Captain Canada wrote: ↑17 Aug 2026, 16:50You're a nasty dude, and I hope you know that.
The term bae makes me sick, but so does Autumn, so it aligns.
Solid update, brother. Keep moving that plot forward
Of course it does, milk warrior.
American Sun
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16938
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
American Sun
Of course it does, milk warrior.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16938
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
American Sun
God Forgives, I Don’t
E.J. came up the hall from the bedroom with his phone in one hand, his shirt pulled down over his waistband, his feet finding the flat track worn into the middle of the carpet. Light came through the blinds over the sliding door in bands that ran across the floor and broke over the edge of the coffee table.
Tessa sat on the couch with one leg folded under her and her phone up near her chest. A video ran on the screen with the volume turned down, a woman’s voice pitched high over a beat that came back around every few seconds. She swiped it up and another one started underneath it then the screen changed shape in her hand and both her thumbs came in over the bottom of it, moving in short bursts, stopping, going again.
He crossed the carpet and came around the back of the couch. He slowed at her shoulder and looked down over the top of the cushion at the screen, angling his head to clear her hand. Gray bubbles ran up the left side and blue ones came down the right, the thread deep enough that the top of it had scrolled off. A name sat above them, and he got half of it before she tipped the phone toward her chest.
Tessa turned her head and looked up at him over her shoulder. “Can I help you?”
“Who you over here texting like that?”
She held her eyes on him then brought the phone down against her thigh with the screen against her leg and faced forward. “No one that you need to be worried about me texting.”
E.J. set his hand on the back of the couch and hooked his fingers over the top of the cushion. “As long as you my woman then everyone you texting is someone I need to be worried about you texting.”
Tessa scoffed, her head came back against the cushion and her eyes went up to the ceiling before they came level. Her thumb found the side button and locked the screen. “Weren’t you the one that went running back to New Orleans for a week because your boys called you and told you to? Didn’t leave me any money for bills, didn’t worry about telling me why you were going. Just picked up and left. All because your friends asked.”
E.J. pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. From where he stood, he could see the muscle at the hinge of her jaw moving under the skin, the pulse going in the side of her neck, her face aimed at the black screen of the television across the room. His fingers pressed down through the cushion until they found the frame underneath.
“That ain’t got nothing to do with this.”
“If you were so worried about me cheating, you wouldn’t have left me here alone for a fucking month. Who knows what I could’ve been doing?”
E.J. sucked his teeth. “You better stop fucking with me. You better not had had no niggas in here when I was gone.”
Tessa turned on the cushion until her shoulder pressed into the back of the couch, her face coming up toward him, her eyes going from his mouth to his eyes. “And what if I did? What are you going to do besides run back to the city and cry about it with your boys?”
“You doing too much, Tessa. Don’t dig no hole your ass can’t get out of.”
Tessa rolled her eyes then brought the phone back up off her leg and woke the screen with her thumb. Her other hand went into the ends of her hair and worked a knot loose at the bottom with two fingers. “Nobody’s worried about you, Eric. I’m texting my friends.”
She turned the phone flat and her thumbs went back to the bottom of the screen. “If you had actual friends and not just other criminals you talk to, you’d know that’s what plenty of normal people do.”
E.J. shook his head, took his hand off the cushion and started across the carpet toward the kitchen. “I’m just gonna leave before you say something you regret.”
“I bet you will.”
He pulled the refrigerator open and the light came on over the shelves. A gallon of milk sat on the top one with two inches left in the bottom of the jug. Under it, a takeout container with the lid warped down over one corner, a clamshell of strawberries gone soft along one side, an open box of baking soda pushed to the back. The door had a bottle of ranch, a bottle of hot sauce with the cap crusted around the threads, half a jar of pickles floating in the brine. The crisper drawers were pulled out an inch on their runners, the bare plastic showing through the fronts. He moved the takeout container to see behind it and set it back where it had been.
He shut the door with his forearm, the unit rocking against the wall and the bottles in the door knocking against each other.
He came off the tile and went up the hall, his voice going back over his shoulder into the living room. “And get off your ass and go to the fucking grocery store while you off!”
The video came back up behind him, the woman’s voice pitching high over the beat, and Tessa’s thumb kept moving on the glass.
Sara stood at the front window with one hand resting on the sill and her weight settled onto her back foot, her eyes running the block. Cold came off the glass onto her face and the backs of her fingers. The cars along the curb had gone over with condensation overnight and the windshields carried it in a gray film. A man came up the far sidewalk behind a dog on a long lead, his hood over his head, his free hand pushed into the front pocket of his sweatshirt.
Jabari crossed the floorboards behind her and came up on her side with a mug held out in front of him, the steam bending off the top of it and pulling apart in the air between them. Sara took it by the handle and let the heat come up against the inside of her wrist.
She looked over at him and smiled. “Thanks.”
“You look like you’re in deep thought. Want to tell me what you’re thinking about?”
A truck sat idling two houses down, the exhaust standing up white behind it, the driver still inside with one arm hooked over the wheel while the defroster worked at the bottom of his windshield. Sara watched the clear part spread up into the gray. She turned the mug a little in her hand.
“Trying to decide when’s the right time to introduce you to Caine.”
Jabari put his shoulder into the wall beside the window and turned enough to take in the same stretch of street. “You said he told his little girl that he was going to come back for Carnival. I always take a vacation that week. Sounds like perfect timing to me.”
Sara sighed. Her breath came off the surface of the coffee and a patch of fog spread on the pane in front of her mouth, then pulled back in on itself. “Unless all that shit was the universe’s way of telling me to keep well enough alone and not rock the boat.”
“You having second thoughts about me meeting him?”
