Excerpt from All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

ONE

Titus woke up five minutes before his alarm went off at 7:00 A.M. and made himself a cup of coffee in the Keurig Darlene had gotten him last Christmas. At the time she'd given it to him he'd thought it was an expensive gift for a relationship that was barely four months old. These days, Titus had to admit it was a damn good gift that he was grateful to have.

He'd gotten her a bottle of perfume.

He almost winced thinking back on it. If knowing your lover was a competition, Darlene was a gold medalist. Titus didn't even qualify for the bronze. Over the last ten months he'd forced himself to get exponentially better in the gift-giving department.

Titus sipped his coffee.

His last girlfriend before Darlene had said he was a great boyfriend but was awful at relationships. He didn't dispute that assessment.

Titus took another sip.

He heard the stairs creak as his father made his way down to the kitchen. That mournful cry of ancient wood had gotten him and Marquis in trouble on more than one late Friday night until Titus stopped staying out late and Marquis stopped coming home.

"Hey, while you standing there in your boxers, make me one of them there fancy cups out that machine," Albert Crown said. Titus watched his father limp over to the kitchen table and ease himself down into one of their vinyl-covered metal chairs that would drive a hipster interior designer mad with nouveau retro euphoria. It had been a year since his father's hip replacement and Albert still walked with a studied caution. He stubbornly refused to use a cane, but Titus saw the way his smooth brown face twisted into tight Gordian knots when a rainstorm blew in off the bay or when the temperature started to drop like a lead sinker.

Albert Crown had made his living on that bay for forty years, hauling in crab pots six days a week, fourteen hours a day off the shore of Piney Island on boats owned by folks who barely saw him as a man. No insurance, no 401(k), but all those backbreaking days and the frugality of Titus's mother had allowed them to build a three-bedroom house on Preach Neck Road. They were the only family, Black or white, that had a house on an actual foundation. Envy had crossed the color lines and united their neighbors as the house rose from the forest of mobile homes that surrounded it like a rose among weeds.

"When we retire, we can sit on the front step in matching rocking chairs and wave to Patsy Jones as she drives by rolling her eyes," Titus's mother Helen had told his father at the kitchen table one night during one of those rare weekends his father wasn't out gallivanting down at the Watering Hole or Grace's Place.

Titus put a cup in the Keurig, slid a pod in the filter, and set the timer.

But, like so many things in life, his mother's gently petty retirement plan was not meant to be. She died long before she could ever retire from the Cunningham Flag Factory. Patsy Jones was still driving by and rolling her eyes, though.

"Which one you put in there?" Albert asked. He opened the newspaper and started running his finger over the pages. Titus could see his lips move ever so slightly. His mother had been the more adventurous reader, but his father never let the sun set on the day without going through the newspaper.

"Hazelnut. The only one you like," Titus said.

Albert chuckled. "Don't you tell that girl that. She got us that value pack. That was nice of her." He licked his finger and turned the page. As soon as he did, he sucked his teeth and grunted.

"Them rebbish boys don't never let up, do they? Now they gonna have a goddamn parade for that statue. Them boys just mad somebody finally had the nerve to tell them they murdering traitor of a granddaddy won't shit," Albert spat.

"Ricky Sours and them Sons of the Confederacy boys been knocking down the door of my office for the past two weeks," Titus said. He took another sip.

Excerpted from All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby. Copyright © 2023 by S. A. Cosby. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.