inspiration to all the young women in this congregation,” she said. “I know your daddy is so proud of you.”
Laney dipped her chin.
“I ain’t nothin’ of the sort,” she said. “Just tryin’ to make it past St. Peter.”
~~~
Caine pulled the Lexus into the lot and cut the engine, then grabbed his phone off the center console and stepped out. He took the stairs two at a time, shoes hitting each step clean, and stopped in front of Mireya’s door.
He knocked twice, then leaned toward the frame.
“Mireya, soy yo!”
He heard her footsteps inside then the deadbolt turned and the door cracked open. Mireya’s face appeared in the gap, eyes moving past him toward the walkway and the parking lot below. She scanned once, twice, then pulled the door all the way open and stepped back.
She looked like she’d been asleep ten minutes ago. Her hair was up in a bun, loose strands falling around her face. She wore a tank top and panties, nothing else. She turned and walked toward the kitchen, one hand reaching up to press a loose piece of hair behind her ear.
“Why didn’t you bring Camila back with you when you came?” she asked over her shoulder.
Caine raised an eyebrow as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Why you making it sound like I’m a deadbeat baby daddy?”
Mireya looked over at him and snorted a laugh. She grabbed a coffee pod from the basket beside the machine and popped it into the Keurig. She pressed the button and the machine started its low hum, water heating inside the reservoir.
Caine walked into the kitchen and leaned his forearms on the island, weight settling forward. “Mi mama’s taking her to the aquarium and zoo. I wanted to spend some time with you before I left. Just the two of us.”
Mireya glanced at him, hand still resting on the counter near the machine. “Oh really?”
“Yeah, you know my flight’s the day after tomorrow.”
The Keurig sputtered and started its pour, coffee streaming thin and dark into the mug she’d set under the spout. Mireya kept her eyes on it.
“Yeah, I already told you congratulations,” she said. Her voice flattened. “It’s the same shit I told you two years ago, Caine. If you leave, there is no fucking us.”
Caine pushed off the island and walked over to her, stopping close enough that his arm brushed hers. He stood there, looking at the side of her face.
“It’s different this time,” he said.
Mireya turned to him and her chin came up. “Yeah, it’s different because you had the fucking choice to go anywhere in the country and you still didn’t choose being close to us.”
“I’m making an effort here, Mireya.”
She rolled her eyes and put her hand flat against his chest, shoving him to the side hard enough that he had to reset his footing. She reached past where he’d been standing, grabbed a mug from the cabinet, and set it under the Keurig to catch the last of the pour. She picked it up and brought it to her mouth, blowing once across the surface.
“The only reason you’re in my face is because you don’t have your guerita to go lay up under anymore,” she said.
Caine’s jaw shifted. “No, that ai”
Mireya slammed the mug down on the counter. Coffee jumped the rim and spilled across the laminate, a dark pool spreading toward the edge. She spun back toward him, her whole body turning with it, hands open at her sides.
“No, fuck you, Caine. Fuck you.” Her voice cracked at the top and came back harder. “Do you know what I’ve had to put myself through because you ran to fucking Georgia to play a fucking game? And now you’re fucking doing it again. Do you fucking know?!”
Caine kept his feet where they were, hands at his sides. “I know it’s been hard on you. I ain’t say it hasn’t been. I know.”
Mireya whipped her arm out to her side, fingers spread, the gesture taking in the apartment, the furniture, the TV on the wall, the kitchen around them. “Look the fuck around. How do you think I got all this shit?” Her voice pitched higher. “I’m a fucking stripper! I fuck random fucking men, suck their dicks, do whatever the fuck they want for money! Ain’t nothing that I won’t do for the right price.”
Caine’s eyebrows pulled together. His eyes stayed on her face. The muscles in his jaw worked once, then again, his mouth pressing closed while the words she’d thrown sat in the air between them.
Mireya laughed but there was nothing in it. Her eyes were wet, tears already running down her cheeks, cutting lines through the remnants of sleep still sitting under her lashes. She ran one hand through her hair, pulling the bun loose so it fell crooked against her neck.
“You’re fucking disgusted with me,” she said. “You don’t have to say shit. I can see it on your face.” She took a step closer to him. “You want to hit me, don’t you? Punch me down like the garbage fucking slut I am?”