Sara shook her head. The mug had given its heat up through the ceramic into both her hands and she brought it in against her stomach, her thumb working the seam under the handle where the glaze had gone rough. “No. I just don’t want to throw too much at him all at once and it seems like there’s always something else going on with him these last couple of years.”
Jabari’s eyes went back out to the block. “I think that’s gonna be the case now for him until he decides he ain’t playing football anymore.”
Sara pushed her tongue against the back of her teeth and let the air out through her nose. “Don’t remind me.”
Jabari laughed. “As unbiased as I can be in this and not wanting to sound like I’m pressuring you into anything, you might as well just rip the band-aid off. You know with these types of things, at some point, the time it took you to say something starts becoming the problem more than the something.”
Sara let her eyes come off the street and find his face. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
She brought the mug up and took a sip. It had cooled at the top and went down warm through her chest. “You know what I’ve been worrying about a lot lately?”
Jabari turned his gaze off the street. “Tell me.”
The truck two doors down pulled off the curb and rolled to the corner, and Sara followed it to the stop sign and let it go. “Calvin seeing Caine all over TV, making all this money, getting famous and deciding that now he wants to be a father.”
Jabari’s chin came up. “A lot of absentee fathers have done more with less.”
“Caine wouldn’t care. I think he stopped looking for a father figure a long time ago. It’d just be another distraction he doesn’t need.”
“If there’s one thing about Calvin I remember, it’s he ain’t gonna pop up when he can’t take credit for something.”
“You’re right.”
She tipped the mug and drank, and what came off the top of it had gone cool enough that she held the second swallow in her mouth before it went down.
Ramon came off the highway and brought the car through the turn into the lot, the front end dipping where the asphalt met the concrete apron and rolling back level under him. He crossed the empty half of the lot, swung wide around the first island, and brought the car in along the second one with the tank on the inside. He shifted into park, cut the engine and the car settled on its springs.
Rome pushed his door open and stepped out with his hand coming off the roof. Ro came up out of the back on the same side and shut his door with his elbow. The two of them crossed in front of the hood toward the store, Rome a step ahead of his brother. Ro’s head turned to take in the two cars sitting at the far end of the lot then he went in through the door behind him.
Ramon got out and came around to the back of the car. The wind ran flat across the lot from the highway side, open the whole way from the road to the pumps. The screen on the pump still had the last sale sitting on it, the gallons on the top row and the dollars underneath. He stood and watched them. They held while a truck went by out on the highway behind him. Then both rows dropped off and came back as zeroes.
He lifted the nozzle out of the cradle and carried it around to the tank, twisting the cap loose and hanging it on its tether before he pushed the spout down into the filler neck until the collar seated against the rim. He pressed the button under regular and pulled the handle back..
A car came in off the highway behind him and Ramon’s head came around to it before it cleared the apron. It rolled past the first island, slowed, and swung in on the far side of his. The driver’s door opened and a woman got out with her keys already closed in her fist. She came around her front end and went toward the store, her eyes running the front of the building.
The passenger door opened.
Nina came up out of the seat and pushed the door shut with her forearm. She stood in the space between the car and the island, her hand settling on the roof. Her eyes came across the pumps and went over Ramon’s face toward the store. Then they came back and stopped on him.
“What you doing out here?”
Her fingers spread against the paint under her hand. “I could be asking you the same thing.”
“I’m coming back from down the bayou. Had something to take care of down there.”
Nina’s chin came up a fraction. “And by something to take care of you mean—”
“Something to take care of.” Ramon kept the handle pulled back under his fingers. The gallons turned over past four on the screen beside his shoulder. “Where y’all headed?”
Nina’s hand came off the roof of the car. “A candlelight vigil in Labadieville for a shooting victim. Fifteen years old. Drug related.”
“It’s a dirty, dirty game out here. Niggas gotta know what’s gonna happen to you when you jump off that porch.”
Nina shook her head. Her breath came out of her in the cold and broke apart between them. “Life matters more than that.”
“So you say.”
The store door came open across the lot and Rome came out first with a bag hanging off two fingers. Ro walked a half step behind him with a bottle already cracked and the cap between his knuckles. They took their time coming back across the concrete. Ro’s eyes went to the car on the other side of the island, to the empty driver’s seat, to Nina at the fender. He pulled the back door open and ducked in. As he dropped onto the seat his hand went behind his back and worked the grip of the pistol around until it sat flat against his spine, and he pulled the door shut after him.
Nina’s eyes went to the back window.
Rome came around the trunk and lifted his chin at Ramon. “You running in there for anything?”
Ramon shook his head. “Nah, I’m straight. We can head to the city soon as I’m done pumping gas.”
“Alright.” Rome went up the side of the car and got in.
Nina’s eyes came off the back window and found Ramon again. “That has something to do with your business?”
Ramon shrugged.
Nina let a beat go by then she pushed away from the side of her car. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Ramon.”
“You, too.”
She crossed the concrete toward the store with her arms down at her sides. Ramon let the handle go and drew the nozzle up out of the tank, the last of it running off the spout and spotting the pavement between his feet before he set it back in the cradle.
Mireya walked the upper level with Sena’s hand folded into hers, their arms hanging between them and swinging a little where the space let them. The light came down through the tall windows at the end of the concourse and ran flat across the floor. Below them on the ground level a woman pushed a stroller past the fountain.
“Can I ask you something?”
They had come even with the windows at Tiffany. Mireya slowed at the first one and looked at the display behind the glass, a run of chains laid out on a bar of stone with the blue boxes stacked at either end. She turned her head to Sena. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Did you know Caine was involved with all that stuff?”
