Page 27 of Lease to Love

“I’m serious,” I said. “I’m done with these men.”

“You said that before you started dating the fart.”

“And I was right then too.”

“You dated him for a year.”

“Which was a year too long.”

“That's fair. But you get a pass because we all know that trying to date a Nigerian man is a black girl right of passage.”

I smiled despite myself.

One of the things I loved about Maya was that she'd never liked Ayo.

Not once.

From the beginning, she'd looked at him with the suspicion of a best friend who had already spotted the red flags while I was busy admiring the wrapping paper.

She'd never said I told you so.

She didn't need to.

I could practically hear the words living rent-free in the back of her mind.

“But I’m revoking your dating privileges,” Maya announced.

I snorted and flipped my pencil between my fingers.

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely, bitch.”

I nodded. “That works for me.”

“The next nigga has to submit an application.”

I smiled. “An application?”

“Application. References. Background check. Drug test.”

I added another line to my sketch. “Six-month probationary period.”

“Psych evaluation.”

“Required.” I nodded before snapping my fingers dramatically, “Panel interview with you and my mama!”

Maya gasped. “Now you’re talking!”

I laughed again, my pencil tapping against the paper.

"You'd be doing the Lord's work," I said, and meant it. I set the journal down on my nightstand and pushed off the bed, heading for the kitchen because I needed to see what was happening with the half-eaten box of wings and fries I'd ordered last night and then abandoned when my comfort watch of Living Single got too good to eat through.

Overton and Synclaire’s wedding always got me.

My apartment was small enough that "heading to the kitchen" was really more of a pivot—ten steps, eleven if I was being generous—which was a fact I had made peace with because the location of House of Autumn was not negotiable, and this apartment came with it.

So, ten steps to the kitchen. I'd had worse.