Page 24 of Buy Back My Love

Her smile faded a little. “How Lee doing?”

I looked back toward the blackjack table. “She surviving.”

Hannah nodded. “I think about her all the time.”

“Shit, I think the whole hood do.”

“You still go see her?”

“Twice a month.”

She gave me a small smile. “Tell her I asked about her next time.”

I nodded and finished what was left in my glass. “I will.”

We left the table after that and grabbed two seats at the bar. One drink turned into two, and before long we were talking about everything except gambling.

Hannah looked over at me. “I was scared to death buying that place. Everybody in the city knew what Lee built, and I knew they was gone compare every little thing I did to her.”

I took a sip of my drink. “Lee wouldn’t have wanted that building sitting there going to shit. She’d rather somebody who actually cared about the shop have it.”

Hannah looked at me. “You really think that?”

“Yeah, I do.”

After a couple more drinks, we stopped talking about Lee altogether, and Hannah looked over at me. “You got plans tonight?”

“Nah.”

She looked down at her drink for a second before meeting my eyes again. “I got a room upstairs.”

That was all she had to say because Hannah was fine as hell. Light brown, thick as fuck, with a little waist that made all that ass stand out even more. Her lips were full, and she had them pretty eyes that could turn mean quick when she got to rolling them damn things at me. Her brown hair with all that blonde in it fell past her shoulders, and she had tattoos all up her arms with enough more peeking out from under her clothes to make a nigga wonder where else she had them.

I’d been lonely longer than I wanted to admit, and enough liquor was in me to stop pretending I didn’t know exactly what she was offering. I dropped some cash on the bar, finished what was left in my glass, and stood up.

“Lead the way.”

What was supposed to be one night didn’t stay one night. Nine months later, JJ came screaming into the world, and somewhere along the way Hannah stopped being somebody I messed with when I was lonely and became my woman.

Sitting beside me now, she looked like she wanted to cuss my ass out all over again, but instead her face crumbled a little. “I don’t want to compete with Lee for your heart, JB.” She wiped at her eyes quick, like she was mad the tears had even showed up. “I gave you a family. Why the fuck ain’t that enough?”

I didn’t have an answer that wasn’t gonna hurt her, so I reached for her instead. This time she let me pull her against my chest. Hannah buried her face in my shirt and cried while I held her, rubbing my hand up and down her back until some of the fight finally left her.

I loved Hannah. She was my woman, JJ was my son, and the little girl she was carrying was mine too. This was the family I’d built while Lee was gone, and none of that was fake.

The problem was, neither was what I felt for Lee. She’d been with me since we were fourteen, she’d done five years behind my shit and never once gave them my name, and I couldn’t look at everything she’d lost because of me and decide that just because I’d built another life while she was gone, she was supposed to come home and figure the rest of hers out without me.

After a while, Hannah’s breathing slowed, and I moved my hand from her back to her stomach. Our daughter kicked against my palm, reminding me of exactly what I had sitting right here in front of me.

I wasn’t leaving Hannah, and I damn sure wasn’t walking away from my kids, but I couldn’t let Lee go either. Somehow, I’d figure that shit out like I always did.

Lee

My body woke me before the sun did. There wasn’t a correctional officer dragging a baton across steel bars or overhead lights snapping on without warning. No toilets flushing, women cursing, or a hundred different body odors fighting for space underneath one roof.

It was just quiet, but my eyes still opened at five-thirty on the dot like they had every morning for the last five years. I stared at the unfamiliar ceiling for a while, waiting for my body to realize I didn’t have to get up just because I was awake.

Apparently, nobody had told my body I was free yet. I’d slept, just not worth a damn, because every time I closed my eyes, my mind went right back to JB and everything that had happened the day before. The argument at breakfast, the apartment and all those gifts, him admitting he’d been with other women, then getting up and leaving instead of climbing into bed beside me.