Sara walked through the front door and stopped two steps inside, her eyes adjusting from the morning glare. The foyer opened into a hallway that ran straight to the back of the house, the floors a dark hardwood that caught the light coming through windows she couldn't see yet. The air held paint and cleaning solution, something chemical underneath that told her the place had been staged recently.
Ashley came in behind her, pulling the front door shut with both hands until it seated in the frame. Her heels found the hardwood and clicked once before she shifted her weight forward onto her toes, quieting herself, already reading Sara's posture for whatever it might tell her about which direction the conversation would go.
"So, this one's been on the market for about three months, but it's priced to move in my opinion," Ashley said.
Sara turned left into the kitchen, her fingers finding the edge of the countertop as she entered. Marble. Cool under her palm, the surface polished smooth enough that her skin slid across it without catching. She pressed down and dragged her hand along the length of it, feeling the weight of the stone underneath. The cabinets above were a dark blue, the hardware brushed silver, and the appliances filled every bay in stainless steel that still had the manufacturer's stickers on the inside of the doors.
"It's all marble and stainless steel in there," Ashley said from the doorway, her voice carrying the rehearsed brightness of someone who'd said the same words in different kitchens to different people all month. "All new appliances that the previous owners just put in last year. The roof is new, too."
Sara nodded. She opened a cabinet, looked inside, closed it. Ran her thumb along the grout line where the backsplash met the counter. "Looks nice."
She moved through the kitchen and into the den. The ceilings ran higher here than the front of the house had suggested from outside, the space opening up wide on both sides. A set of French doors filled the far wall, the glass panes catching the yard beyond them in a wash of green and gray. Sara crossed to them, turned the deadbolt, and pulled both doors open. The hinges moved without resistance and the morning came through in a rush of cool air and the smell of cut grass and chlorine.
The wood deck started at the threshold and extended out into the yard, the planks weathered to a pale gray but still solid underfoot. She stepped onto them and felt the boards hold firm beneath her weight. The deck ran maybe fifteen feet before it ended at the edge of an in-ground pool, the water sitting still and blue-green, the surface catching the sky in a flat mirror that held the clouds upside down. A wrought iron fence ran between the deck and the pool, about four feet tall, the bars close.
Ashley stepped onto the deck behind her, staying back near the doors. "The backyard is my absolute favorite thing about this house. It's a true backyard oasis."
Sara had already crossed to the fence. She wrapped her fingers around one of the bars, testing it, pulling it toward her and then pushing it back. The iron held. She ran her other hand along the top rail, feeling where the welds connected each vertical bar to the horizontal frame.
"I like this," Sara said. "My son has a little one. Wouldn't want her jumping in the pool without anyone knowing."
"Absolutely not," Ashley said.
Sara kept her hand on the fence. She looked back at the pool, then out past it to where the yard extended into a row of crepe myrtles along the back property line, their branches bare and thin against the gray sky. She could see Camila out here. Running the fence line, collecting things off the ground, filling her pockets with whatever she found interesting.
She let go of the fence and turned back toward the house.
Ashley stood near the French doors with her hands clasped in front of her, a folder pressed between her palms and her stomach. She shifted her weight onto her heels, then rocked forward onto her toes, the motion small and repetitive. Her eyes tracked Sara's face, then moved to Sara's hands, then back to her face.
"So," Ashley said, "do you want to keep looking at this one or would you like something a little more manageable?"
Sara turned around. Her chin came up and her shoulders drew back\. "What do you mean by that?"
Ashley's hands came up, shaking them once. "Oh, I didn't mean anything by it. This is just a lot of house."
Sara held the look. She let the silence sit for a beat, her jaw set, her weight planted on both feet. The sprinkler system clicked on somewhere in the neighbor's yard, the sound carrying over the fence in a rhythmic pulse. Sara's eyes stayed on Ashley's face, reading whatever was there, and Ashley's smile thinned at the edges.
"I know how much it is," Sara said. "And I know my son can afford it."
