Hey guys. So sorry for the late update. The worst part is I've been badgering other people to write but not myself, so here's my apology. You'll like it. I promise. 

Which is why you should comment and press that orange Star before you leave. 

He stopped and walked back to where his mother was seated, holding the arm of the sofa so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale, her breathing slightly laboured. She had set down the bone thin china that had the lolong tea she had been holding before he walked in.

His mother's words had stopped him cold.

"Where did you hear that?" He asked her with a lilt to his tone that proclaimed surprise.

She shifted her eyes, stopped looking so intently at him and when AbdulRahman saw this, he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face in exasperated tiredness.

"It's true and it's also not true." She sent him the fiercest glare she could muster and he comported himself almost immediately. The smirk he had upon his face since she first spoke disappeared almost immediately.

"I've not signed a contract with the company yet. Though the board wants us to, they think it's the best way to get into the middle eastern market." His mother pursed her lips -probably from the medicated taste of the tea, nodded slowly, about three years before, she'd requlinshed the nine percent shares she had held at the BR corporation for over five years.

"How much are they offering?" She asked, he was sure of it, that her mind was surely whirling since she had gone back to school at forty to help her then ill husband manage the business properly.

"Seven hundred million dollars worth. They're assuring us that with the growth in flour business, there's going to be a ten percent increase in sales, we should have some part of that in the middle eastern market and eventually move to Europe fully in five years." As he spewed facts and figures, a picture of BR's flour on a supermarket's shelf in Europe appeared in his head.

She nodded again, picking up her iPad left on the table next to her to calculate something as though her son had not just called a huge sum of money. When she finished, she nodded at him, that meant he'd done well.

"If we're on the higher end of the deal, why's he trying to make decisions for you?" Her son considered if he should tell his mother that someone on the board sabotaged the deal. Though the old man had been dealt with and his shares bought out by AbdulRahman, properly setting his place as the highest shareholder, the new account didn't want to hear that, he believed the former shareholder firmly.

"I think that's his own way of getting back at me for making the contract more favorable to me. Which is normal, but to him, he doesn't like being 'cheated'." His mother dropped the iPad and leaned forward to the tea brewing table and took the clinking teacup, lifted it and elegantly took a sip. She watched him through the uncovered rim of her teacup as he dropped his hands after quoting the word, Cheated.

"I know about five people who you could easily marry their daughters if you wanted to. We could send them a proposal before the week runs out." AbdulRahman shook his head as slowly as he could, waving his hands as well. He didn't want that.

"As much as that idea is quite straight to the point, I don't want to stress you. You deserve do much more than me making you decide who my next wife will be." His mother jerked her lips wryly, watching her only son get lost in his own head as he explained reasons why he didn't want her stressed. And as his mother, she knew him more than anyone.

"Really?" She asked when he was done. She watched him confidently nod his head, getting up and leaving the room without touching the tea she'd made him.

"Jamila!" She called out as soon as she heard his footfalls reach the top of the stairs. A dark skinned woman with a burn scar on her face appeared, a baby strapped to her back.

"Whose baby is that?" She asked Jamila who visibly shook at the authoritative question. She swallowed before carefully saying the baby's mother's name.

AbdulRahman's mother shut her eyes until a picture of the said maid came into her head. She nodded and asked Jamila to call the mother of the child for her and get her phone.

"Ma, please she's sorry." Jamila dropped to her knees. "The baby was running hot this morning and she didn't have anyone to leave the baby with?" She leaned forward and dropped her teacup, wondering if she'd somehow made Jamila afraid of her. But, she knew it wasn't her, it was Jamila's ex husband who had married her at thirteen and flogged her till she miscarried several babies and gave her a burn scar on her face.

"I'm not angry, I was going to tell her to take some food from the store and give her a token for the baby. I totally forgot when you informed me of the baby's birth. Why are you shaking?" Jamila shook her head, still shaking and climbed the same stairs AbdulRahman took, going to get her phone.

A few minutes later, the middle aged woman was calling her son's best friend, the one who she knew like her son.

"Attahir. Walaikum Salam. How are you doing?" The vibrant voice of Tahir boomed through the speakers of the phone as he boisterously greeted her.