Mireya nodded. She went in through the door and Sena came in a step behind her. The air inside the store sat warmer than the concourse and the carpet took the sound out from under their feet. Cases ran the length of both walls and turned at the back, each one lit from inside, the glass throwing the light up onto the ceiling in soft rectangles. A woman behind the far counter looked up from a ledger. Her eyes went across the two of them and she went back down to what she was doing.
“He ain’t tell me everything at first but eventually he did.”
“And you didn’t have a problem with it?”
Mireya went along the first run of cases. Her eyes tracked down through the glass as she walked, past the bracelets laid out on their stone bars, past a row of chains hung on gray forms with the clasps turned to the back. She ran two fingers along the top edge of the case. A bangle sat alone on a riser at the end of the run, the cleared felt around it running out to the corners.
“I had a problem with it but Caine’s not exactly the most understanding man when it comes to telling him what to do.”
“Sounds like someone else I know.”
Mireya gave her a laugh. She shook her head and kept going down the line.
The rings sat in the case at the corner where the counter turned. She stopped in front of it and looked down through the glass at them, the pieces set out on their pegs in rows with the cards angled underneath.
Sena came up beside her and stood at her shoulder. Her eyes went along the bottom of the case where the numbers were printed. “This shit is all so expensive. And for absolutely no reason at all.”
“There’s plenty reason.”
The employee came down the floor toward them with her hands loose in front of her. She stopped on the other side of the counter and put her fingertips on the edge of it. “Can I help you ladies find anything today?”
Mireya put her finger against the glass over one of the rings. “Let me see that one.”
“Good choice.” The employee took a key off the coil at her waist. She fit it into the lock at the back of the case and turned it, and the panel slid over on its track. Her hand went in past the front row and lifted the ring off its peg. “This is our Tiffany Lock. It’s eighteen karat rose gold.” She came back out of the case and turned her palm up on the counter with the ring sitting in the middle of it.
Mireya looked over at Sena. “Try it on.”
Sena’s eyebrow went up. Her hands came off the edge of the case. “You’re not buying me that.”
“It’s only a thousand bucks. It’s not a wedding or engagement ring.” Mireya tapped the glass twice further down the counter, where the bands sat in their own run under their own cards. “Those are over here.”
The employee’s eyes followed the tap. “We can help you find one of those as well.”
Sena shook her head. She held it a second then she put her hand out anyway, and the employee laid the ring into it. Sena brought her other hand across, took the ring between her thumb and finger, and pushed it down onto her ring finger. It went past the knuckle. It came to rest at the base with room left around it. When she turned her hand, the ring turned after it.
Mireya looked at it sitting on her. “She needs a 4.5.”
“Mireya. I don’t even know my ring size.”
The employee had already crouched at the back of the case. She came up with a flat box, set it on the counter, and worked the lid off. The ring inside sat down in the slot in the middle. She lifted it out between two fingers.
Sena took the first one off and handed it back. She took the new one, put it on the same finger, and pushed it down until it seated against the base. It stayed put when she moved her hand. She turned it over and looked at the back of it.
Mireya nodded. “I like it.”
Sena worked the ring back off and set it down in the well of the open box on the counter. “It’s expensive.”
“We have some more affordable rings over here.”
Mireya waved her hand at that. “We’ll take that one.”
The employee nodded, and the smile came up on her as she closed the lid and picked the box up off the counter. “I’ll go get this rung up.”
Sena waited until she was down the counter. “Are you out of your mind? That’s going to be like thirteen hundred dollars with tax.”
“It’s an investment. So you know I’m gonna keep upgrading that until I put this one right here on your finger.” Mireya tapped the glass over the run of bands, her finger stopping over one with a line of stones set around the whole band, the card under it reading twenty-three thousand.
“Most of the time people would say you did something wrong right now.”
Mireya shook her head. “Gift giving is my love language, remember? By the time we’re old and gray, you better have stopped telling me how to spend my money on you, though.”
Sena rolled her eyes. She kept them on Mireya as Mireya pulled her purse around on its strap, unclasped it, and came out with the debit card between two fingers.
Autumn lay along the couch with one foot hooked over the arm and her phone held up above her face, her thumb dragging the feed down and letting it snap back. She let a video play with the sound off, watched a woman’s mouth move through the captions, and pulled past it.
The knock came against the front door, three of them, spaced even.
Autumn turned her head on the cushion and looked back over her shoulder down the hall. The door at the end of it was shut and the fixture above it was burning, the light coming down over the frame and landing on the runner outside it.
She brought the phone back around and pulled the camera up. The feed came in and put the walk on her screen in the bent wide frame the lens made of it. Miles stood in the middle of the shot with Demi a half step behind his shoulder, the both of them stretched long at the edges where the fisheye took them.
She sucked her teeth, pushed up off the cushion and swung her feet down to the rug. The knock came again while she was crossing the room, softer this time. She turned the bolt over, pulled the door back far enough to fit herself into the opening, and set her hand on the edge of it.
Miles had his hands in his pockets and his weight settled back on the concrete. Demi held a folder against her stomach in both hands, her hair pulled back off her face.
“I thought you moved in with your boyfriend. Or is that over after the world found out that he’s a criminal?”
His sedan sat at the curb behind him with the front wheels cut toward the house. Autumn looked at it, then at the folder against Demi’s stomach, then back at him.
“Me and Caine are still very much together despite some white woman in New Orleans trying to mess up his career.” She let that sit a beat. “I just wanted to come kick it with my mama if you must know.”
Miles’s eyes went off her to Demi and came back. He took one hand out of his pocket and let it hang, and his weight came off his back foot onto the front one, closer to the step. “You gonna let us in or what? Garrison said that he’s on his way and we should meet him here.”
Autumn sucked her teeth. “Nigga, for what? You work for my daddy, not Becky.”
