Ramon pulled up to the curb and cut the engine. He pushed the door open and stepped out, the air pressing warm against his face, the street carrying the smell of gravel, exhaust, and something frying from one of the houses down the block. Tyree came around from the passenger side, his hands going into his pockets as they crossed the sidewalk toward the fence in front of Ant’s house.
A handful of guys worked the yard and the edge of the street, two of them posted up near the gate with their hands in their pockets, another three spread along the fence line and the porch steps, phones out, eyes moving between the block and the traffic coming off the cross street. A woman in a bathrobe crossed from the sidewalk to one of the guys near the gate, money folded in her fist, and the exchange happened in the space between their bodies without either of them looking at it. One of the guys near the steps lifted his chin at Ramon as he came through the gate. Ramon returned it. Tyree gave a short nod to the one nearest the porch and kept walking.
They took the walkway to the front door and Ramon knocked twice, the sound carrying through the screen. Footsteps came from inside, the floor creaking under the weight, and then the door opened. Naomi stood in the frame, one hand on the knob, her eyes moving from Ramon to Tyree and back.
Ramon’s eyebrow came up. “Ant here?”
Naomi nodded, stepping back from the door and pointing past the living room toward the kitchen. “He in the back.”
Ramon and Tyree stepped inside. Tyree’s eyes stayed on Naomi as they passed, his gaze tracking her face.
Naomi’s chin came up. “What you looking at, nigga?”
Ramon looked back over his shoulder. “Chill the fuck out, man.”
Tyree sucked his teeth. The two of them walked through the living room toward the kitchen, the couch, the TV, and the coffee table passing on their left, a lighter and a pack of Newports on the glass.
The half wall opened up into the kitchen where Ant sat at a small table with a bowl of gumbo in front of him, steam still curling off the surface, the smell of roux and andouille filling the room from the pot on the stove behind him. A pistol sat on the table to the right of the bowl, the grip angled toward his hand. A shotgun leaned against the wall behind his chair, the barrel tipped toward the ceiling, the stock resting on the baseboard.
Ramon nodded toward the shotgun. “You expecting company, big brudda?”
Ant looked back over his shoulder at the gun, his spoon still in the bowl. “I got them in every room.” He lifted the spoon and pointed it toward the front of the house, a piece of okra clinging to the curve. “Niggas is serving fiends outside if you done already forgot.”
“Fair enough.”
Tyree leaned his weight against the wall between the living room and the kitchen. “You know these Rome and Ro niggas?”
Ant’s eyebrow came up, the spoon settling back into the bowl. “Who?”
Ramon looked over at Tyree, shaking his head, then turned back to Ant. “We was fucking with some bitches who said they were chopping it up with Scottie, Shad and Yola with some niggas from down the bayou named Rome and Ro.”
“No, I don’t know them niggas.”
“This nigga lying.”
Ant’s eyes moved to Tyree, his jaw working once behind his closed mouth, then came back to Ramon. “I ain’t. ’Cause I ain’t fucking with Scottie, Shad and Yola no more. Them niggas disloyal. We went our separate ways.”
“You ain’t got no soldiers then.”
Ant shook his head, his hand finding the spoon again, stirring the gumbo once before bringing it to his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and set the spoon down on the edge of the bowl. “I found Peanut bitch a couple months ago. I don’t need no soldiers. I just need that bitch pussy to keep the work flowing to them niggas outside.”
“How long it’s been since you cut them niggas off?”
Ant shrugged, his shoulders lifting once against the back of the chair. “A while. Niggas only thinking about being flashy and pussy. That ain’t how business supposed to be done.”
Tyree pushed off the wall a fraction. “So them niggas was with them down the bayou niggas when they took a shot at me.”
Ramon’s chin tipped toward Tyree. “He ain’t say that.”
“’Cause I don’t know that. But I do know I don’t know no new niggas.”
Naomi walked into the kitchen from the hall, Ant’s phone in her hand. She held it out to him without a word. Ant took it, his fingers closing around the case, and Naomi turned back toward the hall. Her lip curled up as her eyes found Tyree on her way past, holding the look until she cleared the wall.
Ramon shoved Tyree’s shoulder, shaking his head. Tyree’s jaw tightened but he let it go.
“We could use some help finding out who these niggas is, brudda.”
Ant set the phone on the table next to the pistol, the case tapping against the wood. “What bayou they from down?”
Ramon shrugged. “The bitches ain’t say.”
