Otaare

by Alessandra Ebulu

  "But being the spoilt baby he is," Tunji said, not to Bola, but her sisters, "he lashed out when the boy didn't roll dice. Pathetic."

  "Are you all here to make me feel worse or help me out?" Bola ground out. All three of them had worn out their welcome, and either they said what it was they could possibly help him with, or they got the fuck out.

  He was also going to call Sukanmi to give him a piece of his mind. The rotten little shit.

  And just like that, they went from being his bratty make-his-life-a-living-hell nuisances to his kickass siblings. Debs grabbed his phone off the nightstand. Tunji and Tinu moved positions so they were sitting upright on either side of him. And then Debs joined them, to complete the circle.

  His phone sat in the middle.

  "You will call him—" Debs started to say.

  "Won't work," Bola interrupted. "Plus, what reason do I have for calling him?"

  Tunji snorted. "You're an idiot."

  "I thought we already moved from that?" Bola said.

  "Isn't it obvious? Call him to thank him for saving you from Cece and then Stella, last night," Debs said.

  Cece. Right. He'd forgotten all about her. Her name that usually brought thoughts of running the hell away made him smile. If anything, because he remembered how amazingly well Ukeme had handled her the other night. And then he'd pulled off a convincing act for Stella as well. What a man.

  Bola chuckled.

  "Well, I'd be damned."

  The words sounded like a prayer, and he looked at all three sisters who were looking at him like he'd lost his mind.

  "What?" Bola asked.

  "You like him," Tinu said with a smile.

  He shrugged.

  "You really like him," Debs said, also smiling.

  He looked at her.

  "Damn, you're probably halfway in love with him already," Tunji blurted.

  "I'm not," Bola said. "Also, I think he hates me," he added.

  Debs reached for his cheek and rubbed it like she used to do when they were kids. He resisted the urge to lean into those fingers, because they weren't kids anymore.

  "Nobody can hate you," Debs said. "You're just too damn cute."

  "Plus the dimples," Tunji laughed. "Don't forget the dimples."

  "It's quite capable of driving any potential boyfriend out of his mind," Tinu said. She picked up the phone and handed it to him. "So, make the call."

  Make the call. Easy. How difficult would it be to invite the guy to dinner. Thank him for the save. Get to know him. Try not to close his eyes at the sound of that voice. Or stare whenever Ukeme smiled. Maybe he might even pull off not looking like a complete idiot. But their ruse had ended already. Stella was off their backs and the rest of the country believed that they were now best buds. There was no need for Ukeme to come see him. What if he refused to come?

  Bola swallowed at the thought.

  "Bola," Debs pressed.

  "Sometime this century," Tunji added.

  He looked at them.

  "Well?" Tinu encouraged.

  "Well, what are you three still doing here?" He motioned at the door. "Get going. I want to talk to him."

  They opened their mouths to speak. "In private," he added.

  All three of them huffed, but at least they left him alone. Even if they'd stomped off to do so.

  Making the call was the easy part. He simply pulled up his recent call list and tapped the name 'Ukeme the writer'. Sukanmi had laughed when he'd seen how he'd stored the name. Said something about Bola only knowing one Ukeme, so what was the need for the additional information?

  The hard part was not knowing what to say when Ukeme picked up after the second ring with a sleepy, "Hello."

  Bola reached for his wristwatch. Seven-thirty on a Saturday morning—and not just any Saturday, either, as his watch's calendar told him. It was the last Saturday of the month. In other words, Environmental Saturday, when a majority of Lagosians sat their asses at home to get just a bit more sleep, seeing as it was against the law to be out of the house before nine.

  Of course, most of the people sleeping in didn't actually do what Environmental Saturday was for—cleaning up the house and making their environments as tidy as they could be—but they did stay indoors.

  His sisters had woken him up too early. How the hell had they been able to get to his place before seven when it officially kicked off?

  "Hello…?"

