Caine pulled the door open and stepped into the front of Bethel's office. Gertie sat behind the desk where she'd been every visit since she came back from Idaho, her reading glasses low on her nose, the small TV on the corner angled toward her with cowboys riding across the screen in faded color and dialogue murmuring under the low volume. A half-eaten sleeve of crackers sat beside her elbow, crumbs scattered on a napkin she hadn't bothered to fold. She glanced at him long enough to register a body in the doorway, then gestured over her shoulder with one hand without taking her eyes off the screen.
"He back there."
"Appreciate it," Caine said, and moved past her desk down the short hall.
Bethel sat behind his desk with his feet up on it, ankles crossed, eyes closed, his hands folded across his stomach. Caine stopped in front of the desk and tapped the sole of Bethel's shoe with the folder in his hand.
Bethel's eyes came open, slow. "I was just resting my eyes."
Caine snorted a laugh. "I'm sure that's what you was doing." He held the folder up between them for a second, then set it down on the desk in front of Bethel's crossed ankles. "This all the stuff my lawyer said you'll need to sign. Shows where I'm gonna be going for visits and everything. Got a spot in there if you want to set a date for when I gotta come back to Georgia."
Bethel dropped his feet from the desk, his shoes hitting the floor with two flat thuds, and picked up the folder. He leaned back in his chair and opened it across his lap, his thumb holding the cover page while his eyes moved down the first sheet.
"Don't know what you gonna come back here for if you just gonna leave a couple days after to go wherever."
He flipped between pages, scanning the text, his thumb running along the margins where the type got small. He stopped on one page and his eyebrows lifted.
"Lubbock?" He looked up at Caine over the top of the folder. "You might as well stay here if you're going to Lubbock, Texas."
Caine laughed, settling into the chair across from the desk with his elbows on the armrests. "Much as I like it here, they ain't exactly paying like Texas Tech gonna be."
Bethel shook his head, the motion carrying through his shoulders and into the chair, which creaked under the shift. "Money ain't everything. Sometimes, a little peace and quiet is better than how many zeroes on your check." He tapped the open folder against his thigh. "That's why I stay down here instead of going work up in Atlanta."
"I ain't gonna agree with that," Caine said, "but different strokes or whatever you old folks be saying."
Bethel snorted a laugh that rolled into a shake of his head. "Old folks." He closed the folder with a snap and pointed at it. "I'll sign that later. You can come back and get it tomorrow. I got a tee time in about an hour and I ain't about to miss it doing no paperwork."
Caine held his hands up. "I know how serious you are about your golfing. Just wanted to make sure to bring it to you as soon as I got it. Ain't a lot of time between the end of the season and the start of next semester."
Bethel waved his hand, the motion loose from the wrist. "I know, I know. Y'all ruined the sport with all that transferring and NIL." He set the folder on his desk and leaned forward, pointing at the door. "Go on now before I remember that I ain't test you in a week."
Caine shook his head and stood, pushing the chair back with his calves. He turned and headed for the hallway, passing Gertie's desk on the way to the front door. "Have a good one, Gertie."
She lifted a hand in his general direction without turning from the screen, her fingers waving once before they settled back on the armrest of her chair, her eyes still fixed on the cowboys riding across the dust.
~~~
Laney pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. Tommy's truck sat in its usual spot. She grabbed her purse off the passenger seat and got out, glancing at the truck once more on her way to the front door.
The house was still when she stepped inside and set her keys on the hook by the door. She walked through the front room toward the kitchen and found Tommy sitting at the table with his hands flat on either side of a CVS pharmacy bag, his eyes already on her when she came through the doorway. He sat straight in the chair with his jaw set and his shoulders squared.
Laney raised an eyebrow at him as she crossed to the refrigerator, opened it, and pulled out the tupperware containers from the night before. She set them on the island and peeled the lids off one at a time.
Tommy held up the bag. "You want to explain this?"
