Caine sat on the small couch in Micaela‘s room with Camila curled against him, her head in his lap, her knees pulled up toward her chest, one hand tucked under her cheek. His fingers moved through her hair in long passes, the curls catching between his knuckles and falling free each time his hand came back to the top of her head. The lamp on the dresser was turned to its lowest setting, the light barely reaching the crib against the far wall where Micaela lay on her back with her arms out to the sides, the onesie bunched at her wrists where she‘d worked her fists through the fabric in her sleep. The monitor on the dresser beside the lamp blinked its green light in a steady pulse. Caine watched Micaela‘s chest rise and fall, the motion so small it disappeared if he blinked at the wrong time.
Footsteps crossed the hallway outside the door. He looked up as Mireya stepped into the room, her bare feet finding the carpet, her hair pulled back, a t-shirt untucked over a pair of shorts. She stopped in the doorway and looked at him for a beat, her eyes moving from Camila asleep in his lap to his hand still in her hair to his face. Then she crossed to the crib and leaned over the rail, her forearms resting on the edge, her head tilting as she looked down at Micaela. She reached in and adjusted the onesie where it had ridden up along Micaela‘s stomach, her fingers smoothing the cotton flat against the small body, pulling the fabric down past her belly button and pressing the snap at the inseam back into place.
Caine watched her from the couch, the lamp throwing a line of light along the side of her face where she leaned over the crib, the rest of her in the shadow between the dresser and the wall.
“Sé que me estás mirando el trasero,” Mireya said, her eyes still on Micaela, her back to him.
“I wouldn‘t be me if I wasn‘t.”
Mireya shook her head, a breath of a laugh pushing through her nose. She ran her thumb once along Micaela‘s cheek, then straightened and turned to face him, her hip resting against the side of the crib.
“What time is your flight again?”
“12:30, but it‘s a charter flight. I ain‘t gotta be to the airport until like 11:30, 11:45.”
“Must be nice flying on PJs.”
Caine snorted a laugh and caught it when Camila stirred in his lap, her head shifting against his thigh, her mouth opening once before she settled. His hand stilled on her hair until her breathing evened out again. He looked back at Mireya.
“You want to fly on ’em, too?”
Mireya folded her arms across her chest and leaned her weight deeper into the crib‘s rail. “I think it‘s the least that you can do after I died giving you another daughter.”
“Almost died.”
“Eso no es lo que pusieron en la tabla.”
“Well, I ain‘t no doctor so we gonna go with almost.”
Mireya‘s lips lifted on one side. The expression held for a beat before she pushed off the crib and waved over her shoulder toward the door, her fingers trailing through the air behind her. “Ven acá un segundo.”
She walked out of the room. Caine looked down at Camila in his lap, her face pressed into the fabric of his shorts. He slid his hand under her head, lifting it just enough to work his leg free, and reached behind him for the throw pillow wedged against the arm of the couch. He set it where his lap had been and lowered Camila‘s head onto it, her cheek finding the new surface, her body curling tighter for a second before it relaxed. He pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over her shoulders and stood.
He crossed the hallway to Mireya‘s room. The door was open and the light was off, the room holding the glow from the streetlamp outside the window where the curtains hung parted at the center. Mireya stood just inside, her weight on one foot, her arms still folded.
“¿Estás bien?”
She nodded and uncrossed her arms. She stepped closer and ran her hands down his chest, her palms flat against the cotton of his shirt, her fingers spreading over his ribs as her hands traveled from his collarbones to his stomach. “I‘m good.”
She reached her hand behind his head, her fingers finding the base of his neck, and pulled his face down to hers. Her mouth found his, the pressure steady, her grip at his neck firm. She pulled back far enough for the words to land against his lips.
“Por estar ahí para mí.”
Caine‘s arms went around her waist. “¿Estás seguro?”
“You can tell me to stop whenever you want.”
She kissed him again, her mouth pressing into his as she walked him backward. His calves hit the edge of the mattress and she pushed him down by the chest, both hands flat against him, the weight of her palms steady until his body folded into a sitting position on the bed. She lowered herself to her knees between his feet, her hands sliding down his thighs to his knees.
“Ain‘t you supposed to wait a certain number of weeks?”
“I got an IUD again.” She reached for the waistband of his shorts, her fingers hooking the elastic, and looked up at him. The streetlight caught the side of her face where she knelt between his knees. “You gonna tell me to stop? ¿O vas a dejarme tener lo que quiero antes de volver con ella?”
Caine leaned back on his elbows, the mattress giving under his weight, his eyes on her face below him.
Mireya smiled, the expression pulling slow and certain across her mouth. “That‘s what I thought,” she said, and pulled his shorts down.
~~~
Mireya tapped the end of her stylus against the screen of the tablet on the desk under her arm, the plastic tip clicking soft against the glass in a rhythm she kept loose and uneven. The instructor stood at the front of the hall behind a lectern with a slide projected on the screen behind him, a diagram of the human body‘s major organ systems laid out in cross-section with arrows running between them in colored loops.
“So when we talk about homeostasis,” the instructor said, his hand coming up to gesture at the screen behind him, his eyes staying on the rows, “we‘re talking about the body‘s ability to maintain a stable internal environment regardless of what‘s happening externally. Temperature. Blood sugar. pH. Your body doesn‘t care that you were out late last night or that you skipped breakfast this morning.” He let that sit for a beat, his gaze moving across the hall. “It‘s going to regulate itself whether you cooperate with it or not.”
Mireya‘s pen moved across the tablet, her handwriting pulling tight and small along the line she‘d started at the top of the page.
