Page 19 of Buy Back My Love

“I figured.”

My eyes drifted toward the hallway. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

JB nodded and leaned back against the wall. “Aight.”

The way JB looked at me before I walked away told me exactly where his mind was, and if I was being real, mine had gone there too. I wanted him, and five years hadn’t changed that. My body still remembered what it felt like to be touched by him, kissed by him, loved on by him. Wanting JB wasn’t the problem. It was the thought of taking my clothes off in front of him that had my nerves jumping in my stomach like I was sixteen again.

I headed toward the bedroom before he could read too much on my face.

The bathroom was fully stocked. Anika had filled the cabinets with soap, lotion, hair products, toothbrushes, feminine products, and enough skincare to last me half the year. Plush white towels were stacked beside the shower, and a new robe hung from a hook on the door.

I smiled to myself because the whole setup had Anika written all over it, then opened the drawer beneath the sink.

A box of condoms sat inside with a sticky note stuck to the top.

Don’t be stupid. Use these.

-Anika

I picked up the note and read it twice, trying to figure out why the hell she felt the need to leave me condoms.

I knew JB had probably been with other women while I was gone. Five years was a long fucking time, and I’d told myself that more times than I could count. What was he supposed to do, sit around waiting on me?

Apparently, knowing something in theory and having to think about it for real were two completely different things.

How many had there been? Did I know any of them? Had he brought them around his family? Had any of them slept in his bed? The more questions that came, the more irritated I got, especially when my mind landed on the one I really didn’t want answered, had he ever made one of them feel like she was his? I shoved the drawer closed and took that question into the shower with me.

I turned the water hotter than it needed to be, hoping standing under it would help clear my head, but instead I spent half my shower imagining faceless women kissing him, touching him, sleeping with the man I’d spent most of my life thinking belonged to me.

By the time I got out, I’d managed to piss myself off over women I couldn’t even put faces to.

Anika had left a cute pajama set folded on the bed. The shorts sat loose around my waist, and the top didn’t fit the way it probably would’ve five years ago either. I slid my feet into the slippers beside the bed and looked at myself in the mirror, tugging at the fabric like adjusting it enough times might make me feel comfortable in my own skin again, but no amount of adjusting made me feel any better.

I left the bedroom and found the living room empty. “JB?”

“In here,” he called from somewhere toward the back.

I followed his voice to the enclosed patio, where he was sitting in one of the folding chairs Anika had dragged outside earlier. His legs were stretched out in front of him, and a blunt rested between his fingers while smoke drifted toward the screened windows.

JB looked up when I stepped outside, and his eyes went straight to my pajama shorts before making their way back to my face.

“Damn.”

I folded my arms. “Don’t start.”

“I ain’t said nothing.”

“You said damn.”

He smiled and took another pull from the blunt. “Come sit down.”

I dragged the other chair closer, but left enough space between us to make the point before sitting down. JB’s eyes dropped to the gap, but he had enough sense not to say anything about it.

He held the blunt toward me. “You wanna smoke?”

“I haven’t in five years.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”