  The words drifted to him again. Still husky. Still sleepy. Still wreaking havoc to his heart and his cock. Fuck, he wanted to see how Ukeme woke up. If those eyes woke up soft and dewey at first, before becoming the narrowed eyes he was growing to like seeing a whole damn lot. If he was a reach-for-a-kiss morning person, or turn-away-so-you-don't-get-a-whiff-of-my-morning-breath kind of person.

  He wanted to bury his nose in Ukeme's long neck and take in a deep breath. He wanted to run his fingers through the barely-there hair, his fingers maybe getting caught in the tiny strands that were sprinkled over the head.

  His sisters were right. He was a goner.

  "Hello…"

  Still soft, and husky. Ukeme must be really tired. If he was awake, he wouldn't be that patient about waiting for his caller to speak. He hadn't on the first day Bola had called.

  "Ukeme," Bola said and waited for a beat. He thought he heard Ukeme's breath catch. Thought the sound of Ukeme's breathing changed. But, it might have all be in his head. A figment of what he hoped would happen. Ukeme probably hadn't placed his voice or had any idea who it was that had pulled him out of his dreams. "It's Bola."

  "Bolarinwa. Bola," Ukeme said instead and Bola shivered. That Igbo accent nailed his name just right, even down to the intonation of rising on the first two syllables and going lower on the last two.

  Bolarinwa. The only person that called him by his full name was his father.

  Ukeme, though, sounded nothing like his father. Especially considering that he didn't sound pissed or like Bola was bugging him. Progress. He would gladly take it.

  "I'm sorry to wake you up," Bola said.

  "It's okay," Ukeme said, in-between yawns.

  You know you have it bad when you think even a man's yawns were sexy as fuck.

  "What's up?" Ukeme asked.

  "Um…" This was what happened when he got railroaded by his siblings and didn't even have the time to think things through. He just rushed into the conversation without having any idea about what the fuck to say. Thank heavens their eldest brother wasn't around. Adedeji would have made things even worse.

  "Bola?" Ukeme repeated.

  "How are you this morning?"

  An LLB and LLM from Cambridge and he became a tongue-tied idiot on the phone with someone he liked. What would he do if he was actually speaking face-to-face with Ukeme? At this rate, he'd probably fall down and die.

  "I'm good. You kind of woke me up, you know," Ukeme said. It sounded like he was smiling. Bola hoped he was smiling and not thinking about the idiot who woke him up from a good night's sleep after the craziness of last night's party.

  "That's good. Good," Bola said and wanted to shoot himself in the foot.

  "Bola."

  The third time in a space of ten minutes and he was already hooked on the way Ukeme called his name. All thoughts of his father and what he would do, or how not-so-well Ukeme and his father would get along, gone from his mind.

  Shit.

  "Sorry. Um. I wanted to say thank you," Bola said.

  "Thank you?" Ukeme sounded confused.

  "For helping me with Cece and then Stella last night," Bola said.

  Ukeme chuckled. Good. He was probably right about Ukeme smiling. "It was nothing, really."

  "Nothing to you, but it meant a lot to me," Bola said. "Cece in particular doesn't really get a clue."

  "She seemed to get it plenty the other night," Ukeme said.

  "You didn't know who she was. You stumped her and she had to leave to recuperate. She wouldn't be so prone to leaving when next you see he
r, that's for sure," Bola said.

  There was a pause and Bola wished he'd just kept his mouth shut. Ukeme was probably wondering why he and Cece would have to run into each other ever again.

  "Well, I would make sure to have something else prepared then," Ukeme finally said. "Or maybe just wing it. Seems like I handle her well when I have nothing planned in advance."

  Bola breathed a sigh of relief.

  "But you already thanked me last night," Ukeme continued. "So why are you calling?"

  "Um…" And here was the difficult part. The last time they'd been alone together—with no prying eyes or ears to distract them—it had been filled with insults and anger on both sides, with Ukeme pissed about him plagiarizing his work and Bola pissed at the insults to his family. Bola had done his best to keep pushing Ukeme's poem as the inspiration for Otaare, every chance he got, but he and Ukeme had never really talked about it. He wasn't sure if Ukeme thought it had all been for their playacting at being friends. It had stopped being an act for Bola weeks ago, and he hoped he would be able to convey that at their meeting. He couldn't hope for a relationship—a couple of looks caught didn't equate to Ukeme being interested in him and he wasn't about to land himself in jail by making a play on a man who didn't like him back—but hopefully, they could be friends. "I was wondering if we could have brunch together."