“If I had to guess, it’s some niggas from ’round Vacherie or Houma. They say down the bayou ’round Port Allen, too, but they ain’t coming to the city when BR right there.”
“Them country ass niggas ain’t coming up here.”
Ant shrugged, his spoon finding the bowl again. “Niggas go where money is.” He gestured at the gumbo with the spoon, the broth catching the light from the window above the sink. “My gumbo getting cold. Y’all lil’ niggas get the fuck out my house.”
Tyree sucked his teeth as Ramon turned from the kitchen, lifting a hand without looking back. “Appreciate the talk, brudda.”
~~~
Sena sat on the couch with her feet flat on the rug, the woven gray and cream pattern running between her shoes and the legs of Celia’s armchair.
Her fingernail found the edge of her front tooth and worked against it, the nail pressing into the enamel, her thumb bracing the underside of her chin. She could feel the rough spot where she’d been working the nail for days, the edge thinning.
Celia sat in the armchair with her notebook open against her knee, the pen resting flat against the page. “You seem more nervous than usual today.”
Sena looked at Celia, then down at her hand where it sat against her mouth. She dropped it to her lap, her fingers pressing flat against her thigh. “I probably shouldn’t even be biting my nails. Mireya’s gonna drag me to get them fixed if I keep doing that.”
“You could just say no.”
Sena shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping. “I don’t know. I do like it in a way. Being, I don’t know, taken care of? I don’t have to do anything when I’m with her.”
“Don’t have to do anything or aren’t allowed to do anything?”
Sena shrugged again. “Is there a difference?”
“Not if you don’t think there is.”
Sena’s eyes moved off Celia’s face to the watercolor, across the bent cordgrass, across the smear of pink that sat in the reeds. Her hands rested in her lap, her thumbs pressing against each other, her breathing evening out while the silence filled the space between them. The rug’s pattern held her gaze when her eyes came back down, the gray and cream weave running to the edge of the coffee table.
“I’m nervous because I told my parents that I was going to introduce them to Rey next week.”
Celia’s eyebrow lifted a fraction. “That’s a big and abrupt step. What made you decide to do that?”
“Mireya asked me to come with her to Indianapolis and New York because Caine has a game then some other thing. An award ceremony I guess?”
“The Heisman Trophy ceremony.”
Sena’s eyebrows pulled together. “What?”
Celia laughed, the sound soft. “That’s what’s in New York City. It’s the biggest individual award in college football.”
Sena looked at her. “I wasn’t aware you were so interested in football.”
Celia shrugged. “We do live in Louisiana. And I am an LSU alumna. So, I’m taking you agreed to go?”
Sena nodded. “She seemed, I don’t know...” She trailed off, her eyes finding the window. “Something was off about how she asked me to do this. It wasn’t like when she asked me to go to Seattle.”
“She told you to go to Seattle.”
“Right. This time, she asked.”
Celia’s chin dipped, her eyes holding Sena’s face. “That’s a marked departure from her usual behavior then. Do you think it has something to do with Caine?”
“Of course it does. I don’t want to sound bitter, because I understand that they have children together, but it always does.”
“And how did this question and your decision lead to you deciding to come out to your parents?”
Sena’s thumb moved from the seam to the edge of her nail, pressing the cuticle back. “Well, I’m going to be gone for basically a week and a half. I didn’t even go on a senior trip with Alex and my friends from high school. I figured they’d be pretty pissed off if I was flying around the country with some random dude.”
Celia leaned forward a fraction in the armchair, her forearm coming to rest against the top of her notebook. “A random woman. Which is a different proposition because you’re not just introducing your parents to a guy you’ve been seeing. You’re introducing your parents to a woman you’ve been seeing and introducing your parents to the real you.”
“They know the real me.”
Celia’s body settling back into the armchair. “No, they don’t. They don’t know that you’re a woman who decides not to chew her nails because her girlfriend would bring her to get them fixed.”
Sena looked down at her hands in her lap, her fingers spread, the nails filed to even lengths, the polish from the last appointment still holding at the edges. Her thumb pressed once against the cuticle of her index finger, testing the edge she’d been working with her teeth.
“They do always look nice, though.”
Celia’s expression held. “This is a huge moment in your life, Sena. Make sure that you go into it with your eyes open.”
Sena looked up at Celia. The marsh scene sat above her shoulder, the cordgrass bending, the mudflat flat under the weight of the sky. She nodded.
“Yeah, I know.”
