I’m in Love With Two Men

By the time the wedding reached its loudest point, the hall had stopped feeling like a hall and started feeling like a small city that had lost all sense of order.

Music poured from the speakers and refused to settle. D.J overlapped with the liveband, voices rose above one another, and every few seconds, someone screamed with excitement, not because anything new had happened, but because joy, at Nigerian weddings, was something people announced loudly as though to prove a point. Heat clung to the room. People were dressed in uniform colours of head gears and fabrics, confidently seated, knowing that the clothes gave them undisputed permission to be there. Plates passed over heads. There was food everywhere, and still people were asking if others had eaten.

Near one corner, a man stood over a steaming pot, turning amala with the seriousness of someone performing a sacred duty. The smell alone was enough to pull people from their seats.

“E maa bo!” he called out to the waiters, scooping generously.

Plates were handed out and returned heavy with amala drowned in soup, five different proteins fighting for space on one plate like nobody had taught them moderation. Goat meat. Beef. Ponmo. Fish. And chicken. No apologies.

At another corner,  long tables bent under the weight of different rice delicacies. Jollof rice, fried rice, Nigerian fried rice, continental fried rice, Ofada rice, with sauce thick enough to stain clothes permanently. There was pounded yam, yam porridge, and somewhere along the line, as though the planners had briefly panicked and decided more was safer, hot dogs appeared. Ice cream followed. Then desserts. Cake, small chops and pastries that melted too quickly in the heat.

Inside the hall, a guest crouched slightly under the table, poured food into a nylon, and raised a hand sharply at a waiter passing by.

“I never chop o!” she complained loudly, even as she tied the nylon tighter.

This was a Nigerian wedding.

I stood close to the dance floor, the bowl for money  already heavy in my hands, watching my Aunty Jibike dance as though her life depended on it. She was so elegantly dressed, that it was hard to know who the bride was. Her mother of the bride’s energy deserved a documentary of its own.

Her gele had loosened and I worried it would fall, but for some reason it had remained safe on her head, an invisible pin holding it. Her laughter cut clean through the noise in the hall. She dragged her husband, Uncle Adam, along with her, one hand firm around his wrist, pulling him into the rhythm whether he was ready or not.

“Come here, joor, it’s our day,” she said to him, and laughed. “Don’t pretend.”

Uncle Adam was American by passport and history, though he had not lived there properly in over thirty years. He had come to Nigeria as an expatriate working with an oil company, fell in love with my Aunty Jibike, and stayed.

He danced now like a man who had surrendered completely to the culture. White by skin, but Nigerian to the core. He no longer resisted the music. He moved with it.

People liked to say that love had changed him. I thought it had simply taught him where he belonged, beside the woman he loved.

Oh. I hoped that kind of love would find me.

Not necessarily with a white man, but with a man who chose me deliberately, who put me first.

Many cultures were represented at this wedding, but Yoruba Nigeria, American white, British white, were predominant. That was probably how the guest list had ballooned to nearly a thousand people. It felt like an amusement park of sorts. People came for the spectacle, for the cultural mix, for something to talk about later.

I was there for a different reason.

Four years earlier, I had decided I would use film for nation building. I worked with the Ministry of Information, and through my mother, I had been connected to a distant relative, Aunty Jibike. Her daughter, Tolu, also wanted to study film. We met once and became instant friends, the kind people assumed had years behind it.

You would have thought we had always known each other.

I was the chief bridesmaid, which meant I had seen shege long before the reception began. I had spent the day directing people to the venue, calming nerves that refused to be calm, and pretending that I was not tired.

Across the hall, Tolu hovered beside her husband, smiling too often, adjusting him too much. She checked that he was comfortable, that he had eaten, that someone had not offended him without meaning to.

“Are you okay?” she asked again.

James smiled. “I’m great, babe. Really.”

He looked like someone on holiday. He laughed easily, greeting strangers with confidence, soaking in the experience as though this wedding was an adventure he had booked and thoroughly enjoyed.

