You Of All People | A Nigerian Gay MM Love Story

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

By the next evening, Ronke Ishola was her loud, laughing self again, chatting animatedly with her boys and everyone else who came into the room.

"It's looking good.", the doctor had said. "I expect her to make a full recovery. She just needs to be a lot stricter with her medicine and more careful around the house."

"You still haven't told me what you were doing, Mummy.", Folarin had said right after, eyeing her, as he massaged her feet.

"Wo, I fell. What else do you want to know?", she'd retorted, refusing to make eye contact. After much prodding, she'd finally confessed she'd fallen doing risqué bedroom activities with the man they'd met the day before, who she admitted to seeing romantically. And Folarin wished he could unhear all of it. He had never regretted questioning someone so much in his life.

Mrs Ishola let out a hearty laughter, clearly enjoying torturing her son. At first, when the man had returned that morning and his mom had introduced them and explained everything, he had a problem with the whole thing; with his mom being someone's girlfriend; having another man in her life apart from them. But then Chuka had told him he was acting like a witch. He told him to stop being a hater and let his mother be great. She more than deserved happiness after what his father had put her through. Besides, the man had saved her actual life. 

And much to his annoyance, he'd realized Chuka was right. So, when the man – introduced as Bayonle Ogunmuyiwa – came back that afternoon with lunch, Folarin had invited him out onto the terrace for a chat. Forty minutes passed and both men returned to the room seeming like they had talked it out successfully. Folarin still planned on doing a full background check on the guy when he got back to civilization but for now he seemed okay, and he clearly made his mother happy. Besides, the man was a very successful farmer, so it wasn't like he was some broke village man his mother would be feeding.

Now, as he sat by her bed, they chatted about everything and nothing.

"Where did Chuka go again?", she asked him, suddenly realizing he'd been gone for over an hour.

"He went to get some of our stuff from the hotel.", Folarin replied. Chuka had been up and down and back and forth since yesterday, making sure everyone had what they needed, and that Folarin didn't need to worry about anything but Momsie. Folarin had refused to leave her side after she'd woken up yesterday and Chuka had returned to the hotel hours later to get them a change of clothes and food to eat, since neither of them had eaten all day. "Besides you know hospitals still upset him a bit. I think he'll be restless until you get out of here."

Mrs. Ishola smiled. "Don't worry. Shebi they said I can leave tomorrow."

"Yes. And we're going straight home." Folarin said sternly.

"Yes, daddy.", Mrs Ishola quipped.

"Plus, I think there's something Chuka needs to do back in Lagos, so the sooner the better." Folarin said. "He's been trying to code it, but I can tell it's important."

Folarin looked up to see his mother staring at him intently. "What?"

"Folarin."

"Yes?"

"You know you can tell me anything."

"Ah ah."

"Yes. You can always be completely honest with me. You know abi?"

"Okay, I know." Folarin said, nodding. "So, what is this about?"

She paused. "Is there something else between the two of you?"

"Mummy!", Folarin exclaimed.

"I know there have always been rumours and you two have always denied them publicly, but you can tell me. I just -"