Questions

1"Oh, fuck!..." Omolade swore after Akin left the kitchen. 'What an ungrateful idiot you've become Lade, congratulations!' She thought annoyingly to herself in resignation, leaned back on the chair, and sighed deeply.

Thinking back to her behavior, she couldn't believe her own attitude. Like how could she for just no reason snap at someone that saved her? How could she be so frustrated to the extent that she couldn't keep her frustration to herself? No! This wasn't the perception she wanted him to have of her.

She looked down at her plate of pizza with disinterest. She no longer has the appetite to eat, as hungry as she was. Not even the delicious aroma wafting up from her plate could tempt her into taking a bite from it. She has lost her appetite as a result of her attitude and the fact that he appeared angry with her.

It's a fact that she was attracted to him, and the fact that she couldn't do anything about the attraction she felt towards him because she considered him not her type of man frustrated her a great deal.

'And who's fault is that?... He is not your type of man or he is not your mother's choice of man?' Her voice of reasoning asked in her head before the question was followed by an accusation 'Omolade Da-Silva, you're a fake and a hypocrite!'

Since when she was old enough to date, she has danced to her mother's tune, allowing her to set the standard of the kind of guy she should go out with or stay away from. According to her mother, men with tattoos are aggressive. They make worse partners and parents. Men with braided hair and man buns are irresponsible. They are not husband material because the only things they want from women are flings and nothing more.

Her mother believed that men without all the physical attributes she disliked are the regular kind of guys. The kind of man she wants her daughter to get married to. A man who is humble, down-to-earth, open and honest, easy to get along with, and generally well-versed about all the usual things people do.

A man who isn't power-hungry, arrogant, super competitive, insecure, or egotistical. A guy you'd want to have a conversation with about things like relationships, home repair, fashion, music, and movies. A guy who will never embarrass or cause problems for her socially.

Over the years, Omolade has stupidly allowed herself to inculcate her mother's definition of an ideal man, making it her own standard, believing like her mother did that there's nothing good about a guy with tattoos, braids, and man buns.

Men with his kind of looks were everything her mother frowned upon. He was everything she has come to believe was bad and a no, no for her. Yet men with his kind of look were the reason why she had stacks of GQ magazines stored away in her closet, her guilty pleasure.

Omolade didn't want to admit it before but yes, she now agreed with her voice of reasoning that Lade Da-Silva is truly a fake and a hypocrite. She and her mother were wrong, maybe not entirely wrong but wrong about stereotyping men with tattoos and braids. It's wrong to judge a book by its cover because this same man with tattoos and braids has been nothing but kind and good to her ever since she woke up in his house

Sometimes she wondered if Maxwell, whose family was middle class, wasn't the son of her mother's childhood best friend, would her mother have accepted him? Or did her mother accept because Omolade was already in her mid-thirties?

Now she couldn't help but question her love for Maxwell. She couldn't help but wonder if it was true love she felt for him or if she accepted his proposal because she was relieved to finally find a man that met her mother's set-out standard. He cheated on her and instead of her being heartbroken she was here thinking about another man. A man she just met for that matter over a man she's been with for five whole years.

Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she still needed to eat even if she no longer felt like eating. She took a bite from her pizza and couldn't help but foodgasm. It was so good and didn't taste like the kind of pizza you ordered. She would go to him and apologize after she finished eating. She thought as she hungrily wolfed down her food.

His room was the one next to hers. She stood in front of his door for a while before she decided to press her ear to it, listening for signs of activities, trying to determine if he had gone to bed or was still awake.

'You know you would look stupid if anyone found you like this, right?' The voice of reasoning warned in her head making her immediately stand upright, checking her surroundings to see if she was not already caught. That would be bad because she would seem like a peeping tom to anyone who happened by. So she cleared her throat and took a deep breath in and out before lightly knocking on the door.

She listened to hear his response but none came. Could he be sleeping already? Maybe she should just leave and not disturb him any further?... She thought to herself for some seconds but decided against it. He said he would have an early start and since she didn't know how early he would be going out or if they would see each other before he leaves then she better get it over with now.

"Sorry to disturb you...' She mumbled under her breath to the door and knocked harder. The knock was so loud she would have woken the whole house if their room was near to his but thank God it wasn't. She waited for some seconds again and also got no response.

'Unless he's dead, there's no way he wouldn't have heard that!' She thought and tried his doorknob to see if it was locked. It wasn't, it clicked open softly. She pushed the door in and stepped inside his room, looked around, and saw it was empty. She loved his bedroom immediately. It was serene and elegant, designed and painted with a soothing color of blue and white that gives a sense of calm and coziness.

'Didn't he say he wanted to sleep?' She wondered. 'Maybe he went back to his yoga room?' She thought and wanted to go check on him there when something caught her attention inside his room. She moved further inside to properly check them out

There was a picture hanging above his bed that was very similar to what her grandma also had in her room. The picture was in pastel blue and gray color of a stream that has an inverted triangle pointing downwards. Her grandma own was a painting of the sea done with the same color but with a pyramid that was also pointing downwards drawn over it.

Also placed all over his room, like designs were stuff her grandmother once told her as a kid were her paraphernalia. What really surprised her was the white glass dish that contained water, white cowries, and seashells placed on his bedside table.

'Why would a man like him want to design his room with old people's stuff?' She was wondering to herself when she heard a door open somewhere inside the room. She immediately turned around and was shocked out of her senses.