Page 127 of Lease to Love

They had been... us.

Whatever the hell that meant.

And now I was sitting in the middle of a week-long limbo, pretending I wasn't counting every hour since Roman had gone to Mama E's that morning.

I knew her support could help Roman get his initiative off the ground. I was genuinely happy I'd made that introduction. I believed in what Roman was trying to do. I did.

I just hadn't realized helping him could potentially speed up the end of us.

Not that there had been an us when I'd made the introduction.

There hadn't.

There had been stolen glances and arguments that lasted too long because neither of us wanted to walk away. There had been inside jokes and dates that weren't dates and kisses that were supposed to be part of an arrangement. There had been a growing something neither of us wanted to acknowledge.

But there hadn't been a us.

Not then.

Now?

Now I knew him.

I knew the way his hand tightened around mine when he was worried and the way his voice changed when he was trying not to show that something mattered to him. I knew how he kissed the little maple leaf tattoo on my ankle like it meant something to him too, and how his entire face softened when he looked at me and thought I wasn't paying attention.

I knew what the man’s morning breath tasted like.

I knew the man.

And once you knew somebody like that, you couldn't unknow them.

A year of free rent wouldn't make a damn bit of difference.

He'd promised to text me when he finished meeting with Mama E.

That had been hours ago.

Nothing.

Radio silence.

My brain, naturally, had decided to make that everyone else's problem.

Maybe it went well, and he was already moving on to business as usual. Maybe it went badly, and he was realizing the whole thing had been a waste of time. Maybe he'd gotten what he needed from Mama E and now there was no reason to keep pretending whatever this was could work.

Either possibility would've been easier than not knowing.

So I straightened the dress again.

The mannequin remained silent.

I was starting to resent her.

My phone finally rang.

I snatched it off the counter so fast I nearly knocked over a display of bracelets.

Lucifer : Hey... The shop busy today?