American Sun

[Soapy]

Mireya Hate FC, stand down and stand by



We're pivoting to Autumn

she's fucking insufferable

[Caesar]

Mireya Hate FC, stand down and stand by



We're pivoting to Autumn

she's fucking insufferable

Another Black man expecting a Black woman to be silent and docile.

[Caesar]

Ularaka / Chantiyo

Sena sat on the couch in Celia's office with her thumb working the hem of her sweater between her finger and the pad of her thumb. The fabric rolled and caught, rolled and caught, the rhythm steady enough that the motion had become invisible to her. Her feet were flat on the rug, the woven gray and cream holding their place between the couch and the armchair.

Celia sat across from her in the armchair, notebook open against her knee, pen resting flat against the page. The cap was off and the tip pressed a faint dot into the margin where her thumb held it in place, the ink soaking into the paper.

Sena's eyes were on the watercolor above Celia's shoulder. The marsh. The cordgrass bending to one side, the water pulled back flat at the bottom of the frame, the pale wash of sky pressed thin across the top. The smear of pink that was either a bird or a stray drop of paint.

"I went to her house."

Celia's pen clicked once in the spiral. The sound was small, metallic, absorbed by the room before it carried.

"Mireya's house?"

Sena shook her head. Her thumb kept moving on the hem.

"No. Her—I don't know what to call her." She pulled a breath through her nose. "The woman she considers her mother. Sara. Caine's mom."

Celia's head tilted a fraction to one side. "Camila's father's mother."

Sena nodded. She pulled her eyes off the watercolor and looked at the rug, at the spot where the woven edge had started to fray near the leg of Celia's chair, a few gray threads curled back against themselves.

"Mireya got her admissions decision from HSC and she wanted me there when she opened it. But she wouldn't open it without Sara. So, she drove us to Sara's house."

Her thumb stopped on the hem for a beat. The fabric held between her finger and the pad of her thumb, pinched, the weave compressed into a thin ridge. Then it started again.

"I've never seen Mireya like that with anyone."

Celia's eyes held Sena's face, steady, present, the attention sitting between them without weight.

"When Sara put her hand in her hair, Mireya just." Sena's mouth opened and closed once before she found the rest of it. "She leaned into it. Her whole body went somewhere else. She was a kid again."

The silence filled the room. The light pressed against the window behind her, pale and warm enough to feel on the back of her neck where her hair was pulled up.

Celia let the silence hold.

"And then Sara looked at me." Sena's eyes came back to the watercolor, to the cordgrass, to the flat water at the bottom of the frame. "Over Mireya's shoulder. She just held there and looked at me. She was figuring something out."

Celia's chin dipped, the nod almost imperceptible. "What do you think she was figuring out?"

Sena's shoulder lifted and dropped.

"What I'm doing there. Who I am to Mireya." Her thumb pressed harder into the hem, the fabric pulling taut across her knuckle. "I don't know. But it felt like she already knew."

Celia nodded once, her pen tapping against the margin. The tap was light, two beats, then the pen stilled again.

"You said Sara is Caine's mother. And Mireya considers her a mother figure."

Sena's jaw shifted. "More than considers. That's her mother. You can just see it. She’s always so guarded any other time. She walked into that house and just let go."

Celia held her pen between her fingers. Her thumb rested along the barrel, her index finger curled around the clip. "What about Mireya's actual mother?"

Sena snorted a laugh. "I don’t think they’re close. Mireya calls her Maria."

Celia's pen lifted off the page. She held it between her fingers, the tip angled toward the ceiling, her thumb resting along the barrel. Her eyes moved across Sena's face. "By her first name."

Sena nodded.

"In Latin households, familial bonds carry a specific weight. A child referring to their mother by her first name indicates significant rupture." She paused, her voice even, the words measured but not clinical. "That's not casual distance, Sena. Something happened there that was severe enough for Mireya to strip the title entirely."

Sena's eyes came off the watercolor and settled on Celia's face. Celia's expression held, open, her mouth in a neutral line, the skin around her eyes relaxed.

"It makes sense then that Mireya would attach to Sara the way she has. If her relationship with her biological mother is that fractured, she found a replacement. Someone who fills that role without the damage that came with the original." She let a beat pass, her pen held still between her fingers. "Which means Sara isn't an extension of Caine. She's an extension of what Mireya needs on her own."

Sena's thumb stopped on the hem. Her jaw shifted, the muscle at the hinge pulling once before it stilled. "So, Sara being Caine's mother doesn't necessarily mean Mireya and Caine are together."

Celia's mouth pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile. The corners moved, held, then settled back.

"That's what's been bothering you. Not Sara. Not the bond you saw." She set the pen flat against the notebook, the tip pointing toward the spiral binding. "You're trying to figure out where you fit relative to Caine."

Sena's mouth held its line. Her eyes moved to the coffee table, to the box of tissues pushed toward the center, the white sheets fanned up through the slit.

Celia let the silence sit. Outside, a car passed on the street below the window, the sound of its tires on the asphalt muffled through the glass and gone.

"Sena." Celia's voice was steady, unhurried. "This woman asked you to be there when she opened the most important decision of her academic life. She didn't open it alone. She didn't open it on the phone." Her pen stayed flat on the notebook, her fingers resting on either side of it. "She drove you to the house of the person she loves most in the world besides possibly her daughter and introduced you to her."

Sena's thumb pressed against the seam of the cushion beneath her. The fabric was tighter there, doubled over where the upholstery met the frame, stiffer than the hem. Her nail caught on a thread and held.

Celia leaned forward, her forearm coming to rest on the notebook, the leather cover bending under the weight. Her eyes found Sena's and held them.

"What do you have to lose at this point by trusting her? Because from where I'm sitting, every move she's made has been toward you. Including showing you who her family is. Not only showing you but providing space for you."

Sena looked at the watercolor. The cordgrass bent to one side, the stalks pressed together at their base and fanning out toward the top of the frame. The water at the bottom sat flat, undisturbed, holding its line against the mud. The smear of pink held its shape in the pale wash of sky, the brushstroke too deliberate to be accidental and too loose to be anything specific.

