Will Priye and Jack ever find a happily ever after?
Oops. Did i forget to mention i started page 10?
I know, it's vain.

Nyc update.dnt tink priye nd jack wil av a smooth ride b4 dia weddin

Nyc one yhu got dre dearie......kudos on ur write-up lovin evri bit of it!

Ur story is full of suspense kep it up.

Hmmmm...pls what's wrong with Jack? He had beta behave

Lola hope u will update soonoo.well u are a good writter and with God u will go places...

When are u gonna update

@Omolola1, i love u. Damn! This story is so interestin! U r really good.

scad: @Omolola1, i love u. Damn! This story is so interestin! U r really good.

Thanks love

Omolola1:

Thanks love

I hope you haven't forgotten us.

No chi, I haven't

"Why would you say something like that to me, Priye?" His voice was low and tight. He cut his eyes toward the kitchen, where he could hear my relatives, but they remained out of sight. Their voices rose and fell with their conversation, their laughter. But out here in the foyer, the conversation had turned as crisp and chilly as outdoors.

"It was a joke, Jack. Geez! Lighten up."

"It wasn't funny."

"I'm sorry. If I'd known you'd take it that way, I wouldn't have. . .that is. . .forget it. Forget I said anything."

He took a deep breath, exhaling through his nostrils. "No, I'm the one who should be sorry. I didn't mean to jump on you, Priye. It's just. . .uh. . .it's been a long day, okay? I'm tired."

I bit my lip, wanting to say more but uncertain how he would take it. "No problem. I understand."

Give me an Academy Award. My best portrayal of the sympathetic fiancee ever. I didn't understand. Not really. We'd had disagreements before, differences of opinion. But I always knew where he stood, where he was coming from. Where this sudden surge of surliness was coming from, I hadn't a clue. "Come on in and take a load off, Jack. Mother's cooked her world-famous beef stew."

"I'm not very hungry."

Now I knew something was wrong. Jack could come off of a twelve-course eating binge and still have room for mum's cooking.

"Jack, are you all right?"

"Yeah," he said simply, then headed for the kitchen with me, dazed and confused, in tow.

"Pull up a chair, Flash. Tell us, what's new in the world of sportsmania?" Aunt Pam greeted him.

I watched in total astonishment as the man who seconds before could barely spare two words for me became Mr. Garrulous. He'd even kissed Aunt Ebere and hugged my mother.

So fake, I couldn't help thinking. A second ago, he was biting my head off. And now, in front of my family, in front of me, he was putting on a show - being Mr. Amiable when it was obvious to me that he was feeling anything but chatty.

The fact that he could switch personas so easily didn't surprise me. I knew that Jack had a public and a private side. And then there was the side, somewhere in between the two, that he only showed to me. Sweet and vulnerable, powerful and passionate. Calm and sometimes kinda kooky.

In front of me, he never felt compelled to show that public face. He could drop the star-player persona and be the man he wanted to be, not the one everyone expected him to be. When we were together, I always knew that he could express himself openly, honestly, without worrying that I would think any less of him for all of his imperfections and human frailties. I loved him. All of him. And hoped that he understood that he never had to pretend with me.

I sat at the table across from him, watching in stupefied silence while he yukked it up with my family. Who was that man? I asked myself that question several times during the evening.

I'd cleared away most of my wedding planning materials to make room for the reunion planning stuff. However, a stray wedding invitation had mixed in with the reunion materials. Aunt Ebere came across it, oohed and aahed with delight, then passed it across the table for Jack to admire.

"Feel the texture on this raised print, Jack," she encouraged, thrusting it into his hands.

Jack handled the paper as if it were a snake about to bite him, then let it fall to the table.

"Sorry," he muttered. He started to reach for the invitation again and wound up knocking his coffee cup onto the floor. Mother winced as the cup shattered into a thousand pieces, but was quick to assure him that it was okay.

Jack stood up abruptly from the table, tucking his hands into his pants and pockets. The chair scraped across the linoleum as he stood.

I went to the kitchen sink for paper towels to sop up the mess. It didn't occur to me that Jack would leave until I heard the front door open.

