Bigger Than The Program

[Captain Canada]

Looks like Cortez is getting a chip on his shoulder from the jump. Going to be intriguing to see where he decides to go.

[The JZA]

Don't Pet The Pit Bull
(SZN 1 , EPI 2)

The rain came down like the sky had been waiting all summer to settle a debt. What the forecast had advertised as scattered showers became a full-scale assault before nightfall. Thunder rolled over the Bronx in long, violent waves, shaking window glass and rattling loose metal along fire escapes. Lightning split the darkness above Kingsbridge Terrace, bleaching rooftops white for half a heartbeat before throwing the neighborhood back into shadow. The city had spent more than a hundred days sweating, now it was drowning.

Only hours earlier, cars had crawled through the streets with music rattling their trunks. Kids had chased Mister Softee trucks with damp dollar bills folded inside their fists. Open hydrants had sent silver water spraying across intersections while children leaped through the mist in basketball shorts and bare feet. By night, those memories felt like scenes from another season. The sidewalks stood abandoned. Gutters overflowed with cigarette butts, leaves, crushed cans, and whatever else the storm could carry. Water rushed along the curbs in brown rivers. Traffic lights changed for intersections with nobody waiting to cross. The occasional vehicle pushed through the flooded streets, its headlights cutting pale tunnels through the downpour before disappearing behind curtains of rain. Every strike against the windows sounded personal. The house seemed trapped inside an industrial car wash, the entire structure suspended on some invisible pulley while endless sheets of water pounded the siding. Wind shoved against the walls. Branches scratched along the roof. Somewhere nearby, a car alarm screamed into the storm until either the battery died or the owner finally found the courage to go outside. The weather had decided who was brave enough to be out and who was smart enough to remain indoors.

Cortez and Lauri had chosen intelligence..

Lauri occupied the dining table beneath the warm kitchen light. A portable mirror stood in front of her, its circular frame glowing around the edges. The light gave her face a polished softness while the rest of the kitchen remained dim beyond it. A package had been waiting when they arrived home from school. Lauri had carried it inside like it contained state secrets. She had disappeared upstairs with the box, ignored Cortez’s questions, then returned to the dining table with the contents concealed inside one fist. For nearly twenty minutes, she had leaned toward the mirror, adjusting something inside her mouth.

Across the house, Cortez sat beneath the standing lamp in the living room. The television played with the sound muted, filling the room with the grainy colors of another era. He had found a YouTube channel a user was dedicating it to old NFL games and had left the playlist on, currently playing the Super Bowl XVI. The San Francisco 49ers led the Cincinnati Bengals fourteen to nothing as halftime approached. Joe Montana moved across the screen, calm behind an offensive line built from men who looked more like dockworkers than modern athletes. The footage carried static around the edges. Players ran across a field dulled by age and videotape decay. Advertisements from forty years earlier flashed between possessions, selling cars, beer, and cigarettes to people who were now grandparents or ghosts.

Cortez barely watched. The television was atmosphere. His true attention rested on the playbook spread across his lap.

Pages were marked with highlighter, pen, and fingerprints. Route combinations intersected across diagrams like street maps drawn by somebody expecting collisions. Protection assignments filled the margins. Cortez moved through each play slowly, visualizing the field from behind center.

Mike linebacker shaded right. Safety creeping down. Corner showing outside leverage. Three-step drop. Shoulders square. Ball out before the break.

He rehearsed each movement without leaving the couch. His left hand tightened around an imaginary football. His feet shifted against the rug. He read defensive ghosts moving across Antonio’s living room and delivered silent passes through them.

This was where Cortez felt safest.

Inside structure. Inside repetition. Inside a world where every problem could be reduced to leverage, timing, and whether somebody completed his assignment.

“Yo, bro!” Lauri’s voice cut through the mental drive. She pushed away from the dining table and hurried through the kitchen archway. Her bare feet padded against the floor as she entered the living room with the mirror still glowing behind her. “What you think?” She stopped beneath the lamp and smiled wider than necessary.

The expression made Cortez look up, then again. Something gold gleamed across her teeth.

“What's that in your mouth? ” Cortez lowered the playbook slightly, studying her as though she had arrived with a visible injury.

Lauri opened her mouth wider and tilted her head beneath the light. “These my new double cap grills.”

Two gold caps gleamed along her upper teeth, bright enough to catch a flicker from the television. “When I see that ex-bitch of yours, I'ma blind her and catch her with a Shoryuken one time, BOP!”

She dipped low, twisted her hips, then launched an exaggerated uppercut toward an invisible opponent. Her fist stopped inches away from the lamp shade. The performance dragged a smirk across Cortez’s face before he could stop it.

“You look like if you pawn those things, you'd probably get back $2.50, and maybe a used scratch off ticket and a bottle cap,” Cortez teased, leaning back into the couch as he gave her another once-over.

“But I don't know,” he added after a beat, his tone shifting just slightly, more thoughtful now. “The look kinda suits you. You don't look crazy with it. Just makes you look like you need to suck your teeth every five sentences.” He chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

“Who you trying to impress?” he asked, cutting his eyes toward her again. “Some shorty caught your eye at school?”

Lauri saw the reaction and immediately turned defensive.

“Aye, fuck off with that!”

There was no heat in the protest. Her lips were already curling into a matching smirk as she abandoned the fighting stance. “These are just aesthetic. For the 'gram, you feel me?”

She dropped onto the couch beside him, landing close enough for their shoulders to touch. The cushions sank beneath their combined weight, forcing Cortez to lift the playbook before it slid toward her lap.

“Nah, ain't nobody specific yet. Just wanted to treat myself, you know? Plus...”

Lauri paused. Her tongue moved unconsciously across the back of the new caps. A smaller smile appeared, one without the performance behind it.

“I've been thinking about expanding my content. Maybe doing some more lifestyle stuff, you feel me? And before you start, yes, I do know the difference between actual wealth and flexing on social media.”

Cortez cut his eyes toward her. One eyebrow lifted, then he returned to the playbook. “Shit, you might as well. Mofos pay y'all just to flex in places you don't belong and with things you don't own.” He flipped the page, though his attention remained divided.

He had seen the posts. Women leaning against rented cars that looked like they couldn't find the ignition button, let alone drive. Men taking photographs with a wad of cash that typically get them robbed in the same day. Models standing on private jets that never left the runway. Champagne bottles passed between strangers while cameras worked to convince the world they were lifelong friends.

Entire identities constructed under borrowed lighting. “Just know that "fake it til you make it" don't hold up for long in the real world. Can't live your life as a fraud forever.”

Lauri’s smile faded. The playful light left her face so quickly that even the gold in her mouth seemed to dim. She pulled both legs onto the couch and tucked them beneath herself, turning until her body faced him completely.

“Wow, ouch. Was that necessary, bruh?” She tried coating the hurt in irritation, but it did not hide well.

“Because if that's how you really feel, then maybe I should just give up now, right?”

Her arms folded over her chest. Her jaw set stubbornly, building a wall around whatever insecurity his words had touched.

Outside, rain hammered the windows with renewed violence. Thunder growled above the roof.

Cortez looked up from the page. “The hell is you talking about?” He turned fully toward her now, confusion hardening his expression. “Ain't nobody flying out gay girls to Dubai. You don't play for that side of the team, fam!”

He laughed harder than the joke deserved. Lauri stared at him before confusion crossed her face first, then the offense. Then the slow realization that they had been speaking about two completely different things.

“What?! No, I—wait, what are you even talking about?!”

Her hands flew outward.

“I meant like... Makeup, try-on hauls and stuff! Something outside the polished lighting and edited photos.”

She shook her head so sharply that her braids struck the back of the couch. “That's not even the same thing! And also, super cringe to assume that's what I was talking about, bro.”

Despite the annoyance twisting her expression, amusement had started leaking into her voice.

“But for real though... why would you jump to that conclusion?”

Cortez leaned back. For reasons known only to him, he decided the best available response was music.

“Cause you's a cutie pie who may think that she's truly fly! Tryna' cop a whip and a ride to Dubai!”

The improvised verse left his mouth with more confidence than rhythm. It hit the room and died there immediately.

Cortez held the pose for a beat, waiting for something resembling appreciation. Lauri stared at him with the blank expression of someone witnessing a public emergency.

“Uh... Yeah, I'ma just...” He lowered his head toward the playbook. “Stick to football... Please and thank you.”

Lauri groaned and dropped her head against the couch cushions. “Brooo, that was so bad,”

Her laughter broke loose as she shook her head. “Like... genuinely painful to listen to. Where did that even come from?”

She peeked toward him from the corner of her eye, a smirk pulling at her lips despite her effort to remain disgusted.

“You know what? I'm glad you're sticking to football because if rapping is what you do in your free time...”

She let the sentence trail into the silence, one eyebrow rising high enough to finish the insult without words. Cortez turned another page and pretended he had already forgotten the exchange. The storm slowly loosened its grip on the neighborhood. The heavy downpour softened into a steady drizzle. Individual drops became distinguishable against the glass. Thunder moved farther east, grumbling over distant buildings instead of directly overhead. The streets began breathing again. A sedan passed through the block, its tires slicing through standing water. The wet hiss carried from nearly half a block away. Minutes later, another vehicle followed, moving cautiously beneath the streetlights. Water dripped from awnings and fire escapes in silver chains.

Then footsteps sounded across the front porch. A shadow passed behind the blinds. The shutters were closed, but the shape was unmistakably broad and masculine. Keys scraped against the lock. The handle jiggled. A shoulder pushed against the swollen doorframe.

Antonio was home.

The front door swung inward as he stepped through carrying the garage and the storm with him. A soaked black North Face fleece jacket clung to his shoulders over a light-gray crewneck. Dark-wash jeans were damp from the knees down. His work boots carried black grease in the seams despite an obvious attempt to wipe them before entering. A plastic grocery bag hung from one arm, stretched tight by packages of meat and whatever else he had collected before the store closed. Water rolled from his hair along the side of his face.

“What's up O.G.?” Cortez glanced at the clock on his phone.

The numbers surprised him.

“Damn, it's after 11 already? I didn't mean to study this long.”

Antonio pushed the door shut behind him and locked it. “Salut. I grabbed some protein from the store since you kids keep eating everything I buy without replacing it.”

His deep-brown eyes swept across the living room, briefly landing on Cortez and then Lauri. Exhaustion sat beneath them, but it had not altered the quiet authority in his posture. “School go okay today, Princess?”

He carried the grocery bag into the kitchen and dropped it onto the counter with a heavy thud. Then he ran one hand through his damp hair, sending several drops onto the floor. Antonio had spent the day repairing other people’s mistakes beneath raised vehicles. The smell of motor oil had settled into his skin years ago. Even after a shower, some trace of the garage always remained in the lines of his hands. He moved like a man who had been working since before sunrise but refused to let fatigue bend his shoulders.

“Maaan, Antonio! Seriously?!” Lauri called after him without leaving the couch. “Can you at least pretend to trust us with basic shopping decisions? Leave us a little bit of grocery money and we could replace things. We're not savages!”

She shifted into a cross-legged position and adjusted the hem of her hoodie. “But yeah, school was fine. Bunch of boring lectures and Mrs. Henderson questioning my future choices again.” The final part arrived beneath an exaggerated sigh.

Lauri rose abruptly and walked toward the kitchen doorway with both hands planted on her hips, already prepared to reopen the case against Mrs. Henderson.

Cortez watched her go.

An opportunity presented itself and he took it without mercy.

“Your "Princess" over here thought she'd be cute with some gold grills.”

Lauri froze in the doorway.

Cortez glanced sideways at her. “I think she might be worth something if we pawn her.”

Her eyes widened. Heat climbed into her cheeks as she spun toward him. She pressed both palms against her face, as though she could physically contain the embarrassment. Somewhere beneath the outrage, even she understood the absurdity. Cortez had reported her cosmetic purchase to Antonio with the seriousness of a child exposing stolen candy.

“Wow, you dead snitched on me,”

The first sentence came half beneath her breath. Then she stared directly at her brother.

“How am I supposed to be cool about this now?!”

Antonio emerged from the kitchen wiping his hands on a paper towel. He looked between them with equal portions of amusement and exhaustion.

“Kid, what I tell you about snitching on family? You want to be a mook, go outside and do that”

The reprimand carried little weight, but Cortez lifted both hands in surrender anyway. Antonio tossed the paper towel onto the counter and folded his arms.

“Alright, Princess, let me see these grills he's ratting you out on.”

Lauri hesitated. Her fingers rose instinctively toward her lips. The bravado she had displayed for Cortez disappeared beneath Antonio’s evaluation.

She sighed dramatically, opened her mouth, and displayed the two gold caps beneath the kitchen light.

“There. Happy now?”

His eyes settled on Lauri’s mouth. “And here I thought you were saving your money for college.”

She closed her mouth and immediately folded her arms. “It's not even that serious! I just... I wanted to treat myself, alright? Is that so wrong?” Her voice rose as embarrassment transformed into defense.

“Maybe I shouldn't have gotten them right now with college savings and all that, but... I dunno. Sometimes a girl just wants to feel good about herself, you know?”

Antonio studied the work in silence, assessing. His head tilted slightly. His eyes moved across the alignment of the caps, the finish, the way they sat against her natural teeth.

“Alright, I see 'em. Not terrible, but definitely expensive for something cosmetic.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms again. “I get wanting to feel good about yourself, Laur. I do. But there's smart ways to spend money and less-smart ways.”

His tone remained calm, what made the lecture harder to dismiss. Antonio rarely spoke from theory. Every warning came attached to some old scar, lost dollar, or lesson he had been forced to purchase himself.

