10. Lee
Lee
Dear Patrice,
Freedom is weird as hell because everybody in there talks about getting out like the second you walk through them gates, everything supposed to be good.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy as hell to be home.
I can eat when I want, sleep when I want, take a shower without somebody rushing me, and go wherever I feel like going without asking anybody for permission.
I got my own place, my own car, and my house is finally furnished and looking how I want it.
I got everything I spent five years wishing I could have back, but I ain’t expect to get lonely being home sometimes.
JB stays gone driving those damn trucks, and most nights I end up here by myself.
I know that probably sound crazy coming from me because I spent five years wishing I could get some peace and privacy.
Now I got so much of it that sometimes I leave the TV on while I’m cleaning up or doing something around the house just so it ain’t so damn quiet.
I know you probably laughing, but you’ll understand when you get your ass out.
Me and my mama been getting along too, which I know you probably wasn’t expecting after all the shit I used to tell you about her.
Ever since she popped up over here one day, we’ve pretty much been together every day.
We’ve been running all over Mobile getting stuff for my house.
Hobby Lobby, TJ Maxx, At Home, Ross, Walmart, all them damn stores.
I’ve even spent the night at her house a couple times and slept in my old bedroom.
I’m twenty-nine with a whole house of my own and still went home to sleep at my mama’s house, so don’t start talking shit when you write me back.
It felt good being over there with her again.
I’ve been thinking about getting back into nails too.
The nail game done changed so much while I was gone.
Everybody got private suites now instead of being in regular shops, and I’ve been looking into getting one of my own.
I don’t know if I’m ready to jump right back into having another full shop yet, but I know I’m ready to work again.
Sitting around the house waiting on JB to come home ain’t gonna work for me, and I miss doing nails.
I miss having my own money coming in and something that belongs to me.
Anyway, I put some money on your books, so check and make sure it hit. Don’t spend all that shit on junk food either. I already know how you are. Write me back and let me know how everything going in there.
—Lee
I folded the letter, slipped it into an envelope, and set it on the kitchen counter.
I had just finished writing Patrice’s information across the front when the doorbell rang.
When I opened the door, the delivery driver was already heading back toward his truck, leaving a stack of boxes across my porch.
I’d been ordering stuff for the house all week.
A new bakeware set, cutting boards, power strips, a shoe rack, an air fryer, mixing bowls, and more throw pillows than I probably needed.
Somehow, damn near everything I’d ordered decided to show up on the same day.
I grabbed as many boxes as I could carry and was trying to get them through the front door without dropping anything when I heard a dog bark from somewhere behind me.
I knew that bark. I shifted the boxes in my arms and looked over my shoulder to find a black Jeep slowing down in front of my house with Snoop’s big head hanging out the passenger-side window.
He barked again when he saw me, looking happy as hell like he hadn’t knocked me flat on my ass the first time we met.
“Hey, boy,” I called.
The Jeep stopped at the curb, and the passenger window came down the rest of the way. Van leaned over enough to see around Snoop, then looked from the boxes in my arms to the rest still sitting on the porch.
“Thought that was you.” He smiled. “What, you moving in all over again?”
“No.” I laughed as the top box started slipping and caught it against my chest. “Apparently I blacked out and ordered everything I had sitting in my cart at once.”
“You need some help?”
“Yes, please, before I drop this shit.”
Van parked along the curb and got out, but Snoop tried to follow him across the center console. “Nah, you stay in there,” Van told him before shutting the door. He looked over at me as he came up the walkway. “Can’t have you knocking my neighbor down again.”
“See, now you admitting he did it.”
“I ain’t admit nothing.” He reached me and took the top three boxes out of my arms. “Where you want these?”
“The kitchen island is fine.”
I stepped aside and let him go in ahead of me.
Lord knows I had already noticed Van was good-looking, but watching him walk into my house did something a little different.
His waves were laid like he brushed them for a living, and that plain T-shirt fit across his back and shoulders way too damn well.
