The Undecided Love

"WHO IS ALHAJI?"

“They’ve paid half already.” Alhaji told me while I was staring at him like he had grown another head. I was seated in his office because I had come to pay the first half of my debt to him and beg him for an extension to pay off the other half.

But I didn’t expect to hear the shocking news that he told me.

“What do you mean by ‘they’?” I whispered. I didn't have anyone else, and I didn't think the guys knew where to find Alhaji, so this information wasn't really clear to me unless-

“Your set of boyfriends. They came to my office the next day after my surprise visit and paid N100000.” He smiled at me, “Even though I was a bit angry at that. They spoiled my fun.”

The sick bastard. He really wanted to get into my pants but I was surprised by his honesty. If he was that mean, he'd hide it from me and still have his way with me.

“I’m glad they did.” I said and stood up and turned to leave. “This is goodbye then. Cheers to not seeing your face ever again.”

When I got outside the building, I didn’t know what I was feeling. Whether it should be joy or sorrow, I just couldn’t place it. On the one hand, I was happy that the debt had been cleared off and Alhaji wouldn’t have anything to tie me down, but on the other hand, I was angry and sad that the guys didn’t tell me anything. They knew how much I was stressing over this debt and why I was trying to take as many shifts as possible because I needed extra cash and they didn’t say anything.

Sure I would have gotten angry, but I'd get over it and just appreciate that I wouldn't have to smell Alhaji's bad breath anymore.

I took out my phone and called Drew. When he picked up, he told me he was out with Ife and I contemplated whether to tell him to leave and meet me at home. After a while, I asked him where he was so I could meet him and he told me he was at Whispers restaurant. It wasn’t too far from where I was currently, so I stopped a bus and told the driver where to take me.

I got to the restaurant they were in and I had to hand it to Ife. He really went all out for whatever outing or date they were having. Judging by the interior, I’m pretty sure their food was expensive and my broke ass can’t afford their bottled water. Now I felt super bad for attempting to rain on their plans, so I turned to leave, but before I could do that, Andrew was calling my name and I had no choice but to look back and wave.

“Hi,” I said quietly when I got to their table and gave a small smile.

Holy s**t. Ife looks more handsome than Junior described. Why do the fine ones have to be gay? I swear, I felt this way when I found out that Troye Sivan was gay and that guy that acted as Justin Folley in ’13 Reasons Why’.

“Damn Drew, if your boyfriend wasn’t gay, I’d be all up on his ass right now.” I joked as I sat down. They both laughed and I looked around, as I felt so out of place.

Should I order something or should I just wait till they’re done?

“Well, I used to like girls. Maybe one day, we'll do a threesome.” He winked at me and I laughed.

“Oops, sorry. I was joking about the ‘all up on your ass’ part. I have someone I like and threesomes aren’t my thing.”

“I was too. Wouldn’t want Andrew stabbing me after this.” He glanced at Drew and I cooed at how adorable they were.

“So this is my boyfriend Ife. Ife, this is Dee, but we only call her that. Call her Deola.” Andrew took a sip from his glass of juice and suddenly I felt thirsty.

“I just hope you won’t break his heart or I'll kick your balls or cut them and feed your fleshy meat to you. I know taekwondo.” I batted my lashes at him and I thought I heard him gulp.

“Do you want anything to eat or drink? I could get the waiter to come over quickly.” He asked me after Andrew calmed him down and told him I wouldn’t hurt him unless he said so.

“Oh no. I feel bad already for crashing your date. Was it a date? I only wanted to deal with Andrew for hiding a secret about Alhaji from me.” I turned to Andrew and gave him my famous fake smile and his eyes widened.

“Who’s Alhaji?” Ife asked, but I dismissed him.

“Care to explain why I heard what I heard today, Drew?” I asked him again and he turned to his boyfriend.

“Babe, I have to go. I’d see you another day or on campus?” He stood up, gave Ife a kiss on the cheek and grabbed his things. I would have fawned at the sight but I couldn’t lose my focus.

“Better call Junior too because you two aren’t getting out of it that easily.” I stood up and drank the remaining of Andrew’s juice and shook hands with Ife, then followed Andrew out of the restaurant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a few minutes, Junior pulled up outside the restaurant and we both got in. Andrew had already told him on the phone that there was trouble, so one look at my face was enough to tell him that I was ready to explode at any moment.

“To my house.” That was the only thing I said when I sat inside the car. They knew better not to try and calm me down because that word made me even more mad. You don’t tell a lady to calm down. Not like I consider myself one, but we all get the point.

Once we got home, I got out and slammed the car door. The door was unlocked, so it meant either Grey or Ovie or even both of them were around.

