Page 134 of Buy Back My Love

“JB.”

“Lee, I’m not finna do nothing to you. I got something I want you to see. That’s it.”

Another pause.

“How long?”

“Not long.”

“That don’t mean nothing coming from you.”

I smiled a little. “Twenty minutes.”

“You got twenty.”

“I’m on the way.”

I hung up before she could change her mind.

When I pulled into Maisie’s driveway a little while later, Lee was already coming out the front door with her coat on. She walked straight to the truck and climbed into the passenger seat before I could even think about getting out.

“Merry Christmas,” I said as she climbed in.

“Where we going?”

I looked over at her. “Hello to you too.”

“JB.”

“All right. Damn.”

She pulled the seat belt across herself. “And this better really have something to do with the baby.”

“It do.”

Technically.

I pulled away from the curb, and for the first couple minutes neither one of us said much. Christmas music played low through the speakers while Lee stared out the passenger window, and every now and then I caught myself looking over at her.

She wasn’t showing yet. If I didn’t know she was pregnant, I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything different, but I knew my baby was in there.

Ever since she told me, that shit had been stuck in my head. For years, I had thought that part of me and Lee was gone. We lost Junior, life kept moving, and by the time she came home, everything between us was already fucked up.

Now she was pregnant again, and it was mine. Somehow, she expected me to act like that didn’t change anything.

When I turned into the shopping center, Lee sat up straighter and looked through the windshield.

“No.”

I kept driving toward the storefront, and when she realized exactly where I was headed, she turned toward me.

“JB. No.”

I pulled into a spot directly in front of the shop and put the truck in park. House of Hannah was still written across the windows, big enough that there was no pretending she hadn’t seen it.

Lee stared at the building for a few seconds before looking back at me. “Why are we here?”

“Just listen.”