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“That’s my only child sitting at that table,” Mama says.

Sasha’s eyes move past her to me. Just for a second.

“I raised her by myself. Worked doubles twenty years so she could go to that school.”

His jaw goes tight.

“So if you hurt her,” Mama says, “if you get her killed with your mess, I don’t care how big you are. I don’t care how many of him you got on my porch.” She nods at Misha. “I know people in this town too. And I know where the lake is.”

Mr. Washington’s chair creaks.

Sasha holds her stare. Then he nods. Once. Like a man agreeing to terms.

Mama looks at him for one more long second. Then she turns around, walks back to the table, and picks her fork back up.

“Well, come on in. Your food’s getting cold. And tell that one on the porch he can come eat too. I don’t let nobody stand on my porch hungry.”

* * *

So that’s how a Bratva boss ends up at my mama’s dinner table, eating oxtails.

He sits next to me. His knee’s pressed against my thigh under the table the whole time. He eats two plates. Misha eats three. Jaylen asks Sasha if he’s a wrestler, and Sasha says no, and Jaylen asks him if he can pick up the table, and Sasha picks up the whole end of the table with one hand, plates and all, and puts it back down, and Jaylen screams like it’s his birthday.

Auntie Gwen won’t stop staring at his hands. Sister Moore won’t stop staring at his everything. Tasha’s eating pie and filming all of it under the table.

And Mama watches him. All dinner. Like a hawk.

When he finishes his second plate, she says, “Well?”

He looks up. “Best oxtails I’ve ever had.”

“Mm-hm. You ever had oxtails before?”

“No.”

Everybody laughs. Even Mama. And I feel it, under the table. His hand. Sliding up from my knee. Up under my church dress. Up the inside of my thigh.

I almost choke on my sweet tea.

He keeps eating his pie with his other hand like nothing’s going on. His face doesn’t move. His fingers find the edge of my panties and stay there. Just resting. Just reminding me.

Next time you run.

I put my fork down very carefully.

“Mama,” I say. “I’m gonna go change out of my church clothes.”

* * *

My old bedroom’s exactly the same.

Purple walls I painted when I was thirteen. A twin bed with the same quilt my grandma made. My posters from high school. My debate trophies. A picture of Toni Morrison I cut out of a magazine in ninth grade and taped above my desk, gone yellow at the corners.

I close the door. I go to my dresser for my old sweats.

The door opens and shuts behind me. The lock clicks.

I don’t turn around.