Page 55 of Buy Back My Love

I ain’t say shit because I couldn’t.

I had sat my ass down at that table planning to tell her about Hannah, JJ, and the baby, and now Lee was sitting across from me telling me them five years had been worth it because she still had me.

How the fuck was I supposed to follow that?

Yeah, baby. Glad them five years was worth it. By the way, I got a three-year-old son and another baby on the way.

I couldn’t do it. So once again, I sat my lying ass right there and ain’t tell her shit.

Two days later, we were back at the clinic for her permanent veneers. When they handed Lee that little mirror, she ain’t say nothing for a minute. She looked at herself from one side, then the other, running her tongue across her teeth before she finally smiled.

Her whole face changed.

“Damn,” she whispered.

Her hand came up to cover her mouth out of habit, but she caught herself and slowly dropped it again.

“JB, look.”

I laughed. “Shit, I’m looking.”

She smiled even bigger, and there she was.

My Lee.

The one who used to stay in somebody’s camera and smile big as hell without giving a damn who was looking. Prison had took a lot of shit from her, but watching her stand there cheesing at herself in that mirror made me feel like she had got a little piece of herself back.

“You like ’em?” she asked.

“Hell yeah. But you know I thought you was fine before them motherfuckers.”

She rolled her eyes. “Boy, shut up.”

She kept smiling though, and I couldn’t stop looking at her.

After the clinic, Lee wanted to walk around Laureles and grab some shit for everybody back home. She ain’t care nothing about no designer stores either. She wanted coffee, magnets, and little handmade shit she couldn’t get back in Mobile.

She bought Anika a wooden jewelry box, found Mama Maisie a colorful woven pouch, and damn near argued this man down over the price of a blanket. I just stood there shaking my head, because that was Lee. She could be all the way in Colombia getting her own shit together and still be thinking about everybody else.

While she was busy going back and forth with the man over that damn blanket, I slipped inside a little jewelry spot down the street. Ten minutes later, I came back out with a black box in my pocket.

That night, Lee was in the hotel room trying to figure out how the hell she was gon’ fit all the shit she’d bought into her suitcase when I tossed the box on the bed beside her.

She looked at it, then at me. “What’s this?”

“Open it.”

“JB, you done spent enough money on me.”

“Lee. Open the damn box.”

She rolled her eyes but pulled the ribbon loose. Soon as she opened it, her whole face lit up.

“Awww, JB.”

She picked up the gold bracelet and ran her thumb across the little bar in the middle before reading what I had engraved on it.

Always.