She kept her eyes on the watercolor.

~~~

Caine sat on one end of the couch in the penthouse living room with his legs stretched across the cushions and his phone resting on his chest. The screen was dark, the weight of it rising and falling with his breathing. His head was against the armrest, his arm hanging off the edge, his fingers loose against the floor.

Mireya sat on the opposite end with her feet tucked underneath her, her back pressed into the armrest, a pillow pulled into her lap. She was wearing one of his shirts, the hem riding up where the fabric gathered at her hip, the cotton pulling just enough across her midsection to show the low curve beneath it. Her thumb moved in small circles on the corner of the pillow.

The hallway behind them was dark. Sara and Camila had gone down an hour ago, Camila asleep before Sara got her shoes off, the flight from New Orleans settling into both of them the second the guest room door closed.

Caine picked his phone up off his chest, looked at the screen, set it back down. He turned his head on the armrest and looked at Mireya. His eyes dropped to her stomach.

"You getting big."

Mireya looked down at herself, her chin dipping toward the curve beneath the shirt. She looked back at him.

"I'm barely showing, Caine. Half the time people just think I'm bloated."

Caine tilted his head, looking at her stomach from the angle, his cheek pressing into the armrest.

"Nah, you getting big. That's not bloat."

Mireya pulled the pillow tighter against her lap, the fabric bunching under her fingers.

"I’ll punch you in your fucking shit if you keep saying that."

"You ain’t gotta be so violent. I’m just making an observation."

"You being fucking annoying."

Caine held his hands up, and let them drop back to his chest. He let a beat pass.

"You find out yet? Boy or girl?"

Mireya shook her head. "I told you I'm letting it be a surprise."

"That's your surprise. I want to know."

"Then you're gonna have to wait."

"You could've just had them tell me on the phone."

Mireya's mouth pulled at one corner. "I could've. But I didn't. So now you wait like everybody else."

Caine shook his head, his jaw shifting against the armrest. "I'm still putting my money on a Caine Jr."

Mireya rolled her eyes, her head tipping back against the armrest until she was looking at the ceiling. "There's not going to be a Caine Jr. What the fuck I look like having a junior like a gringo?"

"Like they don’t have Mexican juniors."

"That ain’t the fucking point."

"I’m just saying that Caine Guerra, Jr. is the name of a future king."

Mireya brought her head back down and looked at him across the length of the couch. "I’ll throw the birth certificate away with just my name on it so he’s just Caine Rosas before I let you fuck my child’s life up like that."

Caine snorted a laugh. He shifted his legs off the couch and stood up, his hand pushing off the armrest.

"Tengo algo para ti. No te muevas."

Mireya watched him walk down the hall toward the bedroom, his footsteps muted on the hardwood. She heard a closet door open and the sound of things being moved around, cardboard scraping against a shelf, something sliding across a flat surface. He came back carrying four boxes stacked against his chest, his chin holding the top one steady, his arms wrapped around the stack from the sides. He set them on the floor in front of her, the bottom box landing heavy enough to feel through the couch and sat back down on the cushion next to the stack.

Mireya looked at the boxes, then at him. " ¿Qué es esto?"

"Open them."

Mireya leaned forward and pulled the first box into her lap, the cardboard scraping against the pillow she pushed aside. She lifted the lid. Inside was a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, and a penlight, all still sealed in their packaging, the plastic catching the lamplight. She ran her thumb across the face of the stethoscope box and set the whole thing on the cushion next to her.

She opened the second box. A pair of white shoes, her size, tissue paper stuffed inside them. The leather was clean and stiff, the soles unmarked. She turned one over in her hand, pressed her thumb against the insole, and put it back.

The third box had textbooks, three of them, thick, the spines uncracked. She ran her fingers along the edge of one, the pages tight and even against each other. She read the title, flipped it open to the table of contents, scanned the first page of chapters, and closed it.

The fourth box was the biggest. She opened it and pulled out a set of scrubs, navy blue, folded tight with a tag still hanging from the collar. Underneath it was another set, same color, a size larger. Underneath that, another set, larger still. Mireya held up the biggest pair by the shoulders, the fabric unfolding in front of her, the tag swinging on its plastic thread.

She looked at Caine. He was leaned back against the couch with his arms folded across his chest, watching her.

"Felicidades, Mireya."

Mireya looked at the scrubs in her hands. She looked at the textbooks on the cushion. She looked at the stethoscope still in its packaging, the cellophane sealed tight around the box. Her chin dipped and her hand came up to her face, her fingers pressing against the bridge of her nose. Her shoulders pulled in once.

"Don't look at me."

Caine’s arms stayed folded and his eyes stayed on her.

Mireya pressed her fingers harder against the bridge of her nose, pulling a breath in through her mouth, the air catching in her chest before she let it out. " Son las hormonas. I swear to God, Caine, if you say some dumb shit right now."

Caine let the silence sit for a moment. Then he reached over and took the largest pair of scrubs out of her lap, holding them up by the shoulders, turning them front to back. He looked at them, looked at her, and held them up against the light from the window.

"I got three different sizes so you'd have something for when you're about to pop. Because you are getting big regardless of what you think."

Mireya's hand came off her face. Her eyes were wet, the shine sitting along the bottom rim, her lashes dark with it. She swatted at his arm, catching him across the bicep with the flat of her hand.

Caine pulled the scrubs back out of range, laughing. The laugh came through his chest, loose, his head turning away from the second swing she aimed at him.

"Te voy a matar."

Caine folded the scrubs, working the creases back together with his palms, and set them back in the box. He pressed the lid down with one hand.

"You're welcome."

Mireya wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, shaking her head. She picked up the stethoscope box and turned it over, reading the back of the packaging, her thumb running across the text printed small along the bottom edge. The cardboard was smooth under her fingers, the plastic wrap catching the light each time she turned it.

Her thumb stopped on the text for a moment.

"How did you know what to get?"

"You act like I ain’t got connections."

Mireya nodded and set the box in her lap and looked at him. She held there for a beat, her eyes still shining, her hand resting on top of the stethoscope box, the packaging warm from her palm.

"Gracias, Caine."

Caine nodded once. He picked his phone up off the cushion and leaned back against the couch. Mireya turned the stethoscope box over again in her lap, her thumb tracing the edge of the cardboard.

~~~

Autumn sat on the floor of Simone and Jade's apartment with her back against the base of the couch, her legs crossed, a glass of wine in her hand. The glass was half full, the red catching the light from the window in a thin line along the rim. Her shoulders rested against the cushion behind her, her free hand flat on the carpet beside her hip.

Simone was on the couch above her, her feet tucked underneath her, scrolling through her phone with her thumb. Jade sat cross-legged on the armchair with a bag of hot chips open in her lap, her fingers dusted red at the tips. Brooke was stretched out on the floor on the other side of the coffee table with a pillow under her elbow, her chin propped on her fist.

Music played from a speaker on the kitchen counter, low enough to talk over, the bass coming through the wall behind them in a soft pulse.

Simone locked her phone and dropped it on the cushion next to her. She leaned forward and tapped Autumn on the shoulder with one finger.

"So. Are we gonna talk about this nigga or are you just gonna sit here acting like you don't got a whole man now?"

Autumn took a sip of her wine, the glass tilting against her bottom lip. "I don't got a whole man. We're seeing each other."

Jade crunched a chip and pointed what was left of it at Autumn, the red dust on her fingertips catching the light. "That's not what your face said when you came in here. You look like you been getting dicked down properly for the first time in your life."

Brooke lifted her chin off her fist, nodding. "Facts. She got that glow."

Autumn rolled her eyes. "Y'all are doing too much."

Simone's posture shifted forward on the couch, her elbows coming to rest on her knees. "How's it going though? For real."

Autumn looked at her wine, tilting the glass so the liquid slid up one side and settled back. "It's going good. He's different from what I expected. He listens. He doesn't try too hard. He just shows up and is himself."

Jade pulled another chip from the bag, the foil crinkling under her fingers. "That's because hood niggas don't know how to try hard. They only got one mode."

Simone laughed, her shoulders pulling forward.

Autumn sucked her teeth. "He’s not just a hood nigga. There are some levels there. You just have to pry them out. There’s a difference."

Jade held her chip-dusted hand up, her fingers spread, palm out. "Girl, there ain’t difference. That is the same thing."

Simone leaned forward again, her forearms pressing into her knees. "So why aren't you with him right now? It's Saturday."