People were watching them.

People were always watching.

They talked openly about the coincidence, about how history had repeated itself so neatly. Tolu’s mother had married a white man, and now Tolu had done the same. The story pleased people. It gave them something to nod about knowingly, something to whisper and smile over.

What they did not talk about was how complicated life really was.

Tolu and I had loved film in the same way, with the same seriousness. We had both applied to study filmmaking abroad. She had gone first. Her American father made the visa process almost laughably easy. A few months later, she was in New York, doing her master’s at the New York Film Academy, surrounded by cameras, ambition and people who spoke confidently about their dreams.

That was where she met James.

I stayed behind.

Three years of applications. Three years of embassy appointments, and emails that began politely but ended nowhere, with explanations that never felt like reasons.

I told myself it was fine. I told myself timing mattered, and that my time would come.

But there were moments, quiet ones, when the difference felt heavier than I wanted to admit. Not that day though, my worries were forgotten. I was just happy to see my friend happy, married to the love of her life.

I shifted the bowls in my hands, replacing a full one with an empty one, grateful for the new law that had banned spraying money at parties. If not, I would have been on the floor by now, crawling and gathering notes from under chairs.

Instead, people dropped money neatly into bowls, and I simply swapped them out, one after the other.

That was when I saw her.

Aunty Rolake.

I noticed her from a distance, the way she moved with purpose, scanning the room as though she was searching for something specific. My stomach tightened immediately. I adjusted my grip on the bowl and angled my body slightly away, pretending to be deeply engaged in my task.

It did not work.

She spotted me.

She made her way toward me from the far end of the hall, weaving expertly between tables, her eyes scanning faces until they found mine. I looked away immediately, shifting the money bowl in my hands, but it was already too late.

“Grace!” she called, smiling, that knowing, satisfied smile.

“How are you? You are looking fine,” she said when she reached me, already inspecting me. She glanced around theatrically. “So where is your boyfriend? Or should I say fiance?”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

“We are waiting o,” she continued cheerfully. “This year must not end before we come and eat rice at your wedding.”

Her laughter followed the words, light, but pointed. The way questions sounded when they were disguised as jokes.

I blinked quickly and laughed, slipping into Yoruba without thinking.

“Ah. Something entered my eye.”

She laughed too, unconvinced.

I passed the bowl to another bridesmaid, motioned hurriedly, and disappeared into the crowd before she could say anything else.

The truth was simple and uncomfortable.

I did not know when my own wedding would be.

I did not even have a boyfriend.

People liked to say I had a lot of love to give. Perhaps that was true. What they did not say was how often love arrived late, or dressed like something else entirely, but at twenty nine, the pressure was beginning to mount.

——————————————————————————————————————–

I did not walk out of the hall.

I ran.

My heels clicked sharply against the tiled floor as I pushed through the exit, my heart still racing from the weight of questions, eyes and expectations I had just escaped. I wasn’t watching where I was going because I was still looking back, half-expecting another oversabi aunty to materialise again. 

That was how I crashed into him.

Not lightly. Fully.

I felt him before I saw him, the solidness of his chest, the width of his shoulders, the unmistakable presence of a man who did not move aside easily. I stumbled back instinctively, mortified.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I said quickly.

“Don’t worry,” he replied at once. “Are you okay?”

There was concern in his voice. Real concern. And something about it reached me before my embarrassment could settle.

I looked up.

And froze.

Prince Ifeoluwa Adejare.

Of all the people to run into at this wedding. Of all the human beings occupying Lagos today.

Prince Ifeoluwa.

Human rights lawyer. Activist. And son of who we all call the one true Nigerian King. The voice that filled my timelines whenever injustice happened. The man whose speeches people shared with captions like, “these are the Nigerians we need in power.” The man who never shouted but somehow still commanded attention.

I had seen his face countless times on my phone. On panels. On protest flyers. On social media videos filmed in harsh sunlight, his voice was eloquent, but was always calm even when the world wasn’t.

