Charles turned the lamp on and watched Rachael sleep for a long while, sitting in the chair next to the bed. He had the photos in his hand, still folded.
He kept his eyes focused on her until he saw Steve in her. She indeed was the female version of her brother and vice versa. Charles didn't give a shit if Steve was her brother or not, as long as he was keeping a grudge against him, he was going to make sure that he didn't end up victorious in what he was plotting.
It had all been Steve using Vivian to get back at him. Since Steve was using his past against him, he was going to use the present. He knew just what to do. And that was what he was going to do.
Break them apart.
Rachael eyes fluttered, then opened. She rubbed them with the back of her hand, yawning sleepily. She glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside. It was few minutes after midnight.
Charles watched her sit up on the bed, not uttering a word to her. This was exactly what he wanted.
The best time to react, he believed, was when you are angry. Never sleep with anger, or you won't take the actions you wanted to take when you was angry.
Even the law says it. When you and someone are having a fight, and, in the process, holding all factors constant, the person dies, you will be charged with man slaughter. But when the fight ends and you have an aforethought, then you go and kill the person it is murder. When you deliberately kill a person it is murder, but when you mistakenly kill them it's man slaughter.
Charles was not going to sleep with the boiling anger in him. He had to act fast so Steve could feel his wrath. The more he wasted time, the more it was inevitable for Steve to carry out his other plans. He wasn't going to let that happen.
"Sometimes, to understand why our lives are going in awkward routes, we have to to know who our real enemies are," Charles began saying before Rachael could ask him why he was still up. "The next thing to do is get raid of
our enemies before they eliminate us."
Rachael didn't understand what his lamentations were all about. She didn't care to know. She was still angry with him. What she was going through wasn't an easy thing.
"Charles, it's the middle of the night, you know that, right? I had a very rough day. Don't give me a rough night," she said to him, tucking herself back under the duvet.
"I have something important to tell you, Rachael," Charles said, waiting for her to sit back up.
"Keep it for the morning."
Rachael didn't want to know what he had to tell her. Even if it was the secret he was keeping from her, she wouldn't get up. She didn't want to have a rough night. That was that.
Whatever that made Charles cancel their wedding, that made him throw away millions of dollars, had to be gigantic enough to ruin her night. She had already cried enough. No more crying.
"I'd rather talk about this now, Babe. This is for our own good," he stated.
Did he even care about their own good, Rachael asked herself. If he really did, he wouldn't have done what he did.
"I need to sleep Charles," Rachael groaned. She ducked her hands deep into the bed, agitated.
"What's more important: sleep? Or knowing the mean reason why Vivian showed up at our wedding?" he said those words, knowing fully well they were going to lift Rachael up on the bed.
And they did. Rachael sat up on the bed, stared at him for a very long time; sighed. She had said she wouldn't have gotten up even if Charles was about to tell her the secret. The fact that Charles said the words himself made her forget what she had said.
"I'm listening, Charles," she said to him after a long while of absolute quietude. She placed one pillow between her legs and wrapped them around it.
Charles threw the folded pictures at her on the bed. They landed right on the pillow. She held them in her hand, gazed at him shortly, and slowly opened the pictures.
The light in the room wasn't enough so she asked him to turn the light bulb on. She waited for him to put the light on and take his seat. Her irides were still adjusting to the bright light. The little black balls that swim across people's vision when they come in contact with a bright light, after a long moment in the darkness, swam before her eyes.
Like Charles, Rachael was petrified when she saw the pictures. She brought them up closer, looking at both of them second after second.
"That's our real enemy there, Rachael, Steve," Charles stated, beginning to play on her mind. "He's the only one I can think about who doesn't want us to get married."
Rachael was confused. She couldn't understand why Steve would do such a thing to her; why he would choose to humiliate her publicly.
"But why would he?" She asked, depressed. "Why would he spoil my wedding?"
Charles got up from the chair. He walked to the bed and sat next to Rachael.
"Steve never wanted that wedding to go on. He never wanted me to get married to you, not after I'd won a girl over him when we attended UL together."
Rachael glanced up at him when he talked about a girl in UL.
"I don't understand," she said to him.
"About a couple of years ago, maybe eight or so, Steve and I attended UL together. That was before we travelled out of Liberia to study. She was between the both of us. She claimed to have liked us both. But Steve made her choose between us."
"She chose you," Rachael stated. "So that's why he never approved of our relationship. Because you two were rivals from university? All because of a damn university girl Steve destroyed my wedding?" She was boiling with anger. The anger in her was swirling every passing second.
