Bro, please, I cadge, try to update more frequently. I love this story, sir.

Obinnau:
I have re-edited your post and unbanned you. Desist from quoting numerous usernames at a go.

Thank you very much sir.
Noted.

OluwabuqqyYOLO:
Bro, please, I cadge, try to update more frequently. I love this story, sir.

Expect Chapter Nine on Monday, I've been having troubles posting the chapter eight completely, because it was proving problematic for obvious reasons.

CHAPTER NINE
In the Adeshina house, Saturday mornings meant long, peaceful sleep till noon for Papa Lanre, three long hours of weekend shopping, replete with market chit-chat and latest gossip for Mama Lanre and body aching, strength sapping, sweat extracting chores -infact not chores, labour- for Lanre.
But this Saturday, unlike before, he did the sweeping, washing, mopping, scrubbing, clearing and burning with so much gusto. His mother had promised him that if he swept and mopped the floor till she could see her reflection; if he washed the plates and all seven-days-old laundry to a newness; if he so scoured the pots and scrubbed the porcelain toilet that they shone, she would permit him to visit his friend, Oluchi.
Lanre was ecstatic to the point that he sang while washing the toilet; its malodorous smell notwithstanding, danced while clearing the grass and arranged the plates with the permutation of his favourite colours.
It had been a week since he last saw or heard from Oluchi and he was straining at the leash to see her, to know exactly what was wrong; why she had not been picking his calls. He was worried, something must have happened to her. She couldn't be fine and still not pick his calls, it couldn't just be. He was angry at someone, he knew that but he didn't know with whom, and that made him angrier.
So he called his friend, Osas. Osakpolor's nickname was The Informant, and it was no mere guy name, he knew everything about everyone in their lecture house. Osas had purveyed him with Oluchi's house address and, as if he needed it, her house telephone number.
Throughout the week, Lanre had not been able to concentrate on his forthcoming SAT. Usually, he divided his time between the lecture house and MIKON where he received SAT lectures but this week, he had gone only to the lecture house and Oluchi had remained absent. His anxiolytic, she was, and without her his blood rose far beyond boiling point. He wanted, needed to see her, if for anything, to tell her about his SAT, the Canadian prospect.
Lanre waited patiently as his father sluggishly carried about his Saturdayly habits, shuffling feet and plodding like a slowcoach. He ate in slow-mo' and Lanre suspected he knew the whole plot and was working slyly at spoiling it. But at long last, Papa Lanre dressed and left for wherever it was, he went on Saturday.
"Whew!" Lanre exclaimed, relieved as he heard the purr of his father's old Blue Bird.
Now, nothing can stop me, he thought.
He dressed quickly, forgetting to wear a singlet at one time, and frantically searching for a comb that was perched on his hair, at another. He eyed his image on the portrait-sized mirror and smirked, his simulacrum smirking back.
Lanre dialed Oluchi's number for the umpteenth try as he locked the front door and shoved the key hastily between the wall and a tool trunk. His mother would be back soon, as was her routine, and would know where to find the key.
But Oluchi did not answer any more than she had done all week. He didn't bother texting, he had texted more than twoscore messages, all delivered and promptly ignored. Plus, his messages on Whatsapp and BBM remained unread.
Things were amiss, put simply and Lanre felt -it was a hunch- that whatever it may be, it was not unconnected to that call she had received. That call that had changed her, like promising day to ominous night.
Whoever had called her? An old schoolmate, she had said.
Who on earth was this old schoolmate?
* * * * * * * * *

"Richard," Oluchi said.
"Yeah baby," Richard answered.
Her derring-do had topped another notch. With her dad gone on yet another business trip, Dika away at school and Nnedi 'safely' in camp, she had had time and freedom, to tour the whole city, she and Richard.
They had avoided place her father's many acquaintances could see them. And it had been the best week of her life. But. Lanre had managed to pop up, at every instance, and remind her of reality.
Lanre posed a question: if she was going to break up with him, then why hadn't she called him and told him so? Why hadn't she given him one of those one-liners her exes used -like 'it's not you, it's me', that tended to explain the sudden break up, but really didn't? She couldn't.
Oluchi had tried, albeit failingly, to de-romanticise her day out with Lanre, the one that still freshly clung to memory. She'd tried earnestly to draw out the 'bad part'; like how the grass they'd picnicked on had been overgrown; how it had itched her skin when they'd rolled over; how he'd been so forceful with his kisses.
But she couldn't forget that she'd loved it all. She'd loved it because it had seemed the ne plus ultra of romance, had been new and adventurous in a familiar way like pretending your backyard was a jungle.
"I love you," she said.
They were in Richard's Lexus driving her home. Nnedi was due back in hours and Oluchi didn't want her to suspect her elder sister had thrown away caution and semi-eloped.
"I love you too," Richard said softly.
Richard had been wonderful and sensual, and demanding at times. He'd planned a London trip for his gramps funeral but had promised not to stay long. He wanted her, she was sure, he'd after her as they made love, night after night and Oluchi was sated with paralysing joy.

