1. Leona Lee Davis #2
He looked like the man who had visited me every chance he got, but standing out here, I couldn’t help comparing him to the JB I’d left five years ago.
Back then, he kept his hair low and still had that baby face that made people think he was sweeter than he was.
He’d started growing his locs after I got locked up, and now they hung around his shoulders, freshly twisted and pulled away from his face.
He’d filled out too, broader through his shoulders and chest, his black T-shirt fitting close across both.
His face was fuller now, his jaw more pronounced than I remembered.
He looked grown. His skin was the same warm brown, his dark eyes still slightly hooded, his lips still full, and that crooked smile had been getting him out of trouble with me since we were fourteen.
A diamond chain rested against his neck, and a heavy watch caught the sunlight when he shifted beside the truck.
His eyes moved slowly over my face, my clothes, and the plastic bag hanging from my hand before his smile widened.
“Come here.”
My feet moved before my mind caught up. I dropped the bag, and JB met me halfway.
The second his arms closed around me, everything I thought prison had beaten out of me came rushing back at once. I buried my face against his chest and held on. His hands pressed against my back, holding me so tight it almost hurt, and when my knees weakened, he held me up.
“I missed you,” he whispered.
A sob tore out of me before I could stop it. Then his chest shook against my cheek, and I realized he was crying too.
“I’m sorry,” he said into my hair. “I’m so fucking sorry, Lee.”
I gripped the back of his shirt. He had apologized before, in letters, during visits, and over the phone. I never knew what to say when he did.
The drugs weren’t mine. We both knew that, but there wasn’t a phone call or prison visit where we could talk about why he’d put them there or when he’d done it. The feds were always listening.
For five years, I wondered how he’d let my dream become collateral damage.
Some days I was angry enough to hate him.
Other days I missed him so bad I cried myself to sleep.
The government wanted me to help them build a case against him.
They wanted names, connections, anything that would tie JB to what they found inside my shop.
I gave them nothing.
“You came,” I whispered.
JB pulled back just far enough to look at me, his eyes red. “Where else would I be?”
I couldn’t answer.
He cupped my face with both hands and kissed me. It wasn’t one of the quick kisses we’d been allowed during visits. This one was deep and desperate, with five years of letters, phone calls, anger, and missing each other behind it.
His hands slid into my hair and held me there like he was scared I’d disappear if he let go. I kissed him back just as hard because whatever else I felt toward JB, I had missed this. I had missed him.
When we finally pulled apart, we stayed close, our foreheads touching while we caught our breath. JB brushed his thumb across my cheek before looking down at the clear plastic bag I’d dropped on the pavement.
He bent down and picked it up. “This everything?”
I nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
JB stared at the bag for a second before shaking his head. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Home.
I didn’t know what that word meant anymore, but I followed him to the truck anyway.
JB hit something on his key fob, and the truck lights flashed.
“Get in.”
I opened the passenger door and just stood there for a second. The truck had black leather seats, a big screen glowing in the middle of the dashboard, and more buttons than I knew what to do with. I couldn’t even find a regular gearshift where one was supposed to be.
I looked over at him. “What kind of spaceship is this?”
He laughed as he rounded the hood toward the driver’s side. “You like it?”
“I don’t know yet.” I ran my hand along the door panel like it might bite me. “It look like it might drive itself.”
“It almost can.”
I frowned. “I hope it’s safe.”
I climbed in carefully, trying not to touch anything I wasn’t supposed to. The seat slid forward on its own, and I jumped so hard JB started laughing before he even made it around to his side.
“Stop laughing at me!”
“I ain’t laughing at you,” he said, even though he clearly was.
I cut my eyes at him when he climbed behind the wheel. “Ain’t nobody else in this truck but me and you and I don’t see a damn thing funny.”
His grin didn’t move. I shook my head and looked back at the dashboard. Cars had changed while I was gone. Everything had.
He must’ve saw the attitude on my face because he reached over and grabbed my hand. “Fix your face. I’m just fucking with you.”
I tried to hold on to my attitude, but the corners of my mouth betrayed me.
“There she go.”
Before I could say anything smart, JB leaned across the center console and kissed me again. This one was slower, softer.
When he pulled back, he stayed close for a second. “Been waiting on this a long time, Lee.”
