Debo

Sunday lunch at the Adewale house had the particular tension of a meal where everyone except the guest of honor knew exactly what it was for.

“Debo, you go help yourself to more efo riro,” Mama Adewale said, already spooning a third helping onto his plate before he could answer. “My daughter cooked it herself, oh. She’s a very good cook, this one.”

“I helped,” Tolu muttered, which was a lie, but a small enough one that God probably wouldn’t mind.

Debo Fashina laughed — an easy, unbothered laugh, the laugh of a man who had grown up comfortable and never learned to be anything other than pleasant about it. He worked two floors above Tolu at the bank, handled corporate accounts, drove a Camry his father had bought him as a “graduation gift” that most people worked a decade for, and had, by every reasonable metric Mama Adewale cared about, absolutely no flaws.

“Auntie, you’re too kind,” Debo said. “Honestly, Tolu doesn’t talk about herself enough at work. I had to find out from HR she runs the whole music program at her church. That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“She’s very responsible,” Mama Adewale agreed, beaming in a way that made Tolu want to disappear into the jollof rice. “Very serious girl. Not like these small girls running up and down for Instagram likes.”

After lunch, Debo walked Tolu to the gate, hands in his pockets, the late afternoon Lagos heat making everything feel slower than it was.

“Your mother likes me,” he said, amused.

“My mother likes anyone with a steady job and a car that isn’t borrowed.”

“Harsh.” He grinned. “Do you like me, though? That’s the question your mother forgot to ask.”

Tolu considered him honestly, the way she’d been trying to for three weeks now — the pleasant face, the easy laugh, the genuine kindness in the way he’d complimented her cooking even though she’d barely touched the pot. There was nothing wrong with Debo. That was, unhelpfully, exactly the problem — she kept waiting to feel something the way she felt watching a certain man preach on Ruth every few Sundays, and it simply wasn’t there, and she hated herself a little for measuring one against the other.

“I like you fine,” she said, which was true, and also nothing like an answer.

“Fine is a start,” Debo said, undeterred. “Dinner Friday? Properly, just us, no auntie supervising the rice portions.”

She should have said no. She knew, standing at that gate, exactly why some reckless part of her wanted to say yes — not because of Debo, but because of what saying yes might prove, mostly to herself.

“Friday,” she agreed.

He smiled, satisfied, and got into his undeniably nice car, and Tolu stood at the gate a moment longer, feeling like she’d just signed up for an experiment whose real hypothesis she hadn’t said out loud even to Blessing: if I let myself want an ordinary, uncomplicated man, maybe the other feeling will finally leave me alone.

Her phone buzzed as she walked back inside. A text from an unknown number, later saved as Pastor Emmanuel (Church).

Music director announcement went well today. The board is pleased. Also — I meant to say, before Deaconess Patience interrupted us — thank you for asking about how I’m doing. Not many people do, these days. Good night, Tolu.

She read it four times before going inside, and did not tell Mama Adewale, over the sound of Debo’s Camry pulling out of the compound, that a much smaller and far more dangerous smile had just crossed her face.

To be continued…