RED LINES

Red Lines begins the story of Bekere, a simple kindergarten teacher who loved her job, her small apartment in Lekki, Lagos, and her 1992 cerulean Camry.

Bekere, like every single Nigerian girl, hopes to get married someday and start a family.  After a failed relationship with Obinna, her college sweetheart, Bekere, came up with a long list of men she’d decidedly resolved to avoid.

Top on her list of such men was Folorunsho Ajibade.

Her phone rang, thinking it was Alice calling again, she was about connecting the call when she noticed it was “Folorunsho Ajibade.”

Bekere let the phone ring. She knew it was rude to ignore his call, but she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t know him; she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Her eyes flashed to the magazine that held his image, her instincts jarred at her to avoid men like him. Men like him didn’t fall for girls like her. Men like him had girls eating off their hands, falling over him, bending over backward, using Juju to tie him to themselves, and pouring each other acids when they felt threatened by another female.

While trying to avoid Folu and at the same time keep up a social lifestyle, Bekere accepted a dinner date with Obinna, her ex-boyfriend. The thoughts on her head when she went out for dinner at Jazz mart, a balmy restaurant in Victoria Island, was to rekindle old flames and chart a new course with Obinna.

Then, she met the one man she’d been trying to avoid. Only it wasn’t the same man, it was his twin- Folarin Ajibade.

Bekere made her way to the bathroom, feeling a little light-headed and giddy. She smiled a thank you at a lady who commented on her dress.

She was about veering off into the aisle that led to the ladies’ room when a voice halted her.

“Hello,” He said.

It couldn’t be, Bekere gasped, surely he couldn’t have stalked her or worse followed her here!

How did he know she was coming here?

“Hello,” He reiterated when she turned to him. He smiled openly at her, the dimple on one of his cheeks pronounced.

“How did you?” She began, then swallowed slightly.

“Did you have me followed?”

 “I’m sorry, what?” He asked, flustered.

“How did you know I was here, coming here?”

“Oh, I um, saw you come this way, and I ah…” He trailed off, smiling sheepishly.

“How convenient,” Bekere said, snidely walking away.

“My name is,”

“I know, not interested,” She interjected.

He made to follow her, and she turned to regard him with as much disdain as she could manage. But she was sure she failed because his nearness stilled her breath, and his winsome smile tugged at her senses.

Thinking both men were the same, Bekere came to a rude awakening when she discovered Folu was not only a twin but was also bent on possessing her at all cost. Even if that includes employing stealth, deceit, and manipulations.

And what’s worse, his twin shares the same desire.

Folu walked towards the library and wasn’t surprised that his twin followed.

“If this is about getting your job back, Fola, now is not the time.”

“No, not that,” Fola said, then he paced, looked at his brother, and strode some more.

“Okay, then, what’s up?” Folu asked, settling himself on a couch.

“Tell me about your day,” Fola said.

“About my what?” Folu replied in askance.

“Your day.”

Folu regarded Fola queerly and then decided to oblige his question.

“My day was fine, thanks for asking. How was yours?”

“I met a girl,” Fola said, his voice laced with exhilaration.

“Okay?” Folu said quizzically.

“You should have seen her.”

Folu didn’t need to; he knew Fola’s kind of girls, and as far as he was concerned, they all looked the same.

“She mistook me for you, though?”

“For me?”

“Yeah, said something about you stalking her.”

Folu looked on perplexed.

“Did you meet someone of interest today?” Fola asked suspiciously.

Folu gazed at him and gave an evasive facial shrug.

His mind instinctively conjured up his meeting with Bekere while trying to piece together the possibility of her coincidentally meeting Fola too.

Impossible, he concluded, discarding the thought as quickly as it surfaced.

“Did you meet someone?” Fola reiterated. “Talked to her, took her number?”

Folu stared at him passively, not bothering with a response; his day’s itinerary was none of Fola’s business.

“It’s possible I just met the same girl you met today,” Fola said tentatively, testing out his theory. He was pleased with the affirmative response he got from Folu.

“That can’t be. She must have had you confused with someone else, whoever this girl is that you met,” Folu said keenly.

“Yeah, I thought so too, the coincidence, though,” Fola shrugged, then went to fetch himself a drink.

Folu checked his phone when his brother busied himself with fixing his drink, to see if Bekere had read his message or was even online.

She hadn’t read any, and she wasn’t online.

“I’m going to ask her out,” Fola said from the mini bar, stirring his drink with his index finger.

RED LINES is available on Amazon Kindle, Rakuten Kobo, Bambooks.io, and OkadaBooks.