"Ah yes, I was confused by a white man once... that's how we got him!" Aunt Simon is announcing to the dinner table as she points at Boyd, who had made a point to ensure I sat between him and Mum. 

"Now the ONLY white man that can confuse me is JESUS! In his holy name we pray!" She adds dramatically closing her eyes and lifting her hands in prayer

"Amen!" Lola sings

"Oyinbo... have you read the holy book? Do you accept Jesus into your life? Or are you spreading the demon of white juju on our precious child Olufunke Folasade Obatunde, who I cover this minute in his holy blood?" She inquires of Luca

"I was going to talk to you about it over dinner." I whisper to Boyd feeling worse than that time Aunt Simon had found me kissing Dev behind the Tesco garbage cans when I was in year 9. The Shame nun from Game of Thrones had nothing on Aunt Simon, tonight is looking long!

It's not like I planned to fall in love with him! 

"He reads it every day. He even has a cathedral right by his estate at Whitlam." Hervé says, faster to catch up on Aunt Simon's questioning than poor Luca, who probably hadn't even realized he was the Oyinbo in question. 

You'd think he'd understood at least one thing considering all the Nollywood films I've made him watch! Maybe it wasn't so much the company as it was that the fact that I'd just announced, in front of my mum, cousin and Hervé that I might be in love with him. I should've left, I should've left months ago when I started waking up early just to stare at his beautiful sleeping face! No, I should've left before that, when the cuddling wasn't such a nuisance anymore and I got a little upset without it! Or maybe when the kissing got less professional casanova and more slow sensual and kind of heartfelt? Or when I had enough clothes at his somehow to go a week or two without needing to come back to my own house? Actually I probably should've not slept with him at all, that would've stopped everything from happening. 

"Then you will not mind calling upon the blood of Jesus to chase the evil and vile and sinful away from our spirits and our food!" Aunt Simon declares, Mum interjecting to say that she would actually like to bless the food, seeing as this was HER daughter we were celebrating tonight. 

Celebrating?

Well... Mum likes him... 

She starts praying over the food. My head was bowed already from shame and all the other emotions, so I just close my eyes. 

I'll wait two weeks to a month before I tell her we've broken up. I'll act out the breakup in stages, nothing too dramatic in case she rides at dawn to Whitlam to threaten him with knives. Maybe work will get in the way... Maybe he'll move to some far off place for a project that saves some animal or some white shit like that and the relationship will just unravel from the pressure of the distance. He'll meet a nice blond lady who cares about saving the two toed ginger toad as much as he does. I'll be more dedicated to the firm than the relationship, we'll split amicably. Yeah... that's what I'll tell Mum. That's better than I was a member of his harem and I went and fell in love with him and now I've been expelled from my concubinely duties.

Marie-Frances had warned me! She'd been a cautionary tale this entire time but noooo, me and my big head... I can't believe I thought my vagina was the terrorist... It's been me this entire time! 

"I can't be the one to judge... I'm just as moist as you are." Boyd quietly shrugs as if he'd been deep in thought about it all

I hadn't even realized Mum had finished praying and everyone was moving food around the table and onto each other's plates. I turn to Boyd with an inquisitive glare, he smiles shyly back, plopping some food onto my plate. I open my mouth to say something when he interrupts me

"Ah... Allow it. I don't want to jinx it." He reticently says

Can you believe the nerve of him! I'd just kind of declared my love for a man who rotated six women and myself around his sex schedule and he doesn't want to jinx his little love story? I need good news! GIVE ME GOOD NEWS!!! 

"You want me to write a cheque to your voicebox yeah? Allow it! Open up!" I cry softly, hitting him

"This one... Eh? This one... She doesn't even know she can have it all! Eh! She thinks I'm a wasteman but..." He pauses to kiss his finger tips and point up to the stars

"I will juju myself! Tsha! She can be like 'oh baby have some juju to love me forever' and I'll just kiss her hands and be like 'Don't lift a finger sugarbear eh! I've already jujud myself. I'm moist, I don't even want freedom' Heh! She does not know!". He emphatically whispers, making sure Mum can't hear him

"Sugarbear?" I tease him, rightfully so

I smile up at his beautiful face alight with all the emotion of love. Would I have looked like this telling him about Luca? No, I'd probably be having a panic attack trying to explain I'm stupid. 

"You're sounding proper moist! I can't wait to meet her." I sigh, already loving his story more than whatever hell was going on in my life (moist=soft)

I wonder what she looks like, if she can bare to see his handsome face and his kind heart and love him exactly as he deserves. 

"The girl who fell the great Boyd Abernathy!" I chuckle in disbelief 

"Is it a ticket you want eh? You're my younger... all you have to do is ask." he offers earnestly

"You're my younger... all you have to do is ask." I mimic him, unwittingly catching the attention of the entire table

"Did I go through arch school so I can beg you for scraps? Bollocks! You've already done too much for me, paying my way through school innit? I make money now eh! Yours is for you!" I reply, sucking my teeth and rolling my eyes at him

I could leave with him for California!