“The mechanism we‘re looking at first is negative feedback.” The instructor clicked the slide forward and a new diagram filled the screen, a circular loop with labels at each node. “And I know the word negative throws people off because it sounds like something bad is happening. It‘s not. Negative just means the response works against the stimulus. You get hot, your body cools you down. You get cold, your body warms you up. It‘s a correction. The system detects a change and pushes back toward baseline.”
He tapped the first node on the diagram with the end of a laser pointer, the red dot settling on the word receptor. “This is where it starts. The receptor detects the change. Sends that signal to the control center, which in most cases is going to be your brain or a gland somewhere, and the control center sends the order out to the effector. The effector is the thing that actually does the work.” He moved the pointer along the loop. “The effector produces a response that brings the variable back toward its set point. And once it gets there, the receptor picks that up, too, and the whole signal shuts off. That‘s the loop.”
Mireya drew the circle on the tablet and labeled each point as the instructor named them.
She set the pen down against the edge of the tablet and slid her phone off the desk where it sat face-down beside her elbow. Her thumb pressed the screen, tapped into her messages and scrolled to Sara‘s name. The last text sat at the bottom of the thread from that morning: She ate good and went right back down. We‘re fine mija. Mireya‘s thumb hovered over the text field for a beat. She closed the thread, locked the screen, and set the phone back on the desk.
The instructor had moved to the next slide, a diagram of thermoregulation with the hypothalamus labeled at the center. “Let‘s walk through a specific example so you can see how this plays out in real time. Say you step outside right now. Your thermoreceptors in your skin are going to send a signal to the hypothalamus saying your core temperature is climbing above its set point of ninety-eight point six. The hypothalamus sends the signal out to your sweat glands and to the smooth muscle in your blood vessels near the skin. The sweat glands produce sweat. The blood vessels dilate. Both of those work to dump heat off your body and bring the temperature back down.” He tapped the pointer against the loop on the slide. “That‘s it. That‘s negative feedback. The stimulus was rising temperature. The response was cooling. One pushes against the other until the variable is back where it belongs.”
Mireya picked her pen up and wrote hypothalamus on the next line. She drew an arrow from it and added thermoreg, dilate, sweat glands along the margin.
She felt eyes on the side of her face and looked up from the tablet.
The guy sat three seats to her left and one row back. One of maybe eight or nine men in a hall that held close to sixty. He had his arm draped over the back of the empty seat beside him, his pen resting between his index and middle finger, his notebook open on the desk in front of him. When their eyes met, he winked.
A smirk crept across Mireya‘s face. It held for a moment before she shook her head to herself and turned back toward the front of the hall.
“Now the opposite of negative feedback is positive feedback,” the instructor said. He clicked to the next slide. “And this one trips people up because positive doesn‘t mean good. It means the response amplifies the stimulus instead of counteracting it. The loop builds on itself.” He set the pointer down on the lectern and folded his arms. “The example I want you to remember, because a good number of you are going to see this firsthand during your clinicals, is oxytocin during labor. The baby‘s head pushes against the cervix. That pressure triggers the pituitary gland to release oxytocin. The oxytocin strengthens the uterine contractions. Stronger contractions push the baby harder against the cervix, which triggers more oxytocin, which makes the contractions stronger. The cycle keeps escalating until the baby is delivered and the stimulus is gone.”
Mireya‘s pen stopped on the glass. She held it there for a beat, the tip pressed still against the surface. Then she wrote positive feedback, oxytocin, labor on the next line and moved on.
“That‘s the key distinction I want you walking out of here with today,” the instructor said. He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward against the lectern, his palms flat on the edges. “Negative feedback stabilizes. Positive feedback escalates. Most of what your body does on any given day is negative feedback. Positive feedback is rare, and it‘s supposed to be, because a system that only amplifies has to have an endpoint or it‘ll tear itself apart.”
Mireya set the pen down and picked up her phone. She opened her messages and tapped Sara‘s thread. The same text from that morning sat at the bottom, the cursor blinking in the empty field below it. Her thumb rested against the edge of the screen. She watched the field for a moment, then closed the thread and set the phone back down beside the tablet.
The guy was looking at her again when she glanced over. A smile sat on his face this time, wider than before, his chin lifted a fraction.
Mireya shook her head and looked back toward the instructor, her eyes finding the slide on the screen as the diagram shifted to the next example.
~~~
Sara sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her and Micaela swaddled in the crook of her left arm, the blanket wrapped tight from her shoulders to her feet, the cotton pulled smooth at the edges where Sara had folded and tucked it against the small body. Her right hand held the bottle angled down toward Micaela‘s mouth, the formula pulling through the nipple in slow draws, the level dropping a fraction each time Micaela‘s jaw worked. The baby‘s eyes were half-closed, her lashes sitting low against her cheeks, her whole body still except for the rhythm of her mouth and the occasional twitch of her fingers where they curled against the blanket.
A telenovela ran on the TV at low volume. A woman in a white blouse stood behind a desk with her hands flat on the wood, her chin lifted, her mouth moving around words that came through the speaker thin enough that the vowels blurred into each other. A man in a gray blazer paced the office across from her, his hand at his temple, his shoulders set tight. The woman said something short and sharp and the man stopped pacing, his hand dropping from his head, his jaw pulling to one side before he turned to face her.
Sara looked down at Micaela and let her head rest back against the cushion, the fabric soft against the back of her neck. “This is the easy part, ain‘t it, muñequita?”
One of Micaela‘s hands worked free of the swaddle. Her fingers reached up and found Sara‘s hand on the bottle, the small grip closing around Sara‘s index finger where it pressed against the plastic, the strength of it pulling Sara‘s finger a fraction off the surface before the grip steadied.
