Page 183 of Buy Back My Love

“You like that?”

“Shut up and keep going.”

He laughed against me and did exactly that. It didn’t take long before my whole body started tightening. I bit my lip trying to keep quiet, but a moan still slipped out when I came. My hands went into his hair while I rode it out, shaking hard enough that for a second I forgot we were locked inside my sister’s bathroom.

When Van finally stood back up, I was still trying to get myself together.

“You good?” he asked, already smiling.

I smoothed my dress back down and looked at him. “I hate you.”

“Nah.” He helped straighten the part of my dress I couldn’t reach. “You love me.”

He was joking, but hearing him say it made me stop. Normally, I would’ve laughed it off. Instead, I heard myself say, “Yeah.”

Van stopped smiling. “Yeah what?”

I could’ve played it off, but I didn’t. “I do. I love you.”

He just looked at me.

“Don’t make me regret saying it.”

He reached for my face and kissed me, softer this time. “I love you too.”

I smiled against his mouth. “You better.”

He laughed and kissed me again, but somewhere outside the bathroom somebody called my name.

I pulled back. “We really finna get caught.”

“Probably.”

“This your fault.”

“You dragged me in here.”

“Details.” I rolled my eyes.

I fixed my dress one more time and reached for the door, still smiling like an idiot. Apparently, I had gotten a baby shower, picked my son’s name, gave him a goddaddy, and told a man I loved him all in one night.

Cinco de Mayo had got completely out of hand.

Lee

The closer I got to my due date, the more nervous I got. Everybody kept telling me I was almost there like that was supposed to make me feel better. It didn’t. Every week Myles got bigger, my stomach got heavier, and I got closer to doing the one thing I had spent years trying not to think too hard about.

Giving birth again.

I had started dreaming about Junior too, and they weren’t good dreams. I kept ending up back in that hospital room with somebody telling me they couldn’t find his heartbeat. Sometimes it was the same doctor. Sometimes it was somebody I had never seen before. The details changed, but every dream ended the same way, with my baby gone.

Then I would wake up with my heart beating out my chest and both hands on my stomach, waiting for Myles to move. The worst night, I actually poked at him until he kicked me.

“Sorry,” I whispered when he finally moved. “Mama just checking.”

I knew Myles was fine. Every appointment said he was fine, he moved enough to make me wonder when the hell he slept, and my doctor hadn’t given me any reason to think something was wrong. None of that did much for the fear. Junior had been fine too, until he wasn’t.

I finally told Van after he caught me staring at my stomach one evening and asked why I had been so quiet. At first I told him I was good, but he just looked at me until I finally told him the truth. A few days later, he called and asked if I had plans for the weekend. That was how I ended up at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear.