Chapter 49
49
By the time the gala is over, Wale is trending on The Tea Lounge. But for good reason this time. Not only are people praising him for the charity’s gala –
THE VILLA STAR RAISES HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS FOR CARERS’ CHARITY
– but also for how maturely he handled his altercation with Kojo. Kelechi, who was in the lobby, filmed what happened, and obviously it didn’t take that long for The Tea Lounge to jump on the bandwagon. Kojo is getting dragged in the comments section and rightly so. Karma is a bitch.
Wale steers his car in front of my flat. He pulls up the handbrake.
‘So … goodnight,’ he says. It’s about 1 a.m. and the pitch-black streets are illuminated by a few lamp posts.
I unbuckle my seat belt and lean in to give him a hug.
‘Is that it?!’ Aunty Shirley heckles from the back seat.
‘Kiss her, man! We were young once,’ Uncle Les says.
Wale looks at me as if to say, Why did I volunteer to drop them home again?
I giggle. And then, suddenly feeling very shy, I give him the quickest peck. Aunty Shirley and Uncle Les react like children. Wale smiles like a teenager after his first kiss, wide and hopeful.
For the first time in weeks, I go to bed feeling relaxed. I have no deadlines hanging over my head. No worries. No secrets. And – the best thing of all – I’ve got my man back. The relief is almost physical – like the tightness and suppression of the last few months has left my muscles, letting me walk freely again. I wish Wale had dropped off Uncle Les and Aunty Shirley first, so I could have invited him into my flat. Spending the night together would have been perfect. But they live practically next door to each other, so logistically it made sense.
Snuggling my duvet under my neck, I close my eyes and allow my mind to wander. I imagine Wale showing up at the door, still wearing his shirt with his top buttons loose. I imagine him taking my face in his hands and kissing me. Hard. I imagine being suddenly swept off my feet with a yelp before he carries me down the corridor, our kisses growing heavier, more urgent. I imagine him laying me on my bed and the two of us giving in to our feelings.
A few hours later, I wake up to the sound of repeated buzzing. I can hardly open my eyes, and when I do, I realize that it’s very early in the morning. There’s barely any daylight streaking between the blinds.
Lazily, I feel around for my phone. The vibration stops.
With relief, I slump my head back on to my pillow. I’m about to go back to sleep when the vibration starts up again. This time, I sit up and reach for my phone.
It’s Wale.
‘Hey, you okay? It’s like –’ I glance at the screen – ‘five o’clock in the morning.’
‘I love it,’ he says. ‘I love it, I love it, I love it.’
‘Love what?’ I ask, rubbing sleep from my eye. He sounds excited. Euphoric.
‘My memoir! Duh! Temi, you killed it. I can’t stop buzzing.’
Now I’m awake.
‘You read it?! How? The manuscript is over two hundred pages long. You must have been shattered after you got home.’
‘I didn’t go home.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I did – after I dropped off Uncle Les and Aunty Shirl. But I didn’t go inside. I read it in my car.’
My mouth falls open. I cannot believe Wale stayed up all night to read my manuscript. I put a hand on my hair bonnet, momentarily speechless. ‘But why?’ I manage to say. ‘You could have read it tomorrow or the day after or whenever you have time.’
‘I know,’ Wale says. ‘Trust me, I didn’t plan to. But after I read the first page, I couldn’t stop. Yeah, it’s my story, but it’s how you told it. You just … got it. Your writing, man – it’s phenomenal. All the jokes land and you one hundred per cent nailed my voice. I even teared up a little. God, I would have thought you were a carer too. You’re so talented, Tems.’
Speechless, I hold back a sob.
When I was let go from Bonsai, though I truly was relieved, my confidence still took a hit. I started to doubt myself as a writer. And the many rejections I received from publishers didn’t help. Truthfully, it was the main reason why I went on to work at a call centre. I wanted a job far removed from writing, in case I realized that I was actually no good at it and I had to find a new dream. It was the fear that kept me up all night.
But Wale wasn’t just telling me that he loved my writing because it would make me happy. He’d showed me. I mean, what sane person would stay up all night reading over 200 pages after organizing an extravagant gala?
But he did.
Tears begin to well.
‘Are you okay?’ he says, filling the silence.
I feel my lips quiver as I take in a shuddering breath. I sniff. ‘I’m just overwhelmed, that’s all.’
‘I wish I could be there to hold you,’ he says softly.
I sniff again. ‘Me too. Wait, are you running?’ In the background, I can hear hurried steps. Wale sounds slightly breathless too. ‘Wale, don’t tell me you’ve just left your house at five o’clock in the morning.’
Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door.
What the hell?
I leap out of bed and jog down the corridor. I open the front door.
‘Your wish is my command,’ he says into his phone.
Wale is standing in my doorway. He’s still wearing his outfit from earlier, minus his jacket. Just like in my fantasy, a few of his shirt buttons are undone. He gives me a dazzling smile, ends the call and slips his phone in his pocket. And then he steps forward, cups my face in his hands and kisses me.
The collision of our lips and seeing Wale in the flesh throws me and I have to sling my arms over his neck, phone still in hand, to stop myself from toppling backwards. He laughs as he kisses me, his hand on my bum, his breath ragged. We stagger out of the doorway, barely remembering to pull it closed behind us. My hands are in his hair, pulling his shirt out of his trousers so I can touch his smooth, firm chest. The kiss is stronger, longer, harder. It’s as if no words in the dictionary will ever be enough to tell me how he feels, to express how he wants me to feel. We are both each other’s oxygen. We kiss each other as though we need it to live.
Wale begins a slow descent of kisses from my lips down to my collarbone, and I arch my neck, revelling in how deliciously good it feels.
I draw a breath. ‘How did you get here so fast? Were you in your car the entire time?’
Wale nibbles the soft skin near my shoulders. ‘Have you ever read or watched something that made you so excited that you needed to talk to someone about it right away? Well, that’s exactly how I felt after I read through the memoir. But I didn’t wanna freak you out by knocking on your door so early in the morning. So, I called you from my car instead.’
‘Come here, you.’ I bring his mouth to mine.
Wale bends his knees and hoists me into his arms – one arm under my thigh, the other wrapped around my waist.
I squeal with laughter and he silences me with a kiss. He carries me to my bedroom where he puts me down carefully on my bed. His tenderness melts me. I snatch off my pink ‘Div’ hair bonnet and shake out my curls. For a long moment, he stares down at me, as if I’m a precious stone that’s only just been discovered.
‘You’re so gorgeous,’ he whispers, taking me in.
Without breaking eye contact, I unbutton the rest of his shirt. He tugs it off. My body screams at the sight of his exquisite, toned arms made more beautiful with his sleeve of tattoos. I sit up slightly and he helps me out of my top, his eyes widening at the sight of my boobs. And then he works his way down, winding my bottoms and knickers past my ankles.
‘Tonight –’ he kisses the inner part of my thigh – ‘you have three wishes. Anything you wish for is my command.’
Pressure builds as Wale kisses his way up my leg, teasing me with his slowness.
I’ve had sex with Wale countless times. But something about this moment is uniquely special. Perhaps because we’re both different people. We communicate better. We’re open. Honest. We also understand each other a lot more. We know each other’s fears, triggers and insecurities. And what we desire from each other at this present moment. We become one more intimately than ever before.
Wale gave me three wishes, but I orgasm five times before 7 a.m.