DING DING DING !!!! YOU WIN AGAIN MERMAID.

A smile sat on my face, as if permanent, from the moment we drove out of the recording studio. I sat at the back seat, with Jide on the drivers. From time to time, I caught him steal glances through the rear view mirror as I chuckled loudly or completely laughed out. Probably tired of my actions, he cleared his throat continuously.

"If you have sore throat we could stop at a pharmacy," best to get rid of the non existent unwellness he was beginning to feel. My eyes met his through the mirror before he took it away.

"I just have a small itch, its nothing."

"Yeah man, I know you do," I said as I took my attention to the device in my hands, my fingers moved over the keypad. As I texted the mermaid, I noticed she had not sent a K response after the first. It was easy for me to notice texting patterns of people. A subconscious characteristics that told a lot about them. Jide used a lot of abbreviations when he had to type long but most times he gave one word replies, my producer, the one I began with, used a lot of emojis to relay his messages, my dealer always added 'lol' to every text he sent. But Fumnanya wrote most words out. I suspected she was a 'novel writing' texter, just like my brother was. It was one of the things about her that had began to intrigue me, and almost everything I did made me remember her. She was in my head.

"You forgot your lines lots of times today, that's...not you." He was definitely jealous he was not getting my attention. On the other hand, he was right. Words I planned to sing always flowed out of my mouth without pause when I was in the recording booth. Words I had written down where always in my head. But today, I had looked at my notes a lot of times and yet could not finish a verse without asking for a break. This was because my head ached like never before and at some point I felt the need to barge out of there, but stayed for Jides sake.

"Sorry, I needed to be sure of the lines, guy, its DJ Maggi we are talking about. If I do nonsense, I'll be nonsense for life." Some fake words to calm his mind. I could still feel a dull ache in my temples but texting the girl made it a little better. She sent a message back.

I am a genius, I always win. Answer this;

And you are my African Queen, the girl of my dreams

Easy, too easy.

"Abi, like. I heard him talking to this guy," he took a turn before speaking, "Fireboy." He showed a full smile through the mirror.

"You heard Fireboys voice?" I raised a brow at his statement. The artiste was one of the biggest in the nation and someone Jide always hoped to meet someday. I had seen the producer leave the room to answer a call and know he could have talked to anyone but with how Jide was so excited, he would probably heard something different.

"Yes...no, not exactly. I just heard him mention Fireboy." I chuckled at that and sat up, propelling my body to the space between the drivers seat and the passenger front seat in hopes of getting a better view of his face as I responded to his words.

"Jide, Jide. Don't you think he could have said something like Fire the boy or Fire and boy could be a song or he could have talked about the fact that he had made beats for the musician one time. Not that he was talking to him. You know he is busy with world tour at the moment na," from his side view, I saw his face scrunch up.

"I don't care what you say, it was Fireboy." I shook my head, laughed and sat back in my previous position.

"Believe what you want man," I reread what the girl had sent to me. The lyrics were from African Queen, song by 2Baba, another top musician in Nigeria, but the movie was what I could not recall. Or rather, there were more than one movies which the song had ben used in.

"Killjoy," Jide whispered loud enough for me to hear.

"It was a pleasure killing that joy," I chuckled aloud and typed a response to the girl.

Artiste has to be the great 2Baba, Song is African Queen, very obviously.

But movie? Why make this hard for me.

I sent as a movie name popped into my head.

Okay, I think I know the movie. 30 days in Jamaica.

I know this because he was in the movie too.

"What are you doing with your phone?" Jide questioned.

"Face the road, stop poke nosing," I wore a smirk as I responded to me my eyes on the mirror. He had his on the road but made sure to make weird noises with his throat as he drove on. My phone rang out, signally a message had entered.

What? No. I don't know that movie, is that a movie?

It was used the the Phat Girlz not one thing one thing Jamaica

I tittered at her last words. She really had not heard of the movie? That would be such a shame because I heard it was a huge success. The car came to an abrupt stop and I bounced a little, the phone fell out of my hand.

"Hey," I cried.

He turned to me, a gleeful look in his eyes. "You were laughing too loud, distracted me."

From the window, I could see we were in front of my compound. I titled my head and raised a brow at him. "You are jealous of me texting?"

"Me? Jealous? You wish." He got out of the car and all I chuckled.

"You know you can't always have my attention, plus you don't wear skirt." I picked up my phone and was about to open the car door when the vehicle clicked. I knew what had happened but tried to open the door anyway. It did not bulge.

My talents managers face appeared in front of my window, a large grin on his face. "Now who's the killjoy?"

I rubbed my wrist on my nose and raised a brow at him. This was even more convenient than making my way to the house. "Still me." I adjusted on the chair and grinned at his face, his smile off now. He frowned, pouted and walked away, but let the opened the doors with the key first.

All I could do was chuckle. I opened my phone and gave a response to the message I last received.

No way you haven't seen the movie. And it seems like I have not seen that movie.

We should see a movie.

We should definitely see a movie, together.

My fingers tinged as I pressed the send button. My mind tried to picture out the kind of movie, horror? Romance? Scifi? I really did not care exactly. I just wanted to see her face in reality again because my imagination was already full of her.

°°°

so yeah, last update for the day.

I must apologize for not editing this chapter with all my mind, that's because everything around has been totally depressing.

I almost gave up on editing this and update one chapter only, but it'll be bad to start going back on my word.

I couldn't pick out a song, so heres Kiishis character aesthetic instead;

what do you think?
take care of yourself
omo