Something about him reminded me of one of them nineties R&B singers my mama used to have playing around the house, just without all the leather and rain.
Van carried the boxes inside and set them on the kitchen island before heading right back out for the rest. I grabbed a couple of the smaller ones and followed him, and between the two of us, it didn’t take long to clear the porch.
He set the last box on the island and looked around the living room. “You did your thing with this place.”
“Thank you.” I smiled as his eyes moved around the room before landing on one of the lamps I’d bought from his family’s estate sale.
A smile spread across his face. “Man, they really do look good in here. Memaw would’ve loved this setup.”
“I was hoping I did ’em justice.”
“You did.”
Van kept looking around until his attention landed on the big-ass TV still sitting on the floor in front of the media console. “You gonna mount that?” he asked.
I followed his eyes and crossed my arms. “My boyfriend was supposed to hire somebody to come do it for me, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”
Van looked over at me, and I could tell from the little smile on his face that he remembered our conversation at the estate sale. “It’s complicated, huh?”
I smacked my teeth. “He’s a truck driver. He’s gone most of the time, so he hasn’t had a chance to handle it.”
“You ain’t gotta explain nothing to me.”
“I wasn’t explaining.”
“Sounded like it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, and he smiled before nodding toward the TV.
“I can mount it for you.”
“Oh, no, you ain’t gotta do that.”
“I know I don’t have to.” Van slid his hands into his pockets. “I don’t mind.”
I glanced toward the front window where Snoop was still waiting in the Jeep. “Weren’t y’all headed somewhere?”
“Dog park, but it can wait. I’ll take him back home and grab my tools while I’m there.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Van headed toward the door. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
He gave me a quick nod before walking out, and I stood there watching through the window until he got back into his Jeep and drove down the street. As soon as his Jeep disappeared, I grabbed my phone and called Anika.
She picked up after a couple rings. “Girl, what’s up?”
“Guess who was just in my house.”
“Who?”
“Van.”
Anika went quiet for a second. “Wait. Neighbor bae?”
“Girl.” I laughed. “Yes, Van.”
“What the hell he doing at your house?”
“He drove past while I was trying to get all these boxes inside and stopped to help me. Then he saw my TV still sitting on the floor, and now he done went back home to get his tools so he can mount it.”
“Oh, okay. Neighbor bae handy too.”
“Anika, I’m serious.” I started pacing around the kitchen. “Should I tell him don’t worry about it? I don’t need JB finding out some man was over here mounting my TV.”
“Girl, just lie and say you hired somebody to do it.”
I stopped pacing. “Anika.”
“What? How he gon’ know?”
“That’s not the point. I don’t want it looking like I’m doing something I’m not supposed to be doing.”
“Lee, the man is hanging a TV, not laying you across the bed. Let Neighbor Bae mount the damn TV and keep it moving.”
I laughed even though I was trying not to. “You are no help.”
“I’m plenty help. Your TV about to be on the wall, ain’t it?”
“Bye, Anika.”
She laughed. “Call me later.”
I hung up and set my phone on the island just as somebody knocked on the front door. Van hadn’t been gone long, but considering he lived right down the street, I guessed it didn’t take much time to drop Snoop off and grab what he needed.
When I opened the door, he was standing there with a tool bag in one hand and a drill in the other. “That was fast.”
“Told you I’d be right back.” He lifted the bag a little. “You still want me to do it?”
Anika’s words ran through my head again before I stepped aside. “You already came back with all that stuff. Might as well.”
Van laughed as he walked past me. “Sound like you doing me a favor now.”
“Don’t start.”
He carried everything over to the TV and got to work while I opened a couple of the boxes at the kitchen island.
Every now and then he’d ask me for something or have me come look at where he planned to put the TV before he drilled into the wall, but for the most part, he seemed to know exactly what he was doing.
At one point, I looked over and caught him staring at the little level thing for what felt like forever. “Is it crooked?”
“No.”
