2. Lee
Lee
JB didn’t tell me where we were going. He just drove while I sat in the passenger seat with my arms folded across my chest, watching Mobile pass outside the window.
Some parts looked exactly the same. Other parts had changed enough to make me feel like I’d been gone longer than five years.
Stores I remembered were gone. New apartment complexes sat where empty lots used to be, and every few miles there was something else reminding me that the world had kept moving without me.
JB kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other near the center console. A few times, I caught him looking over at me, but after what happened in the restaurant, he had enough sense not to stare.
“Where we going?” I finally asked.
“You gone see.”
I cut my eyes at him. “I’m not in the mood for games, JB.”
“I know.” He turned onto Schillinger Road. “We almost there.”
The farther we drove, the more I tried to figure out what he had planned. Maybe he’d rented a hotel suite. Maybe he was taking me shopping. Whatever it was, I already knew money was involved because that was how JB handled damn near everything.
When my mama put me out, he paid the deposit on our first apartment.
When I got pregnant, he’d bought so much baby stuff before I even hit my second trimester you would’ve thought the child was coming the next week.
After we lost our son and I barely knew what to do with myself, he bought me the nail kit that eventually turned into Love-Lee.
That was JB. If something was wrong, he bought something, fixed something, or paid for something. Before prison, I loved that about him, but now I wasn’t so sure.
He turned into an apartment complex, but it didn’t look like any apartments I was used to seeing.
The units looked like little luxury cottages lined up along quiet streets, with small porches, attached garages, trimmed grass, and trees planted along the sidewalks.
Everything looked brand-new and expensive as hell.
I leaned forward and looked through the windshield. “Who stay out here?”
JB didn’t answer. He slowed in front of one of the cottages and pulled into the driveway.
A gold-and-white balloon arrangement was tied near the porch, and through the front windows, I could see people moving around inside.
I looked at him. “What is this?”
He cut the engine. “Something I want you to see.”
That didn’t answer a damn thing, but JB climbed out before I could ask anything else. I stayed where I was for a second, staring at the balloons moving in the breeze, until the front door opened and Anika stepped onto the porch.
The second I saw my little sister, every question in my head disappeared. Anika’s long dark hair fell past her shoulders, framing her soft cheeks and big brown eyes that were already filling with tears. She covered her mouth with both hands before taking off down the walkway.
“Lee-Lee!”
I barely got my door open before she reached me. Anika threw her arms around me so hard I stumbled back against the truck, and I held on just as tight while she cried into my shoulder.
“Look at you,” she said when she finally pulled back, grabbing my face between both hands. “You’re really home.”
“I’m really home.”
She hugged me again before I could finish saying it.
“You’re so little,” Anika murmured, rubbing both hands up and down my back. “I know you lost weight, but seeing you out here...” She shook her head. “It hit different.”
I smiled through my tears. “I’m okay.”
She stepped back and looked me over from head to toe. “We gone put some meat back on your bones.”
“You act like I’m starving.”
“You damn near is.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I missed you too.”
Behind her, Trevon came down the walkway with his hands in his pockets.
I knew him from pictures and a couple video visits, but this was the first time I’d ever seen Anika’s fiancé standing in front of me for real.
He was taller than he looked on a screen, lean but broad through his shoulders, with smooth brown skin, a fresh low cut, and neatly trimmed hair along his chin.
He had one of those young-looking faces that probably got him mistaken for being younger than he was until he opened his mouth.
He smiled as he reached us. “Welcome home.”
“Thank you.”
I opened my arms, and Trevon gave me one of those careful little hugs people gave when they weren’t sure if they were allowed to touch you like family yet.
Anika smacked his shoulder. “You can hug her better than that. She family.”
Trevon looked at her. “It must be a cold day in hell if you actually giving me permission to hug another woman.”
I laughed, and before Anika could come back with something smart to say, the front door flew open again.
“Move out the way!”
Nina came rushing down the porch in heels too damn high for the middle of the day, her long curls bouncing around her shoulders.
“My bitch is back!”
I barely had time to brace myself before she wrapped me in a hug.
“Nina, you still loud as hell.”
“Cause you ain’t been here to tell me to keep it down.” She squeezed me tighter. “I missed you telling me to shut up.”
