29. Van
Van
I’d been giving Lee space since the gender reveal. She never asked me to. I just knew when to fall back.
The pictures started showing up that same day.
She and JB were standing together cutting into that big-ass golf ball cake in one, then he was behind her with his arms around her in another, his hand resting on her stomach while blue confetti went everywhere and everybody around them celebrated their son.
I knew pictures didn’t always tell the whole story. I also knew Lee had been telling me from the beginning that her situation with JB was complicated.
Then she didn’t invite me to the reveal. I didn’t take it personally, but I wasn’t stupid either.
She was pregnant with that man’s baby, they had fifteen years behind them, and whatever they were trying to figure out clearly wasn’t finished yet. I wasn’t going to stand around forcing myself into the middle of it, so I fell back.
Lee and I still talked here and there, but I stopped being the one always checking on her or finding reasons to come by. That didn’t mean I stopped liking her. I just figured if she wanted me around, she knew how to find me. Apparently she did, because she called me three damn times tonight.
I had been sitting across from a woman I’d gone out with before, halfway through dinner, when I checked my phone and saw two missed calls from Lee. Before I could decide whether to call her back, her name popped up again.
Three calls back-to-back from Lee weren’t normal. I excused myself from the table and stepped somewhere quieter before answering.
She said nothing was wrong, but I knew better. The second I told her I was on a date, her whole attitude changed. Then she rushed me off the phone, told me not to call her back, and hung up before I could figure out what the hell had happened.
I went back to the table and finished dinner, but my mind wasn’t really on it anymore. I kept thinking about Lee calling three times and the way her whole attitude changed as soon as I told her I was on a date.
The woman I was with didn’t seem to notice at first. On the ride back to her place, she kept her hand on my thigh and leaned over the console every time she laughed. When I pulled into her driveway, she was close enough that I already knew where she thought the night was headed.
She kissed me before reaching for the door, then looked back at me. “You coming in?”
Any other night, maybe, but tonight my head was somewhere else.
“Nah, I’m heading home.”
She looked surprised. “You sure?”
“Yeah. I had a good time, though.”
She watched me for a second before nodding. “All right. Text me when you make it home.”
“I will.”
I waited until she made it inside, then pulled away from the curb and called Lee before I even made it out of the neighborhood. The first call went straight to voicemail, and when the second one did too, I sent her a text just to see if it would go through.
The text didn’t go through either, and it finally hit me. This woman had called me three times, caught an attitude because I was on a date, told me not to call her back, and then blocked me.
I shook my head and kept driving. Nah, we weren’t doing that.
It was almost midnight when I pulled into her driveway. Her house was dark except for the porch light, and for a second I wondered if she had already gone to bed. I rang the bell anyway, then rang it again when nobody answered and followed it with a knock.
A few seconds later, I heard Holly barking her little head off from somewhere inside. At least somebody was awake.
I waited another minute before hitting the bell again.
“Hold on!” Lee yelled from inside.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and waited. It took her long enough that I started wondering if she had gone back to sleep just to be petty. Finally, the lock turned and the door opened halfway.
Lee stood there in pajamas looking like I had definitely woken her up. Holly was tucked under one arm, still trying to act like she weighed enough to protect somebody.
Lee frowned at me. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Why do you have me blocked?”
Her eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I heard you. I’m trying to figure out why you standing on my porch at damn near midnight asking me that.”
“Because I called you. Went straight to voicemail. Then I texted you, and that didn’t go through either.”
Lee shifted Holly higher against her chest and shrugged. “Maybe my phone was off.”
I just looked at her. She knew I knew better.
“You blocked me.”
“Looks like you solved the mystery. Good night.”
She started closing the door.
“Lee.”
She stopped long enough to look at me again. “What?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why the hell did you block me?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you getting tonight.”
She tried closing the door again, and I stepped back instead of giving her a reason to slam it in my face.
“I’m not about to force my way into your house,” I told her. “But I came over here because you called me three times sounding like something was wrong. Now you’ve got me blocked, and I want to know what I did.”
“You ain’t do nothing.”
“Then why am I blocked?”
Lee looked down at Holly like the dog might answer for her, and when Holly licked her wrist, I almost laughed.
