Page 78 of Lease to Love

“Yes, I eat chili. The staff treats me like a regular because I've been a regular since college. And no, I'm not worried about getting chili on my clothes because I'm a grown ass man, not a five-year-old.”

I stared at him.

“Since college?”

“Yes.”

“That was what, thirty years ago for you?”

He gave me a look. “It was eighteen years ago, thank you very much. And I ate at Ben's on my first day at Howard with a bunch of other freshman transplants.”

That caught me. “You went to Howard?”

He looked almost offended I asked. “Yes.”

“I didn't know that.”

“There are a lot of things people don't know about me.”

Something in my chest tugged.

Howard.

I looked down at my lemonade. “I went to Howard.”

The confession jumped out without permission.

His eyebrows rose. He put down his Mountain Dew.

“No shit? What did you study?”

“Fashion design, obviously.” I smiled, but it came out sad. “I wanted to feel like a ‘real designer.’”

His expression shifted.

“But I didn't finish. Dropped out after my second semester.”

The look he gave me was curious.

Can't have that.

“Thankfully, I found out there were multiple ways to become a real designer. And I knew who I was as a stylist before I ever got there—somebody made sure of that a long time ago.”

I hoped that would be the end of the conversation.

It wasn't.

“Why'd you drop out?” he asked bluntly.

Typical.

Before I could give him an answer—or a non-answer—the waitress returned to take our orders. Well, my order. Apparently, Roman had a usual.

His spicy chili half-smoke was already spoken for. I ordered my personal favorite: chili fries with extra onions, because I wasn't trying to impress this man and he clearly wasn't going to kiss me.

The waitress left, and Roman was right where we'd left off.

“So why'd you drop out of school?”