Shout-Out to my Ex [✓]

Eighteen

Cover art by Jaydara🤩💀

Tilewa wiped beads of sweat off her brow as she trudged along in the hot afternoon sun. She had woken up at the crack of dawn to cook all her deliverables and had been on her feet from then till this very moment. By the time she had cooked and cleaned and packaged all the goods, she took her bath and had sent some through dispatch riders. The others that remained belonged to patrons like Mrs. Okpara who always wanted their food delivered by hand.

After Ekene had connected them over the past month, the woman was becoming a regular patron of Tilewa's food business. However, the old lady was so paranoid over the way her food was handled and so Tilewa always had to make out time to deliver her food on the weekends. Normally, she would have taken an Uber, but she was trying to cut her cost so she had opted for public transportation instead. The traffic was not smiling and she had endured two hours in a cramped and stuffy danfo for a journey that would ordinarily take 45 minutes at most. Mrs. Okpara lived in the heart of Ekene's gated estate and motorcycles were not allowed in.

There was no shuttle in sight and Tilewa had to trek the distance to the lady's house. By the time she was done with the delivery, she dreaded the thought of the awful walk to the estate gate again. Immediately, she fished her phone out of her pocket and dialed Ekene, he picked up almost as the dial was about to end.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked breathlessly.

"I'm good, why are you panting?" Tilewa asked, noting his irregular breathing pattern.

"Oh nothing, just working on the elliptical. What's up?"

"I'm heading over to your house."

"Okay, I'll come pick you at the gate when you get here."

He hung up before she could correct him that she was far past the gate. Chuckling lightly, she shook her head, trudging in the terrible heat and scorching blaze to Ekene's house which was at the beginning of the street and would take no less than 10 minutes.

The gateman was usually off-duty on Saturdays and Ekene had taught her how to access his compound. Their friendship had bounced back after the initial awkward phase of making out and they had spent some weekends together at his place over the past month, working on her business plan and branding.

That was one thing Tilewa admired about him; he was very knowledgeable about business and all the other things needed to maximize profit. He had spent many hours enlightening her on terms, theories and models used for boosting SME growth. He was genuinely invested in seeing her business grow. She was smiling as she balanced the nylon bag holding a plate of soup for him. He had complained to her earlier in the week that he had been unable to feed well due to some financial obligations he could not back out of, so she had thoughtfully brought some soup along for him. At least if she could not afford to pay him money for the services he had rendered, she could do this.
Seeing as she was also in a tight spot with cash, she smiled to herself knowing that the gesture would be well appreciated.

The small smile played on her face as she let herself into the compound. Crossing the slight distance that led to the house, the first unusual thing she noticed as she placed her hand on the doorknob was that the front door was unlocked. Normally, she would have knocked, but out of habit, she had tried the door first. There was a way to open the pedestrian gate from the outside if it was unlocked and he had taught her how to access his compound after she had stood there, waiting for him in the rain three weeks ago, so gaining entry into the compound was pretty easy.
However, Ekene was big on security and never left his front door unlocked, regardless of the circumstances.