Demi’s chin came up over Miles’ shoulder. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business what we’re coming here to discuss.”
Autumn let her eyes go from Demi’s face down to the folder and back up to it. “Y’all can sit out here on the stoop until he gets home then and you know he’s famous for telling you he’s on his way and not getting to where he’s supposed to before for a few hours.”
Demi’s mouth pulled at one side. “You’re such a spoiled little brat.”
Autumn’s eyebrow went up. She let the door swing an inch on her hand and caught it again. Demi had come forward onto the front foot and Miles had turned his head enough to put her in the corner of his eye.
“Oh, you’re getting bold.” Autumn’s fingers spread against the paint on the edge of the door. “Let me not say shit back to you though before you start letting those white woman tears go and you call LAPD on me.”
Demi scoffed. Her arm came out to the side of her with the folder swinging off the ends of her fingers. “You have some fucking nerve—”
Miles brought both hands up between them, one turned toward Demi and one toward the door. He let a beat go by with them up then he brought them down.
“Demi’s trying to get on to the state party staff. That’s it.”
Autumn rolled her eyes. “Of course, she is. That’s probably been her plan this whole time. It’s in their blood.”
Demi’s weight came back onto her heels. “That’s racist.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you think it is.”
Miles let his head drop for a second. When it came up his hand went out toward the opening in the door. “Autumn. Can you just let us wait inside?”
Autumn shook her head. She stepped back off the threshold and pulled the door wide, her hand coming off the edge of it, and turned into the room without watching them come in.
Miles came in first and stopped inside the entry. Demi came behind him and shut the door.
Autumn crossed to the couch. She stepped into the first shoe and pressed her heel down into it, worked her foot into the second the same way, and reached across the cushion for her purse. She got the strap up onto her shoulder and started back toward the door.
Miles turned as she came past him. “Where are you going?”
“My man’s house. Clearly.”
Demi snorted. “Gold digger.”
The laugh came up out of Autumn’s nose before she got to the door. “Bitch, you wish I was.”
Caine came into Riley’s office and let the door fall shut behind him. The carpet took the sound out from under his shoes. Along the back wall the windows ran the length of the room and the field sat under them with the light coming across it at a low angle, the far sideline holding the last of the sun, the near half already gone under the shadow of the building. A cart ran the length of the far hash with a man walking behind it, the wheels leaving two dark lines through the dew that the sun had missed.
Riley looked up from the laptop and pushed back from the desk. The chair rolled off the mat onto the carpet and caught there. He came around the corner of the desk with his hand already out in front of him, the other one going up at the same time.
“There he is.”
Caine met it. Their palms came together, gripped, and slid back apart. Riley’s other hand landed on the outside of Caine’s shoulder and squeezed before it came off.
The two of them went down the length of the office toward the far end, past the cases along the wall that carried the light through the glass and laid it out on the carpet ahead of them, past the row of framed teams with the years running backward toward the corner. Riley got to the couch under the photographs first. He dropped onto it and put his arm up along the back of it. Caine took the other one. The leather gave under him and settled, and he let his own arm come to rest along the top of the cushion.
Riley let a beat go by. “How are you feeling after all of that media circus the last couple of weeks?”
Caine shrugged. “I can’t complain. I figured that was gonna come out sooner or later. Thought they’d at least be kind enough to let me enjoy the natty for a couple days before dropping it, though.”
Riley laughed. He brought his hand off the back of the couch and set it on his knee. “And miss the window when most people would be googling your name? Outlets would’ve been crazy to do that.”
“Guess so.”
Caine tapped the top of the cushion and gestured at the coach. “I appreciate you putting that statement out in support, though. I know the school ain’t really want to get involved one way or the other.”
Riley’s head moved a fraction toward the windows and came back. “Besides the fact that you won us a championship and that you aren’t the only kid on this roster with a record and there are plenty of kids here who have worse records, it does look bad for recruits coming in if they know we’re not going to support them when we should.”
“I could see that.”
Riley’s hand turned over on his knee, the palm coming up, and his eyebrows went with it. “I just hope you bought that little lady of yours something nice for coming to your defense like that.”
“I don’t think you want to try to untangle that web, coach.”
Riley brought both hands up off the couch. Then they came back down, one to his knee and one to the arm of the couch. “You’re probably right, son. But just let her know that the powers that be appreciate her killing that story even if she didn’t mean to so you don’t have to worry about your family sitting in the cheap seats next season.”
His fingers came together against the leather. “She probably saved them a lot of money not having to hire one of these consulting firms to manage that crisis.”
“I figured that would’ve been in the NIL deal after the title if I’m being honest with you.”
Riley’s mouth pulled at one corner. “I’m just passing along what I’ve heard.”
His eyes went off Caine and out toward the windows. Down the hall, a door opened and a set of footsteps came past the office, a voice going with them until both of them were gone. Riley came back around to him and his hand closed on his knee.
“You taking the next few weeks to clear your head before we start spring camp, right?”
Caine nodded. “I got some vacations planned. Get out and just rest and relax.”
Riley pushed his weight back into the couch and his arm came up onto the back of it again, his fingers hooking over the top of the cushion. “Good. I need you hitting camp with a clear head. We’re going to have targets on our backs from now until the end of the season.”
“I ain’t come back for nothing less than another natty and another Heisman, coach.”
Riley nodded. “That’s what I like to hear.”
E.J. came up the hall from the bedroom with his phone in one hand, his shirt pulled down over his waistband, his feet finding the flat track worn into the middle of the carpet. Light came through the blinds over the sliding door in bands that ran across the floor and broke over the edge of the coffee table.
