AMID SECRETS - CHAPTER 23
*Nwanyieze’s POV*
We settled on the floor of his living room because I told him I very much prefer sitting on the rug, which is soft and fluffy. Maduka indulges me, but spreads table mats before the meal is set.
Our food smells divine, and my mouth waters at the thought of sinking my teeth into a hot, spicy chicken thigh. I contemplate on eating in a ladylike manner tonight, but push the thought aside. Nothing will stop me from filling my belly tonight.
Yes, I am a foodie.
“Oh my gosh, yes,” I Mõ@? after a bite of chicken.
“It’s delicious,” Maduka compliments me between bites of chicken and mouthfuls of spaghetti and stew.
“Teamwork makes the dream work.”
“No, you did most of the work.”
“Only because you burned your fingers.”
He flicks his tongue out across his lower lip and then sucks in a breath through his mouth. My eyes linger there for a moment.
“Somebody’s a little distracted,” Maduka drawls.
“That was how we burned some of the spaghetti,” I grumble, forcing my eyes back to my place of food.
That kiss had been out of this world. The moment he’d placed me on that counter, stepped between my legs, and pulled me so close to him that out chests were touching, I thought I’d melt.
I thought I’d freaking melt.
He smelled so nice, of soap and citrus and a scent I can’t describe, so masculine I’d probably be better off describing it as Man.
The thought makes me laugh out loud.
“What?”
I look up and there he is, licking his fingers one after the other, eyes boldly gazing at me.
“Not your business,” I retorted. I have no plans of letting him see that his effect on me runs deep.
He chuckles, a deep sound that pleases my ears.
“A girl likes a man.”
I burst out laughing and he watches me. “You too? Game of Thrones?”
“Definitely.”
I myself am a Game of Thrones fan, and I only watch when Adanna and Mama Uju have gone to sleep in their room with their door shut tight so the television won’t bother them.
“Who is your favourite character?” I asked.
“Tyrion Lannister.”
I clapped my hands sticky hands excitedly. “This is the best thing I’ve heard all day.”
“Truly I say to you, if Tyrion ever dies, Game of Thrones is over.”
“The same goes for Cersei.”
Maduka nodded in agreement. Suddenly we go into a discussion/argument session, talking back and forth about the conspiracy theories. Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Bran is the past version of the Three-eyed Raven, The Starks have hidden powers over winter and the White Walkers…
Everything is going fine until I accidentally rub my eye with my hand…and hiss in pain.
In my haste to get up and run into the kitchen, I trip on the hem of my buba and fall onto the floor with a loud thud, hitting my shoulder and the side of my head. Confused and not knowing which pain to concentrate on, I lie there for a second, dazed. Maduka is helping me up, calling my name.
“I’m not dead, you know,” I tell him as he helps me to sit up. Then he rushes into the kitchen and returns with a bowl of water, his own hands now clean.
“Stay still,” he tells me before cupping a handful of water and rubbing it over my closed eye. “Does it still hurt?” he asked.
“Yes,” I groan.
He repeats the motion a few more times until I tell him to stop, and then dries my face for me with a small towel. My shoulder hurts the most now, a dull, throbbing pain that spreads to my upper back.
“Are you okay? That was quite a fall.”
I nod. “I’ve had worse falls than this.”
Mummy had pushed me from the stairs over five years ago, and I had broken an arm.
“Wash your hands.”
I push the bowl away. “I’m not done eating.”
“Foodie much?” he laughs.
“Food makes me happy,” I reply.
“You make me happy.”
His statement has me smiling at him. “You don’t say?”
I’m utterly happy myself, having all his attention on me. After eating, he insists on doing the dishes himself, and tells me to wait in the living room for him. I insist on being in the kitchen with him, perched on one of the stools and watching him from behind. His shoulders are broad over a straight back, his arm muscles flex from behind with every scrub.
“I used to stand on a little stool to do the dishes as a child,” I muse. “I couldn’t reach the tap.”
“We used a huge bowl to wash plates when I was a little boy,” he tells me before exhaling deeply. “I would sit on a stool, and gather the lather in my hands and blow bubbles on my…sister. She used to laugh a lot.”
“She sounds like fun.”
