Jide and Taiwo kept exchanging glances to communicate their frustration, unable to speak freely to avoid someone overhearing. They had been sitting in the living room close to an hour when Taiwo finally stood, stretching.

“I’m hungry. Let me go and find amala somewhere nearby. Call me when you’re ready.”

“Please don’t leave me here alone,” Jide said. “We’re supposed to be doing this together.”

“This is the most awkward thing I’ve ever sat through in my life.” Taiwo shook his head. “That girl is unwell, my brother. It’s a good thing you two are finished.”

“She was crying, Taiwo.”

“I hope you’ve learned something from all this. These girls will finish you if you let them. Don’t be gullible.”

“There’s nothing gullible about believing her father was dead. How could I have known that a person would go that far with a lie?”

“You are right. It is well. When you get out of this, please make it a final escape. Don’t let any fresh lie bring you back,” Taiwo said, then rose. “I really need to eat. I won’t go far. I’ll be back before you even notice,” he added, then let himself out through the front door, and the house went quiet again except for children’s voices somewhere in the yard, and the sound of pounded yam drifting in from the kitchen.

Jide sat alone now, hoping that Yetunde wouldn’t call till he leaves here. It would be awkward explaining Elizabeth’s drama over the phone. He didn’t know where she was hiding now, or what she could be plotting. If Taiwo came back from his lunch and she hadn’t come to arrange the meeting with his father, he would leave. Her family had been in and out of the room the whole hour, someone’s mother greeting him warmly, a young cousin peering in and running off again. Elizabeth’s father, they said, had gone for a special church program and would be back soon. 

Elizabeth came back in, a few minutes after his resolve, as though she heard his thoughts. “Daddy is home. He came through the back.”

“Does he know I’m here?”

She nodded, that same playful tilt of her head she used to do, the one that had once undone him completely and now did nothing at all. “He wants to see you in his room.”

“I thought we were having this as a proper meeting, out here.”

“You’re basically his son, Jide. Let’s go.”

Jide followed Elizabeth down the corridor. At the door of her father’s room he stopped. 

“Are you sure he’s actually in there?”

“Ah ah, do you think I’m luring you in here to rape you?”

“At this point I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

He pushed the door open.

Elizabeth’s father rose from his chair the moment he saw him, arms already open. “My son.”

He pulled Jide into a hug, warm and unguarded, the kind of embrace Jide hadn’t braced himself for. “Elizabeth, give us a moment.”

“I thought you wanted to talk to both of us.”

“I’ve already spoken to you. Now I want to speak to him.”

“Jide, we had an agreement.”

“What agreement?” .

“Nothing,” Elizabeth said quickly. “Please, don’t ask him.”

Her father’s face changed. “I am asking. What agreement? 

Elizabeth’s composure cracked all at once. “I lied to him. I told him you had died. It was the only way I could get him to answer my calls, to agree to see me again.”

Her father went very still. “Elizabeth.”

“I made him promise not to tell you.”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” Jide said. “This must be difficult to hear.”

“Difficult for you to sit here, you mean?” The old man’s eyes had gone wet, though his voice hadn’t broken yet. “Elizabeth, leave my room.”

“Daddy, tell him I can’t lose him—”

“Get out.”

She went, finally, and the door closed behind her, and the old man sank back into his chair and gestured Jide toward the small couch across from him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, once they were alone. “No wonder you left her, if she’s capable of something like this.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “She told me the two of you broke up over a misunderstanding. That you found her with a male friend at the flat and jumped to conclusions. That jealousy got the better of you.”

Jide laughed, though there was no humour in it. “She cheated on me, sir. I came home and caught them. There was no misunderstanding.”

The old man’s face crumpled. “Oh, my! I am so sorry, son.”

“I was already uneasy in the relationship before that, if I’m honest. We fought often. But I still came to Nigeria to propose. I believed the Lord had told me that it was time. I even bought a house already, back in England, before I ever got on that flight.”

The old man was quiet for a moment, studying him. “I had a dream at the start of this year. I saw you get married, but the woman in the dream wasn’t Elizabeth. I told myself it was only my imagination working on an old man’s fears. It has troubled me since, especially because you stopped calling me, I didn’t know it was because you thought I was dead. No wonder she warned me not to call you.” He leaned forward. “She mentioned there’s someone else now. Did you also stray, while you were still with her?”

“No, sir. It was a coincidence, nothing more. I met her on the flight home, after everything with Elizabeth had already ended. My heart was in pieces that day. She was simply the woman who sat beside me. We became friends, and it grew from there.”

