Guys, Hi.

I'm so sorry for the late update. I know how hard it is to wait, so I apologize. Which is why I've let the chapter be a little longer this time for your maximum enjoyment.

Please don't forget to leave a comment and vote as you read. God bless you.

"So guys, I'll see you tomorrow at four twenty-five pm. Be punctal!" Amina exclaimed softly at the children who she had just finished teaching via a video conference call. 

Shouts of "Yes, Miss Adepoju. See you tomorrow ma, have a safe night, be safe ma." Came from the laptop she'd set in front of her and she chuckled as she watched them all log out one after the other before sending a recording of the class to the agency she worked for. 

She whistled lowly as she typed her report and had it sent to both parents of each student and her direct boss. 

Her plans to get a teaching job had fallen through immediately the new year came. She got instead, the substitute teacher job that gave her flexible hours. She worked five hours each day, online and ended her day at six pm. 

She got up from her chair and turned off the ring light she'd turned on to teach, removed the magnet that held the two ends of her scarf that she tied into a hijab and began unbuttoning her top. 

A timid knock sounded at the door and she smiled, knowing it would Khalid who must be knocking. He knocked as though he was scared she was at work. 

She wrapped her scarf again and went to the door, opening it to Khalid, her nephew trying to balance the woven basket his mother asked him to bring very precariously. 

"Assalamualaikum, Anty Onikede." She smiled widely at him,  opening the door wider for him to come in. His Salam sounded like, achalamalachum, anchy Onikede. 

He hefted the basket unto the low coffee table with a huff and puffed out air at the effort. "Thank you so much Khalid." She pronounced his name properly. One of the things he'd always made sure people did immediately after his first islamiyya class was for them to always properly pronounce his name. 

"Mummy said she is eating with Daddy, that I should eat with you." He announced unhappily, with a wrinkle of his small nose, he said, "They're on a date. What is a date Anty Onikede?" 

Amina laughed as she walked to the kitchenette to get plates and spoons for the food, after spying the large warmer her sister-in-law had sent was full of fried rice and rotisserie chicken. 

"It's an occasion where your daddy and mummy get to have some them time. They need it to strengthen their bond." He nodded very solemnly as though he understood and waited calmly as she spooned the food for him and after receiving his plate, went to the kitchen to wash his hands. She counted to ten in her head, waiting for his next question, he liked to ruminate on what he as was told before asking another very relevant and tricky question. 

"What is a bond? And why do they need to streng-ing it?" Amina laughed silently as she considered how to answer his questions. 

"Well, you see." Her phone rang, cutting her off mid sentence and she sent a prayer of thanks up to Allah because Khalid's questions never ended. 

"Walaikum Salam Maami." She greeted her mother, she watched as Khalid who had spooned some rice into his mouth narrowed his eyes before fixing determined eyes upon her. She knew what was next, ever since he'd spent about three weeks with his grandparents in the time she had arrived Abuja, nothing was ever the same again. All he wanted was his grandma. 

She handed him the phone after talking to her mother and he ate as he talked, his cheeks bulging like a hamster's. As he tore off a piece of chicken with his teeth, his grandmother said something that Amina could not hear but Khalid giggled excitedly to, caring less about the food in his mouth. 

Amina had to send him a glare before he handed her back her phone with oily hands. She eyed him unhappily before wiping it all off and wishing her mother a good night. 

"See how you wiped oil on my phone." He gasped dramatically and pouted in his position, leaning forward cutely. 

Amina laughed instead and waved her hands at him, he got the message and continued to eat, albeit messily. 

**

*

"He's asleep? Ah, Alhamdulilah." Amina shook her head with a mock sneer at her brother's happy expression that his son was fast asleep. She gingerly climbed the stairs till she got to his paw patrol themed room and set him on the bed very carefully. 

She said a silent Dua over him before she pulled the duvet to his shoulders and turned on his nightlight. A low tune of the paw patrol theme song was making it rounds over his head. 

She sighed softly and shut the door behind her, her eyes prickled with the pressure of tears.

If anything, Khalid's presence seemed to ease the pressure that came to play each time she remembered AbdulKareem. There were times she wondered about the sort of boy he would have grown to be, she wondered if he would eat messily or tidily. 

She wiped the tears that had fallen out of her eyes, took a gratifying breath and walked down the stairs to her brother's living room. She found he and his wife holding wine glasses of someone that smelled suspiciously like grape wine. 

"You people are here enjoying while your son was bombarding me with questions at dinner." They laughed happily, her brother set down his glass and taking an empty glass his wife brought, be poured her some grape wine. 

She swirled the contents of the glass, slightly sniffing the dry, fruity non-alcoholic contents before taking a sip. A pleasurable taste spread all over her mouth and she slipped some more before walking over to the scroll opened in the corner. 

She shifted the Boruto paperweight used to hold the ends down and gasped at the beauty of the drawn design. She looked down and read out the description, it was a four bedroom duplex on two plots of land, with one conservatory and a large parking lot. 

"Who owns this, it's so beautiful." Her brother chuckled and sat down, only to turn on the television for her to watch a 3D version of the design. 

"Wow. This is some beauty. I want it." She blurted with a laugh. She found a seat and her sister in law told her who owned the house. She wrinkled her nose and wondered how she was supposed to know the owner. 

"Broda Azeem stop." Her brother turned to her with a smile, the prototype was too beautiful to look away from. 

"What is it?" He asked as he walked back from the large television back to his wife and sister. 

"That Gym room is perfect, but have you seen how narrow the corridor between it and the study is?" Her brother stopped and dropped his glass, rushing back to the open scroll to look at it again, he turned to his sister in amazement. 