Wren came behind her at a much calmer pace, though tears were already running down her face. She’d cut her hair into a short bob since the last picture she’d sent me, and something about seeing her in person made me realize just how much time had passed.
“Hey, boss lady.”
That one got me, and I opened my arms for her. Wren folded into them before I could get myself together.
“Don’t call me that,” I whispered.
“You always gone be my boss lady.”
I held her a little tighter before letting go.
JB stayed back near the truck while everybody got their turn with me. For once, he didn’t interrupt or try to run the moment. He just stood there and let me have it.
Anika wiped her tears and grabbed my hand. “Come on. We been waiting all day.”
“For what?”
“You’ll see.”
I looked back at JB. He smiled but didn’t say anything.
The second Anika opened the front door, music spilled out onto the porch.
A welcome banner stretched across the living room wall with more gold-and-white balloons around it, and a cake sat on the kitchen counter with WELCOME HOME LEE written across the top in gold icing.
Wings, sliders, fruit, and finger sandwiches covered the island, and near the sink, a margarita machine hummed beside a stack of plastic cups.
I stopped in the doorway and looked around.
The place wasn’t furnished yet, just a few folding chairs, two card tables, and all the decorations they’d brought in.
Beyond the living room was a clean kitchen with white cabinets, dark fixtures, and shiny new appliances that looked like nobody had touched them yet.
Anika squeezed my hand. “Surprise.”
I looked at her, then over at JB. “Whose place is this?”
JB stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Yours.”
For a second, I thought I’d heard him wrong. “What?”
“This yours, Lee,” JB repeated.
I turned back toward the living room and looked around again, this time actually seeing the place for what it was. The empty living room, the brand-new kitchen, the little porch I’d passed on the way inside, all of it belonged to me. “You got me an apartment?”
“It’s brand new too,” Nina called from the kitchen, already helping herself to the margarita machine. “You the first person to ever live in here.”
JB ignored her and kept his attention on me. “I paid the rent up for the year.”
My head snapped back toward him. “A year?”
He nodded like paying twelve months of somebody’s rent at once was regular shit. “Utilities too. Power, water, internet. All that handled.”
I didn’t even know what I was supposed to say to that. JB walked farther into the living room and motioned around the empty space. “I ain’t furnish it because I knew you’d want to pick your own stuff. Whatever you want, get it. Make it yours.”
“JB...”
“I’m serious.”
That almost got me crying again, and I turned my face before the tears could start, but Anika had already caught me and moved closer to rub my back.
“Don’t start crying,” she warned, even though her own voice sounded shaky. “Because then I’m gone cry again.”
“I’m not crying,” I told her while wiping under my eyes.
“You definitely crying,” Wren said from behind us.
I laughed and looked back at her. “Shut up.”
Everybody started laughing, which gave me just enough time to pull myself together before JB walked over to the kitchen counter and picked up a large black Chanel box with the name printed across the center of the lid.
Nina let out a whistle. “Here he go.”
I looked from her to the box as JB brought it over. “What is that?”
“A gift.”
“I can see that. What’s in it?”
He held the box out to me. “Open it.”
I gave him a look before taking it. There was tissue paper inside and a black dust bag with CHANEL printed across the front. I already knew whatever was in there cost too damn much, and when I pulled the dust bag open and saw the black quilted purse inside, I looked right back at him.
“JB, boy...”
He laughed. “You like it?”
“Do I like it? This bag cost too damn much.”
“That ain’t what I asked.”
I ran my fingers over the leather before lifting the purse out. It was the kind of bag I’d saved pictures of years ago while knowing damn well I wasn’t about to spend that kind of money on one.
The purse felt heavier than I expected, so I opened it and just stared. Bundles of cash filled the bottom. “What the hell is this?”
“Ten.”
I looked up at him. “Ten what?”
“Thousand.”
My fingers tightened around the bag. “You put ten thousand dollars inside a Chanel purse?”
JB reached into it like we weren’t already past ridiculous and pulled out a black credit card.
“And this.”
I looked at the card, then at him. “What about it?”
“It ain’t got no limit. Use it for furniture, clothes, whatever you need.”
“JB, I can’t take all this.”
“You can.” He put the card back inside the purse. “You need a whole new wardrobe. Furniture. Groceries. Whatever else you need to get yourself straight.”