The Lease of Their Problems

By Chi Yu Rodriguez and Brigitte Bautista

After years of drifting between jobs and residences, Minnie decided it was time to settle down. Scoring an affordable condoshare in the heart of Ortigas, Minnie was ready to start this new life. But it turned out it wasn't as new as she thought.

Strapped for cash and wanting to keep her apartment, Yong was desperate for a roommate. She would take anyone at this point. The eleventh one turned out to be the charm. But when she found out who it was going to be, she asked herself, "Is it really a stroke of luck or a cursed disaster waiting to happen?"

Minnie. Yong. Exes. Roommates?

This was fine. They're adults. They could live together in peace and harmony, no feelings and history attached. Right?

Right.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chi Yu Rodriguez
• Release date: Nov 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223088165

Book preview

The Lease of

Their Problems

By Brigitte Bautista and Chi Yu Rodriguez

Table of Contents

Copyright

Content Notes

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Copyright

––––––––

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including printing with intent of distribution, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Copyright © 2023 by:

Brigitte Bautista ([e-mail])

Chi Yu Rodriguez ([e-mail])

Cover art by Carla de Guzman

Cover design by Chi Yu Rodriguez

Cover photos acquired from cover models Rachel Coates and Gab Pangilinan

RomanceClass logo and logomark © Camilla Tabagan

Adaptation rights repped by Mina V. Esguerra/RomanceClass and Anna Liza Recto-Ruth/Bold MP.

Content Notes

This book is about the relationship between a bisexual woman and a lesbian woman. It contains an open-door sex scene (Heat Level 3 according to #romanceclass community guidelines) and other depictions of intimacy, vices (drinking, smoking), and hook-up culture.

This story follows the #romanceclass requirement of HEA/HFN.

For taking chances, and second chances...

ONE

The white L300 chugged along C5, the driver hell-bent on hitting every possible pothole he could find. Each time, Minnie had to brace herself on to the rusty handrail with one hand, and place a palm on the stack of boxes beside her. Almost there, she thought to herself, willing her last couple ounces of patience, breathing in the dusty summer air of the metro. Just thirty minutes out, if they were lucky. Thirty minutes to a new home and a fresh start, one she sincerely hoped would stick this time.

Ma, yes, ma, I’m almost there—puta. 

She heard something shatter in one of the boxes out in front. She hoped it wasn’t her precious boob mug; she needed that for her coffee during coding sessions, a talisman against catastrophic debug sessions and compile errors. Seriously, she was going to give this driver a talking-to when they were done.

That wasn’t—sorry, Ma, that was for a pothole. Yes, ma, I will text you soon as I get there. 

This so-called fresh start was the nth one in three years; the very variable n, because she got tired of counting and just resigned herself to this anywhere-the-wind-blows, can’t-keep-a-job, can’t-keep-a-girl fate. Not that it was all bad, mind. The six months living by the beach was absolute heaven even with the back-breaking waitressing work. Minnie had enjoyed the carousel of personalities that counted as romantic relationships: the part-time busker who introduced her to every sex toy known to womankind, the high school teacher who held an inexplicable disdain for melons, the nurse-slash-Masterchef who made the best Bicol Express of Minnie’s sorry ass life.

On her way to this existential crossroad, she also may or may not have defaced several government websites with All Cops Are Baboy, and reveled in how long (8 weeks, those incompetent idiots) it took them to take  it down. That was its own sense of fulfillment, but also very, very illegal. So she wove out of that hacker stint, and promised herself and her friend AJ (an information security boss) that it would be the first and last time. 

Then, on the eve of her twenty-ninth birthday, laying on the spare mattress of a friend of a friend after a night of drinking and dancing and everything in between, it struck her how exhausted she was. This desire to anchor down bloomed in her chest. She wanted to set her roots for a bit, be somewhere near her mom whom she hadn’t seen as frequently as she wanted to, and get a stable programming job that pays in equally boring predictability. 

Stability. 

When was the last time Minnie had that in her life? She regretted posing the question, as snatches of a life that was flashed like cue cards in her mind. It was a life so far removed from the one she had chosen to live. Almost as if it was residing on a cache, it didn't take long for Minnie to picture her: those sharp eyes, that undercut that Minnie liked to ruffle, and that dimpled smile that always had Minnie smiling with her.  It could have been a good memory, except that the mind was a fickle and traitorous thing. The daydream took a turn for the worse, as Minnie was reminded of that night they decided to end things. Eyes hazy with tears, white-grey hair parted to one side as trembling hands ran through them, mouth curved downward as she tried to quell