The baby woke at five, crying.

Yetunde was up before her eyes were fully open, crossing the room in the dark, and then the door opened and Folake was there in yesterday’s clothes, still in her coat, her bag over her shoulder.

“You’re back,” Yetunde said.

“Just now.” Folake went straight to the cot. “How is she? How was the night?”

“She slept from eleven. She’s hungry, I think. We used the last of the expressed milk yesterday.”

Folake looked at the baby, then looked at herself. “Okay. Give her to me.”

Yetunde handed Adesuwa over and went downstairs.

The kitchen was not quite as she had left it.

Yesterday had stretched longer than she expected, and by the time she finally made it upstairs there had still been a few things she meant to come back and do. The dishes from dinner were waiting by the sink, and the room carried the small signs of Tobiloba moving through it last night.

She adjusted the waistband of her skirt and got to work.

By the time she finished, the kitchen looked the way she liked it. Then she started on breakfast, because Tobiloba would be awake by seven and would need something to eat before going to his playgroup session.

Thirty minutes later Folake came downstairs in fresh clothes, yawning, the baby now settled.

“Thank you,” she said. She sat at the table. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going out. It just came up.”

“It’s okay, ma.”

Folake looked at her. “Are you sure? You look tired.”

“I’m fine. The baby slept, so I rested. God was faithful.”

Folake watched her. “Are you tired of being here? Are we asking for too much? Be honest with me.”

“No.” Yetunde shook her head. “I’m fine. Please don’t read anything into my mood. I am still sleepy.”

“Okay.” Folake nodded slowly. “Okay.”

A small quiet moment passed, then Yetunde said, “This Saturday, I’d like to go out. A friend is coming to see me.”

Folake looked up. “A friend? You know someone here?”

“From the plane, actually. The owner of the jacket I came with. We’ve been talking since I arrived. He wants to come and see me, he’s also bringing sneakers he bought for me.”

Something changed in Folake’s face. 

“Tell him no,” she said.

Yetunde blinked. “Ma?”

“Tell him no. I’ll buy you sneakers. What size are you?” She waved her hand before Yetunde could answer. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll get your size. Don’t encourage this. These UK guys, they have a way. You’re fresh, you’re Nigerian, you’re here for the first time, you are exactly what they are looking for. Don’t be naive.”

“He’s Nigerian too.”

“Even worse. The Nigerian ones here are the most dangerous. They know exactly how to speak to you. How to make it feel innocent.” She shook her head. “Tell him not to come. That’s final.”

“It’s not just about the sneakers,” Yetunde said carefully. “He’s my friend. I’ve been looking forward to seeing him.”

Folake set her cup down. “Yetunde, someone is trying to guide you so you don’t make a mistake and you’re arguing with me. How long have you known this person? You met him on a plane. And now he’s buying you shoes and coming to visit. Think about what that looks like.”

“I have thought about it.”

“Clearly not enough.” Folake’s voice was patient in the way that was also firm. “Besides, Emmanuel is coming back this weekend. We need to cook. Welcome him home properly. I need you here.”

“You said he’s coming Friday.”

“Friday, Saturday, it’s the same weekend. I need you here. And I’m trying to protect you. One day you’ll understand that.” She looked at Yetunde directly. “Cut off this guy, please. For your own sake.”

Yetunde said nothing.

“You are too innocent,” Folake said, and she said it almost fondly, the way you say something you believe is a compliment. “That is your problem. People can just walk in and take advantage of you. I’ve seen it.”

“I have had one boyfriend,” Yetunde said softly. “My whole life. One. And I ended it. Nobody takes advantage of me.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.” Folake stood. “I’m going to sleep. I fed the baby and I’ll express more milk now so you have some to use later. She’s back in your room.” She picked up her cup. Then, at the door, she stopped and turned.

“Yetunde.”

Yetunde looked at her.

“I want the best for you. You are a good girl and I won’t watch something bad happen to you.” She came back slightly, her voice dropping into something that felt like a genuine feeling. “Do you know how much you mean to this family? We love you. That’s why we brought you here. How many people would bring someone who worked for them to the UK? Pay for the flight, everything? It’s because you matter to us. So I am not going to stand by and let some man take advantage of that. Okay? That’s not going to happen on my watch.”

Yetunde looked at her.

“Okay, ma,” she said.

