𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫.

~THIRTY-ONE~

It was weird but that was like the first time I ever heard Ashley giggle so I stared at her. Her face turned expressionless once more when she noticed I was staring. I looked away.

"Yunno, we should have just gone to Tammie's place, there's enough seats, they even have a table for fifteen," Chidera said, her arm still tucked into Ore's. "Maybe we should just. . ."

"You weren't forced to come here, you know. You could have gone to Tammie's all by yourself. You insisted that Ore take you here, didn't you?" Ashley said to Chidera, her face still stoic.

Whoa.

Childera's eyes went wide. Her mouth hung agape as she tried to say something but couldn't. Everyone was shocked too. I'd never heard Ashley speak like this to Chidera before. The other day in the basketball court on the bleachers, I'd thought I heard wrong and maybe she was whispering to herself about the book she was reading. Now I know that, that day, Ashley had really told Chidera to shut up.

"When are we getting the food?" Ayo whined from beside Nina, causing her to giggle and also making everyone forget what just happened.

"Nawa oh, Ayo you like food oh," Ninuola said.

"Like seriously," Joy added.

"Man's gotta eat," Ayo said and wiggled his brows making him look a lot like Ore.

"Abi oh, na talk all these babes just dey talk since," MJ said. "Men are hungry."

"Yen yen yen, no be you dey yell like goat pikin since?" Ninuola asked, looking up from her phone at MJ.

Ore pulled out a seat for Chidera which she kissed him for - I rolled my eyes - then took a seat directly opposite me. My palms started sweating.

"That's not a goat yelling, it's a man yelling," MJ replied smugly.

"And like that, you think you have sense?" Ninu asked.

MJ grinned at her. She rolled her eyes and went back to her phone. I chuckled at their bickering.

Ayo complained about being hungry again.

"Okay fine, fine. We're getting food now. I'll call the waiteress," Nina said smiling and shaking her head at her boyfriend.

The waiteress came to our table after  Nina called her. Then we ordered our food.  While we waited for our food, we fell into conversations. Chidera yammered about fashion and shopping to Ore who was trying so much to show interest but still failed. He hadn't exactly glanced at me since he got here and it kinda hurt but I guess it was good that way.

Ashley was very quiet and picking at her nails. Ninuola - though she was on her phone - would occasionally glance at Joy and Jeremy.

We seriously needed to talk about this. I nudged Nina with my elbow. She smiled and turned to look at me. "Yeah, b?"

I nudged Ninuola, she looked up from her phone. "Hmmmm?"

"The three of us have something we gotta talk about. I think we've evaded it enough, " I said.

"Eh- ehn, what's that?" Nina asked, her attention all on me.

"Yeah, what's that?" Ninuola asked.

"It's about you, Ninu."

"Me?" She asked. "What happened to me?"

I looked at Nina, at Joy and Jeremy, at Ninu, then back at Nina. Her eyes widened and she smiled, nodding her head like she understood.

"Ohhh, I know what you're getting at, Bolu. In fact, I noticed it too but I don't think we should talk about it here. " She  smiled and shook her head. "Maybe when we have a girls night together or something, we can talk about it. . . "