If Not for a Lifetime

By A'Yohntae Zuberi

Kai Brennan co-owns a caf -bookstore on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. He is twenty-eight, Bald, bearded, built. Mixed Black American, Irish, and Aboriginal. After a relationship that did not respect who he is, he has locked the door on dating. He goes to therapy. He works. He walks his dog and tells himself that is enough.

Then a Saturday at Pier A. Two loose leashes. A woman in a rust sweater named Sable Moretti - Italian and Black, Union City and Lyndhurst - laughing in the leaves.

They do not trade numbers. Days later she walks into The Turning Page while he is under the espresso machine. He hits his head. She cleans the cut. Lunch after that. Then the kind of love that makes a careful man stay.

This is an urban LGBTQ love story about found family, two kitchens, a shop that feels like a room people live in on purpose, and a vow that does not need a lifetime to be real: if not for a lifetime, let me love you in this moment.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HPF35882
• ISBN13: 9798182744973
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: Stories That Stay
• Length: 76 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"