"Explain what?" Laney asked, reaching into the cabinet above the stove for a plate.
"Don't play fucking stupid with me, Delaney,” he said. "You left this in the boys' bathroom."
Laney set the plate on the island and started spooning food onto it from the containers, her movements steady, her back half-turned to him. "I ain't leave nothin' in there." She looked over her shoulder at the table, at the pharmacy bag sitting between his hands, and turned back to the food. "And I definitely ain't leave that in there 'cause I don't go to CVS."
Tommy pushed the chair back and stood, the legs scraping across the floor. He walked to the island where she was plating the leftovers, flipped the bag over, and shook it. A pregnancy test fell out and clattered against the countertop, the plastic casing spinning once before it settled. He pointed at it. "That's what you left in the garbage can. Didn't even bother to try to hide it well."
Laney looked at the test on the counter, then up at him. "I don't know what game you tryin' to play, but that ain't mine either. Must be for your lil' bitch Claire."
Tommy's nostrils flared. "Whose is it then? You're the only woman that lives here."
Laney held her hand up, her index finger punctuating each word as she spoke. "It's not mine. You can keep tryin' to play this game, but it ain't gonna work."
Tommy grabbed one of the plates off the island and threw it across the kitchen. It hit the far wall and shattered, ceramic and food spraying across the baseboard and the floor in a burst that left a wet streak on the paint. The sound cracked through the house and then the room went back to just the two of them.
Laney stayed where she was, her hands flat on the countertop, her weight planted.
"Stop fucking lying." Tommy stepped closer. "You've been going to those fertility treatments and now I find a pregnancy test in my house." His voice dropped but the pressure in it doubled. "Whose baby is it, Laney? That nigger?"
"I can explain it to you," Laney said, her voice coming out even. "but I cain't understand it for you. It ain't mine."
Tommy reached out and grabbed the neckline of her dress, his fist closing around the fabric and pulling her toward him. Her body came forward into his and a yelp broke from her mouth before she could stop it, sharp and involuntary, the sound of breath leaving under force.
"I told you not to embarrass me," Tommy said.
"It ain—"
"Shut the fuck up!" The words hit the space between them hard enough that spit landed on her cheek. "I got eyes. You thought you were so funny with those appointments at the clinic and now look at you!"
His other hand came up, open, the arm cocked. Laney leaned her head back, trying to get distance between her face and his palm, the fabric of her dress pulling tight against her throat where his fist held it.
"It ain't mine 'cause I cain't get pregnant," she said.
Tommy's hand stayed raised, the fingers still spread. "What?"
His grip on her dress loosened, the fabric going slack against her collarbone, and Laney pulled back from the island, putting two steps between them before she turned and reached for the butcher block on the counter behind her. Her hand closed around the handle of a knife and she drew it out, holding it in front of her body with her elbow bent and the blade angled toward him.
Tommy snorted a laugh, the sound pushed through his nose, his eyes moving from her face to the knife and back. "What are you going to do with that? You're the one lying about this—"
"I had a tubal after Hunter." Laney cut through whatever he was building toward. Her voice held steady. "I cain't get pregnant."
Tommy's forehead creased, his mouth opening and closing once before he found the words. "Hunter is six years old. You hid that from me all these years?"
"It wasn't none of your business."
"The fuck it wasn't." He took a step toward her, his hand dropping from where it had been raised, both arms now at his sides but his weight shifting forward. "How could you do this to me?"
Laney raised the knife higher, the blade catching the light from the window over the sink. "It ain't mine that's on that counter, but I'll say it is when the police come."
Tommy stared at her across the stretch of kitchen between them, his eyes moving over her face, reading whatever he found there. His jaw worked once. Then he shook his head, the motion slow and tight, and turned away from her.
He walked to the kitchen table, grabbed his keys off the surface, and crossed to the front of the house. The door slammed behind him hard enough to rattle the frame and send a tremor through the glasses in the cabinet above the sink.