“Tell you what though... you finish the semester strong, show me you can balance this style stuff with actually focusing on school, and we'll revisit this conversation. Deal?”

Lauri’s defensive posture melted. She turned toward Cortez with triumph brightening her face. “Hehe, that blew up in your face, huh?”

Cortez rolled his eyes. “Don't you have some anime to watch?” He retorted.

Lauri grinned, satisfied that she had survived judgment and the victory over her big brother.

Antonio looked beyond her toward Cortez. The amusement drained from his expression.

“And you, champ? What happened at school today besides your sister's new gangsta grills?”

Lauri began clearing her belongings from the dining table. She gathered the illuminated mirror, packaging, makeup pouch, and discarded wrappers into her arms. Before climbing the stairs, she stuck her tongue out at Cortez. Then she disappeared toward her room, moving quickly enough to avoid being drafted into any further serious conversation.

Cortez closed the playbook halfway. “Eh, it was what it was I supposed. The beginning of last days of high school. You know how that goes. Other than that...”

He paused.

The television continued playing silently behind him. The Bengals were threatening near the goal line now.

Cortez released a breath, debating whether Jennessa deserved to enter the room.

“Ran into my ex-girl, you know, shorty with the pink hair? Bumped into her at the gas station on the way from school. She's all smoke, ain't nothing serious.”

Antonio’s posture shifted. His shoulders straightened against the archway. His attention sharpened in a way that let Cortez know the subject had moved beyond casual school gossip.

“The one you broke up with a few months ago?” His tone remained neutral.

“What'd she want? Try to get back together or something?”

Antonio’s eyes narrowed slightly. Experience had taught him that former lovers rarely approached each other without carrying unfinished business. Especially when the breakup was fresh. Especially when pride had been wounded.

"You handle it alright?"

A wet print marked the floor near the doorway. “About as smooth as you tracking mud through here” Cortez responded.

Antonio glanced down.

“You know that little pit bull upstairs, Lauri, wasn't letting anything pop off without her in the mix.”

He finally closed the playbook and placed it on the coffee table. His knees cracked when he stood. After sitting for so long, his back and legs felt older than the rest of him. He stretched both arms above his head before speaking again.

“But I think I'ma have to give Jennessa some type of proper closure so she can leave me alone. I know breaking up with her over text is a bad look, but I just can't deal with her anymore, man. She's just... doing too much.”

The explanation stopped before reaching the details. Some truths were too tangled to loosen after eleven at night.

Antonio nodded slowly. He crossed into the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and removed two glasses. Ice cracked beneath the dispenser. Water filled both glasses with a steady rush.

“So you think giving her closure might resolve things? Could work, could make it worse. Depends on what you say and how you say it.” He slid one glass across the counter toward Cortez, then took the second for himself. “Just... be careful, yeah? Some people don't handle rejection well, especially when it's fresh. Lauri getting involved probably didn't help either - that girl's got your back but she can be intense.”

Antonio took a drink. His expression remained thoughtful over the rim.

“Yeah, no doubt.” Cortez picked up the glass and drank. The cold water exposed a thirst he had not noticed. He swallowed more than intended before lowering it.

“I mean, like I said, we've broken up. We're done. I reminded her that, she acknowledged it. But...” He paused to find his next words. “All this after shock nonsense she's doing, blowing my phone up, leaving comments under my posts online. I'm starting to think I'm dealing with another level of crazy, and I'm not built for that this year, especially with the season I'm trying to focus on.”

Antonio listened without interrupting. His brow furrowed. He set his glass against the counter with a small clink and folded his arms.

“Sounds like she's got a chip on her shoulder about the breakup,”

The assessment came without judgment. “Texting, commenting on your posts - that's passive aggressive shit. Like she's trying to get your attention without actually talking to you.”

Antonio held Cortez’s gaze. “If she's blowing up your phone constantly, that's disruptive. Football season's important - you can't afford distractions, especially not the kind that follow you everywhere. So what are you thinking? Just ignoring it until she gets bored?”

Cortez scoffed.

The idea of Jennessa becoming bored and peacefully disappearing sounded less believable than the storm reversing itself and falling back into the clouds.

“Nah man, this band-aid gotta be pulled. I'm done with this hurt biz.”

Antonio raised an eyebrow, then a small smirk pulled at one corner of his mouth.

“A band-aid, huh? That's one way to put it.” He shook his head and released a low chuckle. “Sure, some things you gotta rip off quick instead.”

The joke faded.

Antonio nodded once to himself. “Alright kid, you got this. You figure this and let me know how it turns out.”

Cortez finished the water and released a relieved breath. He placed the empty glass within Antonio’s reach, making no attempt to carry it the remaining distance to the sink.

“Yes sir, will do.”

A yawn widened his mouth. He checked the time again.

“Yeah, it's time for me to crash. I'll see you in the morning, Unc.”

Antonio collected the glasses.

“Get some rest, kid...”

Cortez retrieved the playbook from the coffee table, turning off the TV and climbed the stairs. The house settled behind him while Antonio unpacked groceries beneath the kitchen light. Rain whispered against the windows, quieter now but not gone. Outside, water moved through the gutters carrying dirt toward drains already clogged with everything the city had tried to discard.

Morning arrived before the city had finished drying. For those who had struggled to sleep through the storm, dawn felt less like a new beginning than another demand. Gray light spread across wet rooftops. Water dripped from fire escapes and tree branches. The streets reflected buildings in broken puddles disturbed by tires and hurried footsteps.

After one night of violence from the sky, New York returned to its regular schedule. Television anchors reported early-morning collisions that had jammed traffic on the Cross Bronx. Adults dragged sleepy children toward buses and school entrances. Dog owners stood beneath awnings while their animals inspected every wet patch of sidewalk before selecting the most inconvenient place to stop. Crossing guards blew whistles at drivers to halt them. Pigeons strutted down the blocks after leaving white evidence of their contempt across hoods the fresh rain couldn't remove. Somewhere on every block, an irritated driver leaned on a horn as though noise could move traffic faster.

New York was New Yorking.

The rain had scrubbed some of the heat from the morning. Damp trees released a clean, green smell rarely strong enough to survive the city’s exhaust. The air carried calm warmth instead of yesterday’s suffocating pressure. Kennedy was operating on the second half of a shortened opening week. Two school days gave students time to learn schedules, locate classrooms, and decide which teachers they already hated before the full academic year began Monday.

Students arrived by bus and on foot.

Some gathered outside the entrance beneath the clearing sky. Others occupied the cafeteria, stretching breakfast into a social event while waiting for homeroom. Security scanners beeped. Staff members repeated instructions nobody listened to. Friends reunited after sixteen hours apart with the emotional intensity of soldiers returning from separate wars.

Cortez stood at his locker exchanging books for the morning’s classes.

For the fourth year in a row, Kennedy had assigned him the same narrow metal compartment. He had transformed it into an archive. Stickers covered the inside of the door: football brands, college logos, old wrestling graphics, neighborhood tags, and decals collected from camps. His cleats rested in a drawstring bag shoved deep into the back. Deodorant and cologne stood along the top shelf beside athletic tape and two nearly empty bottles of sports drink. A photograph of Cortez, Kareem, and Antonio at a WWE live event in Brooklyn had been secured inside with aging tape. Beneath it were two photographs of Cortez and Jennessa from junior high. In one, they sat together on the bleachers, younger and thinner, Jennessa’s natural black hair pulled into a high ponytail. Cortez had one arm around her shoulders while both struggled not to laugh. In the second, she kissed his cheek while he stared dramatically at the camera.

He did not need the pictures, but he had never removed them. Keeping them did not mean he wanted her back, nor did throwing them away would not erase what they had been. They belonged to a version of his life that had existed before everything became accusation and damage.

Cortez placed the final textbook inside and shut the locker.

Jennessa stood beside him. She had arrived without sound. Her eyes were already fixed on him with the same cold intensity Bishop had given Q in "Juice."

Cortez’s hand remained against the locker door, a quiet sigh left his nose.

In the back of Cortez's head, Antonio’s warning returned, about how some people did not handle rejection well.

His first instinct told him to walk away. Instead, Cortez straightened.

He put on his big-boy pants and kept the greeting cordial. “Good morning, Jennessa.”

Her expression did not change at first. Something flickered in her dark eyes, however—a brief disturbance beneath still water. She tilted her head. A strand of pink hair slipped across one eyebrow.

“Morning,”

Jennessa leaned against the neighboring locker with practiced ease. “You look... lost in thought.”

Her gaze traveled across him. Over the summer, Cortez had grown more solid through the shoulders and chest. The long nights in Antonio’s gym had replaced some of the remaining softness in his frame. The lanky boy Jennessa remembered had hardened into an athlete more comfortable occupying his own space.

“That a new thing?” She lifted one painted nail and gestured vaguely toward his upper body. “Trying to be all civil and shit after how you spoke to me yesterday?”

The words sounded casual, but the edge beneath them was not.

“Look, don't bring that up, aight?” Cortez turned until he faced her completely. “It's too early in the morning for that beef. What is it that you want, Jennessa?”

Her eyes narrowed by a fraction. She crossed her arms beneath her chest.

“What I want,” Each word arrived carefully measured, “is for you to actually listen to what I have to say instead of cutting me off mid-conversation like I'm some... some groupie.”

Jennessa stepped closer. At five-foot-three, she had to crane her neck to hold his gaze. The height difference had never weakened her confidence. She carried herself like inches were another rule she had decided did not apply.

“You know what's really interesting, Cortez?” Her lips curved into something too cold to be called a smile. “How quick you were to throw us away like we meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. We had three years together. Three fucking years, Cortez. And now you think you're some big shot because of football?”

Cortez looked down at her. The closeness prickled against his skin. Her directness had once been among the things he loved most. Jennessa never drifted around the point. She drove directly through it. She spoke without filters and confronted discomfort before it could find somewhere to hide. When the rest of the world smiled politely and lied, Jennessa told the ugly truth with her entire chest. That fearlessness had drawn him toward her.

But then there had been the incident. The rumors, the details, Lauri’s face afterward. Some acts could not be undone by honesty delivered too late.

“Nah, unlike you, football didn't betray me. You know what you did. You fucked up.”

Jennessa’s jaw tightened, her hands closed into fists at her sides. For a moment, genuine emotion broke through the careful mask she had worn into the hallway.

“I didn't 'betray' you!” Her voice rose above the surrounding noise. Nearby conversations weakened. “We weren't even together! That night was... it was...”

The words failed her. That almost never happened. Jennessa took a step backward, trying to rebuild control, but it was too late.

Students had already noticed. Phones emerged from pockets with disgusting speed. A boy near the drinking fountain lifted his camera and pretended to check messages. Two girls farther down the hall stopped walking altogether. Attention spread outward in ripples.

Jennessa lowered her voice.

“I made one mistake, Cortez. One. Mistake.” Each word came separated and deliberate. “And you threw everything we had away because of it. So yeah, maybe I fucked up—I'm human. But you? You acted like a child about it.”

Cortez scanned the gathering audience. The first week had barely passed, and already Kennedy’s hallways were hungry for spectacle. He reached for Jennessa’s arm. His grip was firm without being cruel. He guided her through the nearest side exit before the crowd could grow. Students followed several steps, disappointed when the heavy door shut between them and the confrontation. Outside, warm air met them beneath a clearing sky. The field stretched beyond the fence, still shining from the previous night’s rain. Water clung to the bleachers. Puddles occupied low sections of the track. The school walls blocked most of the morning noise, leaving only distant traffic and the muffled life of the building behind them.

He checked his phone to see twenty minutes remained before homeroom.

“You want to talk about this? Fine. You got twenty minutes til' class. But don't try to make yourself look like some victim, I'm not falling for that B.S., Jennessa. I know you.”

He slid the phone into his pocket.

“So let's start here, for one, people who know you, know me and vice versa. I get it, we were like "this,"” Cortez crossed two fingers in gesture. “But that foul shit you pulled at that party is crazy. Secondly, you not only tried to, but with my sister?”

His brows drew together... “Fuck was you thinking?”

Jennessa wrapped both arms around herself. The posture was defensive, but her spine remained rigid. The wind blew and lifted several pink strands from her face. She stared toward the wet concrete instead of Cortez.

“I wasn't trying to anything with your sister!” Her eyes flashed toward him. “That whole situation was fucked up from the jump. Your sister saw something and misinterpreted it—because she was jealous!”

“Jealous?” Cortez blinked. The accusation seemed so disconnected from reality that his anger briefly gave way to confusion.

“ Jealous of what? She looked at you like a big sister.”

He stopped speaking and waited. Jennessa had demanded to be heard. He gave her the opening, but she did not immediately use it.

“So that's what you're telling me? Lauri misread the room? It wasn't just you being lit at a party? Smoking and drinking, dancing on other niccas at the function? Not only that you tried to move on her? You telling me my little sister is going to lie to me about some shit like that?”

Color rose across Jennessa’s face with frustration twisting with something harder to name.

Guilt. Shame. Fear.

She turned away and stared across the empty field. “Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying!”

The insistence arrived without the conviction that usually powered her voice. “Your sister... she always had this weird thing with me. Like, sometimes I felt like she wanted...” The sentence withered unfinished.

Cortez’s expression changed. Whatever patience Antonio’s advice had bought disappeared.

“Nah yo, watch how you talk about my sister.”

The warning came low.

“My sister's goofy and she like girls, but she ain't no line stepper. She ain't one of those ones, so come up off that slander.”

Disappointment replaced some of the anger in his face. He had expected denial, expected excuses, but he didn't expect Jennessa to push the blame toward Lauri.

