Mireya came through the door with a cardboard tray braced against her forearm and a paper bag hooked on two fingers, working her hip into the wood until it swung wide enough to let her through. The curtains had been pulled back off the window since she left and the sun came in off the lot below hard enough to wash the color out of the carpet, the whole room lit to the corners, the air conditioning running under the window in a low steady push.
Sena lay on top of the comforter with her phone held up over her face, both hands on it, her elbows braced against her ribs. Her thumb pushed a video up off the screen and another one dropped in behind it, a snatch of somebody’s audio running for a second before it cut.
“I got you a latte. And those weird bagels you like.”
“Thanks.”
Mireya crossed to the desk against the wall and set the tray down next to the room binder, the charger she had left plugged in overnight sitting beside it. She pulled the bag off her fingers and stood it upright beside the cups, pressing the fold at the top of it flat under her palm. The dry had come up off the parking lot into her while she walked and it sat on her forearms and across the back of her neck under her hair, the cold coming off the vent by the window working against it. She rubbed her palm down her forearm and looked back over her shoulder.
Sena lay where she had been when the door opened, bare legs stretched out on top of the comforter, one foot crossed over the other at the ankle, one of Mireya’s shirts on her with the collar pulled around off her shoulder. The pillow beside her head was still folded in half from the night.
“Are you okay?”
“Okay with what?”
“What we did last night.” Mireya turned around and put her weight back against the edge of the desk, her hands coming down on either side of her hips. “I’m sorry if you feel like I pressured you into it.”
Sena shook her head against the pillow. “I’m good.”
Mireya pushed off the desk and crossed the carpet. She sat down on the edge of the mattress next to Sena’s legs and planted her hand on the far side of Sena’s body, her weight coming down through that arm, the comforter pulling tight under her palm, her hip settling against Sena’s thigh.
“You don’t have to lie to me to make me feel better. If I fucked up then I want you to let me know.”
“You didn’t.”
Mireya reached up, took the phone out of both her hands, threw it sideways down the bed. It bounced against the comforter and came to rest near the other pillow, the video still running under it, the audio going flat into the bedding. “I keep telling you that you ain’t built for lying to anyone.”
Sena let a breath out. She brought her fingers up and pressed them into her eyes, then dragged them down her face and let her hand fall open on her stomach. “It’s not that I didn’t like it. Or Ilham. It just feels wrong. Like I’m not supposed to be okay with all of that. I wasn’t raised like that.”
“You weren’t raised to want to fuck women either.”
Sena rolled her eyes. “Do you have to say it like that?”
Mireya shrugged. “I’m just pointing out the obvious.”
Sena turned her head on the pillow. Her eyes moved across Mireya’s face, down to her mouth, back up. “Was that your first time doing that?”
“What? Having a threesome?” Mireya shook her head. “No.”
“Maybe that’s what it is. You’re so much more experienced with all of this than me.”
Mireya nodded. “I know. I forget sometimes. You have to remind me so I can slow down.”
Sena worked herself up onto her elbows. She ran a hand back through her hair, gathering it off her forehead and letting it fall against the pillow behind her, then pushed her shoulders up the headboard until she was halfway sitting. “Do I want to know how many times or where you’ve had threesomes?”
Mireya snorted a laugh before she pushed up off the mattress with the flat of her hand and walked back to the desk. “Sometimes, baby, it’s better to leave the past in the past.”
She pulled the lid off her own cup and set it upside down on the wood. Steam came off the surface and went thin before it got to her chin. She took a sip, held it against the roof of her mouth, swallowed. She turned the cup a half turn on the desk and pressed the lid back down on it, thumbing the rim until it seated all the way around.
Sena let a beat go by. “My therapist is going to freak out when I tell her this.”
Mireya laughed. “Mine won’t.” She lifted the second cup out of the tray, picked up the bag with her other hand, carried both back to the bed and held them out.
Sena sat the rest of the way up and folded her legs under her, the comforter dragging along with her knees. She took the cup and the bag, setting the cup down on the nightstand beside the lamp, turning the sleeve until the seam faced her.
Mireya sat back down on the edge of the mattress. She reached out and ran her hand over Sena’s hair, following it back above her ear, down the side of her face, until her fingers came under her jaw with her thumb along the bone. “I really do love you, Sena.”
Sena pulled the mouth of the bag open, got her hand down inside it, came out with one of the bagels and turned it over between her fingers to find the split. “I don’t know. Ilham might say otherwise.”