Tessa sat on the couch with one leg folded under her and her phone up near her chest. A video ran on the screen with the volume turned down, a woman’s voice pitched high over a beat that came back around every few seconds. She swiped it up and another one started underneath it then the screen changed shape in her hand and both her thumbs came in over the bottom of it, moving in short bursts, stopping, going again.
He crossed the carpet and came around the back of the couch. He slowed at her shoulder and looked down over the top of the cushion at the screen, angling his head to clear her hand. Gray bubbles ran up the left side and blue ones came down the right, the thread deep enough that the top of it had scrolled off. A name sat above them, and he got half of it before she tipped the phone toward her chest.
Tessa turned her head and looked up at him over her shoulder. “Can I help you?”
“Who you over here texting like that?”
She held her eyes on him then brought the phone down against her thigh with the screen against her leg and faced forward. “No one that you need to be worried about me texting.”
E.J. set his hand on the back of the couch and hooked his fingers over the top of the cushion. “As long as you my woman then everyone you texting is someone I need to be worried about you texting.”
Tessa scoffed, her head came back against the cushion and her eyes went up to the ceiling before they came level. Her thumb found the side button and locked the screen. “Weren’t you the one that went running back to New Orleans for a week because your boys called you and told you to? Didn’t leave me any money for bills, didn’t worry about telling me why you were going. Just picked up and left. All because your friends asked.”
E.J. pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. From where he stood, he could see the muscle at the hinge of her jaw moving under the skin, the pulse going in the side of her neck, her face aimed at the black screen of the television across the room. His fingers pressed down through the cushion until they found the frame underneath.
“That ain’t got nothing to do with this.”
“If you were so worried about me cheating, you wouldn’t have left me here alone for a fucking month. Who knows what I could’ve been doing?”
E.J. sucked his teeth. “You better stop fucking with me. You better not had had no niggas in here when I was gone.”
Tessa turned on the cushion until her shoulder pressed into the back of the couch, her face coming up toward him, her eyes going from his mouth to his eyes. “And what if I did? What are you going to do besides run back to the city and cry about it with your boys?”
“You doing too much, Tessa. Don’t dig no hole your ass can’t get out of.”
Tessa rolled her eyes then brought the phone back up off her leg and woke the screen with her thumb. Her other hand went into the ends of her hair and worked a knot loose at the bottom with two fingers. “Nobody’s worried about you, Eric. I’m texting my friends.”
She turned the phone flat and her thumbs went back to the bottom of the screen. “If you had actual friends and not just other criminals you talk to, you’d know that’s what plenty of normal people do.”
E.J. shook his head, took his hand off the cushion and started across the carpet toward the kitchen. “I’m just gonna leave before you say something you regret.”
“I bet you will.”
He pulled the refrigerator open and the light came on over the shelves. A gallon of milk sat on the top one with two inches left in the bottom of the jug. Under it, a takeout container with the lid warped down over one corner, a clamshell of strawberries gone soft along one side, an open box of baking soda pushed to the back. The door had a bottle of ranch, a bottle of hot sauce with the cap crusted around the threads, half a jar of pickles floating in the brine. The crisper drawers were pulled out an inch on their runners, the bare plastic showing through the fronts. He moved the takeout container to see behind it and set it back where it had been.
He shut the door with his forearm, the unit rocking against the wall and the bottles in the door knocking against each other.
He came off the tile and went up the hall, his voice going back over his shoulder into the living room. “And get off your ass and go to the fucking grocery store while you off!”
The video came back up behind him, the woman’s voice pitching high over the beat, and Tessa’s thumb kept moving on the glass.
~~~
Sara stood at the front window with one hand resting on the sill and her weight settled onto her back foot, her eyes running the block. Cold came off the glass onto her face and the backs of her fingers. The cars along the curb had gone over with condensation overnight and the windshields carried it in a gray film. A man came up the far sidewalk behind a dog on a long lead, his hood over his head, his free hand pushed into the front pocket of his sweatshirt.
Jabari crossed the floorboards behind her and came up on her side with a mug held out in front of him, the steam bending off the top of it and pulling apart in the air between them. Sara took it by the handle and let the heat come up against the inside of her wrist.
She looked over at him and smiled. “Thanks.”
“You look like you’re in deep thought. Want to tell me what you’re thinking about?”
A truck sat idling two houses down, the exhaust standing up white behind it, the driver still inside with one arm hooked over the wheel while the defroster worked at the bottom of his windshield. Sara watched the clear part spread up into the gray. She turned the mug a little in her hand.
“Trying to decide when’s the right time to introduce you to Caine.”
Jabari put his shoulder into the wall beside the window and turned enough to take in the same stretch of street. “You said he told his little girl that he was going to come back for Carnival. I always take a vacation that week. Sounds like perfect timing to me.”
Sara sighed. Her breath came off the surface of the coffee and a patch of fog spread on the pane in front of her mouth, then pulled back in on itself. “Unless all that shit was the universe’s way of telling me to keep well enough alone and not rock the boat.”
“You having second thoughts about me meeting him?”
Sara shook her head. The mug had given its heat up through the ceramic into both her hands and she brought it in against her stomach, her thumb working the seam under the handle where the glaze had gone rough. “No. I just don’t want to throw too much at him all at once and it seems like there’s always something else going on with him these last couple of years.”
Jabari’s eyes went back out to the block. “I think that’s gonna be the case now for him until he decides he ain’t playing football anymore.”
Sara pushed her tongue against the back of her teeth and let the air out through her nose. “Don’t remind me.”
Jabari laughed. “As unbiased as I can be in this and not wanting to sound like I’m pressuring you into anything, you might as well just rip the band-aid off. You know with these types of things, at some point, the time it took you to say something starts becoming the problem more than the something.”