Laney stood with the knife still in her hand, her breathing coming fast and shallow, her chest rising and falling against the fabric of her dress where Tommy's fist had stretched and wrinkled it. She took one breath, held it, let it go. Then another. Then a third, slower, until the shaking in her fingers settled enough that she could set the knife back into the butcher block without missing the slot.
She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face, and walked over to the island where the pregnancy test still sat on the counter. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand, the two lines sitting parallel in the result window, the digital readout clear beneath them.
She looked up at the wall, at the food streaked across the paint where the plate had hit, at the ceramic scattered across the floor, at the empty doorway Tommy had walked through.
"Fucking Rylee."
~~~
Trell stood in the center of the living room with his arms crossed and his weight on his back foot, the room packed wall to wall with bodies. The traphouse in Marrero held the smell of weed and old grease. Guys lined the walls and filled the couch and leaned against doorframes, some talking low to each other, some just waiting with their hands in their pockets or their arms folded across their chests. The only sound running through the house came from the front door opening and closing as the last few filtered in.
Yola and Scotty came through the hallway from the back, walking behind four guys who carried two totes between them, the weight of the bags pulling their arms straight as they shuffled into the living room and dropped them on the floor. The totes landed heavy, the contents shifting inside with a dense metallic sound that made the conversations in the room go still.
Ant walked over and crouched beside the first tote, unzipping it and pulling the flap back. AKs sat packed in rows with their magazines beside them. He opened the second tote and the same arrangement looked back, ARs and shorter submachine guns fitted together, oil shining on the receivers where someone had wiped them down before packing.
Trell uncrossed his arms. "Our friends over on the border came through for us. Hooked us up with some nice stuff just in case that nigga Meechie bring his ass down here."
Heads nodded around the room, a few of the younger guys shifting their weight forward to get a better look at what sat open on the floor. A couple of them rubbed their hands together, palms scraping in the stillness.
Shad leaned against the wall at the far side of the room with his thumbs hooked under the straps of his backpack. His eyes moved across the crowd and found Dez on the opposite wall, standing with his shoulder pressed into the doorframe to the kitchen, arms folded tight. Dez held the look for a couple seconds, then turned his head away. Shad shook his head once.
Trell reached into the first tote and pulled out an AK by the grip, the wood stock catching the light from the window. He grabbed a magazine from beside it, slapped it in, and pulled the charging handle back with his free hand before letting the rifle settle against his shoulder, barrel angled toward the ceiling. "I know some of y'all been around since Peanut was in charge and we ain't do things like this."
Yola pushed off the wall where he'd been standing. "But we wasn't getting money like this either."
"Yeah," someone said from the back of the room, and another voice cut through right after it. "Fucking right."
Trell held his hand up, palm out, the gesture confirming what Yola had said. He walked across the room to one of the guys standing near the couch, a younger one who'd been staring at the totes since they hit the floor and held the AK out to him with both hands across the body of it. "You know how to use that?"
The guy took it, his fingers closing around the grip and the handguard, the weight settling in his arms. He nodded. "Point and shoot."
Trell laughed, a short sound that moved through the room and loosened a few of the faces around them. He stepped back and swept his hand over the group, taking in everyone from the front of the room to the hallway.
"Make sure all y'all keep your head on a swivel. If you see someone you don't know and they somewhere they don't need to be, shoot 'em. Simple as that." He let that sit for a beat before he finished. "You can worry about if you were right to do that later."
He pointed toward the totes on the floor. "Y'all go on and get what y'all need."
He stepped to the side and the room moved. Guys came forward in clusters, crouching over the totes and reaching in, pulling rifles and submachine guns free, checking actions and racking slides, the sound of metal on metal filling the living room in overlapping clicks and clacks as magazines got seated and charging handles got worked. Trell watched them from the edge of the room with his hands in his pockets.
