Page 153 of Buy Back My Love

I called once and got his voicemail. The second call went unanswered too, and that bothered me more than it should have. By the third time, I was already starting to feel stupid for calling that much, but before I could hang up, he answered.

“Lee?”

His voice was low enough that I sat up a little. “Hey.”

“You good?”

“Yeah. Why you talking like that?”

He hesitated before answering. “I’m on a date.”

That shut me up. “Oh.”

“I stepped away because you called three times. Wanted to make sure it wasn’t an emergency.”

Of course he was on a date. It was Valentine’s Day. Why the hell wouldn’t he be?

I looked down at Holly stretched across my legs. “No. It ain’t no emergency.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Lee.”

I already knew that tone. “I said nothing.”

He didn’t push, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. “I can call you when I’m done.”

“No, you good.”

“You called me three times.”

“And you answered. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

That irritated me, mostly because he was right. “Go back to your date, Van.”

“Aight. I’ll call you later.”

“No need.”

“Lee.”

“Have fun.”

I hung up before he could say anything else and sat there staring at my phone. After a second, I laughed because apparently my choices were laugh or throw the damn thing across the room.

JB was somewhere putting a ring on Hannah’s finger, Van was somewhere having Valentine’s dinner with another woman, and I was in bed with my dog.

Beautiful.

I opened JB’s contact and blocked him without thinking twice. Van took a little longer because, irritatingly enough, he hadn’t actually done anything wrong. He had never told me he was waiting around for me or promised he wasn’t dating anybody else. Hell, I was the one who kept pulling back every time things between us started feeling too real.