Caine looked down thenis hand came up and pressed across his face, dragging from his forehead to his chin. He held it there for a second, palm over his mouth, then dropped it and looked back at her.
“You just telling me this shit?” he asked. His voice came out low. “It’s been two fucking years.”
Mireya screamed. “¡Porque es tu maldita culpa!” The Spanish ripped out of her chest and filled the kitchen. “You left me here to fend for my fucking self just like everyone else! You went looking for better! I had to do what I had to fucking do to survive.”
Caine turned to the counter. He put both hands flat on the laminate and leaned forward, shoulders rising, head dropping between his arms. His eyes closed.
Mireya snorted a laugh behind him, wet and jagged. She stepped closer. Her voice dropped but the edge in it stayed.
“It started when I got kicked out by mi mama. Started with fucking this dude I worked with at the concrete yard.” She moved another step. “Then I started stripping, showing my fucking pussy to anyone with a couple bills. Then the sucking. The fucking. Dozens of fucking men, Caine.”
Caine turned his head and looked at her. His knuckles had gone pale against the counter.
“¿Qué intentas hacer aquí, Mireya?”
She shoved him. Both hands against his chest, all her weight behind it. He stumbled sideways, shoulder catching the edge of the cabinet before he got his footing back. His hand gripped the counter to steady himself.
“You know, just a few weeks ago,” she said. Her eyes were red and swollen, tears still falling, her voice shaking now at the seams. “While you were playing fucking football, you know what I was doing?”
“Mireya, fucking stop.”
“While you were playing football, motherfucker, living it up, fucking white bitches,” her voice cracked and she pressed through it, “I was letting seven. Yeah, seven.” Her voice cracked. “Seven fucking men fuck the shit out of me. For hours, Caine. For hours.”
“You fucking lying.”
“I ain’t fucking shit. Fuck you. Fuck you!”
Caine took a deep breath. It expanded his chest and held there, his ribs pressing against his shirt. His lips pressed together until they went white at the edges.
Mireya wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing tears across her cheek. Her body was trembling, shoulders jerking with each breath, but she kept coming forward.
“Do it,” she said. “Women like me don’t deserve someone holding back. Beat my fucking ass, Caine.” She hit her own chest with the flat of her palm, the sound sharp in the kitchen. “I’m a worthless gutter ho. Just throw me a twenty after. Ain’t you supposed to be a hood dude? Huh? What would your boys do to me? I’d already be getting the piss beat out of me.” She stepped closer, her face inches from his. “Do it, Caine. Do it. Fucking do it, you pussy ass bitch!” Her voice broke on the last word, the scream tearing at the edges. “And then get the fuck out of my apartment!”
Caine pointed at her. His hand shook. His finger hung in the air between them, the tremor running from his knuckles through his wrist. He held it there for a moment. Then he shook his head, the motion small and tight.
“I need time,” he said. “You fucking foul for throwing this at me when I’m about to leave.”
Mireya crossed her arms over her chest, fingers gripping her own biceps, nails pressing into skin. “I’m just letting you know what I’m going to be doing when you’re going be a superstar. Because the only way I know how to survive is to use what I’m good for, my mouth, my pussy and my ass.”
Caine nodded once. A sound came out of him, half laugh, half breath, hollow and short. He turned on his foot and walked to the door. His hand closed around the knob and he yanked it open hard enough that the hinges groaned. He stepped through and slammed it behind him.
~~~
Caine pulled the Lexus to the curb and killed the engine on a narrow street, lined on both sides with shotgun houses set close together, porches sagging in places, chain-link fences marking property lines more by habit.
He sat with his hands on the wheel, his jaw tight. The muscles in his forearms were still wound from gripping the steering wheel on the drive over, knuckles aching where he’d squeezed without realizing it. He pressed his thumb into the center of his palm once, hard, then let go.
He pulled the keys out, pocketed his phone, and got out. The air was cold enough to bite through his hoodie. He walked up the short concrete path to the front steps, took them in two strides, and knocked on the door.
A moment passed then a curtain moved in the window beside the door, a hand pulling it back just enough. The deadbolt turned and the door cracked open. A woman’s face appeared, eyes narrowing, then going wide.
