Page 84 of Buy Back My Love

“What happened?”

“Ain’t shit happened. I’m just looking for her.”

“Nigga, please. You don’t call me asking where Lee at for no reason.” The music got quieter, like she had stepped outside. “What happened?”

I looked back toward the house. “She found out.”

Anika went quiet for a second. “Found out what?”

That was when it hit me that Anika ain’t know either.

“I’ll call you back.”

“JB, found out what?”

I hung up before she could ask me anything else.

Anika ain’t seen her, Lee damn sure wasn’t at the house, and something told me she had gone to the same place she always did when shit got bad. Her mama’s house.

I headed back outside and got in the car, trying not to think too hard about what I was gonna say once I found her. Lee was mad, hurt, pissed the fuck off, whatever, but I kept telling myself she was gonna talk to me.

A few blocks from Maisie’s house, I had damn near convinced myself she was coming back with me.

I knew the script. Lee got mad at me, cussed me out, cried sometimes, and other times stopped answering my calls long enough to piss me off. But eventually we talked, and eventually we got past whatever the fuck had happened.

That was us. We had fifteen fucking years behind us. We done lost a baby, and she done went to prison and kept my name out her mouth for five whole years. She came home and still wanted me. Five years behind a wall ain’t break us, so I damn sure wasn’t ready to believe one fucked-up afternoon at a pumpkin patch was about to do it.

She was gonna be mad, and she had every right to be, but she was gonna listen. Once I got her to listen, I could fix it. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

I’d explain Hannah and how that shit started while Lee was gone, how it wasn’t never supposed to turn into all this. JJ was different, though. I loved my son, and I wasn’t apologizing for being his daddy, but his name was something else entirely. Lee and me had already picked Jabari Junior for our son, and after we lost him, my dumb ass turned around and gave that same name to the son I had with somebody else.

I ain’t have no explanation for that shit, and for the first time since I left the pumpkin patch, I wasn’t sure there was one.

I pulled into Maisie’s driveway, killed the engine, and got out. The first thing I needed to do was get Lee to come the fuck outside so I could talk to her. Everything else could wait.

I went up the porch steps and banged on the door. “Lee!”

The door swung open before I could knock a second time, but it wasn’t Leona standing there. It was Maisie.

She ain’t invite me in or look surprised to see me. She just stood in the doorway staring at me like she had been waiting for my ass to show up.

“Lee here?” I asked, trying to look past her into the hallway.

Maisie shifted enough to block my view. “She sleep.”

“I need to talk to her, Maisie. Move.”

“What part of she sleep don’t your thick skull understand?”

“I ain’t here for no shit.” Even I knew that was a lie. “I just need to talk to my girl.”

“She ain’t your girl right now.”

I tried to step forward, and Maisie reached behind the doorframe.

“Maisie, move.”

When her hand came back, she was holding the same damn shotgun she had kept around since I was a teenager. I stared at it, trying to figure out if this lady was really serious.