"Yes, Rachael. Because of a damn university girl who we don't even know where she is now." He was adding fuel to fire. Igniting Rachael.
Charles knew exactly where that girl was. He didn't want to tell Rachael. She was going to tell Steve. Steve needn't to know where she was.
"How could he do that to me?" Her anger turned to pain when she asked herself that question.
"That's a question for him, Rachael."
Rachael put the pillow aside, removed the duvet from over her leg, and got down from the bed. She walked over to her closet, opened it and began searching through.
"Where are you going?" Charles asked her when she pulled out an olive green dress from the closet.
"I'm going to meet Steve right now. He has to explain all of this to me. He has to tell me why he's so selfish," she replied angrily, almost out of breath. She threw the robe she was wearing on the ground.
Charles rushed over to her, stopped her from taking her nightgown off. He held her by the waist. "No, baby, it's very late. You can't go out at this time of the night." Charles pleaded with her. "You're angry right now. Just go to bed and cool off. You said you needed sleep, right? Go get it."
"Not anymore. I will not be able to sleep if I don't talk to Steve." She didn't fight much to get him off. She wanted him touching her. She did miss his touch.
"Don't worry, I will help you sleep," he said, taking the dress from her. He placed it on the chair as he carried her to the bed.
They got in the bed and cuddled.
♦️♦️♦️♦️
A sedan parked right in front of Thomas. He glanced in through the front window and saw a boy who was certainly the same age as he, dark skin, short black hair, wonderful dark, dry pink lips, and cute.
"Are you getting in? Or you just going to keep staring at me like that?" The boy asked him, bringing him out of his head.
Thomas got in the car. "Where is grandpa?" He asked the boy, avoiding looking at him directly. More like avoiding getting hypnotised by his beauty.
"He's an old man, Thomas. You don't expect him to be driving around in the middle of the night, do you?"
Thomas didn't answer. He had expected a more gentle reply than that. Cuteness wasn't gentleness.
They remained silent for a while.
"I'm Maxwell," he said, darted his eyes at Thomas. "I'm not your cousin if that's what you're thinking. But you can consider me as your cousin because grandpa considers me as his grandson."
Thomas didn't need to tell Maxwell about himself. Maxwell already knew his name before they could meet, so he definitely knew many things about him. He didn't speak.
After what felt like an hour, they got off the main road. There wasn't any house to see, only tall trees. They arrived at a house made of woods. It was painted brown on the outside. No major decoration. Just an all-brown house standing in the middle of trees. Isolated.
Maxwell shut the engine and got down. Thomas followed him up the small trio of stairs, noting that he was taller than Maxwell.
Thomas was mesmerised when they entered the house. It was far different from how it looked on the outside. Beautiful. Well-furnished. It was even larger.
"Where is grandpa?" Thomas asked for the second time when they entered the house.
"You will meet 'grandpa' tomorrow. He's sleeping right now," Maxwell replied, sounding nicer than before.
"But I talked to him. He sounded awake." He stood up beside the fireplace in the living room. It looked like it had never been used since made. New. No black marks on it's interior.
"Do you realise that was an hour plus a half ago? Let the old man rest, kiddo. You'll meet your grandpa in the morning." Maxwell continued walking.
He opened a door and walked in. It was dark inside. Thomas followed. Maxwell walked in the dark room like it was day, or he had a magical bulb planted in his eyes. He turned the lamp on.
There weren't many thing in the room. A bed that had one side so close to the wall that you could touch it without falling off while asleep, a mini closet, a dresser and blue paint. That was all. No working table or chair. No extra room decor.
"Oh, another thing. We will be sharing the same room tonight," Maxwell said, taking his shirt off. Hot. "You called on a short notice. There was no way to prepare you a room." He took his shoes off and got on the bed.
So he was going to sleep in the same room with his hot considered-cousin, shirtless, on the same bed that could barely contain two persons without them touching?
Thomas was tired. Too, tired to think about crazy things. Too, heartbroken to think about hot boys. He got on the bed.
"Can you please turn the lamp off?" Maxwell told him, yawning. Thomas did. "It's hot on this side of the country all through. Even grandpa sleeps with his shirt off," Maxwell said.
That explained why the fireplace had never been used before. They were closer to the sun on that side of the country.
Thomas was already feeling hot. He didn't want to argue about it. He shrugged his shirt off. Their skins brushed together. Thomas moved away, almost at the edge of the bed.
"Goodnight considered-cousin, Maxwell," Thomas said closing his eyes.
"Night, Tommy. Be careful, or you'll fall off the bed."
The room went quiet after. Nobody said another word.