Seeing him in front of me, in a tailored suit, close enough to touch, felt unreal.

“I am fine,” he said again, smiling slightly. “But you were holding your eye. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I hesitated. “I’m fine,” I said. “Really.”

He studied me for a moment, then chuckled softly. “Actually,” he said, “I was inside the hall and I saw you rush out like something entered your eye.”

I blinked. “You were… watching me?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

I laughed awkwardly, heat rushing to my face, and if I was white like half the hall, it would have shown. “Ha.”

He tilted his head, still smiling. “So should we go and fix whatever is wrong with your eye?”

I exhaled, surrendering. “Okay. Confession. Nothing is wrong with my eye.”

“Oh?” he said.

“I was escaping,” I admitted. “One of my Aunties started asking questions about marriage. I knew it was about to turn into an interrogation.”

His smile widened. “Ah. I see.”

Then, without hesitation, he reached for my hand, gently, but confidently.

“Well,” he said, already turning, “let me help you escape properly.”

“Wait, where are we going?” I asked, startled, even as my feet followed him.

“You wanted to escape.”

“Yes, but not like this,” I said quickly. “I can’t leave the wedding. I’m the chief bridesmaid. The bride will start looking for me any moment.”

He paused and considered this. “Okay,” he said. “How many minutes can you afford?”

I thought about it. “Five.”

He smiled. “That’s enough to make an impression.”

Instead of heading to his car, he led me just outside the hall, into the garden area where a few ornate chairs sat beneath dim lighting and decorative trees. It was quiet there,  quieter than inside, the music softening into a distant hum.

He released my hand and gestured for me to sit.

As I lowered myself carefully, I looked up at him, suspicion creeping in. “Wait. Do you even know me? You’re acting very familiar.”

He laughed. “As a matter of fact, yes. I follow you on Instagram.”

I frowned. “No way. If you were following me, I would know. You’re a celebrity.”

“I have two pages,” he said. “One for my work and another one that’s just… me.”

Something clicked.

“Oh my God,” I said slowly. “You’re simplyifeoluwa.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Guilty.”

“The one that always likes my posts,” I said, laughing now. “And comments nice things everytime.”

“That’s because I like you,” he said.

“Wow, the celeb I like, likes me back,” I said, then waved my hand quickly. “Don’t get me wrong, when I say ‘like me back,’ I don’t mean like, like. I mean,”

He laughed, cutting me off. “You’re funny.”

Then he grew serious again. “I know you have to go back but I would like to see you again.”

My heart did something unfamiliar.

“I’ll give you my number,” I said before I could overthink it.

He pulled out his phone and gave it to me. I typed my number and gave it back, he saved it carefully, then looked up. “Dinner tomorrow?”

I hesitated. “That would have been nice, but my cousin is leaving for her honeymoon. I need to help her settle things before she travels.”

“You help even after the wedding ceremony?” he asked, impressed.

“I’ll miss her,” I said honestly. “She is going with James to live in New York. I don’t know when I’ll see her again, so I need to be there for her.”

He nodded. “Alright. Next week then. Wednesday.”

I smiled. “Okay.”

“It’s a date,” he said.

I laughed. “You don’t even know me.”

“That’s the point,” he replied easily. “I want to know you. And I want you to know me well enough to agree when I ask you to marry me.”

I stared at him. “Marry? Sir?”

He smiled unbothered. “I’ve been working your case for a year. Ask me how I got into this wedding?”

I blinked. “But it’s invite-only.”

“I have my ways,” he said. “I’m the Prince of the south, after all.”

I shook my head, laughing. “I don’t know about marriage, but yes. Wednesday.”

“That’s good enough,” he said. “I like a good chase.”

“Who says you’ll catch me?” I asked.

“A man can hope,” he said softly. “And pray.”

I blushed.

This wedding had suddenly become very interesting.

“Grace!” a bridesmaid called from the entrance. “The bride is looking for you!”

