4. Lee
Lee
My body woke me before the sun did. There wasn’t a correctional officer dragging a baton across steel bars or overhead lights snapping on without warning. No toilets flushing, women cursing, or a hundred different body odors fighting for space underneath one roof.
It was just quiet, but my eyes still opened at five-thirty on the dot like they had every morning for the last five years. I stared at the unfamiliar ceiling for a while, waiting for my body to realize I didn’t have to get up just because I was awake.
Apparently, nobody had told my body I was free yet.
I’d slept, just not worth a damn, because every time I closed my eyes, my mind went right back to JB and everything that had happened the day before.
The argument at breakfast, the apartment and all those gifts, him admitting he’d been with other women, then getting up and leaving instead of climbing into bed beside me.
The more I thought about that last part, the more it bothered me. My gut kept telling me all those women weren’t old news either. JB wouldn’t tell me who the last one was or how long ago he’d been with her, then his ass got up and left me on my first night home.
Maybe I was reaching. Maybe I wasn’t. Either way, something about that shit felt off.
I sat up and pushed the covers off me. I refused to spend my first full day home laid up in bed worrying about what JB might or might not be doing. Since I was already wide awake, I figured I might as well get up and do something with myself.
When I walked into the bathroom, the oversized soaking tub caught my eye. I hadn’t had a real bath in five years, so I figured I might as well take advantage of some of this free people shit while I had it.
I opened cabinet after cabinet until I found where Anika had stashed everything. Bath salts, bubble bath, body scrubs, face masks, candles. The girl had bought enough stuff to stock a little spa.
I opened the lavender Dr. Teal’s bath salts and smelled them. “This shit smell so good.”
While the tub filled, I noticed an Echo Dot sitting on the vanity. I smiled because I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed little stuff like being able to tell a speaker what song I wanted instead of listening to whatever somebody else had playing.
“Alexa,” I said carefully. “Play some R&B.”
The blue light spun before music started coming through the speaker. Of all the songs she could’ve picked, Beyoncé’s Love Drought came on first.
I leaned back in the tub and closed my eyes, but I didn’t even make it through the first verse before I started regretting my choice.
The whole damn song was about loving somebody through shit you probably shouldn’t, giving more than you were getting back, and still trying to figure out why you couldn’t just let them go.
Basically me and JB with a beat behind it.
“Oh, hell no. Alexa, skip.”
I tried letting the next one play, then another, but apparently Alexa was determined to have me depressed before breakfast. After about ten minutes, I gave up and pulled the drain.
I turned on the shower and washed my hair.
Anika had bought shampoo, conditioner, a deep-conditioning mask, damn near everything I could’ve needed, so I took my time with it.
I shampooed twice, worked the conditioner through my hair, and stood under the water until I was sure I’d rinsed every bit of it out.
When I got out of the shower, I towel-dried my hair until it was damp, then worked some leave-in conditioner and oil through it before brushing it back into a slick ponytail.
By the time I finished my hair, I was starting to feel like myself again.
After that, I dug through the welcome-home gifts everybody had brought me.
Nina had gotten me a blush-pink Lululemon set, and Wren gave me a brand-new pair of New Balances.
Both fit well enough that I decided somebody had clearly been asking Anika for my size before I came home.
Once I was dressed, I grabbed my keys and stepped outside.
The air had that first little hint of fall in it. It wasn’t cold enough for a jacket or anything, but the breeze felt good against my skin as I started walking through the complex.
From a distance, all the little cottage apartments looked alike, but once I got closer, I could see how everybody had made theirs their own.
One porch was covered in mums and hay bales.
Another had pumpkins lined across the steps with fake spiderwebs hanging from the railing.
Somebody across the street already had Halloween inflatables blown up in the yard, and a woman a few doors down watered bright pink flowers while country music played from her garage.
I smiled, thinking maybe I could do something like that with mine. My porch was looking sad as hell, and honestly the whole apartment wasn’t much better. Other than the bedroom set, the place was empty, which meant I needed a couch, a dining table, curtains, pictures, rugs. Lord, everything.
For the first time since I’d been home, I caught myself thinking about something that had nothing to do with JB or what I’d left behind.
I started decorating the apartment in my head while I walked, picturing cream furniture, gold accents, and warm wood.
I considered a sage-green wall for about two seconds before deciding I’d seen enough of that color in magazines over the years.
Maybe wallpaper instead, or some built-in shelves if I could find somebody to do them right.
By the time I looked up, I’d wandered halfway down another row of cottages and was still mentally spending money when a front door swung open up ahead.
“Snoop!”
I looked up just in time to see a massive Doberman come flying out of the house and straight toward me.
Every thought about curtains and couches disappeared as my whole body locked up.