Autumn took another sip, the wine sitting on her tongue for a second before she swallowed. "His daughter's mother is in town. With his daughter and his mother for the weekend."

The room shifted. Jade's hand stopped halfway to the chip bag, her fingers hovering over the foil. Brooke's eyebrows went up. Simone's head tilted to one side, her chin dipping a fraction.

"His baby mama is at his house right now."

"At his penthouse, yes. With his mother and his daughter."

Jade pulled a chip out of the bag slow, her eyes on Autumn, the foil crackling under the pressure of her fingers. "And you're okay with that."

"Why wouldn't I be? She's his daughter's mother. They co-parent. She flew out here with his mom and his kid. That's what families do."

Brooke's chin came back down to her fist. "No, that’s a little crazy, girl."

Autumn shook her head. "They're not together. He told me that and I believe him. I'm not going to start this off by being the insecure girlfriend who can't handle him being around the mother of his child."

Simone leaned back on the couch, her arms folding across her chest. The cushion shifted behind Autumn's shoulders. "I'm not saying be insecure. I'm saying be aware. That's a whole woman in his space with his kid and his mama. That's a unit, Autumn. Whether they call it that or not."

"She just got into nursing school in New Orleans. She came out here for the weekend and she's going to get on a plane and go back to Louisiana and Caine is still going to be in Los Angeles." Autumn's eyes held Simone's. "With me."

Jade finished her chip and licked the red dust off her thumb, the pad of it pressing against her tongue before she wiped it on the side of the bag. "You know they always go back to their baby mamas. Niggas be trapped by that baby mama pussy."

Autumn looked at her.

Jade held her hands up, palms out. "I'm just saying what everybody thinks and nobody wants to say. It don't matter how fine you are or how good the relationship is. When that baby mama calls, they go running."

"I'm not in competition with his baby mama. I don't need to be. She's there for the kids, I'm here for him. Those are two different lanes."

Simone's arms stayed folded across her chest, her mouth pulling flat. "Until they not."

Autumn finished her wine and set the glass on the coffee table, the base landing with a soft tap against the wood. "Y'all bitches are really trying to ruin my mood right now."

Brooke shifted on her pillow, her fist pressing into her cheek. "We're trying to protect you, girl."

"I don't need protection. I need y'all to trust that I know what I'm doing." Autumn's hand came off the coffee table and rested on her knee.

Jade looked at Simone. Simone looked at Brooke. Brooke shrugged, her shoulder lifting under the pillow.

Jade reached into the chip bag, the foil crackling. "Alright. But when that baby mama energy start coming, don't say we didn't warn you."

Autumn reached for the wine bottle on the coffee table and poured herself another glass, the wine filling the bowl in a slow pour, the bottle tipping back upright when the glass was three-quarters full. She set the bottle down.

"Yeah, okay."

She took a sip and leaned her head back against the couch, her eyes closing for a second. Her lashes pressed together, her chin tipping toward the ceiling. She opened them and looked up at the ceiling, the plaster flat and white above her.

Simone nudged her shoulder from the couch above her, her knee pressing into the cushion as she leaned. "For the record, I'm happy for you. You need a real roughneck ass nigga to balance you out."

Autumn's mouth pulled at the corner as she kept her eyes on the ceiling.

~~~

Mireya sat in one of the cushioned chairs on the Sky Lounge terrace with her legs crossed at the ankle, a glass of water on the table next to her. The condensation had run down the side and pooled on the metal surface, the ring spreading in a slow crawl toward the edge.

Camila sat on her lap facing out, her back pressed against Mireya's chest, her legs dangling off Mireya's thighs. Her sneakers hung a foot off the ground, the laces on the left one coming loose where she'd been kicking her feet. Her curls were pulled back with a band that was already losing its grip, a few strands springing free at her temples.

Across the terrace, past the fire features and the planters, Caine and Sara stood side by side at one of the grills. Smoke rose off the grate in a thin column that the breeze pulled apart before it cleared the railing. Sara had a pair of tongs in one hand and was pointing at something on the grate with them while she talked to Caine, the metal tips aimed at whatever she was instructing him on, her other hand on her hip. Caine stood with his arms folded, nodding. He reached for the tongs. Sara pulled them back and kept talking, the tongs coming up between them, her wrist turning them once in the air to punctuate whatever point she was making. Caine held his hands up and took a step back.

Mireya watched them. The sun pressed warm across the terrace, the concrete holding heat from the afternoon, the air carrying the smell of charcoal and whatever Sara had put on the grate.

Camila shifted on her lap, leaning forward to look down past the railing. The rooftops and streets and cars spread out below them from the 27th floor, the vehicles moving through intersections in slow crawls, the buildings casting long blocks of shadow across the grid. She leaned back against Mireya's chest and her hand came down to Mireya's stomach. Her fingers spread flat against the curve beneath Mireya's shirt. She held them there, her palm warm through the fabric.

Mireya looked down at Camila's hand on her stomach. She watched it for a moment, the small fingers pressing against the cotton, the nails bitten short.

"You checking on your sibling?"

Camila nodded, her curls brushing against Mireya's chin. "My sister."

"It might be a boy, mi amor."

Camila shook her head, the motion firm, her hand still flat on Mireya's stomach. "It's a sister. I already know."

Mireya laughed, her chest moving against Camila's back. " ¿Cómo es que ya lo sabes?"

"Because I asked for a sister. So it's a sister."

The breeze came across the terrace and moved through Camila's curls, lifting the loose strands at her temples before they settled back. A bird crossed low over the railing and banked toward the building next door, the shadow of it sweeping the concrete for a second before it was gone.

Mireya wrapped her arms around Camila's middle, her hands folding over each other below Camila's ribs. The warmth of Camila's body pressed into her forearms, the cotton of Camila's shirt soft under her wrists.

"You know daddy thinks it's a boy."

Camila looked over her shoulder at Mireya, her eyebrows pulling together, the crease between them deep for a face that small. "Daddy's wrong."

Mireya laughed again, pressing her mouth against the top of Camila's head, the curls catching against her lips. "Are you excited to be a big sister?"

Camila nodded fast, the curls bouncing. "I'm gonna teach her how to read the bears book. And the wolves book." She paused, her fingers pressing once against Mireya's stomach. "And she can play with my dolls but not the purple one because that one's mine. And not my águilas."

"That's fair."

"And she can sleep in my room. I'll share my bed." Camila's voice carried the authority of someone who had already worked this out. "But she has to sleep on the side by the wall so she doesn't fall."

Mireya nodded, her chin dipping against Camila's head. "That's very smart, baby."

Camila's hand moved on Mireya's stomach, patting it twice, gentle, her palm landing soft and lifting soft. "And I'm gonna teach her Spanish. Because abuela says it's important."

"Abuela's right."

"And we're gonna go to the park and I'm gonna push her on the swings but not too high because she'll be little." She held her hands apart in front of her, showing how little, the space between her palms about the size of a loaf of bread. "Como este pequeño."

Mireya looked at Camila's hands held apart, the fingers spread, the light falling warm between them. She tightened her arms around Camila's middle and rested her chin on top of Camila's head.

Across the terrace, smoke lifted off the grill and Sara waved it away from her face with the tongs, the metal catching the light as her arm swept through the haze. Caine reached for something on the side table next to the grill and Sara swatted his hand with the tongs without looking at him, the contact quick, her eyes still on the grate.

Camila leaned back into Mireya's chest, her weight settling, her hand finding Mireya's stomach again. Her fingers spread flat.

"Mami, when is she coming?"

"A few more months, baby."

"That's too long."

Mireya smiled, her chin still on Camila's head, her eyes on Caine and Sara at the grill. "I know, mi amor."

