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I shrieked with laughter as he kissed my neck and my face. Eventually, I ended up on top of him with my head on his chest, the smile from all the tickles and the love attack still on my face. Slowly, it fell, though, as I got lost in my thoughts. Finally, I asked, “What if I can’t have kids?”

“What makes you ask that? And it better not be because you’ve tried before. I’ll off every nigga I see until I find the right one that was tryna knock you up and⁠—”

“Chill, Gino. It’s nothing like that.” I giggled.

“You laughin’. I’m serious.” He eyed me.

“Because of my Crohn’s. It can be harder to have a baby with this disease.” The truth of my condition weighed heavily in the space between us. It was things like these that still had me moving cautiously with Gino. He was everything I ever wanted in a man, but we didn’t know each other well yet. What if this was a deal breaker?

“Yara, look at me.” I had the sudden urge to cry for some reason as I slowly tilted my head up to look at him. “Kids or no kids, we gonna be a family. You hear me? I ain’t even know I had dreams for real outside of street shit. Hood nigga shit. Then I met you. My dream is wherever you are, real talk. Ain’t nothin’ gonna sway me from that.”

“I still don’t understand how you’re so sure about me.” It would probably take some time for me to understand that. It didn’t matter that my heart was 100 percent sure about him. That felt different. Gino was all in and didn’t seem afraid, no matter the outcome. That was the part I didn’t understand.

“I don’t know how else to reassure yo’ hardheaded ass.” He poked me in my side, which he knew was my ticklish spot, and I laughed and tried to squirm away. He held me in place and kissed my forehead. One thing about him, he would always find a way to put his lips on me. I’d noticed he couldn’t go more than five minutes without issuing me a kiss. “I know you feel the connection between us. Why should I fight it?”

“You aren’t afraid of getting hurt?”

He stayed silent for a minute before he finally responded. “When you already been hurt, you kinda start to feel like you can go through anythin’. You still got both ya parents, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. You ever heard someone say that once they lose they mom or a parent they feel like they can lose anyone?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Paris has said that before. She lost her dad a few years ago.”

“Turbo lost his moms when we was kids, and he say that shit all the time. I guess it’s kind of the same thing for me. I ain’t really afraid of being hurt by a woman no more because I done went through the worst. I been wit’ Aniya since we was shorties, and she tried to set me up. Goin’ through that just made me realize that life is fragile and it changes. People change. I can’t be afraid of that.”

I twisted so I lay on top of him and could look down into his eyes. “I would never do anything like that to you. I’m not drawn to you because of money or power or any of that. I don’t care about that. I . . .” I bit down on my lower lip and thought about what I was going to say before I said it. “I love you because you feel familiar to me, like we knew each other in a past life or something. I love you because you take care of me. You pay attention. You make me feel like the only woman in the world and like nothing can harm me as long as you’re around. You make me feel seen and understood in ways that no other man could ever. You fit into my life like a missing puzzle piece.

“As long as I keep feeling those things, I don’t care about your extravagant lifestyle or who you are in the streets. I see you as so much more than that. You’re ambitious, you’re driven, you’re strong . . . I wish I could say you’re kind, but that would be untrue.”

He cracked a smile. “I’m kind to you.”

I nodded. “You are. I can’t argue with that. I don’t know, Gino. I just want you to know that I might be hesitant. I might want to take things much slower than you, but it doesn’t mean I don’t feel the connection. And I also want you to really understand that I’m not out to get you. I just want you.”

He held me tightly as he let my words sink in before he spoke. “And that’s why I love you. Like I said, you’re pure. I gotta protect you. I know you ain’t gonna do me wrong. Aniya always had that in her. You don’t. That’s why I ain’t scared of this. That’s how I can be all in.”

Gino kissed my bruised knuckles. They didn’t really hurt anymore, but they didn’t look good either.

“I love you, Gino.”

“You really love me?” he asked with a goofy-ass grin on his face.

“I really love you,” I confirmed, snuggling into him.

He held me close for a few minutes. I could tell we were both lost in our thoughts. It felt good to be still and do nothing for the past two days. Gino had no idea how thankful I was to him.

“Aight, so you don’t want the company. I don’t want the company. I guess I should sell it,” he said, bringing our conversation back to where it started.

“You don’t want to keep it and just find someone else to manage it?” I asked.

“Nah, not really. I don’t want anything to do wit’ it. Unless it was someone I knew that I wouldn’t mind workin’ wit’. I only plan on keepin’ the company for long enough to make shit look legit and like I had been runnin’ it by myself all along, but then I don’t want anything to do wit’ it.”

I thought about it for a second before an idea struck me. “What about Paris?”

“Paris?”

“Yeah. She’s so good at what she does, and she always talks about having her own company one day. I think a lot of that talk had to do with Aniya and how miserable she made all of us, but I think the sentiment still sticks without her in the picture. It could be worth a conversation.” Honestly, it was a perfect match, and I got excited as hell just thinking about it. In my heart, I knew this was the right move.