Chapter 121 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

“It’s complicated,” Benne said with a small smile directed at Jasmine who was beginning to ask too many questions for his liking.

“Oh! Okay. It’s just that you both don’t seem like you just met…”

“We actually met at the club the first night I arrived here,” Celsie said, not seeing the need to hide it from them since she believed they were likely going to find out eventually. All she needed to do was to leave out the details of all that had happened between her and Benne.

“The first night?” Alicia asked, wondering why there seemed to be so many coincidences. There was no way this was natural.

Benne turned to look at Celsie curiously as he wondered just how much she intended to tell them about their first meeting.

“Yes. I sat next to him at the club, and then the next day I was surprised to see that he was my neighbor, and the next thing I know was him being my driver. Unbelievable, right?” Celsie asked with a smile when she saw the disbelief displayed on both Alicia’s and Jasmine’s faces. She remembered how she had also thought that he was stalking her because of how he kept turning up everywhere she was.

“And you got a job the next day at her company?” Alicia asked Benne, feeling like none of it was adding up.

“You didn’t think the coincidence was just a bit too much?” Jasmine asked Celsie, making Benne sigh.

They were beginning to make him feel like he was being sneaky, and he didn’t like that. What was so wrong with him wanting to know the lady he wanted to commit himself to? Was it so wrong? Or was he going about it in a bad way? How else could he get to know her true nature without her knowledge of who he was?

“I thought you said you didn’t prepare the meal just so we can talk over it? Or perhaps we are here to be interrogated?” He asked Alicia with a polite smile when it seemed like nobody was eating, instead everyone was talking.

“Why are you so touchy all of a sudden? I guess they were just trying to know their neighbors better,” Celsie scolded Benne before turning to flash Alicia an apologetic smile as she sipped from her glass.

From the questions they were asking it was quite clear to Celsie that the lesbian couple didn’t believe everything was coincidence, maybe they knew something she didn’t know? She couldn’t help wondering what they knew, and why it had seemed to her a moment ago that both ladies were helping Benne hide something.

“He is hiding something,” Jasmine said as they watched Benne and Celsie leave after dinner.

“Yeah. I think so too. But what do you think he is hiding?” Alicia asked her partner.

“I have no idea.. Let’s just wait and see before asking for his sperm, okay?” Jasmine said, and Alicia nodded.

Bryan lay on his bed unable to sleep, while also trying to find other things to keep his mind busy so that his thoughts wouldn’t drift to the green-eyed witch in the other room down the hall. Dinner had been very quiet since he had been sulking while expecting her to feel guilty and apologize to him, but she had entirely ignored him and focused on her laptop instead as she ate. Once they were done with dinner she had taken the dishes to the kitchen, washed and dried them before leaving for her bedroom after calling out a casual goodnight to him from the doorway.

He could tell that she was probably busy with work on her laptop now that he has returned it to her. He couldn’t help but wonder why he was always troubled by thoughts of her whether she was present with him or not.

He sat up on the bed and reached out to open the bedside drawer where some of Sonia’s novels that Mia had bought him but he was yet to read were kept. Just as he picked up one of the novels, his phone started ringing, so he dropped the novel on the space beside him on the bed and picked up his phone to see that the caller was Matt, “Hey, man! Sup?”

“Sorry I haven’t called to check on you all day, I was busy with stuff. How are you feeling now? How are you able to move around?” Matt asked as he stared into the glass of wine he was holding. He had been too busy thinking about Candace that he had completely forgotten about Bryan’s injury until a moment ago.

Bryan sighed as he raised his left hand to wipe his face, “Jeff got me a wheelchair so I’ve been making use of that to move around the house. Why do you sound so tired? Did something happen?” Bryan asked since he had noticed the weariness in Matt’s tone.

“I’m okay, just tired.”

“I guess you must have been very busy. So how did it go with the girl from the other night? Still seeing her?” Bryan asked, referring to Candace, as he wanted to know if Candace had told Matt about what she did to earn a living.

Matt who had almost forgotten about Bryan’s knowledge of Candy’s job, sighed, “Not exactly.” He found it amusing that he was the one who had asked Candy to play along with him and make a fool of Bryan by pretending to not have told him about her job, yet she was the one pushing him away like this.

“Not exactly? What happened?” Bryan asked, wondering if perhaps Candy had told Matt about her job, and he was no longer interested in her.

“She said she doesn’t like my best friend’s face,” Matt joked, making Bryan chuckle.

“You wish. Go on and tell me what’s up,” Bryan urged him.

“She doesn’t like that I’m a celebrity, so she doesn’t want to be with me,” Matt said in a resigned tone.

