We hit our target yesterday🤭🤭. Thank you, babiessss.
I love you guys…
Today’s target — 160 likes, 60 comments and 60 restacks.
We can do this😍
AkilaHyel’s POV
The next day, as the early Abuja sun began to cut a dull golden line through the dust hovering over the hills, the instruction in my spirit was as sharp and clear as a bugle call.
Go on a retreat for one week. Total isolation. No work, no calls, no distractions.
Just me, a bible, and the altar I had neglected while trying to play god over my own life.
I packed a small canvas duffel bag with a few changes of plain clothes, mostly t-shirts and trackpants.
I moved across the floorboards to Naya’s room.
The door was slightly ajar. I peeped inside and saw her seated on the bed with her devotional in hand.
“Good morning, Naya”
She immediately looked up.
“Yaro! Good morning. Thank God you are here. I’ve been holding my breath since yesterday, wondering if I should come and check on you.”
“I am fine, Naya,” I said, my voice carrying that rough, low scraping sound from the hours spent on my knees the night before.
“I actually came to inform you that I’ll be going on a retreat outside town. If anyone from looks for me, tell them I traveled.”
“Oh, wow.” Naya said, adjusting her reading glasses.
“It is well. Take all the time in the world. You need it. But wait... what about Soteria? Have you spoken to her?”
I paused, my thumb resting heavily on my phone.
A sudden, deep urge to text Soteria hit me right in the pit of my stomach.
I wanted to type out a brief message telling her I was going on a retreat, but a small, petty corner of my masculine pride — the part that hadn’t fully died yet, secretly wanted her to wake up, see the absolute silence on her phone, and worry about me a little.
I wanted her to feel the heavy vacuum of my absence.
I caught myself and let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh.
I sighed.
“Naya, please... just inform her. Let her know where I went so she doesn’t think I’m just vanishing out of spite. Don’t give her too many details, just tell her I am on a retreat.”
Naya looked at me calmly. .
“Okay. I will inform her. Safe journey.”
“Thank you, Naya.”
The “Alone with God” camp in Gwagwalada sat on the quiet, rocky outskirts of the Federal Capital Territory, far away from the polished tarmac, and the noise of the city center.
It was a vast space with concrete chalets with peeling paint, red earth paths, hostels and a massive, open-air auditorium that smelled permanently of old hymnals, plastic chairs, and morning dew.
I had taken a formal one-week casual leave from the office.
Nothing critical was happening on the operational grid, and my commanding officer approved it without asking a single question.
My daily schedule was rigid, a timetable I enforced to seek God intentionally.
Day one was beautiful, but it felt like stepping out of a heavy iron suit that had grown into my skin.
I spent the hours walking the gravel paths, praying in my understanding and groaning in tongues.
There were books I had browsed online about vulnerability and bettering of my walk with God.
I read them after my prayers and bible study.
By day two, the prayers became intense. I fasted from 6am hours to 6pm, my knees wearing out the small woven rug in my hostel.
During the noon session, I plugged in a sermon by a certain Pastor Timehin titled The Danger of an Unbroken Strength.
In the sermon, he said
“Strength is a gift from God, but unbroken strength can become dangerous. A person who has never been humbled, corrected, or surrendered to God can become a danger to themselves and to their destiny.”
He paused and continued,
“When we think about strength, we often celebrate it. We celebrate talent, intelligence, beauty, influence, and spiritual gifts. But God is not just looking for strong people; He is looking for broken and yielded vessels.”
“Take the life of Samson in Judges chapter 16 verse 15 to 21, Samson was physically strong, but he was weak in character. He could defeat lions and armies, yet he could not conquer his appetites and emotions. His strength was never fully broken before God, so it eventually led him into carelessness, pride, and compromise.”
“An unbroken strength often produces:
1. Pride- When strength is unbroken, we begin to think we can do life without God. We become self-sufficient and stop depending on Him.
