Martinsfeelz~Show me

Christine Onyinye Nwafor

After a few more turns, the tail of the bottle lands on me and the head, on Micheal who sends me a devious smirk.

"Truth or Dare, Chris?" He asks in a low voice.

As everyone's attention turns to me, I find myself on the brink of panicking. Truth or Dare? Truth or Dare? Fuck, why is this suddenly so hard to pick.

"Dare." I blurt out, cringing after the word escapes my mouth.

With that smirk still present on his face, Micheal rubs his hands together before sparing Remi a glance and then turning back to me. "I dare you to perform a striptease for Remi for ten minutes." He says causing some people to hoot loudly. After a few moments of me just sending him a blank stare, he adds, "I'm in a good mood today so I'll pity you; it can be done in the main bedroom. As proof, however, you have to give him at least one article of clothing. You're free to chose which." I see Remi send him a dirty look in my peripheral vision.

Nervously, slash, really fucking awkwardly, I stand up and so does he as we go into the main room feeling the stare of others on us. I hear Remi close the door behind him as I find myself sitting on the bed.

I swear the next time I see Micheal outside of here, I'm going to kill him. I'm going to gorge out his eyes and-

"You don't have to do this." Remi says breaking me away from my thoughts. I watch him pull out his phone and turn on what I assume to be an alarm going by the sound it makes before he pushes it back into his pocket along with his hand as he watches me.

I chuckle before rolling my eyes. "Do you think I want to do it? Micheal really asked me to give you a striptease?" I mutter in disbelief. "Haha. If only he knew that just a kiss would get you running, talk less of a whole striptease." I try not to sound bitter as I say that but it's almost impossible.

Remi stares at me quietly and although I act unbothered, I'm curious to know what's going on in his head. He lets out a sigh before coming to seat next to me. "I'm really sorry about that." He apologizes lowly.

I look away, acting like I didn't hear him.

"Chris." The sound of my name coming from his lips almost weakens my resolve. I turn to him, staring right past his head instead of at him. "Look at me." Remi orders softly and I'm compelled to obey. "I'm sorry."

"Why? Why exactly are you sorry? Why did you act like nothing happened that night?" I find myself asking.

Releasing a harsh breath, his hand goes to the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. It just felt like a lot, too soon." He confesses. "I didn't know how to react."

"React?" I ask with a scoff. "It was just a kiss, Remi. Not fucking marriage."

"I know." He says and when I see the conflict in his eyes as clear as day, I realize that all this is probably new to him.

I try to see things from his own perspective and be understanding, especially with all that I've heard about his past and the little he has divulged to me about it.

But it's hard when he likes to keep it all in, a trait of his that I've noticed. He doesn't like to talk about his feelings for reasons best known to him. I want him to feel comfortable enough with me to talk to me but I didn't want to push too quickly. Those things take time.

"It's fine. It just hurt my ego a bit that's all." I said, twisting my lips playfully.

He chuckled lowly. "Didn't know it was so fragile. I'll be careful from now on."

"You better be. Don't want to get on my bad side."

"Yes, ma'am." He nodded with a smile. "We good?"

I nod in reply before moving to lie on the bed, my back resting against the headboard.

After a moment of silence I turn to Remi. "What've you been up to? Last I heard you were away from school? Family emergency again?"

He shakes his head before releasing a rugged sigh. "Work, work, work and more work."

"But you're finishing uni soon, shouldn't you be concentrating on that?" I ask with a frown.

"Tell that to my dad. Although, I do understand where he's coming from. I'm going to be running the company some day, it's best if I get familiar with the business now."

I still thought it was a bit too much for someone to juggle but I bit my lip and remained quiet.

Remi continued. "After graduation I'm off for my masters, thereafter it's back here to work."

"So you're leaving after school?" I said unable to hide the disappointment in my tone. Why? I couldn't figure it out. Something about the knowledge of him leaving some day had me feeling sad.

"For just a year." He smirked. "Don't worry, I'll be back before you even know it."

"Like I care." I rolled my eyes earning a low laugh from Remi. "Anyway, when we get to that bridge we'll cross it."

"I almost didn't think you'd come today." I added after a minute and Remi shot me me a smile. "I wasn't looking for you or anything, but I noticed." I clarified, the lie rolling off my tongue easily. He didn't believe me though, that annoying smirk still on his face.

"That explains why you were already upset when you saw me. Girls." He laughed and I rolled my eyes at him.

"Don't flatter yourself. That wasn't your doing. It was Hassan's."

He arched an eyebrow at me in question. "Hassan?" I nodded. "What'd he do?"

I had opened my mouth to answer when the alarm indicating that we've now been in this room for ten minutes went off. Remi turned it off before looking at me.

"Honestly, I don't wanna return in there." He confessed and I found myself agreeing with him. I cringed inwardly at the thought of the next thing I'll get dared to do if luck wasn't on my side tonight and the bottle landed on me.

"I wanted to leave before I got dragged in anyway. Can you take me back to school?" I ask and Remi nods immediately before standing up.