Mireya laughed. “She liked you more.”
Sena rolled her eyes as she pulled the two halves apart and set one of them face up on the flattened bag across her lap. “I love you, too.”
Mireya smiled then leaned in and kissed her, her hand still under Sena’s jaw, then got up off the bed and went to the desk for her coffee.
~~~
“You can’t put the big one on the little one. It falls every time. See?”
Camila had four blocks stacked in front of her with the fifth balanced across the top of the tower and both hands hovering on either side of it. Micaela sat across from her in the middle of the rug with her legs out flat and her palms pressed into the carpet. She swung one arm forward and the tower went over sideways, blocks skidding off the rug onto the hardwood. She laughed with her chin dropping toward her chest, her whole body rocking with it.
Caine sat on the floor with his back against the front of the couch, one leg stretched out along the rug, the other bent. He picked a block up off the wood beside his knee and set it back inside Camila’s reach. Behind him, Autumn lay along the length of the couch with a pillow doubled under her head and her phone above her face, her thumb pulling the screen up in slow drags.
Camila started over. She squared the first block against the floor with both hands and pressed down on it. “You have to do the big ones first. Watch. Mica, watch.”
Sara came out of the kitchen, around the arm of the couch, and sat on it, her phone in one hand.
“When are y’all going back to LA?”
Caine put his palm flat on Micaela’s back to keep her upright as she leaned after another block. “Tomorrow morning. Mireya’s coming back tonight, right?”
Sara nodded. “I think their flight gets in late, though.”
He nodded to himself and looked back over his shoulder at Autumn. “We should make a little run to Phoenix. It shouldn’t be but an hour or so flight.”
Autumn tipped the phone down onto her chest and looked at him over the top of it. “Phoenix’s alright, but I don’t know if I’d be making that some kind of destination to go to.”
“Just trying to make use of all this time I got on my hands before camp.”
Sara watched Camila and Micaela for a moment before looking back toward Caine. “¿Ya has hablado con Mireya sobre ir a México y Honduras?”
Caine shook his head. “Todavía no. Tengo que decidir cuándo.”
Sara’s phone went off in her hand. She turned it over and read the screen, and her breath came out through her nose. “Shit.”
“What’s up?”
She pushed up off the armrest and went across the living room toward the front of the house. His mother’s voice went out onto the porch. A man’s voice came back under it, three or four words, then hers again, closer.
Micaela had a block in her fist and was working it toward her mouth. Caine hooked two fingers around her wrist and brought it back down to the rug. She opened her hand, let the block go, reached for another one.
The door shut and the bolt went over. Sara came back into the living room with a man behind her. He was her age, his beard gone gray along the jaw, a hooded sweatshirt on under a work jacket he had left unzipped, and he stopped a few feet inside the room with his hands out of his pockets.
“Mijo, I want you to meet someone.”
Caine’s eyebrow went up. Autumn came off the pillow onto her elbow, her eyes moving from Sara to the man and over to Caine and back to Sara.
“¿Quién es él?”
Sara pulled a breath in and let it out. “This is Jabari. I knew him back in high school. We ran into each other when I switched houses with Mireya. He lives next door. We’ve been seeing each other.”
Jabari brought a hand up to about the height of his shoulder. “It’s nice to meet you, man.”
“Me parece que esto no es nada nuevo.”
“Mijo, en inglés, por favor. Por él.”
Caine shook his head. He got up off the floor, crossed the rug, put his hand out. Jabari took it, his grip coming up firm and stepped back half a pace to take Caine in from the socks to the top of his head.
“You really is 6’4”, 6’5”.”
Caine snorted a laugh. “Yeah. Mi mama told you about me?”
Jabari nodded and looked over at Sara. “She’s said a thing or two. And I watch football just like anyone else.”
“I’m a fool with that pistol, too.”
Sara’s head turned. “Basta ya.”
Caine put both hands up. “Dijiste inglés.”
She shook her head at him and put a hand out toward the couch. “This is his girlfriend, Autumn.”
Autumn swung her legs off the cushions, stood, crossed the rug barefoot, tucking her hair behind her ear with her free hand. She shook his. “Nice to meet you.”
Jabari looked at Sara. “The LA one, right?”
“The only one.”
Jabari laughed and put his hand on the back of his neck. “Didn’t mean to say it like that.”
“I was just about get lunch started.” Sara touched his arm above the elbow and turned him with it. “Jabari, come help me.”