She'd have to find the courage to break up with Lanre. She knew it wouldn't be easy for him and was truly sorry about that. But she could never be happy with him, so it seemed, when Richard was there.
It was the hurt she dreaded really, the pain that would play on his features as he swallowed refusal and stumbled away, dejected. She couldn't do that, she'd die first.
Her phone had never stopped beeping with Lanre's call. Oluchi had woken up one morning to fifty-seven miss calls all from Lanre. But she lacked the courage, the finesse, to face him after last Sunday. His messages were harder to avoid. She'd read the first ones; cliche generic love messages but soon it became personal; begging her to answer his calls, asking what was wrong. And she'd stopped reading them.
She was happy with Richard, she'd have to find the courage to formally end it with Lanre.
* * * * * * * * *
Lanre knocked on the opened gate and felt silly for it. The sound echoed everywhere in the silent space. If there was anywhere as quiet and serene as the GRA, it was that part of Sapele Road where Big Men now pitched their 'tents'.
Oluchi's house was a grand palace with architectural design akin to Regent Royal. A fountain of horses vomited water by the infinitely spreading driveway. The hedges looked like the long tables used in serve-yourself parties. Lanre thought of those Nollywood houses that were so new, so unlived-in that everyone could tell they had only been rented for filmmaking.
After what seemed like ages of knocking hard, a paunchy man in sky blue shirt and navy blue trousers -clearly the security man- bounced toward the gate from a corner. He walked like someone who had had diarrhoea and dysentery in his childhood; like something had been shoved up his ars3.
"Wetin?" he barked, looking vehemently at Lanre, "this stupid wheelbarrow boy nor lock gate, may e come pass again,"he said more to himself.
"I'm looking for Oluchi, sir," Lanre said, calming himself, he wondered if the man's belly would burst open like a balloon if he pierced it with something pointy and sharp.
"Wetin you de look am for?" the uncouth gateman asked. He was ugly with bleached skin and blackish tribal marks that only a child could have drawn so naturally. A brownish dot of food stain sullied his shirt, and Lanre could see that his collar and that part under his armpits were yellowish from sweat.
He seemed to flinch under Lanre's intense stare, "I'm a friend of hers, sir, I'm checking up on her," Lanre said truthfully.
The security man looked suspiciously at Lanre, perhaps, Lanre thought, he didn't know what 'checking up' meant.
"She's not at home," he said in a forceful voice that shocked Lanre, because he hadn't deemed the man capable of speaking good English.
"What of her sister?" he said. It was a shot, he didn't want to leave just yet and the hostile security man wasn't going to let him in, that was very evident.
"Nor be Oluchi you wan see? Why you come de ask for her sister? You be kidnappers?" As he said this, he shut the gate against Lanre, and shouted over it, "get out of there, before I use dog pursue you. Idiot."
Lanre kicked a pebble as he turned to leave, why was the gateman so antagonistic? Just then a Lexus jeep approached the gate.
* * * * * * * * *