~~~

Caine and Sara stood side by side at one of the grills. The grate was hot enough that the air above it bent, the heat coming off the metal in a shimmer that blurred the railing and the city beyond it. Sara had a pair of tongs in one hand, turning chicken thighs on the grate, the skin crackling where the fat dripped into the flame and sent up a quick pop of smoke. The smell of it carried across the terrace, charcoal and rendered fat and the pepper she'd rubbed into the skin before she put them on.

Caine stood next to her with a plate in one hand, waiting. His weight was settled, his posture loose, his free hand at his side.

Sara moved a thigh to the cooler side of the grate and turned the next one, lifting it with the tongs and checking the char on the underside before she set it back down. The skin had gone dark where it pressed against the metal, the lines from the grate scored deep into it.

Caine reached for the tongs.

Sara pulled them back without looking at him. " No pedí ayuda, mijo."

Caine held his hands up and took a step back.

Sara adjusted the flame on the dial with her free hand, the burner dropping to a lower hiss, the flame pulling back from the grate until it sat blue and even under the metal. She glanced over her shoulder toward the chairs where Mireya sat with Camila on her lap, Camila's hand flat on Mireya's stomach. Camila's mouth was moving, her body leaned back against Mireya's chest, telling her something. Sara watched them for a beat, her tongs resting against the edge of the grate, then turned back to the grill.

"How are you holding up out here? With everything."

Caine set the plate on the side table next to the grill, the ceramic tapping against the metal surface. "I'm good. I got the money to take care of them. Mireya's got the house. It's handled."

Sara moved a thigh to the plate, the tongs pinching it at the bone, the juices running down the side and pooling against the ceramic. "That's not what I'm asking you."

Caine looked at her. Sara kept her eyes on the grill, her tongs resting on the edge of the grate, the metal handles crossing over each other.

"I'm asking if you're okay. Being out here. Being a father from three thousand miles away."

"It’s easier for y’all to get out here than it was for y’all to get to Statesboro. And you know I ain’t getting Mireya to move."

Sara nodded. She turned another thigh, the fat sizzling where it hit the flame, the skin pulling tight over the meat. The smoke lifted and she waved it away from her face with the back of her hand, her eyes squinting against it. Her tongs worked the grate for a stretch, turning, pressing, adjusting positions on the metal.

Caine watched her face. Something sat behind her eyes that she hadn't let out yet.

"What?"

Sara pulled a breath in through her nose. She set the tongs down on the side table and turned to face him, one hand resting on the edge of the grill's frame, the metal warm under her palm.

"I worry sometimes that not having your father around made it harder for you to know how to do this. Because I couldn't teach you that part." Her voice was even, unhurried, the words coming at the pace she gave everything when she meant it. "I can teach you how to love your children. I can teach you how to show up. Pero no puedo enseñarte a ser padre porque nunca lo he sido."

Caine shook his head. "You taught me how to be a parent. That's the same thing."

"It's not the same thing, mijo. A mother and a father aren't the same thing no matter how much we want them to be."

She looked over her shoulder again at Mireya and Camila. Camila's hand was still on Mireya's stomach, her mouth moving, her whole body leaned back against Mireya's chest. Sara turned back to Caine, her hand still on the grill's frame.

"If Mireya has a boy, it would've been good for him to have a grandfather. Someone for you to point to and say that's what it looks like. That's how a man does it."

Caine picked the tongs up off the side table and turned one of the remaining thighs himself, pressing it flat against the grate. The skin hissed under the pressure, the char deepening where the metal bit into it. "That shit don’t matter. It didn’t hurt me to not have a father around."

"Yes, it did. Así fue, sin duda."

Caine set the tongs back down. The metal clinked against the side table and rested. "When Caine Jr. comes, I'm gonna be around. He's gonna know his father. Eso es lo único que importa."

Sara looked at him, her eyes moving across his face in a slow pass. She let it sit for a moment, her hand still on the grill's frame, her weight settled into one hip. Then the corner of her mouth pulled.

"You shouldn't be too sure you got a son coming."

"I can feel it in my bones."

Sara shook her head, picking the tongs back up, the metal scraping the side table as she lifted them. "Your bones don't know anything."

She turned back to the grill and moved the last thigh to the plate, the tongs gripping it at the joint, the skin dark and crackling. Caine stood next to her, his arms folding across his chest. Sara adjusted the flame down until the hiss went out and closed the lid, the metal landing with a low clap.

"Your abuela felt it in her bones that you were going to be a girl. Called you Valentina for seven months."

Caine snorted a laugh.

Sara shook her head again, the corner of her mouth still pulled, and picked up the plate. She walked it toward the chairs where Mireya and Camila were sitting, the chicken stacked on the ceramic, the juices running toward the low side of the plate where she tilted it against her palm.

And Caine followed her.

[Captain Canada]

When Mireya drops that anvil on Sena? By God, will it shake the block.

We got a USC debut on the horizon?

Also, it's going to be a boy, you ain't slick.

[djp73]

[Caesar]

When Mireya drops that anvil on Sena? By God, will it shake the block.

We got a USC debut on the horizon?

Also, it's going to be a boy, you ain't slick.

What anvil, slime?

Define "on the horizon." We're at the end of May in storytime.

50/50 chance innit?

[Caesar]

Weraka / Axcaitl

Mireya stretched out on the couch with one arm behind her head, the other resting on her stomach. The television ran something she'd stopped following two hours ago, voices trading lines she couldn't place, the colors shifting across the ceiling in slow washes.

She could hear the rest of the house around her. The refrigerator cycling on and off in the kitchen. The ceiling fan turned slow above her, its pull chain swaying with each rotation, and the light through the front window sat warm on the hardwood, the rectangles of it reaching halfway across the floor before they broke against the base of the couch.

She picked up the remote from the cushion beside her and scrolled through movies. She scrolled past all of it and kept going, her thumb pressing the button in a steady rhythm, the screen flipping too fast to register. She stopped on a home renovation show where a couple stood in a gutted kitchen arguing about countertops. She watched them for ten seconds, then scrolled again.

She set the remote on her chest and closed her eyes. The fan pushed air across her face in slow intervals, each pass lifting the hair at her temples before it settled back. The cushion held the shape of her body, the leather warm where her skin pressed against it. Her breathing slowed and her hand moved on her stomach with each inhale.

Then a knock came at the front door.

Mireya opened her eyes and looked toward the hallway. She stayed on the couch. Her hand came off her stomach and rested on the cushion beside her hip.

The knock came again, harder. Three sharp hits, knuckles against wood, the sound carrying through the foyer and into the living room.

She swung her legs off the couch and stood. She walked to the door barefoot, her feet finding the hardwood warm from the sunlight that ran along the hallway floor. She pulled the door open.

Maria stood on the porch with her purse over her shoulder, her arms already crossing over her chest. Her chin was lifted, her mouth set in a line. Her hair was pulled back tight from her face, pinned flat against her scalp, and she wore a blouse tucked into slacks, the fabric pressed, the creases in the pants holding their edge.