Sara‘s mouth softened as she watched Micaela‘s hand hold onto hers, the fingers so small they covered just the width of her knuckle.
“You‘re a quiet baby so far. Acaba de llegar al mundo y lo está descubriendo todo.” She adjusted her hold, her arm shifting under the swaddle to bring the bottle to a slightly steeper angle, the formula moving faster now at the tilt. “Not like your big sister and your daddy. Oh no. They were screaming and cussing as soon as they left the hospital.”
On the TV, the woman had come around the desk and was standing in front of the man, her hands at her sides, her voice lower now, the words coming through as murmurs. The man reached for her wrist and she stepped back, her chin dipping once. The scene cut and a hallway filled the screen, another woman walking fast through it with a folder pressed to her chest.
Micaela turned her head and the bottle slipped from her mouth, the nipple pulling free with a small wet sound. Her face scrunched up, the skin between her eyebrows wrinkling, her mouth opening wide enough for her tongue to press against her lower gum. A cry came out, thin and short, more complaint than distress.
Sara tilted the bottle back toward her, bringing the nipple down until it brushed Micaela‘s lower lip. “Está justo aquí, mi amor.” Micaela‘s mouth found it and latched, her jaw working twice before the rhythm came back and her face relaxed, the wrinkles smoothing out, her eyes closing all the way this time.
Sara‘s phone buzzed against the cushion beside her thigh. She looked down at it, the screen lighting up with a notification bar across the top. She shifted Micaela higher in the crook of her arm and brought her chin down to the top of the bottle, pressing it against the rim to hold it steady while her right hand came free. She picked the phone up and thumbed the screen open, tilting it toward her face.
Nicole‘s name sat at the top of the thread.
We need to get together soon so you can tell me all about your new man
Sara snorted a laugh, the sound low enough that Micaela‘s eyes stayed closed, her jaw still working the bottle in its steady rhythm. Sara typed back with her thumb, the phone balanced in her right hand, her chin still pressed against the top of the bottle.
you‘re the busy one
The response came back fast. A rolling eyes emoji followed by: When you get back from LA. Brunch.
Sara tapped the thumbs up reaction on the message and set the phone face-down on the cushion. She lifted her chin off the bottle and brought her hand back to it, her fingers settling around the plastic, the warmth of the formula coming through the surface against her palm. Micaela had slowed, the draws coming further apart now, the bottle nearly empty, the last quarter-inch of formula pooling at the bottom where the angle held it.
Sara looked down at her. Micaela‘s hand was still wrapped around her finger, the grip loosening as sleep pulled her deeper, the small fingers easing their hold one at a time until only her thumb and forefinger kept contact.
“Yeah, this is definitely the easy part. Solo come, duerme y sé un bebé adorable.”
The telenovela cut to a commercial, the screen going bright with color that washed across the far wall before settling into a spot for laundry detergent. Micaela‘s mouth stilled on the nipple and her hand fell away from Sara‘s finger, the small fist coming to rest against the swaddle at her chest. Sara held her there, the bottle pulled back, the baby asleep in her arms, the day pressing warm through the windows behind them.
~~~
Caine took the snap and dropped three steps, his fingers finding the laces before his back foot hit the turf. The offensive line set in front of him, pads popping as the rush came off the edge. His eyes started left, working Marquis off the hash with his head and shoulders, then came back inside. Derron broke off his stem at twelve yards and cut hard toward the middle of the field on the in route, his hips opening up as he came out of the break, his hands already out in front of him. Ta’mere over the middle had drifted a step too wide. Caine planted his back foot and threw it. The ball came out on a line, chest high, and hit Derron between the numbers as he crossed the field. Derron pulled it in against his pads with both hands, tucked it under his arm, and turned his shoulders upfield. He carried it another ten yards before he eased up and jogged the rest of the rep out toward the far sideline. The whistle blew behind them.
Caine pulled his mouthpiece out and let it hang off the edge of his facemask. He wiped the back of his wrist across his forehead where the sweat had started to pool under the helmet and turned toward the sideline. Coach Riley stood at the edge of the field with his arms folded across his chest, his visor pulled low over his eyes. Coach Huard was a step behind him, the play sheet rolled in one hand, tapping it against his thigh in a rhythm that matched the second team‘s cadence running their look behind Caine on the far end of the field.
Caine stopped in front of them. Riley watched him come in. He unfolded his arms and put his hands on his hips, his head tilting a fraction.
“You think you‘ll be good to go in ten days?”
Caine nodded. “We playing New Mexico State, coach.”
Huard shifted the play sheet from one hand to the other. His eyes moved from Caine to the field behind him then back at Caine.
“They could have the second coming of Diego Pavia in the backfield over there.”
“I ain‘t gonna get outdone by a quarterback at New Mexico State, coach. Respectfully. They gonna have to show me something if they want that respect.”
Riley‘s mouth pulled at the corner. He looked at Huard for a beat, then brought his eyes back to Caine. His hand came off his hip and he pointed one finger at Caine‘s chest, the gesture loose.
“Just don‘t push yourself too hard. You‘re still getting back up to speed and the last thing we want is you getting hurt and we wasted a couple of months wondering which way we‘d have to go for them.”
Caine dipped his chin. “Got it, coach.”
Riley held his eyes for another beat, then nodded once and folded his arms back across his chest. Huard unrolled the play sheet and ran his finger down the column of scripted plays. He found the call and held it up between them, his finger tapping the formation diagram twice. Caine read it, the route concepts printed in blue ink with the protection drawn in pencil underneath. He nodded and turned toward the huddle.