I stood up awkwardly, and Ifeoluwa immediately reached for my hand, steadying me as my heels wobbled.

“You don’t look comfortable in those shoes,” he observed.

“I hate heels,” I admitted. “They forced me.”

“You should have changed into sneakers.”

I sighed. “I should have.”

He smiled. “Follow me.”

“To where?”

“My car.”

I stared. “Why?”

“I brought sneakers for you.”

I froze. “How did you know?”

“You posted on Snapchat,” he said calmly. “And I already knew you wouldn’t survive in those shoes.”

I laughed, half-shocked. “Who are you?”

“Someone who pays attention,” he said. “That’s what you do for the woman you love.”

I didn’t answer that.

His car was parked nearby, a sleek white SUV I had never seen before, the kind of car that looked like it belonged in a luxury Asian movie, not a Lagos car park.

He handed me the sneakers.

I took them, still smiling, wondering if they would fit, as he walked me into the hall, and left.

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

A Few Hours Later 

Somewhere between the last dance and the slow unravelling of the night, I found myself back inside the wedding hall. The energy had shifted, not gone, just settled. People laughed more softly now. Shoes were kicked off. The urgency had drained from the air. It felt like the natural end of a long celebration.

I still hadn’t gotten over meeting Prince Ifeoluwa Adejare in person.

The things he said replayed themselves without permission, how he spoke of loving me, of wanting to date me, of marriage, said so plainly, so deliberately, as though he had rehearsed the words long before we collided. It had to be a joke. There was no other explanation. Things like that did not happen in real life. Not to me.

And yet, even as I told myself not to take it seriously, I couldn’t wait to see him again.

The sneakers were still on my feet, ridiculously comfortable, and I kept glancing down at them as though they might explain something. How had he known my size? Who paid attention like that?

I was still turning these questions over in my mind as I carried one of the bags outside, only to realise, suddenly, that I was alone.

The couple had left.

The bridal party had left.

Everyone had gone.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the luggage piled beside me, irritation bubbling up. I was not about to pack all of these into a taxi. I was expecting the best man to come back for me, so when a car pulled up, relief washed through me, until I looked properly.

The driver stepped out.

White.

Tall.

Confident.

“Hello,” I said cautiously. “You’re not David.”

He smiled. “No, I’m not. My name is Adrian.”

“I don’t know you,” I said.

“That’s fair,” he replied easily. “David can’t drive in Nigeria, he’s gone with the others. I offered to come back.”

“For me?” I asked.

“For you,” he said. “And the bags.”

I hesitated, then nodded.

As we loaded the luggage into the car, I found myself noticing him despite myself. He was very fine. Not politely handsome, properly fine. Hollywood Fine. Finer than the groom, finer than any white man I had ever met, and I resented the fact that my mind registered it so quickly.

Inside the car, I sat beside him as he pulled out of the venue.

The road toward Ikoyi was strangely free, and he drove fast. Too fast.

“Guy,” I said, gripping the handle. “Can you slow down? This is not a race.”

He laughed. “That’s just me. High energy. Maybe it comes from being a musician. I sing fast songs.”

I turned to him. “Wait. You’re a musician?”

He glanced at me, amused. “Don’t tell me you don’t know me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said honestly. “I don’t.”

“That’s interesting,” he said. “You don’t know Adrian Music?”

I stared at him, then it clicked.

“Oh my God,” I said, exhausted laughter spilling out. “You’re Adrian Music. What is happening today? I’m so tired.”

“No wonder,” he said, smiling.

“No wonder what?”

“You’ve been giving off this I-don’t-care vibe.”

I rolled my eyes. “How do your people let you move around Lagos without a manager?”

“Sometimes I insist,” he replied. “When I have a goal, I pursue it.”

I sighed as the car finally slowed. “And what’s your goal?”

He didn’t hesitate. “You.”

I laughed, unsure whether to take him seriously. “How am I your goal?”