Ashley started to speak. "Oh, I didn't—"
Sara cut her off. "Yes, you did." Her voice stayed level, flat and clear. "That's fine. He'll be buying two homes. Investing, you know? That's a lot of commission to miss out on, Ashley."
Ashley nodded. The folder came back against her stomach and her fingers tightened on its edges. "It is. My apologies."
Sara pointed back toward the house with her whole hand, her arm extending past Ashley toward the interior. "Do you want to show me the upstairs?"
Ashley held her arm out toward the French doors, her body angling to create a path. "Absolutely. After you."
~~~
Caine's shoes hit the sand where the tide had packed it flat and dark, each stride landing solid before the next one lifted. The morning hung gray over the water, fog low enough that the horizon dissolved into it and the ocean and sky became the same thing.
He kept his pace steady. The beach stretched ahead of him in a long curve, the sand giving way to a bike path farther up where joggers and dog walkers moved in both directions. A lifeguard tower marked the sand to his right, dark and unmanned, the wood bleached pale, the number on its side faded.
Two women stood in his path with a phone mounted on a tripod between them, their bodies angled toward the camera, arms moving through a choreographed sequence that involved pointing at something offscreen and then back at each other. One of them mouthed words to a track he could hear bleeding out of a speaker set in the sand behind the tripod. The other followed half a beat late, her timing off, resetting her position with a laugh and a shake of her head before they started again.
Caine cut right, his shoes carving a shallow arc in the packed sand as he went around them. The woman closest to him glanced up and opened her mouth to say something but he was already past, his stride lengthening as the beach opened up again. He shook his head, his chin dipping once on the exhale.
The Pacific rolled and pulled to his left, each wave folding over itself and spreading thin across the sand before drawing back. Gulls worked the surf line in short bursts, lifting and dropping, their calls cutting through the steady wash of the waves. His eyes went out to the ocean, the expanse of it opening wider as the fog shifted and parted in places, showing the dark water underneath.
The smell rolled over him in a steady wave, salt and kelp and something mineral underneath, cold and clean. He breathed it in and let it sit in his lungs for a beat before pushing it back out.
He slowed at a stretch where the sand flattened out into a wide shelf above the waterline. His breathing came deep and even, his lungs pulling the salt air in and pushing it back out in rhythm with the deceleration of his legs. He stopped and turned toward the water, planting his feet, his hands finding his hips. The ocean filled his field of vision from edge to edge, the gray of it running unbroken until the fog swallowed it.
He stood there, chest rising and falling, sweat cooling on the back of his neck
His hand went to the pocket of his shorts. He pulled his phone out and thumbed the screen awake, the display lighting up against his palm. Notifications crowded the lock screen, texts stacked on top of each other, names he was still learning, numbers he had saved over the last two weeks. He swiped past all of them and opened his messages, scrolling down through the threads. The newer ones filled the top of the screen, thick with exchanges, timestamps from the last few hours. He kept scrolling. The threads thinned as he went further, the gaps between messages widening, the names becoming older.
Laney's name appeared near the bottom, buried under the flood of new conversations that had piled in since he arrived. The last message in the thread was his own, sent weeks ago, just a heart emoji reaction on it.
His thumb hovered over the text field. He tapped it and the keyboard rose. He typed and sent.
You good?
The message left his screen and a red circle appeared beside it, a small exclamation mark at its center. Undelivered. He tapped retry. The circle spun once and then reappeared, the same mark, the same result.
Caine looked at the screen. His jaw shifted once, the muscle at the hinge tightening and releasing. He shook his head. His thumb pressed against the thread and held it until the option appeared. He tapped delete and the conversation folded away, Laney's name disappearing from the list, the screen adjusting around the gap. The newer messages dropped to fill the space.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and looked out at the water. The fog had thinned enough that he could make out the faint shape of a container ship on the horizon, its hull a dark line against the gray. A wave broke closer than the others and sent foam sliding up the sand toward his shoes. It stopped a few inches short and pulled back.
He stood there for another moment, his weight settled, his breathing even. Then he turned from the ocean and started running again. His first few strides were short, his body rebuilding its rhythm, and then his pace evened out and the sand started passing under him in a steady beat.
