Page 190 of Buy Back My Love

“I was acting up before I was your girlfriend. You knew what you signed up for.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, yeah.”

Apparently, I came to Point Clear for a prenatal massage and ended up leaving with a boyfriend.

I could work with that.

Lee

Myles had officially decided he liked it inside me too much. At my last appointment, my doctor checked me, looked over everything, then told me that if he didn’t make his own appearance before Monday, she wanted me at the hospital at six Monday morning to be induced.

I should’ve been excited to finally have a date, but instead my stomach dropped. The closer I got to giving birth, the harder it was getting to keep Junior out of my head. As long as Myles was moving, I could usually talk myself down. A foot in my ribs, a hard roll across my stomach, hiccups at three in the morning, I welcomed all of it because every little movement was proof that he was still in there doing what he was supposed to do.

Now I had an actual date. In a few days, I was going to walk into another hospital pregnant, and all I could think about was whether I would walk back out holding my baby. I hated that my mind even went there.

I sat in my car after the appointment with the induction paperwork in my lap. Mama and Anika were easy calls. I made those before I even pulled out of the parking lot. There was one more person I needed to call.

JB.

I damn sure didn’t want to. I sat there staring at his name for a good five minutes, trying to convince myself I didn’t owe him shit. But this wasn’t about what I owed JB. Myles was his son too, and I wasn’t giving that man the opportunity to tell anybody I purposely kept him from knowing when his child was coming into the world. So I unblocked him and called.

He answered on the fourth ring. “What?”

No hello. No nothing.

“My doctor inducing me Monday,” I told him. “I gotta be at the hospital at six in the morning.”

JB went quiet.

I looked out the windshield while I waited. “I’m letting you know in case you wanna be there.”

“You ain’t needed me all this time. What you calling me for now?”

That almost hurt my feelings, which pissed me off even more because I should’ve known better by now. I swallowed before answering.

“Because that’s your son.”

“You made it real clear you got everybody else.”

And there it was. This wasn’t about Myles. It was about me not needing JB the way he wanted me to.

“Okay.”

“What you mean, okay?”

“I mean I told you when your son coming. What you do with that information is on you.” I hung up before he could say anything else.

For a minute, I sat there with my phone in my hand. I wasn’t crying, and I damn sure wasn’t calling him back, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sting. Fifteen years with somebody, and somehow they could still find new ways to disappoint you.

I called Van next. Wind blew through the phone when he answered, so I figured he was outside somewhere at work.

“What’s up?”

“You working Monday?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“My doctor inducing me.”