“I’ve been interested for a while,” he said. “I saw your pictures on James’s page when they announced the bridal party. I wanted to meet you.”

“That’s… flattering,” I said carefully.

“I won’t pretend,” he continued, his tone still light. “You’re my type.”

Something shifted then, subtle, but unmistakable.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I want to sleep with you.”

The words landed heavily.

“Are you mad?” I said.

“I’m just being honest,” he replied.

When we got to Tolu and James’s hotel, I reached for the door immediately.

It didn’t open.

“Please unlock the door,” I said.

“Wait,” he replied. “Don’t be offended. I just wanted to be clear. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to be alone with you.”

“Your point?” I asked flatly.

“That I like you,” he said. “And I’d like to get to know you… in every sense of the word.”

“If you don’t open this door right now,” I said calmly, “I will break the glass.”

He unlocked it at once.

“Calm down,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry. It was a joke.”

I stepped out without looking back, anger simmering beneath my skin as I walked toward the entrance.

I wondered why Tolu would let this idiot come for me, no matter how much eye candy he was.

——————————————————————————————————————–

I was trying not to be upset as I knocked on the door of the hotel room. No matter how awkward the night had become, it didn’t feel right to lay any of it at Tolu’s feet. This was her wedding night, and I thought she was with her husband.

When the door opened, James wasn’t inside.

Tolu was.

She pulled me in immediately, wrapping her arms around me tightly.

“Grace, you are a lifesaver,” she said, her voice tired but full. “I honestly don’t know how I would have survived this wedding without you.”

I laughed softly. “So that’s why you people now left me behind?”

She pulled back, startled. “No, now. Didn’t Adrian come to get you?”

I frowned. “What do you mean Adrian came to get me? Do I know him? You people left me and brought a stranger to come and pack luggage with me?”

She blinked. “Grace, he’s not a stranger. It was planned.”

“Planned, how?” I asked.

She sighed. “Adrian has been disturbing me for like two weeks now, ever since he saw your picture on my Instagram. You know he’s my cousin.”

“What cousin?” I asked sharply. “I thought I knew all your cousins.”

 “It’s kind of complicated,”she said quickly.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “The guy is rude.”

Tolu made a face. “He’s an artiste.”

“That’s why he does stupid music,” I replied without thinking.

She laughed despite herself. “But you listen to his songs all the time. Don’t deny it.”

I paused. “I didn’t even recognise him when I saw him.”

“That’s because of all those costumes he wears for his videos,” she said. “He likes you.”

“I don’t care,” I snapped. “He’s not a good guy, and I don’t want to see him again.”

Tolu’s smile faded slightly. “That bad? What did he say to you?”

I hesitated, then said it plainly. “He said he wants to sleep with me.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh God. Adrian and his mouth. Why does he do this? He just makes himself look like a bad guy.”

“Well, that’s not my problem,” I said. “And I’m not interested. Some other guy, a more decent guy, asked me out today.”

Her face lit up instantly. “At my wedding? Ha! Things are happening!”

“You won’t even guess who,” I said.

She leaned closer. “Try me.”

“Prince Ifeoluwa Adejare.”

She screamed.

“WHAT? HOW?”

I had just opened my mouth to explain when there was a knock on the door.

Tolu went to open it, still half-shocked, half-smiling. James entered and hugged me warmly when he saw me, thanking me over and over, for staying back, for holding things together when everyone else had disappeared.

That was my cue.

As I turned to leave, Tolu glanced down at my feet.

“Wait. Where did you get those sneakers? Oh my God, Grace, they’re gorgeous.”

I smiled tiredly. “Prince Ifeoluwa Adejare.”

She gasped again. “You met him today?”

“It’s a long story, girlfriend,” I said, already stepping back. “Not tonight.”

Her mouth was still open as I walked out, leaving her standing there, stunned, surrounded by wedding gifts, love, and questions that would have to wait.

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

If there was anything I was grateful for, it was that I had not planned to go home that night.

