2. Lee #2
Then his eyes dropped to my mouth. It only lasted a second, but I caught it before he added, “And make an appointment to get your tooth fixed.”
Just like that, some of the excitement drained right out of me. I pressed my lips together and looked down at the purse, suddenly too aware of the chipped corner of my front tooth.
Of course JB noticed the change in my face. “I ain’t saying nothing wrong with you,” he said. “I know it bother you.”
That was the messed-up part because he was right. I’d spent years thinking about getting it fixed, but hearing him point it out still made me want to stop smiling altogether.
Anika slipped her arm through mine. “We’ll find somebody good. Bonding, veneer, whatever you decide you want.”
I nodded, blinking a few times until I trusted myself not to start crying again.
Before prison, I would’ve eaten all of this up.
I would’ve kissed JB, thanked him a hundred times, and probably already had half that ten thousand spent in my head.
Even now, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t grateful.
I had somewhere to live, a whole year without rent, money to get myself together, and a card that could buy damn near anything else I needed.
The problem was, every time JB handed me something new, the same thought kept coming back. He could give me an apartment, a Chanel bag, ten thousand dollars, and whatever else he had planned, but he still couldn’t give me them five years back.
I looked up at him. “Thank you.”
JB watched me for a second before holding one arm out. “Come here.”
I stepped into him, and he wrapped both arms around me while everybody around us started clapping and making entirely too much noise.
“I got you,” he said near my ear.
Usually, those three words would’ve made me feel better. Right then, I didn’t know what they made me feel, so I just stayed in his arms and let him say them.
The little welcome-home party carried on for the next few hours.
Nina made margaritas entirely too strong and kept turning the music back up every time Anika lowered it.
Wren filled me in on everybody from the old shop, including the clients who still asked about me and the girls who had started going to House of Hannah after the building sold.
I smiled through most of it, but hearing that name still bothered me. That building had been my dream, and now it belonged to the same Hannah who used to work under me.
Anika must’ve noticed me getting quiet because she touched my elbow and nodded toward the back door. “Come outside with me.”
The apartment had a small enclosed patio off the back with screened windows facing a strip of grass and trees. It wasn’t anything fancy, but once Anika pulled the door shut behind us, the music and everybody talking inside dropped low enough for us to finally hear ourselves think.
I leaned against the wall and folded my arms. Anika stood beside me without saying anything, which told me she already knew what I was about to ask.
“Where Mama at?”
Anika let out a breath and looked toward the yard. “At home.”
“I can see that.”
“Lee…”
“She knew I was getting out today.”
“I know.”
Something in the way she said it told me Mama hadn’t simply decided not to come. I turned toward her. “She knew about all this?”
Anika nodded slowly. “I told her.”
I waited, but when she didn’t offer anything else, I asked, “And?”
Her mouth tightened before she answered. “Mama said she wasn’t stepping into nothing JB funded.”
I let out a dry laugh. Of course she wasn’t.
“She also said, ‘Lee-Lee know where I stay when she ready to see me,’” Anika added.
That shut me up because five years had passed, and my mama had barely come to see me.
She showed up for my birthdays and most Christmases, came one Thanksgiving, and maybe a couple other times when Anika talked her into making the drive.
Every visit felt the same. She’d hug me, ask if I was okay, tell me she loved me, then spend the rest of the time making sure I knew she still hadn’t forgiven me for throwing my life away for JB.
She’d written to me a few times too, but Mama had never been good with letters. Most of them were barely a page. Now I was finally home, and somehow I was still supposed to be the one making the first move.
Anika touched my arm. “She loves you.”
“She got a funny way of showing it.”
“You know how Mama is.”
I looked away from her and back through the screen. “Yeah, I do.”
Anika leaned against the wall beside me. “She still mad you protected him.”
That pulled my attention right back to her. “She ain’t the only one.”
My sister didn’t respond, and she didn’t have to.
I looked through the screen toward the empty yard for a few seconds before asking, “You think I’m stupid?”
“No,” Anika answered, but she took just a little too long.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You hesitated.”
“No, I didn’t.” Her face scrunched up the same way it used to when we were little and she knew she’d been caught lying.
“You did, Anika. I felt it.”
She sighed and turned toward me. “I think you love him. I think you loved him before you knew what loving somebody could cost you.”