My brain was screaming at me to run, move, do something, but apparently my legs had other plans because I couldn’t move a damn inch.
Before I could get myself together, that big-ass dog reached me and jumped up, sending me straight onto the sidewalk. I barely had time to process being on the ground before a wet tongue dragged across my cheek.
“Oh my God!” I threw my hands up, trying to block my face while the dog licked whatever part of me he could reach. “Stop! Get him off me!”
That only seemed to excite his big ass more. His whole body was wagging while I was half laughing, half panicking and trying to keep his tongue out of my mouth.
“Snoop! Get off her!”
Heavy footsteps came across the yard, and a man grabbed the dog by the collar and pulled him back. “Sit.”
Snoop dropped onto his behind like he hadn’t just knocked a complete stranger flat on the sidewalk.
“I’m so sorry,” the man said, keeping one hand on his collar. “He ain’t never did no crazy shit like that before. You alright?”
I was still sitting on the ground trying to get myself together when he held a hand out to me.
I looked up at him and had to take a second because of course the owner of the dog that just assaulted me had to be fine.
Chocolate skin, low haircut, full beard, broad shoulders under a plain T-shirt, and a smile that made him look a little less intimidating than he probably would’ve otherwise.
“I’m good.” I took his hand and let him pull me up. Once I was standing, I brushed off the back of my leggings and looked down at Snoop. “I think.”
The man laughed. “I’m really sorry. He love people a little too much.”
Snoop sat there with his tongue hanging out and that little nub of a tail moving so hard his whole back end was shaking. Looking at him now, you would’ve thought I imagined the attack.
“It’s okay.” I reached down and scratched behind his ears. “Honestly, it was kinda nice.”
“Nice?” The man looked at me like I had lost my mind. “He just knocked you on the ground.”
“I know, but friendly dogs ain’t really been a part of my life lately.”
The words slipped out before I thought about how they sounded. My hand slowed against Snoop’s head, and for a second, I wondered if the man was about to ask what the hell that meant, but he didn’t.
“So, I guess I should thank him for the welcome,” I added.
That got another laugh out of him. “I’m Evander.” He nodded toward the dog sitting between us. “And this hardheaded joker is Snoop.”
“I’m Leona.”
“Leona,” he repeated. “You must be new around here.”
I glanced around the complex. “Is it that obvious?”
“Kinda.” He smiled. “Ain’t a whole lot of Black folks over here and I definitely would’ve remembered seeing you walking around.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you would’ve?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “You kinda hard to miss.”
Well damn. I looked down for a second, trying not to smile too hard.
JB had been looking at me like he wanted me since the second I got home, but that was JB.
He’d known me since I was fourteen. This man didn’t know me from a can of paint, chipped tooth and all, and apparently I was still enough to catch his attention.
“Is that right?” I asked, looking back at him.
He smiled. “Yeah, that’s right.”
I shook my head, still smiling, and looked down at Snoop.
He let me off the hook. “You getting your workout in?”
“Not really. I’m just walking around trying to get familiar with the neighborhood.”
He looked down at Snoop, who had somehow turned into the most well-behaved dog in Alabama now that his daddy was standing there. “You mind if me and Snoop walk with you?”
For a second, I almost said yes. He seemed cool, Snoop had already introduced himself whether I wanted him to or not, and I wasn’t exactly in a rush to get back to an empty apartment.
But before I could answer, JB popped into my head, which irritated me all by itself.
If he happened to drive through the complex and saw me walking around with some man I’d met five minutes ago, I already knew he wasn’t gonna like that shit.
After the way he’d left me last night, I wasn’t even sure why that mattered to me, but it did.
“Maybe next time,” I told him. “I actually need to get back and finish unpacking.” That was a lie, but he didn’t need to know that.
He nodded without pushing it. “Fair enough. It was nice meeting you, Leona.”
“You too...” I paused, realizing I’d already forgotten his name.
He laughed. “Van.”
“Right. Van.” I smiled. “It was nice meeting you too.”
I headed back toward my apartment, and by the time I turned the corner, I was laughing to myself. If my life was one of them urban books I used to read, JB would’ve pulled up right when I was standing there talking to Van, lost his damn mind, and dragged me home to remind me who I belonged to.
Except this wasn’t one of my books, and JB hadn’t even stayed at my house last night, which wiped the smile right off my face.
Things between us had been heading somewhere before I asked about the women he’d been with. I knew they had. The way he’d kissed me and had his hands all over me, we were damn near on our way to fucking before I asked who the last woman was.
After that, everything changed because he wouldn’t tell me who she was or how long ago it had been, and that was the part that kept bothering me.
If it was really over and didn’t mean shit, why couldn’t he just answer the question?
I kept walking, already deciding that whoever she was, if there even was a she, she might as well start packing her shit because Big Mama was home now.