Page 10 of What the Leos Burned (BLP Signs of Love #6)

Take Your Own Advice

Erykah Badu’s “Next Lifetime” played softly in the background of the dimly lit bar that was tucked off Jefferson Street.

Low-hanging pendant lights and flickering votives were tucked into glass jars on the tables.

The walls were brick with mismatched artwork.

It was the kind of place where the music was jazzy, the drinks were strong, and everyone pretended not to people-watch, while doing exactly that.

Love sat in the corner booth by the window, with her glass of wine untouched. She swirled it absently, watching the deep red liquid spin. Her body was here, gathered into the comfort of the bar’s charm, but her mind was somewhere else entirely.

“So . . .” Quiyanna began and lifted one perfectly sculpted brow. “We’re not gonna talk about how Westside Zay was in your meeting today?”

Love didn’t answer. She looked at her best friend, dramatically rolled her eyes, and continued stirring the glass with one elbow on the table, balancing her head on her hand.

Tara jumped in and widened her eyes like she did every time she got excited about something. “Girl, I still can’t believe it. I had to physically stop myself from fangirling. It felt surreal.”

“I bet he’s finer in person,” Quiyanna added, waving a fry in the air. “Like . . . disrespectfully fine. It’s givin’ trouble.”

“Big Leo energy,” Tara continued. “The confidence, the presence. I mean, you can’t not look at him.”

Love stayed quiet and listened to them volley back and forth.

“He dated someone I know before,” Tara added casually. She took a sip of her mojito.

That made Love’s eyes lift. “Oh?”

Tara nodded. “Yeah. A girl I went to school with back at UCLA. She said he’s . . . charming but super closed off. She said he was stubborn, a bit arrogant, and didn’t let anyone get too close. Typical untouchable artist type.”

“Sounds like a typical male Leo,” Quiyanna added.

Love scoffed. “Tell me about it.” She mumbled under her breath absentmindedly.

Both women turned to face her at the same time.

Quiyanna squinted. “Wait. What do you mean by that?”

Love hesitated a moment, then she picked her glass up and took a sip.

“Nothing, really. I mean, I knew him before. Personally.”

Tara leaned forward, stunned. “You know him? Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“We were . . . familiar . . . with each other a long time ago,” Love explained, as she carefully chose her words. “I don’t know who he is today. We were teenagers. In Detroit.”

Tara and Quiyanna remained silent. One of those thick, weighty silences that stretched seconds into moments.

Tara seemed to be deep in thought with her brows furrowed.

Quiyanna’s gaze never left Love. After a few moments, they looked at each other with wide eyes like they had cracked the DaVinci Code.

“Oh my God,” Tara said first. “Wait a minute . . .”

Quiyanna gasped. “Westside Zay is—he’s the man in the book?”

They both stared back at Love like it had just clicked for the first time.

“You wrote When the Rain Stops about him?” Tara whispered.

Love didn’t confirm or deny it. She just looked down at her wine and swirled it around again.

“Damn, bitch! And now he’s scoring the film,” Quiyanna began. “Love, you wrote a book about your teenage love, and now that same love is composing its soundtrack?”

Love shrugged. “It’s not that deep. It happened a long time ago. We were kids. The book is something made up. It’s fiction.”

“But in your book, you end up together,” Tara said. “You make it.”

“Exactly,” Love replied, a little sharper than she meant to.

“In real life, clearly, we didn’t. I wrote the book based on inspiration of a story that I lived through.

That’s all. All writers, authors, and artists do the same.

It’s not a big deal, y’all. Please don’t make this out to be. I went on with my life, and so did he.”

Quiyanna folded her arms. “But he’s here now.”

“Yes,” Love replied simply. “He’s here to score the project. That’s it. He’s working. This is professional.”

“Now that I think of it, that song he made, what’s the name of it? Damn, . . . why can’t I think of it?” Tara popped back in.

“I know what you’re thinking of. I was just thinking the same thing!” Quiyanna began and snapped her fingers like it would jump-start her memory. “The one where he says ‘I take Grand River all the way down to get to you’ . . . Didn’t you used to live off Grand River Avenue in Detroit?”

“Yes!” Tara shouted. “Yes, that’s the one! That song is about you, isn’t it?”

“Keep your voice down!” Love gritted between her teeth.

“It is not about me! Y’all need to stop it!

Now I told y’all, we were kids. That’s it, that’s all.

So much time has passed; it’s not a big deal today.

We can work together and keep it professional.

It is not a big deal. So will y’all please drop it? ”

“Hmm . . .” Quiyanna mumbled jokingly. “Stubborn ol’ Leo. Sounds like y’all were a match made in heaven.”

They didn’t say anything else after that, but the look on their faces said enough. They weren’t convinced. Love wasn’t so sure if she was even convinced herself.

Suddenly, Love’s phone buzzed with a text from Yana.

Yana:

Mom, don’t be mad but I had dad pick me up from school. My stomach just hurts really bad. Can you please just come home?

She let out a sigh of relief. She had a reason to excuse herself from this conversation, although she wasn’t happy to hear of her daughter not feeling well.

“I have to go. Yana doesn’t feel good.”

She stood, grabbed her purse from the booth, and slung it over her shoulder.

Quiyanna and Tara glanced at her in silence with smirks on their faces.

“Tara,” Love began, “use my Capital One card to take care of this. I want to get my bonus points.”

Tara nodded. Quiyanna sat back and raised a brow with a knowing expression on her face as she smiled.