~~~
Caine walked down Sunset with his arm wrapped around Autumn’s waist, her hip pressing against his with each step, the sidewalk running ahead of them past storefronts, café patios and parked cars lined up along the curb. Autumn held a cup of gelato in both hands, the spoon sticking out of the top at an angle, her tongue working a bite off the edge.
“You’re not going to sit here and look me in my face and say that New Orleans made rap music. Because not only is that shit not true, it doesn’t even fucking matter because the West Coast does the shit better.”
Caine sucked his teeth. A car passed on the boulevard with its windows down, bass pushing out across the lanes, the sound thinning as it pulled ahead of them. “Motherfuckers out here be rapping like Dr. Seuss wrote their fucking bars. A hippity hoppity ass shit like it’s 1981. And while y’all been doing that shit, everybody been copying who? Us. Everybody wanna hop on a bounce beat.”
Autumn laughed. She dug the spoon into the gelato and brought another bite to her mouth, her tongue catching the edge before it dripped. “Nigga, that’s because y’all been using the same fucking beat forever. Go look up a mix of New Orleans music and all that shit sounds like one two hour long song.”
Caine’s jaw shifted, his chin dipping toward her. “And you still popping your pussy to it, too. For the whole fucking two hours. All because a dude from the Ninth Ward making better music than anyone from any fucking California.”
Autumn’s mouth pulled sideways, the spoon resting against her bottom lip, her eyes cutting up at him from under her sunglasses. “I’ll give you it’s fun to dance to and I’m out there with the rest of them, but better? C’mon, bae. You’re doing way too much. We all know you’re New Orleans as fuck.”
Caine laughed, his hand pressing once against her hip. “Just making sure y’all know it’s until the meat show.”
Up ahead, the door to a café opened and two people stepped out onto the sidewalk. Nap came through first in a fitted red polo and a chain sitting over the collar, his eyes finding Caine before his body had fully cleared the doorframe. A woman followed him out, her sunglasses pushed up into her hair, a bag on her shoulder.
Nap spread his arms wide, his mouth opening into a grin. “What’s up, lil’ homie?”
Caine took his arm off Autumn’s waist and stepped forward, his hand meeting Nap’s in a dap that pulled into a half hug. He put his arm back around Autumn.
“Ain’t shit. Cooling.”
Nap nodded at Autumn, his chin lifting once. “I see you got your boo on your arm.” He nodded back over his shoulder at the woman a step behind him, her weight on one foot, her eyes moving between them. “I’m out with my lady, too. Being romantic and shit. You know how it is.”
“I ain’t know you left from around Rosecrans.”
Nap laughed, his hand coming up to press against his chest. “I ain’t scared of no mark ass niggas in no other hoods. If they gonna kill me, they gonna kill me wherever I’m at.”
Autumn looked at Caine, her eyebrow lifting. Caine shrugged, the motion rolling through the shoulder closest to her.
“Facts. Y’all sort that shit out?”
Nap’s grin pulled back a fraction. “Another one of the homies got hit, but we upped the score on them so they a man down.” His eyes moved to Autumn, then back to Caine, and the grin came back, wider. “But don’t spoil your day with your girl talking business.”
“You right. I still need to put you in touch with my potnas, though. They dealing with some shit too back in the city.”
“Alright, lil’ homie. Just tell them to hit my line.”
Nap turned to the woman behind him. “C’mon, Elisha.” The two of them walked off down the sidewalk, Nap’s stride easy, his hand finding the small of her back as they moved into the foot traffic.
Autumn glanced over Caine’s shoulder at Nap’s back as he moved into the crowd, the red of his polo catching the sun before a cluster of pedestrians swallowed it. She turned forward, the spoon finding the gelato again. “You know you could stop fucking with Bloods and shit now that you don’t have to be a hood nigga.”
“You want me to be fake?”
“No, I don’t want you to get killed because someone wants your chain, nigga.”
“I ain’t no bitch.”
Autumn scraped the spoon along the bottom of the cup, the gelato thinning against the paper. “It’s not always about showing how hard you are. It’s not worth it.”
“That shit is why the streets fuck with me and I get more deals, though.”
Autumn’s spoon came down into the cup, her grip tightening around the paper. “Crips don’t. I’m just worried about you.”
Caine pulled her closer, his arm tightening around her waist, her body pressing into his side, his hand settling against her hip. “You ain’t got nothing to worry about. I made it this far without getting killed. I’ll be alright.”