“Then why you keep looking at it?”
“Because I want to make sure it stays not crooked.”
I laughed. “Okay, Mr. Handyman.”
Van glanced over his shoulder at me. “You want it done right or you want it done fast?”
“Both.”
“That’s not how this works.”
I left him alone after that and went back to unpacking my kitchen stuff. A few minutes later, I heard him set the drill down, and when I looked over again, he was taking off the dark button-down he’d been wearing over his white tank.
I tried not to stare, I really did, but the tank fit close enough for me to see exactly why he had no business taking that shirt off in my house.
His arms were cut, his chest filled out the front of it, and when he reached up to finish working on the mount, his tank lifted enough for me to catch the V at the bottom of his stomach disappearing into his jeans.
I turned back toward my boxes before he caught me looking and grabbed two bottles of water from the refrigerator. “You want some water?”
“Yeah, appreciate it.”
I carried one over and handed it to him. “You hot?”
Van twisted the cap off and took a long drink before answering. “A little bit.”
“Well, you the one came over here volunteering for manual labor.”
He smiled. “I ain’t complaining.”
I went back to the kitchen before my eyes got me in trouble.
About twenty minutes later, Van had the TV mounted and was standing in front of it checking his work.
I came around the island to look, and for the first time since I’d finished furnishing the place, the living room actually looked complete.
“Oh, yeah. That looks way better.” I pulled out my phone and opened Cash App. “How much I owe you?”
Van looked over at me. “How about lunch and we call it even?”
I lowered my phone. “You know I have a man.”
“I remember.”
“Then why you asking me to lunch?”
“Because I’m hungry, and you asked what you owed me.” He smiled. “Lunch ain’t an affair, Leona.”
I stared at him for a second because technically, he wasn’t wrong. It was lunch. We weren’t going to a hotel or back to his house. We were going to eat some food, and I damn sure wasn’t planning on doing anything with him.
Still, I could already hear JB asking me why the hell I was out eating with another man, and right behind his voice came Anika’s. Girl, just lie. I pushed Anika’s voice out of my head and looked at Van. “Where you trying to go?”
“How about Little Tokyo?”
I tilted my head. “What kind of food is that?”
“Japanese.”
“I don’t know if I ever had Japanese food.”
Van looked at me for a second. “You like Chinese?”
“Yeah.”
“It ain’t the same, but I think you’ll like it.”
I looked down at my phone, still open to Cash App, before locking the screen. Going to lunch with him was one thing, but I needed to make sure we were on the same page about what it was. “Okay, but just so we clear, this ain’t a date.”
Van smiled as he bent down and started putting his tools back in the bag. “I ain’t call it one.”
“You was trying to take me to dinner the other day.”
“And you told me you had a man.”
“Exactly.” I watched him zip the bag and stand up like none of this was a big deal to him.
“And you still got one as far as I know, so we going to lunch.”
I narrowed my eyes because that little smile was back on his face. “Why you smiling then?”
“Because you the one trying real hard to make sure this ain’t a date.”
“I’m making sure you know.”
Van laughed and reached for his tool bag. “I know, Leona.”
I still wasn’t completely convinced he wasn’t messing with me, but I wasn’t about to stand there arguing about a date I swore wasn’t a date either. I grabbed my purse off the island. “Good. Come on before I change my mind.”
Van picked up his tool bag and followed me outside. “You riding with me?”
“Nope. I’ll follow you.”
He looked over at my Mercedes in the driveway before looking back at me. “You scared to ride with me?”
“I’m not scared of you. I got my own car, and we’re going to the same place.”
“That’s usually a reason to ride together.”
“Van.”
He laughed and held up his free hand. “Alright. Follow me.”
I locked my front door while Van headed toward his Jeep, then climbed into my own car. As I backed out of the driveway behind him, I caught myself smiling and shook my head. I didn’t know what the hell I was smiling about. The man had mounted my TV, and now I was buying him lunch. That was it.