“Caine?” She pulled the door the rest of the way open, one hand still on the frame. “Baby, I ain’t know you were back in the city.”
“Hey, Ms. Hattie.” He let his face soften, the set of his jaw loosening into something close to a smile. “I just got back last week, been spending time with my people before I leave again.”
Ms. Hattie stepped back from the door and waved him in with a quick motion. “C’mon before you catch a cold.”
Caine stepped inside. The house was warm, the heat cranked high enough to push against his skin the moment he crossed the threshold. The front room was small, carpet worn to paths, a couch and an armchair arranged around a TV that sat on a low stand. Family pictures hung in a cluster on the wall above the couch, frames mismatched, some crooked. The smell of something sweet and sugary sat faint in the air, underneath the heavier scent of Pine-Sol.
His eyes went to the end table beside the couch. A framed picture sat there, two boys standing shoulder to shoulder on a porch that could have been this one. Dre on the left, younger. Deshawn on the right, taller, arm thrown around his brother’s neck.
Caine looked at it for a beat too long, then pulled his eyes away.
“Where Deshawn at?” he asked.
Ms. Hattie waved her hand as she moved toward the armchair. “Some white girl house. C’mon sit.”
Caine walked around the couch and lowered himself onto it. The cushion sank deep under his weight, the springs worn down to their limits. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands folded between them.
Ms. Hattie settled into the armchair across from him, a blanket folded over one arm of it. She pulled her cardigan closed at the front and looked at him with attention sharpened by years of reading faces for trouble.
“You been getting that money I been sending you, right?” Caine asked.
Ms. Hattie nodded, her hand pressing flat against her chest. “Yes, and you don’t know how much I appreciate it. Having Dre in there, times been hard.”
Caine nodded. “I know. My mama still look at me like she can’t believe I’m outside.”
“You still on probation?” Ms. Hattie asked.
“Yeah, they let me come back to the city because I’m about to transfer schools. Gotta either be back in Georgia next week or decide where I’m going.”
Ms. Hattie’s face brightened. She leaned forward in her chair. “Oh, I been watching you on TV. I tell everyone I remember when you were 11, 12 and would always be walking around with that football.”
Caine laughed. The sound came out easy, loose in his chest for a second before it settled. “That football Dre tried to steal from me.”
Ms. Hattie nodded, a smile spreading across her face. “Mmhm. That’s the one.”
Caine’s smile held for another moment, then he reached into the front pocket of his hoodie. His fingers found the envelope folded there and he pulled it out, the paper slightly bent from sitting against his body. He held it out to her.
“I want you to have this. Put some of it on Dre’s books then do whatever else you want to do with what’s left.”
Ms. Hattie took the envelope from him. She turned it over once, then lifted the flap and looked inside. Her lips parted then she looked up at him, shaking her head.
“I can’t take this much money from you.”
“Yes, you can,” Caine said. His voice stayed even. “I wouldn’t have it if Dre ain’t do what he did to get me out.”
Ms. Hattie pressed the envelope against her lap with both hands. “You done already repaid that.”
Caine shook his head, the motion slow and definite. “Nah. I haven’t. It’s the least I can do for you.”
Ms. Hattie looked down at the envelope in her lap, one thumb running along the crease where he’d folded it. She looked back up at him, eyes glassy, and nodded once.
“Alright, baby. I’ll go tomorrow and put some on Dre’s books.”
“Thank you,” Caine said.
He sat back into the couch, his shoulders loosening against the cushion. His eyes moved around the room, taking in the same walls, the same pictures, the same lamp with the crooked shade. Then a smile crept across his face.
“You made some pecan candy lately?”
Ms. Hattie pushed up from her chair, hands bracing against the armrests, her face shifting into something warm and certain. “The good Lord himself must’ve put it on my heart that you’d show up because I made some yesterday.”
Caine stood and let her walk the short distance to the kitchen in front of him. He rubbed his hands together, palms sliding slow and deliberate, the gesture broad enough that she’d hear it behind her.
~~~
The bass pushed through the speakers and fell flat against empty floor. Six men sat scattered across the room, none of them close enough to each other to be called a crowd. Two at the rail, three in booths along the far wall, one at the bar with his back turned to the stage. The lights cycled through their reds and blues and purples regardless, painting shadows across chairs nobody was sitting in.
