34. Lee #3
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Long enough.”
That made me smile a little, but the fear was still there.
Van reached over and took my hand. “I'm not asking because you need somewhere to stay. You already got somewhere to stay. I want you and Myles with me.”
I looked at him.
“When I get off work, I wanna come home to y’all. I can help with him. You don't have to be up all night by yourself, then trying to function the next day like you got it handled when you tired as hell.”
“You know babies cry, right?”
“Yes, Lee.”
“A lot.”
“I know.”
“He probably gonna wake you up.”
Van nodded toward the bassinet. “Then I’ll get up.”
“And I’m probably gonna be mean when I’m tired.”
He looked me dead in my face. “You mean when you rested.”
I snatched my hand away.
Van started laughing. “You see? We ain’t even moved in and you getting on my nerves.”
“Still want you there.”
That shut me up, and I looked over at my baby sleeping peacefully beside me. The idea of moving in with Van scared me, but not because I didn’t want it. If anything, I wanted it a little too much.
I wanted to wake up with Van there. I wanted him coming home from work and picking Myles up before he even changed clothes. I could already picture Snoop running around outside while Holly’s little ass followed behind him thinking she was the same size.
I wanted all of it. I just never wanted loving a man to make me stupid again.
I looked back at Van. “You serious about me keeping my place?”
“Yeah.”
“And six months from now you ain’t gonna start bitching because I still got somewhere else?”
“Nope.”
“Put it in writing.”
That made him laugh. “Whatever make you comfortable.”
I picked my sandwich back up. “Aight.”
Van leaned forward. “Aight what?”
“We can try it.”
A grin started spreading across his face.
“Don’t start grinning,” I warned him. “I said try.”
“I heard you.”
“And I ain’t moving shit. You got friends.”
“There she go.”
“You invited us. I just had a baby.”
“I’ll move your shit.”
“Thank you.”
He leaned over and kissed me. Right on cue, Myles made a little grunt from his bassinet.
Van pulled away and looked down at him. “See? He happy too.”
“He got gas.”
“Still counts.”
I laughed and reached for my drink. The TV had been playing low in the background the entire time, some local afternoon news neither one of us had been paying attention to. Then I heard the reporter say something about a federal drug investigation.
My hand stopped halfway to my mouth. Van turned toward the television too.
Footage showed tractor-trailers surrounded by police vehicles while federal agents moved in and out of a warehouse carrying boxes. The second I heard drugs and saw those eighteen-wheelers, my stomach dropped.
“No.”
Van reached for the remote, but before he could turn the volume up, the screen changed and JB’s face appeared. Everything in me went still.
Van turned the television louder while the reporter talked about multiple arrests and a federal drug trafficking investigation involving commercial trucks. There were raids, seized narcotics, people in custody, and the reporter said more charges were expected.
I barely comprehended any of it. I just stared at JB’s face on my TV.
For five years, I had sat in federal prison because drugs were found inside my business while JB stayed free.
He built his trucking company, had kids, bought shit, and made a whole other life while mine sat still behind concrete walls. And apparently he never stopped.
I had spent years wondering when that man was finally going to have to answer for something. Now his face was on the news, and I didn’t feel satisfied. That surprised me.
I had imagined this plenty of nights in prison. Sometimes I wanted somebody to kick JB’s door in and make him feel even a piece of what I was going through because of him. Now it was happening, and all I felt was tired.
Van muted the television. He didn’t touch me or start asking a bunch of questions. He just waited a second before saying, “You good?”
I looked at him, then at the bassinet beside my bed.
“Yeah.”
And for once, I actually meant it. JB had made his choices. I couldn’t get my five years back, couldn’t get Junior back, and couldn’t undo all the shit that happened after I came home. But I wasn’t tied to any of it the way I used to be.
Love-Lee was smaller than it used to be, but it was mine. My money was mine. Myles had my last name. And even if me and Van moved into that house together, I wasn’t giving up everything I had built just because I loved him.
I reached into the bassinet and rubbed one finger gently over Myles’s cheek. He scrunched up his face but stayed asleep.
“Your daddy got terrible timing,” I whispered.
From beside me, Van laughed under his breath.
I looked over. “What?”
“This boy ain’t even two days old and you already talking shit to him about his daddy.”
“I ain’t lie.”
“Nah,” Van said, looking at Myles. “You didn’t.”
I picked my sandwich back up while the muted news moved on to something else.
Myles slept through the whole damn thing.