Chapter 30- An unexpected visit
Grace said goodbyes to her friends on the agreement that she would investigate Veronica and come back immediately she is done before getting on the road with Efe.
Life in the city was a bit different from town to Grace in terms of liveliness even late in the night, unlike her town where everyone would have closed their doors at 10 pm.
They got to Efe's place at Ikeja at exactly 11 pm. The first thing Grace did was to evaluate the place. It was a single room flat, one that Efe had to settle for before because Grace didn't want to leave Ketu but had to get a roommate when he realized his salary couldn't keep up with his expenses too well. The living room had a small flat-screen TV, a music player, and a set of speakers. The furniture all around looked decent too. The only problem Grace had was that the place was a bit tinier than usual.
"This place looks nice, you would know that a bachelor lives here at first sight," Grace said with a smile.
"I know you are trying to mock me but thank you," Efe replied.
"But doesn't it seem a bit too small... I mean, where is the privacy?"
"I can't be sending you to school and paying for a house at Ketu and be living in a large fancy house na, and besides Michael are so busy with work most of the time that there's no need for privacy."
"Okay, whatever you say," Grace said and walked into the room. Everything looked tidy. It was one of the things Efe was that she would never be.
"So where would I sleep?" She asked.
"What kind of question is that? On the bed of course."
Grace chuckled.
"Give me a wrapper and a pillow, I'll stay on the couch."
"No, I'm going to stay on the couch while you stay on the bed." Efe countered.
"Come on bro, you've done enough already, you need to rest. And besides, I wasn't planning on sleeping early tonight."
"Why?"
"I'm doing a little research."
"Alright, suit yourself."
After a quick dinner of noodles, Efe said goodnight and retreated to his room while Grace stayed up that night surfing the internet for all she could find about Veronica Badmus.
"She wasn't lying about being rich though," Grace said to herself. Her dad, Chief Mike Badmus was a billionaire philanthropist, politician, and CEO of one of the top telecommunications companies in Nigeria. Asides from getting mentioned as related to her father, there weren't many pictures of them as a family although she ultimately got what she needed, a clear photo of Veronica with her father and mother.
'Why were you hiding your real name from us?' Grace pondered as she stared at the picture on her phone. 'And who the hell is Uncle Kim?'
She searched around for any related individual but nothing worthwhile came up.
Could he have been hired?
Grace shrugged at the thought. It didn't matter. All her questions would be answered as soon as Veronica's mum. It soon proved to be very difficult as she couldn't find anything useful about their location which she kept going at till she slept off.
She didn't wake up until past eight when she heard a knock on the door. She didn't realize how tired she had been from her lack of sleep at the cell and the emotional stress throughout yesterday.
The knock came again.
"Bros Efe, there's someone at the door." She called.
"Go check who it is, I'm coming." He replied.
Grace sighed. 'Who comes to someone's house around 8 am on a Sunday.' She thought to herself.
Grace opened the door to see a stunning young woman wearing a black flat gown on heels beaming a smile at her.
"Good morning, I'm Rose, Efe's friend, and colleague... Is he around?"
"Woah, so you're the Rose he is always talking about, nice," Grace said, scanning Rose with her eyes. She was just like Efe described, of average height, dark-skinned, beautiful.
"Uhm, who are you?" Rose said to Grace.
"Efe's younger sister, hold on... Bros Efe!" Grace screamed.
"Keep quiet, we have neighbors you know--" Efe's scolding was cut short as soon as he set his eyes on Rose. "Rose," He said with a gawky stare. "Wh- what are you doing here?"
"Didn't you get my text last night?" She asked.
Suddenly Efe remembered he had left his phone on airplane mode since yesterday.
"Shit! Stupid airplane mode." He said, hitting his head with his palm.
"What did it say?"
"Well the debate went well and since it was your idea to attack those greedy candidates, I figured it would only be proper if you wrote the paper yourself."
"What? No, you shouldn't have. You practically covered for me and saw it through all by yourself. You should write a paper."
"Okay then, see it as my original peace offering for always pissing you off with my tardiness."
"Rose," Efe said as he continued his awkward stare at her face. Her generosity made her look more beautiful to him.
"Efe!" Grace then gave a gesture with her hands to invite Rose in.
"Oh, where are my manners," He said with a nervous chuckle. "Please come in."
"You talk about tardiness but you arrived quite early," Grace said as Rose took a seat on the sofa. "Didn't you go to church or something?"
"Oh I did," Rose replied, her full smile not still breaking an inch. "I'm Catholic and I was just coming from our morning mass."
Things were beginning to look awkward with the three of them in the living room and Efe wasn't helping matters as he stood with his night robe, rubbing the back of his neck. Grace wondered for how long Rose had been having feelings for her brother, and how stupid Efe was to be so clueless not to notice anything.
"I think I'm going to go take my bath now while you two work on your work." She said with a smile as she walked backward slowly. "Nice to meet you, Miss Rose."
"Nice to meet you," Rose replied.
Grace gave a slight nod then turned to Efe with a glare as she mouthed the words 'You're hopeless' to him before heading towards the bedroom.