Going home would have meant conversation and chores. People would still be awake, still asking questions, still wanting pieces of me I no longer had the energy to give. I was exhausted in a way that reached my bones. Thankfully, the couple had booked me an extra night at the hotel. I would be staying back.

Alone.

The thought felt like mercy.

I went straight to my room. The door had barely closed behind me when my phone vibrated in my hand.

A message from Ifeoluwa.

I smiled despite myself.

Meeting him that day remained the quiet highlight of everything. The food, the music, the chaos of the wedding, all of it faded beside the memory of his voice, the calm assurance with which he had spoken to me.

As I slipped out of my dress and wrapped myself in a robe, his messages came in steadily.

He told me that finally meeting me had made his day feel complete. Fulfilled, he said. Almost as though he had conquered another territory.

I laughed out loud.

Do you still conquer territories? I typed back. Modern-day princes don’t conquer anything.

We teased each other easily, the way people did when something was unfolding without pressure. I told him how tired I was. He told me to take a shower, to rest, and that we would talk properly the next day.

I agreed.

The water was hot and steady, washing the day off my skin. By the time I stepped out, wrapped in a towel, my body finally beginning to relax, my phone buzzed again.

Still Ifeoluwa.

I told him about the other man.

“You won’t believe the kind of day I had,” I typed. I met this unbelievable guy, a musician. Adrian Music.

His reply came quickly.

“I know him,” Ifeoluwa wrote. He’s getting popular these days. Not at the top yet, but he’s definitely climbing.

I paused.

“You know him?”

“Yes. Why?” He replied

I told him what Adrian had said to me earlier. Not every detail. Just enough.

Ifeoluwa didn’t joke this time.

“That’s where you protect yourself,” he wrote. Charm is not the same as respect.

I smiled faintly.

“You’re saying this because you like me,” I replied. You’re trying to scare me away from competition.

“No,” he answered. I’m saying it because you deserve to be treated properly. It has nothing to do with the fact that I like you.

Then, after a moment:

Even though I do.

I was about to reply when there was a knock on the door.

I frowned.

“Oops,” I typed. Just when I was about to sleep, someone knocked.

“Who could that be?” Ifeoluwa replied.

I walked to the door, assuming it was room service.

It wasn’t.

It was Adrian.

I stared at him, towel clutched tighter around myself, disbelief washing over me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I came to apologise,” he said simply. “I came on too strong earlier. I’m sorry.”

Behind me, my phone buzzed again.

“Who is it?” Ifeoluwa asked.

“You won’t believe it,” I typed quickly. “It’s Adrian.”

There was a pause.

Then his response came quickly:

Close the door immediately.

I hesitated, then typed back, Ah, it’s not that deep. He’s Tolu’s cousin, I’ll talk to you later.

I dropped my phone and looked back at Adrian.

“How did you even find my room?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I asked around. I really wanted to apologise.”

I studied his face. My annoyance fought with something else, something inconvenient. It was hard to stay angry when someone looked like that. And Tolu’s words echoed in my head, urging my patience in respect of the context. “Fine,” I said. “Apology accepted.”

His relief was immediate. “Can I come in?”

I stared at him. “After you told me you want to sleep with me?”

He shook his head quickly. “No. I wouldn’t do that. I promise.”

He paused, then tried again because I rolled my eyes at his audacity. “Would you come with me instead? Just a quick walk by the pool. Five minutes.”

“I’m tired,” I said.

“I won’t waste your time,” he replied gently.

I sighed. “Stay there. Let me change.”

“Thank you,” he said, smiling.

As I pulled on clothes, my phone lit up again.

“Is he gone?” Prince asked.

“Not exactly,” I replied. “He wants to apologise properly. I’m stepping out briefly.”

There was a pause.

“Okay,” Prince wrote. I will trust you.

Something about that made my chest tighten.

————————————————————————————————————–

Adrian was still waiting when I stepped out.

