Page 191 of Buy Back My Love

Everything on his end went quiet.

“Monday?” he asked.

“Six in the morning.”

“Aight. I’m taking off.”

I smiled despite myself. “You can?”

“I just said I am.”

“I was asking before you start bossing people around at your job.”

Van laughed a little. “I’ll handle work. You good?”

The question loosened something in me. He didn’t ask whether JB was coming or make me explain why I needed him there.

“I’m nervous,” I admitted.

“I know.”

“I need you there.”

“I’ll be there.”

Monday came entirely too damn fast. Mama prayed over me at my place before we left, then somehow decided God needed a follow-up prayer once we got to the hospital parking lot.

“Mama, I think He heard you the first time.”

“He can hear me again.”

She had both hands pressed against my stomach and her eyes closed, so I let her finish. Van stood beside us holding my hospital bag, trying his hardest not to laugh.

Mama must’ve sensed it because she opened one eye. “You think this funny?”

Van straightened up immediately. “No, ma’am.”

“Then bow your head.”

His head dropped so fast I had to bite the inside of my cheek.

When Mama finally finished, she kissed my forehead before turning to Van.

“Take care of my baby.”

“I will.”

“And my grandbaby.”

Van looked down at my stomach, then back at her. “I got both of ’em.”

I turned toward the hospital before either one of them noticed my eyes getting watery. I had enough to cry about that day. I wasn’t starting in the parking lot.

Anika and Trevon were coming later. There was no point in them sitting in a waiting room from six in the morning while everybody stared at my cervix and waited for Myles to cooperate.

Getting admitted took forever. I changed into the gown, got hooked up to monitors, answered what felt like four thousand questions, got an IV stuck in my hand, and eventually they started the Pitocin. Once that medicine started running through my IV, it finally hit me that I was really about to have this baby.

I watched the monitor beside my bed constantly. Every time Myles’s heart rate changed even a little, my eyes went straight to the screen.