The old man studied his face for a long moment. “Your face tells me this is serious.”

“It is, sir.”

“Then it is finished. I have nothing to say against it.” He reached over and gripped Jide’s hand. “You are my son, whatever happens with Elizabeth. If this woman is the one for you, then go to her, with my blessing.” His voice broke properly now. “I am hurt though. I wanted you as my son. I love you like one already. You’re a good man, Jide.”

Jide pulled him into a hug, the old man’s shoulders shaking slightly against him. “I will always be your son, sir. That much hasn’t changed.”

“Then don’t disappear from my life just because you’ve left my daughter. Keep praying for her, please. But cut her off, properly, for her own good and yours.”

“I love my daughter,” Elizabeth’s father said. “You were so good to her, the best, she knows it, and I know it too. But if you don’t hold firm, she will keep finding her way back to you, again and again, and neither of us will ever be free of it. So if you are breaking, break clean.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jide said, and the old man embraced him once more before letting him go.

Jide walked out of the room. Elizabeth was waiting just outside the door.

“No, Jide.”

“It’s over, Elizabeth.”

She pushed herself into his arms before he could step back. “It can’t be over. I love you. I cheated because of you, do you understand that, you never wanted to do anything, you never wanted to kiss me properly, you made the one time we did feel like a mistake. I have needs, Jide. I’m a woman.”

“We’re Christians, Elizabeth. Our bodies have to honour God in that.”

“Please. Just give me one more chance.”

Her father came out of the room then and pulled her gently but firmly into his own arms instead, holding her the way you hold someone you’re about to watch grieve something.

“Goodbye, Jide,” he said, over her shoulder.

———————————————————————————————————————

Taiwo tried a few jokes on the drive back, the kind he usually managed to land even on Jide’s worst days, but none of them worked. Jide sat with his head against the window and nothing in him reached for laughing. He had not wanted to spend the night in Ibadan anymore, catching up with Taiwo like he had mentioned to Yetunde on the phone. All of that had gone the moment he walked out of that room.

His phone had died somewhere past the toll gate, no power bank in the car, and he sat the rest of the drive with a dark screen in his lap, unable to tell Yetunde anything, unable even to say he was on his way.

“Straight to Yetunde’s shop,” he told Taiwo, once they crossed into Lagos proper. “Not the hotel.”

“You want to go looking like this? ”

“I need to see her. Please.”

They got into the complex a little past seven, and it was only once they were standing there that Jide realized his mistake. The shops had no proper numbers on the outside, no signage that meant anything to a stranger. Taiwo asked a young man loitering near the gate if he knew a tailor called Yetunde. The boy shrugged. They asked another, and another, four blank faces in a row, until a woman selling recharge cards from a small table finally said, “Ah, yes, yes, that one”, and pointed them down a narrow row between two buildings.

“Go,” Jide told Taiwo. “I’ll walk from here.”

“You want to stand here on the road with your box like this? Alone?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Taiwo pulled him into a hug, quick and firm. “I would have carried you the rest of the way myself, but I think you have seen enough of me for today.”

Jide agreed, managing something close to a smile. “I will call you soon. You’re still my ride, don’t forget.”

“Better go and rent your own car, before I start charging you more than fuel money.” Taiwo laughed and got back into the car, and Jide watched him pull off before he turned and walked, suitcase wheels dragging over uneven concrete, toward the shop they had pointed him towards.

———————————————————————————————————————

Yetunde was trying hard not to panic. She and Jide were always in the middle of a conversation, even the quiet stretches between them usually had a message waiting somewhere, so the silence since Ibadan had started to sit wrong in her chest hours ago. She told herself his battery was low, he had said as much before the line became unreachable, yet she kept picking her phone in a rush every time it buzzed, hoping.

Sade had already closed her own stall for the night but stopped by anyway, the way she always did, and Mr. Jimoh from the fridge repair shop down the row was there too, still trying his luck, still asking Yetunde to help beg Sade on his behalf.

“I could never marry a man like Mr. Jimoh,” Sade said, arms folded. “I’m holding out for someone like Yetunde’s oyinbo boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? This Yetunde?” Mr. Samson, from two doors down, laughed loud enough to draw a few more heads. “This one that behaves like she doesn’t need anybody?”

They were all still laughing when a man appeared at the mouth of the shop, wheeling a suitcase. Yetunde’s mouth fell open before she could stop it.