He crossed the turf with his helmet in his hand. The sun pressed into the back of his neck and across his shoulders where the pads sat heavy against his skin. He pulled the helmet on and worked the chinstrap tight with two fingers, the snap catching on the second try. He stepped into the circle.
The faces came up around him. Cam on his left, his mouthpiece hanging off the cage, sweat running a line from his temple down to his jaw. Derron jogging back in from the far side, still tucking his mouthpiece between his molars, his chest rising and falling from the last rep. Willi at the center of the line with his hands on his knees, his back flat, his eyes already up on Caine. The linemen filled in on either side of him, their pads clicking against each other as they settled into the circle.
Caine called the play. His voice came flat and even under the sun, the formation first, then the protection call marked with a chop of his hand against his left palm. He tapped Cam on the shoulder pad and pointed right. The huddle broke and they spread to the line.
Caine settled into the shotgun. Cam and Derron split wide to his right, Cam at the numbers and Derron outside him near the sideline. Xavier lined up alone on the far side of the field, his stance low, his weight on his front foot, his eyes forward. The defense showed a single high safety with the corners pressed at the line. Caine set his hands and scanned the front.
“One! One! Go! Hit!”
Willi snapped it clean. The ball spiraled back and Caine caught it, his fingers finding the laces as he dropped one step, two, three. His eyes went right first. Cam ran a hitch at the sticks, planting his outside foot and turning back for the ball, but the corner had jumped the route and was sitting on it with his hands already in the passing lane. Caine came off it. He moved his eyes inside to Derron on the crosser, but Jadyn was still sitting in the window at the depth where the route would cross, his hips square, reading Caine‘s shoulders. Caine worked his eyes across the field to Xavier on the far sideline, running the fly, his stride opening up, his man trailing a full step behind with his hips turned the wrong direction.
Caine stepped up in the pocket. He felt the rush close behind him off the edge, the pressure collapsing the space where his back foot had been a half second before. He planted and let it go. The ball climbed off his hand on a tight spiral, the arc carrying it over the defense and down the sideline. Xavier tracked it over his inside shoulder, adjusting his angle a fraction, his hands reaching out in front of him as the ball dropped in, hitting him in stride. He tucked it against his body and walked into the end zone untouched.
Caine pulled his helmet off and held it at his side. Xavier pointed the ball back toward him from the end zone, and Caine lifted his chin at him once before he turned and walked toward the sideline.
~~~
Autumn pulled up along the curb in front of the apartment complex on the edge of Brentwood and put the car in park. She grabbed her bag off the passenger seat, dropped her phone into it, and pushed the door open.
The heat came off the asphalt before she had both feet on the ground. She walked around to the back of the car and popped the trunk. A foil-covered tray was wedged against the rear wall where she‘d braced it with a gym bag to keep it from sliding. She lifted it out with both hands, the foil warm against her palms. She bumped the trunk shut with her elbow and started across the lot.
She passed Sasha‘s car on her way toward the stairs. The driver‘s side door had a dent in it, the metal creased in a shallow line that caught the light where the paint had cracked at the edge. Autumn shook her head and kept walking, the tray balanced between her hands, her bag hanging off the crook of her elbow.
She took the stairs, her shoes hitting each step, and came down the landing to Sasha‘s door. Both hands were on the tray. She lifted her foot and kicked the bottom of the door twice, the impacts landing flat against the wood.
“Come open the fucking door!”
A few seconds passed. Footsteps crossed cheap flooring inside. The lock turned and the door cracked open. Sasha‘s face appeared in the gap, one eye and half her mouth visible past the edge of the frame.
“What you want?”
Autumn took one hand off the tray and waved it toward the apartment, the gesture sharp, her fingers flicking back at the wrist. “Bitch, move so I can bring this in.”
Sasha sucked her teeth then stepped back and pulled the door wider, her hand staying on the knob as Autumn came through. The apartment opened up into a living room that ran straight into a small kitchen along the back wall, a counter separating the two with a pair of stools tucked under the overhang.
Autumn started toward the kitchen. She glanced to her right as she passed the couch. Julian sat in the middle cushion with one arm draped along the backrest, his phone in his other hand. He watched her cross the room, his eyes tracking her from the door to the kitchen, his head barely moving. Autumn snorted a laugh to herself and set the tray on the counter, the foil crinkling against the laminate as the weight settled.
Sasha followed her in, her bare feet padding across the tile. She stopped on the other side of the counter and leaned her hip into it, her arms crossing over her chest.
“What‘s in that?”
“Some ribs and all my mama cooked. She cooked too much and told me to bring it to you so here it is.” Autumn pressed the edge of the foil down where it had come loose on one side during the drive, smoothing the crease flat against the rim of the tray with her thumb.
Julian pushed up from the couch. The cushion gave back its shape behind him as he crossed the living room and came into the kitchen, positioning himself between Sasha and Autumn at the counter. He reached for the tray and peeled the foil back from the near corner, the metal folding over his knuckles. The smell came up from under it, sweet and heavy with smoke and sauce.
“You know we shouldn‘t be eating pork.”
Autumn sucked her teeth. “Nigga, please. You look like you fuck white women. Pork is the least of your worries.”
Julian laughed, his head dropping forward, his hand coming off the foil. He shook his head once, his shoulders still moving with it.
Sasha‘s eyes moved from Julian to Autumn. Her arms stayed folded. “Ain‘t you got somewhere to be?”
Autumn leaned back against the counter behind her, her palms finding the edge of it, her fingers curling over the lip. “Don‘t worry about me being in your lil‘ spot, bitch. It‘s giving poor in here. I‘m about to go see my man. I just was doing what my mama told me.”
