Page 126 of Buy Back My Love

“Then what are we arguing about?”

“Because you doing for your baby don’t mean you get to run my life.”

He shook his head. “I’m not trying to control you.”

“Then quit trying to move me down the street from you.”

“I’m trying to be there for my kid.”

“Then be there.” I looked straight at him. “You don’t gotta be my man to be a daddy.”

His face tightened, and I could tell that was the part he didn’t wanna hear.

“That ain’t how I do my family.”

I almost laughed again. “Well, you should’ve thought about that before you made two of them.”

JB went quiet, and I let him sit with that for a second while I started putting some of my tools away.

He finally leaned forward. “Lee, come on. I love you. You know you the woman I always saw myself marrying. This baby is what we talked about forever. We can finally have what we wanted.”

There was a time when hearing him say that would’ve been everything I wanted, but it didn’t hit the same anymore.

“You keep talking about what we wanted like you ain’t go build it with somebody else. You already made a family, JB. This baby don’t erase that.”

“So that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“You really gon’ have my baby and act like we strangers?”

“I never said you was a stranger.”

“Then what am I?”

I looked at him. “This baby’s father.”

He didn’t like that answer. I could see it all over his face, but I wasn’t changing it to make him feel better.

“You can be this baby’s daddy. I want you to be this baby’s daddy. But you are not my man.”

JB stared at me for a long second, and I looked past him at the clock on the wall.

“You done?”

“No.”

“Well, I am.”

He leaned back in the chair. “We ain’t finished talking.”

“You booked almost three hours of my time under a fake name. I gave you your manicure and your conversation. That’s enough.”

JB looked over at the flowers and bags sitting by the door. “At least take your stuff.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You ain’t even opened it.”