Page 107 of Lease to Love

She pulled me down by my collar and peppered my face with kisses until I was laughing hard enough that people started looking.

I didn't care… And that was the strange part.

I didn't care who saw us.

We walked along the water with her hand tucked into mine, the Potomac stretching dark and silver beside us, wind tugging at the ends of her hair. The city moved around us—music spilling from restaurants, vendors calling to passing crowds, the smell of fried food and salt and autumn air all mixing together—but for once, nobody stopped me to discuss a property.

Nobody needed anything from her.

Nobody asked either of us to solve anything.

She leaned her head against my shoulder as we walked, and I looked down at her.

At some point between the oysters and the market and the sound of her laughing at something stupid I'd said, I realized I couldn't remember the last time this had felt fake.

Maybe it hadn't for a while and we'd just been too stubborn to say it.

Everything about the afternoon was perfect… For exactly ninety minutes.

Then I heard the voice.

"Yo—yo, is that—hold up, chat. Hold up."

My entire body went still.

I knew the cadence before I placed the face. Performing even when he thought nobody but a phone screen was watching.

I turned slowly.

Summer's ex.

The nigga from the live. Ayo.

He caught sight of us and lit up like he'd hit content gold.

"Sunny! Sunny, hold up—" His phone was already up, angled to catch both of us. "Yo, chat, this is wild. Look who it is."

I felt Summer's hand tense in mine. I said nothing yet. This wasn't worth my voice.

"You don’t wanna say hi?" Ayo said, grinning at his own screen more than at either of us. "You should be thanking me, Sunny. For real. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn't even be over here with black Bill Gates. I upgraded your whole life when I cut you loose.”

I kept walking, one hand at Summer's back, attempting to steer her past him the way I'd steer past a bad clause in a contract — acknowledge it exists, don't dignify it with a response.

Summer, being Summer, stopped anyway.

"I don't owe you for shit," she said, calm, clear, loud enough for the phone to catch every word. "You black-lipped, knock-kneed, broke ass— "

She kept going like that. Summer was creative as hell with an insult.

I watched her handle it, biting back a smirk at some of her more colorful adjectives, but stayed ready to jump in if dude decided to move from “minor annoyance” to “someone I needed to deal with.”

A few laughs from the gathering crowd. Ayo's grin flickered, the way it one did right before they reached for something uglier.

I stayed where I was. Watching. Waiting to see if he had the sense God gave a stray cat to leave it there.

He didn't.

"Man, you still the same boring-ass bitch I left in Langston Park," he said, voice pitching up for the camera, ugly satisfaction spreading across his face. "Coloring books and puzzles and shit. You ain't better than me just 'cause you fucking a rich nigga now. You still you."