Shout-Out to my Ex [✓]

Nineteen

The sound of Ekene Okafor bursting into the office of the personal assistant to the Creative Director of Radak Advertising and Consult was the last thing anyone expected on that bright Tuesday morning.

The said personal assistant was briefing some other colleagues on how the Creative Director wanted them to handle their latest project and all heads whipped up as the livid young man charged in with the words "Tilewa, what the hell?"

It had been over a week since the run-in at his house; it was as though they had an unspoken agreement to give themselves space. For a split second, her heart fluttered in her chest before her brain took over officially. She cleared her throat as she shot him a very impatient look.
"This is an office; we don't tolerate yelling here."

Ekene laughed. "You don't say."

Standing at the door in all his 6 ft plus glory, he clearly was not leaving till he said his piece.

"You guys, please let's take a break, we'll finish this later" Tilewa addressed her colleagues.

After the last one was out the door she seethed "What do you want, Ekene?"

"Uzo just called me a few minutes ago. She was crying."

"Is that why you stormed into my office like a mad man? So what if your girlfriend is crying?" she spat the last set of words with as much contempt as she could.

"Uzo is not my girlfriend," he said looking at her dead in the eye. "And I never pegged you for the jealous type."

Tilewa frowned. "Jealous? You don't think you're flattering yourself a little too much?"

"Look, I don't know what your deal is, but I don't like what you're doing at all. You expressly stated that you were not ready to have any romantic entanglements with me so I don't understand why you are pissed at her."

Tilewa looked away from him as the memory of that day flooded her afresh.

She had gotten home a crying mess and had immediately called Eno and bawled out the entire tale after which she blocked Uzo on all her social media, deleted her contact on her phone and exited all group chats they were in together. Their group of mutual friends noticed her strange behavior and had flocked into her inbox one after the other to find out why she left so many group chats. Of course, Tilewa told the tale of how Uzo had been sleeping around with someone dear to her for goodness-knows-how-long and each tale painted Uzo in a worse light than the last so that Uzo had become a laughing stock and pariah among all their mutual friends. Tilewa let herself smile a little bit, satisfied that she had been able to hurt Uzo as much as she hurt her- to send her crying to Ekene; she was beyond thrilled.

"So your girlfriend reported me to you," she said, smugly.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ekene let out an exasperated sigh. "How many times do I have to tell you that we are not dating?!"

"Friends with benefits then?" Tilewa supplied. "How long were you guys messing around behind my back?"

"Is that what this is about? Guess what? I'm a grown man and I can do whatever I like with whoever I like!"

"So why did you hide it? Why did you guys choose to sneak around? If you were a grown man, why did you choose to keep it all under wraps?"

"Because Uzo did not want you to find out. After dealing with your break-up and knowing just how close we were, she did not want to get caught in the middle."

"So unfortunate that she ended up doing just exactly that, isn't it?" a small smile played at the edge of her lips as she tilted her head to look at him.