He nodded. “It was nice to meet y’all.”
The two of them went across the living room and onto the kitchen tile. Sara pulled the refrigerator open and said something with her head still behind the door. Jabari laughed, reached past her for the top of it, held it while she came out with both arms loaded. He took the top two things off the stack before she had them clear. Caine stood where he was and watched them.
Autumn brought the back of her hand against his chest. “Chill your ass out. Your mama is grown.”
“I ain’t even say anything.”
She rolled her eyes, went back to the couch, dropped onto it sideways, one leg folding under her, her phone coming up off the cushion.
Caine went back to the rug and sat down, his shoulder finding the front of the couch again. Camila had three blocks up and her hands out flat on either side of them, holding the air. Micaela knocked two together in front of her chest. Caine put his palm down open on the carpet.
“Mi vida, ven acá. Ven a mostrarme lo que tú y tu hermanita están construyendo.”
~~~
Angel came around the end of the coffee table with both arms out in front of him and his knees working faster than the rest of him could follow, and Ximena backed away across the floor in short steps with her hands up beside her face, letting him close the gap and then giving it back to him. He got a fist into the hem of her housedress, lost it, laughed up at the ceiling. She let him get two more steps on her before she went sideways around the arm of the couch, one hand out on the cushion to steady herself, and he turned after her with his weight going out over his toes.
Saul sat on the couch with his elbows on his knees and a cup of coffee held in both hands down between them. Ava sat beside him with one leg crossed over the other, her back into the cushion, her hand resting on the outside of his thigh. Across from them Hector had the recliner pushed back two clicks with his socked feet up and his eyes going with the boy across the floor.
“You know if you’re trying to keep up with Caine, you’re gonna have to have another soon.”
Ava laughed. “I think I’m done for a while.”
Ximena caught Angel by both wrists, swung his arms wide, turned him loose again. “Yes, enjoy this little one before you give him a sibling.”
Saul turned the cup a half turn between his palms. “I can’t keep up with Caine anyway. Caine rich.”
“Sigue siendo el mismo delincuente.”
Ava’s head came around toward Saul. He shook his head at her, brought the coffee up, drank some of it. The heater kicked on under the floor. The vent by the front window pushed the curtain an inch off the sill and let it fall back against the glass. Angel got himself turned around and came back at his great-grandmother from the other side of the coffee table, one hand dragging along the edge of it for balance.
“Abuelita, why ain’t you go and live with Tia Sara? That way you could have more room.”
Ximena bent at the waist, got both hands under Angel’s arms, picked him up off the floor. She turned with him held out at the ends of her arms and swung him through an arc, his legs going out sideways, his mouth open on the laugh before the sound came. She brought him in against her hip, rocking her weight back onto her heels to carry him.
“Because this is my home.” She pushed the hair off his forehead with the back of one finger. “You’ll understand when you get one of your own, mijo.”
Hector picked the remote up off the arm of the recliner and turned it over in his hand without pointing it at anything. “Your Tia Sara should’ve bought everyone a house since she gave one to Caine’s ex.”
Ava came forward off the cushion, her leg uncrossing, her hand sliding off Saul’s thigh onto her own knee. “He gave his ex a house?”
“Mireya. His kids’ mama.”
“Oh, the one that’s in all the pictures with him.” Her eyes went from Saul to Hector and back to Saul. “I mean, that makes sense right. The kids live with her.”
Hector’s chin came up toward the couch. “Have you seen it? It’s in Broadmoor. Five bedrooms, three baths. Pool. Granite.”
Saul shook his head. He leaned forward and set the cup down on the coffee table inside the ring the last one had left, then wiped the wet off his thumb against his jeans. “I didn’t even know where it was until you just said it. I know he in town right now but I don’t like going around his homeboys.”
Hector let the remote drop back onto the arm of the chair. Angel had worked his way down out of Ximena’s hold, one leg and then the other, until his feet found the floor. He stood holding two handfuls of her dress. Hector watched him get his balance and let go of the fabric.
“You know, mijo. Despite everything, I still think I got the better son.” He brought the recliner up one click, his hands coming down flat on his knees, his feet still off the floor. “You don’t cause too many problems. You’re a good boy.”
“Te lo agradezco, papá.”
Saul sat back into the couch. Ava’s hand came back onto his thigh, her thumb moving across the denim above his knee.
Ximena straightened with her palm pressed into her side, worked the towel off her shoulder, folded it over her forearm. Her eyes went to Ava.
