23. Lee
Lee
Life had been moving so fast I barely had time to sit down and think about any of it.
Anika was officially married now, somewhere on a beach with Trevon enjoying her honeymoon, and the set I did for her wedding had damn near put me right back on the map.
I posted the pictures, her photographer posted them, then somebody else reposted them.
Next thing I knew, my booking site was going crazy.
My books had been packed ever since, and I wasn’t complaining.
Every now and then, I’d look around the suite and still couldn’t believe I was really working out of my own spot.
Those ugly red walls were long gone. Mama helped me pick out decorations because according to her, if she left everything up to me, the whole place was gonna be pink.
Van handled most of the stuff that needed tools.
He put my desk together, mounted the TV and polish shelves, hooked up the pedicure chair, and put together the rest of the furniture.
Anika helped where she could, but she had a whole wedding to get through.
I wasn’t finna be that sister calling her about some shelves while she was trying to make sure her dress fit.
Now everything was finally where I wanted it, and I was right where I wanted to be too, behind my nail table working.
The woman sitting across from me made the whole thing feel even crazier. She was the same client whose nails I had been doing the day my life went left five years ago.
I ran the file along the edge of her last nail, brushed away the dust, then rubbed cuticle oil around her fingers.
“All done.”
She pulled her hands back and turned them under the ring light, admiring them from every angle.
“Girl, I’m so glad you back. Ain’t nobody been doing my nails right since you left. My nails been missing you.”
I laughed. “Girl, please.”
“I’m serious. I saw Anika’s wedding set online and booked the second I realized you was taking clients again.” She looked around the suite. “This feel crazy. I ain’t sat at your table in years.”
“Five.”
“Damn.”
“Tell me about it.”
She laughed, and I reached for my phone. “For real, though, thank you for coming back to me.”
“Girl, please. You stuck with me now.”
She sent my money, left me a nice tip, then stood by the door taking pictures of her nails for another two minutes before she finally left.
As soon as the door closed behind her, I started cleaning my station. I threw away everything disposable, wiped down the table and chair, and put my tools up to disinfect. I did not play about cleanliness and never had.
I had just grabbed fresh towels and started straightening the rows of polish when “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” came through the speaker overhead.
I paused and turned it up a little. “Oh, I ain’t heard this in forever.”
I was moving my hips while I cleaned when a voice came from behind me.
“You jammin’ in here.”
My whole body went still because I knew that voice. I turned around and found JB standing in the doorway holding flowers, shopping bags, and one of them little jewelry boxes.
“JB. What are you doing here?”
“I need a manicure.”
I stared at him. “Don’t come in here with that. Turn around. I got another client coming.”
“I know.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What you mean you know?”
JB just stood there while I grabbed my tablet and checked the schedule. My next appointment was booked under a name I didn’t recognize.
I read it off the screen. “Gina Burrell.”
A little smile pulled at his mouth. “That’s me.”
I looked from the tablet to him. “You booked an appointment under the name Gina?”
“I knew if I used my name you was gon’ cancel it.”
“JB, don’t play with my appointments. This how I make my money.”
“How I’m playing with your money? I paid.”
I tapped into the appointment details and stared at the screen. “You booked a full diamond set?”
“That was the most expensive thing on there.”
“You are pathetic.”
“Just do my nails.”
I looked at him. “You want the full diamond set?”
JB gave me a look. “Hell nah. Give me a manicure like you used to.”
“Then sit down.”
He walked farther into the suite and held the flowers toward me first, but I didn’t touch them.
“I ain’t ask for none of that.”
“Just take them.”
“No.”
His mouth tightened, but he pushed the bouquet closer. “Lee.”
“JB, I said no.”
He finally gave up and set the flowers on the counter before lifting one of the shopping bags.
“At least look at what I got you.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You don’t even know what it is.”
“Don’t matter.”
I pulled my chair out and sat down. “You came for a manicure, right? Sit.”
JB stared at me another second before setting everything beside the flowers and taking the client chair.
“You stubborn as hell.”
“Give me your hand.”