“What?” Bryan asked in surprise. Here he was thinking Matt no longer liked her because of her job, yet he was saying she rejected him? Because of his career?

When Matt heard the surprise in Bryan’s voice he sighed as he said, “Yeah, you heard me right.”

“What does she do for a living?” Bryan asked, wanting to know if Candy had told Matt the truth, or if she possibly didn’t want a relationship with him because she was ashamed of her own job and wanted to push him away before he finds out.

“Are you asking if I know that she is a stripper? Yes, I know that already.”

Bryan was somehow relieved that he wasn’t the one to tell Matt about it since the last thing he wanted was to have any fight with his fiancee over… What was that? Why was he referring to her as his fiancee? Bryan thought in alarm.

“Are you listening to me?” Matt asked when Bryan didn’t respond to anything he had said.

Bryan’s brows creased in a frown as he tried to understand what was happening, “Yeah, sure. I can hear you. You don’t happen to have fallen for her, have you?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t even give me a chance to make up my mind on how I feel about her before telling me it was nice while it lasted,” Matt said before taking a long sip from his glass of wine.

“Did she give you any particular reason?” Bryan asked, pressing for answers, and then he listened as Matt told him everything that had transpired between himself and Candace.

Bryan couldn’t help being amused by the thought that he, Benne, and Matt were all having women issues of varying degrees at the same time. Why were women such crazy creatures?

“Don’t let it bother you too much,” Bryan said, not knowing how else to comfort or advise his friend. If the lady said she didn’t want him, even though it was clear that she was attracted to him, then there was little or nothing else that could be done about it.

“Sure. So how is your fiancee? How are things going with her?” Matt asked, wanting to stop talking or thinking about Candace.

“I’m sure she is doing beautifully well as she is frustrating me as usual. That’s what she does best after all,” Bryan muttered under his breath making Matt chuckle.

“Why doesn’t that sound like a complaint? She is beginning to get to you, isn’t she?” Matt asked in amusement.

“I honestly wish I could deny that, but she is so damn fine and attractive. She even did a makeover and bought only sex gowns,” Bryan complained with a groan which made Matt laugh out loud, despite his own problems.

“I guess you will be cutting off your dick soon,” Matt said, reminding him of what he had said about preferring to cut off his dick than having sex with Sonia.

“I need help bro. Consider this an SOS cry,” Bryan said making Matt laugh even more.

“I told you that you were going to fall for her. Sonia is sexy, she is beautiful, she is intelligent, she is smart, she is fun to be around. What more do you need in a lady?” Matt asked curiously.

“You forgot to add that she is crazy! That girl is crazy I swear,” Bryan added.

“Perhaps she is only crazy about you?” Matt pointed out.

“I don’t think so. One minute she’s acting like she wants me, the next minute she’s treating me like I mean nothing to her,” Bryan said.

“All I see is a lady using your technique on you. You both are a perfect fit, so maybe you should be more open-minded about her,” Matt advised since it was easier to advise someone else than one’s self.

After that Bryan told Matt about the reality show before they finally called it a night.

In the room down the hall from where he was, Sonia sat on her bed with a thoughtful expression on her face as she tried to put the events of the past couple of days down on her jotter and her laptop which was resting on the pillow on top of her thighs.

She placed her pen behind her ear as she stared at her laptop’s screen. While it seemed like she and Bryan were making progress in the story, she couldn’t say the same for Celsie, as Celsie was her second female lead. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that something very vital was missing in Celsie’s story, even though she couldn’t place her fingers on what it was that was missing.

All she knew was that she needed to bring Celsie’s character alive. What could she do? Write about Celsie’s past? Add something exciting? Or bring in a new character that would help awaken Celsie? Her eyes lit up when she was struck by an idea. Why hadn’t she thought of it this whole time?

She could say Celsie’s driver was the same person as her boss who was Bryan’s older brother! Why hadn’t she thought of that plot? It made perfect sense even if it wasn’t the case in reality. She would just make Celsie’s story more of fiction, while hers and Bryan’s could be of their everyday life. That would be perfect! Sonia thought as she quickly jotted down the new idea before shutting down her laptop and lifting it from her lap to place it on the space beside her on the bed.

She had done enough thinking for one day and was feeling both physically and mentally exhausted already. All she needed now was a skinny dip in the pool, to enjoy the cool evening breeze on her skin, she thought as she yawned and stretched out on the bed.

After that, she got off the bed and took off her clothes before putting on a short sexy bathrobe she had gotten here during the shopping earlier. Once she was done she walked out of the bedroom and stopped outside Bryan’s bedroom to be sure he was asleep.. When she didn’t hear any sound from him, and she noticed that the light in the bedroom had been turned off, she smiled goofily, happy that she could swim and have fun in private.

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