“I'd respect you more had you just came out and called it what it was, but you can't even do that.”

Cortez shook his head. He turned toward the side entrance with the wound had been exposed, seemingly nothing beneath it looked healed.

Before he reached the door, Mrs. Henderson intercepted the door, opening it, seeing two students who looked like they were in a middle of a quarrel.

“Jennessa, Cortez, what are you two doing out over here? One of the students said you two were fighting.” Her expression carried the seasoned suspicion of an educator who had broken up enough hallway conflicts to know that teenagers rarely told the complete truth on the first attempt.

Cortez looked toward her. “Nah, Mrs. Henderson. We just wanted somewhere private to speak on sensitive matters. We're done here though.”

He gave Jennessa one final look. Not of hatred, damn sure wasn't forgiveness. Just exhaustion. He pushed passed Mrs. Henderson without bumping into her, returning to the hallway with several minutes remaining before class. Some students lingered, watching the situation unfold.

Mrs. Henderson watched him disappear beyond his locker before her gaze shifted back toward Jennessa and remained there longer than comfort allowed.

“Are you sure everything is alright, Miss Caris?” Concern and suspicion occupied equal space in her tone.

Jennessa stood motionless. Her eyes remained on the closed door Cortez had passed through. Her jaw clenched hard enough to ache. Everything about the morning felt wrong—the location, the timing, the students recording, the words she had failed to arrange correctly.

Worst of all was the vulnerability creeping through the fractures in her practiced composure.

“It's fine,” The response came smaller than she intended, more for herself than for Mrs. Henderson.

“Everything's fine.”

Mrs. Henderson studied her for another long moment, then spoke, "Alright, come on, class is about to start."

She held the door still, waiting for Jennessa to step through and make her way to homeroom.

[The JZA]

Buckeye nation let’s go

Let's not put the carriage before the horse

Looks like Cortez is getting a chip on his shoulder from the jump. Going to be intriguing to see where he decides to go.

It's the stuff of fairy tales, brother

[redsox907]

Cortez already messing with the crazy chicks and we aint' even kicked off yet

[The JZA]

The Beginning Of The End Pt.2
(SZN 1 , EPI 3)

The first weekend of the school year had finally arrived. For most of New York, Friday meant release. Office workers loosened ties before the train reached their stop. Teachers abandoned lesson plans on desks and walked out carrying enough exhaustion to last until Monday. Families packed duffel bags into trunks, hoping two days beyond the city limits might make them forget the rent, traffic, sirens, and neighbors who communicated through walls by screaming. The weekend was supposed to be a reprieve. A chance to sleep late. A chance to sit still. A chance to prepare for the next five days of being owned by somebody else’s schedule. For Cortez and Lauri Terrano, the weekend meant returning to the place where everything had started.

Home... Or whatever remained of it.

When Friday’s final bell cut through Kennedy’s hallways, most of the student body disappeared as though the building had been evacuated. Doors swung open. Sneakers beat against stairwells. Students flooded the exits with backpacks bouncing behind them, already discussing parties, kickbacks, dates, video games, and every other excuse not to think about Monday. Others remained for sign-up tables that had been arranged near the cafeteria for clubs and extracurricular programs. Cheerleading hopefuls gathered near the gym in fitted athletic clothes, stretching beneath the watchful eyes of returning captains. Basketball players drifted toward open tryouts, carrying sneakers over their shoulders and confidence they had not yet earned.

Kareem and Lauri had waited long enough for Cortez to confirm his plans before leaving campus together. Kareem would make sure she reached the neighborhood. Cortez would catch up later.

He had work to do.

Coach Lloyd’s classroom sat near the athletic offices, a square cinder-block room with fluorescent lights that buzzed like trapped insects. The desks had been pushed toward the walls. A projector threw game footage across a whiteboard scarred by years of dry-erase markers that never fully disappeared.

Cortez had arrived before everyone else. That was how he operate: First one in. Last one gone.

He sat near the front with a notebook open across his knee, remote control in one hand. The screen showed Tottenville’s defense shifting before the snap. Cortez paused the footage, rewound it three seconds, then watched the safeties again. One crept toward the line, the other shaded toward the slot receiver. Pressure disguised as coverage as coverage disguised as pressure. Football was a language built from lies, and Cortez had spent three years learning how to recognize the accent.

For three consecutive seasons, he had helped lead the JFK Campus Knights into the PSAL 4A playoffs. For three consecutive seasons, they had failed to survive the quarterfinals. Every exit left something behind. A scoreboard burned into memory, a quiet locker room, shoulder pads abandoned beneath benches, seniors staring into metal lockers because looking at one another would make the ending real. The losses had accumulated inside Cortez until they hardened into something permanent.

A chip, a stone, a weight he carried into every workout.

The new season began in seven days, and Kennedy had not been gifted an easy introduction, and The Tottenville Pirates waited across from them.

Number one for most of the previous season and PSAL 4A finalists.

A team that had reached the championship before losing to the Erasmus Hall Campus Dutchmen. Their reputation did not concern Cortez as much as their history. Two years earlier, Kennedy had entered the postseason as the classic underdog. Players and coaches had spoken all week about shocking the city, silencing predictions, and proving that rankings became meaningless once the whistle blew.

Tottenville answered with forty-three points, Kennedy managed only sixteen.

The game had not been a loss, it had been a public beating.

Last season brought more of the same.

Forty-two to sixteen.

Another long ride back to the Bronx with helmets resting in laps and nobody willing to speak above a whisper. The defeat became Kennedy’s fifth of the season and another piece of evidence for everyone who believed the Knights belonged beneath the city’s elite programs.

Cortez had not forgotten a single second.

The Pirates had celebrated in front of them as their student section had chanted as Kennedy left the field. One Tottenville defender had patted Cortez on the helmet after an interception, offering fake encouragement with a smile that said the game had never been competitive. Seven days from now, Cortez would see them again.

If he wanted college recruiters to take him seriously, he could not begin senior year with respectable numbers in a respectable loss. Nobody remembered respectable.

He needed violence on the stat sheet: touchdowns, completions, a fourth-quarter drive that forced university scouts to underline his name.

He needed a banger.

By the time the rest of the team filed into Coach Lloyd’s classroom, Cortez had already watched Tottenville’s third-down package six times. Film study consumed the next hour and a half. The Knights identified pressure tendencies, broke down coverages. and studied defensive linemen who attacked gaps instead of controlling them. Coach Lloyd moved backward and forward through plays until every player could explain not only his own assignment but the responsibility of the man beside him.

Cortez’s phone vibrated throughout the session.

Once. Then again. Then repeatedly enough that the device seemed possessed inside his pocket.

He ignored it.

When film ended and the final teammate left, Cortez remained behind long enough to review two red-zone clips with Coach Lloyd. Only after the projector went dark did he reach into his bag and retrieve the phone.

The screen was crowded with notifications. Jennessa... Again.

Message after message stacked beneath her name. Long paragraphs filled the preview window, each one bleeding into the next. Apologies, accusations, memories, explanations. She was pouring her heart through a keyboard and demanding he stand beneath it.

Cortez read none of them and cleared the notifications with one movement.

Blocking her number would have been simple, but it would not remove her from the hallways. It would not stop her from waiting near his locker, approaching him after class, commenting beneath his posts, or recruiting mutual friends to carry messages on her behalf. Blocking her might only give Jennessa another angle, another grievance, another story where she became the injured party and he became the villain. They attended the same school, shared the same circles. They had three years of history tangled around half the people they knew. There was no clean disappearance available. Cortez understood he might have to tolerate the aftershock for several more months.

He slid the phone into his pocket and left campus.


———————————————


The Mavis Discount Tire where Antonio worked his daytime job sat under a elevated train track, exhaust, and constant metallic noise. Cars rolled in with worn treads, dying brakes, leaking fluids, and owners who always believed the repair should cost less. The smell struck before the front door closed.

Rubber. Oil. Hot metal.

Industrial cleaner losing an unwinnable fight against all three. Through wide observation windows, mechanics moved between raised vehicles beneath harsh shop lights. Impact wrenches barked against lug nuts. Hydraulic lifts groaned. An air compressor erupted somewhere in the rear, followed by the sharp clang of a tool hitting concrete. The customer waiting area consisted of several uncomfortable chairs made for the petite of people, a scarred coffee table, old magazines, a television mounted in a corner just above a shroud of plants that got no love, and a vending machine humming alone in another corner.

Lauri had made herself comfortable near the window by the service counter. As usual, she was doing one of three things: people watching, doom-scrolling, or creating quick content with anybody willing to appear on camera.

Mr. Chen, the middle-aged store manager, had discovered that Lauri’s short videos sometimes brought customers through the door. A fifteen-second clip of her joking beside a stack of tires could earn more neighborhood attention than a week of printed advertisements. Tyrone, one of the younger Black technicians, had also become a regular participant. He had enough charisma to play along and enough self-awareness to know when Lauri had caught him looking ridiculous. When Cortez entered, Lauri was leaning against the window with her phone in hand, lingering like she had been hired to supervise the lobby.

“What's up, kiddo?”

Her almond-shaped eyes lifted from the screen and brightened when she saw him. Cortez stepped further inside, looking around at the shop before returning his attention to her.

“Had I known you were here, I'd came here first. I stopped by the house and you weren't there. Did Kareem drop you off here?”

Lauri straightened and slipped her phone into the back pocket of her jeans, “Nah, Kareem dropped me off at home first. I walked here after. I was bored as hell anyway. Plus, Mr. Chen and Tyrone here...” Her thumb hooked over one shoulder.

Mr. Chen raised a hand from behind the counter. Tyrone did the same as he came in from the edge of the service bay. Cortez had seen Mr. Chen in Lauri’s videos but had never formally met him. He stepped closer, offering a respectful handshake and a slight bow of his head. Mr. Chen returned both with the polite amusement of a man meeting somebody he already knew through secondhand stories.

Tyrone was different. Cortez knew him from the neighborhood and from the years he had spent working alongside Antonio. Before Antonio opened his own gym, the two men had regularly stayed late completing repairs for dependable customers—the kind who paid on time, returned for future work, and told everybody else where to go.

“Ayo, good to see you, Ty.” Their hands met with practiced rhythm before both pulled into a brief shoulder bump. “Could you let Antonio know I'm here if he's not busy?”

Tyrone nodded toward the service bays. “Sure thing, boss, I got you.” He says before disappeared behind the swinging door.

Cortez returned to Lauri. The humor in his face shifted into something quieter.

“So... You ready for another weekend back 'home'?”

He already knew the answer.

Lauri’s expression collapsed immediately. Her shoulders rounded as she looked toward the observation windows instead of him.

“Ugh, do I look like I'm ever ready to go back home?” Reluctant resignation weighed down every word. “Another blessed weekend in paradise, right? Ma's gonna be all up in my shit every five minutes.”

She looked back at Cortez, eyes narrowing as suspicion replaced misery. “Why? You tryna bail on me so you can hang with your boys or somethin'?”

“Maybe. I'm tired of using up all my extra lives to protect you from 'the reaper' herself.” Cortez nudged her with one shoulder. “Time for you to buck up and face the final boss. Spare your big bro one time.”

His grin carried no hope of being taken seriously. Lauri scrunched her nose and punched him in the arm.

“Hey! I don't need protection all the time, you know. And besides, you're literally the only reason I haven't lost it with her lately.”

“I know, cause I've been taking the bulk of her artillery aim at you for damn near half your life. I should be suing your ass for grievance and emotional damages.”

Cortez nudged her harder.

Lauri tipped off one foot before catching herself. She was prepared to retaliate, but the service door opened before she could as Antonio stepped into the lobby. Fatigue rode his shoulders despite his refusal to slouch. His dark work shirt had collected patches of sweat beneath the arms and across the chest. Grease darkened his hands and settled beneath his fingernails. His curls had lost their morning shape after hours of heat, movement, and repeatedly dragging his fingers through them.

“O.G., what's up? They got you working hard today, huh?”

“Couple guys called out sick.”

Antonio ran a hand through his dark curls. The gesture betrayed how tired he was more than his expression did.

“Been running around since 6 A.M.”

“Hey, more dollars than quarters for you, my man.”

Antonio released a tired chuckle and shook his head. He pulled a plastic cup from the dispenser beside the water cooler and filled it.

“True enough. Gotta pay the bills.” He drank slowly, letting the cold settle before giving Cortez and Lauri his full attention. “So... You two heading back to Evelyn's for the weekend?”

“Yeah...” The answer came in stereo. Same timing, same defeated exhale.

Antonio smirked at the synchronized misery and leaned against the counter. “Ah, the joys of weekend visits. No nephew turning my living room into a war room. No niece eating all the food up. Just 48 hours of peace and quiet.”

He smiled, but neither sibling joined him. Their expressions turned flat enough to make the betrayal clear.

“Aye, be nice. Eve's is still your mother.” Antonio shrugged with the irritating wisdom of somebody who would not be spending the next two nights beneath Evelyn’s roof. “At least you kids have each other. When y'all get there, give her a hug and kiss for me. Tell her I said hello.”

“Maaaan, get back to work Unc, before I file a complaint with your manager.” Cortez’s threat lacked heat, but the look he gave Antonio carried genuine offense. “A hug and kiss, how dare you. You kiss our grandmother with that filthy mouth?”

Antonio’s laughter rolled through the lobby. Ddeep and rich enough to turn Mr. Chen’s head from the paperwork behind the counter.

Lauri groaned and rolled her eyes, “That's your thing, not mine.” She shuddered dramatically and made a retching sound. “I draw the line at physical affection towards my mother. It's... traumatic.”

