Page 23 of Buy Back My Love

Hannah laughed, but there wasn’t nothing funny. “JB, you been having excuses stacked up for the last few years.”

She shifted on the couch until she was facing me. “I’m your girl. You come home to me every night. Your clothes in my closet. Your son got your name, and I’m carrying your daughter. Soon as we step outside this house though I’m supposed to act like none of that shit exists.”

“We been through this conversation.”

“And we gone keep having it until it makes sense.” She pointed toward the front window like Lee was somewhere out there. “Because you still choosing her.”

I shook my head and kept my voice low because JJ was still somewhere in the house. “Lee took a federal charge for me, Hannah.”

“I know what she did.”

“Then you know I’m not finna abandon her just because you my lady now.”

Hannah stared at me without blinking and I knew damn well that wasn’t the answer she wanted.

“And keeping this shit quiet been helping you too,” I added.

Her eyebrows pulled together. “What the hell that’s supposed to mean?”

“You bought Love-Lee after she went in.”

“So?”

“So, nobody thought shit about it because you worked there.” I leaned forward with my forearms resting on my knees. “Let them find out you got two babies by Lee’s man and watch how quick some of them women sitting in your chairs start looking at you different.”

Hannah’s face hardened, but I kept going. “They loved Lee before they ever loved that shop.”

For a few seconds, neither one of us said anything. The Ms. Pat Show was still playing on the TV in front of us while Hannah sat there staring at me like she was deciding whether she wanted to argue or throw something.

Then she went straight for the question she’d probably been waiting all night to ask. “You fuck that bitch?”

I laughed once. “Man, hell no.”

Hannah didn’t ease up. “Let me smell your dick.”

I stared at her. “Who the hell you supposed to be? Yvette?”

“I’m dead serious, JB.” Her voice cracked just enough to take some of the bite out of it. “If you touched her, I’m packing me and my kids up tonight and you’ll never lay eyes on us again.”

That shut me up because looking at her sitting there trying not to cry, I knew what all that shit was really about. Hannah was scared I was gonna choose Lee over her, and I couldn’t even blame her for feeling that way because the truth was, I never planned on falling for Hannah in the first place.

After Lee got locked up, Love-Lee Nails sat empty for months. Customers kept calling around asking if anybody knew when the shop was opening back up, but there wasn’t nothing to tell them. Eventually the building went up for sale and Hannah bought it.

People expected her to keep everything the way Lee left it. She didn’t. Hannah changed the paint, ripped up the flooring, replaced the furniture, and made the place look like hers. She even changed the name to House of Hannah, and it didn’t hurt business none because you still couldn’t get an appointment in that motherfucker.

I didn’t run into Hannah again until almost two years after Lee went in. I was in Biloxi blowing money at the casino, something I used to do whenever work got on my nerves, when I spotted her standing at a blackjack table with a drink in one hand and a stack of chips in front of her.

I knew that face as soon as I saw it, so I walked up behind her and leaned close enough for her to hear me over all the casino noise. “Ain’t you shawty that got my girl shop back up and running?”

Hannah turned around, and the second she realized who I was, a grin spread across her face.

“JB?”

“Yeah.”

“I ain’t seen you since...” She stopped herself before finishing.

“Yeah,” I said, because there wasn’t really nothing else to say.