Page 72 of Buy Back My Love

Van stared at me before he started laughing. “You don’t know the goat?”

“That’s what I said. Move.”

I should’ve left his ass right there laughing at me, but I let him talk me into holding the cup out anyway. The greedy motherfucker shoved his head through the fence so fast that I jumped, dropped the whole cup, and sent feed everywhere.

Van damn near folded in half.

“Shut up! He attacked me!”

“That goat didn’t attack you, Lee.”

“He snatched the cup out my hand!”

“He’s eating!”

“Well, he rude as hell.”

When we walked away from the petting zoo, my face hurt from laughing. We grabbed caramel apples and hot apple cider from one of the stands and wandered around without any real plan, stopping whenever something caught my attention. It was probably childish as hell, but I was having fun.

Eventually, we made our way toward the actual pumpkins, where I quickly discovered that picking one was apparently supposed to be a lot simpler than I was making it.

“That one ugly.”

Van looked down at the pumpkin I had just rejected. “What the hell makes a pumpkin ugly?”

“It got a dent.”

“You’re cutting it up.”

“I still gotta take it home first.”

“Lee, you’ve been looking at pumpkins for ten minutes.”

“Don’t rush me.”

He stared at me for a second before looking toward the pavilion. “Stay right here. I’m getting a wagon before you decide we need twelve of these motherfuckers.”

“I only need one!”

Van waved me off and kept walking.

I took another bite of my caramel apple and wandered farther down the row, looking over the pumpkins while I waited on him. I had just bent down to turn one around when somebody called a name from somewhere behind me.

“Jabari!”

My head came up before I could stop it.

Plenty of niggas were named Jabari. Still, I turned.

It took me a few seconds to find him through all the people moving around, but once I did, I knew that walk, those shoulders, the back of that damn head.

JB.

For half a second, I was confused more than anything. He had just told me he wouldn’t be back until Sunday night, maybe Monday morning, but there he was standing near one of the snack stands like he hadn’t been hundreds of miles away the last time I talked to him.

Then a woman stepped into view beside him, and it took me a second to place her.

Hannah.