Feire stepped into the living room, dressed for work. She was opening her bag to check for her phone when Mosun also appeared, ready to leave for work too.
“I am sorry about yesterday,” Feire apologized as she saw her.
Mosun smiled. “I know you are going through a lot, babe. I understand.”
“I am coming to your office today.”
Mosun grinned. “To take me out?”
“No. I am coming to see Kike.”
Mosun’s face dipped in shock. “Why would you come to see her? What do you want to do? Are you obsessed with Desmond that much?”
Feire laughed. “I can’t fight anyone over a guy matter, Mosun. You should know I am more mature than that.” She shrugged.
“So?”
“I don’t know. I want to see what she looks like, hear her voice, interact with her and just be her friend.” She winked.
Mosun clasped her hands together. “Someone who doesn’t even know you, Feire. Tell me, what is your plan?”
“I am serious, dear. I am not coming to wreck any havoc. I just want to see her through you.”
“I don’t understand.” Mosun sat down.
“Stand up, dear. We will be late for work. You will soon understand.”
Kike smiled into the boardroom where she had called for a meeting. She demanded that everyone must be seated because she wanted to pass an important announcement.
“Good morning,” she greeted as she pulled her chair to sit down.
“Good morning,” they chorused back.
She was obviously happy that morning and they all knew the meeting must be for a good reason for her to be smiling that way. Everyone anticipated what she would say as all eyes rested on her.
“Yeah, I called everyone just for a notice, not even for a meeting. This is unofficial. I wouldn’t want to be telling some of us one after the other and end up forgetting some people while others get angry that I didn’t inform them.” She smiled. “I would be getting married in three weeks.”
Noise and cheering filled the room immediately.
It wasn’t new to Mosun. She wasn’t even excited because who knew if the husband would be Desmond?
“Just calm down, guys.” Kike grinned as she announced the date of the wedding to them.
Mosun sat there lost in thought as she heard the date. It would be on Feire’s birthday. It couldn’t really be Desmond, right? That would be too disappointing.
“It is going to be a very quiet wedding. I am not making it loud at all. So it is just you people, not your friends and family, guys.”
They laughed over what she said, all cheering as she stood up to leave the room. She didn’t even notice that Mosun wasn’t moved like the others because of how excited everyone was.
Kike left for her office too.
Mosun wanted to call Feire to know if she was still coming, but Feire already texted her that she had changed her mind. Mosun informed her about the wedding news and even asked if she should send a message to Desmond to celebrate her birthday for her.
She wished she could just leave work already and be with her friend.
Feire wasn’t sure that was the best thing to do.
Should she really ask him to celebrate her birthday with her or just keep mute about everything and appear at the wedding as a guest?
Maybe that would be the best thing.
She wouldn’t call him anymore, so she wouldn’t look desperate or make him suspect that she already knew anything. Yet, she would play along if Desmond also decided to play along. It would become a strange game between both of them.
She swiveled her chair, thinking about it all, when someone knocked on her door.
She adjusted herself properly behind her desk and placed her hands on the table.
“Come in.”
She smiled as she stood slowly.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Feire, good morning,” her boss replied as he approached her. “May I sit down?”
“Sure, you may, sir.”
They sat down.
“I have told you I am not a sir. I am just Fola.” He corrected her.
She shook her head. “Sir, we are in the office and anyone can hear me call you Fola. It wouldn’t be nice, sir.”
He chuckled. “Calling me Fola when they are not here is the height of hypocrisy.”
“I see it as respect, especially in an official environment like this. Did you give any other person the privilege of calling you by your name?”
He laughed. “So what are you insinuating?”
“I don’t know. I just feel it will be weird.”
He clenched his fist lightly. “I want you to follow me out.”
Her face dimmed. “Out? Like… I don’t understand.”
“I just want us to be friends, Feire. Can you cut all these boss stuff away?”
“Em… you know I told you from the start that…”
He laughed and interrupted her.
“Babes, no strings attached. I like your personality and I just want us to be friends on a plain ground. I want to go pick my fiancée at the airport. She just came back from Germany.”
