Chapter Sixteen: Owo Soup & Class
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1:05pm.
The weight of Le Rouge settled on Josie’s shoulders like wet silk. Too heavy. Too expensive.
A waiter set water down with a soft _clink_. His eyes flicked to her tee, her unpolished nails around the envelopes. Pity flashed there before he schooled his face. A waitress across the room whispered to another, and Josie _felt_ their glances. Not cruel. Just certain she’d wandered into the wrong post code.
Her throat closed. The menu might as well have been in Greek.
Orwell hadn’t opened his. He was watching her. Not the room. _Her_. The tight line of her mouth. The way her shoulders had drawn up to her ears.
Then he moved.
No discussion. No performance. He stood, dropped a few crisp notes on the table that would’ve covered her groceries for a month, and reached for her hand.
Josie blinked. “We’re—?”
“Leaving.” His voice was low, for her only.
He laced his fingers through hers and walked out. No explanation to the host. No backward glance at the crystal and truffle air. Just the door, then Lagos sun again.
At the car, Josie finally found her voice. “Why did we— why’d you do that?”
Orwell unlocked the car but didn’t open her door yet. He turned to her, profile sharp against the glass of Étoile Atelier.
“The room is cold,” he said. Plain. Orwell-sharp. “And the food has no soul.”
A startled laugh almost escaped her. _No soul._ Of course he’d measure a five-star kitchen like that.
Amusement and something warmer tangled in her chest. He did it for her. He saw her drowning and pulled her out without making it a spectacle.
Her smile must have given her away, because his gaze snagged on it. Held. For once, he didn’t look away first.
“Come,” he said.
He drove with no GPS, no hesitation. Past the high-rises. Past the gates with security. Into a street where music spilled from a speaker and kids played football around parked kekes.
He pulled up outside a buka with a faded sign: _Mama Eki’s Kitchen_. The scent hit first. Palm oil. Smoked fish. Firewood. _Real_.
Josie stared. “Owo soup?”
“Unless you’d prefer the tasteless option.” The corner of his mouth ticked up. Not quite a smile. But close.
They bought two wraps of starch and steaming bowls of owo soup, rich and orange-red, stocked with dried fish and bush meat. The woman selling grinned at Orwell like she knew him. Maybe she did.
Back in the car, AC off, windows down, the city noise became their soundtrack. He handed her a spoon. No linen napkins. No crystal. Just heat rising between them and the plastic takeaway bowls on their laps.
Josie was still caught in it. This version of him. The one who noticed scuffed toes and pitying waiters. The one who chose firewood over chandeliers.
She must have been staring, because he spoke without looking up from his food.
“That’s what I see when I look at you.” His tone was even. Like he was stating the time. “You’re beautiful on the inside.”
The spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. Her pulse did something embarrassing.
“Only?” The word was out before she could swallow it.
Orwell didn’t answer.
Instead, he peeled the lid off her starch, tore a piece for her, and dipped it into her soup. He held it out. An offering. A diversion.
Josie took it. Her fingers brushed his.
She was flushed. Flustered. Furious at herself for asking.
He just ate. Calm. As if he hadn’t just tilted her whole axis with one sentence and one withheld word.
1:27pm. Outside, Lagos kept moving. Inside the car, it was just owo soup steam and the weight of everything he wasn’t saying.
1:29pm.
The car filled with quiet. Not empty quiet. The full kind.
Steam from the owo soup had fogged the edges of the windows. Outside, a keke honked and a boy hawked pure water, voice cutting through the afternoon. Inside, it was just the soft tap of plastic spoons against takeaway bowls.
Orwell ate without rush. His eyes stayed on the street ahead, watching a group of kids chase a deflated ball. Deliberate. Giving her room to breathe. To exist without being studied.
Josie snuck glances. The set of his jaw had loosened. No boardroom sharpness. No Étoile tension. Just Orwell, in a black tee, eating starch with his fingers like any other Lagos man.
When the bowls were scraped clean, he reached into the back seat. Pulled out a bottle of water. Twisted it open.
They stepped out into the heat. He poured first for her, water running over her fingers, washing away oil and pepper. Then his own hands. Practical. No fuss.
Orwell tipped his face to the sky. The sun was high, brutal on most days. He blinked once.
“It’s not hot,” he concluded. Matter-of-fact. Orwell-sharp.
Then he looked at her. “Would you like to walk?”
Josie actually laughed. A short, shocked sound. _Orwell. Asking to stroll._ Like a normal human being with free time and functioning feelings.
“Yes,” she said before the surprise could make her overthink it.
He locked the 2024 Mercedes-Benz S-Class with a quiet beep. Sleek. Matte black. All quiet power, like him. They left it there, cooling under a flame tree, and started down the estate road.
The street was half-alive. A woman frying akara at a corner. Two men arguing over a newspaper. A dog napping under a parked Corolla. The breeze picked up, tugging at Josie’s baggy tee and lifting the ends of her hair. Her new sneakers made no sound on the tar.