“We need to teach you how to cook some Honduran food so we can make sure that the little one grows up big and strong.”
Ava laughed and put her head back against the cushion. “I barely know how to boil water.”
Ximena shook her head at the ceiling and brought her eyes back down. “That’s no good. I’ll show you. Two or three days, you’ll be a Michelin star chef.”
Saul reached out, picked the cup back up off the table, blew across the top of it. Angel had gotten himself pointed across the floor by then. He came at the recliner with his arms out, his head down, and hit Hector’s legs at the footrest, both fists closing on the fabric to keep himself standing. Hector’s hand came down on the back of his head, pushing his hair back.
~~~
Alex dropped her keys into the dish on the console by the door and went through the front room without stopping. Behind her David got the door shut with his heel. He put two fingers to his forehead and worked them back and forth across the smudge, looked at what had come off on them, rubbed it into the thigh of his jeans.
Her shoes came off against the leg of the console, one heel pinning the other down at the back. A grocery bag of throws from the night before sat on the end of the counter where somebody had put it down, the handles still knotted, doubloons and beads showing through the plastic against the light.
She pulled the refrigerator open, stood in the light of it, took a bottle of water off the shelf in the door. Cold came out across her shins. She broke the seal with her thumb and drank half of it standing there with the door open, her other hand hooked over the top of it. She pushed the door shut with her hip and let the bottle hang at her side.
David took his jacket off one arm. “Are you going to keep giving me the silent treatment for the rest of the week or what?”
Alex walked back to the sofa and sat down in the corner of it with her feet coming up under her. The remote had gone down between the cushion and the arm sometime the night before last. She dug two fingers in after it and worked it out. She pointed it at the television and the input came up blue and held there, then loaded into Netflix, the row of covers sliding into place one after another across the screen. The bottle went between her knee and the arm of the sofa. She pushed the row sideways with her thumb and the titles kept running.
David came around the end of the sofa and stopped in front of it with his hands on his hips. “Bae, I’m serious. You’re doing way too much right now. Everyone was having a good time yesterday. It’s not like I fucked her.”
“You would’ve if I wasn’t there.”
“No, I wouldn’t have.” He found his phone on the arm of the sofa where he had left it, checked the screen, and slid it into his back pocket. “It was Mardi Gras. She wanted the beads I had.”
Alex thumbed down through the row and the covers kept sliding past. “You’re from fucking New Orleans. Don’t play that tourist shit with me. You should’ve sent her ass to the store with a dollar and told her to buy as many beads as she wanted.”
David went off toward the kitchen. She heard the cabinet by the sink open and shut, then the refrigerator. He came back around the end of the counter with a plate of cold pizza in his hand and stopped with his hip against the granite.
“I think you’re just mad she didn’t show you.” He picked a slice up and folded it lengthwise. “Since that’s your little secret or whatever.”
Alex’s thumb came off the remote and stopped on the plastic. She turned her head and looked at him, one eyebrow going up. “What’s that supposed to fucking mean?”
“You know you’re always checking out girls on that dyke shit.” He bit into the fold, set the rest of it back on the plate, talked around it. “Don’t play stupid now.”
“So it’s fine when you do it, but it’s a problem when I do.”
David chewed, swallowed, wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “Yeah, because it isn’t fucking gay when I do it.”
A laugh came out of her with nothing behind it. She dropped the remote in her lap, pulled her hair back off her face with both hands. “Oh, wow. Went get your little ashes and now you’re suddenly the most religious motherfucker in the world, huh?”
David put the plate down on the counter and brought both hands up in front of his chest.
“Look, I didn’t mean it like that.” He came around the counter and stopped at the end of the sofa with one hand on the back of it, close enough that his knuckles sat an inch off her shoulder. “I’m just saying that I don’t know why we’re fighting about some chick from Arkansas that we’re never going to see again.”
Alex picked the remote back up and turned it over. “Fuck off, David. You’re annoying the shit out of me, right now.”
She hit the top row, started the first thing that loaded, put the volume four presses past where it had been, the audio filling the. Then she lay down along the sofa with the remote against her stomach and her knees drawn up.
David stood at the end of the sofa. He picked his plate back up off the counter, looked at it, and set it down again.
“You’re so childish sometimes.”
He went up the hall then he bathroom door pulled shut. Alex turned over onto her other side and put her arm under her head, her face toward the back of the sofa.