2. Carelessness- Samson kept playing around with his anointing because he assumed his strength would always be there. Many people lose what God gave them because they become casual with sacred things.
3. Resistance to Correction- An unbroken person struggles to receive instruction. They trust their own abilities more than God’s wisdom.
4. Hidden Weaknesses- The strongest people often have the deepest unaddressed weaknesses. What you refuse to surrender can become the doorway to your downfall.
God often allows seasons of breaking, not to destroy us, but to refine us. A broken strength becomes a surrendered strength. It becomes power under God’s control.
The strongest prayer you can pray is not, “Lord, make me powerful,” but, “Lord, break everything in me that refuses to submit to You.”
Because a strength that is unbroken can destroy a destiny, but a strength that is broken before God can transform generations.”
The word hit me so hard that dropped my notebook, slid out of the plastic chair, and lay flat on my face.
“Father, every gift, ability, and strength You have given me, I lay at Your feet,” I wept, the words tearing out of my chest in rough, ragged gasps.
“Break this granite. Wash the soot from my eyes. I have used my attitude and my scars to build a fortress where even Your Spirit cannot talk to me. Teach me how to bend before I break the people you gave me to cherish. Break my pride, humble my heart, and teach me complete dependence on You. Let my strength never become my downfall, but let it become a tool for Your glory.”
But by night, I joined a church’s worship session in the auditorium. They were having their annual camp meeting.
Afterward, I went back to my room. The silence in my room became too wide, too heavy to hold. I missed her.
The ache in my chest shifted into an agonizingly physical longing for my woman.
I sat on the edge of the camp bed, my thumb hovering over her contact on my phone, fighting the absolute urge to remove it from airplane mode and just dial her line even if it was to hear her breathe.
On day three, after the night prayers had concluded around 11pm, I broke my fast.
I went ahead to look at our WhatsApp chats.
I spent two hours lying on my side, reading through our old messages from few months ago back when everything was light, back when she would text me random pictures of fabric choices from her vendor with captions like
“Baby, look at this Ankara, doesn’t it match my skin? Amara keeps arguing with me that it’s not fine.”
I found a voice note she had sent me after a long, exhausting day at work one day. I pressed the phone against my ear, turning the volume down low so I could feel like she was near me. .
“Babyyyyyyyy, mbok, tell your orderly to buy me roasted plantain and bring to this site, my stomach is doing things... and don’t look at me with that your strict, serious face when you see this message oo! I love you, shugaaaa!”
Hearing her voice, the slight, playful lilt, the pure, unforced warmth of it, made my throat tighten so hard I struggled to swallow.
I laughed softly in the dark, remembering how I had actually stopped by the roadside myself to buy that plantain just to see the bright smile on her face when I delivered it.
As I scrolled further up, a specific memory from a rainy Tuesday night last month hit me, flooding my mind with vivid detail.
We had been on a night call that lasted until 2am. I was lying in my bed and she was wrapped in her duvet at her place, her voice sleepy and low over the line.
“Babyyy,” she had murmured, her voice dripping with warmth.
“I was thinking about when we get married. I want to have four beautiful kids for you. Two boys that look exactly like you with your cute face, and two girls that look like me.”
I had choked on my water, sitting up instantly in the dark.
“Four? Haba, Ziniya. Four is a whole fireteam. No, oo. I want two. Maximum two.”
“Why two na?” she had whined playfully, the sound of her shifting under her sheets coming through the speaker.
“Don’t you want a big, noisy house full of love?”
“It’s not about the noise,”* I had replied, my voice dropping into that deep, serious register that usually made her tease me.
“If we have four kids, you will spread all your attention to them. I want two so that we can balance the love and no one will take my place in your life. I am a very jealous man, baby girl. I want to make sure I still have the largest share of your heart.”
She had burst into a rich, beautiful laugh that echoed in my earpiece.
