Page 135 of Buy Back My Love

“I asked you why we here.”

I leaned back against the seat. “I talked to Hannah.”

Lee let out this little laugh that already had me irritated, like she knew whatever came next was about to be some bullshit.

“She don’t want the shop no more,” I told her. “She wanna stay home with the kids after Jaliyah come.”

Lee looked back toward the storefront. “Okay.”

“So we can put it back in your name.”

That got her attention. She turned fully toward me but didn’t say anything, so I kept going.

“Everything already set up. Your old clients know this location, and you ain’t gotta build nothing from scratch. You can come back here instead of working out the back of old dude's shop.”

The second the words left my mouth, I could tell I had said the wrong thing.

Lee’s face changed. “I don’t want it.”

I frowned. “What?”

“I said I don’t want it.”

“Lee, stop.”

“I’m serious.”

I turned toward her. “You telling me you’d rather work out that little room than have your whole shop back?”

Her eyes narrowed. “It’s not a little room. It’s my shop.”

“I ain’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Man, come on.”

“No.” She pointed toward the building. “And I don’t want nothing Hannah done had.”

My jaw tightened before I could stop it.

Lee looked right at me. “That includes you.”

I turned my head toward her. “Now you just being disrespectful.”

“I’m being honest.”

“You really finna turn this down because Hannah's name on the window?”

“It ain’t about her name being on the window.”

“Then what is it?”

Lee sat back against the seat and folded her arms. “It’s about me not wanting anything from you.”

I sucked my teeth. That was the shit she kept saying now, like anything that came from me automatically came with some trap attached to it.

“I love where I’m at,” she continued. “You might think it’s some little hole in the wall because it ain’t big and flashy, but it’s mine. I pay my rent. I fixed it how I wanted it. Nobody can come take it from me because they mad or because they decided somebody else deserved it more.”