Lee looked back at me. “Because I felt like blocking you.”
“You called me three times while I was out, got an attitude when I told you where I was, then blocked me. But I didn’t do anything?”
“I did not have an attitude.”
“Lee.”
“I didn’t.”
“You told me not to call you back.”
“So?”
“So now I’m standing here asking what the problem is.”
“There is no problem.”
“Then unblock me.”
“No.”
I stared at her, and she stared right back.
“You're mad I was on a date?”
“No.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m not mad about your little date.”
I lifted my brows. “My little date?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Nah, I really don’t.”
Lee sighed and shifted her weight. “Van, go home.”
“You called me.”
“I know I called you.”
“Three times.”
“I know how many times I called!”
Holly jumped at the sound of her voice, and Lee immediately rubbed her little back.
I lowered mine. “Then tell me why.”
She looked away, and some of my irritation faded with it. Whatever this was, she wasn’t just mad about me going out.
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
“Lee.”
She stood there another second before stepping away from the door. “Come inside before my neighbors think I’m out here arguing with some man in the middle of the night.”
I walked in, and she locked the door behind me. I shrugged out of my jacket and laid it over the back of a chair. The second Holly hit the floor, she ran straight toward me.
“Traitor,” Lee muttered.
I bent down and rubbed Holly’s head before looking back at Lee. “What happened?”
She folded her arms. “You really wanna know?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Lee looked at me for a second before saying, “JB proposed to Hannah.”
I didn’t say anything right away because that wasn’t what I expected.
“When?”
“Tonight. Valentine’s Day. Big sign, roses, ring, whole nine.”
“Damn.”
“Exactly.”
Lee walked farther into the living room like she suddenly had too much energy to stand in one place.
“Last month, me and that man was all over everybody’s Facebook cutting a cake to find out we’re having a son. Now he down on one knee asking Hannah to marry him.”
I leaned against the back of the couch and watched her pace. “You're upset he proposed?”
She stopped and looked at me. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“And I said I don’t know.”
I nodded once, and she caught whatever was on my face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. You came over here beating on my door wanting to talk. Talk.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“So understand.”
I pushed away from the couch a little. “You left him.”
“I know that.”
“You told him y’all was done.”
“I know that too.”
“You told me you didn’t want him back.”
“I don’t.”
“Then what about him proposing has you this messed up?”
“Fifteen years, Van!”
That shut me up. Lee looked like she hadn’t meant to yell, but once she started, she kept going.
“Fifteen years. I been with that man since I was fourteen years old. I went to prison because of him. Came home thinking we was finna pick up where we left off, only to find out he had a whole other family. I know I left him. I know I don’t want him back, but that don’t mean I can erase fifteen years because I finally got enough sense to walk away. ”
She turned her face away from me, and I finally understood what I had been missing. When I saw those gender reveal pictures, I figured maybe she was finding her way back toward him. Looking at her now, I could see I had read that shit wrong.
“And everybody saw it,” she said, quieter this time. “That’s the embarrassing part. Everybody knows our business. Everybody saw that gender reveal. Now everybody saw him propose to her. My phone started blowing up before I could even process the damn post.”
I pushed away from the couch. “That’s why you called me?”
“Yes.”
That answer hit me harder than I expected. I had been deliberately giving her space for weeks, thinking I was doing the right thing. Then when everything went sideways tonight, I was who she called.
I looked at her. “And because I was on a date, you blocked me?”
Lee rolled her eyes. “Don’t start.”
“No, I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I never said it did.”
“You’re mad at me for going out with somebody when you keep telling me we’re just friends.”
“I said don’t start.”
I stared at her. “You don’t get to do that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do what?”
“Keep pushing me away every time this shit gets too real, then get mad when I act like I’m single.”
“I wasn’t mad.”
“You blocked me.”
“Because I didn’t want to talk to you!”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to picture you with somebody else!”
The room went quiet. Even Holly stopped moving around near the couch. Lee closed her eyes like she wanted to snatch the words back out of the air while I stood there looking at her.
She opened them again. “What?”
“You don’t want to picture me with somebody else.”
“You heard me.”