"You don't even visit me anymore, I'll report you to my sister and she'll bundle you here to be fed, how would you like that?" Tahir laughed nervously and promised to be at the house for dinner pronto.

"That's good. Buy some apples on your way here, you know the ones I like, don't you?" Tahir answered in the affirmative immediately and greeted her again, letting her end the call. She smiled as she handed the phone back to Jamila, smiling at the now awake baby who was gurgling silently behind Jamila.

"Have you told her to do as I said?" Jamila nodded and thanked her on behalf of the baby's mother, knowing that she didn't like being thanked profusely. Once was enough.

"You heard who is coming to dinner, tell Binta to cook both AbdulRahman's and Tahir's favorite dishes." Jamila nodded and walked away to the kitchen to inform the chef to start dinner immediately. It was already five in the evening.

****

***

"So, your friend needs to get married soon." Tahir stopped tearing into the fried chicken, well cooked in soup that it was just tearable with just a bite. He chewed slowly before licking his fingers one by one. He picked up a morsel of semo and dipped it into the rich soup, brought it to his mouth and swallowed it alongside the chicken.

"Eat slowly, the food isn't going anywhere." AbdulRahman was forced to say as he watched his friend eat like he'd not eaten before.

"For someone who is eating grains like a bird, you sure can speak." Tahir answered, waving his now licked clean finger in AbdulRahman's face before turning back to Dada.

"Hei, Dada. How come? Didn't he say he's not getting married anytime soon?" Dada dropped her fork and informed Tahir slowly of the state of things as though Tahir didn't already know. Tahir also had replied Dada with such farce that AbdulRahman knew what was coming would be bad.

"But, he likes someone." Dada's eyes lit up, Tahir had played right into her hands. She knew all those reasons her son gave was for nothing, he surely had his own plans.

"Tahir, your food is getting cold." AbdulRahman said, seeing as Tahir was going to spill everything.

"What? If you won't tell because you're shy, me I will tell her oo. Ehen, Dada, he likes one lady, her name is Amina, she's Yoruba, her family owns a construction company, she is divorced and lives here in Abuja. Just two estates away here in Gwarimpa." AbdulRahman set down his fork and facepalmed.

"You're a blabbermouth. Fucking blabbermouth. Cannot keep your secrets to yourself, you don't have control over your mouth." He pushed his chair back and took his plate to the kitchen, no doubt pissed at his friend and his mother for playing his friend. They watched him walk upstairs, his sweatpants making a swish swish sound as he walked.

"Don't mind him, tell me all about her," Dada eagerly beckoned on Tahir. Tahir realizing he had angered his friend got up and washed his hands.

"Or don't worry, I'll find her myself. Leave it all to me." Tahir nodded and ran up the stairs after his friend. When he knocked at AbdulRahman's white and gold ornate door, he didn't hear a response but turned the knob to go in. The room was a little dark and chilled from the low temperatured air-conditioner but he could make out his friend's outline.

"I'm sorry." He blurted, walking further into the room whilst rubbing his hands on the paper towel he had taken from the table earlier.

"It's okay. It just feels a little childish -the fact that you can't keep shut- I don't blame you, it would have happened sooner or later." He got up from the armchair in the corner of the room and sat on one of the leather sofas in another end of the room.

They both sat down opposite one another and reveled in the silence that reigned, until Tahir broke it, asking a question.

"What will you do now?" AbdulRahman shrugged, genuinely not knowing what to do. He didn't even think of himself as someone who could be someone's husband so soon after Nai'mah's passing. It looked like he would be soon and he didn't know how to deal with it. At least not yet.

"We'll pray, we will set all things in the hands of the One who made us, the planner of all things. We'll accept whatever it is, that is our Qadr. That's all I can say." AbdulRahman could almost swear that he could have stopped Tahir from coming to his mother's house or telling her about Amina when he wasn't so sure of himself or his feelings. He could swear that Allah had found a way to make sure his mother knew because she knowing meant it would happen. His words were assurance to himself that everything was willed by Allah and they would go on right.

And if it was willed by Allah, it was willed to be. Nothing could be done to stop it, except of course, Allah willed it not to happen.

*******

Soooo!

Marriage in the cards or not? What do you think?

We will see soon. I promise. 

TheOmoope 💙😊