“Oh my gosh. You’re so cute. Look at you being jealous of his own unborn children! You are unbelievable. You will always be my number one, baby. Always.”
Remembering that conversation in the dark of the camp made me miss her the more.
The woman made my world go round, and my uptight nature had almost shattered what we shared.
For the full seven days, God broke me down and put me back together piece by piece. It wasn’t a swift magic trick; it was a deep, painful peeling away of the defense mechanisms I had worn like body armor since my youth.
I learned how to surrender my natural strength. I learned that having authority over my head wasn’t a threat to my manhood, but a covering for my soul.
On the morning of the eighth day, after a final communion session with the camp pastor, I packed my canvas duffel bag and dialed Effiom.
“My guy,” Effiom’s voice boomed through the line, instantly bringing the raw, chaotic noise of the city back into my ears.
“So you are alive? Naya said you travelled.”
“I am on my way back,” I said, a genuine, relaxed smile touching my lips for the first time in a week.
“Come and pick me up from Gwagwalada..”
“Gwagwalada keh?” Effiom groaned loudly, the sound of his car horn blaring in the background as he navigated through traffic.
“Ah, Guy, Gwags is too far na! Use Uber oo. I no fit burn that kain fuel.”
“My guy, common come here,” I barked softly, laughing into the receiver.
“I will buy you fuel.”
“All right, all right, I dey road. Make I just drop something for office.”
An hour and a half later, Effiom’s black car pulled up by the dusty red road.
I threw my duffel into the back seat and climbed into the front, the cool air conditioning of the car instantly hitting my face, washing away the dust of the camp.
We drove in silence for the first twenty minutes, leaving the outskirts and hitting the smooth, wide expanse of the Airport Road.
Effiom kept glancing at me from the corner of his eye.
“So,” Effiom started, clearing his throat as he shifted lanes past a commercial bus.
“You and my sister had a very massive fight. She gisted me everything that happened after she left your house that evening. She has been so worried these past few days, Akila. The girl misses you a lot, even though I know she can be extremely annoying sometimes. Kaiii! My sister is very annoying, I won’t lie to you.”
I smiled.
Effiom shook his head, letting out a loud laugh.
“I’ve always said that the man who will finally marry Soteria will try so hard. The man must have double patience. I didn’t know it was my own main guy that would come and enter this kind of heavy wahala.”
“Ehhh ehhh,” I said, turning my head to glare at him playfully.
“Don’t call my baby annoying. Abeg, abeg. Forget say she be your sister. My baby is the sweetest soul on this earth.”
Effiom burst into a loud, mocking laugh, slapping his hand against the steering wheel.
“Heheee! God abeg oo! Person no fit even chook mouth inside lovers’ fight again? No vex . I don’t even know who sent me to come and pick you up all the way from Gwagwalada.”
“I didn’t ask for your input in my relationship,” I said.
“You can give advice as my friend, but don’t insult my woman. Abeg, abeg.”
“I don suffer. Ah, sorry boss!” Effiom laughed, raising his left hand in mock surrender while keeping his right on the wheel.
“Na me find trouble. Forgive me, sir.”
I turned back to look out the window, a genuine smile breaking through my features as the green landscape of the city bypass rolled past.
Hearing her name, even in his teasing, made my chest swell with a sudden, sharp longing.
I missed her so much it felt like a physical weight.
I missed her sharp mouth, the little gap between her front teeth that showed when she was genuinely laughing at me, her glowing, flawless skin, and that beautiful face that always made me pause every single time she walked into a room.
I even missed her sweet, distinct body scent, that mix of vanilla and cocoa butter that always stayed in my mind long after she left.
I hated the fight we had. I hated the harshness of the words, the distance we had put between ourselves out of pure ego.
I just wanted to walk into her arms, drop my head against her shoulder, and remain there.
Effiom dropped me off at my compound. I thanked him, gripped his hand in a brief brotherhood shake, and walked up the concrete steps with my duffel bag slung over my right shoulder.
