Page 150 of Buy Back My Love

“You been hoping it’s a girl.”

“And?”

“And you gon’ be wrong.”

I waved him off. “Go bother somebody else.”

He smiled like irritating me had been his whole reason for coming over, then walked back toward his boys.

By the time Anika announced it was time to cut the cake, everybody started crowding around with their phones out. The cake came rolling toward us on a cart, shaped like one big white golf ball sitting on green icing. It was cute as hell, and Anika stood behind it smiling like she knew something the rest of us didn’t.

Which she did.

I pointed at her. “You can still tell me.”

“Nope.”

“Anika.”

“Cut the cake, Lee.”

“You irritating.”

She laughed. “Come on.”

JB walked over while somebody handed us the knife. I expected him to stand beside me, but instead he stepped behind me, pressed his chest against my back, and reached around to put his hand over mine.

I stiffened.

“JB, back up.”

He looked at me like he didn’t understand the problem. “We cutting the cake.”

“We can cut it standing beside each other.”

Somebody behind us yelled, “Man, quit arguing and cut the damn cake!”

Everybody started laughing, and JB finally loosened his arm around me, even though he still didn’t move as far back as I wanted him to. I let it go because I wasn’t about to turn the gender reveal into another argument before we even found out what I was having. A few seconds later, Anika raised her voice over everybody and started the countdown.

“Okay! Three!”

People started counting with her.

“Two!”

My heart started beating harder than it had any reason to.

“One!”

Me and JB pushed the knife through the white icing, and for a second all I could see was cake. Then the slice tipped over.

Blue.

The whole floor erupted at once. Mama screamed louder than half the room, Wren grabbed my arm laughing, and somebody behind us set off blue confetti while JB damn near knocked me over celebrating.

“I fucking knew it!”

His boys started yelling like he had personally done something impressive. His mama was crying, Anika was laughing, and phones were everywhere catching every second of it.