Antonio reached toward her hair. Lauri attempted to duck, but he caught the top of her head and ruffled it anyway.

“Traumatic? Madonna mia, you're dramatic.”

She slapped at his arm until he released her.

“But fine, fine. You both better be on your best behavior. Evelyn worries about you two enough as it is.”

The teasing softened at the edges. Antonio looked from Cortez to Lauri with an expression neither of them wanted to examine too closely. Concern lived beneath the smile. So did helplessness. He knew what those weekends could become, he also knew there were limits to how much he could intervene without making Evelyn feel as if her children had been taken from her.

“Yeah, yeah...” Cortez accepted the instruction with no enthusiasm. “Lauri, you ready to ride out?”

Lauri checked her phone, then slid it into her back pocket. She raised both arms over her head and stretched until a quiet grunt escaped.

“Yeah, I guess.” The reluctance remained impossible to hide.

Antonio stepped away from the counter and pulled both of them into a hug. He held Cortez with one arm and Lauri with the other, trapping them against his chest before either could complain.

“I'm serious. Y'all be good. I'll see y'all Monday.”

For a moment, neither moved. Then Antonio released them and returned toward the service bay, carrying the smell of grease and labor with him. Cortez watched him disappear behind the door. Monday suddenly felt farther away than forty-eight hours.


———————————————


Cortez and Lauri navigated public transportation with the instincts of people who had been doing it since childhood: no GPS, no route map, no hesitation. The trip from Kingsbridge to Mott Haven took roughly an hour on a good day.

Friday rush hour was not a good day.

The bus arrived already crowded, its windows fogged by trapped heat and human breath. When the doors opened, passengers pushed out while others forced themselves inside before space had actually appeared. Cortez entered first and created a path, having Lauri follow directly behind him. Every seat had been claimed. Bodies filled the aisle from the driver’s partition to the rear exit. Shopping carts folded against legs. Backpacks occupied space their owners refused to surrender. A toddler cried from somewhere near the middle, exhausted by circumstances beyond language.

Friday rush hour carried a special cruelty.

Everybody had somewhere urgent to be. Older women boarded carrying shopping bags and expressions that challenged anyone younger who had remained seated. Half the passengers suddenly became fascinated with their phones. Others leaned their heads against windows and pretended to sleep, protecting their seats through performance. Nobody wanted to move deeper into the bus, nobody wanted to surrender their position near the door, and definitely nobody believed the laws of physics applied to the number of additional riders the driver intended to admit. The air became a melting pot of perfume, fast food, and body odor. Every sharp turn pushed strangers into one another. Every stop created an argument between somebody trying to exit and somebody refusing to move. Cortez kept one arm raised against the overhead rail and positioned himself between Lauri and the worst of the crowd.

Eight stops.

That was all they needed to survive before transferring toward the train. When the bus finally released them, both stepped onto the sidewalk and inhaled as though they had escaped a submerged vehicle. Outside air had never tasted so clean. The entrance to the subway waited ahead, swallowing commuters beneath its green globes. Cortez led Lauri down the stairs and into the station’s stale underground heat.

Turnstiles clicked, brakes screamed from a lower track, announcements dissolved through old speakers into words nobody could understand. They reached the platform with time to spare. Cortez checked the arrival board, then looked toward Lauri.

A question had been bothering him since his confrontation with Jennessa. He had delayed it long enough.

“Yo kid, let me rap with you for a sec.”

“What's up?” Lauri fell into step beside him as they moved through the crowd. Bodies passed on both sides, but she remained loose and comfortable. The subway had been part of her life too long to make her nervous.

“We got like ten minutes before the next train. What's on your mind?”

Cortez looked toward the opposite track. A train blurred through the center of the station, windows flashing with faces before disappearing into the tunnel. Wind chased behind it, lifting scraps of paper from the platform.

He returned his eyes to Lauri.

“Aight so, don't take offense to what I'm asking you. I know you, I know how you get down, so I don't even know why I'm bothered to question you like this. So just keep it a buck with me like always.”

Lauri’s expression tightened before he reached the question.

“I talked to Jennessa about what happened at that party you two went to. She said that she didn't make a pass on you and that you were on some jealous-type shit.”

Cortez stopped talking and studied her face. The reaction came immediately.

Lauri’s eyes narrowed, her jaw tightened, and both arms folded across her chest as she shifted onto one hip.

“Are you serious right now?” The words came sharp enough to cut through the noise around them. “Because that's absolute bullshit.”

She stepped closer and lowered her voice, though none of its edge disappeared.

“Look, I ain't tryna be messy or nothing, it's like I told you before... Jennessa was definitely flirting with some guy at that party. Right in front of me. Like, obviously flirting - touching his arm, laughing at everything he said, the whole nine yards.”

Her fingers drummed against one bicep, frustration accelerated each sentence.

“She ain't got nothing for me to be jealous about. If anything, I was heated at the disrespect, for your sake.”

Cortez nodded. The confidence in the movement began easing some of the tension from her face.

“I know. Don't worry, I'm not sweating you, she's full of shit. I knew she was type-funny, trying to flip you on me.”

He glanced toward the arrival monitor. Eight minutes. The number felt frozen.

“For real though, my apologies if you felt offended. I wasn't questioning your loyalty. I know you wouldn't shake down your brother like that.”

Lauri’s shoulders lowered slightly. Her expression said the apology had been accepted but not fully forgiven.

“Whatever, I know you weren't tryna hurt my feelings or nothing. But for real though... Jennessa is delusional if she thinks I was being jealous. I just hate seeing you get played like that.”

More people entered the platform. The empty spaces narrowed. Commuters began positioning themselves near where they believed the doors would stop. A shoulder struck Lauri as somebody squeezed past without apologizing, but she barely reacted.

“Besides, you're my big brother. Nobody messes with you and gets away with it. That's just the basic laws of the United States of Lauri.”

She delivered the statement with complete seriousness, as though her imaginary nation possessed borders, courts, and an aggressively enforced constitution.

Cortez smirked.

Not because of the law, but because of the loyalty beneath it.

Lauri had been attached to his side for as long as he could remember, stitched to him like the sleeve of a straitjacket. When their father, Derrick Terrano, abandoned the family, Cortez had been too young to understand the full shape of what had happened. He only understood the empty spaces, the chair nobody occupied, the broad shoulders that stopped walking through the door at the end of the day while everyone else was home, the questions Lauri asked him because there was no other man in the apartment to answer. Cortez became more than her older brother before he was old enough to understand what that responsibility required. He learned how to walk her to school, how to check homework, how to recognize the sound of fear in her breathing from another room.

He grew up faster because she needed somebody who appeared grown.

When Evelyn’s anger became physical, Cortez made himself the larger target. When belts came out for asses, he redirected blame. When Lauri broke something, talked back, returned late, or made the mistake of being near their mother during a bad moment, Cortez stepped between them and absorbed what he could.

He was her fall guy, her shield, her emergency exit, and still is...

Antonio entered their lives permanently around the time Cortez turned thirteen. He arrived as his brother’s keeper, carrying groceries, rules, stability, and the kind of adult presence neither child trusted at first because they had learned how quickly adults could disappear. But he stuck around. That's what made him different. Even after Antonio became part of their foundation, Lauri continued looking toward Cortez first. Whenever trouble appeared, she searched for him. Over time, she found her own footing. She learned to navigate the rough currents of Evelyn. She learned to plant both feet, puff out her chest, and refuse to fold beneath every threat. She no longer needed Cortez to fight every battle. But that never stopped him from standing nearby.

And Lauri understood with that kind of loyalty, she might never find another as instinctive as his.

“Where would I be without you, Princess.” Cortez spoke more to himself than to her.

The arrival board continued counting down. He tapped his OMNY card and paid for both fares before they moved toward their usual section of the platform. The crowd thickened around them as the train approached several minutes ahead of schedule.

Lauri retrieved her phone. She opened Instagram, leaned subtly toward Cortez, and snapped a candid photograph. In the image, she posed with calculated ease while her brother stood behind her looking in the opposite direction, unaware he had become part of the content.

“You know I got you, right? Always.” She lowered the phone and looked up at him.

The approaching train roared through the tunnel before Cortez could answer.

Headlights appeared in the darkness. Before the train had arrived to the platform, people could feel the wind rushed across the platform.

The siblings stepped closer to the edge with the rest of the crowd, preparing to fight for space inside.


———————————————


The ride downtown passed with usual quiet. Cortez stood near the doors while Lauri claimed the seat next to him with a structured guard rail between them. Stations arrived and vanished. People boarded, people left, the car emptied just enough to breathe before filling again. They trotted down to Spanish Harlem and emerged on East 116th, climbing stairs into the late afternoon air only to cross the street and descend underground again for the 6 train. There was no convenient mezzanine linking the platforms, but rather New York demanded effort even when the destination sat beneath the same intersection.

The transfer annoyed them, but it had become clockwork.

Up the stairs. Cross the street. Just on the corner next to BB Juice Bar. Down another staircase. Swipe through. Wait again.

The 6 train arrived and carried them north, dragging the siblings back into the Bronx beneath neighborhoods shifting overhead.

They exited at Cypress Avenue. From there, only a few blocks remained. Storefronts passed beneath fading daylight. A man washed the sidewalk outside a bodega, sending cigarette butts and what other trash into the gutter. Music drifted from an apartment window above them. Two children raced scooters along the pavement while their grandmother shouted warnings neither planned to obey.

Cortez and Lauri barely spoke. Their destination waited ahead, turning every block into a countdown.

At the building, Cortez used his key fob against the front gate. A mechanical buzz released the lock. He held the gate while Lauri entered first, then followed her into the courtyard. At the main entrance, he repeated the motion. The lobby smelled like floor cleaner, old mail, and heavy kush being blown from down the hall from within 1C's apartment.

They stepped to the elevator, Cortez pushing the call button. As the doors opened slowly, they stepped Inside. Scratched metal walls reflected distorted versions of them. Somebody had carved initials beside the emergency button. A faded inspection notice hung behind clouded plastic. Lauri did the honors of pressing "5" on the button pad.

The elevator began climbing.

Lauri stared at the indicator above the doors: 3 FL... 4 FL... 5 FL...

Each number carried them closer. When the elevator stopped, the doors shuddered apart. Cortez and Lauri stepped into the fifth-floor hallway and looked to their right. Apartment 5G waited only a few yards away.

Home... Or whatever remained of it.

The place called "home" felt less convincing from the outside of the door. Cortez released a long breath, loud enough for Lauri to hear.

She understood the sentiment immediately.

Trying to break the tension, she placed both hands against his back and shoved him forward. A small grin appeared on her face.

Cortez took two steps, stopped, then turned around. He doubled back until they stood nearly chest to chest. Cortez lowered his forehead against hers and stared into her eyes with exaggerated menace, silently warning her to continue testing her luck.

Lauri refused to retreat.

She pressed her forehead back against his.

Neither blinked.

Then, before Cortez could react, Lauri leaned forward and smooched him directly on the lips, not full-on, but enough to catch.

He recoiled as though she had struck him with something wet and diseased. His face twisted in disgust. He wiped his lips against the back of his hand while Lauri smirked at the success of her attack.

The strategic kiss did its job.

For a moment, the tension vanished. They forgot they were standing in front of the apartment. They forgot Evelyn waited somewhere beyond the door. They forgot the next forty-eight hours had already begun.

Cortez reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys.

Two locks guarded the apartment: one key for the deadbolt, another for the main lock. He opened the first, then the second. When he turned the knob to open, the door opened several inches before stopping with a hard metallic jerk.

His eyebrows drew together.

He had checked around the edge of the door to see if there was something in the way, but when he looked up, the security chain remained fastened from inside. Through the narrow opening, Cortez could see only fragments of the apartment. A section of wall. A sliver of living room. Two shadows moving abruptly in the background.

The figures appeared startled.

An extra set of footsteps raced toward the door. Before Cortez could speak, the door slammed shut. The impact echoed through the hallway.

He stepped backward on instinct. Lauri’s eyes moved from the apartment to her brother. Confusion landed on her face. Cortez returned the look with the same uncertainty.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then muffled voices sounded behind the door. Soft and calm. Two people speaking low enough to hide the words but not the commotion.

Cortez and Lauri remained motionless.

Metal scraped against metal and the chain slid free. The handle turned and the door opened inward. The person who stepped into the hallway was not the person they had expected.

Not Evelyn. Not even a woman.

A Caucasian man emerged from apartment 5G.

Mid-thirties. Ginger hair with a scruffy beard. He wore black medical scrubs from neck to ankle. He carried his tennis shoes in one hand as if he had not been given enough time to put them on. A hospital lanyard slipped from his fingers and fell face-up on the hallway floor.

Cortez looked down catching the details, but not all of it.

Lincoln Hospital. The position printed beneath the photograph was partly blurred by the light reflecting on the badge holder, but the uniform and identification made enough of the story visible.

A Doctor, or a nurse maybe.

The man bent quickly and retrieved the lanyard. When he straightened, his eyes met Cortez’s before Lauri's. There was no challenge in them, let alone confidence. Only the restrained embarrassment of someone caught occupying a place he knew did not belong to him. His mouth formed one of those flat, apologetic “excuse me, pardon me” smiles people used when squeezing past strangers in crowded aisles. He stepped between Cortez and Lauri, though neither moved to make the passage easier. The man turned sideways and slipped through the narrow space anyway, his socked feet nearly silent against the hallway floor. Shoes remained clenched in one hand as he walked toward the elevator without looking back.

