The rain had just stopped when Onome saw him again.

She was standing under the awning of a suya spot on Admiralty Way, phone in one hand, heels dangling from the other one.

Then a familiar laugh cut through the noise of okada horns and distant afrobeats.

She knew that laugh.

She would know it anywhere.

Low, hurried, it stung something inside of her.

------------------------------------------------------

JINDU

It was three years ago.

Three years since he'd left for Port Harcourt without a real goodbye, just a text that said 'this isn't for us, I promise'.

A promise he never kept.

And now he was here, in a blue kaftan that fits him too well, standing across the street of Lagos.

"Onome." He called just her name. Like it belonged to his mouth.

"Jindu." She matched his tone.

He crossed the street anyway, doging a keke that didn't slow down for anyone.

He moved closer to her.

He'd changed.

Broader shoulders. A shadow of beards he never used to keep.

But his eyes hadn't changed.

Still has that look that seems to mesmerize her.

"You look good," he said

"Yea, I know."

She smiled. He smiled too.

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They ended up at a small bar in the island.

The kind with dim orange bulbs strung across a rooftop and a DJ playing cool music.

Neither of them planned it.

I just happened, the way things used to happen with them, like gravity.

"So Port Harcourt didn't work out for you?" Onome asked, sipping a chapman she didn't really want.

"Port Harcourt worked out fine." Jindu replied, "I didn't."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I built a whole life there and kept catching myself comparing it to something I left in Lagos"

He looked up at her, steady, no jokes in his face.

"You know what I mean.

Onome chuckled. A dry, short one. Then looked away.

Three years of practiced indifference, and it took him four sentences to find the crack in it.

"You don't have to say things like that," she said quietly.

"Not after how you left."

"I know." His jaw tightened. "I've had three years to know that."

The DJ switched to something slow, something with too much saxophone, and for a while neither of them said anything. They just sat there quiet.

The city hummed in below them.

Horns, laughter, a distance church service still going one despite the hour.

Onome watched a couple in the street corner sharing suya off one stick, unbothered by the world, and felt something in her chest twist with an emotion she couldn't name.

"Dance with me," Jindu said, suddenly.

"There's no dance floor."

"There's a roof and music. That's enough."

She should have said no.

She had rehearsed a hundred versions of tonight in her head over three years, and in every single one, she said no.

She stood up anyways.

------------------------------------------------------

His hand found her waist.

She kept her eyes fixed somewhere over his shoulder, at the skyline, at the lagoon catching what was left.

But his face... because his face up close was a while conversation, she wants ready to leave.

"I thought about you everyday," he said, low, just for her. "I want you to know that. Not to fix anything. Just so you know it wasn't easy walking away."

"But why did you?"

"Because I was twenty-four, and stupid, and I thought leaving was the same as growing."

His hand tightened slightly at her waist.

"It wasn't. It was just leaving."

Onome finally looked at him. Really looked. And whatever wall she had spent three years building cracked clean down the middle, because his eyes were doing that thing again.... memorizing her.

"I hate that you're doing this to me," she whispered

"Doing what?"

"Making me forget I'm supposed to be angry."

His hand traced a slow line from her waist, resting his thumb on her lower jaw.

"Be angry tomorrow," he murmured. "Tonight just be here."

" Let's go to my apartment."

-----------------------------------------------------

His apartment was closer than hers.

The elevator ride up was silent, except for the sound of their own breathing, the air between them charged with everything unsaid – three years of missed calls that were never made, of almost-texts deleted before they sent, of a love that hadn't died, just gone quiet.

He unlocked the door. She stepped past him into the dark apartment, the city lights through his window painting everything gold and blue.

"Onome" he called her name again, softer this time.

She turned around.

Whatever he wanted to stay next, he didn't get the chance to. She closed the distance between them first, and kissed him.

A short one. Then a long kiss. This time he responded back, without hesitation.

Her hand round his neck, his hand all over her waist.

They didn't care about the distant siren, nor the neighbor's dog barking, nothing.

All they care about was that very moment.

In between the kiss Onome whispered, "I miss yo....."

Before she could finished the sentence, Jindu covered her mouth with his, grab her from her butt and took her to his bedroom.

What happened next was theirs.