2. Lee #3
I had just about forgotten we weren’t alone when Wren called from behind us.
“Well...” she dragged out. “Let us go. Look like y’all got some reuniting to do.”
I pulled away from JB so fast everybody started laughing.
“Shut up.” I covered my face with one hand while Nina grabbed her purse.
“She ain’t wrong,” Nina said.
Anika came over first and wrapped me in another hug. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
“You better.”
Wren hugged me next, squeezing me tight. “I’m glad you home.”
“Me too.”
Nina kissed my cheek before looking over my shoulder at JB. “Don’t let him stress you out tonight.”
“He already has.”
“Act right,” she warned him.
JB lifted both hands. “I ain’t did nothing.”
I cut my eyes at him. “Yet?”
Everybody laughed again, and I couldn’t help laughing with them.
I thanked them for the food, the decorations, and everything they’d done to make my first day home feel like something worth celebrating. I meant it more than I knew how to say.
After they walked out, I stayed in the doorway and watched them head toward their cars. That felt strange too. Nobody had to tell me when I could see them again or how long I was allowed to talk to them. If I wanted Nina to bring her loud ass right back over tomorrow all I had to do was call.
Once I closed the door the apartment got quiet fast.
JB was standing in the living room watching me when I turned around.
“You straight?” he asked.
I rubbed my hands over my arms, suddenly feeling every bit of how long the day had been. “I’m tired.”
“I figured.”
My eyes drifted toward the hallway. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
JB nodded and leaned back against the wall. “Aight.”
The way JB looked at me before I walked away told me exactly where his mind was, and if I was being real, mine had gone there too.
I wanted him, and five years hadn’t changed that.
My body still remembered what it felt like to be touched by him, kissed by him, loved on by him.
Wanting JB wasn’t the problem. It was the thought of taking my clothes off in front of him that had my nerves jumping in my stomach like I was sixteen again.
I headed toward the bedroom before he could read too much on my face.
The bathroom was fully stocked. Anika had filled the cabinets with soap, lotion, hair products, toothbrushes, feminine products, and enough skincare to last me half the year. Plush white towels were stacked beside the shower, and a new robe hung from a hook on the door.
I smiled to myself because the whole setup had Anika written all over it, then opened the drawer beneath the sink.
A box of condoms sat inside with a sticky note stuck to the top.
Don’t be stupid. Use these.
-Anika
I picked up the note and read it twice, trying to figure out why the hell she felt the need to leave me condoms.
I knew JB had probably been with other women while I was gone. Five years was a long fucking time, and I’d told myself that more times than I could count. What was he supposed to do, sit around waiting on me?
Apparently, knowing something in theory and having to think about it for real were two completely different things.
How many had there been? Did I know any of them?
Had he brought them around his family? Had any of them slept in his bed?
The more questions that came, the more irritated I got, especially when my mind landed on the one I really didn’t want answered, had he ever made one of them feel like she was his?
I shoved the drawer closed and took that question into the shower with me.
I turned the water hotter than it needed to be, hoping standing under it would help clear my head, but instead I spent half my shower imagining faceless women kissing him, touching him, sleeping with the man I’d spent most of my life thinking belonged to me.
By the time I got out, I’d managed to piss myself off over women I couldn’t even put faces to.
Anika had left a cute pajama set folded on the bed.
The shorts sat loose around my waist, and the top didn’t fit the way it probably would’ve five years ago either.
I slid my feet into the slippers beside the bed and looked at myself in the mirror, tugging at the fabric like adjusting it enough times might make me feel comfortable in my own skin again, but no amount of adjusting made me feel any better.
I left the bedroom and found the living room empty. “JB?”
“In here,” he called from somewhere toward the back.
I followed his voice to the enclosed patio, where he was sitting in one of the folding chairs Anika had dragged outside earlier. His legs were stretched out in front of him, and a blunt rested between his fingers while smoke drifted toward the screened windows.
JB looked up when I stepped outside, and his eyes went straight to my pajama shorts before making their way back to my face.
“Damn.”
I folded my arms. “Don’t start.”
“I ain’t said nothing.”
“You said damn.”
He smiled and took another pull from the blunt. “Come sit down.”
I dragged the other chair closer, but left enough space between us to make the point before sitting down. JB’s eyes dropped to the gap, but he had enough sense not to say anything about it.
He held the blunt toward me. “You wanna smoke?”
“I haven’t in five years.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I rolled my eyes but took it from him, forgetting how strong weed could hit after five years without it. I inhaled way too hard, and the smoke burned all the way down my throat before I started coughing like somebody’s grandma.
JB leaned forward laughing and rubbed my back. “Slow down.”
“Shut up.” I pushed his hand away and coughed again. “This shit strong.”
“You asked for it.”
“I did not. You handed it to me.”
He was still laughing when he took the blunt back before I embarrassed myself any further.
We sat there quietly for a while. I could hear crickets outside the screen and cars passing somewhere in the distance, but the longer we sat there, the harder it got to pretend that damn box of condoms wasn’t still sitting in the bathroom.
JB glanced over at me. “What’s on your mind?”
I rubbed my palms over my bare thighs. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything.”
I looked at him for a second, almost changed my mind, then decided I would drive myself crazy if I didn’t ask.
“Have you been with other women since I been gone?”
JB didn’t answer immediately. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and looked down at the blunt burning between his fingers before finally bringing his eyes back to mine.
“Yeah,” he said. “I have.”
Even though I’d already known what his answer would be, hearing him admit it out loud still hit different.
I’d spent five years telling myself he deserved to move on, that I couldn’t expect a man to sit around waiting on me, and that I didn’t have any right to be mad about what he did while I was locked up.
None of that shit mattered now because the second he admitted it, I shot out of the chair so fast the legs scraped across the concrete.
“Lee.”
I heard JB behind me, but I kept walking. By the time I made it through the patio door and into the bedroom, tears were already burning my eyes.
His footsteps followed me down the hall. “Lee, you ain’t stupid. There wasn’t no use in me lying to you.”
I stopped beside the bed with my back to him and wiped at my face before turning around. “How many?”