He put his hand on the table and let out a long breath. “I been trying to talk to you.”
“And I been trying not to talk to you.”
“Lee, just hear me out. I been trying to tell you what happened.”
I picked up my file and started working on his nails. “Then talk.”
JB watched me for a second before finally saying, “Me and Hannah wasn’t supposed to turn into all that.”
I looked up. “A house and two kids just happened?”
“That ain’t what I’m saying.”
“Sound like it.”
“JJ wasn’t planned.”
“Neither was this new baby, I guess.” He didn’t answer, and I gave a little laugh before going back to his hand. “That’s what I figured.”
“Lee, when you came home, I ain’t know how to tell you.”
“You open your mouth and tell the truth. That’s usually how it works.”
“I knew you was gon’ leave.”
My hand stopped, and I looked at him. “So instead, you let me walk around looking stupid.”
“I was trying to figure everything out.”
“For who? Because it damn sure wasn’t for me.”
JB looked away. I went back to filing because if I kept staring at him, I was gonna get mad all over again, but the one thing I still couldn’t make sense of came right back to me.
“And out of everything you did, you really named that baby Jabari Junior?”
His eyes came back to mine. “Lee.”
“Nah. Don’t Lee me. What made you think that was okay?”
JB didn’t answer.
“That was our son’s name.”
“I know.”
“Then why would you do that?”
“I fucked up.”
My eyes started burning, and that only pissed me off more. I set his hand down on the towel between us.
“You keep saying you fucked up like it was one thing. It wasn’t just his name. It wasn’t just you having a baby with her. You was coming home getting in my bed too.”
“Lee.”
“You was sleeping with me and her at the same time.”
“I…”
“Raw.” www
That shut him up, and I dropped the file on the table. “You don’t get to do that to people, JB. I trusted you with my body. You could’ve gave me something. I got my first prenatal appointment Monday, and if they run them tests and tell me you gave me something…”
The words were already out before I realized what I had said.
JB frowned. “Your what?”
I reached for the file again, wishing like hell I could take the last ten seconds back.
“Lee. What you mean prenatal appointment?”
“Leave it alone.”
He pulled his hand completely away from me. “Lee, you pregnant?”
There wasn’t any point trying to get around it now. “Yeah.”
He stared at me. “Yeah what?”
“I’m pregnant.”
JB froze for a second, then his eyes moved over me like he was trying to see something that wasn’t showing yet.
“Mine?”
I stared at him. “Who else would it be?”
The biggest smile spread across his face. “You serious?”
“Yes.”
He reached across the table toward my stomach, and I slapped his hand away before he got there.
“Don’t.”
His smile slipped a little. “Don’t what? Lee, we having a baby.”
“I know.”
“So come on. We can fix this.”
I sat back in my chair because I already knew where he was about to take this. “JB.”
“I’m serious. I come home, we work our stuff out, and we raise our baby.”
“Don’t start making this something it ain’t.”
His smile disappeared. “What you mean something it ain’t? You pregnant with my baby.”
“And?”
“What you mean, and? We’re having a child together.”
“We can co-parent.”
JB leaned back like I had just insulted him. “Co-parent? That’s my baby too, Lee.”
“I know. That’s why I’m telling you.”
“So what? You gon’ have my son over there and I’m supposed to come pick him up on weekends or something?”
“First of all, you don’t even know what I’m having. Second, we’ll figure out a schedule when the time comes.”
“A schedule?”
“Yes, JB. A schedule.”
He shook his head. “I don’t do no damn schedules with my kids.”
I folded my arms. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It mean I’m a full-time father. I need to be under the same roof with my kids.”
“How the hell you plan on doing that with two different baby mamas?”
JB leaned back in the chair like he had really thought this mess through. “In a perfect world, all of us would live together.”
I stared at him for a second, waiting for him to smile or laugh or do something to let me know he was joking.
“Excuse me?”
“I said in a perfect world.”
“You done lost your damn mind.”
“See, that’s exactly why it won’t work. You and Hannah both too stubborn for that.”
