Page 88 of Lease to Love

I didn't know what to do with that… I'd spent years learning how not to need anybody's belief, built my life around the assumption that eventually everyone left.

Partners. Friends. People I'd trusted. People I'd loved.

Eventually, they found a reason to decide I wasn't worth the risk.

And here was Summer… Looking at me like believing in me was the easiest thing in the world. Like it didn't cost her anything.

Like she hadn't just handed me something I'd spent years chasing.

Something cracked open in my chest, and I must have let too much of it show because her cheeks pinkened and she looked away.

“Well,” Her voice had gone lighter, trying to play it off. “You're the first boyfriend I've ever introduced to Mama E. Real or fake… So you better not make me look bad.”

Then she started to walk away, but I caught her arm again... I wasn’t letting her walk away this time.

She turned. “Roman?”

I didn't answer, I just pulled her toward me. Her eyes widened, a surprised gasp leaving her lips… And then I kissed her.

There was nothing strategic about it.

No audience.

No business.

Just Summer.

Her lips were soft beneath mine, warm and sweet from the funnel cake, and for one suspended second she went completely still… And then she melted.

Her arms slid around my neck, fingers curling into the back of my jacket as she kissed me back, and I pulled her closer. Let her body settle in my arms like she always belonged there. My hand moved up into her hair, tangling in her curls and holding her exactly where I wanted her.

The rest of the neighborhood disappeared. The fair disappeared. The initiative disappeared.

There was only the woman in my arms and my mouth on hers and the beginning of something that definitely wasn’t fake.

Chapter Eleven

Summer

Sweet chili Doritos.

It wasn’t a want. It was a need, and there was a difference. Unfortunately, the corner store was four blocks away, and Autumn had already made it abundantly clear that she had no intention of sweating her edges out for a bag of chips.

"C’mon, come with me," I said, already halfway into my flip-flops.

Autumn didn't even look up from her laptop. "It's ninety-one degrees outside."

"It's four blocks, Autumn."

"It's four blocks in ninety-one degrees for a snack you could get delivered, Sunny."

"I’m not paying $15 to DoorDash a bag of chips that I could just get from the corner store." I grabbed her hand and yanked her off the couch before I sweetened the deal.

"Come on. You pick the movie when we get back. Anything you want. Even one of those long-ass documentaries."

That got me a dramatic sigh and a pair of sneakers.

We had only a few weeks left before Autumn left for Spelman, and we were squeezing every drop we could out of the time we had left together. We’d spent eighteen years practically attached at the hip, which meant neither of us was particularly prepared for the idea that soon, “Come downstairs” would become a phone call and a two-hour flight.