He turned to Ant, who stood beside him with his arms crossed, and dropped his voice under the noise. "Purnell say anything about when they plan on spinning on them niggas?"
Ant shook his head. "They still trying to slow walk it. You want me to go back up there and sit down with them?"
Trell sucked his teeth. "Nah, I'll reach out to him. See if we can't give him more reason to make a move."
His eyes moved past Ant to the far side of the room where Dez stood in the same spot he'd been in the whole time, shoulder against the doorframe, arms still folded, his body angled away from the totes. He hadn't moved toward them. Trell looked at him for a long second, then turned back to Ant and pointed in Dez's direction with two fingers held low at his side. "Keep an eye on him. Let me know where he be at at all times."
"Alright," Ant said.
Trell took one last look at Dez, then let his gaze sweep the room where his guys were loading magazines and checking barrels and tucking pistol grips under their arms, before he turned and headed for the back door of the traphouse with Ant falling into step behind him.
~~~
Tatum walked into the restaurant with his phone still in his hand, thumb finishing a text before he slid it into his jacket pocket. The dining room was dim and expensive, sunlight filtered through tinted glass, cloth napkins folded into shapes on every table.
The hostess started toward him, but he held a hand up and pointed to the back of the restaurant, cutting through the room toward the table near the back windows where two men in suits sat with menus open and water glasses sweating rings onto the white tablecloth.
They stood when he reached the table. Tatum held his hand out and shook Harry's first, firm and brief, then Paul's, the grip looser, more performative. Harry gestured toward the empty chair and Tatum pulled it back and sat, unbuttoning his jacket as he settled.
"You should try the wagyu here," Harry said, settling back into his own seat and lifting his menu with one hand. "It's excellent."
Tatum laughed. "Harry, starting a conversation about money by talking about wagyu steak is an interesting negotiation tactic."
Harry tilted his head toward Paul, his mouth pulling into something between a smile and an admission. "Paul was just telling me that I needed to change it up so I decided to try something new."
Paul straightened his cuffs against the edge of the table, his fingers pinching the fabric flat before he looked up. "When you're getting involved in these young men's games, you have to try to use young men's interests."
"I think I will have the wagyu, actually," Tatum said, leaning back in his chair and crossing one ankle over the opposite knee under the table, "but I'll say that your first offer wasn't good enough."
Harry's eyebrow climbed. "Six and a half wasn't good enough?"
"Yesterday's price isn't today's." Tatum picked up the menu, scanned it for two seconds, and set it back down. "Just like the price of beef."
Paul folded his hands on the table. "What changed?"
"Miami, Texas and Ohio State came in." Tatum counted them off with his fingers, tapping the tablecloth once for each name. "Ohio State loves a transfer quarterback, you know. Texas didn't like the thought of getting outbid by Texas Tech and well, you know Miami has a penchant for throwing around stupid amounts of money at quarterbacks in the portal."
Harry looked at Paul, then back at Tatum, his jaw working once before he spoke. "We'll do seven."
"I'm not going back to him with your offer unless you're getting closer to ten." Tatum held Harry's gaze across the table, his posture unchanged, his hands resting on the arms of his chair. "If Darien Mensah can get that, Caine Guerra can."
Paul shifted in his seat, the leather creaking under him. "That's a lot for one player."
Harry set his menu down flat on the table and pressed his palm over it. "Paul, don't you see? He's holding us over a barrel because we had a shit season and now all these other programs are rushing to the table to ask the pretty girl to prom."
Tatum held his hands out, palms up, the gesture open and unapologetic. "Y'all should've made a move a couple weeks ago before ESPN listed him as the 8th favorite to win the Heisman. Now, we're sitting at a different table." He looked around the restaurant, at the white tablecloths and the wine glasses and the waitstaff moving between tables, then brought his eyes back to Harry and Paul. "Proverbially of course."
Paul reached for his water glass and took a sip, set it back on the ring it had left, and nodded once. "We'll see how close we can get to ten."
