SINFUL *STILL editing*

SINFUL - 27

Burna Boy's Soke was playing in the car and the calm vibe made Cynthia want to fall asleep right there, the way the instrumental vibrated through the car's speakers was somehow soothing to her. She grinned to herself, recalling Prince and Kobe's obsession with afrobeats. She was the African one and it was if they knew more afrobeats than she did, she'd hear a song in a mix and voice-note the part she knew, asking Kobe what the song was called and who it was by; 9 out of 10 times he knew the answer.

"I'm not trying to pressure you at all, C." He said with sincerity as he slowed down and indicated to the left once they were on Cynthia's road. "I feel like we are so cool that whatever happens nothing will change." Cynthia listened to Kobe's optimistic view on their current situation, she couldn't help but bite the inside of her mouth nervously. He had ultimately brought her unknown fears to light; it was all so much to process she hadn't even considered what this could do to their friendship. She would never ever jeopardise her friendship with Kobe for anything, and a relationship was not worth losing one of her closest friends for. If things didn't work out and they ended up not talking to one another, she'd be filled with utter regret. On the other hand, this displayed to her how much Kobe admired her. He must have thought highly of her to believe she was mature enough to handle such a sensitive issue. "C?" She watched his lips rise as he gave her a slanted smile, Cynthia couldn't help but smile back.

"Kobes, are you being...serious?"

"Yeah..."

"..."

"This is awkward, right?"

"Very." They laughed together as he turned the engine off.

"To be honest, I did it more for me than you. I had to let you know." Cynthia puckered up the courage to look in his direction and noticed the look in his eyes. She couldn't recall ever seeing it before; little did she know he'd been looking at her that way for months now.

"Well...I'm still kind of, like, speechless but, like... I respect that." Kobe found it cute how she couldn't quite articulate her sentences as well as she normally would. He tried to relax himself and hoped he didn't look as anxious as he felt inside. The tightness in his stomach slowly decreased after he'd dropped the bombshell on her.

"You better." He sneered, undoing his seatbelt and exiting the car.

"Erm...where are you going?"

"Lola's."

"Why do you like gallivanting the streets, sometimes stay indoors. It's a school night."

"School night? Only you would say something like that." He chuckled. "Didn't know you were my marj." Kobe smirked, looking at her intently in the dark. Cynthia slammed the door and watched him walk around the car and onto the pavement.

"I don't have to be your mother to care about you."

"Hear that, come ere." He peered down at her standing awkwardly in front of him, and opened his arms. Cynthia shuffled forward and embraced him, resting her cheek on his torso and basking in his scent. She felt him kiss her head before they pulled apart from each other naturally.

"Night C..." He muttered as she walked to her door.

"Bye Kobes." She felt the light pitter patter of her heart racing as she could sense his heavy gaze following her going into her house.

If Kobe hadn't been going to Lola's, Cynthia would have ran straight to her house and called Noelle on FaceTime to give her girls an insight on her night. But instead she went to her room after greeting her mother and being forced to make her a cup of hot chocolate and fetching her house slippers from her bedroom.