Sara let her eyes come off the street and find his face. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
She brought the mug up and took a sip. It had cooled at the top and went down warm through her chest. “You know what I’ve been worrying about a lot lately?”
Jabari turned his gaze off the street. “Tell me.”
The truck two doors down pulled off the curb and rolled to the corner, and Sara followed it to the stop sign and let it go. “Calvin seeing Caine all over TV, making all this money, getting famous and deciding that now he wants to be a father.”
Jabari’s chin came up. “A lot of absentee fathers have done more with less.”
“Caine wouldn’t care. I think he stopped looking for a father figure a long time ago. It’d just be another distraction he doesn’t need.”
“If there’s one thing about Calvin I remember, it’s he ain’t gonna pop up when he can’t take credit for something.”
“You’re right.”
She tipped the mug and drank, and what came off the top of it had gone cool enough that she held the second swallow in her mouth before it went down.
~~~
Ramon came off the highway and brought the car through the turn into the lot, the front end dipping where the asphalt met the concrete apron and rolling back level under him. He crossed the empty half of the lot, swung wide around the first island, and brought the car in along the second one with the tank on the inside. He shifted into park, cut the engine and the car settled on its springs.
Rome pushed his door open and stepped out with his hand coming off the roof. Ro came up out of the back on the same side and shut his door with his elbow. The two of them crossed in front of the hood toward the store, Rome a step ahead of his brother. Ro’s head turned to take in the two cars sitting at the far end of the lot then he went in through the door behind him.
Ramon got out and came around to the back of the car. The wind ran flat across the lot from the highway side, open the whole way from the road to the pumps. The screen on the pump still had the last sale sitting on it, the gallons on the top row and the dollars underneath. He stood and watched them. They held while a truck went by out on the highway behind him. Then both rows dropped off and came back as zeroes.
He lifted the nozzle out of the cradle and carried it around to the tank, twisting the cap loose and hanging it on its tether before he pushed the spout down into the filler neck until the collar seated against the rim. He pressed the button under regular and pulled the handle back..
A car came in off the highway behind him and Ramon’s head came around to it before it cleared the apron. It rolled past the first island, slowed, and swung in on the far side of his. The driver’s door opened and a woman got out with her keys already closed in her fist. She came around her front end and went toward the store, her eyes running the front of the building.
The passenger door opened.
Nina came up out of the seat and pushed the door shut with her forearm. She stood in the space between the car and the island, her hand settling on the roof. Her eyes came across the pumps and went over Ramon’s face toward the store. Then they came back and stopped on him.
“What you doing out here?”
Her fingers spread against the paint under her hand. “I could be asking you the same thing.”
“I’m coming back from down the bayou. Had something to take care of down there.”
Nina’s chin came up a fraction. “And by something to take care of you mean—”
“Something to take care of.” Ramon kept the handle pulled back under his fingers. The gallons turned over past four on the screen beside his shoulder. “Where y’all headed?”
Nina’s hand came off the roof of the car. “A candlelight vigil in Labadieville for a shooting victim. Fifteen years old. Drug related.”
“It’s a dirty, dirty game out here. Niggas gotta know what’s gonna happen to you when you jump off that porch.”
Nina shook her head. Her breath came out of her in the cold and broke apart between them. “Life matters more than that.”
“So you say.”
The store door came open across the lot and Rome came out first with a bag hanging off two fingers. Ro walked a half step behind him with a bottle already cracked and the cap between his knuckles. They took their time coming back across the concrete. Ro’s eyes went to the car on the other side of the island, to the empty driver’s seat, to Nina at the fender. He pulled the back door open and ducked in. As he dropped onto the seat his hand went behind his back and worked the grip of the pistol around until it sat flat against his spine, and he pulled the door shut after him.
Nina’s eyes went to the back window.
Rome came around the trunk and lifted his chin at Ramon. “You running in there for anything?”
Ramon shook his head. “Nah, I’m straight. We can head to the city soon as I’m done pumping gas.”
“Alright.” Rome went up the side of the car and got in.
Nina’s eyes came off the back window and found Ramon again. “That has something to do with your business?”
Ramon shrugged.
Nina let a beat go by then she pushed away from the side of her car. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Ramon.”
“You, too.”
She crossed the concrete toward the store with her arms down at her sides. Ramon let the handle go and drew the nozzle up out of the tank, the last of it running off the spout and spotting the pavement between his feet before he set it back in the cradle.
~~~
Mireya walked the upper level with Sena’s hand folded into hers, their arms hanging between them and swinging a little where the space let them. The light came down through the tall windows at the end of the concourse and ran flat across the floor. Below them on the ground level a woman pushed a stroller past the fountain.
“Can I ask you something?”
They had come even with the windows at Tiffany. Mireya slowed at the first one and looked at the display behind the glass, a run of chains laid out on a bar of stone with the blue boxes stacked at either end. She turned her head to Sena. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Did you know Caine was involved with all that stuff?”
Mireya nodded. She went in through the door and Sena came in a step behind her. The air inside the store sat warmer than the concourse and the carpet took the sound out from under their feet. Cases ran the length of both walls and turned at the back, each one lit from inside, the glass throwing the light up onto the ceiling in soft rectangles. A woman behind the far counter looked up from a ledger. Her eyes went across the two of them and she went back down to what she was doing.
“He ain’t tell me everything at first but eventually he did.”
“And you didn’t have a problem with it?”
Mireya went along the first run of cases. Her eyes tracked down through the glass as she walked, past the bracelets laid out on their stone bars, past a row of chains hung on gray forms with the clasps turned to the back. She ran two fingers along the top edge of the case. A bangle sat alone on a riser at the end of the run, the cleared felt around it running out to the corners.
“I had a problem with it but Caine’s not exactly the most understanding man when it comes to telling him what to do.”