Feire smiled immediately.
It was a relief hearing that he had a fiancée.
“But sir, there might be a misunderstanding if she finds me with you.”
“Fola.” He corrected again.
“Okay… but she might misunderstand things. She is just coming back from Germany.”
He shrugged. “I practically have no friend, and she doesn’t have friends too. She asked me to come with someone when picking her up and I honestly have no one else to take except you. You know what? Stella trusts me with her life, and I trust her too. That is why I never batted an eyelid at any lady throughout the one year she stayed in Germany, and I am sure she is coming back untouched too.” He smiled.
“Er… okay.” Feire replied.
“So, shall we?”
“Yeah.” She stood up.
Feire sprawled on the sofa as she entered her apartment.
Fola made sure she followed him and his fiancée to eat out before allowing her go home. Honestly, it would have passed another message entirely if Stella wasn’t there.
Stella was beautiful. Very beautiful. Smooth skin, perfect dentition and the same outspoken energy Mosun had. She collected Feire’s number almost immediately, hugged her and kept talking nonstop about how the man seated beside her on the flight nearly ruined her journey with unnecessary conversations.
Feire actually enjoyed going out with them.
It shifted her mind away from everything happening around Desmond.
What Fola said earlier in the office kept replaying in her mind — that he and Stella trusted each other completely.
The statement sounded foreign to Feire.
It felt as though her own trust had been exhausted completely.
She didn’t even realize how badly she had stopped believing in relationships until he said those words.
Why would anyone get into a relationship with another person only to hurt them eventually?
Tears gathered in her eyes as she thought about everything going on.
She didn’t know if she should just confront Desmond and leave the relationship or stay calm and see how everything would eventually play out.
Would he really fix a wedding with another woman without breaking up with her first?
And not just any date…
Her birthday?
Mosun pushed the door open and met Feire fast asleep on the sofa.
It was already past six that evening and she wondered why her friend didn’t even lock the door before sleeping.
She wished she could prank her, but the current situation wasn’t funny enough for such.
She tapped her gently and sat beside her as Feire sat up.
“You didn’t lock the door, Feire. Were you that tired?”
Feire wiped her face and yawned again. “I forgot. How was work?”
Mosun shrugged. “I don’t even know whether to say fine or not. How are you doing, Feire?”
Feire smiled. “I am fine.”
“What do we do about this issue on ground? I am confused too, but I think we should attend the wedding.”
She chuckled. “It is going to be my birthday, Mosun.”
Mosun dropped her handbag beside her feet. “I know. I just want you to start getting over him from now so you can go out and enjoy yourself that day.”
“What if all these does not turn out the way we have been thinking?”
Mosun smiled faintly. “I think I am even surer now, Feire. Desmond is getting married to her. What I still don’t understand is whether he is truly the father of the child or if something else is happening.”
Mosun turned to her. “What do you mean? He should be the father.”
“According to what I heard that day, the guy she left for him slept with her. What if he is the father of the child?”
Feire scratched her head. “If Desmond has not done something too, she wouldn’t have tried hooking him with the pregnancy. I was even thinking of asking him to take me out on my birthday.” She grinned weakly.
“Really? You want to know what he would say?”
She nodded. “Exactly. I want to hear whatever lie he would come up with. See, Mosun, I am just confused. I don’t know if I am angry or bitter towards him. I still see everything as a joke till now.”
“What if he breaks up with you before that day?” Mosun asked.
“You know what? Let’s just attend the wedding together. I won’t say anything till then. Even if he breaks up with me before that day, I still want him to see my face at that wedding.”
Mosun laughed and clasped her hands together. “Are you sure you can handle this?”
“I can’t leave him without guilt pricking him, dear. Don’t worry.”
Mosun sighed. “Men!”
“No. I think you should say Desmond, not men.”
“They are all…”
Feire interrupted her immediately.
“Fola doesn’t seem like that. You needed to see the way he spoke confidently about his fiancée today. We went to receive her from the airport together, Mosun. If you saw the way the two of them flowed together… See, not all men are the same.”