Lanre saw Oluchi before she saw him. He saw her touching, and kissing the fair driver in the mouth. They parked a little away from the gate and through the windscreen, Lanre could see all the intimacy but the handling befuddled him.
Is this Oluchi? He knew anyway, from her clothes; her facial features that were not so obscure and literally shone with happiness.
Oluchi didn't notice him until she alighted and Richard made to reverse the car.
"Lanre!" She half screamed from surprise, she hoped there may just have been a slight chance he hadn't seen her kissing Richard but knew he had. It was in his eyes, this knowledge.
"Lanre, what are you doing here?" she asked, not knowing what to say. They kept enough space between them.
"What am I doing here," he repeated, his voice acid.
"It's not what you think, Lanre," but it was what he was thinking, she knew that.
"It's not what I think," his mind was exploding with rage, he made to leave but changed his mind and stayed put.
What hurt him the most was her deceit. Here he was planning his life with hers, thanking his stars that a lovely girl like Oluchi loved him, worrying himself sleepless about her, only for him to find out that she had another nice looking, wealthy guy who drove a Lexus.
Then something occurred to him, "is that your old schoolmate?" he asked rhetorically for he knew the answer. And it seemed to worsen everything.
"Lanre, I can explain,"
"Yeah, you can b**ch," Lanre spat.
Oluchi froze, Lanre's face had contorted from anger, his eyes red and his body shaking so much, that Oluchi feared he would explode like an overgased Fanta bottle.
"Baby, please, you don't understand," she made to touch him. Everything was going out of control; Richard was opening his door.
"F*** you," he screamed, and the obscenity ricocheted all the corners of the street, and landed on Oluchi, "f*** you b**ch, you have been lying to me, fooling me."
Richard approached the whole drama, trying to hide his amusement. He had known she had someone else. The security man having heard and smelled trouble, hurried out to the argument.
"What's going on here?" Richard asked.
Lanre was now in a fit of madness, and Oluchi was afraid he'd hit her. Akpos, the security man as if on cue rushed toward Lanre. Momentarily, he grappled Lanre, who in turn threshed his limbs around in an effort at fighting free, and tossed him hard on the ground. Lanre made to get up when pain shot through his body as Akpos truncheoned his ribs

Oluchi screamed, but he kept receiving blows, he could hear the crunch crunch of breaking bones. The last thing he heard -he was already beyond seeing- was the fair driver's calm voice, "let him alone."
* * * * * * * * *
"Listen to me," Richard said as he prised Oluchi away from the security man. She'd torn his shirt, scratched his face and had been in the throes of throttling him, "he was only doing his job, now go inside, I'll take care of this. I'll getting him a doctor, okay?"
Oluchi panted as tears filled her eyes and flowed down her cheeks. She hadn't wanted any of this to happen. She should have returned his calls and told him off; broken up with him while she still had control. Her eyes kept reverting to Lanre's unconscious body.
"You," Richard refered to the gateman, "get the boy into my car," and to Oluchi, he said soothingly,"it will be fine."
"I want to come, I want to see him," she said.
"No!" Richard said energetically, "I'll take care of it, you go inside and wait for Nnedi, pretend everything's fine, remember our plan."
"Okay," she said, cleaning her tears. She wasn't sure Lanre would want to see her anyway. She remembered how angry he'd been moments ago; like a stranger, she breathed hard, "okay, just promise nothing bad will happen to him."
"I promise," he said, kissing her forehead, "now, cheer up."
Oluchi watched Richard drive away to the hospital, an unconscious Lanre in the backseat.
* * * * * * * * *
It had been two days since Nnedi got back from camp. She was sitting querulously with Richard in his Lexus parked adjacent to her gate. Her arms were folded, her lips pouted and she shifted her gaze onto the street, away from Richard's face, she was angry at him. Richard had avoided seeing her till now, since she got back from camp.
He'd called some hours ago to ask if Oluchi was home, and on hearing that she wasn't, had come to see her. It hurt her, the thought that the only reason they were sitted here was because Oluchi wasn't home.
"What are you hiding Richard?" she asked, "you don't want my sister to know about us?"
"Nnedi, hear yourself," Richard said, "the moment your sis hears about us, she'd tell your dad, who would in turn make sure we never see again. You are 15 for God's sake, we must be sensible about this, okay?"
"So we'll hide this till I'm what, 25? I want people to know about our love, Richard."
"Trust me, I've got things under control, I've got plans," Richard said this with so much conviction.
"Okay, I trust you."
"So how was camp?"
"Great."
"Nnedi, I'm going back to London for a few days from tomorrow, I lost my granddad, I wanted to tell you on Monday, but you had gone before I could make it here."
"Okay, I'm really sorry about your granddad," the child in her was very apparent as she said this.
"Thank you very much, but when I come back, I would want you to come over my house."
"Your house? When? Oluchi will not allow me."
"You will not tell her," Nnedi thought she heard an impatience in his voice.
"Okay?" she wondered what was so important in his house.
"We'll talk about it when I come back."
He kissed her goodnight, holding her head affectionately with his hands.
* * * * * * * * *