Sasha snorted a laugh. Her chin came up a fraction. “The so-called man had you running to Louisiana for him? That nigga who play quarterback?”
A smirk spread across Autumn‘s face. She let it sit for a beat, her weight settling deeper against the counter, her eyes holding Sasha‘s. “Yeah, in the words of Meg, my man, my man, my man, my baby.”
Julian looked between the two of them. His hand came up and rubbed the back of his neck. “That‘s how y‘all roll in the family? Flying all over the country for niggas?”
“Don‘t be stupid. He paid for everything.” Autumn pushed off the counter and straightened, her bag sliding down her arm toward her wrist. She looked Julian over once, her eyes traveling from his slides to his basketball shorts to the chain sitting flat against his chest. “You got munyun like that, nigga?”
Julian held his hands up, his mouth pulling to one side.
Sasha unfolded her arms and dropped them to her sides. “Don‘t pump her head up making her think she got something.”
Autumn laughed. She caught the strap of her bag and pulled it back up onto her shoulder as she started toward the door, her stride easy, her sandals finding the tile in an even rhythm. She turned her head back over her shoulder as she reached for the knob.
“Except I‘ll be in a penthouse tonight and y‘all gonna be listening to your homegirl getting cracked through these thin ass walls. We not the same.”
She pulled the door open and walked through it. Behind her, Sasha rolled her eyes and reached for the foil on the tray, pulling it the rest of the way back.
~~~
Caine sat in the leather armchair with one ankle over his knee, his hands resting on the ends of the armrests. Through the glass behind Tatum‘s desk, downtown a wash of white and gray, the buildings flat against the haze that had been pressing on the basin since morning. The whiteboard on the far wall still had names and figures on it in dry-erase marker, some of them circled, some crossed through, a few with arrows drawn between them linking one column to the next.
Tatum leaned back in the opposite chair with one leg crossed over the other, his watch catching the overhead light when he shifted his wrist. He had a pen in his hand that he turned end over end between his fingers, the motion steady, mechanical, the cap clicking against his ring each time it came around. His sleeves were pushed to his forearms, the veins along the backs of his hands standing up where his grip worked the pen.
“Kid, you could‘ve given me a little more to work with when I was dealing with all these brands trying to postpone shit.”
Caine looked at him. “I told you I was down in New Orleans because my kid.”
Tatum stopped the pen between his thumb and forefinger. He held it there for a beat, the tip pointed at the ceiling, his eyes steady on Caine across the low table between them. “You never said if I could say that to other folks or if that was supposed to stay in the family.”
Caine held his hands up off the armrests. “My bad. I ain‘t think it was going to be a big deal if they had to push shit a few weeks because I was out of pocket.”
Tatum snorted a laugh. He set the pen down on the table between them and uncrossed his legs, planting both feet on the floor. His elbows came to his knees and his hands clasped between them. His chin dipped a fraction as he spoke.
“It was definitely a big deal for more than a few of them, but I kept them on the hook.”
. Tatum‘s thumb pressed against the side of his index finger, the knuckle whitening for a second before he released it. He tipped his chin toward the whiteboard on the far wall.
Caine looked at him. “How‘d you manage that?”
Tatum‘s eyes moved to the board, to the crossed-out names and the ones still circled. He looked at it for a long beat, his jaw working once at the hinge, then brought his eyes back to Caine.
“Sometimes, you gotta give a little to get a lot in the long run. You might lose a few grand off the top here in the next few months, but at least you‘re going to be able to keep the majority of what you were expecting coming in.”
Tatum leaned back, one arm going along the armrest, his fingers drumming once against the leather before they stilled. Outside the glass, a helicopter tracked across the skyline heading south, the shape of it small and steady against the haze.
Caine brought his eyes back to Tatum. “I‘m cool with that. Ain‘t like I can‘t find a few new deals to get that money back.”
Tatum pointed at him, the gesture sharp, his index finger coming up off his knee and leveling at Caine‘s chest. A laugh broke across his face, reaching his eyes and pulled the lines at the corners deeper.
“Look at you. Already starting to think like a businessman.”
Caine shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping. A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I been doing business since I was 13, T.”
The laugh trailed off Tatum‘s face in degrees. He sat back in the chair, his shoulders settling against the leather. The smile dropped first. Then his jaw set, his eyes holding on Caine steady and level. His hands came together in his lap, fingers lacing, thumbs pressing against each other.
“But are your kids good? I know I‘ve been hounding you about the deals, but I want to make sure your little ones are alright, too.”
Caine nodded. “Micaela out the NICU and at home so just the normal stuff you gotta deal with raising kids.”
Tatum shook his head and ran his hand down the front of his face, his palm dragging from his forehead to his chin before it dropped back to his thigh. He blew a breath out through his lips. “Just the thought of that gives me heartburn. DINK life is way too fun to be raising kids.”
Caine laughed, the sound pushing out of his chest. He shook his head once. “That ship sailed a long time ago for me.”
“You‘ll have to circle back when the kids are out of the house.” Tatum slapped both hands against his thighs and pushed himself forward in the chair, his weight coming to the edge of the cushion, the leather creaking under the shift. He reached for a folder on the table between them and pulled it into his lap, flipping the cover open with his thumb. “But let‘s talk some new opportunities.”
~~~
Mireya had her feet across Jaslene‘s lap, her heels resting against Jaslene‘s thigh. Jaslene sat beside her on the couch with her own legs stretched out to the coffee table, one ankle crossed over the other, her hand resting on Mireya‘s shin where the scrub pant had ridden up above the sock line.
Mireya‘s phone was in her hand, her thumb scrolling slow through something, the screen casting a blue-white glow against the underside of her chin.