She looked past Mireya into the house, her eyes moving over the hardwood, the ceiling, the width of the hallway. They traveled slow, measuring each surface, calculating square footage and finishes, building an argument before she opened her mouth.

Mireya's hand tightened on the edge of the door. The hinges pressed against her fingers.

"How did you know to come here?"

Maria's eyes came back to Mireya's face. "Kike told me you were living over here."

She stepped forward, her shoulder turning past Mireya's arm, pushing through the doorway.

Mireya's jaw tightened. She let go of the door and turned to watch Maria walk through the space. Maria moved slow, her eyes touching everything. The couch. The television still running on the wall. The kitchen through the pass-through, the marble countertops visible from where she stood. The back glass and the yard behind it, the pool catching sun. She ran one finger along the back of the couch as she passed it, her nail dragging across the fabric, leaving a line in the grain that filled back in behind her fingertip.

"So, this is what he bought you."

Mireya stood where she was, her feet planted on the hardwood, her arms at her sides. "Nobody bought me anything. I live here."

Maria turned to face her, her arms recrossing, her fingers gripping her own elbows. Her weight settled into one hip and she looked at Mireya with the same inventory she'd run on the house, measuring, tallying, building toward a conclusion she'd already reached before she knocked on the door.

"Caine bought this house. Don't insult me by pretending otherwise. Kike said the same thing." Her eyes narrowed, the skin at their corners pulling tight. "¿Ya terminaste de humillarte? ¿O todavía no has tenido suficiente?"

Mireya's chin came up a fraction. "You showed up at my house without being invited. Don't talk to me about humiliation."

Maria held her ground, her mouth still set in its line. Her eyes dropped from Mireya's face, traveling down her neck, across her collarbone, past her chest. They stopped at her midsection. The shirt Mireya was wearing pulled across the low curve of her stomach, the fabric stretched

Maria's arms uncrossed. Her hands fell to her sides, the fingers loosening, the grip on her elbows releasing all at once. Her right hand came up to the base of her throat and her fingers pressed against the hollow there.

"No."

Mireya stood with her feet on the hardwood, her arms at her sides, her chin up, and she let the silence do its work.

Maria took a step closer, her eyes still on Mireya's stomach. Her hand dropped from her throat and hung at her side. Her mouth opened and closed once before the words came.

"¿Estás embarazada otra vez?"

Mireya's chin came up another degree. She held Maria's gaze.

Maria's mouth pulled something between disgust and satisfaction, the lips thinning, the nostrils drawing in, the eyes going flat and bright at the same time.

"You stupid girl." Maria's voice came out low, the words spaced apart, each one placed with precision. "You stupid, stupid girl."

Mireya's jaw flexed. The muscle at the hinge of it worked once beneath the skin. "Vete de mi casa."

Maria laughed.

"Your house." Maria looked around the room again, her hand gesturing in a slow arc that took in the ceiling, the walls, the kitchen, all of it. "This isn't your house. This is his house that he put you in like a pet. And now you're pregnant again by the same animal who's going to leave you again because that's what he does."

Mireya's hand curled into a fist at her side. Her nails pressed into her palm, the edges of them biting into the skin at the base of her fingers. "I’m nobody’s fucking pet.”

Maria stepped closer, arm's length between them now. "You’re a fucking breeding mare. He puts babies in you and leaves. Eso es lo que hacen los hombres como él. And you're too stupid to learn from it."

Mireya took a step toward her. The hardwood was warm under the balls of her feet and her weight shifted forward, her shoulders squaring, her body closing the distance Maria had set between them. "You came to my house to tell me I'm stupid. And you think I’m supposed to be offended by that? Eres inferior a mí. Todavía recuerdo dónde crecí. "

Maria met her eyes and held her position. "I came to see what my daughter has turned herself into. And now I see." Her voice found its register. "Otra vez embarazada, sin marido, viviendo de limosna en una casa que no es tuya." Her voice dropped, the volume pulling back, the words getting smaller and harder. "At least the first time you were a child. What's your excuse now?"

Mireya's nostrils flared. The breath she pulled in was short, caught high in her chest, the air not reaching past her sternum. " ¿Mi excusa? Mi excusa es que tuve a una mierda sin valor como tú por madre."

Maria's chin lifted higher. The line of her jaw went rigid, the tendons in her neck pulling taut beneath the skin, her throat working once before she spoke. "You’ve never deserved a mother. Now look at you. Letting a woman who raised a criminal raise my grandchild. A whore who doesn’t know her child’s father. I guess it’s appropriate you are so close to her."

"Sara is more of a mother than you've ever been in your whole fucking life."

Maria's eyes went flat. The expression on her face emptied itself of everything except the line of her mouth and the angle of her chin.

"Then let her raise this one too. Since you're so good at giving your children to other women."

Mireya walked to the kitchen counter, her bare feet crossing the hardwood in three strides, her shoulders set, her arms rigid at her sides. Her purse sat on the marble. She reached inside and wrapped her hand around the grip. The metal was cool against her palm, the texture of it pressing into the lines of her fingers.. She stood with her hand inside the purse, her back to Maria, her shoulders set, the muscles in her forearm taut where it disappeared into the leather.

"If you don’t get the fuck out of my house, I’m going to call the police and say that you are threatening to hurt me and my baby.."

Maria stared at Mireya's hand inside the purse. The flat look held, her eyes tracking the shape of Mireya's arm where it went into the bag, reading the tension in her shoulders, the set of her spine.

She scoffed, picked her purse strap up higher on her shoulder and walked toward the door. Her heels found the hardwood and each step landed with a clean, hard sound that carried through the hallway. She stopped before she reached the foyer. She stood with her back to Mireya, her purse against her hip, her head straight.

"Ya le tengo lástima. A ese niño igual que a Camila. Teniendo a una idiota como tú de madre. Estaré ahí cuando les falles a mis nietos. "

She walked out the front door and pulled it shut behind her. The door seated in the frame and the sound of it carried through the hallway for a second before the room went still.

Mireya stood at the counter with her hand still in her purse. Her fingers stayed wrapped around the grip, her knuckles white inside the leather, her arm locked straight at the elbow. The television ran in the living room behind her, the renovation couple's voices trading back and forth, cheerful and distant. The ceiling fan turned. The light through the front window held the same angle on the floor.