“Sounds like someone else I know.”
Mireya gave her a laugh. She shook her head and kept going down the line.
The rings sat in the case at the corner where the counter turned. She stopped in front of it and looked down through the glass at them, the pieces set out on their pegs in rows with the cards angled underneath.
Sena came up beside her and stood at her shoulder. Her eyes went along the bottom of the case where the numbers were printed. “This shit is all so expensive. And for absolutely no reason at all.”
“There’s plenty reason.”
The employee came down the floor toward them with her hands loose in front of her. She stopped on the other side of the counter and put her fingertips on the edge of it. “Can I help you ladies find anything today?”
Mireya put her finger against the glass over one of the rings. “Let me see that one.”
“Good choice.” The employee took a key off the coil at her waist. She fit it into the lock at the back of the case and turned it, and the panel slid over on its track. Her hand went in past the front row and lifted the ring off its peg. “This is our Tiffany Lock. It’s eighteen karat rose gold.” She came back out of the case and turned her palm up on the counter with the ring sitting in the middle of it.
Mireya looked over at Sena. “Try it on.”
Sena’s eyebrow went up. Her hands came off the edge of the case. “You’re not buying me that.”
“It’s only a thousand bucks. It’s not a wedding or engagement ring.” Mireya tapped the glass twice further down the counter, where the bands sat in their own run under their own cards. “Those are over here.”
The employee’s eyes followed the tap. “We can help you find one of those as well.”
Sena shook her head. She held it a second then she put her hand out anyway, and the employee laid the ring into it. Sena brought her other hand across, took the ring between her thumb and finger, and pushed it down onto her ring finger. It went past the knuckle. It came to rest at the base with room left around it. When she turned her hand, the ring turned after it.
Mireya looked at it sitting on her. “She needs a 4.5.”
“Mireya. I don’t even know my ring size.”
The employee had already crouched at the back of the case. She came up with a flat box, set it on the counter, and worked the lid off. The ring inside sat down in the slot in the middle. She lifted it out between two fingers.
Sena took the first one off and handed it back. She took the new one, put it on the same finger, and pushed it down until it seated against the base. It stayed put when she moved her hand. She turned it over and looked at the back of it.
Mireya nodded. “I like it.”
Sena worked the ring back off and set it down in the well of the open box on the counter. “It’s expensive.”
“We have some more affordable rings over here.”
Mireya waved her hand at that. “We’ll take that one.”
The employee nodded, and the smile came up on her as she closed the lid and picked the box up off the counter. “I’ll go get this rung up.”
Sena waited until she was down the counter. “Are you out of your mind? That’s going to be like thirteen hundred dollars with tax.”
“It’s an investment. So you know I’m gonna keep upgrading that until I put this one right here on your finger.” Mireya tapped the glass over the run of bands, her finger stopping over one with a line of stones set around the whole band, the card under it reading twenty-three thousand.
“Most of the time people would say you did something wrong right now.”
Mireya shook her head. “Gift giving is my love language, remember? By the time we’re old and gray, you better have stopped telling me how to spend my money on you, though.”
Sena rolled her eyes. She kept them on Mireya as Mireya pulled her purse around on its strap, unclasped it, and came out with the debit card between two fingers.
~~~
Autumn lay along the couch with one foot hooked over the arm and her phone held up above her face, her thumb dragging the feed down and letting it snap back. She let a video play with the sound off, watched a woman’s mouth move through the captions, and pulled past it.
The knock came against the front door, three of them, spaced even.
Autumn turned her head on the cushion and looked back over her shoulder down the hall. The door at the end of it was shut and the fixture above it was burning, the light coming down over the frame and landing on the runner outside it.
She brought the phone back around and pulled the camera up. The feed came in and put the walk on her screen in the bent wide frame the lens made of it. Miles stood in the middle of the shot with Demi a half step behind his shoulder, the both of them stretched long at the edges where the fisheye took them.
She sucked her teeth, pushed up off the cushion and swung her feet down to the rug. The knock came again while she was crossing the room, softer this time. She turned the bolt over, pulled the door back far enough to fit herself into the opening, and set her hand on the edge of it.
Miles had his hands in his pockets and his weight settled back on the concrete. Demi held a folder against her stomach in both hands, her hair pulled back off her face.
“I thought you moved in with your boyfriend. Or is that over after the world found out that he’s a criminal?”
His sedan sat at the curb behind him with the front wheels cut toward the house. Autumn looked at it, then at the folder against Demi’s stomach, then back at him.
“Me and Caine are still very much together despite some white woman in New Orleans trying to mess up his career.” She let that sit a beat. “I just wanted to come kick it with my mama if you must know.”
Miles’s eyes went off her to Demi and came back. He took one hand out of his pocket and let it hang, and his weight came off his back foot onto the front one, closer to the step. “You gonna let us in or what? Garrison said that he’s on his way and we should meet him here.”
Autumn sucked her teeth. “Nigga, for what? You work for my daddy, not Becky.”
Demi’s chin came up over Miles’ shoulder. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business what we’re coming here to discuss.”
Autumn let her eyes go from Demi’s face down to the folder and back up to it. “Y’all can sit out here on the stoop until he gets home then and you know he’s famous for telling you he’s on his way and not getting to where he’s supposed to before for a few hours.”
Demi’s mouth pulled at one side. “You’re such a spoiled little brat.”
Autumn’s eyebrow went up. She let the door swing an inch on her hand and caught it again. Demi had come forward onto the front foot and Miles had turned his head enough to put her in the corner of his eye.
“Oh, you’re getting bold.” Autumn’s fingers spread against the paint on the edge of the door. “Let me not say shit back to you though before you start letting those white woman tears go and you call LAPD on me.”