“Can you just talk to us at least?” Junior said when we got in and, fair enough, both Ovie and Grey were around. It seemed Ovie was doing the dishes as Grey was reading a book on the couch because I could hear water running from the kitchen.

“Did you know about this too, Grey?” I snatched the book from his hands. He glared at me for interrupting him but shut up when he saw the rage in my eyes.

“Know what?”

“I like how y’all are playing dumb. Keep up the act.”

“What act?”

“She knows we went to see Alhaji. She knows we’ve paid half of her debt.” Andrew sighed and that’s when I flared.

“Of course, did you guys think I wouldn’t find out at all?” I shouted. “How long were you planning on keeping it? Were you even planning on telling me at all?”

“Of course we were, we just didn’t find the right time.” Junior tried to calm me down but I wasn’t going to have it.

I turned to Grey, “You took them there, but you couldn’t say anything because you wanted to use this opportunity to rent a room from me and see whether you could have a chance with me, right?”

The room was silent. I’ve never shouted this much at them before when I was angry, but this was out of line. If it was me keeping a secret, they’d act the same way I’m acting right now. Sure, both Andrew and Junior had good intentions. I’m just angry they gave room for Grey to go along with his stupid plan.

“You guys know how hard I’ve been working to cover this debt. You know how I’ve been worrying every night thinking of how I could just make it go away and there you guys were, going behind my back to settle my debt when we'd gone over it a f*****g thousand times that I didn’t need your help.” I sighed, sitting down.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m not grateful, but you should have told me. Now I have to deal with having a guy I once liked living here with me.”

“Dee,” Andrew started, but Grey cut him off.

“I didn’t move in here just because I wanted to hit on you again, Dee. It was more of to hide the fact that they covered your debt.”

“And look at the bright side, you now have cash to spend on yourself.” Junior sat beside me and so did Andrew. Grey just stood opposite me, looking hurt over the words I said.

"And you wouldn't have met Ovie if you hadn't rented the room out," Andrew added.

“I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions, but you can’t blame me for making those assumptions.” I chuckled and he smiled slightly.

“Oh shut up.” He rolled his eyes at me and sat on the floor.

“Am I interrupting something? I heard some talks about debt and all that.” Ovie walked in with a napkin and we looked at each other, contemplating whether to tell him about the whole issue. After a long silence, I decided to speak up.

“Well, I cleared my debt thanks to these two idiots, so I have a predator off my back.”

He looked at us confused. “You had a debt? You never told me anything about a debt.”

“She didn’t tell her friends too, lover boy, they found out by accident.” Grey rolled his eyes and I slapped his head and he hissed from the impact.

“After my parents died, I had to stop school because my grandmother was sick and I had to take care of hospital bills and other house bills. When she got admitted, I couldn’t foot the bill as it was too much, so I went searching for help.” I started.

“Even though she should have asked us because her grandmother is practically our grandmother too.” Andrew whispered, “But typical Deola didn’t ask for help and went to ask a s****l predator for a loan and he wanted her body in return.”

“Sue me for pride. You guys have helped me a lot already so I didn’t want to ask for a whole 200 grand from you. Besides, it was too much.” I huffed.

“Anyways, she was able to help her grandmother for that time but she passed on. Only if the debt went away too.” Andrew stated dramatically, as if he was reading a novel.

“So Dee started looking for jobs, especially since the restaurant she worked at before fired her for not coming for her shift the day her grandmother died.” Grey continued.

“She still didn’t tell us about the debt but was eager to work anywhere and carry multiple jobs as long as she could be able to earn money and pay him off.

“It was also that day we found out that Grey and Dee had a make-out session the night before.” Andrew smirked at me and I scowled at him for saying that. I looked at Ovie to see his reaction but there was none. It didn’t stop me from grabbing his hands and squeezing them softly just to show that it was all in the past.

“But the old man showed up one night and offered to sleep with her and make the debt disappear, even though she had like 6 more months to pay it off.” Junior said angrily, “Only then did we find out about the debt.”

“We had to do something, even if it meant going behind her back to settle half of the debt, because God knows Dee would be more than furious if we paid everything off.” Andrew finished off.

“And I figured the only way was to rent out the spare rooms. Luck also helped me that I found a job at your dad’s.” I turned to Ovie and he squeezed my hands.

“I’m so sorry you went through all that alone. And you didn’t think to tell me about anything going on in your life, even though I knew it was hard saying them.” He whispered, pulling me into an embrace and my mind went haywire because he was being affectionate in the presence of my friends, something he said he didn't like the idea of but I was going to take what I get. Who was I to complain?

“I’m sorry. No more secrets again babe.” I whispered, low enough for him to hear me, but my best friends heard and started making gagging noises which made me roll my eyes. I'd have left those arms to kick them but I guess I could take a moment of teasing for now.