Mr. Jimoh, misreading the whole room, turned to him. “Ah, is there material in that box? She doesn’t sew men’s things, unless—”

“She does unisex,” Sade cut in.

“I am not here for business,” Jide said, smiling. “I’m here to see my fiancée.”

“Eh! Eh!” Mr. Jimoh’s whole face changed. “Ah, Yetunde. Yetunde! Wow. So, it is true.”

Sade grinned. “Welcome, oga. What did you bring for us?”

“Sade,” Yetunde said, giving her the eye. “Don’t embarrass me.”

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Mr. Jimoh said, already tugging at Sade’s sleeve, and the two of them left laughing, Mr. Samson trailing behind still shaking his head at the whole spectacle.

Jide laughed too, once they were alone, and Yetunde covered her face with both hands. “I’m so embarrassed. You didn’t tell me you were coming. I thought you were still in Ibadan. I would have cleaned up, arranged something—”

“I just wanted to see this place.” He set the suitcase down and looked around properly, at the mannequin, the bolts of fabric stacked along one wall, the small table where she did all their video calls. “Everywhere we’ve talked, everywhere I’ve watched you work through a screen. I wanted to actually stand in it.”

“I still don’t understand why you left Ibadan. Won’t you miss the burial?”

He pulled her into his arms instead of answering right away, burying his face briefly in her hair. She was wearing her hair out in an afro today and he loved it. “How do you still smell this good, after working all day?”

“Jide. Answer me. Why are you not there for the burial?”

“There was no burial.” He pulled back enough to look at her properly. “The man is alive, Yetunde. Completely alive.”

“What?”

“It was a set up. Elizabeth wanted me in front of her father so he could talk me into taking her back.”

“What kind of person does that?” Yetunde pressed a hand to her own chest. “Jide, I cannot be fighting another woman for a man. My life is simple, Jide. I sew clothes. I mind my business.”

“It’s over now. All of it.”

“Are you sure? Because tomorrow it’ll be her uncle who died, and you’ll be rushing off again, and I can’t keep doing this, it doesn’t fit the kind of life I actually want—”

“It’s over,” he said again, firmer. “I’m telling you, it’s finished. Marry me, Yetunde.”

She blinked at him. “Where’s the ring?”

“I’ll do it properly, I promise you, ring and everything. But tell me first. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said, and then laughed at herself, at how easily it had come out. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

“I don’t mean someday. I mean as soon as we can arrange it.”

“Ah, that’s not how people get married in this country, Jide, there’s process—” But she was already pulling out the chair she kept reserved for her best customers and setting it in front of her own, telling him to sit, because whatever this conversation was going to be, it deserved a proper seat.

He caught her hand instead and pulled her close to him. “I need you in my life. Please. Marry me, very soon.”

“I haven’t gotten there yet, Jide. I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“That I won’t match up. That I won’t be enough for the kind of life you’re offering me.”

“You’ve outgrown this place.” He said it gently, gesturing at the shop around them without a trace of disrespect in it. “This complex, this little shop, it’s beautiful, and I love watching you build it. But you can build the next version of it anywhere. Your place now is beside me. I don’t want to fly back to that empty house in Birmingham and sit in it alone when I could have you there instead.”

“You mean you want us married before you go back?”

“Yes. Come back with me.”

“But my shop—”

“You’ve already been flexible with it, you’ve told me so yourself, you’ve barely taken new work this month. Finish what’s outstanding, close that chapter properly, and let it be a foundation for something new.” He held her hand tighter. “I will come with you to see your people, and pay your bride price the proper way. We will go to the registry here in Lagos, and then we go back to England together, as husband and wife.”

She studied him a moment, something clicking into place. “You’ve been planning this. That’s why you pushed me to sort my visitor’s visa months ago.”

He laughed. “We will be applying for a different kind of visa altogether now. But the visitor’s visa still works in the meantime, you can come and see me while the real one processes. Don’t worry about any of that yet. Just say yes.”

She looked him in the eye. “Okay.”

“I want to love you properly, Yetunde. Let me. Be my wife.”

“Okay,” she said again, softer this time. “Love me. Yes, I’ll marry you. I’ll go back to England with you.”

“Oh my God.” He was on his feet before she finished the sentence, lifting her clean off the ground and turning her slowly around the small shop, past the mannequin, past the bolts of fabric, and he set her down just long enough to press a kiss to her forehead. “It’s you, Yetunde. You’re my peace. I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said, and meant it more than she could describe..