  "Brunch?" Ukeme asked.

  "Maybe at past twelve. Give you more time to sleep in or something."

  "Brunch," Ukeme repeated.

  "Or if you don't do brunch, we can always have lunch. Or dinner, if you have something else planned," Bola rambled.

  He cut off the words when Ukeme laughed; a happy sound that rolled over Bola's body and made him want to hear that sound for the rest of his life.

  "What's funny?" Bola chanced to ask.

  "You. Brunch?" Ukeme chuckled. "Only you rich people would call it brunch."

  The words didn't sound mean, or like Ukeme was making fun of him. It just sounded teasing. "Well then, what do you non-rich people call it?" Bola tried teasing back. He held his breath, waiting for Ukeme's reply. They'd been doing so well so far, and he hoped this truce they were presently in was here to stay.

  "Lunch," Ukeme said amidst chuckles. "Non-rich folks call it lunch. Any meal after twelve is lunch. Any meal before is breakfast."

  Bola breathed. Good. They were still on their truce. He allowed himself to chuckle. "Fine. Lunch. Are you up for having lunch with me? Only me. And only you," Bola added, hoping Ukeme would read that to mean, he didn't want him showing up with Eze, and Bola wasn't going to show up with Sukanmi or any of his sisters.

  Hopefully. He hoped they wouldn't even suggest it because he had every intention of shaking them off of him.

  "Lunch. Me and you," Ukeme repeated. God, Bola hoped that really was a smile he could hear and he hoped Ukeme said yes.

  "I can't do lunch," Ukeme said and something in Bola's belly sank.

  Shit.

  "Let's do dinner. Say, nine? I would be free by then," Ukeme said and the sinking in Bola's belly turned to an eagle taking flight, stretched wings and everything.

  He smiled. "Dinner is great. Do you want to do the mainland or the island?"

  "Island," Ukeme replied. "My meeting's on the island, so we can just meet up from there. Where do you want to meet?"

  He hadn't thought that far ahead. The only remotely-secluded space that popped into his head at the moment was Driver's. It would be just the place to test the waters, see if those looks he sometimes caught in Ukeme's eyes meant something. See if he was the only one projecting his desire. It was the one place he knew that would help them put those walls down, give Ukeme the out he needed to change the dynamics of their relationship. But, was it a risk he was willing to take? "Uh. Can I text you in about an hour? I'll send the address as well."

  Another beat of silence and then Ukeme clucked his tongue. "Okay. Will be expecting to hear from you. See you tonight."

  And then the call was over and his siblings were tumbling into his room too damn fast not to have been eavesdropping on the conversation. Plus, if he'd doubted that they'd been eavesdropping, the way they were cheering and whooping confirmed it.

  Then Tinu said the magic words that had always sent him into a panic every time he had a date.

  "What are you going to wear?"

  chapter ten

  "Are you sure this is the place?" Ukeme asked the cab driver as he pulled up in front of a nondescript-looking building. It was an all-white duplex with small, tinted windows and a gate that was just a tad rusty-looking.

  He pulled out his phone and scrolled to Bola's text. Driver's Bar. He looked at the street name he could still see. This was Adeola Odeku. But, what the fuck, the building didn't have a house number, nor did it have a sign. If he got in there, and found out that the driver had taken his three-thousand, five hundred and dropped him in the middle of nowhere, he would be really pissed.

  He grabbed his laptop bag, swung it over his arm, and walked towards the gate. Two Hausa men stood by the gate: their flowing dashiki were modest, but if someone knew what to look for—and by that he meant the material used, the Rolex on their wrists, the gold that glinted at their necks and the leather sandals—then Ukeme knew that there was nothing simple about the clothes.