Three people stood clustered ahead around a ring light planted in the sand, one of them holding a phone at arm's length while the other two posed with their backs to the water. Caine adjusted his line and went around them, his shoulder passing close enough to the ring light's tripod that the glow caught his arm for a second before he cleared it and kept going.
~~~
Mireya shifted on the couch and settled deeper into the cushions, one arm folded behind her head, her phone resting face down on her stomach. The AirBnB smelled like coffee and the coconut lotion someone had left open on the bathroom counter, the two mixing into something too sweet that hung in the air and clung to the upholstery. Morning light pressed through the sliding glass door across the room, a flat white glare off the Gulf that washed the color out of everything it touched.
Alejandra lay draped across an armchair with one leg hooked over the arm and the other tucked beneath her, her body arranged in a position that should have been uncomfortable but carried the ease of someone who could fall asleep anywhere. She had her phone propped on her chest, scrolling with one thumb, her other hand dangling off the side of the chair.
Liana stood at the bar in the corner of the room with her back to them, pulling bottles from the shelf and reading labels. Glass clinked against glass. She poured vodka into a tumbler and then reached for a carton of juice, tilting it at an angle to control the pour, her wrist turning slow.
From the back of the house, a hair dryer whined through a closed door. Jaslene's laugh carried over it, muffled but sharp enough to cut through the wall, followed by Hayley's voice saying something that got swallowed before it reached the living room.
Alejandra looked up from her phone and turned her head toward Mireya. "Mexicana, didn't you say this guy said he played for the Saints?"
Mireya nodded, her chin dipping once against the arm beneath her head. "That's what he said."
Liana looked back over her shoulder, the tumbler in one hand, the juice carton still in the other. "Play is doing a lot of work in that sentence. I looked him up. He's barely on the team."
Alejandra laughed, her body shifting in the chair. "Pinche liar."
Mireya shrugged, the motion rolling through her shoulders and settling. "As long as he's got more money than what he sent us to get us here, I don't give a fuck if he's a cheerleader. He's clearly trying to show off for his homeboys."
Liana turned around and leaned her lower back against the bar's edge, crossing one ankle over the other. She brought the drink to her mouth, took a sip, and lowered it to her side. "Ghetto rich niggas. Always trying to trick on a bitch to show they got the money to do it."
Alejandra tipped her head back against the chair, her phone dropping to her chest. "I don't got no problem holding my hand out while they're doing that then."
Mireya held her hand up, her index finger pressing against her thumb in a quick double tap. "Say that."
The hair dryer cut off in the back. A door opened and footsteps came down the hallway, two sets, one heavier than the other. Jaslene and Hayley walked into the living room, Jaslene still adjusting an earring as she came through the doorway, her other hand pushing a section of hair behind her shoulder. Hayley followed a step behind, her fingers working the clasp on a bracelet, her mouth pulled into the tail end of whatever had made them laugh.
Liana lifted her chin toward the hallway. "Where's Bee?"
Hayley glanced up from her bracelet. "Shaving again."
Jaslene sucked her teeth. "I keep telling her to just get her pussy waxed like everyone else."
Hayley's mouth pressed flat, holding back a grin. "Y'all know she's traumatized from that one time."
Alejandra swung her dangling leg once, her foot catching the air. "Everyone's almost had a lip taken off before. Risks of the job. Just get the other one taken off so you can have an innie."
They all broke at the same time. Jaslene's laugh came first, her head tipping to the side, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. Hayley's followed, her shoulders shaking as the bracelet finally caught and she let her hands drop. Alejandra grinned from the chair, pleased with herself, and Liana shook her head at the bar, the drink rising to her lips again as her chest moved with the laugh she was trying to swallow. Mireya's mouth pulled wide, the smile sitting easy on her face, her phone sliding an inch on her stomach as her body shook with it.
~~~
Autumn pulled into the driveway and put the car in park, the engine idling for a second before she turned the key and killed it. She grabbed her phone from the center console and dropped it into her bag, then pushed the door open and stepped out. The afternoon pressed warm against her skin, the sun sitting high enough that the shadows from the hedges along the property line barely reached the concrete.
