Improvised Plan #ProjectNigeria

36- The Note

Song: 'How Could You Leave Us' by NF; 'Heartless' by Kanye West

"If you're not the most gorgeous couple on the planet, make I bend!"

"You're so dramatic," I respond with a shake of my head.

Amina sighs dreamily, before forcing her phone into my face. "Look at her, Saheed. I mean, look at the material!"

"Yes, she is truly lovely."

It's been three months since Ola and I came to an agreement on our relationship. We have become quite an inseparable pair, smoothly transitioning into a couple and slowly getting used to the knowledge that people now know that we are together.

While we have busy schedules, we make time for visits, dates, and the frequent sleep over at random nights. Knowing I can go to bed and wake up next to her frequently gives me a sense of contentment, and our sex life...when it does happen, it's wonderful. Mind-blowing. Intense. Intimate.

I can't get enough of her.

My eyes linger on the picture of Ola, dressed in a black jumpsuit. Beside her, I am laughing while she is whispering something into my ear. Some random person had taken the picture of us as we stepped out of Luxury's Finest after a lunch date yesterday. The picture had ended up on a popular Nigerian gossip blog, captioned, 'Wahala for who no get funny bae.
Construction mogul Saheed Bello and his celebrity stylist girlfriend, Ola Matthews having a good laugh after their date'.

"Construction mogul?" I shake my head. "When did I become a mogul?"

"They're manifesting it for you, na," Amina replies. "Look at Noah, trying to get himself killed again."

My nephew, lying on his back in his little pram, has managed to cover his face with the small blanket Amina had placed over him. It is almost like he is aware that we are watching, because he lets out a frustrated cry. I rise from the couch and move towards him, chuckling. The moment I gently pull up the blanket, he stops his wails.

"You just wanted attention, didn't you?" I ask him before scooping him up.

Noah gurgles and lets out a fart.

"Trust me, that will stink," Amina promises.

"Please take your property," I say, wrinkling my nose and stretching my arms towards my sister.

"He's your nephew," she protests, but she takes him and peers into his diapers. "It was just a fart, confirmed. No poop. He's clear."

"Alright."

Back in my arms, Noah snuggles and tries to latch on to my chest, turning his little head this way and that way in search of a nipple. This makes me laugh out loud, startling the poor boy, who bursts into tears.

"He's hungry for the tenth time today," Amina sighs. "Give me that old man."

In a few seconds he is latched to her, contentedly suckling.

"This can't be easy," I say with a shake of my head.

"Not at all, but it is what it is. You'll see when you have your own children."

"They're not on my agenda yet."

Amina scoffs. "That's what they all say. Look at Femi now, changing diapers at three A.M and singing nursery rhymes. Noah has turned him to mush."

I imagine my brother in-law doing what Amina has described, and I grin. "Femi has always been the dad type; I could tell when I first saw him."

I watch her smile at Noah, whose eyes are fixed on her as he suckles enthusiastically. I catch myself thinking about my mother. She had held me like this as an infant, peered into my eyes and smiled. She'd sang me lullabies, fed and clothed me, rocked me to sleep, played with me. How did her love for me change, twisting into a hatred so deep, she derived satisfaction from inflicting pain on me till the point of near death? All those beatings and those venomous words-