Late Eighteen

25| Chapter twenty five

A/N: What do you think should be part of the book but isn't there?

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"What's really going on between you and that boy?" Zeke asked as we settled into two stops in a local icecream shop just down the road from our school. I had asked Zion and Zoe to take the bus home, so it's just Zeke and I still in our pressed school uniforms at barely past four p.m in the evening.

I know Zeke wouldn't mind telling his driver to drop me off.

I looked at him closely through my eyelids. His brows was furrowed and his whole countenance depicted the fact that he was calm and collected.

Well, I would believe that if he wasn't clenching and unclenching his fists as his eyes short lasers at me that I doubt he barely noticed.

I rolled my eyes at him as I placed my hands on the rusted countertop filled with empty cones of icecream and counter dusters.

He looked up at him in impatience and I smirked, leaning my face forward. "What boy?"

He huffed and pressed his thumb against his eyebrow, massaging the spot lightly. "That boy—What's his name again? Michelle?"

I rolled my eyes. I'm sure he knows Micheal's name but he's just trying to pretend not to just to be petty.

"What about him?" I asked, pushing a braid behind my ear.

He spluttered as if surprised as he looked at me, with face full of confusion. "What do you mean 'what about him'? Two days ago, I saw the both of you almost closing to kissing in the hallway and today, you slept on his shoulder. How do you expect me, your boyfriend, to feel about that?"

I rolled my eyes again.

Nawa o, give boys an hint of love and attention like this and they'll go on building mountains with it.

"Shebi I told you he was a friend back in the States where my family used to reside before we came to Nigeria, why do you now sound so jealous?"

He grunted and slapped his palms on his forehead in mock dramatism. "So,now I'm jealous because I chose to look out for my girlfriend? Well, excuse me for doing so because I know that boy— Michelle or whatever his name is— likes you but you're just too blind to see it."

I gasped in horror at his words. Zeke had never spoken to me like that, it's a first. "Did you just call me blind?"

His brown eyes looked at me and he released a deep breath before combing his hands through his hair. "You know what I mean—"

I interrupted him before he could finish his sentence. "No, I don't, care to explain?"

His eyes finally snapped up to mine. "Look, I'm sorry, you know I didn't mean it like that. It's just that—" He sighed and grabbed my hands from across the table. "Friends or not, I know that boy likes you. Trust me, I know because I have eyes and I'm a boy like him too. It also doesn't help that we're a block apart, you know class B and C."

"Shouldn't trust be the most important element in a relationship?" I asked as I gave his hand a squeeze to signify the fact that I was with him.

He gave my hand a squeeze back too. "I know, I trust you, it's him I don't trust."

"You know what, can we just forget about that and enjoy our time together?" He nodded and whistled as he called the attention of the owner of the icecream shop.

She was short, her body adorning a navy green t-shirt over a white three quarter jean. The green wig on her head covered her natural hair and it reminded me of something out of the local masquerade festival or 'rags day'.