Cortez followed him with his eyes. Lauri's did the same.

The elevator doors opened and the man entered without looking back to make the situation even more awkward before disappearing behind metal doors.

Only then did the siblings turn back toward apartment 5G, and Evelyn Terrano stood inside the doorway.

A black satin robe clung loosely to her frame. One side had slipped from her shoulder, revealing skin she made no attempt to cover. Her hair was disturbed. Her face carried neither surprise nor shame. She stood beneath the apartment light completely unapologetic.

Cortez simply stared at his mother.

Lauri stood beside him, the humor from moments earlier erased so completely it felt impossible that it had ever existed. The hallway seemed to narrow around all three of them.

Forty-eight hours.

The weekend had only just begun. And already, home had reminded them exactly what it was.

[The JZA]

Cortez already messing with the crazy chicks and we aint' even kicked off yet

At that age, do any of us get a "good one"?

Can a thoroughbred living on a prairie in Montana be trusted? Can Miami girls ever be taken seriously? Or do we simply default to having hoes in Atlanta?

[The Hunted]

Keen as for this to start man. Good luck following for sure.

[The JZA]

Maria
(SZN 1 , EPI 4)

The evening settled over New York with a coolness the city had spent months begging for. Summer had not surrendered completely. Its heat still lived inside brick walls, subway tunnels, and the dark pavement that had absorbed sunlight all day. But fall was getting closer. Every brisk gust slipping between the buildings felt like another small victory, another piece of summer’s armor being peeled away. Windows remained open, but box fans had gone quiet. People walked without wiping sweat from their foreheads. Somewhere below, music drifted from a passing car without having to compete against the grinding roar of an air conditioner. Inside the fifth-floor apartment, Cortez Terrano was getting ready for a night he had spent weeks convincing himself would never happen.

Movie night with Jennessa.

After everything between them: the party, the accusations, the breakup, the messages that followed, Cortez had finally found enough room in his heart to sit down with the girl who had occupied three years of his life.

He would listen. She would explain. They would take all the ugly pieces scattered between them and attempt to assemble something recognizable.

Jennessa was young. Confused. Trapped at that dangerous age where a person could feel certain about everything while knowing almost nothing about herself. She claimed she had not wanted to lose Cortez. She had only felt some vague pull toward discovery, toward experiences she had never allowed herself while tied to one person.

Cortez did not buy the explanation, not fully.

Discovery was a clean word people used to dress up selfish decisions. It sounded better than betrayal. Softer than disrespect. It removed blood from the knife without removing the blade. Still, three years was three years. Three years was long enough to memorize how someone walked when irritated and how she smiled when trying not to laugh. Long enough to recognize her mood from a single-word text. Long enough to know which argument required space and which one required refusing to let her leave.

Three years created habits: Routines, inside jokes, a private language. It created a place in the heart that remained occupied even after the person had supposedly moved out.

Jennessa had been that girl. Ms. Popular. Ms. Prom Queen.

The pink-haired beauty half the boys in Kingsbridge watched when she passed, pretending they were not watching. Cortez had been the one beside her. The one holding her hand. The one receiving the looks filled with jealousy, envy, and reluctant respect. He had invested too much time to let one mistake erase everything.

At least, that was what he told himself... So he forgave her.

Tonight, he was putting the train back on its tracks. Cortez stepped out of the shower after twenty minutes beneath water hot enough to fog the mirror and turn the bathroom into steam. He wrapped a towel around his waist and entered the bedroom, skin still damp, smelling of soap and whatever expensive body wash of Lauri's she had complained about him using. His outfit waited across the bed.

True Religion denim. A crisp white Ralph Lauren shirt. Gucci belt. Adidas T-Mac 2 Restomod USA sneakers, red, white, and blue bright enough to announce themselves before he entered a room.

He studied the arrangement like a coach examining personnel before kickoff.

Clean and simple. Expensive enough to suggest effort without looking like he had spent the entire evening planning.

His phone vibrated against the dresser.

Jennessa [6:14 PM]: "Hey boo, my nana finally left for the weekend. She stayin at the Poconos. I did a lil' shoppin' earlier. Got us sum snacks for the movies. & I got sumthin else 2.. think u might like ; )"

Cortez read the final sentence twice. The smirk arrived before he could stop it as his thumbs moved over the screen.

Cortez [6:16 PM]: "A surprised? <O.<O! I aint gonna keep u waitin' long then. Gimmie 10 & I'll make my ova. <333"

The response came almost immediately.

Jennessa [6:17 PM]: "Hurry up! You dont wanna make me wait in dis xoxo"

Cortez stared at the message, his nose was already open. Whatever had happened between them began fading beneath anticipation. Netflix and chill. Hulu and chill. Disney and chill. The streaming service did not matter because neither of them planned to follow the plot. He dressed quickly. Belt through the loops, chain around his neck and cologne at the wrists and throat. He checked his reflection, adjusted his collar, then left before good sense had time to catch up. By the time Cortez reached Jennessa’s building, darkness had finished settling over the block. Apartment windows glowed above the sidewalk. A distant siren moved through the city without getting closer. Wind pushed loose wrappers along the curb as he climbed the steps toward her door.

He checked his breath, popped a mint and knocked. The metal shifted on the other side. One lock. Then another.

The door opened.

Jennessa stood within the warm spill of apartment light.

Her pink hair had been swept into a bun, exposing the curve of her neck. A silver satin robe caught the dim light with every small movement. She leaned against the doorframe, letting one side fall open just enough to reveal a pink baby-doll negligee beneath it.

"Took you long enough to get here. You like what you see?" Her eyes lifted toward him from beneath her lashes.

Cortez did not answer. He bit his lower lip and allowed the silence to speak for him.

Jennessa’s smile deepened as she raised one hand and curled a finger.

"Come here, Cortez",

He crossed the threshold. His hands found her hips as she moved backward into the dim living room, the satin robe sliding beneath his palms. The apartment smelled like vanilla candles, warm sugar, and the perfume he had spent three years associating with her.

"Cortez, come here," she pulled him closer.

The remaining air between them disappeared. Her body pressed against his. Their faces drew nearer, eyes slowly closing while the rest of the room dissolved around them.

"Cortez... Cortez..."

Her voice changed. The softness sharpened.

"CORTEZ!!"

His eyes snapped open and the apartment vanished. Jennessa vanished. The satin robe, the candlelight, the perfume, the promise waiting beneath all of it. Gone.

Cortez jerked upright inside Evelyn’s recliner with his heart hammering against his chest. The television flickered several feet away, bathing the living room in weak light of the Firestick menu. A thread of drool cooled against the corner of his mouth. His neck ached from the angle at which he had slept. He had been unconscious for nearly two hours.

Evelyn stood across the living room, fully dressed for work and staring at him with enough irritation to burn through steel. "Damn! How many times I have to call your ass! Wake your goofy ass up!"

Cortez blinked against the light, still trapped between the apartment and the dream.

"I'm getting ready for work, go downstairs and help your sister bring up the groceries! You ain't coming up in my house, doing nothing and sleep, the fuck you think you at?!"

Reality returned all at once.

The Friday reunion at Evelyn’s apartment had not grown warmer since Cortez and Lauri arrived. Several hours had passed since the ginger-haired hospital employee hurried barefoot from apartment 5G, carrying his sneakers and whatever dignity he could recover. Nobody had discussed it. Evelyn certainly had not offered an explanation. She had adjusted her robe, allowed her children inside, and moved through the apartment as though they had interrupted nothing more scandalous than an afternoon nap.

Lauri escaped on errands as soon as an opportunity presented itself. Anything was better than remaining inside the apartment while their mother pretended the awkwardness did not exist.

Evelyn brewed tea before leaving for work.

The fragrance drifted from the kitchen into the living room, floral and familiar. Green and White Fusion. Her Friday tea. Mondays belonged to Breakfast in Paris. Wednesdays to Moroccan Mint. Fridays to Green and White Fusion. Evelyn maintained the rotation with religious devotion, as if a carefully managed tea schedule could bring order to every other part of her life.

Tonight’s choice felt almost mocking.

Green and white fused together. Two things occupying the same cup. An appropriate drink after her children nearly walked in on a different kind of fusion.

Cortez wiped his mouth and pushed himself from the recliner. He stretched until several joints popped, then yawned beneath one raised arm.

He looked toward Evelyn. Not directly, just enough for irritation to show in his eyes.

"I seriously don't understand why we bother coming here." The words were intended for himself.

The apartment carried them anyway.

Evelyn froze with the teapot suspended over her cup. The stream stopped. She set the pot down harder than necessary, porcelain striking the counter with a sharp knock.

"What you say?" Her head turned slowly toward the living room. "You got somethin' to say to me, say it proper."

Evelyn crossed both arms and leaned against the counter. Work could wait. The tea could wait. Apparently, every responsibility in the world could wait whenever she sensed disrespect.

Cortez met her stare for a moment. He was tired. Not physically, but tired of entering every conversation prepared for war. Tired of searching for a mother beneath the attitude and finding somebody who seemed to reserve her patience, tenderness, and understanding for everyone outside the family.

To coworkers, neighbors, and acquaintances, Evelyn was dedicated.

Hardworking. Earnest. A mother who sacrificed everything and wanted only the best for her children.

That version of Evelyn existed.

Cortez had simply never been sure why strangers received more of her than he did.

"Nothing..."

He shut the door on the argument before it could open.

Evelyn’s eyes remained fixed on him. "Better be nothing," Her arms stayed crossed. "I didn't give birth to no sassy ass boy."

Something softened in her face by a fraction. Perhaps she recognized how drained he looked. Perhaps she simply did not have time to pursue another fight before her shift.

"Whatever, I ain't got time for this right now,"

She flicked one hand toward the door. "Just go help your sister."

Cortez grabbed his keys and left without answering.

He ignored the elevator. The stairwell smelled of old concrete, cigarettes, and week-old piss. His sneakers slapped the steps as he descended five floors, pushing through the front entrance into the evening air. Lauri was visible half a block away. She stood beside a grocery cart loaded with bags, one hand gripping the handle while the front wheel leaned at an angle that made forward movement almost impossible. A man crouched beside it with a small wrench. Cortez recognized him before reaching the curb.

"Yo, what's good Shane? Ain't see you in a minute."

Shane looked up from the wheel. Concentration gave way to surprise and then genuine pleasure. He stood, wiped both hands against faded jeans, and met Cortez with a dap that folded naturally into a brief brotherly embrace.

"Bro! What's up man?" He stepped back, a smirk already forming. "Yeah fam, it's been a minute. I was passing through and recognized Lauri and pulled over for a minute."

Shane glanced toward her with fond exasperation.

"Apparently this shopping cart seen better days." The cart looked as though it had survived several wars and lost all of them. Rust covered the lower frame. The seat had been repaired with wire. The front wheel wobbled beneath the weight of canned goods and bottled water.

Shane had always possessed a habit of fixing whatever happened to be in front of him if he could.

He was a few years older than the Terrano siblings, but the age difference never turned into condescension. He carried himself with the relaxed patience of somebody who had learned how to watch before speaking. Photography had been his life since his father placed a camera in his hands. He gravitated toward cityscapes, double exposures, and images where light turned ordinary streets into something dreamlike. He photographed fire escapes layered against faces. Reflections trapped inside puddles. Buildings dissolving into silhouettes. He first noticed Lauri outside a bodega. Twin glossy braids. Thick eyebrows. A face still carrying the softness of youth while beginning to settle into its adult symmetry. Shane saw an instinctive model. Lauri saw an unfamiliar man with a camera and every reason to be suspicious. But what they had in common was fashion, and it broke through the discomfort. Shane showed her his portfolio, explained what he wanted, and photographed her near the corner beneath available light.

Cortez emerged from the bodega to find a stranger pointing a camera at his little sister. The confrontation came quickly, as well as the explanation. Shane introduced himself without defensiveness. He understood Cortez’s reaction because he had a sister of his own. Had their positions been reversed, he would have stepped in just as aggressively. Cortez studied his work afterward.

Professional. Thoughtful. Never exploitative.

The discomfort gradually eased into trust, and trust developed into friendship.

Cortez looked beyond Shane toward the cherry-red SUV double-parked near the curb. The vehicle was clean enough to reflect the block in its doors.

He released a low whistle. "That's you right there?"

Shane followed his gaze toward the 2024 GMC Acadia. "Nah, that's my sister's. She let me borrow it I get my truck out the shop tomorrow."

He slipped the small wrench into his back pocket. "I got a Chevy Colorado. Needed something reliable for hauling stuff around."

Cortez looked from the Acadia to Shane, then toward Lauri as though all three had been hiding generational wealth from him. "Damn, y'all just out here balling like that? I bet you and your sis wore gold diapers coming up, rich mother fuckers!"

His grin removed any sting from the accusation, then his attention shifted fully toward Lauri.

"Yo kid, how you gonna leave me in the crib with that evil dragon upstairs? See, this is karma for that treachery. Lucky Shane spotted your ass, I'd left you on the street." He jabbed her lightly in the arm.

Lauri rolled her eyes. "Whatever, you was sleep! You thought you were slick trying to doze off and leave me to entertain Mom. The way I see it, it's an eye for an eye."

She pulled down her lower right eyelid and stuck her tongue out.

Cortez reached for her head, but Lauri saw the attack coming and ducked beneath his hand, stepping away from the cart before bringing both fists up in a southpaw stance. Her feet shifted with an imitation of Philadelphia boxing rhythm she had probably learned from watching boxing fights.

Shane laughed as Cortez turned back toward Shane.

"So, what's good with you bro? Got something going on this weekend? Let's link up since I'm around this way."