She walked to the trunk and popped it. Two bags from HYPEACH leaned against each other inside, the tissue paper peeking over the tops where the sales associate had folded everything in. She hooked the handles over her forearm and lifted them out, swiped her foot under the car to get the trunk to close, and started up the sidewalk toward the front door.
Her keys were already in her hand. She found the deadbolt key by feel, slid it in, turned it, and pushed the door open. She stepped through and pulled the door shut behind her.
Her father's voice reached her before she made it past the foyer. Deep, carrying through the house from the backyard, each word landing with the weight it always did. Another voice mixed with his, younger, measured, trying to match the cadence without earning it. Autumn's eyes rolled upward and she exhaled through her nose.
She walked through the living room and into the kitchen, past the island where her mother's reading glasses rested on a folded newspaper and crossed to the back door. She pushed it open and stepped onto the deck.
Garrison turned at the sound. His suit was charcoal, the jacket buttoned, the lines falling clean along his shoulders and through the waist. He’d left the top button of his shirt undone as he always did. The creases in his slacks held sharp. He looked at Autumn and the smile came easy, the expression opening his face in a way that softened the angles the suit sharpened.
"Hey, baby. I thought you'd be out all day."
Autumn raised the arm with the bags hanging from it, the handles pulling against her forearm, the tissue paper rustling. "I just went buy some stuff I'd been looking at. Nothing too serious."
She looked past her father to the young man standing behind him. Miles wore a navy suit, his hands clasped in front of him, his weight settled back on one heel. Autumn nodded at him.
"Miles."
Miles smiled, the expression arriving quick. "Autumn."
Garrison walked over and pulled her into a hug, one arm wrapping around her shoulders, the bags pressing between them. He kissed her on the forehead, his lips warm against her skin, and stepped back with his hand still on her shoulder.
"Don't tell your mama that you're spending up all that money. You know she don't like us putting on airs."
Autumn smiled, her weight settling onto one hip. "I'll just put it on you."
Garrison's hand left her shoulder and went to the bottom of one of the bags, lifting it enough to see the logo printed on the side. He turned the bag, reading it, his eyebrows pulling together.
"I don't think she'll believe I went to HYPEACH."
A phone rang from inside his breast pocket, the tone sharp and clipped against the fabric. Garrison released the bag and reached inside his jacket, pulling the phone out and tilting the screen toward himself. His expression shifted, the softness folding away as his jaw set.
"Shit, it's Isaac. I gotta get this, baby. We'll talk in a bit."
Autumn nodded, the smile holding. "Okay, daddy."
Garrison turned and walked toward the back door, his free hand already rising to his ear as he brought the phone up. His voice dropped into a different register before he crossed the threshold, the words clipping shorter, the pace picking up. The door closed behind him and his voice carried through a small gap, muffled but still present, filling whatever room he had walked into.
Miles stepped over to Autumn, closing the distance Garrison had left between them, his hands sliding into his pockets.
Autumn shifted the bags on her arm. "Shouldn't you be following him around while he's on the phone?"
Miles shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping. "Not for Isaac." His eyes moved over her, a slow pass that started at her face and traveled down before coming back up. "You looking good."
Autumn rolled her eyes, her chin lifting. "As if I ever looked bad."
Miles held his hands up. "I know. That's why I was trying to wife you up."
Autumn's head tilted, one eyebrow rising. "And like I said then, the fuck we look like? The Black Clintons?"
Miles dropped his hands and let the smile settle. "They didn't do too bad for themselves."
Autumn's mouth flattened, her eyes steady on his face. "If you want some fat white bitch under your desk sucking your dick, you don't need me around to make that happen for yourself."
Miles laughed, his head tipping back once before he caught himself. "I wouldn't jeopardize Black excellence like that."
Garrison's voice boomed from inside the house, the words cutting through the glass door and the walls. "Miles, get Tariq and Michelle on the phone. We need to meet. Tell them it's about AB-681."