He turns to gaze at me. “Yes, she is. And beautiful, too.”
I smile at him. He surely loves his family, with the way he talks about them. I did love mine once…
“I have ice cream,” he tells me, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Oh, he has pampered me with the five star treatment.”
“Trust me, you deserve better,” Maduka says before coming closer and enveloping me in his arms. I wince; my shoulder is still sore.
“You said it didn’t hurt.”
“I mustn’t always tell when it’s paining me.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll get some balm and massage your shoulder. Wait for me in the living room, okay?”
Five minutes later, I’m lying on my side on the sofa, awkwardly spooning vanilla ice cream into my mouth and trying not to complain while Maduka massages my shoulder with some Robb.
“Tell me about your parents.”
“What would you like to know about them?”
“Nigerians,” I muse. “Answering questions with questions.”
He smiles. “They are a funny couple.”
“So that’s where your good sense of humour comes from.”
“Both in their sixties, love to watch ZeeWorld every evening, and are generous to a fault.”
“I think they should have a meet and greet with Mama Uju and watch it together. I even sing that Omeri Jaan song in my sleep these days.”
We are silent for a few minutes, each thinking their own thoughts.
“There’s something I want to tell you,” he says after a while, when the massage has stopped and my bowl of ice cream is empty.
“I’m all ears, then.”
I can tell that wh@??ver he wants to tell me is of great importance, that it troubles him. His brows are joining together and his eyes look a bit glazed, like he has suddenly retreated to some untouched part of his mind where I can’t reach him.
I wait for him to speak, curiously watching him. He hesitates, exhales, briefly closes his eyes, and opens them again.
“First of all, you’re one of the best things that have happened to me.”
I’m taken aback, literally reeling mentally. I blink rapidly, while my skin feels like someone is pouring cold water on me slowly, the liquid flowing from the top of my head to my feet.
“No, you have to listen, please,” he says with a raised palm when I open my mouth to speak.
I nod.
“I haven’t always been like this. When I was…”
He closes his eyes again, breathes deeply, excuses himself, and gets up.
What is bothering him this badly?I wonder, surprised. Maduka has always been composed, has always smiled so easily. Wait, is this the part where he tells me he’s in love with me? My palms suddenly become sweaty and I rub them against my buba.
He isn’t supposed to do that. You’re not even supposed to be here. You’re going in deeper, you’re setting a trap for yourself.
I get up to search for Maduka, to tell him that wh@??ver he has to say can wait if it makes him uncomfortable. Hopefully, he’ll agree with me. His bungalow has three bedrooms, and so I follow the distant sound of his voice to stand in front of the door to his bedroom. I knock and when I get no answer, I let myself in. The room is furnished simply, in order unlike mine. The bed is immaculately made with white and black striped sheets. There is no sign of him, but his voice floats towards me from the adjoining bathroom.
“Maduka?” I called.
The door pulls back and he peers at me. He has splashed water on his face, and it drips down his neck and onto the front of his shirt. In his eyes I see sadness and something I interpret as reluctance.
But reluctance to do what?
He is clearly distressed.
“I shouldn’t have left rudely,” he says quietly.
“That’s alright. Look, if you don’t want to talk-”
“I want to. Just give me a minute.”
“Okay. I’ll be here waiting.”
I settle on his bed. The mattress is soft, the sheets smell clean. I lie on my side, stretching an arm and slipping my hand underneath one of the pillows, the one that is more likely to be his pillow because it smells like him. My hand touches something soft, and I close my fingers around it and pull it out.
It is a pair of underwear, the red colour of the lacy fabric bold, made to be seductive. I am still holding the scrap of material in my hand, still staring at the thong while my eyes fill with tears when a sound makes me look up.
Maduka stands before me, anger written all over his face.
____
*Maduka’s POV*
Tasha has ruined it all, I think as I stand a few metres from the bed on which Nwanyieze sits, holding the scandalous scrap of material and gazing up at me. My legs have turned to lead, my body feels frozen, and my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth.
She rises to her feet and takes slow, deliberate steps towards me. Her hands are cold to the touch when she takes one of mine, places the thong in it, and closes my fingers around it. While doing this, her eyes never leave mine. I see no emotion in those beautiful eyes; tears are gathered at the corners, but other than that, she holds her head up and keeps her face blank.
