Goriola’s Love Story …  Series two(With ‘Funmilayo) 

“Guy, wetin u dey look?”

I knew I heard Gbenga, I knew he said something about me still looking but it took longer for my mind to process. 

“Now that’s what I’m talking about” I finally managed to utter.

“No, wait, you mean………..aah no way, no road for there”

 

Quickly I switched to my Mr Smooth mode-

“You know what, we should not be talking about Dupe, we should be talking about this Femi girl”

 “Paddy mi, gbagbe e” my friend turned killjoy was not interested. “And why” I enquired“She’s not your type, she’s a Christian, and you…” Gbenga was insinuating that I had horns underneath my Afro.

“If she’s not my type, I want to be her type”

I knew I sounded stupid, but I was far-gone.

 

My friend just laughed at me, figuring I would get over her soon. He was wrong. For three weeks, I continued staring, catching her smile as she caught my stare. I did the background checks- we were both in 200L, she was in Industrial Chemistry, she had an elder brother in school too (I knew from experience that this was bad news- I also had a sister in school), and she also had an aunt who had a boutique close to Moremi Hall- I was planning my ‘toasting’ strategy.After my CIA runs and terrorising Gbenga, he finally agreed to my plan- he’ll go to see her and I’ll just happen to be with him at that time.  

I had it all planned out- Gbenga and I get there, he remembers he has to get a note from a chick in the next block, leaving Femi and I to hang out; I make her laugh; we talk a little and fix a date for the next day.Well, we got there……she wasn’t in her room. I was so sad.

Just as Gbenga and I were strategising for alternate arrangements, she appeared from down the corridor. 

I was so happy and so unprepared that I said a lot of stupid things, the least stupid being something like “Your palm is so soft and I would love to touch your hand plenty more times”.  I wanted to punch myself on the teeth.

She smiled (clearly thinking I was an idiot) but was too polite to tell me.

But Someone had a little mercy on me and from time to time, we would bump into each other. During one of those mercy-bumpings, I summoned up courage to ask her if I could come to see her. Fortunately, she said yes and two days later (that was hard but a Man had to have a little pride, I could at least pretend that I wasn’t that far gone), I was in her room.

Actually, I was at the door of her room, when I saw her. She told me she was on her way home. That meant I couldn’t spend time with her so the next best thing was walking her to the park; where (God loves me), her aunt’s car was parked next to mine. Better still, her aunt took her time to close shop, giving me time to talk with her, (and I hoped), enough to make her think of me at least once that weekend.

While I was turning on the charm, Femi suddenly asked me- “don’t you think It’s funny that I always see you at Moremi?”

I had seen this question coming and I had a ready (and mostly true answer)- I come to check on my jambite-sister, to make sure she’s okay.

I scored easy points on that one- one, maybe, I wasn’t the ‘player’ she probably suspected and two, I was a nice sweet brother.

I was smiling to myself. I must have succeeded in making her thoughts stray so when she got back we agreed to meet again in her room. This time, she was on her bed; she was wearing an old pair of jeans, slightly frayed at the hems, and nicked at knee with a white sleeveless vest that clung… she looked beautiful. We did the motions- me asking her how she was, chatting about everything but the weather… until I got down to business.Carefully, I opened my heart (or what was left of it), stating how much I liked her, how I’ll like us to date etcShe didn’t say anything, I was busy congratulating myself on finally getting her to think about me so deeply when I realised she was … wait for this- fast asleep. Apparently, she still thought I was an idiot and realised her time was better spent sleeping than listening to me.I couldn’t believe it. Me, Mr Smooth, aka Mr Women-just-love me. Femi slept off on me!I dropped my keys as loudly as possible. She opened one eye. I needed to do something to keep that eye, and the other one opened, so I asked her for some water (as if that was going to help). It sha made her stand up.

She was pouring the water into a white mug (she must like white, I was thinking) when the ‘devil’ struck- some girl, Moyo, walked in, took one snide look at me and did a pull out the gun, (technically, she only spoke but it couldn’t have been worse than the Iraqis felt after Bush started showing who was boss)-

 “ah ah! Bobo yi, you are in Moremi again?”

She cocked the gun again and pulled the trigger again –“Femi, so you are his next runs?” and the stupid girl laughed. 

I understood why ordinarily sane people kill. I suddenly realised why OJ Simpson, Timothy McVeigh and all the murderers on God’s earth existed. I am not saying they were right; but I just understood.