Page 108 of Lease to Love

Something in me went very quiet.

I felt the businessman clock the crowd, the phones, the exposure risk of reacting.

I felt the New Yorker tense, ready to knock this nigga’s head off.

And then the third thing—the man beneath them both—stepped in front of Summer before I'd fully decided to.

"Sunshine." I said, low, only for her.

She stepped behind me immediately, which told me exactly how much that line had cost her, no matter how good her comeback would have been if I hadn’t stepped in.

Ayo, predictably, didn't read the room.

"Oh, now the boyfriend wanna step up!" he said, phone still rolling, grin still in place, completely unaware that he was already standing on ground that had stopped existing under him. "Nah, it's cool, big man. I get it. She's a good look for you. Token chick from the block, keeps you looking real charitable while you're out here doing your little ‘save Black America’ thing." He laughed at his own joke. "Charity work with a lil pussy on the side. I respect it."

I laughed out loud. Not with him. At him.

I'd had him looked into after the livestream. A man with as much to lose as I have doesn't let twelve thousand strangers see his face without finding out exactly who he's dealing with, and what I'd found had been sitting quiet in the back of my head ever since, waiting for a use I'd hoped I'd never need.

Today, apparently, was the day.

"You work overnight three nights a week for a moving company out of Landover," I said. Even. Unhurried. "Hauling refrigerators and deep freezers for nine, maybe ten dollars an hour. Cash, because you can't pass a background check for anything better. You get a brand deal here and there that covers a haircut and maybe a tank of gas."

His grin dropped half an inch.

"Most of the followers you're performing for right now weren't even real six months ago," I continued. "You bought bots to boost the number before you figured out the only content anybody actually wanted to watch was about her.”

I nodded towards Summer, who was just as captivated as the rest of the crowd.

His grin dropped completely, and his eyes started to dart around the small crowd of people who’d stopped to see the drama.

"I know you don't own the apartment you filmed your last video in. I know the car you used to drive is registered to your mother… Your mother who kicked you out of her basement and had to call the cops on you when you threw a tantrum about it.”

"Man, you don't know sh—"

“And I know that the only time you've ever mattered to even twelve people, much less twelve thousand, is when you're talking about the one person in this whole story who's actually built something real.” I pointed a finger at Summer, “That woman right there. My woman."

The crowd around us had stopped filming him and started filming this instead. Someone laughed, short and disbelieving.

Ayo's mouth opened. Closed. He had absolutely nothing, and for the first time since I'd met him secondhand through a phone screen, it showed on his face.

"You're not my problem." I said. "You never were."

Then I turned, took Summer's hand again, and walked.

Behind us, the crowd was already louder than Ayo was. Somebody's voice cut through clean enough to hear: "Not him getting cooked by a whole suit—" followed by laughter that had nothing left to do with either of us.

Summer didn't say anything until we were most of the way to the car, and when she finally spoke, her voice came out smaller than I expected.

"You didn't have to do that."

"I know."

"I could've handled him."

"I know that too." I opened her door, waited until she was settled.

She studied me for a second in the dark of the car, something soft and unguarded moving across her face, and didn't argue further.