"Jack!"

I barely made it to the door before I heard his engine start. I saw him, one arm draped over the passenger-side seat, the other hand making tiny adjustments to the steering wheel as he backed out of the drive. He would have left me, without as much as a good-bye, if it hadn't been for the car passing in front of our drive just as he reached the main road. Jack stomped on the brakes, bringing his SUV to a sliding halt. He then threw the vehicle into park and sat inside with the engine idling.

I hurried around to the driver's-side window and banged on the glass with my fist. "All right, Jack. Open up."

The window whined as he pressed a button to lower it.

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Bull. Don't give me that. I want to know what's the matter with you and I want to know right now." I used my take-no-prisoners voice that I used at work when I needed to get something done quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Jack turned tortured eyes to me and I felt my anger deflate a notch. "I have to go, Priye."

"Go? Go where? Why do you have to leave, Jack?"

He moved as if he was about to put the truck back into reverse. I couldn't believe it. He would rather run over my foot than talk to me. What kind of mess was that? Anger ratcheted back up a notch. I reached inside and grabbed the keys out of the ignition with a quick twist and jerk of my wrist.

"You're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on."

"Damn it Priye. Give me the frigging keys."

I blinked, completely caught off guard. I wanted to believe he'd said frigging, but I was fooling myself. He'd cursed me. He'd actually cursed me! I'd heard him use the word before. His use of the expletive didn't shock me. Used in a certain context, whispered into my ear at just the right moment, he'd even used it to arouse. But something told me that he wasn't thinking about making love to me when he'd used it. He was deliberately trying to make me mad.

Guess what?

He'd succeeded.

"Fine," I said, dropping the keys into his lap and stepping back. "Take them."

I had enough on my mind to worry about without his mood swings. I wasn't going to stand there and let him curse me. My own family didn't curse me.

Later, after I got over being mad, I'd be concerned. No. . .I'd be mad, then pissed, then annoyed, then concerned. And maybe, if I thought about it some more, I'd work my way back to mad. If he didn't want to talk to me, I could accept that. He was a big boy and didn't need my coddling and cajoling.

"I'll. . .I'll call you later," he promised.

"Whatever." I flipped my hand to show him that I'd heard but didn't care. Another Academy Award-winning performance. If I didn't care, why was I hurting so much? This was our first big fight as a couple. And for the life of me, I didn't know what we were fighting about. Was he getting cold feet? How could he? The wedding was still months away.

Was the stress of making his sports centers a success driving a wedge between us? Perhaps. But unless he wasn't being truthful when he said that business was doing well. I didn't see why he'd suddenly turn sour on our relationship.

I stood in our driveway, my arms folded across my chest watching him back out of the drive. In my head, a refrain from a Mary J. Blige song kept running through my head.

I wasn't going to cry. Just because my eyes turned red and water leaked down my face and snot dripped to the tip of my nose. . .that didn't mean I was crying.

I watched Jack until his SUV's taillights disappeared into the night; then I stomped back into the house. What could have made him so moody all of a sudden? If he'd been a woman, I would have blamed it on PMS. I was about to start my period. Maybe, since we'd spent so much time together, he was picking up on my vibes, my emotional cycle.

Closing the door behind me, I leaned against it, trying to collect my thoughts. Actually, my thoughts were about as collected in my head as I was going to get them. I was really trying to come up with a plausible excuse for why Jack had bolted like that. I couldn't even come up with an excuse that sounded good to me. I knew that it wouldn't satisfy my folks.

I worked up enough bravado to tell myself, why should I have to tell them anything? Do they have to know all of my business?

Setting my face into a hard mask, I rejoined Mother and my aunts in the kitchen. Without a word, I slid into my chair and pulled up to the table. I didn't speak for several seconds. In fact, the lack of conversation spoke loudly. It was so quiet, I could hear the lid rattling on top of Mother's oven as steam escaped from the stew left simmering. The drip of the leaking faucet, the hum of the refrigerator, the occasional clink as the ice maker dropped another load of ice into the tray filled the air with non-noise.