Seven years ago
Senior Richard persuaded Oluchi to come visit him at home. During break and after school, he would say to her,"won't you come visit me?"
She wanted to come but her parents, they would not permit it.
So one day, Richard devised a plan. Oluchi was to join the Music Group, a group Richard headed in absence of the music teacher.
Richard would call for a Saturday practice and make it as short as possible. Then, he'd volunteer to take little Oluchi home. And Oluchi would assent to whoever asked that it was her parents' wish. Due to the shortness of the meeting, her parents would not expect her home early. Within the time of actual departure from school and time of expected arrival at home, Oluchi would follow Richard home.
It all worked according to plan. But Oluchi got more than she bargained for.

jeez #awwsome chapter lanre just got his bones broken 4 nothing he should let go he can't compete with the senators son

Awesomely brilliant!!! Very great chapter.

The thought of what Lanre's father would think gets me really flummoxed. I kowtow for you, bro.

Can we talk over WhatsApp? Here's my number:

+2349022343684

Nice one, keep it up

Tomtoxic:
jeez #awwsome chapter lanre just got his bones broken 4 nothing he should let go he can't compete with the senators son

abi o

OluwabuqqyYOLO:
Awesomely brilliant!!! Very great chapter.

The thought of what Lanre's father would think gets me really flummoxed. I kowtow for you, bro.

Can we talk over WhatsApp? Here's my number:

+2349022343684

I would love to chat with you but I have 'put away' Whatsapp for now.
Thanks for your comment bro.

Olaide59:
Nice one, keep it up

Wow, new face! Welcome, if I may. Thank you very much.

OluwabuqqyYOLO:
Awesomely brilliant!!! Very great chapter.

The thought of what Lanre's father would think gets me really flummoxed. I kowtow for you, bro.

Can we talk over WhatsApp? Here's my number:

+2349022343684

flummoxed,facsimile,kowtow guy take am easy na some people here only deal in volumes and density (physics)

Betrayal hurts like mad.. Keep going man, wonderful work

Contact me for chapman, skushies, shisha e.t.c for ur birthday,beach parties, wedding, and any functions. Check my signature for my email. 09053663375.

KingZero:
Betrayal hurts like mad.. Keep going man, wonderful work

Thanks a lot, keep commenting man

Wow! Wow!

OP, wow. Richard! Uurgh!

Pls when's d next update?

megley:
Wow! Wow!

OP, wow. Richard! Uurgh!

Pls when's d next update?

Monday

Monday

That face, yeah I know.
Its just that the whole twist with Richard & the 2sisters, & Lanre being beaten up hit me like a bolt outta the blues

Monday. That's a looong wait but it would be worth it

nicholausian:


Thanks a lot, keep commenting man

i also aspire to write my first on nairaland. your story is so good that it made mine so puerile when compared to yours.

RegalD:
i also aspire to write my first on nairaland. your story is so good that it made mine so puerile when compared to yours.

I feel flattered
Thank you, although I don't think that's quite true, would love to read your story though.

megley:
Monday

That face, yeah I know.
Its just that the whole twist with Richard & the 2sisters, & Lanre being beaten up hit me like a bolt outta the blues

Monday. That's a looong wait but it would be worth it

It surely will be worth it.
Thanks

nicholausian:


I feel flattered
Thank you, although I don't think that's quite true, would love to read your story though.

Because you said so, I will try to

Nicholausian, your story is beautiful....
Meanwhile, oluchi is being unfair.. And Richard is a douche

Nicholuasian, your story is beautiful....
Meanwhile, oluchi is being unfair.. And Richard is a douche

RegalD:

Because you said so, I will try to

don't forget to alert me when it's posted.