Harry leaned forward with his elbows on the table and his fingers laced together. "What's Ohio State's offer?"
Tatum's mouth pulled into a grin. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Paul and Harry both laughed, the sound rolling together across the table, and Tatum let it sit there without joining in, his grin holding steady, his hands still resting where they were.
~~~
Jaslene's head hung back over the backrest of the chair, her throat long and exposed, her chest rising and falling. Her eyes were closed and her fingers curled loose around the armrests, nails pressing half-moons into the vinyl. The music from the floor bled through the VIP room's walls in a steady pulse that made the glasses on the side table vibrate against each other.
A man let out a sustained grunt that cut through the bass, the sound bottoming out somewhere between his chest and the back of his throat. Jaslene lifted her head and looked down.
Mireya was bent forward between Jaslene and the man, her hair falling across her face, her skin catching the low light of the room. She straightened up as the man reached for the nearest chair and pulled himself into it, his legs spreading wide, his head dropping back against the headrest. His breathing came ragged and uneven, his shirt untucked, his pants still undone.
Mireya looked up at Jaslene. Jaslene caught her face with both hands and pulled her in, pressing her mouth to Mireya's, holding there for a few seconds before she let go and stood from the chair. She walked over to the man, who was still trying to get his breathing together, and held her hand out palm up in front of him.
"Time to pay up, papi. Extra for the extra."
Mireya snorted a laugh and stood, grabbing her robe off the arm of the chair and pulling it over her shoulders. She watched the man fumble through his pockets, his fingers clumsy and slow, until he pulled his wallet free and started thumbing through the bills, still trying to catch his breath.
"Me voy al vestuario," Mireya called to Jaslene.
Jaslene looked over her shoulder, the bills already transferring from the man's shaking hand to hers. "Está bien, te traeré un poco más, mi amor."
Mireya walked out of the VIP room and into the hallway. The music from the floor grew louder here, bass rolling through the walls and vibrating in the carpet under her feet. Her face dropped the second she saw Dez walking in her direction from the other end of the hall, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders leading the rest of him.
"One of the other girls told me you were in the VIP," he said when he reached her, "but fuck you were in there for like 45 minutes."
Mireya put a hand on her hip and shifted her weight onto one leg. "If a motherfucker pays for 45 minutes, he gets 45 minutes. That's how it works, Dez. What the fuck do you want?"
His eyes dropped from her face and traveled down her body where the robe hung open, his gaze snagging there for a couple seconds before he pulled it back up to her eyes and shook his head once. "You need to stay away from Trell. Get out of New Orleans if you can."
Mireya snorted a laugh. "For fucking what?"
"Some bad shit might go down."
"I know about the shit with Meechie."
Dez's head pulled back a fraction. "He told you about that?"
"Yes, Dez, he fucking told me about that."
"That don't even matter." Dez stepped closer, dropping his voice under the bass that throbbed through the hall. "You need to get out of the city. I got some money I can give you if you need a place to stay somewhere."
"Fucking stop." Mireya's hand came off her hip and she held it up between them, palm flat. "No one's coming look for me. And I can't just fucking leave. I got class, finals. I got work. All kinds of other shit. Did you fucking think about that?"
"I just don't want nothing to happen to you,” he said. "I know no one's looking for you, but that doesn't mean you can't get caught up in some shit."
Behind them, the VIP room door opened and Jaslene walked out, her robe hanging open, a fold of cash in one hand. Mireya looked over her shoulder at her. Jaslene's eyebrow climbed when she saw Dez standing there. Mireya shook her head.
She turned back to Dez. "I'm not going anywhere. You need to calm the fuck down. Go find one of the white bitches to get your dick sucked or something."
She turned and started down the hallway in the opposite direction with Jaslene falling into step beside her, the two of them moving shoulder to shoulder toward the dressing room.
Behind them, Dez's voice carried over the bass. "Mi—Luna!"