"Pass the biscuits, Aunt Ebere," I said.

"Here you go, hun." She held the basket out to me.

Aunt Pam passed me a bowl of stew, then licked her fingers as the overflowing bowl dribbled a little on the sides.

"So," Mother said, helping to break the uncomfortable silence. "Anybody have any idea what the weather's supposed to be like Labour day weekend?"

"It had better be nice," Aunt Ebere said, as if threatening Mother Nature herself. "We've got a whole lot of activities planned for outside."

"As the finance committee chairperson, I'm here to tell you that at three thousand naira a pop for printing, you'd better grab a newspaper to cover your head," I replied in derision.

"How are we doing with the budget?" Mother asked.

"So far, so good. We're still well under our estimates."

Aunt Pam snickered. "We knew what we were doing when we appointed Priye to the finance committee. The way this child holds on to a dime, you'd have to wrestle her to the ground to get it out of her tightfisted fingers."

Smiling wanly at the offhanded compliment, I lifted my arm and flexed my biceps. If only I could hold on to Jack as strongly as I could hold on to a naira.

Thank's for the update. When's the next one coming?

gush if u hurt ma gal jack,i will skin u alive.dnt worry dear he z jst being stupid.Lola thumbs up8-)

Thanks, lola. Sorry for thinking you'd abandoned us.

Next update pls

Hadeehart101: Thank's for the update. When's the next one coming?

U welc sweetz. Sunday.

Chiamaka01: Thanks, lola. Sorry for thinking you'd abandoned us.

Lol

amigos: Next update pls

Sunday dear

Omolola1: U welc sweetz. Sunday.
Sunday dear

Sunday's too far nau

Omolola the grt! I go jst dey follow follow u until I see d end of dis story. U r jst too good. Thumbs up dear!
& pls help me warn jack to b careful o... Y is he toiling with a good woman's hrt nahw¿

Chapter Twenty

I was hoping that she would have the strength to end it. I thought she'd get tired of me cutting her off, shutting her out, and decide for the both of us that we'd made a terrible mistake. Maybe, if I was cold enough toward her, cruel enough, she would decide that being the wife of a public figure wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

If we ended it now, before too much time, money, and emotional effort had been expended, maybe no one would get hurt. Or was I just fooling myself? There was no getting around the pain. We'd come too far, too fast, for me to pretend that I could perform a clean, surgical break. It would hurt. That is, the hurt would be sharp and painful for a brief while, then would fade just as quickly as our relationship had begun.

If I believed that, then I was dumber than I must have looked when I'd bolted out of Priye's home. When was it. . .three days ago? Four? I'd lost count, burying myself in work, avoiding her calls, turning off my phone. I'd put myself in a twilight zonelike kind of existence where time didn't matter. It didn't matter because I didn't care what happened to me now. I'd lost Priye. No, not lost. I'd given her away.

I couldn't help leaving as I had. I couldn't stay. I just couldn't. Once that invitation had slipped through my fingers, I'd known what would come next. And I'd been right. There'd been no way for me to control myself. The coffee cup had come next. And if I hadn't done something fast, they would all have seen me degenerated. They would all know. I wasn't ready for that. Not yet.

So I'd taken off. As much as it had hurt me to see her expression, I'd had to keep going. She would be all right, I'd convinced myself. She'd run back to her relatives. They would probably sit around the table, console her, advise her as only the women in a close-knit family could. I could hear their voices in my head - distinct and detrimental to our relationship.

Their words might not have started out that way, because I truly believed that the Johnsons had taken me into their family as one of their own. I'd breached the Johnson stronghold and had become one with them. Their words to her would have started off kind, solicitous, wondering if I was all right.

And as their collective rancor at my ill treatment of her had grown, as each unkind word, or offhanded gesture I'd ever given her (real or imagined) had come to light, my estimation in their eyes would have grown dimmer and dimmer. She deserved better, they would have told her. If nothing else had come out of that conversation, that much was true.

I've heard it said that when someone was talking about you, your ears would burn. Well, I'd been carrying around smoldering cinders on the sides of my head for days. If I had a dollar for every time I whipped around, thinking I'd seen one of her brothers stalking me, ready to beat some good sense into me with a tire iron. . .

