Page 73 of Lease to Love

After service, while Roman was shaking hands with Reverend Dowtin, Ms. Arlette cornered me. She leaned in close enough that I could smell the peppermint on her breath.

“You better hold on to him.”

I glanced across the church at Roman. He was laughing with one of the deacons.

“He's holding on to me.”

She gave me a knowing smile. “Mmm-hmm.”

I hated when old women made that sound. It meant they knew something I didn't.

Then there was Uncle Dave's cookout. That had happened after Roman's successful lunch with him, when somehow a business meeting had turned into an invitation to come eat. Casual. Neighborhood. No agenda.

Roman was excellent when there was a purpose. Give him a meeting and a goal, and that man was a machine. Tell him to relax and enjoy himself? Apparently, that was where the wheels came off.

Somebody had cornered him into a game of spades. Roman did not know how to play spades, and he also refused to admit that he did not know how to play spades. He'd sat at that table with the same focused intensity he'd used during the block association meeting, studying his cards like they contained a zoning proposal.

I was his partner, which meant I spent the entire game watching this six-foot-something behemoth of a man bluff his way through a card game with the confidence of a man negotiating a hostile takeover.

“Baby,” I'd whispered, “you cannot bid nil when you don't even know what nil means.”

“I know what nil means.”

“You just asked me if a heart was a trump card.”

“That was strategic.”

I had nearly choked on my drink. He'd looked at me. I looked at him. Then I started laughing—really laughing, the kind that made my stomach hurt and tears gather in the corners of my eyes.

He'd watched me for a second. Then the corner of his mouth lifted.

He'd been laughing too.

That one stuck with me. Because somewhere between church and cookouts and business meetings, Roman had stopped looking like a man who was visiting Langston Park.

He was starting to look like somebody who belonged there.

And that was dangerous.

Then there was the House of Autumn fall pop-up.

Roman had shown up to support my business publicly, not as my landlord, but as my boyfriend. He'd stayed out of my way while I worked the room, fetched water for customers without being asked, and somehow managed to brag about my collections to anyone who would listen.

He'd explained that each collection was produced only once and that I didn't repeat designs. He'd said it with so much pride you'd have thought he'd designed the damn clothes himself.

I'd watched him from across the store that afternoon, standing in my space on my terms for the first time.

That one had gotten under my skin.

Not because it was romantic.

Because it felt good.

Because there was something about seeing Roman inside the place I'd built, surrounded by people I loved, choosing to be there instead of having to be there, that cracked open something I'd been keeping firmly shut.

It's optics, I'd reminded myself. That's all.

It was getting harder to remember.