Page 70 of Buy Back My Love

“I know you love him, Lee. I ain’t questioning that.”

“Then what are you questioning?”

She sighed and leaned back on her hands. “I’ve dated enough to know what I don’t want. That’s how I know the difference with Trevon. I sleep good at night with that man. I don’t have to wonder where he at, if he gone call when he say he will, or whether he really wants to be with me. He makes my life easier.”

“And JB don’t make mine easier?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You ain’t have to.”

Anika looked at me for a moment before she spoke again. “All I’m saying is you spent a lot of years waiting on JB. Even before prison, you waited on that man in one way or another. Now you home, and he still gone more than he here.”

“He runs a trucking company.”

“I know.”

“So what you want him to do? Shut his business down and sit in the house with me all day?”

“That ain’t what I said either.” She stood and grabbed her purse from the bed. “You getting defensive, and I’m not even attacking your relationship.”

“Because you over here trying to marry me off to my damn neighbor.”

Anika laughed, and just like that, some of the heaviness left the room. “I ain’t marrying you off to nobody. I just asked if you liked the man.”

“And I told you he my friend.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Get out my house.”

She was still laughing as she headed for the bedroom door. “Have fun on your little date.”

“It ain’t a date!”

“Whatever, Lee.”

I heard my front door close a few seconds later and shook my head. “I can’t stand her ass.”

What she’d said stayed with me while I got dressed, though. Fifteen years was a long time. JB had been part of my life since before I knew what the hell I wanted my life to look like. We had grown up together, lost a baby together, built Love-Lee together. I had gone to prison protecting him because, as fucked up as it probably sounded to everybody else, I had believed in us that much.

I still did. Whatever Anika thought she saw between me and Van didn’t change that.

Once I finished getting dressed, I pushed the whole conversation out of my head. I put on my jeans and tank, left the flannel open over it, slid into my Dunks, then added my hoops, bracelets, and pink Von Dutch hat. I was checking myself in the mirror when my phone buzzed on the dresser.

Outside.

“Damn. He could’ve gave me a warning.”

I grabbed my purse and headed out.

Van’s truck was sitting at the curb with the windows down and Fabolous and Tamia playing loud enough for me to hear “Into You” before I made it off the porch. When I opened the passenger door, Van looked over at me, and his eyes traveled down before coming back to my face.

I caught every bit of it. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why you looking at me like that?”