Mireya moved on stage, hooking one hand around the pole and let her weight swing out, hips catching the beat, hair falling forward across her face. The music was too loud for how few people were in the room, the DJ running his set as though the walls were lined shoulder to shoulder. She dropped low, knees opening, back arching, and looked out across the floor through the colored light.
One of the men at the rail reached into his pocket and pulled out a few bills. He leaned forward and tossed them onto the stage. They landed spread apart, a five and two ones, fanning across the surface near her knee. Mireya rolled toward him, closing the distance on her knees, and let her body work the last bars of the song in front of him, close enough that he could smell the oil on her skin and have his fill of seeing her body. She gave him a nod and something close to a smile, then shifted back to the center.
The other man at the rail held a single bill between two fingers, watching her with the slow attention of someone who’d been nursing the same drink for an hour. He placed it on the stage without tossing it, pressing it flat with his thumb. Mireya moved to him, hips rolling through a transition, and he sat back in his seat, satisfied with what the dollar bought him.
The DJ let the beat tail off into a transition as the song, the next track building under it. Mireya straightened and looked down at the stage. Bills sat scattered in a thin constellation, ones mostly, a couple fives, the spread so meager she could see the black surface of the stage between them. She crouched and swept them together with one hand, stacking them against her palm, rolling the bills into a single tube that fit between her fingers.
She stood, tucked the roll against her hip, and grabbed her robe from where it hung on the speaker cabinet. She pulled it over her shoulders without tying it and stepped down from the stage.
Mireya dropped into the chair at her station in the dressing room and set the rolled bills on the counter in front of her. The tube sat small and thin against the clutter of makeup containers and hair ties. She leaned back, ran both hands through her hair, pulling it off her face, and blew out a breath that emptied her chest.
Across the room, C.J. was bent over the vanity counter, one nostril pressed down, a short straw pinched between her fingers. The line disappeared in a quick, practiced pull. C.J. straightened and sniffed hard, rubbing the bridge of her nose with the back of her hand. She caught Mireya’s eyes in the mirror for a second, then looked away.
Mireya pushed back to her feet and walked out of the dressing room, back down the short hallway to the floor.
The room looked the same as when she’d left it. Maren had taken the stage, moving through a slow routine, her body cutting shapes under the light while the handful of men watched or pretended to. Diego dried a glass with a rag and set it on the rack behind him.
Mireya scanned the floor. Her eyes found the man who’d thrown the most, the one at the rail with the five and the ones. He was still sitting in the same seat, drink low in the glass, his posture loose but attentive. He was watching Maren but his hands were in his lap, not reaching for bills.
She walked over to him. She leaned down, one hand bracing on the arm of his chair, her face close enough to his that he could hear her over the music.
“You want a private, papi?”
The man turned to look at her. His eyebrows lifted, mouth opening slightly before he caught it. He blinked twice, as though.
He tapped the small stack of money sitting on the edge of the stage rail in front of him, the bills he’d set aside and kept separate from what he’d already thrown. “I ain’t really got private dance money, baby.”
Mireya nodded toward the stack. “How much you got?”
He picked the money up and spread it between his hands, fanning the bills out, counting with his eyes. Mireya’s gaze dropped to his fingers. She read the bills as he moved through them. A couple twenties. Some tens. A few fives crumpled at the edges. A couple hundred dollars at best.
“That’s enough, baby,” she said.
The man’s eyebrow lifted higher. He looked from the money to her face, searching for the catch.
Mireya reached over and put her hand on top of the bills, her fingers pressing down against his. “A new year’s gift.”
He held the look for another beat, then shrugged, letting the tension in his shoulders release. He opened his hand and let her take the money from him.
She reached down with her other hand and wrapped her fingers around his, pulling gently until he started to rise from the chair.
“Follow me, papi.”
~~~
Mireya pulled into the lot at Sara’s complex and killed the headlights. Her hair was still damp at the roots from the shower, skin raw from scrubbing, and she could still feel the ghost of the robe’s silk lining against her shoulders even though she’d traded it for a hoodie and leggings an hour ago.
She saw him before she got out. Caine stood against the wall beside Sara’s front door, hands in the pocket of his hoodie, weight on one shoulder, watching her car.