She pulled her hand out of the purse and pressed both palms flat against the marble, her arms straight, her head dropping between her shoulders.

~~~

Caine followed Autumn up the trail where the path narrowed between scrub oaks, the dirt packed hard under their shoes, roots crossing the surface in ridges that caught the light where the bark had worn smooth. Autumn ran ahead of him, her ponytail swinging with her stride, her shoulders loose, her arms pumping tight at her sides. The trail climbed through a switchback and she took it without slowing, her feet striking the uphill grade in the same rhythm she'd held since the parking lot.

The sun sat high enough that the shade from the oaks only caught them in patches, the canopy thinning where the trail curved east and the hillside opened up. Sweat ran down the back of Caine's neck and soaked into the collar of his shirt. His breathing was steady, each inhale pulling the dry sage smell off the hillside, each exhale timed to the fall of his left foot. Autumn's pace ahead of him held its line, her shoes scuffing the same rhythm into the grade, her stride opening on the flats and tightening through the switchbacks without breaking its cadence.

She took the next turn and Caine matched her, his shoes finding the same ruts hers had cut a second before. The trail wound through a stand of oaks where the branches met overhead and the shade dropped the temperature, the air cooler on his arms where the sweat sat. Then the canopy broke and the sun pressed against them again, the light flattening everything it touched.

They came around a bend where the trail opened up to a flat overlook, the canyon dropping off to the left, the hillside falling in steps of brown scrub and bleached rock. The city spread out below in haze and glass, the buildings downtown catching the sun in sharp flashes, the grid of streets fading into the smog that sat on the basin.

Autumn slowed to a stop and put her hands on her hips, pulling air in through her nose, her ribs expanding under her tank top. Her skin held a sheen across her shoulders and the tops of her arms.

Caine stopped next to her, his hands going to the back of his head, his elbows wide. He pulled air in slow and let it out through his mouth, his chest settling.

"You ran track."

Autumn pulled her water bottle from the clip on her shorts and twisted the cap off. She took a drink, her throat working once, then lowered it and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Four years. Hundreds and two hundreds. I went to CIF my junior year."

Caine nodded, his hands still behind his head. "I was about to say. You running like you trying to prove something."

Autumn capped the water and clipped it back on her shorts, her fingers snapping the carabiner into place. "I was trying to see if you could keep up, nigga."

She looked out at the city, her eyes tracking the skyline where the buildings stacked against the haze, then turned back to him. The sun caught the side of her face and lit the edge of her jaw.

"What did you do in high school besides football?"

Caine dropped his hands from behind his head. His weight settled back on one foot, his hip pressing against the overlook railing, the metal warm through his shorts.

"Nothing."

Autumn looked at him, her head tilting a fraction, one eyebrow pulling toward her hairline.

"I had a teacher. Mr. Landry. He used to give me books and shit. Just pull them out of his desk after class and hand them to me like homework except it wasn't. Started when I was locked up."

"What books?"

"Monster. Between the World and Me. The Other Wes Moore. All that kind of shit."

Autumn's chin lifted. Her arms came down from her hips and she crossed them over her chest, her weight shifting to match his lean. "He was trying to mold you into a strong Black man."

Caine shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping. "Or something."

"No, that's exactly what he was doing. I've seen it. My daddy does it with the young guys in his office. Gives them books, takes them to lunch, tells them to stand up straight. It's a thing." She looked at him with her head tilted, her eyes moving over his face, across the line of his jaw and the set of his mouth.

"It’s a little different than how your pops does."

"If you say so."

She turned and faced the overlook, her hands going back to her hips. The city sat below them in its sprawl, the smog softening the edges of everything past the first ridge of buildings. A red-tailed hawk rode a thermal above the canyon, its wings flat, turning in a slow circle that carried it out over the scrub and back.

"I kept—keep busy.”

Caine let his arms drop and braced his hands on the railing behind him. "I had a feeling."

Autumn turned her head toward him, her ponytail swinging with the motion, one corner of her mouth pulling up. "Track. Student government. Secretary my junior year, president my senior year. National Honor Society. Debate club for two years even though I hated every second of it. Model UN. I tutored at an elementary school in Inglewood twice a week. Community service chair for three different organizations. I organized a voter registration drive my senior year that my daddy helped me run through his office."

She took a breath, her ribs expanding, her shoulders lifting an inch before they settled.

"At SC I pledged AKA my freshman year, I'm on the community outreach board for the Black Student Assembly, I volunteer at a clinic in South LA when I can and I'm sitting at a 3.7."

Caine’s hands stayed on the railing, his fingers curled around the metal. The sun pressed against the back of his neck and his shirt clung to the sweat between his shoulder blades.

"So you Ms. Perfect."

Autumn turned back to him, her chin level, her eyes steady. "Absolutely."

Caine shook his head, a breath pushing through his teeth. "I don’t even know what the fuck Model UN is."

"That's fine. You had Mr. Landry giving you Ta-Nehisi Coates and I had my whole résumé. We both turned out alright."

"Yours is a little more impressive."

Autumn started walking back toward the trail, her stride easy, her arms swinging loose at her sides. She glanced over her shoulder at him, her ponytail catching the sun where it curved against her neck.

"My shit is a lot more impressive, nigga. But you’ll start stacking up all kinds of stuff when they start trying to make you look good for the draft."

She picked the pace back up without warning, her stride opening into a run, her shoes finding the packed dirt and driving hard off the downhill grade. Caine pushed off the overlook railing and caught up to her, his legs stretching into the stride, the railing falling behind them as the trail curved back into the oaks.

Autumn looked over at him, her ponytail swinging with each footfall, her eyes bright, the corners of her mouth pulled up.

"Race you to the bottom."

She took off before he answered.

~~~

Ramon pulled up to the block and killed the engine. The car ticked under him, the heat from the drive settling into the metal. His window was already down, his elbow resting on the frame, the sun pressing warm against his forearm where it sat on the door. He scanned the street. Cars parked tight on both sides, bumper to bumper, the paint on most of them faded or peeling where the sun had worked on them too long. A porch fan turned two houses down, the blades catching light in slow flashes. A dog barked once somewhere behind the row of shotgun houses across the street and stopped.

Two of the BGs were posted at the far corner. One leaned against a telephone pole with his arms crossed, his body angled so he could see both ends of the block from where he stood. The other sat on the hood of a parked car with his legs hanging off the bumper, his sneakers swinging a few inches above the asphalt, his head turning slow each time a car passed on the cross street. A third stood closer to the middle of the block near a chain-link fence, his phone out, his thumb scrolling, his head lifting between the screen and the street.

Ramon got out and shut the door behind him. His keys went into his pocket, the metal settling against his thigh. He walked toward them, his stride easy, his shoulders loose, his eyes still working the block. A screen door hung open three houses back, the gap showing a dark hallway behind it. The trash cans at the end of the nearest driveway had been pulled to the curb but not taken in. A woman pushed a stroller on the far sidewalk, her pace brisk, her head down.

The one near the fence saw him first. He straightened up and the phone disappeared into the front pocket of his hoodie in one motion, his hand coming back out empty. Tee Phil. He stepped toward Ramon and nodded.

"What's good?"

Ramon stopped in front of him, his weight settling, his hands going to his pockets. "How we looking today?"

Tee Phil reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a fold of bills, the edges creased from where his body heat had softened the paper. He handed it over. "Slow morning but it picked up around noon. Couple regulars and some new ones coming through from over by the Magnolia."

Ramon took the fold and thumbed through it, counting with his eyes, his thumb flicking each bill past the one underneath it, the money fanning between his fingers in a practiced spread. He nodded once and folded it into his back pocket, pressing it flat against the denim with his palm.

The two at the far corner walked over, their strides falling into step with each other. Shauntoine. His hands hung at his sides and his chin was up. Next to him was Lil' Nolan, his body rocking on his heels as he walked, the motion carrying through his shoulders.

Shauntoine reached into his pocket and pulled out a second fold, thicker than Tee Phil's, the bills pressed tight enough that the fold held its shape when he held it out. "That's us and what Jamal and Pig had from the other day."

Ramon took it and counted it the same way, his thumb flicking each bill, his eyes tracking the numbers. He folded it on top of the first in his back pocket and pressed it down. The pocket sat heavy against him now, the weight of it noticeable when he shifted his stance.