“So have I.”
JB finally started the truck, but before he pulled off, he reached over and squeezed my hand. “What you wanna eat?”
I’d thought about that question for years. Women spent entire nights talking about their first meal after release. We’d argue over steak, fried chicken, seafood boils, and all the places we were hitting the minute we walked out those gates.
My answer came without hesitation. “Breakfast.”
JB glanced over at me. “Breakfast?”
“A real one. I want crispy bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese, cheese grits, and a stack of pancakes drenched in syrup.”
He laughed. “Damn.”
“Don’t judge me. I been dreaming about this for years.”
“I ain’t judging you.” He shook his head, still smiling. “I’m trying to think of the best place to take you.”
“I want it to taste like somebody’s grandma with big arms cooked it.”
That made him laugh again. “I got you.”
We stopped at a breakfast restaurant almost an hour away from the prison. The parking lot was packed, cars filling nearly every space. I wrapped my hand around the door handle, but I couldn’t make myself push it open.
It wasn’t the restaurant or even the people.
It was all of it. Five years ago, walking into a crowded place wouldn’t have earned a second thought.
Now my chest tightened just thinking about it.
Everybody out there looked like they knew exactly where they were going while I was still trying to remember how to exist outside a prison fence.
JB looked over from the driver’s seat. “You good?”
I kept my eyes on the windshield for another second before nodding. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
I let out a slow breath. “I have to get used to people again.”
He studied my face like he wanted to ask more, but he didn’t. He just waited until I took another breath, opened the door, and stepped out.
Inside, conversations bled into one another. Plates clattered against tabletops. A baby cried near the hostess stand while somebody in the back laughed loud enough to turn heads. Every sound seemed to hit me at once, and for a split second I thought about turning around and walking right back out.
JB fell into step beside me his hand settling lightly against the middle of my back.
“I’m right here with you,” he said like he already knew where my mind had gone.
I let out another slow breath and kept walking.
The hostess led us to a booth by the window. I slid in first automatically taking the seat that faced the front door. JB noticed but didn’t say anything. He just sat across from me like it was the most normal thing in the world.
The waitress dropped off two menus and promised she’d be back with our drinks. I opened mine, but all the words seemed to run together. There were too many choices, too many pages, too many little decisions I hadn’t had to make in five years.
JB looked up from his menu. “Still want what you told me in the truck?”
I nodded, and when the waitress came back, he ordered for both of us.
“She gone get the bacon, make sure it’s crispy. Scrambled eggs, add cheese. Cheese grits and pancakes,” he told her before glancing at me. “And for me, over-medium eggs, turkey sausage, and a sweet tea with lemon.”
“Got it.” The waitress scribbled everything onto her pad.
The question slipped out before I could stop it. “Since when you start drinking sweet tea?”
JB looked up at me. “What?”
“You hated sweet tea. Used to swear it was nothing but liquid sugar.”
A small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “People change, Lee.”
I held his gaze for a second. “Yeah. I guess they do.”
JB reached across the table and rested his hand over mine. “I ain’t mean it like that.”
“I know.” I turned my hand over so our fingers fit together.
His thumb brushed across my knuckles. “You ain’t gotta hold everything in with me Lee.”
I looked down at our hands and let out a breath. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start anywhere.”
My eyes drifted around the restaurant until they landed on a woman carrying a toddler on her hip. The little girl had two puff balls tied with pink bows, one sock, and one shoe missing. She laughed as her mama bounced her higher and that familiar ache hit me before I could stop it.
I looked away.
JB followed my gaze but had enough sense not to ask what I was thinking so I changed the subject.
“What happened to your car?”
He blinked. “My Charger?”
“Yeah.”
A grin spread across his face. “That thing been gone.”
“You loved that car.”
JB shrugged. “I loved you more.”
I rolled my eyes, fighting a smile. His grin widened like that was exactly the reaction he’d been waiting for.
Before I could come up with something slick to say, the waitress returned with our drinks. She set my water in front of me and JB’s sweet tea beside him. He waited until she walked away before speaking again.
“I know this ain’t gone be easy,” he said.
I stared at the ice floating in my water. “I don’t want you treating me like I’m broken.”
“I ain’t trying to.”
“You keep watching me.” I tapped one finger against the side of my glass.