Mireya let her head fall back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Her breath left her long and slow through her nose. She sat there for three seconds, then opened the door and got out.
She walked toward the apartment. Caine pushed off the wall and stepped in front of her, blocking the path to the door. He pointed over her shoulder toward the Lexus parked at the end of the row.
“Let’s go.”
“I’m fucking tired, Caine.” Her voice came out flat. “If you’re going to do something, do it tomorrow.”
He nodded toward the SUV again. “Get in the fucking car, Mireya.”
“I just want to get Camila and go home to go to”
“¡Entra ya al maldito auto, Mireya!”
His voice hit the walls of the building and came back. Mireya stared at him, his face giving her nothing, his hands still in his hoodie. He stood between her and the door and waited.
She turned and walked to the Lexus.
Caine followed behind her. He reached past her and opened the passenger door. She looked at him. He kept his eyes on the far side of the parking lot. She got in. He slammed the door behind her hard enough to rock the frame.
He walked around to the driver’s side and got in, jammed his thumb against the start and the engine turned over. Before he put it in drive, he reached under his hoodie and pulled out a pistol, setting it on the center console between them. The metal landed with a dull sound against the plastic.
Mireya looked down at it. The grip was dark, the barrel short.
“What you gonna do with that?” she asked. “Fucking shoot me?”
Caine put the Lexus in drive.
“Shut the fuck up, Mireya.”
She stared at him as he pulled out of the complex. He kept his eyes on the road. She kept hers on the side of his face. Then she looked forward and let the city move past.
…
The highway in St. Bernard Parish ran straight and dark, no streetlights, no houses, just the black line of asphalt cutting between flat stretches of marsh grass that swayed when the wind came off the water. The headlights carved a tunnel through it and everything beyond was nothing.
Mireya sat with her arms crossed over her chest, head leaned back against the headrest, eyes half open. Caine’s left hand rested on the wheel. His right hand sat on his thigh, fingers within reach of the pistol.
Neither of them had spoken since they left the complex.
Caine turned off the highway onto a gravel road. The tires popped and crunched as the Lexus dropped onto the rougher surface, the suspension rocking once before settling. The headlights lit up a corridor of scrub trees leaning in from both sides, Spanish moss hanging low enough to brush the roof.
Mireya looked down at the pistol on the console. Then back up at him.
“That’s right,” she said. Her voice was steady, stripped clean. “I definitely ain’t fit to be a mother. Camila’s better off without me. Ain’t no one even gonna come looking for my body.”
Caine drove further down the gravel road. The trees thickened and the marsh smell came through the vents, brackish and heavy, salt and rot and wet earth. He pulled to a stop and put the car in park. He grabbed the pistol off the console, opened his door, and got out.
He walked around to the back and opened the trunk. Mireya watched him through the rearview mirror, the trunk light casting his face in a pale glow. He lifted out a medium-sized box and closed the trunk with his elbow. He waved for her to get out with the gun.
She opened her door and stepped onto the gravel. The air hit cold and damp, cutting straight through fabric. Frogs pulsed somewhere in the dark, a steady throb that filled the silence the engine had left behind. She walked around to the side of the Lexus and stopped a few feet from it, arms at her sides.
Caine dropped the box on the gravel in front of her. It landed heavy, something inside it shifting.
“You never used to ask me a lot about the shit I did,” he said. “All the dirt. Not even when I showed up at tu mama apartment all bloody with a gun and told you to drive out here to throw it in the bayou.”
He knelt and opened the box. Inside, plates sat stacked, the cheap white ceramic kind. He looked up at her.
“I been afraid my whole life, scared of not knowing what comes next. Scared to not be in control. Scared to be powerless.” His hands rested on his knees, the pistol held loose in his right. “It’s fucked up to say but the only time I ain’t never felt powerless,” he lifted the pistol and turned it over, studying it in the weak light spilling from the Lexus, “is when I was on the right side of one of these and a motherfucker couldn’t take that control from me.”
He stood, reached into the box, and pulled out a plate. He carried it to a tree ten yards out, bark dark and split, and set the plate upright against the trunk where a root met the ground. He walked back and held the gun out to her, resting on his palm.