She felt it then. Alive. Unwatched. _Happy_. With Orwell beside her, hands in his pockets, stride unhurried. No destination. Just motion.
She glanced sideways. His shoulders were down. His face open to the sky. No rockiness. No armor. Just calm. And it made something in her chest unclench to see it.
A low roll of thunder moved across the sky. The air shifted. Charged.
The wind turned cooler, smelling of dust and incoming rain.
Josie looked up. Clouds were gathering fast, bruise-purple at the edges.
The sky crackled. A low hum, like the world drawing breath.
1:47pm.
Rain was coming. And they were nowhere near the car.
1:51pm.
The first drop hit Josie’s cheek like a warning. Then the sky tore open.
Rain came down hard, drumming on zinc roofs and turning the tar to glass. People scattered. The akara woman pulled her tray under a tarpaulin. The dog vanished.
Orwell grabbed her hand. No words. Just a pull, and they were running.
They ducked under the narrow shed of a shuttered pharmacy. Metal sheets overhead rattled with the downpour. The air turned sharp, cold.
Josie shivered. Then coughed. A small thing at first. She frowned. Her chest felt tight, like someone had cinched a belt around her ribs. Each breath came colder than the last.
“You’re wet,” Orwell said. His eyes did a quick, clinical sweep. Her lips. Her fingers. The shallow pull of her collarbone when she inhaled.
“I’m fine,” she started, but another cough cut her off. Deeper this time. It scraped.
He didn’t argue. He stepped out into the rain.
“Orwell—”
“Stay.” One word. Flat. Final.
She watched him move through the sheets of water, shoulders squared against it. The 2024 Mercedes-Benz S-Class lit up in the rain. He was inside in seconds, engine rumbling, pulling up so the passenger door lined up with the shed.
He was out again, drenched, opening her door. He didn’t ask. He scooped her up. One arm under her knees, one at her back.
Josie gasped. “I can walk—”
“You’re not.” His voice was rough. Not angry. _Afraid._
He set her in the seat, belted her, blasted the heat. The car pulled away, tires hissing.
3:12pm.
Hospital lights were too white. Too loud after the rain.
It wasn’t bad. Not like before. Oxygen for ten minutes. A nebulizer. Doctor said mild bronchial flare, triggered by cold and wet. Rest. Warmth. She’d be discharged in an hour.
But Orwell didn’t hear “mild.”
He stood by the bed, jacket soaked, hair dripping onto the tile. His hands were clenched. Unclenched. He kept rolling his sleeves up and down like he couldn’t decide.
Josie watched him from the pillows. “You look like a wet rat.”
His head snapped up.
She grinned, even though her chest still ached. “Shaking and everything. Did the rain traumatize you?”
“I was alert,” he said. Too fast. “Not scared.”
_Liar._ The word hung between them, soft. _Orwellish._ Divulging and pretending in the same breath.
Her phone buzzed on the side table. Then again. And again.
Orwell picked it up to stop the noise. Screen lit. _Cassie:_
_omg are u dead??_
_did Mr. Tall Dark & Broody finally kidnap u??_
_u better be getting some rich man soup after this _
He went still. Then, unbelievably, his mouth twitched.
Josie squinted. “Who is it?”
“Cassie.”
She saw it. The exact second he read _rich man soup_. His jaw worked. A sound escaped him. Low. Rough.
He laughed.
Actually laughed. Head tipped back, one hand covering his mouth like he could catch it.
Josie stared. Then she broke. A wheezing, tired laugh that made her ribs hurt. “Oh my God. Don’t— don’t ever do that again. I might relapse.”
The tension snapped. For a second, it was just them. Rain outside. Antiseptic inside. And laughter.
When it faded, she looked at him. Really looked. “I like being with you,” she said. Quiet. No teasing now. “Even if we’re just friends.”
He held her gaze. Then nodded once. “I like being with you too.”
He paid the bills without her seeing the total. Spoke to the doctor in low tones. And when she was discharged, he didn’t leave. He camped. Chair pulled close to the bed in the private room they gave her. Phone off. Jacket finally dry.
Josie drifted off around 6:00pm, warm under the hospital blanket, the sound of rain still tapping the window.
Orwell didn’t sleep.
He watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. Counted it. And with each breath, a cold thought settled in.
Why again?
The pneumonia. The flare. _Living water_. He’d believed it was done. That she was clear. That he’d gotten her out of Le Rouge fast enough, kept her safe enough.
But here she was. IV gone. Color back. And he was terrified.
Not alert. _Scared_.
For the first time since he took her hand outside Étoile, Orwell felt it deep in his bones. Fear that the thing he couldn’t control, couldn’t buy out of, had come back.
He reached out. Didn’t touch her. Just hovered his hand an inch above hers on the blanket.
7:34pm.
Outside, the rain had stopped. Inside, he was still drowning.