“Keep it well for her,” she whispers before gently tapping my hand and turning away to leave my room.
In that instant, the fear hits me hard in the gut.
She’s leaving. She’s walking out that door for good.
My body finally regains it’s animation and I follow her. The thong drops from my hand, forgotten. She is in the sitting room, slipping her feet into her sandals.
“Don’t go,” I blurted. For a man good with words, I’m doing quite terribly because I’m equally in shock, and angry with myself, with Tasha and her schemes.
Nwanyieze paused to look up at me. The tears have finally spilled down her cheeks but it is her expression that terrifies me the most, that mask on her face that betrays nothing. Has she already signed me off?
“I can explain this, I swear it.”
“That would be really unnecessary,” she replied coolly.
“Last night, my ex-girlfriend came here. She was drunk-”
“And I don’t need to know the details!”
Finally. An outburst.
“We didn’t do anything. I don’t know how her underwear found its way underneath my pillow, she must have-”
She surprises me with laughter. Her shoulders shake uncontrollably and she doubles over.
“That is the funniest thing I’ve heard today, Maduka.”
Nwanyieze turns to show me her back, then runs a hand over her behind.
“Do you see any Pampers diapers here? No? I am not a child, Maduka. If anything, I gave up my childhood too quickly. Your ex girlfriend does not come over and have her underwear-and a very raunchy one at that- disappear mysteriously from her waist and seek refuge underneath your pillow.”
I’m trying, I’m trying to be calm, I’m trying to get her to understand that I’m not playing. I want her to know that I’m serious, that she’s important to me. I take a step forward.
“Don’t,” she warns.
“Her name is Tasha. We were together for two years before splitting up because she felt I wasn’t rich enough.”
“I’ll hear none of it, thank you very much.”
But she’s still standing by the door, her body language telling me that she wants to hear me out, even for a short while. I step closer, a slow movement.
“For the past few months, Tasha has been showing up at places I go to. The club, the gym, church. That night at Quilox, when you needed a ride from me, you met me running off thinking you were her.”
Nwanyieze says nothing. Don’t stop responding now.
“She showed up drunk last night. I couldn’t send her home because she was in such a bad shape, and so I gave her one of the guest rooms. The next day, she was in my bed.”
Nwanyieze raises her brow, silently asking, “You don’t say?”
“I swear it, nothing happened between us. She tried to reminisce on old times, but I didn’t let her. I woke up before her and went to shower, and before I was done, the bed was made and Tasha was in the living room. I drove her home this morning before going to work.”
I remember how hung over she’d seemed, complaining of a head ache and sore joints.
My palms are sweaty, and so I rub them against my shorts. I want her to trust me, but I also know I’ve been set back by a huge step.
I’m standing right in front of her now, looking down at her face with the tear tracks. Up close, her lips are trembling but she struggles to keep them firm, defiant and determined not to give in and cry.
Who wouldn’t be hurt, in this situation? She’s stronger than most, for her age. And why should she believe me, anyway? People have been known to give explanations like this, only that they were actually lying.
“You’re important to me. I wouldn’t be that stupid to destroy this. I’m a grown man, not a hormonal teenager. I know what I want and need. Nothing happened last night; absolutely nothing.”
She lets me hold her hands. They are still cold and clammy.
“Don’t leave me,” is what I say before pulling her into a hug.
Years of searching, of hoping to find her, then finding her and hoping to keep her…going down the drain like that? I’m going to let that happen.
She doesn’t hug me back, though. She stands still right there, and that is when I know that a lot of damage has been done, far more that I imagined.
“I want to go home now,” she says quietly.
“I’ll drive you, then.”
“No.”
“I’ll call you an Uber.”
“No.”
“Nwa-”
“I’m taking a taxi home by myself.”
And with that, she frees herself from my arms, says goodnight, opens the front door and leaves without so much as a glance in my direction. I know better than to follow her; Nwanyieze is perfectly capable of finding her way home. I stand right on the spot where she left me, feeling so stupid for being oblivious to Tasha’s actions.
Thank you, Tasha. Mission accomplished.