My heart was beating a strange, frantic, expectant rhythm against my ribs as I turned the key in the lock.
The brass knob felt cold in my hand. I opened the door quietly, stepping inside the cool, air-conditioned space of my parlor.
I expected to see Naya, instead it was someone else.
Soteria was sitting on the long gray sofa, her legs tucked neatly underneath her frame.
She was wearing one of those soft, blue-colored two-piece loungewear sets I had bought for her during one of my brief trips to Lagos, the knit fabric clinging softly to her skin.
And on her head, pulled down low over her eyes, was my old, black canvas baseball hat.
The sight of that cap instantly made my mind flash back to our third date at the Millennium Park.
It had been a Saturday afternoon, the heat thick, and she had reached over while I was driving, plucked the hat right off my head, and placed it over her own hair, laughing as it covered her ears.
I had spent twenty minutes begging her to return it because it was my absolute favorite tactical cap, a piece of gear I carried everywhere, but she had walked right up to my chest, grabbed my shirt, and looked up into my eyes with those wide, innocent lids, saying in a tiny, exaggerated baby voice:
“So you don’t love me enough to give me your hat? Wow, baby. Is this how you use to do?” I laughed, completely defeated by her softness, and told her to keep it forever.
Seeing her sitting on my chair today, looking so incredibly cute, fragile, and familiar in my cap, completely dismantled the last remnants of my defense.
The sound of my heavy boots against the floorboards made her head snap up.
The moment her eyes met mine, her chest heaved in a sharp, sudden gasp, her lips parting slightly as she sat up.
Her eyes were completely filled with a raw, breathless surprise. Naya hadn’t given her the exact timing of my return. She didn’t know I was coming back today.
She just sat there, frozen on the cushions, staring at me as if I were a ghost that had walked straight out of the hills.
SOTERIA’S POV
I left Pastor Olive’s house completely broken and weka. My hands were still loose on the steering wheel, my palms damp against the leather.
I wanted to drive to Akila’s house. Every muscle in my body, every frantic pulse under my skin, was screaming at me to go and find him, to override the memory of our shouting match with the sheer weight of my presence.
But as the traffic light flickered from red to green, Pastor Olive’s words echoed through the quiet of my mind with the heavy, unyielding strike of a gavel:
“Your assignment is not to wait for him to bend first. Your assignment is to ensure your own garment is white before the altar.”
If I went there now, hot-faced and trembling from the revelation of my own errors on that balcony, I would go with an agenda.
I would go expecting him to match my vulnerability instantly, and if his armor was still up, the clash would dismantle whatever structure we had left.
With a ragged sigh that caught in my throat, I flicked the indicator to the right. I turned the wheel toward my own house, the tires gripping the asphalt as I fled from the temptation to force a resolution before the soil was ready.
The next morning, I sat on the edge of my kitchen island, a mug of black coffee growing cold between my hands.
My mind kept looping back to the ledger of the past week, specifically to the sharp, dismissive way I had handled my line of communication. Before the fire with Akila broke out, there had been other casualties of my temper.
I picked up my phone, my thumb hovering over Amara’s name.
The guilt was a heavy, dull ache in my chest.
I dialed the number before I could talk myself out of it.
It rang three times, the hollow tone clicking before Amara’s voice came through, sounding bright against the background noise of her own office.
“Good morning, Soteria.”
“Amara,” I said, my voice dropping into a quiet, tentative register.
I cleared my throat, leaning my forehead against the cool surface of the marble island.
“Amara, I’m calling because I need to apologize to you.”
The line went silent for a beat, the background rustle of papers stopping.
“Apologize? For what?”
“For yesterday,” I whispered, the words heavy with genuine regret.
“When you were trying to talk to me about Akila and Julian ... I was rude to you. I snapped at you out of my own frustration, and it wasn’t fair. You were only looking out for me, and I acted in a very bad way. I’m so sorry.”