Love rolled her eyes, placed shades on her face, turned, and walked out of the bar.

She hurriedly crossed into the parking lot, unlocked her car door, and pressed the start button. Once the car started and the radio turned on, she let out the breath she was holding from the conversation inside.

Pull it together, Love. What do they know? It’s just work. You got this.

With that thought, she put the car into drive and pulled out of the parking lot, half-believing it herself.

When Love arrived home and stepped into the house, she immediately felt a heavy weight rush over her.

She dropped her keys on the entry table and froze when she saw Juwon sitting on the couch, legs crossed, remote in hand, scrolling through channels like he’d been there a while.

She rolled her eyes. She had talked to him many times over the course of the past seven months now about boundaries. After thirteen years of marriage, she would think he would be tired of hearing her nag at him about the same thing.

She walked the hallway down to the living room and dropped her purse on the couch opposite him. He didn’t glance up at her once and continued to scroll through the channels like he hadn’t seen or heard her come in.

Love became agitated, stood in place, and folded her arms, waiting for him to acknowledge her. When he didn’t do it as quick as she’d like, she spoke with a dry, impatient tone. “What are you doing here, Juwon?”

He jerked his head toward her and quickly pressed mute on the remote. He stood from the couch slowly. “Love, baby, damn, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Why are you here, Juwon?” Love asked again, this time more impatient and short.

Juwon sighed and looked directly into her eyes. “Yana asked me to stay. She’s upstairs. She’s . . . been upset.”

Love’s expression shifted instantly. Suddenly, she was concerned. “What happened?”

He ran a hand over his jaw. “Little heartbreak, I think. She didn’t say much. Just said she didn’t want to be alone, but she didn’t want to talk to me about it. She said she only wanted you.”

Love softened her stance, dropped her arms, and nodded once. She turned and walked toward the stairs. “I’ll handle it.”

Love saw Juwon watch her walk up the stairs from the corner of her eye. She turned the corner and rolled her eyes and continued toward Yana’s bedroom. She thought of ways to talk to her daughter about letting her father linger around the house. She was old enough to understand this now.

When she reached the bedroom door, she knocked twice, then turned the knob and opened the door before waiting on an invitation. Yana was curled up under her comforter, her favorite hoodie pulled over her head, eyes red and puffy.

“Hey, baby,” Love said gently. She entered the room and sat on the bed beside her.

Yana looked up and immediately sniffled. “He said he liked me. Then I see him dancing with some girl on Snapchat.”

Love exhaled slowly, and suddenly, her anger for Juwon’s presence was pushed to the back of her mind. She reached out and took her daughter’s hand. “Boys . . . they’re complicated like that. Weird, even. Loud at first, quiet when it counts.”

“I feel so stupid,” Yana whispered.

“You’re not stupid, baby. You’re learning. Hurt is a part of it, unfortunately.”

Yana stayed silent but watched her mother through glassy eyes.

“You wanna know what your grandpa once told me?” Love said softly and brushed Yana’s hair out of her face.

“He said that you’ll know when a boy is the right one.

It won’t be through flowers or the little lies they tell to get close.

It’ll be how you feel when they leave the room.

How quiet everything gets when they’re gone.

A good man won’t just pull you in. He’ll make you feel safe. ”

Yana blinked. “Did you listen?”

Love smiled. Her memory flashed back to that night in her bedroom after her father left. How she had given her virginity to the man she was certain would be her forever. But then her smile faded when she thought about the night it all ended. “Eventually, baby. Eventually, I did.”

Yana paused. Then her voice came through, quiet and low.

“I miss Grandpa.”

Love’s throat tightened. “Me too.”

She leaned in, hugged her daughter, and rocked her gently.

“Thanks, Mom. For everything.”

“I’ll always be here for you, baby girl.”

And she was. She stayed with her daughter until she fell asleep in her arms. When Love heard her faint snores, she slipped out of the bed and out of her bedroom door. She shut the door carefully behind her and walked the hallway back down the stairs.

When she reached the top of the stairway, she glanced down and saw Juwon still sitting in the living room.

He looked up and pressed mute on the TV. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. She jogged down the stairs, past the living room, and walked into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and grabbed a water bottle.

Juwon stepped into the kitchen and stood at the edge of the island countertop. “I wasn’t trying to cross any lines. I just wanted to be there. For her. For you.”

She took a sip out of the bottle and closed the fridge door. “Stop saying things like that to me. I’m not trying to stop you from being there for her, but being in my house . . . You keep popping up and walking around here like things aren’t different. Like you didn’t make them this way.”

He opened his mouth.

“No,” she cut in. “Please, it’s late now. Just leave.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but the steel in her voice told him better.

He turned around and walked out without another word. She heard the door shut and the automatic lock turn behind him.

She turned off the kitchen light, water bottle in hand, and walked up the stairs to her bedroom. She peeked in Yana’s room along the way and saw she was still fast asleep. She smiled, closed the door, and then continued down the hall to her bedroom.

As she stood in her room, the moonlight bled through the blinds. She walked to the edge of the bed and sat. Then she reached behind her neck and unclasped the silver chain with the diamond heart that had rested against her collarbone all day.

She stared at the pendant that sat in the middle of her palm, and the memories of her first true love rushed through her mind.

The conversation earlier with Yana weighed on her heavy.

Maybe I need to take my own advice.

Teenage love could be one of the greatest treasures one could find, . . . until you remembered where you left them.