Autumn's eyes cut toward the house and then back to Miles. "See, you should've been following him around."
Miles smiled, his hand already reaching inside his suit jacket for his phone. "I'll see you around, Autumn."
Autumn shook her head as he turned and walked toward the far side of the pool, his phone in his hand, his fingers already moving across the screen.
~~~
Mireya shifted on the cushioned bench along the stern and recrossed her legs, one arm resting on the rail behind her. The yacht rocked in a slow, even rhythm that she felt in her hips and her lower back each time the hull rolled over a swell. Sun hit the water off the port side and threw light across the deck in shifting patches that moved with the current. The breeze coming off the Gulf carried salt and diesel and the faint sweetness of whatever cologne Marquis had put on before they boarded.
Marquis had his arm across the back of the bench behind her, his body angled into hers, his knee pressing against her thigh. His other hand rested on her stomach, his fingers spread wide across the bare skin between the bottom of her top and the waistband of her bikini bottoms. His palm was warm and damp from the heat, his thumb tracing a lazy circle just above her navel. His breath landed heavy on the side of her neck each time he leaned in to talk, the alcohol coming off him in waves, rum and something sweet underneath.
Across the deck, the rest of the group had spread out. Alejandra passed a bottle with two of Marquis' boys near the bow. Jaslene talked to a man in a fitted cap on the edge of a cooler. Hayley's laugh carried from the helm. Bianca leaned against the cabin wall, Liana at the far rail with a drink in her hand, men gathered around all of them.
"I could tell you was a real one as soon as I saw you in that club," Marquis said. His hand pressed flat against her stomach, fingers spreading wider.
Mireya laughed, her body turning toward him just enough that his hand slid an inch lower. "What do you mean, papi?"
Marquis' chin lifted. "A lot of chicks even chicks like y'all, wouldn't be comfortable around a bunch of niggas." He looked over his shoulder at Bianca, holding the look for a second, then shifting to Liana at the rail. He nodded at both of them. "Maybe them too." His hand came up off Mireya's stomach and he pointed across the deck at Hayley, his finger extending toward the helm. "And y'all token white friend." His hand came back to Mireya, settling on the inside of her thigh this time. "But not chicks like you."
Mireya shook her head, her lips pulling into a smile. "Y'all are conejitos compared to the men I typically hang around, baby."
Marquis' eyebrows went up. His smile spread, his teeth showing, his eyes dropping to her mouth before coming back up. "And when you speak that Spanish? Girl, I don't know what the fuck you're saying but that shit get me hard quick."
Mireya's smile held. She tilted her head, her eyes moving over his face in a slow pass before she spoke. "Ojalá eso sea lo único que te haga ir rápido."
Marquis shook his head, his eyes roaming over her, down her neck, across her chest, along the line of her stomach where his hand had been, and back up.
"You just don't fucking know," he said. "C'mon. Let's go downstairs. I'm trying to make you my baby mama."
Mireya tipped her chin down and looked up at him through her lashes. "Don't get crazy now, papi. This ain't a body made to get ruined by being pregnant."
Marquis pushed himself up from the bench, his knees straightening as he rose. He held his hand out to her, palm up, fingers open. Mireya uncrossed her legs and took his hand, letting him pull her to her feet. She came up smooth, her weight settling onto her heels as she stood.
"Shit, you'd probably look sexy pregnant, too," he said, his eyes dropping again.
She rolled her eyes, the smile staying on her face, her fingers still laced through his. "We'll never know, but I have no problem letting you live in that fantasy, baby."
Marquis turned her hand in his and stepped to the side, guiding her in front of him with a pull at her wrist. She moved ahead. The steps to below deck were three feet ahead, a narrow staircase dropping into the cabin. She took the first step down, one hand on the rail, the other still holding his. Marquis trailed a step behind her, his eyes fixed on her ass as she descended, his hand holding hers above her as she went down.