Shane watched Lauri bounce lightly on her toes, amused by how quickly a failed hair-ruffling had escalated into combat preparation.

"This weekend? Actually yeah, we having a little function at my sister's place. Some of her friends and co-workers are coming through, some of my people from NYU pulling up. But I gotta move some stuff tomorrow with my truck, you interested?"

The invitation came naturally.

Not empty small talk, not one of those promises to link up that everyone understood would never become a plan.

"A little get together? Yeah, I'm down for that. I'll also chip in with whatever you're moving tomorrow as well. It'll get me outta this place." Cortez nodded toward the apartment building behind him.

Anything that shortened his time beneath Evelyn’s roof qualified as an opportunity.

Shane nodded, appreciative of the offer.

"Aight, bet. We just moving some furniture and boxes across town. Shouldn't take more than a couple hours tops."

Lauri abandoned her fighting stance and leaned against the injured shopping cart. She crossed her arms, eyes moving between the two men.

"Wait, wait, wait," Suspicion coated the interruption. " I hope y'all know I'm coming too."

Cortez looked toward Shane. The invitation belonged to him.

"Yeah, whatever. Come through." A slight smirk touched his mouth.

"You know what kind of crowd I run with. Mostly artsy types, few athletes... it'll be chill."

Lauri’s face brightened. "Yooo, for real?! Hell yeah, I'm coming!"

She punched Shane lightly in the arm, then turned toward Cortez wearing the smug satisfaction of somebody who had inserted herself into a plan no one would now be allowed to enjoy without her.

"See, bro? Now you're stuck hanging with me AND Shane this weekend. Consider yourself blessed!"

She rocked back on her heels. Cortez looked at Shane with the solemn disappointment of a man whose friend had made a permanent mistake. Behind them, Evelyn’s building rose against the darkening sky.

The weekend had found its escape route.


———————————————


Saturday morning arrived carrying anticipation. Weekends at Evelyn’s usually revolved around the possibility of family time. That possibility depended on whether Evelyn had the day off, whether she wanted company, and whether her job allowed enough room for her to remember she had invited her children over. Nobody could deny that she worked hard. She accepted extra shifts, covered for people, came home with swollen feet and exhaustion pulling at her face. Work ethic had never been Evelyn’s problem, but the spaces left behind by that work were.

Lauri prepared breakfast for the apartment.

Eggs. Bacon. Toast browned to different levels because Evelyn liked hers barely touched while Cortez wanted enough crunch to scrape the roof of his mouth.

Cortez cleaned. He swept the floors, wiped the counters, emptied trash, and scrubbed the bathroom sink while resentment followed him from room to room. Each chore made him feel less like a son returning home and more like a weekend guest paying for temporary lodging.

They ate, showered, dressed, then waited.

At roughly 11:15, Shane pulled up outside. He dropped Lauri at his sister Bethany’s place, then took Cortez to retrieve the Chevy Colorado from the repair shop. Once the truck was back beneath him, the real labor began.

Bethany had chosen to remodel everything at once.

Bedrooms, living room, kitchen, laundry area and so on. No corner of the home had escaped her vision. The old furniture carried the dark, heavy look of another generation—solid wood, thick upholstery, carved edges, and enough weight to make every staircase feel personal. Cortez and Shane hauled it out piece by piece, maneuvering around doorframes and corners while Bethany directed them with the precision of an airport ground controller.

New furniture replaced the old: Kendamor Dark Brown California King Canopy Bed, vanity dressers, shelving for the walk-in closet, a glass dining table capable of seating eight, a modern IKEA refrigerator with enough digital features to make Cortez wonder why an appliance needed software, a electric stove, washer and dryer combo, and an all-white minimalist living room that looked less like a place to live than a museum exhibit where touching anything might result in arrest. Bethany was not rich, but she was comfortable enough to make deliberate choices and independent enough not to look as though she needed a bank’s permission to breathe. She had saved, planned, purchased pieces over time, and coordinated the transformation with efficiency.

The final major piece was a three-seat sofa.

Cortez and Shane carried it through the entrance with the strained cooperation of two men pretending the weight was not winning. Bethany and Lauri guided them from the front, offering directions that contradicted one another until Cortez threatened to set the sofa down wherever gravity chose. They eventually positioned it opposite the first couch. Between them stood a long centerpiece table decorated with flowers, pottery, and shallow channels of pooling water. A sleek pipe hung overhead, releasing a carefully controlled drizzle into trailing plants below.

The system irrigated the greenery without soaking the furniture.

Cortez stared at it, unsure whether he was inside a living room or a botanical laboratory. He dusted his palms together and released a winded breath.

"Whew! Man, remind me to find my own place already furnished."

Shane stepped backward and studied the room. His attention moved beyond function toward composition. Symmetry. Negative space. How the furniture framed the centerpiece. How the descending water would catch afternoon light.

"Not bad, not bad at all," He circled the arrangement, mentally photographing it from several angles. "Bethany, this is actually sick. Very aesthetic."

Bethany moved toward the kitchen with both hands clasped near her chest, overwhelmed by the completed transformation. "You guys are amazing! Thank you boys so much for everything you've done today!"

She opened the refrigerator and began checking what had survived the remodel. "I'll make sure you two eat like kings tonight, don't you worry."

Lauri had already claimed one of the new sofas. She stretched across the cushions as though she had contributed equally to the carrying.

"This shit is actually fire though. Way better than the old stuff." She scanned the room, then turned her sharp gaze toward Cortez and Shane.

"Yo, you guys are done being moving buddies? We gotta get ready for tonight, remember?"

Lauri sat upright. "The function starts at like seven or eight, right? Which means we need to look good."

Cortez straightened beside Shane.

Fatigue disappeared as he settled into a ridiculous playboy posture: shoulders back, chin raised, both hands clasped together to emphasize the definition in his arms.

"When you look like us, "looking good" is a downgrade." He extended his hand toward Shane.

Shane met it immediately. "You already know!"

Lauri released a dramatic huff and eye roll. "Y'all a bunch of squares, I can't roll to a function looking like this."

She gestured toward the baggy T-shirt, capri shorts, socks, and slides covering her body. The outfit looked less prepared for a party than for retrieving mail from downstairs.

"No cap though, it's gonna be chill, so just dress down casual tonight." Shane raised both arms over his head and stretched. Several joints popped after hours of lifting.

"But yeah, we good. Got plenty of time to shower and change before the party starts. Plus Bethany said she's ordering food, so no waiting on food."

He checked his phone. "It's barely past four. Plenty of time to decompress after all that heavy lifting."

Cortez glanced once more around the completed room.

"Bet bro, slide us back to the crib and we'll crash through later."


———————————————


By Saturday night, the humidity had regrouped. Summer refused to leave without one final argument. Moisture thickened the air, clinging to skin and settling beneath clothing before people reached the end of the block. New York continued living anyway. Couples headed toward theaters beneath bright marquees. Groups gathered outside clubs waiting for security to decide whether their outfits, attitudes, and gender ratios deserved admission. Families occupied restaurant tables. Friends parlayed outside bodegas, on stoops, in parked cars, and anywhere else conversation could stretch into night. There was always somewhere to be.

The only admission price was enduring the city long enough to reach it.

Bethany’s real housewarming unfolded on East 93rd Street. The afternoon furniture move had been labor, the evening was proof of that. Some hip-house and hyper pop moved through the renovated apartment at a volume loud enough to energize without forcing everyone to shout. Soft lighting reflected from the glass dining table and caught inside the falling irrigation water above the plants. Bethany's friends arrived, as well as coworkers. Shane’s people from NYU. Plus-ones attached to guests attached to acquaintances, each person gaining entry through expanding circles of social permission.

Lauri thrived immediately.

She stood beside Bethany and several women, wearing a satin black blouse and beige khakis, laughing with her entire body, gold caps occasionally flashing beneath the lights. She asked questions, traded compliments, and absorbed details about careers, fashion, relationships, and people she had never met as if she belonged amongst them..

Cortez occupied the wall beside the food table.

Not because he lacked confidence, but because nothing being discussed held him long enough to join. One conversation revolved around a professor’s grading policy. Another concerned gallery space. Somewhere near the window, three people debated the ethics of artificial intelligence in photography with enough seriousness to suggest human civilization depended on the conclusion.

Cortez ate instead.

Tiny triangular appetizers disappeared one at a time while he washed them down with Heineken.

Then he noticed the woman.

She stood across the room, composed amid movement. Sleek, black, shoulder-length hair framed a face that seemed calm without being timid. While others spoke with their hands and threw laughter across the room, she maintained an almost surgical stillness, sticking out like a sore thumb. Every ten seconds, her eyes found Cortez, then moved away. The pattern repeated enough to stop being coincidence.

Shane wandered over to refill his cup.

"What's up Shane O'? I thought your sister said we was eating like kings tonight? I'm over here struggling on these cute little triangle finger bites." Cortez held one of the appetizers between two fingers. The piece was barely large enough to qualify as food.

Shane watched him examine it with betrayed fascination. "Man, those aren't meant to be huge portions. It's more about presentation and flavor than filling you up."

He leaned beside Cortez and crossed his arms. "Besides, there's a whole other course coming. She always goes overboard with these dinners." Shane drank from his cup. "You look like you're about to cry over a few pieces of brie. We're gonna have the real deal soon."

"Brie?" Cortez studied the pale cheese inside the appetizer. That's what this is? Taste like butter and shrooms. Man, I can't trust y'all Connecticut people with appetizers no more."

He ate it anyway.

"Ayo, you see shorty over there?" Without openly staring, he tilted his head toward the woman across the room. "What's up with her? She one of your peoples?"

Shane followed the indication. The recognition came immediately.

"Oh, Maria? Yeah, we have a class together." His fingertips tapped the side of his cup in a familiar shutter rhythm. "She's cool."

He leaned nearer, amusement already gathering behind his eyes. "Why? You picking up on something or just asking out of curiosity?"

"Maybe..." Cortez kept watching. "Maybe a little bit of both."

Across the room, Maria looked toward him. This time, Cortez was already staring. She turned away quickly. A faint warmth touched her cheeks as she adjusted the napkin beneath her plate with unnecessary precision. The movement gave her an excuse to glance back beneath her lashes. She took a measured bite, presenting the same calm exterior.

Shane caught the exchange.

"Go talk to her, I know you're not the shy type." He patted Cortez between the shoulder blades. "Big boy pants activated!"

Cortez finished the brie and drank enough Heineken to wash away the mushroom-butter aftertaste. Liquid courage was not necessary, it simply made an excellent accomplice.

Shane gave him another push, sending Cortez across the room.

Lauri noticed immediately. Her conversation continued, but her attention changed direction. She tracked where her brother was going, followed the path toward Maria, then looked between them with surprise widening her eyes.

Cortez considered several openings while approaching: a compliment, a joke, or something effortless enough to sound unplanned. But Maria spoke before he could use any of them.

She placed her fork carefully against her plate and looked toward him, "It's rude to discuss someone as though they can't hear you."

The correction carried no real anger, only composure and the suggestion that she had noticed far more than he assumed.

A restrained smile softened the rebuke.

"My apologies. I just had to make sure I wasn't fooling myself with you glancing over at me like you were." Cortez held her gaze.

"I wasn't sure if it was me or this loud Hawaiian shirt I'm wearing."

He performed a slow turn. The unbuttoned retro skull-print Hawaiian shirt shifted around a fitted black tank top. A gold chain rested against his chest, crowned "C" pendant centered beneath his throat. Black chinos balanced the chaos above, while Nike LeBron XII What The? sneakers introduced another collection of colors below.

The outfit should not have worked, but the confidence held it together.

Maria’s lips lifted at the corners. "It wasn't the shirt." Her dark eyes met his directly.

"Though I appreciate the demonstration." Her gaze traveled downward and then returned without embarrassment. "The shirt is interesting though. Retro skull print? That requires a certain level of confidence to pull off."

Cortez followed the movement of her eyes before smiling. "Hopefully I passed with flying colors. "

He extended one hand.

"I'm Cortez, pleasure to meet you, gorgeous."

Maria paused. Not from uncertainty. The moment felt calculated, as though every social gesture passed through an internal approval process before being allowed into the world.

She accepted his hand. Her grip was firm and delicate at once.

"Maria,"

Her thumb brushed briefly along his palm.

"Maria Hwangbo."

Cortez kept her hand and leaned forward, intending to kiss the back of it.

Maria withdrew before his lips reached skin.

Her head tilted.

"Gorgeous, though? Is that how you introduce yourself to every woman at parties, or am I special?"

"That depends." Cortez straightened and linked both hands behind his back. "Is that the only rebuttal you got to chase off every man who compliments you something nice?"

His smirk remained faint.

Enough to let her recognize the game without making her feel mocked. Maria’s expression stayed composed, but something flickered beneath it.

Amusement, or perhaps curiosity.

"How presumptuous." She lifted her wine glass and took a small sip. "I simply prefer sincerity over empty flattery. There's a difference between saying something nice and actually meaning it."

"Fair enough," Cortez nodded. "But what do I get from lying to a stranger? Or are you just not the type to hang your hat on first impressions?"

Maria set the glass down carefully after a measured sip. A subtle, almost mischievous smile disturbed the calm line of her mouth. "You're right, I apologize if that came off dismissive. First impressions matter, especially when they're delivered with such... confidence."

Playfulness had entered her tone.

She glanced briefly toward Shane before returning to Cortez. "You're friends with Shane, aren't you? I recognize the... dynamic."

Cortez followed her eyes. Shane had moved into another conversation, pretending not to observe while remaining fully aware of his friend’s progress.