“How‘s class been so far, mi amor?”
Mireya looked up from the screen. “Just like class was before. Everything‘s just nursing shit now.”
Jaslene held a hand up, her fingers spread, her palm facing the ceiling. “Sounds like something you need to be focusing more on.”
Mireya‘s eyes narrowed a fraction. She set her phone on her stomach and looked at Jaslene, her head tilting against the arm of the couch. “I know what you‘re trying to do.”
“¿Qué?”
Mireya stared at her. Her expression held flat, her mouth a line, her eyes steady on Jaslene‘s face. Jaslene looked back at her with the hand still raised.
“¿En serio? Las clases son difíciles, así que no vuelvas a bailar. Eso es lo que pasa.”
Jaslene let her hand drop back to Mireya‘s shin. Her thumb moved once along the bone, pressing against the skin. “You talk to Stasia yet about getting back on?”
Mireya sucked her teeth then picked the phone back up and turned it over in her hand once before setting it down on her stomach again, her fingers staying on the case. “Yeah, texted her yesterday. She fucking said she doesn‘t think I‘m healthy enough to come back because she heard I flatlined during delivery. I wonder where she heard that.”
Her eyes moved to Jaslene when she said it. Jaslene‘s hand stayed on Mireya‘s shin, her thumb still.
“No se equivoca, mi amor.”
Mireya shook her head. Her jaw shifted once at the hinge, the muscle there pressing against the skin before it released. “I just spent the last two months with everyone making decisions for me. I ain‘t doing that shit any more. I‘m fucking fine. I need to work.”
Jaslene shrugged, one shoulder lifting against the cushion behind her. Her hand moved from Mireya‘s shin to her knee, her fingers settling into the bend of it. “The universe keeps giving you all these signs that it‘s time to move on from that part of your life.”
“¿Por qué sigues diciendo eso como si te diera vergüenza?”
“I‘m not ashamed.” Jaslene‘s voice came even, her eyes on Mireya‘s face. “You‘ve just grown past it. Some people are lifers. Some people aren‘t. You aren‘t.”
“According to who?”
Jaslene‘s hand moved from Mireya‘s knee down along her thigh, her palm running over the scrub fabric, the cotton pressing flat under her fingers as they traveled the length of the muscle underneath. Her eyes followed her own hand for a beat before they came back to Mireya‘s face.
“According to you, mi amor.”
Mireya pulled her feet off Jaslene‘s lap. She shifted her weight forward and brought one knee over Jaslene‘s thigh, then the other, settling into her lap with her knees pressed into the cushion on either side of Jaslene‘s hips. Her hands found Jaslene‘s shoulders. She leaned down and kissed her, her mouth pressing into Jaslene‘s, holding there for a beat before she pulled back a fraction and came in again, slower the second time, her fingers curling into the fabric at Jaslene‘s collarbone.
Jaslene‘s hands had come to Mireya‘s waist. She pulled back and turned her head to the side, her cheek brushing against Mireya‘s mouth as she moved.
“Ahora mismo no, mi amor.”
Mireya‘s eyebrows drew together, her weight in Jaslene‘s lap, her hands still on Jaslene‘s shoulders, her eyes on Jaslene‘s profile where her face had turned away. The line of Jaslene‘s jaw held steady. Her eyes were on the far wall.
Jaslene reached up, her hand finding the side of Mireya‘s head, and her fingers slid into her hair, her palm warm against Mireya‘s scalp, her thumb tracing the edge of her ear. She ran her hand back through the length of it, slow, the strands catching between her fingers and pulling free as her hand traveled to the ends.
Mireya shook her head then shifted her weight to slide off, one knee already lifting from the cushion. Jaslene‘s arms came around her, both of them wrapping across the small of Mireya‘s back, her hands locking against each other at Mireya‘s spine. She pulled her in, firm, closing the space between their bodies until Mireya‘s chest pressed flat against hers.
Mireya’s hands slid off Jaslene‘s shoulders and her arms folded between them, her forehead dropping to the curve of Jaslene‘s neck. Jaslene held her there. Her hand came up from Mireya‘s back and found her hair again, her fingers working through it in long slow passes from the crown to the ends, the motion steady, repeating.
Mireya closed her eyes and let Jaslene hold her.
~~~
Sena sat at the kitchen table in her parents‘ house with a stack of mail fanned out in front of her, still in the scrubs she‘d worn to class that morning. Two weeks of envelopes had piled up in the box by the front door and she was working through them one at a time, flipping each one over to read the return address before sorting it left or right. The left pile was growing faster. Credit card offers, insurance solicitations, a furniture catalog addressed to someone who‘d lived here before her parents bought the place. She tore the plastic window off an envelope, dropped the pieces into the junk pile, and reached for the next one.
Minji came into the kitchen from the hallway and pulled the chair out beside her. She sat down and folded her hands on the table, her eyes following Sena‘s fingers as they worked through the stack.
Sena glanced over at her and then back at the envelope in her hand. “Sorry I haven‘t been over lately, eomma.”
“As long as you tell me that it‘s because you found yourself a nice boy to relax with after you spend all day in class.”
Sena‘s eyes moved to Minji for a beat, then dropped back to the junk mail in her hand. She slid it onto the pile with the others, her thumb pushing it flush against the edge of the stack.
“I know that look,” Minji said.
“What look?”
“The one that says that you‘re hiding something. You‘ve done it ever since you were little and Taemin or Jihoon did something they shouldn‘t and wanted you to cover for them.”
Sena pulled the next envelope from the stack and turned it over, her nail catching the corner of the flap. “I never covered for them.”