~~~
Sena stepped over a puddle of something and kept walking, her hurricane held out to the side to avoid the man stumbling past her in the opposite direction. Bourbon Street stretched ahead of them in a thin scatter of bodies, the neon from the bars throwing color onto the wet pavement in reds and greens and purples that bled together where the streetlights washed them out. Most of the doors they passed were open but the crowds inside were sparse, the bartenders visible from the sidewalk, leaning on their elbows or wiping down surfaces that had already been wiped.
Priya walked on her left with a handgrenade in a tall plastic cup, the green liquid catching the light each time she shifted it between hands. Cassidy was on Sena's right, sipping from her own handgrenade through a straw, her eyes scanning every group they passed with an assessment that took about half a second each time before her attention moved on.
A group of guys came toward them, four of them, polos tucked in, one with a visor on backwards. They passed, eyes ahead, already gone. Cassidy sucked her teeth, the sound carrying over the music bleeding out of a bar two doors down. She shook her head.
"I was hoping there would at least be some hot guys out here tonight, but this is sad."
Priya laughed, her shoulder bumping Sena's as she turned toward Cassidy. "You've said that every night this week and every night this week, you've gone home and reached into that nightstand."
Cassidy rolled her eyes, her straw still between her lips. "That's because Doc Johnson is reliable."
Sena's mouth pressed flat, fighting the grin. "I'm never going to get over the fact you have that massive thing just chilling next to your bed all the time."
Cassidy shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping. "A bullet or rose never did it for me. Doc, though? Doc does."
"That's probably why you can't find a man to satisfy you," Sena said.
Cassidy took a sip from her handgrenade, the straw pulling long before she let it go. "You're probably right. I just gotta go find Doc in real life at this point."
Priya's laugh came first, bright and quick. Sena's followed, the sound pushing through her nose as she shook her head.
"Sena!"
The voice came from across the street, cutting through the thin noise of the block. All three of them turned. A guy jogged across Bourbon toward them, dodging a slow-moving couple with go-cups before he reached the curb on their side. He was tall, his hair curled tight on top. He stopped in front of them, slightly out of breath, and nodded at Cassidy and Priya before his eyes found Sena. A smile spread across his face.
"Hey, I didn't expect to run into you out here."
Sena shifted her hurricane to her other hand. "Hey, Stephen." She nodded toward Priya and Cassidy. "Yeah, my roommates keep dragging me out against my will."
Stephen raised an eyebrow, then shook his head. "That's good. You know you never wanted to come out and party with us back in high school."
Sena shrugged, her free hand tucking into the pocket of her jacket. "Some of us had to study."
Stephen laughed. "You didn't need to. You just used it as an excuse not to spend too much time with me."
Sena held her hand out. "No use crying over spilled milk."
Stephen smiled, his chin dipping once. "Nah. You right." He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, gesturing toward a bar farther down the block. "We're headed to the Beach. Y'all wanna roll?"
Sena looked at Priya, then at Cassidy. She turned back to Stephen and shook her head. "We're looking for somewhere else."
Stephen nodded, his hands going to his pockets. "Alright. I'll hit you up."
Sena nodded. He turned and jogged back across the street, his group visible on the other side, a few of them watching the exchange with their arms crossed or cups in hand.
Sena shook her head and started walking again, her pace picking up. Priya leaned over toward Cassidy.
"Who knew Sena was hiding ex-boyfriends around the city?"
Sena kept her eyes ahead. "No one's hiding them."
Cassidy took a pull from her handgrenade. "You don't need to hide him. He looks like every other guy with his broccoli hair."
Sena laughed, her head shaking as she brought her hurricane to her lips and took a sip.
~~~
Caine tilted the shot glass back, the tequila sitting on his tongue for a half second before he swallowed. Cam drained his at the same time, his face pulling tight, his fist coming down on the counter once. Derron tossed his back with no expression at all. Angel finished last, already reaching for the bottle before his glass touched the counter.
He refilled all four glasses, the tequila splashing against the sides, the level in the bottle dropping past the label. He pointed at them with the hand still holding the neck of the bottle. "Drink, niggas."
They drank. The second round went down rougher than the first. Caine felt it land in his chest and spread outward, heat building behind his ribs. Angel set the bottle down and filled the glasses a third time, the pour fast and careless, tequila running over the rim of Derron's glass and pooling on the counter.
