Page 79 of Buy Back My Love

JB looked at me like I had slapped him. “So that’s what we doing now?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You choosing this nigga over me?”

There it was. Somehow, in less than five minutes, he had managed to take me finding out about his whole other family and turn it into me choosing another man over him.

“I’m not choosing nobody over you, JB. I’m trying to leave a fucking pumpkin patch.”

“With him.”

“Yes, with him!”

JB gave a humorless laugh and looked at Van again. “You feeling real comfortable right now.”

Van’s face barely changed. “Man, I’m standing here.”

“That’s all you doing?”

“That’s all I need to do.”

JB stepped closer, and Van stayed where he was.

“JB,” I warned.

Neither one of them looked at me. JB got close enough that I could see the anger working through him, but Van still didn’t back up. He wasn’t puffing his chest out or trying to prove anything either, and I think that made it worse. JB was used to people knowing when to get the fuck out his way. Van clearly wasn’t one of them.

“You might wanna back up,” JB told him.

Van looked at him. “I’m good.”

JB’s hand dropped toward his waistband. I knew that move before he even got there.

“JB.” My whole body tensed.

Van went still, but he didn’t step back.

I moved closer, keeping my eyes on JB’s hand. “Jabari, don’t you fucking do that.”

I stepped between them so fast I nearly bumped into JB. His hand was still at his waist, and when I looked around, people nearby had started moving away from us. A woman pulled two little kids back toward the hayride, and somebody farther down the row already had a phone in their hand.

“Take your hand off that fucking gun.”

“Lee, move,” JB said.

“No.”

“Move.”

I shoved my hand against his chest. “Look around you! You finna pull a gun out at a fucking pumpkin patch because another man won’t act scared of you?”

His eyes stayed over my shoulder on Van.

I pointed toward Hannah. “Your son standing right there watching his daddy reach for a fucking gun.”

That got him. JB finally looked past me. JJ was pressed against Hannah, staring at him, and whatever anger had been on her face was gone now.

“JB,” she said. “Come on. We need to go.”