Amarachi didn’t do chaos. Her life was a colour-coded calendar, from her tailored power suits to the precise seven minutes she allowed herself for breakfast each morning. She thrived on control.
Chidi was chaos personified. He arrived late to everything, cracked jokes at the worst possible time, and his Instagram was a blur of spontaneous adventures that made her break out in hives just thinking about it.
He wasn’t supposed to be her type. Yet, here they were, standing outside his car in the dimly lit parking lot of Jabi Lake Mall. She hadn’t planned on seeing him tonight; he’d just randomly texted her to come.
“You are so exhausting,” Amarachi muttered, gripping her bag tight.
“And you’re predictable,” he said, that maddening grin on his face. “But that’s what I love about it.”
Amarachi rolled her eyes. “Chidi, this isn’t a game. You don’t take anything seriously! You are reckless, impulsive, and completely—”
“Yours,” he cut in, stepping closer.
“Frustrating,” she shot back.
“Yet here you are again. With the same person who frustrates you,” he countered, stepping even closer. “Why’s that, Amarachi?”
She froze, her grip on her bag loosening as his words hung in the air. His gaze was intense, piercing, cutting through the layers of logic she’d built around herself.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she whispered, hating how unsteady her voice sounded.
Chidi reached out, his touch surprisingly gentle as he brushed an invisible speck from her shoulder. “Because you’re the one thing in my life that I’m sure of.”
Before she could think, before she could retreat into the safety of logic and reason, Chidi kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It was raw and electric, like him, but perfect in every way she never expected.
When they broke apart, she let out a shaky breath, feeling her meticulously constructed walls falter. “You are going to ruin my life, aren’t you?”
Chidi laughed, the sound soft, warm, and utterly infuriating. “Or make it a little less boring. Guess we’ll find out.”
For the first time in a long while, she allowed the unknown to settle beside her. And against every instinct she had, it felt right.