A soft, familiar chuckle came through the earpiece, instantly breaking the tension.
“Ah ah, baby girl. It’s fine! Biko don’t overthink it. I wasn’t even upset with you like that. I knew you were under pressure. We are sisters, joor. Drop the apology, it’s completely fine.”
A small, watery smile touched my lips.
“Are you sure? Because I felt so terrible yesterday.”
“I’m more than sure,” Amara said.
“Did you speak to Akila?”
The mention of his name made my heart do a hard, painful flip under my ribs.
“Yes,” I confessed, my fingers tight around the coffee mug.
“We had a... we had a very huge fight, Amara. It was bad. I went to his house, and things got completely out of hand. I said some things I shouldn’t have said and we ended up having an argument.”
“Oh, wow,” Amara sighed, a long, drawn-out sound.
“Two strong heads hitting each other. Babes, you need to understand Akila. That man loves you, but he doesn’t know how to play games. Have you gone to see him afterwards? Did you guys talk things through?”
“I’m actually about to go to his house,” I said, standing up from the barstool, a sudden surge of determination overriding my hesitation.
“I need to see him. Even if he’s still angry, he needs to see that I’m not running away.”
“Oya nau,” Amara said firmly. “Take care. Call me when you leave there. And biko, use wisdom.”
Twenty minutes later, my car pulled up outside the familiar black gates of Akila’s compound.
The sun was high now, casting sharp, editorial shadows across the concrete driveway. I climbed out of the car, my shoes clicking against the stones as I walked up to the door of the house.
I reached out and knocked. Three sharp raps.
Silence.
I waited, my breath held in my throat, before knocking again, harder this time.
“Akila?” I called out, pressing my ear against the wood.
There was no sound coming from the hallway.
No murmur of the television from the parlor.
The entire house felt completely hollow.
I pulled out my phone, my fingers flying across the screen as I dialed Naya’s number.
“Soso baby!” Naya picked up on the second ring, her voice competing with the loud, rhythmic whirring of standing dryers and the overlapping chatter of women.
“Where are you? I was just about to text you.”
“Naya, I’m standing outside your gate,” I said, a knot of panic tightening in my throat as I looked at the padlocked side entry.
“Where are you guys? Where is your brother? The house is completely locked.”
“Ohh! You’re at the house?” Naya called out over the noise of the salon.
“Ehya. I went to the salon to make my hair. Come and meet me at Wuse 2. The place is just behind the Amigo supermarket block.”
“Is Akila at work?” I pressed, my heart hammering.
“Did he go to the barracks?”
“Just come to the salom. I’m waiting for you.”
I drove down the lane toward Wuse 2, the midday traffic on the corporate avenue was a mess, but I didn’t even notice the erratic driving of the delivery bikes around me.
My mind was focused entirely on seeing my man.
When I stepped into the brightly lit luxury salon in Wuse 2, the smell of hair relaxer, burning curling irons, and expensive weaves hit my nose.
I spotted Naya immediately.
I walked over, my shoulder bag swinging, and the moment she saw me, her face lit up.
She stood up from the chair, the stylist stepping back with a comb in hand, and pulled me into a tight, warm hug, pressing a soft peck against my cheek.
“Kai, my baby, it’s been a while,” Naya said, pulling back to look at my eyes.
“You look like you haven’t slept. Sit down.” She pointed to an empty swivel chair next to her.
“I brought food,” I said, setting a neatly packed container of peppered chicken and jollof rice from a spot down the road onto her station.
“I figured you’d be hungry if you’ve been here since morning.”
“My love! God bless you!” Naya gasped, her eyes widening as she took the container.
“You truly know the way to my heart. This hunger was already killing me. Nagode .”
“You’re welcome, baby,” I murmured, sitting down and smoothing my skirt over my knees.
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I leaned closer to her, my voice dropping so the other clients wouldn’t carry our business.
“Naya, where is Akila? Why is the house locked?”