That time I did laugh because there was no way this man was sitting in my nail chair blaming me and Hannah for why his little sister-wives plan wouldn’t work.
“So what’s your next bright idea?”
“I’ll buy you a house in my neighborhood.”
“Hell no.”
His eyebrows went up. “Why not?”
“Because you would treat that house like it was yours too. Coming over whenever you feel like it, letting yourself in, doing whatever you wanna do.”
“Lee, that’s my baby.”
“And you can see your baby. That don’t mean you need a key to my house.”
JB shook his head. “You always gotta make stuff difficult.”
“No. You just don’t like hearing no.”
“Whatever you wanna call it.”
“The next house I get, I’m buying it myself.”
He gave me a look. “With what?”
I frowned. “What you mean, with what?”
“You know exactly what I mean. You got a record now, Lee. You think buying a house gon’ be easy?”
That hit a nerve. I set the bottle I had been reaching for back on the table.
“Don’t.”
“I’m being real with you.”
“No, you being an asshole.”
“Face it. You need me.”
I sat back and stared at him. “I don’t need you.”
“You do.”
“No, JB. I don’t.”
He sucked his teeth, and whatever patience I had left disappeared.
“You the reason I got a record in the first place.”
His jaw tightened, but he ain’t say nothing.
I pointed around the suite. “You see this? I had to figure this out because people kept shutting doors in my face over a record I got protecting you.”
“Lee.”
“No. You don’t get to throw that felony in my face like I did that to myself.”
JB looked away.
“I figured out somewhere to work. I’ll figure out somewhere to live too.”
“You acting like I said I wasn’t gon’ help.”
“I never said you couldn’t do for your child.”
“Then what are we arguing about?”
“Because you doing for your baby don’t mean you get to run my life.”
He shook his head. “I’m not trying to control you.”
“Then quit trying to move me down the street from you.”
“I’m trying to be there for my kid.”
“Then be there.” I looked straight at him. “You don’t gotta be my man to be a daddy.”
His face tightened, and I could tell that was the part he didn’t wanna hear.
“That ain’t how I do my family.”
I almost laughed again. “Well, you should’ve thought about that before you made two of them.”
JB went quiet, and I let him sit with that for a second while I started putting some of my tools away.
He finally leaned forward. “Lee, come on. I love you. You know you the woman I always saw myself marrying. This baby is what we talked about forever. We can finally have what we wanted.”
There was a time when hearing him say that would’ve been everything I wanted, but it didn’t hit the same anymore.
“You keep talking about what we wanted like you ain’t go build it with somebody else. You already made a family, JB. This baby don’t erase that.”
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“You really gon’ have my baby and act like we strangers?”
“I never said you was a stranger.”
“Then what am I?”
I looked at him. “This baby’s father.”
He didn’t like that answer. I could see it all over his face, but I wasn’t changing it to make him feel better.
“You can be this baby’s daddy. I want you to be this baby’s daddy. But you are not my man.”
JB stared at me for a long second, and I looked past him at the clock on the wall.
“You done?”
“No.”
“Well, I am.”
He leaned back in the chair. “We ain’t finished talking.”
“You booked almost three hours of my time under a fake name. I gave you your manicure and your conversation. That’s enough.”
JB looked over at the flowers and bags sitting by the door. “At least take your stuff.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You ain’t even opened it.”
“I don’t need to.”
He stood up and grabbed his jacket, but before leaving, he stopped with his hand on the door.
“What time your appointment Monday?”
I wasn’t ready for him sitting beside me at no doctor’s appointment yet. “I’ll let you know what the doctor says.”
“That’s my baby too, Lee.”
“I know. And I’ll keep you informed.”
JB sucked his teeth and walked out, leaving every gift right where he had put it.
I stood there looking at the closed door for a second before going back to cleaning my station. The crazy part was I still had over two hours blocked off before my next client because this fool had booked the longest service on my site just to make sure I couldn’t rush him out.
I shook my head, thinking about the fake name he had used. “Gina Burrell.”
I couldn’t even stay mad without wanting to laugh. At least I had time to order some food before my next client.