Minji laughed, the sound landing warm in the kitchen. Her hand came off the table and found Sena‘s forearm, squeezing once before letting go. “You covered for them all the time, gongju. Then you‘d take the blame if you could.”
Sena rolled her eyes. “Because they were always doing something they didn‘t have any business.”
“Even now they still do.”
Sena snorted a laugh. She tore the envelope open along its seam and pulled the contents out far enough to see the header on the page inside. Another credit card offer. She folded it back in and dropped it onto the junk pile, her fingers already reaching for the next one in the stack.
The sorting continued in the space between them, Sena‘s hands moving through the stack in a steady rhythm, Minji watching from her chair with her chin resting on the heel of her hand. The clock above the stove ticked in its even intervals. The air conditioning cycled on somewhere in the ceiling with a low hum that settled into the walls.
“I‘m seeing someone.”
Minji‘s eyes widened and a smile spread across her face, the expression arriving full and fast, her chin lifting off her hand. “What‘s his name?”
“Rey.”
The smile stayed on Minji‘s face as her hands came together on the table in front of her, her fingers lacing, her thumbs pressing against each other. “I‘m so happy for you putting yourself out there. Where did you meet?”
Sena set the envelope she was holding down on the table, unsorted. Her thumb pressed against the edge of it, bending the corner back and letting it snap flat. “We had class together at UNO and now HSC.”
“Oh, he‘s going to be a doctor.”
Sena shook her head. “A nurse.”
Minji waved the word off with one hand, the gesture quick, her fingers flicking at the wrist. “He will change later.”
Sena‘s mouth pulled at one side. “I don‘t know about that, eomma.”
“When can we meet him?”
Sena picked the envelope back up and turned it over in her hands once, her eyes on the paper. “It‘s still new. I don‘t want to rush things and it fall apart.”
Minji held her hands up, palms out, her shoulders lifting with them. “You‘re right. I‘ll wait.”
Sena nodded. “Thanks.”
Minji leaned over and pressed her lips to the side of Sena‘s head, the kiss landing above her ear, warm and brief. Her hand came up and smoothed a piece of Sena‘s hair back into place where the scrub top‘s collar had pushed it forward. She stood, her chair scraping back across the tile, and walked to the refrigerator, pulling the door open and leaning in to look at the shelves.
Sena watched her out of the corner of her eye, Minji‘s back to her now, her hand reaching for something on the middle shelf.
Sena pulled the junk mail pile toward her across the table. She took the first envelope off the top, tore it in half, and dropped the pieces. She took the next one and tore it. Then the next. Her hands worked through the pile in a steady rhythm, the paper ripping in clean lines between her fingers, the torn halves stacking in front of her in a growing heap.
~~~
Autumn stirred the sauce in the pot with a wooden spoon, her free hand resting on the edge of the stove, the t-shirt she was wearing hanging loose off one shoulder. Caine‘s arms were around her waist from behind, his chin beside her head, her hair pressing against his jaw each time she leaned forward to check the consistency. The sauce caught the overhead light where it bubbled at the edges. On the burner beside it, vegetables popped in a skillet, the oil sending small threads of smoke toward the hood vent. The city held its light in the floor-to-ceiling windows across the living room, downtown sharp against the dark.
“You‘re gonna make me burn something, nigga.”
Caine snorted a laugh against the side of her head. He reached one arm out past her shoulder, grabbed the spatula off the counter, and shifted the vegetables in the skillet. The peppers and onions slid over each other as the oil caught underneath them.
Autumn slapped his hand with the back of hers, the contact sharp against his knuckles. “I thought I was supposed to be cooking.”
“You wasn‘t paying attention to them.”
“You ain‘t gotta keep touching the food. Sometimes, you just gotta let it sit and do it‘s thing.” She stirred the sauce once, slow, the spoon tracing the bottom of the pot in a full circle before she brought it up and tapped it twice against the rim.
“Who did most of the cooking when you was growing up?”
Autumn turned her head toward him, her hair sliding against his jaw, her eyes catching his at the edge of her peripheral. “What?”
“Who was doing the cooking?”
She turned her face back to the stove, the spoon settling against the inside of the pot. “It was about fifty-fifty between my mama and my daddy.”
Caine shook his head, his chin brushing the fabric at her shoulder. “I don‘t know if I‘m trusting someone who got some of their cooking skills from their daddy.”
Autumn swung her free hand back and caught him on the side, her palm landing flat against his ribs. “Fuck you, nigga. Don‘t be jealous.”
“It‘s just facts. Especially out here in bougie ass California.”
“You love it here.”
“It‘s alright.”
Autumn set the spoon across the rim of the pot and turned in his arms, her hips rotating against his forearms, the boy shorts riding up a fraction at the hem as she came around to face him. She stepped forward and he stepped back, the marble island catching him at the small of his back, the edge of it cold against the skin above the waistband of his basketball shorts. His hands slid to her hips as her body settled against his. The stove clicked behind her the sauce still turning over itself in the pot, the vegetables in the skillet going still as the oil cooled at the edges. She reached up and ran her fingers into his dreads, her nails dragging slow along his scalp before her hand came to rest at the back of his head, the weight of the locs falling over her wrist and across the back of her forearm.
“You know you still need to meet my daddy and get the Garrison Tate blessing.”
“That make or break?”
Autumn nodded, a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Here I was thinking his baby girl would put in enough of a good word for me that I ain‘t gotta stress like that.”
“His baby girl is why you gotta stress. You should know. Ain‘t you a girl dad?”
“Fair enough.”