Caine held his hand up, palm flat. "Bruh, y'all gotta fucking chill. I'm not trying to be on the fucking floor in this bitch."
Derron picked up his glass and looked at Caine over the rim. "Thought you Louisiana niggas knew how to hold y'all liquor."
Caine shook his head. "That's why I know that I ain't about to go through a whole bottle of Don Julio like y'all motherfuckers trying to do."
Cam laughed. He reached over and grabbed Caine's glass off the counter. "Weak ass nigga." He threw the shot back, swallowed, then poured the tequila from Caine's glass into the empty one. He took that one too, his eyes watering as he set the glass down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Caine pushed off the counter. "I'm gonna be back."
Angel pointed the bottle at him. "Don't get lost, nigga. We might be too wasted to find your ass."
Caine shook his head and turned into the crowd. Bodies pressed on both sides as he moved through the front room, shoulders turning to make gaps where none existed, his hand coming up once to keep a drink someone swung too close from catching his shirt. A few faces turned toward him as he passed. A girl near the wall nudged the one beside her and tilted her phone in his direction. Two guys standing by the hallway entrance tracked him, one of them leaning to the other, mouth moving. Caine kept his eyes ahead and kept moving.
He found the front door and pushed through it. The air outside hit cool against the sweat on the back of his neck. The porch was empty. Music thumped through the walls behind him, muffled now, the bass losing its edge once the door closed. He took a breath and let it fill his lungs, holding it for a beat before pushing it out slow.
Voices carried from the side of the house. He looked over.
Autumn stood near the edge of the porch with a guy facing her, the two of them close enough that their words overlapped. The guy's jaw was set, his shoulders squared, his hand cutting the air between them as he spoke.
"Ain't nobody trying to hear all this shit right now."
He turned and walked toward the door, his eyes landing on Caine for a second as he passed. Caine held the look but let him go. The door opened and closed, and the bass pulsed loud for a second before the wall cut it back down.
Autumn turned to follow him back inside. She stopped when she saw Caine standing there, her stride breaking. She straightened her posture, her arms dropping to her sides.
Caine asked, "You good?"
"Just trying to sort out some drama with my sisters," Autumn said.
"The sorority ones or real ones?"
"They're real either way. That's the whole point of the sorority."
Caine held his hands up, palms open. "I'm uneducated. Charge it to my brain, not my heart." He nodded over his shoulder toward where the guy had been standing. "What was the drama?"
Autumn's arms crossed over her chest. "You niggas never wanting to step up to the plate and take care of your responsibilities after getting women pregnant."
"This California," Caine said. "Ain't nothing a trip to the clinic can't fix if that's how it is."
Autumn sucked her teeth. "That's why y'all ain't shit."
"I'm just throwing out some different options. I wouldn't put that on someone, but you know, if she wanted that, who am I to tell her no?"
Autumn shook her head. "How many you got running around here that don't know their daddy, Caine?"
Caine shook his head. "I only got one child, and I talk to her every night, see her a couple times a month. Wish it could be more, but it is what it is."
Autumn's arms stayed folded. She looked at him, her eyes steady on his face. "Is this where you say your baby mama's keeping her away from you?"
Caine laughed, the sound short and genuine. "Nah. We're—" He stopped. His mouth stayed open for a beat, the word hanging unfinished, and then he let it go. "Nothing like that. As long as it's a weekend or something when she ain’t got class, she'll fly out with our daughter if I ask."
Autumn let that sit. The music pulsed through the wall behind them, a muffled thud that kept time with the seconds she held the silence. She nodded once, her chin dipping slow.
"It's good to see at least one Black man making an effort."
"All I can do," Caine said.
Autumn uncrossed her arms and stepped around him toward the door. She paused with her hand on the handle and looked back over her shoulder. "Don't get too drunk out here. You don't want to end up on some white girls at UCLA's Snapchat just a couple weeks in."
Caine laughed. "I'll try."
Whomst amongst us?
