“Yeah?”
“Daisy is safe with me, but this one fell in love when he saw her during her summer visit.” I crack up at Quincy’s glower before the shock that I outed his secret registers.
“Not funny!” Quincy sprints away from Shins, who catches him by the back of his jersey collar. Their eight-inch height difference has his feet dangling off the ground.
Shins does not play about his baby sister.
“Cap!” Quincy screeches in a high pitch for help. He wiggles out of his jersey but gets stuck in his compression shirt underneath. “Don’t leave me hanging!”
“Too late,” I laugh.
Kendrick is cracking up like he didn’t try to make me a hot topic.
“Aye, Shins! Kendrick said he wanted to motorboat your mama’s booty.” I back away from the grenade I launched and smirk at Kendrick. His eyes are wide, and his jaw is on the turf.
Teammates and staff gather around the commotion. Shins is a raging bull caught between Quincy and Kendrick. The furious lock tosses Quincy into a trash bin before sprinting after Kendrick.
“Give me those fast feet every game!” Coach Titan nods at Kendrick’s Olympic run down the pitch.
“Cap!” Kendrick wheezes. “You ain’t—”
Shins tackles him at full speed.
“Shit…” he groans.
Chapter 8
Miriam
“I’d kick Mitchell Slate square in the dick if it wouldn’t land me in jail.”
On a good day, Marcela grits her teeth dealing with Buffalo’s mayor. Meditation. A Bible app. Boxing. Whatever it takes to keep her out of the Erie County Holding Center.
Today, she’s out for blood, contemplating ways to put her years of soccer to use. It’s my first time witnessing her fire up close and not on the other end of the phone.
The mayor should fear for his life. And his penis.
Marcela’s black blouse slides against my retro dining chair. Her legs are planted wide in black vegan leather pants, and her matching stilettos scrape over the speckled linoleum floor. She flexes her fingers next to a glass of water she hasn’t touched since storming into my house from City Hall.
The flattened line in her plump lips matches the slash of her threaded brows.
“Is there anything I can do, minus bodily injury?” Her large brown eyes meet mine from across the tiny white table. The softpairing with the seafoam green dining chairs is a contrast to the red seeping into my sister’s mocha complexion.
Her “No” comes with a tired smile, accompanied by a long exhale. She rubs the back of her neck below a high bun of Marley twists. The mask eldest daughters wear to prove they can handle the weight of the world slips.
Marcela is the strong one, overprotective and intrusive, but my hero nonetheless. Her stubbornness and inability to ask for help make it hard for me to show up for her in the ways she shows up for me. I’m here for her, but I won’t survive jail.
“I’ll handle him,” she says in a promise to herself.
“I take it your meeting with the mayor didn’t go well?”
She snorts. “The prick pretended he wasn’t in his office, like I didn’t see him peek out of the door when he thought I was gone.” Her lips spread into a grin. “You’ll see me on the news.”
“Please tell me you left Knuck and Buck at home.” It’s rare for Marcela to leave her house without her brass knuckles.
“Am I calling you for bail money? I simply vented my frustrations to news cameras that were covering a rally about Buffalo’s budget deficit. Can you believe one was happening at the same time I had a scheduled meeting with scary-ass Slate? Talk about timing.”
“Right,” I chuckle. “Always with a backup plan.”