He moves to get off the bed with his legs hanging over the edge as he ties the lace of his sneakers which I hadn't noticed that he discarded earlier.

When he was done, we headed out of the room. As we stepped out we were met with curious stares of some people, while others didn't even bother looking in our direction thankfully as they were rather focused on a couple who were in the middle of a bedroom rated make out session.

Using the distraction to my advantage, I quickly went to Nedum's side and picked up my purse. "I'm leaving. You good?" I ask her and she gives me a confused look.

"Leaving with who?"

"Remi," I reply. "Are you sure you're okay to drive yourself?"

She grinned. "I'm not, but I'll get Micheal to drive me. You go ahead with your boo."

She was clearly more high than I thought if she was sprouting such rubbish. With a roll of my eyes, I walk away, sending her a quick wave.

Remi is waiting for me outside and when I show, he leads me to his car in the now nearly deserted car park.

The drive was quiet for the most part with the low sound of J. Cole's voice filling the space. As soon as my head came in contact with the headrest, I had to fight to keep my eyes open as the urge to sleep came strong. I hadn't realized how tired I really was up until that moment. Remi looked lost in his thoughts as I inconspicuously watched him from the corner of my eyes.

When I looked out the window and I realized that we weren't heading back to school, I turned to him confused. "Where are we going?"

"To get something to eat. I'm sure you're hungry," he says.

I was, but I wasn't about to disclose that. "Not really."

Remi spared me a look, a smile starting to play on his lips. "Mhm."

"I'm serious." I persisted.

"I didn't say you aren't, Chris." He said in a mocking tone and I scoffed softly before turning to stare out the window.

My hand went to my empty stomach. He was right. I am hungry. It became even worse after having a round of shots with Gbemi but I didn't really pay attention to it up until now.

Releasing a sigh, I watched as Remi pulled into University Grills. Although it was nearing 12 am, the place was milling with people and as I stepped out of the car, my nose was assaulted by the smell of smoke, pepper, beef and different types of food. A smile immediately came to my face.

"I thought you aren't hungry." Remi said looking at me. "You can wait in the car."

"Leave me alone joor." I kissed my teeth as he burst into laughter before coming around and taking my hand in his. The feeling felt foreign and familiar at the same damn time, and I couldn't get myself to pull away if I tried.

I licked my lips low key excited as I surveyed the foods being sold. Suya mostly, grilled chicken and fish, potato, plantain, and so many other things.

With a variety of things to pick from, it was hard to decide and with me being the foodie I am, I ended up ordering a bit of everything.

Remi and I watched the men prepare our food with a flawless precision that could only have been mastered after doing this several times. One of the guys cut a line of suya into small pieces and gave me a toothpick. Gladly, I collected it from his hand and took a piece before biting into it.

"Wow, this is really good." I told Remi before feeding him a piece with my hand under his jaw to catch the crumbs.

He nodded in agreement and when the guy finally finished packing everything up, we eagerly collected it from him.

I thought we'd head back to the car, but instead Remi led me to one of the few empty plastic table and chair set. We settled in and opened the bags of food before digging in after I made sure we prayed over the food.

"You know, when I was younger my mom didn't use to let us eat food outside. Everything my sister and I ate was prepared by the chef." He informed me.

I quickly swallowed the suya in my mouth before replying, "Really? Why?"

Remi shrugged his shoulders casually. "I don't know. My mom was really strict so there were a lot of things my sister and I weren't allowed to do."

"Was?"

"When my dad married his second wife she started to ease up. She kept to herself mostly and slowly what we were engaging ourselves in were the least of her concerns." The tone of his voice depicted a deep hurt that he did a bad job of hiding. Either that or I was very perceptive.

My hand instinctively came over his and Remi's eyes dropped at where our hands joined, then came up to my face. "Well you can eat all the suya and ofada that you want to eat now."

He barked out a laugh at that. "Yes, I can. And I plan to too."

I was grateful for that tidbit of information that he shared with me. My curiosity about the man that is Remi Adenuga only seemed to increase with the more that I knew about him.

I was surprised to hear that he had a step mother but at the same time, I wasn't. His father was a private man according to the media despite being a public figure and I was slowly starting to see why.

Remi and I talked some more about everything, and nothing at the same time, exchanging stories about our vastly different childhood experiences. We came from different worlds, yet when I was with him, talking to him, getting to know him, I didn't feel any different from the man himself. I felt whole and the feeling was frighteningly foreign to me.

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It's been over two months and I can't really say anything but I'm sorry!!

I'd been having a bit of a writer's block, then it became that I had no idea what to do with this chapter. I have the next 3 chapters written cause I had to skip this one and keep it moving when I got stuck. Anyway that's good news cause you guys won't have to wait long for them.

What did you guys think of this chapter?

And the fact that Remi is slowly opening up to Chris, should that mean anything?

Please keep voting, commenting your thoughts, and overall being patient with me. I love you guys loads.

Until next time, stay safe💕