"He paid your way through school?" Hervé confusedly pries, bringing attention to the fact that the entire table was now invested in our conversation

Boyd sucks his teeth as if this was something he preferred people not know. Aunt Simon attempts to hit him all the way across the table but misses. 

"First of all it was just the tiny part that she couldn't get a scholarship for so it wasn't some big thing so that talk is crutterz. Second of all you're family chupchup and you're a bloody genius yeah? What kind of older would I be if I let that go to waste?" He offers back, Aunt Simon scrambling to reach his ears now

"Sorry mum! It was the devil!" He adds with a chuckle as she throws one of my decor candles at him

"And if it wasn't for Boyd, Chupsie wouldn't be opening her own firm and I wouldn't have finished med school. Maybe we can forgive him a few cuss words tonight." Mum bargains with Aunt Simon as Boyd tries to hide behind me

"Pastor Earl... Enh you! Pastor..." Aunt Simon says, snapping her finger at Luca

I'm too busy drawing things in my food to be involved so all I can actually see is Aunt Simon's hand over Luca's plate of food 

"When are you marrying our girl please? Or are you just looking for something sweet?" She inquires brusquely

I choke softly on air, turning to Mum for help. Mum scoffs at me as if to say "I want to know too, you're not getting any younger!" 

"Who are you waiting on? The children in highschool? Women appropriate to your age are being scooped up left, right and center." Mum adds

I hated it when Mum and Aunt Simon were on the same page

"It's just not right for a man of your advanced age to be unmarried. It's bad for her eggs. Look at Funke and Boyd... Fola and I had then when we were young with young strong men, that's why they're sharp sharp like that. Now look at Lola... Her father was a good man, took me and my son in, but he was too old to play with her...Now see what I have..." Aunt Simon lectures

The look Boyd gave Lucas each time the questions got uncomfortable was pricelessly sinister. 

"What are you gaining in this life without a wife anyway? He who finds a wife finds a good thing!" Aunt Simon declares like she's not been divorced three times and only married Lola's dad as a retirement plan/rebrand as a woman of Gawd!

I would say something but this is my house, I don't have anywhere to go if she kicks me out! 

"God's plans..." Luca says quietly though the entire table is so quiet we hear it anyway

"Sorry?" Aunt Simon pries 

"'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope..." He says slightly louder, this time it's Hervé who chokes 

Did he... did he just quote scripture? Do I even know this man? Who the...

"It's a lot of bad things that they're wishing on me. God's plan... Funke and I...We're on an ultralight beam, we're on an ultralight beam, this is a God dream, this is a God dream, this is everything and when Jesus says Yes..." He says with such levity I have to look up to make sure it wasn't one of Aunt Simon's pastor friends she's always trying to introduce Lola and I to

"Nobody can say No." Aunt Simon agrees enthusiastically, waving her hands at this absolute FRAUD

"That's why I'm not worried about a thing. I know he is guiding me and where he leads me I will go, I have no fear because I know whose in control." Luca adds as our gazes meet from across the table, a soft mischievous smile on his face.

 He winks at me as I start to realize what had just happened and why Hervé is laughing into his drink. 

"Is that... is that Drake AND Kanye AND Destiny's Child?" Boyd whispers to me and you know what... I think Lola is also drawing the same conclusion... 

"Wisdom... He's a wise one Funke! Don't mislead him from the light!" Aunt Simon declares, nodding her approval of Luca

I find Lola looking at me as if to ask who in the hell this man was. 

I don't know what to tell you. I don't think I know him at all!

"Whatever you've done to that man there...that's the kind of bollocks mum would flag as sket juju." Boyd decides, bursting into a soft laughter (sket=slut)

"How're you holding up there Hervé?" I wonder down at the poor lad

We were watching Lola and Aunt Simon fuss over Luca... I couldn't believe it. Well, actually that was just the kind of charming thirst-trapping Lothario he was. He was doing the absolute most with them 

"Let's just hope I still have some sperm in the bank in case Levi wants a sibling." Hervé sighs with a soft smile on his face, his gaze shifting from Luca to me

"Or maybe he'd settle for a cousin..." He shrugs meaningfully up at me

I don't know what his small brother is up to up in Angelford. Levi is a cute name though. 

"Funke... may I see you for a private word of prayer?" Luca announces, already taking my hand as he does

I think I hear Boyd gasp "My word!" and Aunt Simon sigh "They even pray together." To Lola. Mum's not buying any of it though, but she doesn't move to help me while he drags me into the kitchen to fire me from my concubinely duties. 

I take in a deep breath and look into his eyes, ready for the worst. I gasp softly when his lips crash into mine, quivering with something as he presses them over and over and over again against mine like some kind of prayer, until I have no choice but to press mine against his too. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me into him and then onto the kitchen counter before pulling his lips away. 

"I have to go. I promised I'd drop your mum home and I have to get Hervé's balls checked or I won't hear the end of it." He whispers in the heated space between our lips

He presses his lips against mine before I can protest him thirst-trapping my mum

"We're going to talk about what you said, Ok? When you're ready." He softly adds, cupping my cheek, kissing my forehead and my lips