What in fresh heck?
“Was that your mother?” Uncle Reuben glanced at him when he came back inside. He’d finished with the vegetables and had the rice already on fire. He was just dropping the plantains he’d diced into the fryer.
“Uh, no.” Ejiro shook his head. “Just … wrong number.”
Uncle Reuben raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t press for more.
It wasn’t until it was closing time that it suddenly hit him.
That supposedly fake audition tape he’d recorded for Blessing’s “school project” about a month ago hadn’t been fake at all, had it?
His heartbeat skittered, then began to race.
Those lying, traitorous, stinking—
TWO
ASSHOLES. THE LOT OF THEM.
Eddy let out one of his loud obnoxious laughs, and Obiora felt the headache in his temples throb just a little bit harder. He stood off to the side of the small meeting room, making himself a cup of green tea since all coffee did was fuck with his digestive system. Which was incredibly saddening considering how much he loved the damn beans. But with how strung out he felt right now, he couldn’t risk making even the smallest cup.
Mike said something, which made Eddy laugh again. Obiora pretended to be busy on his phone, but he was merely watching the time on the screen as his tea brewed. When he glanced up after a moment, unable to help it, his pulse jumped when he found Obioma, his immediate older brother, watching him with a concerned frown on his face.
Obiora tried to smile but ended up grimacing instead. He turned back to his phone before his brother could take it as an invitation to come over. The rest of them knew how he got around this time of the year, so they probably wouldn’t even bother. But could he blame them, really?
Okay, so maybe his co-workers weren’t exactly assholes. It was just, when his father called for meetings like these, they served to remind Obiora just how badly he didn’t want to be here. And then the reminder was followed by an almost crushing guilt, which was then topped off with a choking amount of grief. And with the guys laughing and chatting and acting like absolutely nothing was wrong, it made Obiora want to punch a hole into the wall. Which, again, wasn’t their fault.
Fuck. He adjusted the knot of his tie, his throat feeling tight.
He’d just squeezed out and dumped his tea bag when Osita Anozie came striding in. At sixty-two years old and looking forty, with a slightly balding afro he had shaved in a sharp crew cut, the imposing man stood at an unimpressive five foot five, with warm brown skin, a stocky build, and thick eyebrows in a perpetual frown. The sight of him made Obiora’s shot nerves short-circuit themselves even more. The green tea suddenly smelled absolutely disgusting, his stomach heaving at the thought of consuming anything.
Emeka Ikem, his father’s best friend and the executive partner for Anozie & Ikem followed behind, taller and darker-skinned than his father and no less imposing, with a close-cropped greying afro, and a completely full grey beard.
Obinna, his eldest brother, came after, pushing his glasses up his nose, his hands filled with papers and documents concerning the latest project he’d acquired.
The meeting didn’t take very long, which wasn’t surprising, but with how Obiora felt it might as well have taken ten years.
“This could be one of the largest projects we’ve taken on since Emeka and I opened this firm,” his father finished. Emeka nodded in agreement, that perpetual smile on his face. “I want you all to do your absolute best. You have two weeks to send in your preliminary sketches. That’s all. Obiora.”
Obiora startled, his head shooting up. His stomach roiled painfully like he’d eaten something bad. “Yes, sir?”
“I need to see you in my office immediately.”
He stood and left the room before Obiora could reply, Emeka and Obinna following behind. His eldest brother glanced back once, looking concerned, before he disappeared out of the meeting room.
Obiora could feel Obioma’s eyes boring into the side of his head, but he refused to look in his other brother’s direction, standing up and making his way to his father’s private office.
He was breathing deeply and slowly, but it did absolutely fuck all to calm his racing heart. He didn’t even bother trying to figure out why his father wanted to see him; it couldn’t be about anything else, could it?
“Come in,” Osita boomed when he knocked. “Please, take a seat.”
Obiora obeyed, clasping his hands in his lap, looking down onto his father’s polished mahogany desk.
“Obiora,” he said, his Nigerian accent thickening as it did when he was emotional. Right now, he was radiating concern. “Talk to me.”
Obiora swallowed. “Please daddy,” he whispered, feeling like he was twenty-one and losing her all over again. He clenched his eyes shut. His left knee was bouncing almost without his control. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
His father sighed. “God really works in mysterious ways. This project landed at just the right time for you. You can really get into it, you know? Challenge yourself.”
