Page 5 of Lease to Love

“You know you'd be boring without me.”

“Pfft… I’m boring with you.”

We dissolved into laughter again.

A block later, after the laughter faded into comfortable silence, it felt like the neighborhood had gone silent with us. I looked over at her. Really looked at her, and suddenly the thought slipped out before I could stop it.

“I really don't know what I'm gonna do without you.”

Autumn reached for my hand. Gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Well,” she said, “thanks to FaceTime and plane tickets, you'll never have to find out. It'll be like I never left.”

She sounded so certain. So steady.

And I wanted to believe her. I really did.

But as we continued walking home beneath the golden glow of the setting sun, shoulder to shoulder like we'd been our entire lives, I still couldn't imagine a version of my world that didn't have Autumn standing right beside me.

I didn't know how I was supposed to miss somebody who felt as permanent as breathing.

But she sounded so sure…

So I smiled, squeezed her hand back, and hoped she was right.

Hoped I'd never have to find out.

Chapter One

Summer

8 Years Later

How many black women does it take to print a receipt?

Apparently more than one, because I’d been fighting this thing for five minutes, and it may have been my anxiety, but I swore I could feel Miss Arlette’s eyes burning into me from across the counter.

“I’m sorry!” I said with a sheepish smile as I pressed the print button for the fifty-leventh time, “These things always choose to act up at the worst times…”

Miss Arlette just smiled, warm and sweet as always, patting the dress bag draped over her right arm. It held a surprise for her favorite granddaughter, and considering how much Miss Arlette loved that girl, I knew she was probably more excited to give it to her than Octavia was to wear it. “You’re fine, baby. You whipped up this dress for my ‘Tavia with less than three weeks’ notice. I can wait a minute or two for the receipt.”

“It was nothing,” I said with a smile as the receipt finally decided to come out of the damn printer. “It’s the least I could do for my favorite crumb snatcher.”

Octavia was hardly a crumb snatcher anymore. At twenty-three and working on her degree, she was a grown woman with bills and a whole future ahead of her, but in my head, she was still the little girl I used to babysit while her mama was at work. My favorite crumb snatcher had grown up to be a whole homecoming queen.

Life came at you fast.

I handed Miss Arlette her receipt and she clasped my hand in both of hers, smiling warmly, “Thank you, Summer. You really are a miracle worker.”

I smiled back, but internally braced myself for what I knew was coming next.

“And I hope I'll see you at the church on Sunday morning?”

There it was.

Like clockwork.

Every time I saw Miss Arlette, I wound up doing her a favor, and she invited me to Hunter Memorial AME as part of her thank you.