Page 113 of Lease to Love

He stared down into the bourbon. "The park is basically a dog park now."

I frowned. "What?"

"People started complaining about the dirt patches. Said they made the park look messy." He took a drink. "So they banned soccer."

My stomach tightened. "You're serious."

"Yeah."

"And the festivals?"

He shook his head. "Noise complaints. Soul Summit Sundays went from every week to twice a year."

I stared at him. The room suddenly felt different.

"Then came the extra patrol cars," he continued. "Slow rolling through the neighborhood. Checking people who'd been going to that park for decades like they were suspicious just for existing there."

My grip tightened around my wineglass.

He looked at me. "Rents tripled in some buildings. Families started leaving because they couldn't afford to stay."

I swallowed. There was a long silence.

Roman looked toward the photograph of his mother.

"Then the first Whole Foods went up while I was at Howard," He took another sip of bourbon, shaking his head, "And there went the neighborhood."

The words were quiet. They landed hard.

My chest ached for him. For the boy in the photograph. For the mother who'd watched him play soccer in that park.

For the people who'd built their lives around a place that had slowly decided there wasn't room for them anymore.

My neighborhood, flaws and all, was my anchor. My safety net… The thought of somebody slowly stripping all of that away from me—one business, one family, one familiar face at a time—made something inside me hurt.

I couldn't imagine what that had done to Roman.

He sat on the couch.

I followed.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

"When I graduated from Howard, I went back to New York, back to the old neighborhood," he said. "My roommates and I kept building our company from a studio apartment. We were young, ambitious, and convinced we knew what we were doing."

"Did you?"

"No. But we started making a lot of money."

I smiled.

He leaned forward, forearms resting against his thighs. "My partners—my brothers, at one point—weren't from Fort Greene. They didn't understand why I hated what was happening there. To them, it was progress. They liked being able to walk to new restaurants. Bars. Coffee shops. Luxury apartments."

He looked at me. "They didn't know what had been there before."

My stomach twisted.

He looked down at his hands.