"Yeah, that's my guy. Knew him for over a little year now."

Cortez pointed toward the other side of the room. "You see that one right there? The one with the twin braids, talking to Bethany? Be careful of her. That's my little sister, Lauri. she bites people after 10P.M. She's a little mongoose."

Maria looked toward Lauri.

The warning made a small laugh escape her. "I'll keep that in mind," Her voice gained another trace of playfulness. "Though I suspect 'biting people' might be more figurative than literal."

Cortez gave her a knowing look. "Yeah, okay. Go ahead and mess around, pull back a nub."

Their smiles met. The conversation continued.

What began as flirtation broadened into curiosity. Maria possessed a quiet way of listening that forced Cortez to think before filling silence. She did not rush to impress him. Did not exaggerate reactions. Did not decorate herself with louder versions of whatever she believed he wanted. Jennessa had always entered a room like an announcement, but Maria seemed content to let people discover her gradually.

The difference unsettled Cortez in a way he found interesting.

Across the room, Lauri kept watch. She excused herself from Bethany’s circle and approached Shane, who stood with one shoulder against the wall.

"Yo, bro. What's up with my brother and that girl? He already getting numbers or what?"

Shane observed the interaction over the edge of his cup. "They haven't even exchanged info yet. Let the man work."

He looked toward Lauri with a smirk. "You jealous or something?"

Lauri rolled her eyes and waved one hand. "Jealous? Nah, that ain't never me." Her attention returned to Cortez and Maria. The humor in her expression shifted into something protective.

"Just making sure whoever he talks to actually deserves his time, you feel me? Big bro puts a lot of time and value in his people he care for. Stuff like that you can't recoup."

Shane crossed his arms, nodding at her wisdom.

"Sounds like you're profiling already," His teasing carried no cruelty. "Give the girl a chance, Laur. She might surprise you... So far they've been all smiles with each other."

Lauri huffed.

"I'm not profiling, I'm just being cautious. I don't just instantly trust random girls who smiles in his face."

Her distrust had been earned. She had watched what Jennessa left behind. Watched Cortez pretend the breakup had not hurt because football gave him somewhere to hide the damage. Lauri understood how completely her brother invested himself in the people he loved. He did not know how to give halfway. That made every new person dangerous until proven otherwise.

Several minutes later, Cortez retrieved his phone. Maria did the same.

They stood close enough to compare screens as they entered contact information.

Lauri’s eyes widened, then narrowed with delighted ammunition.

She struck Shane’s arm. "Ayo, check that out! Big bro already getting her digits!" She turned toward him, grinning. "Guess I spoke too soon, huh?"

The information was already being stored for future harassment. Cortez would not make it through the ride home without hearing about the shirt, the approach, the smile, and whatever expression had occupied his face while Maria entered her number.

Shane watched the exchange conclude. "Told you to let him work",

Cortez slipped his phone into his pocket. Maria returned hers to the table.

Across the room, Lauri smiled like a witness who had seen everything.

The city moved beyond Bethany’s windows, lights glowing against the humid night. Cars traveled below. Music escaped from neighboring apartments. Thousands of lives crossed paths without understanding what each meeting might become. Cortez had entered the party looking for an escape from his mother’s apartment. He found a number instead. A new name and a quiet smile. Something unfamiliar beginning before the old thing had completely finished dying.

"Maria Hwangbo."

Cortez repeated the name silently. He did not know where it would lead.

He did not know what waited behind her composure, what complications might follow, or whether the interest between them would survive beyond one humid Saturday night. Cortez looked across at Maria. She caught him watching again. This time, neither looked away.

[The JZA]

Keen as for this to start man. Good luck following for sure.

Nearly there, my G'. Preciate you for tagging along.

[The JZA]

Start The Show
(SZN 1 , EPI 5)

Sunday morning crept into New York quietly, almost apologetically, like it knew what the city had done the night before.

Saturdays belonged to noise. Cars doubled at red lights with music shaking loose change inside cupholders. Parties leaked outside from clubs into the streets. Somewhere, somebody argued outside a pizza shop while somebody else recorded it live for social media clout.

Sunday mornings were different.

They were the only mornings capable of making New York feel empty. Traffic thinned to the occasional cab rolling through a yellow light. No music blasted from open windows. No children running about while neighbors downstairs wondered whether the ceiling would survive. Even the apartment above Evelyn’s remained still, no furniture rolling across the floor like bowling balls thrown down an alley.

The city had not stopped, more like It had simply lowered its voice.

A brisk breeze passed through the open windows of apartment 5G, gathering what remained of Saturday night’s humidity and circulating the rooms. Curtains stirred. The stale smell of the city outside shifted through the air.

Cortez was already awake.

He and Lauri had not returned until nearly three that morning. The ride back had been filled with Lauri’s relentless commentary about the new girl, Maria. Every question delivered with the false innocence of someone already convinced she knew all the answers. Cortez had endured the interrogation while pretending to ignore the grin Lauri wore each time Maria’s name came up. Once inside the apartment, Lauri disappeared into the bedroom and collapsed.

Cortez remained awake. He had texted Maria to make sure she arrived home safely. The responsible message turned into another. Then another. Their conversation moved in short bursts across the next hour, stopping and restarting whenever one of them thought of something else to say.

The messages were never especially deep.

A joke about Shane. A complaint about the food. Maria making fun of Cortez’s Hawaiian shirt without directly admitting she had liked it.

Eventually, the replies stopped. He assumed she had fallen asleep.

Cortez did not.

Sunday was not only the end of the weekend, it was the beginning of game week.

Five days separated Kennedy from Tottenville. Five days before Cortez would stand behind center beneath Staten Island lights and face the team responsible for two of the ugliest losses of his high school career. He sat at Evelyn’s dining table with his laptop open and headphones resting unused around his neck. The screen displayed footage pulled from whatever corners of the internet could offer it. Most of the videos had been recorded by parents, students, or spectators holding phones from the bleachers. The angles shifted without warning. Fingers occasionally blocked the camera. Conversations from the crowd drowned beneath wind and contact.

The quality did not matter. There was enough. Cortez paused the footage before the snap.

Tottenville’s star cornerback stood near the boundary, his shoulders square to the receiver. In man coverage, he attached himself to wideouts like glue poured into a human uniform. He used his hands early, guiding receivers toward the sideline before suffocating the route. In zone coverage, he changed. His eyes abandoned the receiver and searched the backfield. When the slot crossed into his area, he switched assignments without hesitation. No wasted step. No confusion between defenders. He trusted the safety and attacked anything entering his territory.

Cortez rewound the play. Watched it again, and again.

The corner had been a junior the previous season. Unless he had transferred, been injured, or disappeared from the roster for some reason, he would be waiting Friday.

Cortez wrote his number in his notebook.

The front door opened shortly before seven. Keys scraped inside the lock before the deadbolt turned. Evelyn stepped into the apartment carrying the full weight of a twelve-hour shift. The final lock clicked behind her, followed by a sigh pulled from somewhere deep inside her body. Her work shoes dragged lightly against the floor. Exhaustion had settled beneath her eyes and flattened the usual sharpness in her posture. She placed one hand against the wall as she removed a shoe, then the other, leaving them near the entrance without arranging them.

She crossed the living room and noticed Cortez at the dining table.

“Good morning.” He did not look away from the screen.

Evelyn studied him briefly before dropping her bag onto the couch.

“...Morning,” Her voice carried none of its usual edge.

She went directly to the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and removed a mug. When she checked the refrigerator, the orange-juice carton contained barely enough to cover the bottom. She poured what remained anyway.

“You been up all night again?” Evelyn leaned against the counter and lifted the mug. “Whatchu' watching?”

“Just some vids on Tottenville. We play them this Friday.” Cortez rewound another clip, though his interest in the play had weakened since she entered.

“How was work? Another long night?”

Evelyn took a long drink from the mug. The small amount of juice disappeared quickly. She remained against the counter, one hand supporting part of her weight while the other held the empty cup.

“It was long. One of my patients gave me an extra headache tonight with all their complaints,” She rubbed two fingers against her temple. “But I got through it. I usually do.”

There was no pride in the statement, only the fact.

Evelyn had survived the shift because survival was what she did. She moved through long nights, difficult patients, short staffing, aching joints, and supervisors who always needed one more favor. Quitting had just never been among her habits.

Her gaze returned to Cortez. He sat hunched toward his phone, shoulders rounded slightly from lack of sleep. His eyes remained focused despite the fatigue darkening the skin beneath them. One hand rested, holding the phone. The other held a pen above an open notebook crowded with numbers and handwritten observations.

Evelyn watched him longer than she normally allowed herself.

“So this Friday, huh?” Her voice softened almost unconsciously. “Big game for you, I imagine.”

Cortez heard the difference.

The words did not arrive sharpened with criticism or coated in indifference. They sounded like ordinary small talk between a mother and son. Ordinary had become rare enough to feel suspicious.

“One of the biggest on the schedule... It's a little personal for me.”

His eyes remained on the frozen defensive formation. Forty-three to sixteen. Forty-two to sixteen. The scores followed him into every workout. They were not numbers anymore, they were scars arranged across a scoreboard.

Cortez sensed Evelyn looking at him and finally broke from the footage. He turned slightly in the chair. She looked smaller beneath the kitchen light. Not physically, but tired enough for some of the usual armor to hang loose around her.

“... You hungry? I can make you some early breakfast since Lauri's sleeping.”

The offer came quietly.

It was not forgiveness. It was not an attempt to resolve every accusation, absence, or argument that existed between them. It was breakfast, and that was enough.

Evelyn’s eyes widened slightly. For a moment, she appeared uncertain how to receive a gesture without searching beneath it for disrespect.

“...Yeah, actually. That'd be nice,” Vulnerability moved through the admission before she could stop it.

Cortez puts his phone to sleep. They exchanged places without ceremony. He left the dining table and entered the kitchen while Evelyn lowered herself into the chair at the head. From there, she watched him open cabinets and inspect the refrigerator.

Bacon, eggs milk, bread, salt, sugar, flour, ground cinnamon, vanilla extract, spring onions and bell peppers.

The kitchen shifted from silent territory into a workspace. Cortez set a skillet over the burner and moved with the ease of somebody who understood where everything belonged. He reached for bowls without searching, found the cutting board beneath the counter, and gathered utensils in an order that suggested repetition rather than improvisation.

Evelyn’s eyebrows lifted. “Who taught you how to cook?”

Cortez cracked an egg against the edge of a bowl. He glanced toward her once.

“Your daughter. She's been building her own cook book. I learned through watching her, making sure she doesn't burn Antonio's house down... she's a natural though.”

The skillet began warming. Cortez sprayed the surface with oil and watched it gather into a thin sheen. Bacon struck the pan with a hard sizzle, filling the apartment with a smell strong enough to reach the bedrooms.

Evelyn leaned back. A small smile threatened the corners of her mouth.

“That's... actually pretty impressive,” Her chin settled against her knuckles. “Your sister always did have a talent for that sort of thing.”

Cortez turned the strips while grease snapped against the pan.

Evelyn observed the rhythm of his movements. He did not hesitate when switching tasks. While the bacon cooked, he diced peppers and sliced spring onions. He whisked the eggs before the previous step finished, always preparing for what came next.

“I never really thought about you picking up cooking from her,” Her expression changed. Warmth remained, but contemplation gathered around it. “Guess I just... been too busy to see you two grow up so fast.”

The sentence entered the room and stayed there.

There it was, the opening. A clean lane toward every truth he had swallowed over the years.

Too busy. Too absent. Too occupied with shifts, situationships, exhaustion, anger, and everything outside the apartment to notice who her children were becoming.

Cortez could have thrown it back at her. Could have told her that she had not merely missed them growing up. She had created the conditions that forced them to. He could have pointed toward Antonio’s house and explained how much of their adolescence had been learned beneath another person’s roof.

Instead, Cortez flipped the bacon.

The strips struck the pan and hissed. He let the silence protect the morning.

Evelyn crossed into the kitchen and leaned beside the counter. She held the empty mug between both hands, watching grease bubble around the edges of the bacon.

"The bacon smellin' good though," she commented casually. "You gettin' all fancy in here." There was a brief pause before she added, "You did good pickin' up the cookin' thing. Lauri must've taught you well.

Cortez smirked faintly. Years had passed since a compliment from Evelyn arrived without poison attached to the end. His instinct was to inspect it, hold it beneath a bright light and question whether the woman standing across from him had been replaced during the night by someone capable of tenderness.

He resisted.

A compliment did not need to become evidence. For once, he allowed it to remain what it was.

“Careful. Her head is already big enough as it is.”

The bacon came out first, placed across a small metal rack to drain onto the folded paper towels underneath. Cortez lowered the heat before pouring in the eggs mixed with spring onions and peppers. Yellow folded through green and red as he moved a spatula slowly through the pan.

French toast followed after the completion of the scrambled eggs and a fresh wash of the pan.

He prepared enough for two plates. One for Evelyn, and one for Lauri whenever the smell eventually pulled her from sleep.

Cortez opened the cabinet and found the sugar-free maple syrup Evelyn preferred. He remembered suggesting the switch years earlier after she complained about her diet. At the time, he had assumed she ignored him. The bottle in her cabinet said otherwise. Small gestures survived in strange places. He arranged Evelyn’s plate and placed it before her with a fork. Then he returned to the refrigerator, opened a fresh orange-juice carton, and refilled her mug.

“Thank you,”

The words were almost a murmur. Evelyn lifted one piece of French toast and took a bite while Cortez returned to the stove where he began cleaning.

