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“That still don’t explain why you’re hanging around her house instead of getting a hotel.”

Yonas’s jaw tightened.

The silence on the other end stretched for a second.

Then the man said, “Hold up.”

Yonas looked toward the bedroom door. “What?”

“That ain’t about convenience, is it?”

Yonas stayed quiet.

A laugh came through the phone. “Oh, shit. I know that silence. What the fuck are you really doing down there?”

“I got invited to the party.”

“Nigga, stop. That ain’t what I asked.”

Yonas glanced toward the hallway again before lowering his voice. “I came because I got invited. But I’m not gonna sit here and act like that’s the only reason I stayed.”

The man went quiet.

Yonas exhaled through his nose. “I’m trying to get Lakelyn back.”

The fuck?

Everything in me went still.

The man sounded genuinely surprised. “Get her back?”

“Yeah.”

“Since when?”

“Since I realized breaking up with her was a mistake.”

There it was.

So that was why this nigga had just stood in my bedroom declaring he wasn’t leaving.

Now I get it.

Yonas hadn’t been challenging some random ghost because he was brave; his ass had plans. He intended to stay under my roof all weekend, make himself useful, remind Lakelyn of whatever good shit had existed between them, and hope somewhere in the middle of all that she forgot why she stopped wanting him in the first place.

Aight.

The man on the phone started laughing.

Not a little chuckle either… a full, disrespectful laugh.

“Get her back? Nigga, good luck with that.”

Yonas’s face tightened. “What’s funny?”

“Lakelyn just doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who says she’s done and then circles back because you showed up with luggage and a sad face.”

I pointed at the phone.