Autumn shook her head. She lifted the spoon and gestured at the block ahead of them, the restaurants lining the far side of the next intersection, the awnings throwing strips of shade across the sidewalk. “Let’s go find something to eat. I’m hungry.”
~~~
Mireya’s feet hit the belt in a steady rhythm, her arms pumping at her sides, her earbuds feeding a Megan track loud enough that the bass sat in her molars. The gym spread out around her in rows of machines and mirrors, the fluorescent lights flat against the ceiling, bodies moving between stations in the reflection.
Two women worked the ellipticals to her left, their strides even and synchronized, and a man in a cutoff sat at the cable machine along the far wall with his elbows locked, the plates rising and falling in the stack behind him. The smell of rubber mats, cleaning solution, and sweat pressed through the air-conditioned chill. Her reflection ran in the mirror along the far wall, her ponytail swinging with each stride, her sports bra dark with sweat down the center of her chest and between her shoulder blades.
She looked down at her phone resting on the treadmill’s console between the speed display and the timer. She reached forward and flicked the screen to life with her thumb, the lock screen clearing to her home screen. She tapped into her messages and found the one with Caine. She typed with her thumb while her feet kept the pace, the letters bouncing with each step.
How long do I run for?
The reply came back in seconds. Is you tired?
Obviously
Five laughing emojis filled the screen, the yellow faces stacked in a row. Then a second message dropped beneath them: Then keep fucking running.
She typed back, her thumb hitting the screen harder than it needed to: I feel like you just telling me bullshit to hurt me.
You ain’t done nothing athletic since you had Mica. You gotta get conditioned. One of us is an elite football player and know what they talking about
I’ve done plenty athletic shit.
Fucking don’t count. Keep fucking running
Mireya sucked her teeth, the sound buried under the music in her ears. She pressed the side button and the screen went dark, then turned the volume up until the bass pushed everything else out.
Movement registered at her right side. Someone stepped onto the treadmill next to hers, their eyes down on their wrist, fingers tapping the face of an Apple Watch. Mireya glanced over. A brunette in a Tulane tank top, hair pulled back, the green of the fabric faded at the shoulders. When the woman looked up from her watch, Mireya turned her head fully.
A smirk pulled across Mireya’s mouth, slow, the corners lifting one at a time.
She reached forward and pressed the speed button down, the belt under her feet decelerating until the run became a walk, her stride lengthening, her breathing settling. She pulled one earbud out.
“Hey, Alex.”
Alex looked over. Her face went blank for a beat, the recognition arriving a second behind the sound of her name, her eyes moving across Mireya’s face. She smiled, the expression thin and unsteady.
“Mireya, right?”
Mireya nodded. “That’s me. The one who girlfriend you fucked the other day.”
Alex’s hand found the water bottle in the cup holder on her treadmill. Her fingers closed around it and she started to lift it, her body already angling toward the edge of the machine.
“Don’t let me get in the way of your workout, girl. Go ahead and do what you gotta do.”
“I’m not going to get into an argument with you in here.”
“No one’s arguing. I’m not even raising my voice. You shouldn’t have done it if you gonna be all meek about it. I’m sure you weren’t being shy when you were eating her pussy.”
Alex drew a breath through her nose, her grip tightening on the water bottle. “You don’t treat her right. And you have children with some man you’re probably fucking.”
“His name’s David, right? Your boyfriend?”
Alex’s eyes narrowed. “You been stalking my IG or something?”
“I can fuck your man today if I wanted to. But I’m trying to be a better person and he’s not my type.”
Alex snorted a laugh, her chin lifting a fraction. “Please. He doesn’t like them dirty.”
Mireya pressed the stop button on the treadmill. The belt slowed beneath her feet and came to a halt. She turned to face Alex, her hip pressing against the side rail, her forearm resting on the bar.
“I could fuck you, too. You like messing with Sena because she lets you run shit. You like being in control, huh? Throwing her off asking about threesomes with your goofy ass man?”
Alex crossed her arms over her chest, her chin coming up, her jaw set. “I’m just better than you.”
Mireya stepped off the treadmill and closed the two feet of space between them. She reached out and ran her hand down Alex’s arm, her fingers trailing from the shoulder to the elbow, the touch light. Alex’s body went still under her hand.
“I’ll have you calling me daddy, Alex. Then send you back to David so you can tell him.”
Alex pulled her arm back, the motion sharp, her elbow tucking against her ribs. “You’re funny.”