  He cleared his throat and both men turned to look at him. Young men, the both of them. Probably in their early thirties. Plus, the way they stood so close to each other, they were probably not strangers. Lovers, most likely. And the only kind of lovers you noticed when you had your gaydar on and knew what to look out for such. "Sorry, is this Driver's Bar?"

  One of the men, with his dark skin, white teeth and dancing eyes smiled. "Right inside." He jerked a thumb, winked at Ukeme, and went back to his conversation with his companion.

  That was weird.

  He followed their instructions, though. Stepped through the gate that creaked as he pushed it open, and into a compound filled with roses, aloe vera and—was that oranges he could smell?

  When he rounded the corner on the stone pathway he was walking on, he saw not only orange trees, but mangos and the red, juicy Nigerian apples hanging off several branches.

  A fruit orchard right in the heart of Victoria Island. Who would have thought?

  Past the fruits, and him resisting the urge to reach out to pluck something he could sink his teeth into, he was staring at a brown oak door that was partially open.

  A Caucasian man stood by the door, smoking on a cigarette. The smoke curled tendrils around his face and his lean fingers tapped a bit of the ashes off the butt and he dragged some more on the stick.

  The man noticed him and smiled, the reached behind him to push the door open even further. "Welcome," he said.

  "Thank you," Ukeme said as he climbed the short stairs that led him to the door and put him at an even level with the man. He wondered if the man worked here. Was he meant to ask him for help with locating Bola?

  The man had only texted him the direction to the place, but had said nothing about where to meet him. But the building didn't look like Rhapsody's two-story building, so everyone ought to be in one spot he hoped.

  "He's probably inside," the white man said.

  "How do you know he's a he?" Ukeme asked him. Not defensive. Just curious.

  The man smiled. A deep smile that showed dimples that were cute, but not as knee-shattering as the twin ones that appeared whenever Bola graced Ukeme with a smile. This man was cute, but he couldn't compare to the man that frustrated him one breath and tempted him in the other.

  "Why would it be anything else?" the man said. "You are at Driver's, after all."

  "Huh?"

  The man said nothing. Just waved him inside and went back to his cigarette.

  Ukeme pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  It took a while for his eyes to adjust from the blinding sun outside to the dark coolness inside the room. When his eyes had adjusted, he barely managed to keep his mouth fr
om dropping open.

  Bola had invited him to what Ukeme could only consider some sort of gay haven. Men and women stood and sat, scattered all over the room. Some with their fingers entwined as they sat and talked, occasionally sipping from their cups. Others were in a corner, dancing or making out or doing a little bit of both.

  There were also some that just sat on the plush couches, relaxing as they sipped their drinks and laughed, all the while the music played and the televisions were on different sport stations. Although in typical Naija version, more people had their eyes on the football matches than on the tennis and golf that two of the television sets were showing.

  "Can I help you, Sir?"

  The words came from his right, and he turned to a server, wearing the crisp, light green shirt and black slacks that made them stand out in the room. He had on a smile and looked like he could help.

  "Um…" Ukeme trailed off, his mind still trying to reboot itself. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Sorry, I have an appointment with Bola. Bola Johnson."

  The waiter smiled. "Oh. Yes. Ukeme Collins."

  Ukeme nodded.

  "He asked us to keep an eye out for you," the waiter said. "He's in the inner room." The waiter pointed and Ukeme followed the motion, noticing that there was a door just behind the split air-conditioning unit. If the man hadn't pointed it out, he wouldn't have noticed.

  The room was just that dark, and there was way too much distracting movement going on.

  "Thank you," he told the waiter.

  "It was my pleasure," the waiter said with a smile. "I'm your server for today, so it works for me."

  Ukeme wondered why all the other waiters in the restaurants he'd gone to had never been as chatty as this guy? Maybe it was the place? Maybe the guy was new. Either way, he grunted at the waiter's words and continued on his way.

  The doorknob turned when he touched it and he went from dark to even darker. Whilst on the other side of the door, the lights had been dimmed and the television sets gave some sort of whitish quality to people's faces, there was only one light switched on in the room, and there were no television sets.

  But even the darkness couldn't keep him from narrowing on to Bola's face.