Autumn‘s other hand came up to his chest, her palm flat against the bare skin, her fingers spread over the muscle there. Her thumb moved once along his collarbone before it stilled. She leaned up and kissed him, her mouth pressing against his, her fingers tightening in his dreads for a beat before she pulled back far enough to speak against his lips. “It‘s a good thing he loves me so much he won‘t make me mad.”
Caine snorted a laugh, his hands still on her hips, the marble counter pressing into the small of his back. “We‘ll see.”
Autumn held his eyes for another beat, the smirk still sitting at the corner of her mouth, her hand sliding out of his dreads and down the side of his neck before she dropped it to his chest. She let both hands rest there for a moment, her palms warm against his skin, her weight leaned into him where his back pressed against the marble.
Then she turned to the stove, her feet finding the tile in two easy steps, her t-shirt settling back against her frame as she moved. She picked the spoon up and stirred the sauce again, checking the consistency against the back of it where the liquid coated the wood in a thin even layer. The vegetables in the skillet had gone still and she reached for the spatula, turning them once before setting it down on the counter beside the burner.
“You remembered to get dessert, chef?” Caine asked.
Autumn looked over her shoulder at him, the spoon still in her hand, one eyebrow lifting. “Dessert? You eating me for dessert, nigga.”
Caine shook his head, a smile pulling across his mouth as he pushed off the island and stepped back behind her. His arms went around her waist again and his chin found the same spot beside her head, the heat from the stove reaching both of them where they stood, the sauce bubbling low in the pot, the city holding its light steady in the glass across the room.
~~~
Sena lay in Mireya‘s bed with the covers pulled up over her waist, her phone held above her face, her thumb swiping through TikTok. The lamp on the nightstand threw a warm circle across her side of the bed. The rest of the room sat in the dark beyond it, the curtains drawn across the window all flattened into shapes that held still in the low light.
Mireya came through the doorway with the baby monitor in her hand, the green indicator light blinking at the top of the unit. She crossed to the nightstand on her side and set it down next to the lamp, turning the volume dial with her thumb until it clicked against the stop.
Sena looked over at her. “She went down?”
Mireya nodded as she pulled the covers back and slid into the bed, her knee brushing Sena‘s thigh as she settled. “She‘s a good baby. No fuss, just give her the food and she‘s knocked out.”
Sena smiled, her phone lowering to her chest. “Always a blessing. Camila put up a bit of a fight earlier.”
Mireya shook her head and shifted closer, throwing one arm across Sena‘s stomach and one leg over hers, her body curling against Sena‘s side, her head propped up on her other hand. “Because Caine was here too long. She got used to it. And it doesn‘t fucking help that he has a game next week.”
“Are you going?”
Mireya‘s fingers found the hem of Sena‘s shirt and settled there, her thumb running along the stitching. “No. Not that one. Sara is taking Camila. I‘m doing the one in a few weeks. Then Sara, then by the one after that, Micaela might be good to fly so we‘ll all go.”
“Oh.”
Mireya‘s thumb stilled on the hem. She tilted her head on her hand, her eyes moving up from where her fingers rested to Sena‘s face. The monitor hissed its static from the nightstand.
“You‘re not still worried about me leaving you for him, are you?”
Sena‘s eyes stayed on the ceiling. “No, but...”
“But you are.”
Sena shrugged, the motion small under the weight of Mireya‘s arm across her. “I‘m sorry. I can‘t help it.”
“Don‘t apologize, baby. It‘s okay. I understand why you‘d be nervous about that. It‘s on me to reassure you.”
Sena‘s mouth pulled into something that tried for a smile and fell short, the corners lifting but the rest of her face staying where it was. “You‘re not responsible for my irrational thoughts.”
Mireya‘s eyebrow came up. “That sounds like some shit you hear in fucking therapy.”
Sena snorted a laugh, the air pushing through her nose, her chest moving once under Mireya‘s arm. “It is.”
Mireya laughed, the sound landing low and warm against Sena‘s shoulder where her chin rested. Her fingers picked the hem back up and turned it once between her thumb and forefinger before letting it fall. “You know you can come to LA with me.”
“I don‘t have fly to LA every other week money.”
“I do so you do. You need to get out more anyway. When was the last time you traveled?”
Sena‘s eyes moved to the ceiling again, her phone dark on her chest where she‘d let the screen time out. “Probably when I was like six and we went to visit my grandparents in Korea.”
“Yep, we‘re going on some trips.”
“What about the girls?”
“A couple days won‘t hurt.”
Sena shrugged again, her shoulder pressing up against Mireya‘s chin. “We‘ll see.”
Mireya propped herself up higher on her elbow, the mattress pressing under her weight, her eyes narrowing a fraction as she looked down at Sena‘s face. A smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth. “We‘ll see?”
Sena nodded, her eyes meeting Mireya‘s above her. “Yeah.”
Mireya leaned down and kissed her, her mouth finding Sena‘s in the space between the pillow and the lamp‘s reach. She pulled back an inch and came in again, the second kiss slower, her hand sliding from the hem of Sena‘s shirt up along her side. The third landed with her weight shifting, her knee coming across Sena‘s thigh, her body settling between Sena‘s legs as her hand pushed the shirt up from Sena‘s stomach, her fingers spreading against the bare skin underneath.
Sena pulled back, her head pressing into the pillow, her hand coming up to Mireya‘s shoulder. “Are you good enough to have sex?”
Mireya laughed against Sena‘s mouth, her breath warm on her lips. “We just won‘t tell my doctor, baby.”
She kissed her once more, quick, then slid down the length of Sena‘s body, her mouth tracing the line of her sternum, her hands working the shirt higher as she went. Sena‘s breath caught sharp through her teeth and her head tipped back against the pillow, her fingers finding the sheet beside her hip and pulling it tight in her fist.