"Thank you. It would have been so off putting, you get brain." She eyed him and took the tv remote off the table to keep looking. 

"The kitchen, now that I look at it, can you see how high up those ornate marble cabinets are? You people should be giving this work to women because men create kitchens women cannot use." Munayah said with a pout after they carefully looked through each room's floor plan together. 

Her brother picked his phone from the table and left the living room. Munayah watched him with a smile as he walked away. 

"Ehen, that exercise thing we talked about last week, a friend of a friend is starting a jogging together sort of thing. So, are you in? It's just in the next estate. They have a hill sort of place perfect for climbing." Amina thought about it for a few seconds before agreeing and getting up to leave. 

***********

"It's too cold to be outside oo. Me I need more sleep." Amina laughed at her brother's face as she did a light warm up that consisted to trying to reach her toes with her back to the wall near the gate. They were waiting for Munayah. 

"I don't even know what you both need this exercise thing for, there's a virus ravaging and we have a gym in the house, no need for all this Waka." She refused to answer her brother as being quarantined was nearly turning her mad. The whole country had gone on a lockdown about two weeks before and it was nearly maddening now that the holiday-like feeling was over. 

"I have work by nine. If I sleep till nine, I'll just become too lazy. Ehen they call off the lockdown I'll have nothing to do." He sent a threatening glare her way, she could see his face because of the bright halogen bulbs that lit up the whole compound, everything and everywhere could be seen from a mile away. 

Munayah came jogging out, in a light pink knee length top and jeggins tracksuit and a black hijab wrapped around her head. She reached them in no time and her brother grumbled as the gate man pushed the gate open. 

"Why are we doing this again, Munayah?" She turned to her husband with a sneer, asking him what else he had to do since he was complaining. 

Amina stifled the mocking laughter that rose in her and began to lightly jog. They'd done this for two days now and they now had a route. 

"So, we'll go outside the estate, cross the express and enter Sun valley estate. That's how Amina and I do it." Munayah informed Azeem who nodded very solemnly, now quiet. 

They jogged for about ten minutes before they met a group of people, about five, making Amina stop to catch her breath. She'd worn a dark blue kurti and black leggings and slip on running shoes, she took a corner of the crinkle cotton fabric she'd worn as her hijab to wipe the slight sweat that had gathered on her forehead. 

"Ahn ahn. Assalamualaikum everyone." Azeem, ever boisterous, greeted the five of them waiting. When they joined, they became eight. 

"Hello guys, we missed you yesterday and the day before." Munayah said with a smile at the group. Someone who looked like he was the head of the group waved his hands and said the reason they waited today was for security reasons. We're less of a security threat together, he said. 

"Thank you. I was worried about my wife and sister running on this lane alone. Since your wives are here and you both are here too, I can rest easy." Azeem answered for both of them, making Munayah turn to ask him with her eyes if he didn't just complain so bitterly about jogging with them. 

They began jogging again, the men in front to see if anything was the problem and the women behind. 

"I'm Zulaiha, you can call me Zulai, this is also Malika. Malika, these are Munayah and Amina. They're going to join us for a while." Malika greeted them very coldly and went back to jogging, keeping a few meters distance from them. 

"Did I offend her?" Munayah asked bluntly, Zulai rolled her eyes in Malika's direction and said in a conspirational whisper. "She wants to marry AbdulRahman Barkindo. More women on our morning jog to her feels like more competition." Amina turned down her lips and jogged harder, she didn't under the concept of being enemies with other women because of a man. 

"But didn't his wife just die last year?" Munayah asked incredulously, her eyes slightly wide as she huffed from the stress of running slowly. 

"It's been twenty months. It's almost two years, I'm not counting though, people like Malika are the ones counting. They expect him to welcome a new bride soon." Zulai stopped jogging for a few seconds, letting her words sink with the other women. 

"Well, that's her own business. I will always love my Azeem, I have no space for another." Amina widened her lips into a secret smile. Azeem deserved the love he received from Munayah and Munayah, Azeem's. They both deserved each other. 

"Amina, what do you do?" Zulai suddenly asked with a sweaty smile, Amina wiped her now dripping forehead and stood a bit to ease her burning ankles. 

"I teach." She watched as Zulai's eyes lit up. Suddenly, Malika who had walked forward with the men cut into their conversation with a smile that Amina hated; that condescending smile that seemed to show the very contempt that Amina could feel that Malika felt. 

"You teach? No wonder you're so frumpy." Amina's mouth dropped open in the shock that should have been anger but she could not find it in her to be angry. She saw that Munayah had her face in a twisted sneer. 

"All the ladies here are accomplished people and you're a mere teacher.Humph!" Amina laughed incredulously. She'd never seen anyone or anything with such audacity in her life, so instead of getting worked up, she ran harder, only stopping a few meters from the men who were talking rambunctiously as they jogged. 

They reached the summit of the hill like place that overlooked a row of suns streaked houses in the sun Valley estate, the estate took it's name from the valley that it sat on. 

"Here, please hydrate yourself before we begin the walk down the hill." Amina nodded and took the condensed water bottle and uncapped it slowly, saying her thanks to the man they called AbdulRahman Barkindo and a quick Dua before she gulped back some slightly cold water. 

She turned to look at sun peeking from behind the clouds and wondered how far they would get before the day's sun began beating down on them. If anything, the sun meant it was another day where she was alive and well and inspite of her sadness, she felt the will to go on. It made her smile and motivated her to get on with her day. 

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Soooooo!
Your/my babies have met haven't they? 😌😌😌

How do you feel about their meeting? A bit lukewarm eh? I know. Can't have them too hot on the first trial.

See y'all soon. May God bless you.

TheOmoope 💙😊🤍