I didn’t have anything smart to say back to that.
Anika reached for my hand. “I also think you got every right to be mad. Both can be true.”
I looked down at our hands. “Did he tell you everything he was doing for me?”
“Most of it.”
“And you helped?”
“Yeah.”
I looked back at her. “Even though you know what he did?”
Anika took a second before answering. “I helped because you needed somewhere to come home to. That don’t mean I forgot why you needed it.”
I nodded because I couldn’t even be mad at that answer.
She squeezed my hand once before letting it go. “You don’t have to figure everything out today.”
“I know.”
Anika tilted her head. “Do you?”
I looked back through the glass door. JB was standing near the kitchen island laughing at something Trevon had said. A second later, he glanced toward the patio like he was checking to make sure I was okay.
“No,” I admitted. “Probably not.”
Anika rested her head against my shoulder for a second before changing the subject like only a little sister could.
“You remember when we was little and you used to let me borrow your stuff?”
“Mmhmm.” I looked down at her. “Why?”
She lifted her head. “I’ma need to borrow that Chanel bag.”
I laughed. “Girl, bye.”
“What?” Anika put on an innocent face. “You used to let me borrow your purses.”
“Them purses came from the mall.”
“And?”
“And you ain’t borrowing my Chanel.”
She sucked her teeth and pushed away from the wall. “Damn. You been home six hours and already acting brand-new.”
“I ain’t even had the bag six hours.”
“Exactly. You ain’t attached to it yet. Let me get it before you are.”
I followed her toward the door, laughing. “Hell no.”
Anika shook her head like I had personally disappointed her. “See? A little luxury and you done changed already.”
“Oh my God.” I shoved her away from my shoulder. “Get away from me.”
“I’m just saying. The Lee I remember knew how to share.”
By the time we went back inside, Nina had cut the cake, Wren had started another round of margaritas, and Trevon was trying to convince JB that the Saints were going to the Super Bowl that year. JB caught my eye from across the room, and I smiled before I could stop myself.
As the evening started winding down, Nina gathered empty plates while Wren helped Anika pack leftovers into the refrigerator. I thought JB had finally run out of surprises until he appeared beside me with a key fob dangling from one finger and nudged my arm with his elbow.
“Come on.”
I looked at the key, then back at him. “Where?”
“The garage.”
Nina stopped scraping cake into a container and looked up. “Oh, shit.”
I glanced between all of them. “What?”
Wren bit back a smile and nodded toward the laundry room. “Go see.”
JB didn’t explain anything else. He just started walking, and I followed him through the laundry room to the door leading into the attached garage.
He unlocked it, then stepped aside. “Open it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why you can’t?”
“Because it’s yours.”
That made my heart start beating a little faster as I wrapped my hand around the doorknob and pushed it open.
The garage light flickered on, revealing a black Mercedes-Benz AMG with a giant red bow centered on the hood.
I stopped just inside the doorway, staring at the shiny black paint and dark-tinted windows while everybody behind me finally shut the hell up.
I walked toward it slowly, still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that there was a Mercedes in my garage with a ridiculous bow on the hood like I was in one of them car commercials.
“JB...”
JB came to stand beside me and held out the key fob. I finally tore my eyes away from the car long enough to look at him.
“You bought me a Mercedes?”
“You always said you wanted one.”
“That was years ago.”
“So?” JB looked toward the car, then back at me. “You still like it?”
I looked at the Mercedes again and gave up trying to act like I wasn’t impressed. “Hell yeah!”
Everybody behind us laughed, and JB reached for my hand, turned it over, and placed the key fob in my palm. “Then it’s yours.”
I stared down at it for a second, and that was when everything he’d done that day really started adding up. I had a brand-new apartment with the rent paid for a year, ten thousand dollars sitting inside a Chanel purse, a credit card with no limit, and now a Mercedes parked in my garage.
JB had spent five years thinking about everything I might need when I came home, and I appreciated it. I did. I just didn’t know what any of it was supposed to do about the part of us that money couldn’t fix.
“Thank you,” I told him.
“You deserve it.”
Before I could argue with him about that, JB slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him.
The kiss started soft, but it didn’t stay that way for long.
I grabbed the front of his shirt when his mouth pressed harder against mine and one of his hands moved up my back while the other settled on my ass.