“You ain’t never gonna feel like you ain’t in control of your life if you can take the motherfucker’s that is trying to take that control.”
Mireya looked at the gun, then up at his face. Her brow pulled together. Caine stood there with his arm extended, the pistol between them, and waited.
She took it, the weight settling into her palm, heavier than she remembered from the last time she’d held one in a swamp, a different gun, a different night, standing at a seawall in the dark.
Caine stepped back. “Just aim, pull the hammer back and pull the trigger. Ain’t no safety on that.”
Mireya raised the gun. Her arms extended, elbows locked, fingers wrapped around the grip. She looked back at him over her shoulder, face unsure. Caine stood with his hands in his hoodie.
She pulled the trigger. The gun cracked and kicked up in her hands, the sound tearing through the marsh, scattering something in the trees above. Her body jumped. The plate sat untouched against the tree.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” Caine said. “You know it’s coming. It’s only gonna make that sound if you make it. Get that out your system. If a motherfucker coming at you, you can’t be scared to bust back because the gun loud.”
She pulled the trigger again. Her body jumped but less, the flinch shorter, her grip adjusting. The shot went wide and punched into the tree trunk, bark spraying. She fired twice more, the reports rolling out across the flat water behind them, echoing off nothing and fading. Both missed. The plate still sat there, white and whole against the dark bark.
Mireya stared at the back of the gun in her hand. Her arms were shaking from the recoil and the cold and something else that ran deeper than both. She raised it again and kept firing. One shot, two, three, the sound piling up, brass casings pinging off the gravel around her feet, until the gun clicked empty and her finger kept pulling on nothing. A chip was missing from the edge of the plate, a crescent bitten out of the ceramic where one round had grazed it.
Caine walked over and took the gun from her. He held it out in front of them, turned it so she could see the side, and pressed his thumb against a small button near the grip.
“This is the mag release. Push it.”
She pressed it. The magazine dropped free and hit the gravel.
Caine reached into his pocket and held up a second magazine, loaded, the brass visible at the top.
“Push this in until it seats. Cock it.”
She took the magazine and slid it into the grip. It clicked. Caine racked the slide, the action snapping forward, and held the gun back out to her.
She took it.
“You said that this gives me power back from people taking control of my life from me,” she said.
“Yeah.”
Mireya turned toward him and brought the gun up under his chin. The muzzle pressed into the soft skin below his jaw, pushing his head back a fraction. Caine looked down at her along the barrel, eyes steady.
“So, I should fucking shoot you right now.”
“You should,” Caine said. His voice came low and even. “I dragged you down with me and then walked away and left you with the consequences of that. Did it twice, when I went to jail and when I went to Georgia. Sorry ain’t gonna make that better, though. And you got every right to be angry.”
Mireya stared at him. Her finger rested on the trigger. The frogs had gone silent around them, the marsh holding its breath, nothing moving except the slight tremor that started in her wrist and traveled up through her forearm into her shoulder. Her hand shook. Her face crumbled from the jaw up, mouth pulling, chin collapsing, eyes filling until the tears spilled over and ran.
Caine reached up and wrapped his hand around the barrel. He moved it to the side, slow, and took the gun from her grip. She let it go.
Her fist came back and she punched him. It caught him on the jaw, turning his head to the side, dreads swinging with the motion. He took it then turned back to face her.
She grabbed the front of his hoodie with both hands and pulled him down. Her mouth found his. The kiss was hard, graceless, tasting of tears and cold air. His hands went to her waist, then lower, fingers hooking into the waistband of her leggings, pulling them down over her hips.
“No.” She shoved him back, both palms flat against his chest. “Lay down.”
Caine pulled his hoodie over his head, folded it once, and tossed it down on the gravel. He lowered himself onto it, shoulders settling against the ground, then reached for his belt and unbuckled it, unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans.
Mireya pushed her leggings down, kicked off one shoe, and pulled the fabric free from one leg. She straddled him, gravel biting into her knees through the cold, and reached between them, guiding him. She lowered herself and her breath caught once before it steadied.
She leaned down until her mouth hovered just above his, their breath mixing in the cold air between them, the marsh and the dark and the car’s ticking engine and the absent frogs all pressing in.
“Somos malditos criminales.”
Then she pressed her lips to his.