Folake held her shoulder briefly. Then she went upstairs.

Yetunde stood in the kitchen. The breakfast was on the stove. The house was clean. Through the ceiling she could hear Folake’s footsteps crossing to her room.

She thought about what Folake had said. The warmth of it. The way it had landed on her like a hand pressing her down.

She turned back to the stove.

“Oh,” Folake called from the top of the stairs. “I will tell Zain to come and collect Tobiloba this morning. I’ll still be sleeping so I won’t be able to take him. Just make sure he’s ready.”

“Yes, ma,” Yetunde said, and stirred the pot.

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

Jide woke with a pain in his neck and knew immediately he had slept wrong.

He lay there, testing the stiffness, then decided he could ignore it. There were more important things. He reached for his phone, expecting a chat from Yetunde, but there was nothing, so he sent one.

Good morning. I know you’re awake. You didn’t call me. I thought we had a deal.

Then he got up and prepared for work.

She hadn’t replied by the time he got into the car. He checked the phone once, put it face down on the passenger seat, and pulled out of the space. On the dual carriageway he put his AirPods in and called her.

She picked up on the second ring. “I’m sorry, I was going to call you back, Tobiloba’s teacher is here, I’m just…”

He could hear the bell, movement, and Tobiloba’s voice somewhere near the door.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Stay on the line. I’m driving to work. You don’t have to talk. Just come back when you’re free.”

“Okay. I will mute.”

“No, don’t mute. I want to be there with you.”

“Okay,” she replied and continued what she was doing.

He heard it all through the AirPods, the teacher’s voice, bright and British, the shuffle of a small bag being picked up, and then Tobiloba, clear as anything: bye-bye, Auntie. Then the door. Then the baby babbling, and then the small sounds of Yetunde moving, settling, and Adesuwa quietening as the bottle went in.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just me and the baby now. I’m feeding her.”

“I can hear that.” He smiled despite himself. “How are you?”

There was a slightly long pause.

“I’m okay.”

“You don’t sound like yourself.”

Another pause. “I’m fine. I’m just…” She stopped. Started again. “I don’t think we can see on Saturday.”

He felt it land in his chest before he had words for it.

“Why?” he said. “You said we could.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Her voice was careful, and he knew it was because Folake was somewhere in that house. 

“I don’t think my madam trusts you,” she said. He was quiet.

“She is not your madam.”

“She thinks you just want to take advantage of me. She thinks I should stop talking to you.”

“What do you think?” he asked, trying to focus.

“I know you’re a good person. I know that. But she doesn’t know you the way I know you, and I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”

“So you’re going to end our friendship so your boss isn’t uncomfortable.”

“She’s not my boss. She’s family.”

“That’s exactly my point. She is not your madam, she is not your boss. You are her guest, you are not her family.” He kept his voice even. “If she were your family she would want the best for you. And the best for you means not asking you to cut off a friend because she’s decided something about him without knowing him.”

“She’s trying to protect me.”

“Protect you from what exactly?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. He could hear the frustration in it.

He waited for her to say more. A lorry moved in front of him and he let it go.

“So you’re saying I should not come on Saturday,” he said.

“I think so. I’m sorry. It would be rude to defy her.”

“Okay,” he said. “Have a nice day.”

He ended the call.

He drove the rest of the way in silence, no music, just the road. He kept thinking the same thing. Not with anger, more with a tiredness he couldn’t quite put down.

Why does she let herself be managed like that?

He knew the answer even as he asked it. It was the same reason she was up at four in the morning for someone else’s baby. The same reason she said I’m the maid without flinching. She was not weak. That wasn’t it. She just had not yet learned to hold herself in higher esteem.

He parked in the underground and sat for a moment before getting out.

Then he picked up his bag and went into the office.

——————————————————————————————————

Jide took the stairs from the underground instead of the lift. He wasn’t in a hurry. He just needed the extra minute.

The lobby had too much glass and a front desk where Chloe sat, and Chloe looked up the moment he pushed through the door. She did this every morning. He had noticed it in the first week and filed it away without doing anything about it. She was pretty in an uncomplicated way, blonde, a woman who took care with how she presented herself. He had sometimes wondered whether she liked him. She had never said anything directly, but there were moments that made him suspect she did.

“Morning, Jide.” Her smile was warm and held just a beat longer than a receptionist’s smile needed to be.