Demi scoffed. Her arm came out to the side of her with the folder swinging off the ends of her fingers. “You have some fucking nerve—”
Miles brought both hands up between them, one turned toward Demi and one toward the door. He let a beat go by with them up then he brought them down.
“Demi’s trying to get on to the state party staff. That’s it.”
Autumn rolled her eyes. “Of course, she is. That’s probably been her plan this whole time. It’s in their blood.”
Demi’s weight came back onto her heels. “That’s racist.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you think it is.”
Miles let his head drop for a second. When it came up his hand went out toward the opening in the door. “Autumn. Can you just let us wait inside?”
Autumn shook her head. She stepped back off the threshold and pulled the door wide, her hand coming off the edge of it, and turned into the room without watching them come in.
Miles came in first and stopped inside the entry. Demi came behind him and shut the door.
Autumn crossed to the couch. She stepped into the first shoe and pressed her heel down into it, worked her foot into the second the same way, and reached across the cushion for her purse. She got the strap up onto her shoulder and started back toward the door.
Miles turned as she came past him. “Where are you going?”
“My man’s house. Clearly.”
Demi snorted. “Gold digger.”
The laugh came up out of Autumn’s nose before she got to the door. “Bitch, you wish I was.”
~~~
Caine came into Riley’s office and let the door fall shut behind him. The carpet took the sound out from under his shoes. Along the back wall the windows ran the length of the room and the field sat under them with the light coming across it at a low angle, the far sideline holding the last of the sun, the near half already gone under the shadow of the building. A cart ran the length of the far hash with a man walking behind it, the wheels leaving two dark lines through the dew that the sun had missed.
Riley looked up from the laptop and pushed back from the desk. The chair rolled off the mat onto the carpet and caught there. He came around the corner of the desk with his hand already out in front of him, the other one going up at the same time.
“There he is.”
Caine met it. Their palms came together, gripped, and slid back apart. Riley’s other hand landed on the outside of Caine’s shoulder and squeezed before it came off.
The two of them went down the length of the office toward the far end, past the cases along the wall that carried the light through the glass and laid it out on the carpet ahead of them, past the row of framed teams with the years running backward toward the corner. Riley got to the couch under the photographs first. He dropped onto it and put his arm up along the back of it. Caine took the other one. The leather gave under him and settled, and he let his own arm come to rest along the top of the cushion.
Riley let a beat go by. “How are you feeling after all of that media circus the last couple of weeks?”
Caine shrugged. “I can’t complain. I figured that was gonna come out sooner or later. Thought they’d at least be kind enough to let me enjoy the natty for a couple days before dropping it, though.”
Riley laughed. He brought his hand off the back of the couch and set it on his knee. “And miss the window when most people would be googling your name? Outlets would’ve been crazy to do that.”
“Guess so.”
Caine tapped the top of the cushion and gestured at the coach. “I appreciate you putting that statement out in support, though. I know the school ain’t really want to get involved one way or the other.”
Riley’s head moved a fraction toward the windows and came back. “Besides the fact that you won us a championship and that you aren’t the only kid on this roster with a record and there are plenty of kids here who have worse records, it does look bad for recruits coming in if they know we’re not going to support them when we should.”
“I could see that.”
Riley’s hand turned over on his knee, the palm coming up, and his eyebrows went with it. “I just hope you bought that little lady of yours something nice for coming to your defense like that.”
“I don’t think you want to try to untangle that web, coach.”
Riley brought both hands up off the couch. Then they came back down, one to his knee and one to the arm of the couch. “You’re probably right, son. But just let her know that the powers that be appreciate her killing that story even if she didn’t mean to so you don’t have to worry about your family sitting in the cheap seats next season.”
His fingers came together against the leather. “She probably saved them a lot of money not having to hire one of these consulting firms to manage that crisis.”
“I figured that would’ve been in the NIL deal after the title if I’m being honest with you.”
Riley’s mouth pulled at one corner. “I’m just passing along what I’ve heard.”
His eyes went off Caine and out toward the windows. Down the hall, a door opened and a set of footsteps came past the office, a voice going with them until both of them were gone. Riley came back around to him and his hand closed on his knee.
“You taking the next few weeks to clear your head before we start spring camp, right?”
Caine nodded. “I got some vacations planned. Get out and just rest and relax.”
Riley pushed his weight back into the couch and his arm came up onto the back of it again, his fingers hooking over the top of the cushion. “Good. I need you hitting camp with a clear head. We’re going to have targets on our backs from now until the end of the season.”
“I ain’t come back for nothing less than another natty and another Heisman, coach.”
Riley nodded. “That’s what I like to hear.”
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Soapy
- Posts: 16765
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 18:42
American Sun
Does anyone actually like Autumn lmao
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 7931
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
American Sun
Autumn almost a professional bitch because my God. She is insufferable
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redsox907
- Posts: 6263
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
American Sun
Captain Canada wrote: ↑19 Aug 2026, 09:34Autumn almost a professional bitch because my God. She is insufferable
maybe we'll get lucky and whoever is going to inevitably try to smoke Caine gets Autumn instead
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16938
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
American Sun
Caine, Sara and Sena.
We know. We know. You like your women docile.Captain Canada wrote: ↑19 Aug 2026, 09:34Autumn almost a professional bitch because my God. She is insufferable
redsox907 wrote: ↑19 Aug 2026, 12:29Captain Canada wrote: ↑19 Aug 2026, 09:34Autumn almost a professional bitch because my God. She is insufferable
maybe we'll get lucky and whoever is going to inevitably try to smoke Caine gets Autumn instead
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Soapy
- Posts: 16765
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 18:42
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16938
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 7931
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15