Naya’s expression shifted, the playful energy in her eyes settling into something more sober.
She took a small fork from her bag, opening the container, but she didn’t eat immediately.
“Akila traveled, babes,” she said softly.
The word hit me like a physical blow to the sternum.
Traveled.
“Traveled?” I repeated, my voice rising slightly before I caught myself. My throat felt instantly dry.
“Without telling me? He just packed his bags and left Abuja without even a single text message? Was it because of our fight?”
“Ah-ah, no oo. Calm down,” Naya said, reaching out to pat my knee.
“He didn’t travel too far sha. He went on a retreat.”
I sat back against the leather of the swivel chair, my mind spinning.
A retreat.
“He actually asked me to inform you,” Naya continued, shaking her head as she took a bite of the rice.
“He left early this morning. He said I should tell you where he went because he didn’t want you to think he was just vanishing out of spite. I guess he tried to reach you but maybe your line didn’t go through.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“Ehenn... Maybe I was sleeping then. I turned off the phone because my head was pounding.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Naya said, leaning her head back as the stylist returned to work on her tracks.
“He sha told me to give you the message.”
I looked down at my manicured nails, the sting of the distance between us settling deep into my marrow.
“We had a very terrible fight, Naya. I’ve never seen him look at me the way he did. I said some things and I feel bad.”
Naya let out a loud, dramatic sigh that had the stylist looking at her in amusement.
“ Kai, I wish I was at home to hear the whole thing. If I was there, wayooooo I swear I would have recorded the fight on my phone. It would have been the best evidence against both of you!”
I couldn’t help it. A small, involuntary laugh broke through my anxiety, and I slapped her arm lightly.
“Naya, mbok! This is serious. Why would you record your own brother fighting his woman?”
“Because you people are always oppressing my life in that house!” Naya laughed, her shoulders shaking as she chewed her chicken.
“Every time I look at you two, it’s always ‘My baby this, my baby that,’ holding hands, whispering up and down, making me feel like a very single woman. So yes, seeing my brother get his feathers ruffled would have been beautiful. It would have been good evidence to use against him whenever he starts acting like a strict commander around me.”
We sat there for another hour, gisting about the stress of the past month and how much she hated the dry Abuja weather before her hair was finally done.
After we left the salon, I drove her back to the house, dropping her off at the gate before heading back to my own apartment.
By day four of his absence, it felt like I was running entirely mad.
The silence in my own space was no longer a sanctuary; it was an interrogation room.
Every corner of my apartment reminded me of how deeply Akila had integrated into my life.
We had never gone a single day without speaking since we started dating.
Even when he was out working, my phone would always buzz with that characteristic, brief text: “Make sure your lunch, Ziniya.”
I sat on my bed, scrolling through my Instagram feed with a hollow look in my eyes.
I opened my direct messages, looking at the long, one-sided chain of reels I had been hounding his account with over the past months.
I had literally forced him to open an Instagram account just so I could send him cute couple videos and funny memes.
He had resisted it for weeks, always saying in that deep, hausa tone:
“Ziniya, you and this your Instagram. I am a whole soldier, I don’t have time to be scrolling through video clips of people dancing or loving up on themselves. What do I need an account for?”
But because he loved me, he sat down, allowed me to take his phone, and watched me open an account for him.
He never posted a single photo, but every single night before he went to sleep, he would log in just to view the links I sent, replying with brief, dry commentary like
“What are they even dancing to?”
“This man looks like his wife forced him to make contents.”
I missed his voice. I missed the specific way he held me whenever I was feeling sick or overwhelmed.
Akila had a lot of edges. He was a hard man to the rest of the world, but with me, he had never spoken a single harsh word.
He was always pampering me, treating me like something fragile that needed constant protection.
By the afternoon of that fourth day, I couldn’t take the isolation anymore. I packed a small overnight bag, threw it into my trunk, and drove back to his house under the guise of keeping Naya company.
