“Don’t listen to him,” Ricky turned to Obiora to say, sneering in Jin’s direction. Jin adamantly ignored him, pulling the covers up to his chin. “I only wish I had thought about that smooth move. You should have seen the look on the other guy’s face when he saw how you’d swooped in. You’d think he’d swallowed a lemon.” Ricky laughed, loud and deep. Obiora felt like his insides were shrivelling. “If I were him, it’d have been a confrontation—stealing my time with my girl? Like fuck I’d let you get away with that. He’s got an eel for a spine, he has. Not gonna last long in the competition, that one.”
Obiora smiled tightly at Ricky to show he was listening. Tyler was done with whatever he’d been doing with his luggage, and was now on the bed closest to the door, in nothing but boxers and a worn t-shirt, a notebook in his hands where he was scribbling furiously.
Obiora quickly changed into his night things, uncaring of the other men in the room. When he was dressed similarly to Tyler, except he had shorts on instead of just his underwear, he slipped into his bed, in the middle of Jin and Ricky.
While he could admit his actions had been … ungentlemanly, he also had to admit Ricky was right as well. If Ejiro had really been bothered, he should’ve confronted Obiora about it, instead of disappearing into thin air. Obiora had no idea why Sophia had given him a heart.
So far, Ejiro had proved to be everything Obiora and the other bachelors had suspected he was during the evening: average looking, and antisocial to the point of dullness.
He might have made it past night one, but Obiora could bet it wouldn’t be long before Sophia sent Ejiro packing his bags.
And if that was a little mean of him, that was just the way of the game.
Episode 1: Breaking the Ice
Episode Summary: The bachelors arrive in limos and greet the bachelorette at the entrance to the mansion. Ejiro gives Sophia a portrait of her he’d hand painted; Obiora spins her around like a princess; Noah arrives on the scene in ripped sleeves and on a motorbike, and Liam dazzles her with a unique bouquet he’d plucked and pruned from his own personal garden.
But this week’s Red Heart was given to Chris Wu, who stole the bachelorette’s attention with the soft trills of a guitar and the beautiful lyrics of a self-composed song.
Later on in the night, Chad attempted to throw Sophia into the pool, causing a brief disruption that was quickly resolved.
At the end of the night, he, Seamus, Neville, Michael, Rasheed, and Adam were eliminated.
Click here to watch the full episode on Netflicks!
SEVEN
EJIRO’S HAND FLEW ACROSS HIS sketchpad almost furiously, a pencil clutched between his fingers. Ameri hadn’t let him bring his drawing tablet because he had some social media apps installed on the device and she hadn’t wanted to risk it, straightforward promises or no. When he’d bought the sketchpad and drawing materials, he’d been certain it would be difficult—alien—to go back to pencil and paper after he’d spent so long perfecting his skills digitally.
He’d thought wrong. And he had his anger to thank for that.
Ejiro hadn’t slept well. He usually didn’t when he was in an unfamiliar place, but his shame and self-disgust at the way he’d run and hid after the stunt Obiora had pulled last night had left him too wound up to sleep. It had been a miracle Sophia had given him a heart; her eyes had been alight with a hopeful sort of fondness, like she honestly couldn’t wait to get to know him better over the coming weeks.
Well, Ejiro wasn’t about to let her down. The regret he usually felt when he walked away from a confrontation rather than face it felt insurmountable in the morning after. God, he wished he could’ve just—he should’ve just—
He sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face. There was no use crying over spilt milk; what’s done was done. All he could do now was make sure that—no matter what challenges he faced henceforth—he didn’t run away again.
He wondered, not for the first time, if he should say a word to Obiora, and felt his pulse race with anxiety at the thought.
He shook his head. What would be the point? What would he say? “Screw you for your lack of sportsmanship”? “Please don’t do that again?”? “Next time wait your turn”? It all sounded juvenile.
No, Ejiro was going to let it go. The only way to look better in the light of last night’s events was to do better in the coming group dates.
He glanced down at his sketchpad and let out a silent chuckle despite himself. Then he started laughing, though quietly, because his three roommates were still asleep.
When he’d found that he couldn’t sleep, he’d spent most of his awake hours doodling increasingly vile caricatures of Obiora’s face. The images would make for a good villain, if he ever decided to write Sophia as a goddess in a fantasy comic, which he still felt inclined to do. The previous pages were filled with sketches of her dressed like an African deity; with gold hoops around her long throat, her hair in afro curls to her shoulders glinting with polished cowrie beads, and her form covered in the bright, colourful patterns of Ankara wrappers.
Where she was a goddess, perhaps Obiora could be the opposite. A devil. A troll. Sentient pond scum.
He snickered. He slid his sketch materials underneath his pillows and stood up to stretch, his eyes sliding toward his roommates.
Damien, the first of his roommates he’d met, was on the bed next to his, snoring like a generator. The sound weirdly reminded him of Ajiri—she tended to snore sometimes, especially if she was really exhausted. He smiled at the thought, suddenly missing her and Blessing something fierce. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d been separated for this long. He tried not to think too hard about it.
Damien was also Black, and owned his own small but slowly growing grocery store in London. On the bed next to him was Alistair, one of the white blondes. He was an underwear model, and he slept naked. Ejiro quickly looked away from where a bit of muscled butt cheek was poking out of the sheets twisted haphazardly around his form.
His last roommate in the bed closest to the door was Chris Wu, the lucky Chinese-Brit who’d been given the Red Heart of the first group date. He was a primary school teacher, and was playful and sweet. When he grinned, with that damn beauty mark above his lip, Ejiro could somewhat understand why Sophia had been taken by him.
According to Chris Wu, there was another Chris on the show: Chris Payne. Ameri had dutifully said they’d be referring to both of them with their full names to avoid any confusion.
