Bands of the Unpaid Dowry

Chapter 13

"Jace?" Millicent questioned in a hoarse, dreadful voice coming to squat beside his body. His eyes were shut with little squeeze lines at the edges. There were angry and pained lines along the crease of his forehead. Millicent raised her hand to lightly rouse him out of the state he was in. He had yet to open his eyes but the expressions on his face let her know that he was alive. Beads of sweat lined his forehead and when she grabbed onto his hand, his eyes blinked open, sending her scampering backward on her butt in fright. He hissed in pain when he tried to move which sent Millicent rushing toward him in worry.

"Jace, what happened to you?" She called out again, moving to sit in front of him still in her black solid cotton trousers which she wore below her top covered by its blazer. His eyes portrayed instant relief when they settled on her.

"Little M, I think your kitchen hates me." Millicent's hunched shoulders dropped in consolation at his words.

Jace tilted his head back and sighed thankful for the appearance of the owner of the house. "Is that Mimi?" The device beside him which he had forgotten about transmitted the voice of the person on the other side.

Millicent strained her neck around him, looking to where Jace's neck had bent to. "Sean?" She questioned. Looking at the dark screen of Jace's phone. It was on speaker.

"Oh, good." Millicent's bright eyes had questions in them at the way Sean moaned distressingly. Jace jerked his shoulders upward and dropped them, lifting his eyelids conveying that he had no clue what his friend was talking about.

"I thought he was going to burn down your home and himself too." Sean teased with a chuckle and that was the moment Millicent raised her head to see the mess in the kitchen. She choked on her breath with her mouth open, her pair of doe shaped eyes turning accusingly to Jace.

"What did you do?" She asked in a flat, demanding tone. Her usually calm and smiling face now looked unimpressed.

"Uh, guys, I'll leave you to it now. Take care of him, Mimi. His hand is worth millions." Jace sharply turned to his phone next to his leg, on the tiled kitchen floor and grabbed it bringing it to his mouth.

"You have not been helpful since this began. If anything the house would have turned to ashes if I listened to you." But the line went dead just after he spoke. He stared at his phone as if it was an alien. Noting the silence in the room, he twisted himself very slowly to meet the glaring eyes of Millicent. Her right brow twitched.

"Spill."

"I was craving plantain and tried to fry it. I could promise that I saw my mother even drop her hand into the hot oil without flinching." Millicent couldn't help but be entertained at how the thought seemed to vex him, watching his scrunched up eyebrows and how he furiously regarded the frying pan in his left hand. Slowly leaning forward, she grabbed it from him, recognizing that it was warm and stretched up to put it in the sink above her. She tilted her head for him to continue.

"Well, I drop these plantains in the hot oil, and it starts spritzing everywhere. One of the shooting oils hit my face very close to my eye. I lost my balance, hit the pan of the stove and everything went flying." Jace surveyed the kitchen himself after he heard Millicent's deep sigh. It was a workout of a horror movie. The half-fried plantain littered the counter and the floor, the floor itself was greasy with oil and even the area where they sat had water dripping down. He was not born for the kitchen, and with that thought he clucked his tongue drawing Millicent's tired gaze to him.

Millicent stood up listlessly, rubbing her face tiredly with one good hand, questioning why she had someone so disastrous in her living space but turning her gaze to the man who looked more than tired himself with his swollen eyelids, she felt her compassion spike. She stretched out her hand to him to help him out. As Jace lifted his hand, she noticed the red angry marks on his palm, and reacting before she could think, she agitatedly grabbed onto his left hand with worry clouding her gaze.