Page 165 of Buy Back My Love

She looked at me like I had said something stupid. “When did you think we were getting married?”

“I don’t know. We just got engaged.”

“Exactly. Now we plan.”

I leaned back in the chair while she started talking about how she didn’t want some long engagement. Jaliyah made a little noise in the bassinet, and both of us looked over at the same time. Hannah was out of her chair before I could move, bending over to check on her.

Seeing my daughter home still did something to me. She had been so damn small when she came that I was scared to touch her. Every tube and wire they hooked to her in that NICU pissed me off because there wasn’t shit I could do about any of it. Money didn’t fix it. Knowing people didn’t fix it. I had to sit there just like everybody else and wait for somebody in scrubs to tell me whether my baby was getting stronger.

Now she was home, gaining weight, and sleeping in the bassinet beside our bed. That should’ve been enough to keep my attention, but my eyes still went right back to the phone beside my hand.

Still nothing from Lee.

When Hannah sat back down, she caught me looking at it. “Who you waiting on?”

“Nobody.”

“You keep checking your phone.”

“Work.”

The lie came out too easy, and Hannah accepted it just as easy. Work had always been one of the simplest excuses I could give her.

“I need you to look at the guest list tonight,” she said, picking her pen back up. “Your mama already sent me names, and I know you got a million cousins. We need to figure out who you want as your best man too.”

“Aight.”

She stopped writing. “You listening?”

“Yeah.”

“What I just say?”

I smiled. “Best man.”

That satisfied her enough to go back to her notebook. I watched her for a second, and Hannah really looked like she thought everything had finally fallen into place. Maybe for her it had.

I pushed my chair back. “I gotta get to the office.”

“You coming straight home?”

“Should be.”

The look she gave me told me she didn’t like that answer, but I wasn’t getting into another conversation about it. I leaned down, kissed her forehead, and told her I’d call before I left the office.

By the time I got to the trucking company, most of my drivers were already out. Somebody was arguing with dispatch about a load, one of the mechanics had called about another truck needing a part, and payroll was sitting on my desk waiting on me.

It was regular, legit work, the kind I had spent the last few years convincing myself was all I needed. I made it through maybe an hour before I picked my phone up again.

Lee still had me blocked.

“Man, fuck her.”

I tossed the phone onto my desk just as somebody knocked on my office door.

“Yeah.”

The door opened, and the second I saw Boone step through it, Lee went straight out of my head. I hadn’t seen that nigga face-to-face in years.