When Naya opened the front door and saw my bag, her eyebrows shot up, a knowing, mischievous grin spreading across her face.
“Heheee! Sister Soteria, welcome. So you cannot even stay in your big house alone again?”
“Shut up, Naya, abeg,” I muttered, my cheeks flushing hot as I brushed past her into the parlor.
“I came to keep you company so you don’t get lonely in this big compound. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Standard story,” Naya cackled, closing the door behind me.
“But since you are here, please... go and stay in your baby’s room. If you stay in the guest room, your spirit will not find rest, and I know that you came here because you miss him”
I didn’t argue with her. I walked straight down the hallway, turning the brass knob of Akila’s master bedroom.
The moment I stepped across the threshold, his scent hit me like a physical wave.
It was an intoxicating blend of old leather, clean cedarwood, and the specific vanilla-scented candle I had bought for him from a boutique in Wuse last month.
The room was immaculate — a spartan, organized dream.
Akila was a man of absolute structure. His shoes were lined up according to color, his shirts were hung with precision, and the sheets on his massive king-sized bed were tucked in so tightly you could bounce a coin off the surface.
I walked over to the nightstand.
The little wooden alarm clock I had bought him to replace his old digital timer was sitting right by the lamp.
Next to it was a small group of picture frames. One was a faded portrait of his family. Another frame held a picture of Sister Wandi’s twins, laughing on a playground.
And right in the center, housed in a sleek silver frame I had selected myself, was a photo of the two of us.
It was taken during our date at the conservatory — he wasn’t looking at the camera; he was looking down at me while I was talking, his eyes holding a softness that most people would never believe existed in his stone face.
I looked at the frame, I realized, my chest aching with the absolute magnitude of my love for him. I love this man so deeply it terrifies me.
I walked over to his mahogany wardrobe, opened the door, and pulled down a soft t-shirt that still carried the distinct warmth of his body scent.
I climbed onto his bed, ignoring the neatness of the tucked sheets, and curled into a tight ball, hugging the shirt against my chest like a lifeline.
I pressed my nose into the fabric, kissing the cotton, and let the scent anchor my frantic mind.
I didn’t even know when the exhaustion of the past four days finally caught up with me. I slept off right there in the middle of his bed, tucked away from the rest of the world, until Naya knocked softly on the door three hours later to wake me up for dinner.
“Soso baby, wake up,” Naya’s voice came through the door, followed by the sound of her turning the knob.
“The coconut rice is ready. If you don’t come out now, I will eat all the dodo, and you know how I am when it comes to fried plantain.”
I groaned, shifting against the pillows and rubbing my eyes.
The shirt was still clutched tightly in my right hand.
“I’m coming, Naya. Give me five minutes.”
After we ate dinner at the dining table.
I looked at her across the empty plates.
“Naya.. I think I am going to stay over until he comes back. I’ll drive home to bring more clothes, but I’m sleeping in his room.”
“You think I didn’t know that before?” Naya laughed, clearing the dishes.
“I know you were just disgusting. Please stay. At least with you here, the house feels alive. And you can help me fight with the estate security guard about the water pumping schedule.”
That was how my routine for the next few days became anchored in his absence.
I went to work from his house every morning, my assistant Tobi running through project blueprints with me via email, but every evening, I was back in Akila’s bedroom, surrounded by his scent.
On day six, Amara came visiting. She had driven over to the house, her arms full of snacks and a bottle of wine.
“I knew I would find you here,” Amara said as she stepped into the parlor, looking at me with a smirk.
“Amara, abeg, don’t start,” I said, laughing as I took the bottle of wine from her.
“I’m just keeping Naya company so she doesn’t feel lonely in this big compound while her brother is away.”
“Yes, o! That’s my official defense statement,” Naya called out from the kitchen, her head popping out of the doorway.
“She is doing the Lord’s work!”
We ended up having a massive movie night in the parlor.