Mireya smiled, her hand dropping to her side as she stepped back. “Sena’s mine. We can have that threesome if you want, though. Not David. Me, you, and my Sena. My Sena. But you not really like that.”
She reached back to the treadmill and grabbed her towel off the handlebar, draping it over her shoulder. She turned and walked toward the front of the gym.
“Enjoy your workout.”
~~~
Sara lay on her back with the sheets pulled up to her chest, one arm folded behind her head, the other holding a blunt between her index and middle finger. The smoke rose off the tip in a thin line that caught the light from the lamp on Jabari’s nightstand before it spread and thinned against the ceiling.
The room was warm from the two of them, the sheets carrying the heat, his clothes folded over the back of a chair near the closet and hers in a pile on the floor next to her side of the bed. The window across from them was dark except for the glow of a streetlight pressing through the blinds in long orange bars across the carpet and the foot of the dresser.
She brought the blunt to her mouth, pulled, held it, and let the smoke come out slow through her nose. The ceiling fan turned overhead, the blades cutting through the smoke and pulling it toward the edges of the room. A car passed on the street outside, its headlights sweeping the blinds once before it was gone.
Jabari looked over at her from his side of the bed, his head on the pillow, one arm behind his head. “If I fall my ass down on the rig and I piss dirty on the drug test because you’re always smoking around me, I’m gonna need you to hook your bank account up to mine for that unemployment.”
Sara snorted a laugh, the smoke catching in her chest before it came out in a short burst. “Shell’s a European company, ain’t it? They shouldn’t be firing anyone for a little weed. I’m sure they got meth addicts and shit working on those boats.”
Jabari laughed, the sound coming deep from his chest, his body shaking once against the mattress. “I can’t argue with that. Meth, crack, heroin. All that shit. Especially if they don’t work offshore. The shit they be getting up to in College Station and shit? Nasty work.”
“How you know about that?”
“All I know about is fucking with women looking for a roughneck for that salary. The rest, you can just go down to Fourchon or Venice if you want to see it yourself.”
Sara lifted the blunt from her lips and let the smoke trail out through the corner of her mouth. “I’ll pass. There are enough crackheads and addicts under 610.”
Jabari laughed again, his head pressing back into the pillow. Sara reached over to the nightstand and pressed the lit end of the blunt against a piece of junk mail sitting next to the lamp, the cherry hissing against the paper before it went dark. She set the blunt down on top of the mail and rolled over toward Jabari, her body turning under the sheets, her head coming to rest on her hand, her elbow pressing into the pillow beneath her.
“After the season, I want you to meet Caine.”
Jabari’s eyes found hers, his head turning on the pillow. The lamp threw the shadow of his jaw across the pillow between them. “You sure? I know you were taking that slow.”
Sara nodded. “I think I’m ready. But I still don’t think you should tell him that you knew Calvin.”
Jabari drew a breath and let it out slow through his nose. “I’m following your lead, but I don’t think you can expect him to never find that out.”
Sara shrugged. “Finding out you used to kick it with some guy you went to high school with is one thing. Finding out that you were his best friend is something totally different. I just don’t want you starting off on the wrong foot with him.”
“You kinda making me nervous about this.”
Sara laughed, her eyes closing for a beat before they opened. “I’m expecting him to be preoccupied enough with all the shit that he’s going to be dealing with then that he won’t have it on his mind to get angry.”
“C’mon. I don’t think he’s going to get angry. The kid is about to turn 21. Surely, he has to expect his mama to start dating again at some point.”
Sara looked at him. “¿Has aprendido algo de español trabajando en las plataformas petroleras?”
Jabari’s eyebrows pulled together, his head lifting a fraction off the pillow. “What?”
Sara’s mouth pulled at the corner. “Well, I guess the plus side is that you won’t know if he starts talking shit about you.”
Jabari shook his head, one hand coming up to rub his face before it dropped back to the mattress. “You’re exaggerating. It’ll be fine. So, after the season? When is that going to be?”
“January. He’s probably going to come back to New Orleans for a couple weeks. Since he can just come and go as he pleases now.”
“Draft?”
Sara’s thumb pressed against her jaw again, the pad of it whitening against the bone. “I don’t want him to, but that’s his choice.”
Jabari nodded. “Alright then. I’ll let you know if they got me going somewhere then.”
Sara smiled. She leaned down and pressed her mouth to his, the taste of the blunt still sitting on her lips, his hand finding the side of her face for a beat before she pulled back.
“Might want to learn some Spanish before then.”