Kanechimex thanks
I totally agree with you

CHAPTER TEN
It was exactly two weeks and five days since Richard had gone to London, and for that long she hadn't heard a word from him, Oluchi was worried. Owing to all the Lanre drama, she had forgotten to ask for a UK number.
Before he left for London, he had however given her the rundown on Lanre's health status. Munificient Richard had settled all the bills. The doctor had said something about broken ribs, truama and possible internal bleeding (Richard had intentionally left out phrases like 'potentially fatal' and 'ruptured spleen' and 'blood loss' and 'damaging side effects' the doctor had used), but he'd be fine EVENTUALLY, Richard had emphasized. He hadn't given her the location of the hospital though, and she hadn't asked although she had so badly wanted to.
She hoped Richard was okay, wherever he was, and that Lanre would ultimately find it in his heart to forgive her. She said this aloud in the midst of the friends; Omosede and Adaobi.
Adaobi was a chubby eighteen yearold whose father -it was hearsay, anyway- had stolen fifty-seven billion naira, for a project he never completed. He was currently wanted by the ICPC and EFCC, or so the rumour had it. That Adaobi's father was actually missing or that the said project remained uncompleted, did not change the fact that it was just horrible rumours. Adaobi would likely believe her father was the US president, than a thief. But the friends never talked about it, or wis they wouldn't still be friends.
"You are worrier," Sede hissed, sipping from her tall glass of orange juice, "the boy can die if he wants, you were not the one that told him to bring the roof down, neither were you the one that asked your security to deal with him." They were sitted around their favourite table at Mat Ice.
"I feel responsible," Oluchi said miserably.
"Babe, you've moved up the ladder, a guy is in the hospital because of you," the chubby Adaobi said, noshing a meatpie, "but if it had been that the guys fought over you, oh God, nothing more romantic," she intoned dreamily.
"God! You are sick," Oluchi said in disgust, as the others laughed, she couldn't find any humour in someone lying critical in the hospital all because of her.
"And you are working yourself up," Sede said loudly, and Oluchi imagined stuffing a full orange into her wide mouth, "nor be today water pass under bridge."
"I know but I must see him, I'ld ask Richard, as soon as he comes back, to take me to him," Oluchi resolved.
"Babe," Adaobi shouted, banging her hands on the table as every eye in the restaurant turned their direction. Adaobi flashed everyone a forgive-me smile and lowered her voice, "don't let Richie bobo go because of your sme-sme o."
Adaobi didn't have a boyfriend, she was afraid of the whole relationship thingy but her voice was the loudest when it came to advising other people about that kind of thing.
"Be a correct girl," Sede admonished, her lozenge shape earrings dangled, "abi you want to am m u m u? You want to be like those girls who give their boyfriends money, and buy things for them?"
"I never bought anything for Lanre, he never asked," she said, defending Lanre more than herself.
"Girl, wait, it seems you are confused," Adaobi said, her face was more cute than pretty, like the singer, Adele's, "is it Richard or Lanre?"
"Abi o, which one?" Sede asked.
"I love Richard, but I still care for my ex," Oluchi said, sounding unsure. It was the use of 'ex', they had never really broken up.
"I think you should have a rethink, you clearly still have something for Lanre," Sede's grave voice made Oluchi look at her.
"Have something is big grammar, Oluchi is foolishly still in love with this Lanre guy," Adaobi declared conclusively, accusation weighing down her voice.
"What do you know about love? You frigid inexperienced coward," Oluchi snapped at Adaobi.
"Yeah whatever, at least I'm not a mumu," Adaobi retorted, stressing 'mumu'.
"Ada, it's enough," Sede cautioned.
"No, she can keep talking trash," Oluchi said obviously angry.
"What's this?" Adaobi shouted, "because I'm saying the truth, you are snapping at me?" She hissed, standing up, then said to Omosede, "babe, I can't take this trash, see you lara ."
After Adaobi had pranced out of the restaurant, Sede remarked that it was the hunger that was getting into her head.
Oluchi thought it was a harsh and mordant thing to say.
For it was no longer news that Adaobi's family was bankrupt. The EFCC had seized all their properties, and the family, which was only just climbing the financial ladder, was now terribly impoverished.
"I'll apologise later, she has a lot going with her already," Oluchi said calmly.
She wasn't still in love with Lanre, that went without saying, or didn't it? Adaobi was wrong. She was only worried. So why had the thought angered her?
* * * * * * * * *

Oluchi searched the whole house for Nnedi, until she was completely sure, she was not home. Then she called Akpos, the security man who had almost killed Lanre.
"Where's my sister?" she barked.
She was going to make sure her dad sacked him, since that incident, she had pointed out many faults in his activities. He knew his sack was at hand.
"She left some hours ago,"
"On whose permission?" Oluchi hollered, if it had been the other security man, Ahmed, she would not have hollered.
"She told me you gave her permission," he countered, apparently he'd not expected her to be so angry.
"You big headed, thick-skulled slowpoke, how can I give her permission when I wasn't home?" she didn't think twice about her name-calling, their age difference, regardless.
"I, I thought you..." he stuttered more from anger and expressional difficulty than fear.
"Shut up!" she yelled, "incompetent nitwit , get out."
She would look for another thing to pin on him until her father thought it wise to fire him.
* * * * * * * * *