He looked down the block in both directions. His eyes moved over the corners, the driveways, the parked cars, the gaps between houses where the fences met the walls. He counted and came up short. He looked back at the three of them.

"Where Jamal and Pig at?"

The three of them went still. The motion drained out of all of them at the same time. Tee Phil's eyes dropped to the sidewalk, his jaw tightening under the brim of his cap. Shauntoine's jaw set and he looked at Lil' Nolan, the glance quick. Lil' Nolan pulled his hands out of his hoodie pocket and crossed his arms over his chest, his fingers gripping his own elbows, his body tightening around itself.

"They got shot last night. Over on Freret. Think it was some Dooney niggas."

Ramon's face held. His eyes stayed on Lil' Nolan, steady, unblinking. The sun pressed against the side of his neck and the cars sat still on both sides of the street and the dog behind the houses had gone silent.

"Both of them?"

Lil' Nolan nodded, his chin dipping once. "They was walking to the store. Somebody came through in a car."

Ramon looked at the sidewalk. His thumb found the fold of money in his back pocket and pressed against it, the bills shifting under his finger. He pulled a breath in through his nose, held it for a beat, and let it out slow through his mouth.

"Find out where they mamas stay. Both of them. Text me the addresses."

Tee Phil nodded.

Shauntoine nodded.

Lil' Nolan unfolded his arms and put his hands back in his hoodie, his shoulders dropping, his weight settling back onto his heels.

Ramon looked at the three of them standing there. He held the look for a beat longer than he needed to.

"Y'all good?"

Tee Phil said, "Yeah."

Shauntoine said, "We straight."

Ramon nodded. He tipped his chin toward the corners. "Get back to it. Make sure y’all got niggas on the lookout."

They turned and walked back to their positions, Tee Phil to the fence, Shauntoine and Lil' Nolan to the far corner. Their strides spread them across the concrete in the same formation they'd been holding when he pulled up. Tee Phil's phone came back out. Lil' Nolan found the hood of the parked car and sat back down, his legs hanging off the bumper. Shauntoine took the telephone pole, his shoulder pressing against the wood, his arms crossing over his chest.

Ramon watched them go with his hands in his pockets, the money pressing against his knuckles, and looked down the block at the three of them spread back out across the concrete.

He got back in his car and pulled the door shut. He sat there with his hands on the wheel, his thumbs resting on the leather, the engine off. The sun came through the windshield and pressed warm against his chest.

He sat there for a moment. Then he started the engine.

~~~

Sena sat on the couch with her legs tucked underneath her, the television running low, a cooking competition. Her phone lay face down on the cushion beside her hip. The lamp on the end table threw a circle of warm light across the arm of the couch and the edge of the carpet. The rest of the room sat in the blue wash from the screen, the walls shifting between shadow and color each time the camera cut.

The front door opened and closed. Keys hit the table in the hallway. Footsteps came down the hardwood and Mireya came around the corner into the living room, her bag sliding off her shoulder, her hair down, her hoodie loose over a tank top. She dropped the bag on the floor by the armrest, the weight of it landing with a soft thud against the carpet and fell onto the couch next to Sena. Her body sank into the cushion and her head tipped back against the top of the couch and she closed her eyes.

Sena looked over at her, her hand resting on her knee. Mireya's chest rose and fell, the hoodie lifting and settling with each breath.

"How was work?"

Mireya exhaled through her nose, long and slow, the breath leaving her in a stream that emptied her lungs before she pulled the next one in. "Harder than it used to be. My body's not cooperating the way it was a couple months ago. I can’t do shit I should be able to do."

"You probably shouldn't be around cleaning chemicals while you're pregnant."

Mireya opened her eyes, turned her head on the cushion and looked at Sena. Her eyes stayed on Sena's face for a long moment, the television shifting colors across both of them, the cooking competition throwing bursts of warm light followed by the cooler tones of a transition shot.

"Can I tell you something?"

Sena's hand stilled on her knee. Her fingers stopped their absent movement against the fabric of her leggings. She nodded.

Mireya sat up from the cushion, pulling her legs onto the couch and turning her body toward Sena. She tucked one foot under the opposite thigh and her knee pressed into the cushion between them. Her hands settled in her lap, her fingers lacing together, the knuckles going pale for a second before she loosened them.

"I'm not a cleaner. I lied to you about what I do."

Sena's body went still on the couch. Her hand stayed on her knee, her fingers pressed flat against the leggings, the tendons visible across the back of her hand.

"I'm a stripper."

The cooking competition cut to a judge tasting something from a small spoon, their face cycling through an expression meant for the camera. The light from the screen moved across the wall behind them in slow washes of color. Sena's eyes stayed on Mireya's face. She held the look, her chin level, her mouth closed, her body still against the cushion.

The silence sat between them long enough that Mireya's thumb found the seam of the cushion beside her thigh and pressed into it. Her nail traced the edge of the stitching, the motion small and repetitive, the fabric catching under her thumb each time she pulled it back.

"Okay."

Mireya's eyebrows pulled together. The crease between them deepened and held. "That's it?"

"What do you want me to say?"

Mireya shook her head once. "I don't know. Something. That's a big thing to just say okay to. Other people haven’t taken it well."

Sena's shoulder lifted and dropped. "It's your job. It doesn't change who you are."

Mireya held there, her body turned toward Sena, her eyes moving across Sena's face, across the line of her mouth and the set of her jaw and the steadiness in her eyes. She pressed the seam of the cushion one more time and let it go.

"What did she do to you?"

Sena's head tilted. The lamp caught the angle of her cheekbone where it shifted.

"The straight woman. The one you said you weren't going to do this again for. What did she do?"

Sena's eyes dropped to her own hands in her lap. Her thumb found the nail of her index finger and pressed against it, the skin blanching white under the pressure, the pad of her thumb turning pale where it met the edge of the nail. She held the pressure for a beat, then released it, then pressed again.

"Her name is Alex. We grew up together. Best friends since third grade." Her voice came out even, the words arriving one after the other in a rhythm that carried the weight of having been said before, in therapy chairs and alone and now here. "I fell in love with her in high school and she knew it. We were together for a while, or I thought we were. Not in public. A secret thing. She told me she wasn’t ready to be out. Then she left me to be with a guy named David."

Mireya sat with her hands in her lap, her body still, her eyes on Sena's profile. The television shifted behind them and neither of them looked at it.

Sena continued, her voice dropping half a register, the words coming slower, each one set down with more care than the last. "She came back later and apologized. I let her in again because I wanted to believe her." Her thumb pressed against the nail again, the skin blanching. "She offered me a threesome with her boyfriend like that was supposed to fix everything this time."

The cooking competition cut to a commercial. The volume dipped and the screen went bright with primary colors that washed the room in a flat white light.

"She called me a dyke back then. When we first fell apart because she told me she was seeing David." Sena's thumb released its pressure and her hands went still in her lap. "And I still let her back in after."

Mireya reached over and put her hand on Sena's knee. Her fingers rested there, light, her palm warm against the fabric of Sena's leggings.

"I can't fight what she did to you. I know that. Whatever she broke in you, I can't fix it by telling you I'm different because that's what she told you too."

Sena's eyes came up from her hands to Mireya's face.

"But I want to be with you. And that's real. I'm not playing with you, Sena. I'm not experimenting. I'm not gonna wake up one morning and decide I need a man."

Sena's jaw shifted, the muscle at the hinge of it working once under the skin. "What about Caine?"

"I'm not with Caine. I've told you that."

Sena held her eyes. The television came back from commercial, the cooking competition returning with its fluorescent kitchen and its judges behind their table, the sound rising a fraction before the automatic volume leveled it back down. The light settled into its earlier pattern, the blue and warm tones trading across the walls.

"Can I kiss you?" Mireya asked.

Sena nodded.

Mireya leaned across the cushion between them and pressed her mouth to Sena's. She held there, her hand still on Sena's knee, her lips warm against Sena's. Sena's hand came up and rested against Mireya's jaw, her fingers curving along the line of it, her thumb settling against Mireya's cheekbone. The kiss held for a beat, then two, then Mireya leaned back.

She looked at Sena's face. Sena's hand stayed where it was for a second before it dropped to her own lap.

"Do you believe me?"

Sena nodded.

Mireya smiled, the expression slow, starting at one corner of her mouth before it reached the other side. She settled back into the couch, her shoulder pressing against Sena's, the contact warm through the hoodie and the sweatshirt between them. She picked up the remote from the cushion and held it up, her thumb resting on the channel button.

"We need a new show."

Sena snorted a laugh through her nose as Mireya started scrolling.

