Page 4 of Lease to Love

But a tiny part of me worried that four years around people as brilliant as Autumn would make her realize she didn't need me. That maybe she only looked at my sketches like they were magic because we'd grown up in the same ten blocks.

That maybe there were bigger dreams waiting for her somewhere else.

“Hey!” Autumn’s fingers snapped in front of my face.

I blinked. “What?”

“You floated away.”

“I was listening.”

“You were not.”

“Was too.”

Autumn gave me a look. I folded. “Fine. Maybe not.”

She laughed. “Four years at Spelman for me,”

“Four years at Howard for me,” I finished.

“Then we're in business.”

“World domination.”

“One dress at a time.”

The phrase was written on the back cover of our notebook in both of our handwriting.

Our unofficial motto. Our future.

“And then,” I continued, already smiling again, “it's Fashion Week.”

“New York.”

“Paris!”

“Milan!”

The dream swept me up, and I twirled away from her, walking backward down the sidewalk with all the confidence of somebody who clearly wasn't paying attention to where she was going.

“Oh, we're going international, darling,” I declared in my best Dominique Deveraux voice. “Private jets. Runway shows. Interviews. We're gonna—”

My heel clipped a raised section of sidewalk.

Everything happened fast.

One second I was talking. The next I was stumbling backward toward concrete.

Before I could fall, Autumn grabbed my forearm with both hands and yanked me upright.

“See?” she said, laughing as she steadied me. “This is why I'll always come back home. I can't let my favorite cousin end up in a wheelchair because she can't keep her head out of the clouds.”

I laughed too, brushing myself off.

“And I can't let my favorite cousin get so lost in spreadsheets and calculators that she forgets how to be a person.”

Autumn gasped. “The disrespect.”