When A Playboy Loves

|| 1.

King

The disco light swirled in an array of red, green, purple and golden colours, settling momentarily on our faces. Voices rose and fell, music played softly in the background, blending nicely with the chatters of the other carousers, our glasses clinked as we shared a toast.

"Congratulations my man! The greatest of all time, sharpshooter!" Junior mocked Uchenna, patting his back while one hand held a flute of champagne.

The rest of us snickered, knowing how much Uche would be annoyed by Junior's taunt but nobody cared. Before Uche got married, he always preached practising birth control until a year into his marriage to allow him to adapt to life as a married man. It was barely two months into their union and now his wife was already pregnant, hence the reason for our little celebration.

"What colour is the material for the baby's dedication?" Junior feigned seriousness, tapping his index finger to puckered lips. "Maybe you can tell wifey that we want cockroach brown."

"Or better still, watermelon green," I added and we both shrieked with laughter, relishing in the mild look of annoyance that crossed Uche's feature.

"Please don't say it," Junior and I muttered simultaneously as soon as Uche's lips parted; he was fond of saying the most distasteful things.

"Wifey and I are actually thinking menstruation red," the bastard still said it.

It was his turn to sneer at our crumpled faces, giving us a victorious smile as our noses scrunched in mock disgust with my middle finger pointed at him.

"We should have gone to the strip club," I muttered under my breath, stretching my oxford Italian leather-clad feet.

Taking a sip from the bottle of water I substituted for the wine flute, I fumbled with the top two buttons of my blue dress shirt. Images of scantily dressed ladies shaking their ass on a stage flooded my vision and I groaned again, shifting slightly to accommodate the growing bulge in my trousers.

"So, his wife won't let him leave the house again?" Tomiwa, another member of our Fantastic five group, replied with a peal of loud laughter. He was usually the quietest one among us, brooding but brutally honest.

It was no secret that Uche's wife, Cynthia, had him wrapped around her slender fingers. He was like a lost puppy around her; the love they shared for each other could be felt from miles away, it was almost suffocating.

Sometimes, it was hard to believe he used to be the most notorious one amongst us five. With his thick afro, blemish-free face, light-skinned complexion, perfect height on a toned body and numerous awards for the most handsome man in his university days, he was never at a loss for women.

"Negodu. Just look at this man talking, can you go anywhere without Lola's permission?" Uche growled out.

Junior and I stared at Tomiwa, the scowl on his face transforming our laughter into coughs. Lola, Tomiwa's fiancée was the definition of controlling but he had no problem with that, neither did we. We were always welcomed to his crib, sometimes to her delicious Yoruba jollof rice with peppered beef; that was enough to forgive her for keeping Tomiwa away from us.

Plus, Tomiwa was a different man with her in his life now, a happy man. He radiated the kind of happiness we never saw in him since he lost his family to a plane crash. It was the reason we barely took any vacations that required a flight, knowing his phobia for planes. He was just like Uche, the only difference was in their skin colour and his avoidance of women until Lola.

When the coughing quieted down, no one said a word, each of us left to our various thoughts. Someone nudged me with their knee and I opened my eyes slowly to see Junior motioning in the direction of a slim, dark-skinned beauty.