“Morning, Chloe.” He smiled back, friendly but brief, and kept walking. She watched him go. He knew she watched him go. He didn’t look back.

The open-plan floor was already busy. Keys were clicking. Someone’s call was on speaker. The smell of coffee made its way to the office from the kitchen at the back. 

He found his desk, sat down, put his bag on the floor, and opened his laptop. He put both AirPods in. In his office, that meant not today, and everyone knew it.

Then he went back to continue what should have been yesterday’s work.

He just wanted the screen and the problem and the quiet inside the noise.

He got about forty minutes of it.

He heard the shift before he understood it, that change in the room’s energy that comes when something has gone wrong and everyone is deciding whether it involves them. He pulled one AirPod out.

The client’s upgrade from last week. It hadn’t held. The system had been behaving strangely since morning, customer care had been on the phone with the client for two hours already, and nobody had been able to find the root of it. Sarah Coleman, his boss, was standing in the middle of the floor with her arms folded, not panicking but close to it.

Jide looked at his screen, wanting to stay in his own world, but knew Sarah would find a way to involve him if he didn’t volunteer. 

He pushed back his chair and walked over.

“Talk me through what’s happening,” he said to no one in particular, and someone started talking.

He listened, then asked questions, specific ones, cutting to the part that mattered. He pulled up the migration logs himself and went through them line by line while the rest of the team hovered. There was a moment, maybe an hour in, when he thought he had it. Then the thread disappeared and he had to go back and start a different way. That happened twice. The third time he followed it all the way through and there it was— a conflict buried deep in the configuration, small enough to miss on first inspection, significant enough to pull everything else sideways.

“There,” he said.

He talked two of his colleagues through the fix, step by step, checking each stage before moving to the next. It wasn’t fast work. It was detailed work. The floor got quieter as the afternoon went on, the kind of quiet that meant people were concentrating rather than worrying. At some point Chloe brought coffee up from the lobby and set one on his desk without him asking. He noticed but didn’t stop.

Six hours after it started, the system came back clean. The client confirmed it on the call. Someone went to get biscuits.

Jide sat back down at his desk. He was tired in a way that felt good, the tiredness of having done something that needed doing. He realised he hadn’t thought about Yetunde for the last three hours. Now he couldn’t think of anything else.

Sarah appeared at the edge of his vision.

“My office,” she said.

He sat down across from her. She looked at him the way she did when she was deciding how direct to be.

“What’s wrong with you today?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Jiddy,” she said it the way she always said it, the d slightly too soft, the e becoming a long i, slightly too long. Three years and she still hadn’t landed on it. Today he didn’t have the energy to walk her through it again. “I know you. You were somewhere else this morning. Talk to me.”

He looked at the window. “Girl trouble,” he said finally.

“Oh no. How is she? You literally just went to Nigeria to see her.”

“We’re not together anymore. We broke up.”

“Jiddy.” She leaned forward. “I’m so sorry. You must be devastated.”

“No, actually.” He said it and realised it was true. “We weren’t right for each other. I’m not missing her.”

She studied him. “So what is the problem?”

“There’s someone else I like.” He shook his head. “It’s complicated. I’d rather not get into it.”

She was quiet. Then: “Okay. I respect that.” She picked up her pen. “But if she’s someone you really like, don’t give up. Okay? That’s all I’ll say.”

He almost smiled. “Yeah. I won’t.”

He went for lunch alone. Sat with his food and his phone and did not open Yetunde’s chat. Normally he would have messaged her the moment the problem was solved. She would have wanted to know, would have said something that made him laugh. Today he just sat.

Then a thought settled on him.

Love is patient, except that’s not what you are beginning to feel for her.

He turned it over and counselled himself. “If this is a woman I want to love, part of building that love is patience. Neither pressure nor withdrawal will make anything better.”

He picked up his phone and typed.

Don’t be overwhelmed by everything. It’s fine. If you don’t want me to come this weekend, I won’t come. But you’re not getting rid of me. I’m your friend.

Her reply came back almost immediately.

Jide, thank you. You’re a good man.

He read it twice.

She was always quick with that. So quick to call him a good man, as though it was simply the truth and she saw no reason to hold it back. It did something to him every time. Made him sit a little straighter.

He put the phone down and finished his lunch.

One way or another, he said to himself, I’m going to get this girl.