Neither spoke. The silence no longer felt like punishment.

It was simply quiet. Comfortable might have been too generous, but less hostile was enough.

For one Sunday morning, mother and son occupied the same apartment without searching for weapons inside each other’s words.

Outside, New York slowly woke. A bus hissed at the curb. Metal shutters rolled upward over a storefront. Somewhere above them, plumbing groaned through the walls.

The city was preparing to begin again. So were they...


———————————————


Monday came quickly.

The brief truce at Evelyn’s table disappeared beneath the machinery of a new week. New York shifted into its regular gear before sunrise, grinding millions of lives forward whether they felt prepared or not. Nine-to-fivers crowded buses and train platforms. Breakfast Club listeners sat trapped in traffic. Graveyard-shift workers traveled home against the current, faces empty as everyone else began the day they had just survived.

For Cortez, the week offered only two priorities: academics and football.

Everything else had to fit around them or get crushed beneath the schedule. The closer Friday came, the more the rivalry between the John F. Kennedy Campus Knights and the Tottenville Pirates seemed to spread through the building.

Practice remained structured. The urgency beneath it changed. Cortez reminded the team—particularly the seniors—that normal effort would produce the same ending they had suffered every year.

The postseason. Then the elimination. A respectable season followed by a quiet locker room and equipment being turned in too early.

He demanded two hundred percent in practice because he knew game speed exposed every lazy rep.

This was not another season, it was the final statement. The final time to grab bragging rights over said school cross town or cross borough.

Several Knights had legitimate college interest. Division I, division II. Others understood that football would end when the season did. There would be no scholarship ceremony, university equipment package, or campus tour waiting beyond senior year. That did not make their final months less important.

Everybody had something to prove. Everybody had a last memory to create.

Cortez wanted them to own the moment before the moment owned them. Leadership had always been the part of football that came most naturally to him. His body had needed time. His arm had needed development. His decision-making had needed to be beaten into shape through mistakes. But his ability to rally teammates had existed even when he was the youngest player in the huddle. Cortez had been named captain as a sophomore despite not yet being physically or technically ready for everything the title required. Coaches saw what happened when he spoke. Players lifted their heads. Excuses became harder to defend.

He gave them something figuratively tangible to chew on.

A grudge. A promise. A picture of who they might become if they stopped treating potential like an accomplishment.

Monday belonged to repetition and iron. After light warm-ups, the Knights entered the school weight room. The space smelled of rubber mats, old sweat, disinfectant, and steel warmed by too many hands.

Bench presses. Leg presses. Pull-ups. Squats. Nobody worked alone. Every athlete lifted and every athlete spotted. Teammates shouted through final reps, voices becoming louder as muscles failed. Hands hovered beneath bars, prepared to intervene but refusing to steal a clean rep. And when the scheduled work ended early, competition took over. Who could bench the most. Who could complete the most pull-ups without dropping. Who could hold a wall sit while the rest of the room insulted his legs, family, haircut, and entire bloodline. Laughter moved through the weight room between grunts. Monday built camaraderie through suffering.

Tuesday was a half-day. The team separated by position. Quarterbacks drilled quick drops and releases. Cortez repeated three-step timing until his feet landed in the same marks without conscious thought. Snap. Drop. Plant. Throw. Running backs worked through ladders and cones before entering the gauntlet, where teammates slapped at the football and struck their arms with pads. Receivers sharpened releases and practiced routes, forcing their bodies to sell one direction before cutting into another. The linemen attacked sleds. One against twos and two against three. Practice ended with half-field seven-on-seven work, passing concepts stripped of the trenches and exposed beneath open space.

Wednesday belonged to contact. Cortez’s favorite day. Full scrimmages. Full playbook. The first team offense faced the first team defense while coaches shifted down and distance, field position, and time remaining. Two-minute drill. Backed against their own goal line. Fourth and short. Red zones. The situations forced Cortez to process every variable that might appear Friday evening. Pressure came from different angles. Safeties rotated after the snap. Linebackers dropped beneath routes they had shown no interest in covering.

Wednesday was controlled chaos. Cortez loved it because the game existed inside that chaos. Not on paper, tot in diagrams. But in bodies moving at full speed while plans began falling apart.

Thursday rested the body and punished the brain.

The Knights gathered in Coach Lloyd’s classroom for film study. Muscles recovered while minds were tested. Coverage recognition, protection checks, route conversions, situational decisions. Coach Lloyd paused plays without warning and called on players to explain what they saw. A wrong answer did not earn humiliation. It earned another question, then another, until the mistake could no longer hide behind guesswork. Physical experience became mental knowledge. The schedule had barely changed since Cortez entered the program.

Monday iron. Tuesday technique. Wednesday warfare. Thursday study. Friday judgment.

When Thursday’s film session ended, Cortez packed his notebook and left Coach Lloyd’s classroom with Tottenville’s defense still shifting inside his head.

The hallway had begun clearing after the class disbursed. A custodian pushed a wide broom along the floor, collecting wrappers, scraps of paper, and everything students believed disappeared after they dropped it.

Cortez turned the corner. Jennessa waited beside his locker.

He nearly stopped walking, yet a sigh escaped before he could prevent it.

He needed a book for homework and there was no way to avoid the situation.

Jennessa saw him immediately. Her entire attention narrowed onto him despite the students passing between them.

“Do I have to get a restraining order on you?” Cortez approached without a smile. No tease softened the annoyance in his face. “What do you want this time?”

Jennessa’s eyes narrowed. She held her position as Cortez opened the locker. Her gaze followed his hands, his shoulders, the calm confidence that had settled into him over the summer.

It irritated her. Also, it attracted her. Both reactions made her resent him more.

“I want five minutes of your actual time without you walking away,” She leaned against the neighboring locker after moving slightly closer. “Is that too much to ask for?”

Cortez opened his backpack and began removing books he would not need at home. “I gave you twenty minutes last week, wasn't that enough?”

He bent slightly to fish out one textbook. The movement gave Jennessa a clear view inside the locker.

Her attention caught on the photographs taped to the door.

The Polaroids.

The day at the roller rink.

They had been thirteen. Young enough to believe forever was something people could promise without understanding how long it was.

Jennessa remembered the heat from that afternoon. The music inside the rink. Cortez nearly falling when he attempted to skate backward. The way they had laughed before anything between them became serious enough to hurt.

Her throat tightened.

“I see you still have those old photos... of us...” She folded her arms across her chest. The posture created a barrier around a heart suddenly threatening to expose itself.

“... Those pictures reminds me of better days.” Jennessa searched for words that did not sound rehearsed.

“I remember it being extremely hot that day. We got ice cream coming out of that roller rink, just me and you. And we was about to head back inside and someone knocked my cone out of my hand when they opened the door, rushing out. Instead of giving me yours, you shook down that boy to repay for the ice cream and you chase down the old Spanish lady to get me another...”

Cortez remembered every detail. Too clearly.

Evelyn had given him enough money for himself and Lauri. Snacks, admission, skates and bus fare home from Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park.

When the boy knocked the cone from Jennessa’s hand, Cortez refused to give her his own.

Not because he would not share, because surrendering it would have meant buying another one for him, tapping into the bus fare

So he confronted the boy.

Then chased the vendor before she crossed too far along the walkway. Walking back to the Bronx had never been an acceptable option.

“Yup... And their auntie almost went ballistic on me, thinking I was trying to rob him.”

Jennessa’s lips softened. Not quite a smile, but something closer to grief wearing the memory of one.

“You've always been like that,” Her eyes returned to the photographs. “Stupidly loyal to people who don't deserve it.”

The sentence carried more than one target. “We had something good, Cortez. Really good.”

Cortez placed the book inside his backpack.

“Yeah... Then you blew it.” The answer landed without cushioning.

He closed the locker, shutting the photographs behind metal. “But what all that have to do with now? You want something...”

Pain crossed Jennessa’s face before composure buried it. She studied him as if searching for the boy from the Polaroids beneath the person standing before her.

“What I want—” Her voice weakened. “I was thinking...” She lifted her chin, forcing herself to meet his eyes.

“I know I shouldn't ask you, I don't think I have the right to... But home coming is coming up... And I was wondering if you'd go with me. Even just as friends.”

Cortez stared. The request settled between them with the weight of a trap that had been decorated to resemble nostalgia.

“And there it is.” The internal thought escaped his mouth. “You really asking me that?”

He began walking toward the exit.

Jennessa followed.

Her heels struck the linoleum in quick, sharp clicks as she fought to match his longer stride.

“Yes, I'm really asking you!” Shame no longer mattered enough to restrain her.

She grabbed his shoulder and forced him to stop. “I'm serious, Cortez. Homecoming is important to me. I want to go with someone who knows me—not some random guy. Every year it's always been you and me. I don't want to go alone.”

Her hand slid from his shoulder to his wrist. The contact was painfully familiar.

For a fraction of a second, Jennessa remembered how naturally touching him had once come. No permission. No calculation. Her fingers had always known where to settle. “Why is that such a ridiculous request?”

“Asking someone you fucked over to slip on a mask and play nice for one day as if nothing happened is nasty work, Jenn.”

The shortened name left Cortez through habit.

“We're not some rich married couple that have to put on a facade to keep up an—”

The sentence stopped. A realization shifted through Cortez’s expression. He looked Jennessa up and down, reading the request again through a different lens.

“Tell me this is not what I think it is.”

Color rose through Jennessa’s cheeks. She released his wrist and stepped backward.

“What? No, it's not—” Her usual command of language abandoned her. “I mean, yes, okay. Maybe it does look like that. But that's not... I'm not trying to be some fake the funk with you, Cortez. I genuinely just...”

She dragged one hand through her pink hair as frustration tightened her face.

“This whole fucking thing is complicated, alright?” Her voice rose before she dragged it back beneath control. “Yes, we're not some perfect couple anymore. But we still exist in each other's lives whether you like it or not. We still go to school together. We have classes together.”

“What that got to do with me?” Cortez shook his head. “I can tune you out. That ain't no problem.” He resumed walking.

Jennessa followed again.

“Babe, please...” The old name slowed him more than he wanted to admit.

She caught his arm, fingers digging through the fabric.

“It's just one night. ” Her voice cracked beneath the pressure building inside it. “At least... walk me home, please?”

Jennessa released him. Both arms wrapped around her body as she searched his face for the part of him she knew still existed.

The protective part. The boy who could be furious with someone and still refuse to leave her unprotected.

“Nobody told you to wait on me.”

Cortez’s response arrived colder than the emotions twisting beneath it. He looked toward the exit. Leaving her would have been easy. He could have walked through the doors, placed headphones over his ears, and allowed Jennessa to solve the problem she had created by waiting.

But he knew himself.

Even wounded loyalty was still loyalty.

“Girl, bring your ass on...”

Jennessa’s eyes widened. For a moment, she appeared unable to believe the small victory, then a genuine smile crossed her face.

Tentative. Careful.

“...Okay,”

She fell into step beside him, leaving school together.


———————————————


The walk toward Jennessa’s apartment was almost silent. Traffic filled the spaces between them. Bus brakes sighed at intersections. A delivery bicycle slipped through a red light while the drivers honked at him out of frustration as if they own the city on two wheels.

Jennessa walked close enough for their arms to nearly touch.

She wanted to take his hand. The impulse kept returning with each block. Her fingers remembered how his fit between them. She imagined gripping him tightly enough to prevent him from turning around and disappearing.

She resisted. She knew that would be doing too much. For now, she accepted the privilege of walking beside him.

Every few moments, Jennessa glanced toward Cortez. His stride carried a certainty that had not existed when they first met. Summer workouts had sharpened the frame she remembered, replacing pieces of adolescence with the early outline of the man he might become.

She had changed too.

But the problem was they had not changed together.

“So,” Her voice broke the silence. “You ready for the big game this Friday? You guys been looking more ready than before.”

Cortez sighed before answering. “About as ready as we're ever going to be. I've been putting in a lot of work over the summer. I'm hoping some colleges will start noticing.”

They walked another half block.

“We'll just have to see how things play out tomorrow. A long ride home from Staten Island after a loss again is not something I want to deal with.”

Jennessa understood what those rides did to him.

After losses, Cortez rarely spoke. He sat with his head against the bus window, replaying every bad read and missed opportunity while the city passed outside. She remembered waiting for him after away games she couldn't go to. Idling with her phone, hoping for a call or text. Sometimes neither would happen. The thought twisted painfully in her chest.

They reached her block.

Jennessa touched his arm before she could reconsider. Her fingers curled gently into the fabric.

The contact was quieter this time. Not an attempt to stop him, something closer to encouragement.

“You'll do great tomorrow,” She meant it. “You always do.”

“Appreciate it.” Cortez did not stretch the moment.

He looked toward the building where Jennessa lived with her grandmother, then returned his attention to her. He allowed the silence to remain longer than necessary, because rushing away would have made him look like an asshole.

“I guess this is you...”

Jennessa followed his gaze toward the apartment building.

“...Yeah.” She shifted from one foot to the other. The distance between them suddenly felt too small and too wide at once. The evening air carried grilled meat and onions from a street-food cart farther down the block.

Jennessa looked at her pink nails, then back toward him through her lashes. “Thanks for walking me home.”

She paused.

One final request remained waiting inside her. “...And think about what I said... About home coming.”

Her lips curved faintly. “Get home safely...”

Cortez gave no answer.

Jennessa climbed the stoop and entered the building. Through the lobby window, she turned halfway and lifted one hand in a small wave.

Cortez did not return it. He acknowledged the gesture with a slight movement of his head, then turned toward Kingsbridge Terrace...