Naya, who was a complete chef at heart when she wasn’t shopping for school, had spent the afternoon making homemade vanilla and strawberry ice cream from scratch.
She brought out a massive bowl, topped with crushed cookies and fresh berries, and set it between us on the rug.
We sat there in our loungewear, the television playing some romantic comedy we weren’t really paying attention to, talking and laughing until midnight.
It was the first time in a week that my chest didn’t feel constricted.
By afternoon of the eighth day, the air in the house had turned warm and still.
I was sitting on the long gray sofa in the parlor, the laptop resting on my knees as I typed out a long, detailed response to Tobi regarding the structural changes a hotel client wanted for the lobby partition.
From the kitchen, the rich, savory aroma of fresh pepper, onions, and beef was wafting through the house.
Naya was standing by the stove, cooking a fresh pot of stew, her voice carrying over the sound of the sizzling oil as she gisted me about some old family drama.
“I’m telling you, baby na!” Naya shouted over the noise of the extractor fan.
“The day Wandi told Baba she was going to study accounting instead of law, the whole house went dead for three days! Baba was very strict. But Wandi just stood her ground. Akila was the one who finally went to meet Baba in the farm to calm his temper down.”
“Akila has always been the mediator for the family, then?” I called back, my fingers pausing over the keyboard.
“Gaskiya! Even though he acts like a hard man, his heart is the softest among all of us,” Naya said, stepping out of the kitchen with a wooden spoon in her hand, wiping her brow with a towel.
“He just carries this hard guy exterior because of the things he’s seen. But once he loves you, he is finished.”
I smiled, looking down at my clothes. In my own defense against the longing that had been consuming me, I wore a matching blue two-piece loungewear set he had bought for me a few months ago. The knit fabric was soft against my skin, wrapping me in a familiar comfort.
And on my head, pulled down low over my eyes, was his favorite black canvas baseball hat — the one I had stolen from him during our third date at the Millennium Park.
I remembered the exact way he had looked at me that afternoon, his stone face cracking into a wide, genuine laugh as I refused to give it back, telling him in that silly baby voice that if he loved me, his favorite hat was now my property.
I wore it today because I just wanted to feel his presence around me, a physical shield against the anxiety of his silence.
“Tobi is a life saver. He makes life easy for me fa,” I muttered to myself, turning my focus back to the screen as I formulated the email response.
The heavy brass lock of the front door suddenly clicked.
My fingers froze above the keyboard. The lock turned fully, the security bolts sliding back with a deep metallic groan, and the front door swung open.
I looked up from the screen.
AkilaHyel stepped across the threshold.
He was carrying a dark canvas duffel bag slung loosely over his right shoulder, his tall, muscular frame filling the entryway instantly.
He was wearing a plain t-shirt and dark trackpants, his skin looking smooth and deep under the afternoon light filtering through the windows.
His shoulders were relaxed, his face carrying a serene, unshakeable peace that I had never seen on him before.
He looked so incredibly fine — stripped of the commander persona, looking raw, solid, and breathtakingly handsome.
Our eyes locked across the space of the parlor.
The moment his dark gaze hit my face, his chest heaved in a sharp, sudden gasp, his boots coming to an absolute halt on the floorboards.
His lips parted slightly, his eyes widening with a profound, breathless surprise that turned into something deep, intense, and completely overwhelming.
He hadn’t known I would be here.
He didn’t know I had turned his bedroom into my sanctuary for the past four days.
The laptop on my knees felt instantly weightless.
My heart did a violent, frantic leap against my ribs, the entire architecture of the room fading into a blur until there was nothing left but the sight of him standing by the door.
My baby was finally home.
Even in their fight, they still dey pepper us.
It is well with the righteous oo. 😒😒
See you guys tomorrow😍😍
Goshhh, I wanna see the next chapter...sha please don't let her throw her laptop away
You are making a grown woman blush… Chaiii, i love love