~~~

Caine sat on the floor of the living room with his back against the couch, his legs stretched out in front of him, his socked feet crossed at the ankle on the hardwood. The television ran low across the room, the voices blending into a murmur that sat underneath the hum of the AC pushing air through the vent above the kitchen. The city held its light against the floor-to-ceiling windows, the towers downtown stacked in clusters, the freeway grid pressing its glow through the glass in a slow crawl of headlights and taillights that moved in opposite directions along the same lines.

The box of journals sat beside his hip, the cardboard lid resting against the base of the couch where he'd pushed it. He reached in and pulled the current one out, the cover bent at one corner from the move, the pages rough under his thumb where he found his place. A receipt he'd been using as a bookmark slipped out and landed on his thigh. He picked it up and tucked it into the back cover. He uncapped the pen and set it against the paper.

Hey, mamas.

He let the line sit. The AC cycled through a deeper register and the building settled somewhere in its frame, a sound too low to hear but heavy enough to feel through the floor, through the base of his spine where it pressed against the couch.

I been thinking about what I'm building. Not the football. Not the money. I mean the thing underneath all of this shit. The part that stays when the rest of it goes.

He stopped and looked across the room at the windows. His reflection sat faint in the glass, the pen in his hand, the journal across his knees. The freeway moved below in its slow crawl, the headlights feeding into the on-ramps and dispersing across the lanes. A plane's lights blinked in a line above the skyline, descending toward LAX.

Mi mama raised me in a house where every dollar had a name before it came through the door. Mortgage. Light bill. Food. Gas. Whatever was left went into a jar on top of the fridge and that jar never got full because something always came for it. A flat tire. A school fee. Clothes you outgrew in a week.

He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the paper, felt the grit of the fibers where the page met the spine.

I remember when I was little, watching her count money at the kitchen table. She'd separate everything into piles and put rubber bands around them and then she'd sit there looking at what was left like she was trying to make it multiply just by staring at it. And it never did. It was always short. She never said it was short, but I could see it in her hands when she put the rubber bands back on and put the piles in the envelopes. Her fingers would hold on a second too long. Like she was saying goodbye to it.

The television shifted between segments, the light changing on the wall behind him, the colors moving from the blue of a studio set to the warmer tones of a highlight package. He kept his eyes on the page.

I don't want that for you. I don't want you counting. I don't want you putting rubber bands around piles of money that aren't enough and pretending they are. I don't want you learning how to make a shelf look full when it ain’t.

He shifted his back against the couch and let the pen rest in the crease of the journal for a moment. His eyes moved to the kitchen. The quartz counters catching the low light from under the cabinets. The refrigerator with its brushed steel doors, the shelves behind them stocked with more than he could eat in a week. The espresso machine at the end of the counter with its portafilter handle angled toward the backsplash. The space between what he came from and where he sat filled the room, sat in the air, pressed against the glass behind him.

That's why I'm doing all of this. Not so I can live in a penthouse. Not so motherfuckers know my name. I'm doing it so that when you grow up, you don't have to choose between eating and paying the light bill. So your little brother or sister don’t either. So the jar on the fridge stays full and nobody has to stare at it hoping.

He picked the pen back up. The ink had bled a small dot into the crease where the pen had rested, the paper absorbing it in a circle no bigger than a pinhead.

Mi mama gave me everything she had. And it still wasn't enough to keep me out of the streets. That ain't her fault. She did everything right with what she had. But what she had wasn't enough because nobody gave her enough to start with. And nobody gave her mama enough either. That's how it works. The short gets passed down. It went down to you. Me and tu mama have been through it.

He read the line back. The pen hovered above the page for a beat, the tip close enough to the paper that the shadow of it touched the last word. He left it.

I want to break that. I want to be the one who hands you something full instead of something almost. I want your kids to have more than mine did. And their kids too. I want to build something that outlasts me so that a hundred years from now some little girl with my last name is standing somewhere I never been, doing something I never got to do, and she don't even know my name but she's standing on what I built.

He tapped the pen against the margin, the tip leaving a row of small dots along the edge of the page.

That's legacy. That's the only thing worth leaving.

He wrote the last line slower than the rest, the pen moving through each letter with a deliberateness that pressed deeper into the paper, the ink thicker where the strokes met.

Everything I do is for you. Even the parts you won't understand for a long time. Even the parts I can't explain yet. It's all for you, mi vida. All of it.

He set the pen in the crease and closed the journal. The cover pressed the pages flat and the pen rolled into the spine's groove and settled. He rested both palms on the cover and held them there. The leather was warm from his hands and the pen pressed against his ring finger through the cover.

He slid the journal back into the box and pushed the lid closed with his foot, the cardboard scraping against the box before it seated. He leaned his head back against the couch and looked at the ceiling.

[Captain Canada]

So, let me get this straight: Mireya is now dating a woman but isn't a lesbian, but still going to take a meat sandwich for money, while birthing Caine's child and - let's call a spade a spade - but still probably fucking Caine?

Aight. Mireya Hate FC moves.

Sena, good luck shordy.

[Soapy]

Mireya Hate FC, stand down and stand by



We're pivoting to Autumn

she's fucking insufferable

Another Black man expecting a Black woman to be silent and docile.

you don't want to start this, brudda. this not a war you're going to win.

Sincerely, 2014.

[Caesar]

So, let me get this straight: Mireya is now dating a woman but isn't a lesbian, but still going to take a meat sandwich for money, while birthing Caine's child and - let's call a spade a spade - but still probably fucking Caine?

Aight. Mireya Hate FC moves.

Sena, good luck shordy.

It's almost like there is a term for someone who dates both genders.

Mireya Hate FC, stand down and stand by



We're pivoting to Autumn

she's fucking insufferable

Another Black man expecting a Black woman to be silent and docile.

you don't want to start this, brudda. this not a war you're going to win.

Sincerely, 2014.

I appreciate you not letting the fact you base that on something that happened in 2010-2011 get in the way of your narrative