I frowned, the first sign of life I’d given him in weeks. “Order?”
“Take physics,” he said. “You put force behind an object, it moves. You angle it, you can predict where it’ll land. Energy, motion, momentum—they follow rules. The world might feel like it can spin off any second, but there are places where it won’t. Places where it obeys.”
I liftedmy eyes, really looking at him for the first time. “You saying science makes it… safer?”
“I’m saying it gives you something to hold on to,” he said. “You can’t control everything. But you can measure. You can calculate. You can find rhythm in it. Enough to breathe. Enough to build.”
I didn’t breathe for a long second. Then I whispered, “I don’t want to lose again.”
His face softened. “Then let’s find the things that hold.”
That night, I sat at the kitchen table, Jada upstairs crying herself to sleep again. I opened my science book for the first time in months. And I read about Newton’s laws.
An object in motion stays in motion. Unless acted on by another force.
It hit me like gospel. Maybe I couldn’t stop cars from spinning out in the rain. But I could understand why. I could map it. Name it. Break it down until it was numbers and not just hurt.
From then on, I counted. Not out loud, not where anyone could hear. But inside. Four beats in, three out. Force, vector, direction. If life was going to blindside me, I’d at least know the math behind the impact.
Physics gave me permission to name what had no name. Force. Resultant. Friction. Heat. Even grief fit, if I angled it right. Two pushes in opposite directions—that was me and the world. Wasted work. Heat rising. No movement forward.
But sometimes, sometimes, the vectors lined up. Two pushes, same direction. Magnitude enough to move mountains. That’s what Mr. Buchanan had shown me—whathe’d sat across from me to say: the world still had rules. And if I could learn them, maybe I wouldn’t get swallowed whole.
I didn’t become perfect. I still broke down. Still woke with my chest tight, heart racing at shadows that looked like headlights. But I wasn’t drifting anymore. I was working equations in my head, filling notebooks, turning the mess into something I could solve. Encouraged that some things—laws, patterns, beats—could hold up when everything else collapsed.
I became the boy who counted in fours because life had taught him the cost of being caught unprepared.
Chapter 1
Break & Enter
Powder ghosted the green felt, blue smudges hanging in the air while brown bodies crowded near the rail. Every shade—caramel, mahogany, chestnut—pressed in close but not reckless, leaning just enough to catch the angles, careful not to block the game. The Green Room always ran thick with heat and sound—ice rattling in glasses, dice snapping against the bartop between racks, side bets slicing through the air like punctuation.
The music was its own argument. Unc slid in oldies—Marvin, The Delfonics, Aretha—like the jukebox was his birthright. Tino fought back with the newer joints—Mary, Beenie Man, Hov—grinning like,what y’all gon’ do about it?The crowd never minded. As long as the drinks stayed strong, the women soft, and the tables alive, the soundtrack could bounce from Smokey Robinson to Sean Paul and back again.
Outside, fall pressed its weight against the windows—air sharp, leaves tumbling down Penn Avenue—but inside, the room was all steam and sweat, like summer had refused to leave.
I’d been shooting pool since I was shorter than Daddy’s cue, chasing balls across felt I could hardly see over, proud just to keep up with him. First as his tagalong when he and Unc were still trading jokes from their high school days. Later as the teenager sneaking in without him, daring anybody to tell me I didn’t belong. By now, The Green Room was stamped into my blood as much as the work van with Whitaker Electric on the side.
“Rayna Whitaker to Table Two.”
Tino’s voice carried over the crowd, smooth and cocky, a dare disguised as velvet.
Heads turned. They always did. Some doubted, some smirked, some just watched to see if I’d fold. I never did.
I tapped the rail twice with my knuckles—ritual. The cue settled into my grip like it remembered me better than I remembered myself. My pulse ticked higher. Not nerves. I was too stubborn for that. It was the chargebefore the breaker flipped, the live current right before the break.
By daylight, I ran wire for Whitaker Electric—Daddy’s name painted bold on the van, my sweat hidden inside the walls. By night, I ran tables.
I circled the chalk over my cue tip—slow and sure, my breath matching the motion. The matte-black shaft caught the dim light, the case resting open by my ankle like it knew the ritual. My palms were steady, not slick. That was good. Monday would put me back on studs with Jerome and the crew, running wire and labeling breakers. But tonight? Tonight was for angles you couldn’t map on a blueprint.
“Quentin Hale to Table Two,” Tino’s voice rolled through the mic.
“Go on, Rae,” Shawna hollered from the bar, her laugh spilling up and over the rim of a rocks glass. Light-brown skin glowing under the neon, her thick hair cut short in a Halle Berry cut that framed her sly smile, she was already halfway through her drink and halfway to trouble. “Show him what that wrist do.”
“You say that every time, Shawna,” I shot back without looking, because my gaze was already locked on him.
Mr. Clark Kent himself.