I'd never felt this way, a fugitive. But I had to sever all contact if I was going to make her hate me. By the time I'd managed to make myself call her, I'd been ready to face the combined wrath of the entire Johnson clan.

It had never come to that. Too proud to beg. Priye had saved me from botching the break by telling me that the room deposit was in the mail. She'd come to the conclusion that was best for all of us. She'd called the wedding off - valiantly citing instances of differences too deep to bridge, lifestyles too set to change.

God, how I wished that it didn't have to be that way. How I wished that I could come right out and tell her why. But if I did, I knew what she would say. I knew what she would do. I knew my Priye, what kind of woman she was. If I told her why I wanted to part, she'd never leave me, she'd hang in there with me, stand by me until the bitter end. For better or for worse - and we hadn't even exchanged vows yet. That's why I loved her so. I knew that Priye would never willingly abandon those she loved. She might stray, but she would always return. I knew the worst was yet to come and she'd still be there. Five years. Ten years. Twenty. How long would it be? How long would she remain chained to me - suffering, as I would suffer, because of her love and commitment? I would rather kill her love for me now than commit her life to that.

And if I lingered on, slowly degenerating in health and vitality, what kind of life would that be for her? What kind of man would I be knowing that I could not honour and cherish her as I'd sworn to do?

This malady attacking my body would eventually kill my soul. Priye was that soul. And I refused to take her down with me.

She was the first thing I thought of when I left my doctor's office for an unscheduled physical. It had gotten to where I could no longer explain or wish away the random numbness in my extrremities, the headaches. The games were over. Even though I was still working out, I wasn't putting my body through the grueling punishments of the pains. Something else had to be wrong.

To ward off any potential problems for next season, I'd scheduled an appointment with my physician, Dr. Mathers. He was a general practitioner. A good one. He couldn't quite pin down what was wrong with me.

One appointment turned into two. Two turned into three, which blossomed into several more appointments with various specialists while I endured a series of tests to rule out obvious causes. Pinched nerves, migraines, even gout had crossed my mind.

Even then, I wasn't too worried. My doctor continued to assure me that for the most part, I was in perfect health. It wasn't until he suggested a neurological scan and a spinal tap that I started to get concerned. Concerned, hell. The word was scared.

I hated needles. The very thought of someone sticking a giant pin into my spine makes me quiver. I'd sooner take a full body block from Big Dog than face a steel rod jabbed into my back. As far as the closed-in space of the MRI chamber, forget it! As I lay there, trying to be still while some lab geek shot radiation into my brain, all I could think of was clawing my way out of there. Some big, strong football hero I turned out to be.

Maybe I should have given Priye the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I could have gotten through the tests better if she'd been there to hold my hand. But after the first MRI scan, and the dizziness and nausea that followed, I didn't want her to see me weak and puking. Not a pleasant image for a husband-to-be at all.

In fact, when my doctor informed me that he suspected multiple sclerosis, every way I'd ever imagined myself flew out the window. Hale. Hearty. None of those pictures seemed to fit me anymore. I kept seeing myself, sitting in a wheelchair, bound for life, no longer able to do any of the things that I loved most - playing football and making love to my woman.

huh! dts al after starvin us for abt 4 dais or xo? wel tnx its nt easy tho...

Bravo! Lola dis is lovely indeed u've got a degree in keeping people in suspense. Ride on

Oh dear......................now my heart is abt to break!
Please where are all d "happily-ever-after"s ?

Thank you for the updates, though

So sad

getting bored without updates

Errrr...madam Omolola or should I call you Priye...you better leave those soldiers or na camp fire night and come update this your story that's so insatiable. And also update your blog too. So you're in camp? I hope its not that butter spread Lagos camp?

Aunty lola abeg dont leave diz master piece.

Has this story been abandoned or what?

Hmmmm am really sowi 4 Jack, but dats no excuse for him to push Priye away

Omolola1, I hope u r ok, cos dis ur MIA is unusual. The Lord is ur strength