He stood at the base of the hotel walkway, right where the light softened and the noise fell away, hands in his pockets, as though he’d been there longer than he wanted to admit. When he saw me, his face brightened. He looked pleased, and held out his hand.

I hesitated only a second before taking it.

He led me toward the pool, past trimmed hedges and quiet lounge chairs, to a small table by the water. The lights reflected off the surface in slow, trembling patterns, turning everything silver and unreal. It was the kind of setting that made people look better than they had any right to.

A drink sat waiting.

He picked it up and poured another into a glass, sliding it toward me.

I eyed it suspiciously. “You really think I’ll drink this?”

He laughed. “Do you think I’d poison you just to have my way with you?”

I laughed too, despite myself. The thought had crossed my mind and I still didn’t trust him. But under the pool lights, with the city hushed around us, he looked… different. Like the men you saw in films, carefully lit, impossibly confident.

“Okay,” I said, lifting the glass. “But if I wake up missing a kidney,”

“I’ll return it personally,” he said.

We laughed, and I watched him for a moment before speaking. “Tolu mentioned that you’re her cousin. How exactly does that work? Because you’re so fluent with Nigerian English and you’re also very white.”

He smiled. “Everyone says that.”

“So explain.”

“My dad is Nigerian,” he said. “My mum is white. She’s actually Tolu’s dad’s sister.”

I blinked. “Wait. So Uncle Adam’s sister?”

“Yes.”

“This is interesting.”

He sighed, then leaned back slightly, as though settling into a story he’d told before.

“My dad was working at the same oil company with Tolu’s dad back then,” he said. “His sister came to visit from the UK and my dad thought falling in love with a white woman would be his ticket out of Nigeria.”

“And?” I asked.

“And the joke was on him,” Adrian said calmly. “She got pregnant, had the baby, and left me with him. She didn’t want to raise a child with Black roots.”

I frowned. “But you’re not Black.”

He shrugged. “Blood doesn’t lie. As far as she was concerned, I was.”

There was a pause.

“I see her once a year,” he continued. “She tried to fight for custody later, but my dad never let her forget that she left first. He liked the idea of having a white son.”

“Did you have a step mother?” I asked quietly.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes. A wicked one.”

I winced.

“I was basically the errand boy,” he went on. “Took care of my step-siblings, cleaned, ran errands. But it’s fine, it toughened me up. Made me who I am.”

I felt something loosen in my chest. His story sat heavily between us, honest, unpolished.

“Why didn’t you leave?” I asked.

“When I turned eighteen, there was no point,” he said. “This was home. I had friends. Music. Dreams.” He smiled faintly. “And now… now it’s starting to happen.”

I looked at him again, really looked this time. And it was hard to stay judgemental.

I laughed softly. “You know, I forgive you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For your rude proclamation earlier.”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

He leaned forward slightly. “The first time I saw you on Instagram, I felt something. I knew I wanted to meet you. I just hope I haven’t ruined my chances.”

I didn’t answer immediately.

“Please,” he said quietly. “Don’t give up on the possibility of us. I really like you.”

Something about the way he said it, simple, and unguarded, made my throat tighten.

“I think this is my cue to go,” I said finally, standing. “Before I say something I shouldn’t.”

He rose too, helping me up without pulling me closer than necessary.

“I’ll walk you,” he said.

We moved back through the quiet hotel corridors. When we reached my door, I turned to him.

“It was really nice meeting you, Adrian.”

“Me too,” he said. “Beautiful.”

For a moment, it looked like he might kiss me. He leaned in just enough for the possibility to exist, then stepped back, winked, and turned away.

I went into my room and closed the door behind me, leaning against it, heart racing.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, I had no boyfriend.

No prospects.

No drama.

Now, two men were coming after me at the same time.

And somehow, I felt halfway in love with both of them.

God.

They were both so fine.

——————————————————————————————————

Wow! This story truly started on a high note. Sit tight as Grace’s story unravels in “Coming After You”. By the way, which of the men are you rooting for? Or are you as confused as Grace?

– Editor’s Comment