Page 92 of Lease to Love

"There she is," he said, pulling me into a hug that smelled like cedar and felt like coming up for air, pressed a kiss to my lips and murmured, "Hydrated and gorgeous. I did my job."

I swatted his chest and told him to shut up and get me to the car before I changed my mind about the whole night.

Roman’s hand found my knee about ten minutes into the drive and stayed there.

Warm. Steady. Heavy enough to remind me I was in a car with him instead of trapped somewhere inside my own head.

He didn’t say anything about it at first. He didn’t ask why I’d gone quiet or tell me to relax or make some sarcastic comment about me glaring out the window like I wanted to fight the scenery. He simply let his palm rest against my bare knee while the city changed around us, Langston Park’s rowhouses giving way to wider streets, manicured lawns, taller trees, and a version of the DMV that had never once had to fight anybody to stay itself.

“You’re quiet,” he said eventually, eyes still on the road.

I shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t ask if you were fine.”

I looked over at him. His expression hadn’t changed, but there was something in the slight crease between his brows that told me he knew better than to believe me.

“I’m not used to this,” I admitted. “This kind of room.”

His thumb moved once over my knee, slow and deliberate. “Okay.”

That was it.

No lecture. No you have nothing to be nervous about. No reminder that I belonged wherever I walked into because he’d already told me I did.

Just okay.

He let the feeling exist between us without trying to fix it, and somehow that was kinder than anything he could have said.

We stayed quiet the rest of the drive.

The ballroom was full of people who had never once had to know my name to get where they were going.

That was the thing about Langston Park. I was never a stranger there for more than the length of one introduction. Somebody had bought a dress from House of Autumn, eaten at one of my aunties’ tables, watched me fall off a bike, graduate high school, lose my mind over a bad boyfriend, or show up at the block association cookout with a container of something I absolutely did not cook myself.

Here, beneath chandeliers the size of my apartment and floral centerpieces that probably cost more than my monthly rent, I was exactly what I was afraid I would be.

A stranger.

Somebody’s plus-one.

The girl on Roman Sterling’s arm who knew absolutely nobody and had nothing in common with the people attached to them.

“This isn’t like the other events,” Roman murmured close to my ear, catching the tension before I’d even fully named it. “No networking. No babies to kiss. I’m here because I have to show face.”

His hand settled at the small of my back.

“You’re here because I’d rather spend the evening with you than any of these people.”

I looked up at him.

Then he added, “This isn’t the neighborhood.”

He meant it as comfort.

Yeah, I thought. That’s the problem.

I smiled anyway.