Love At Last

CAYDEN’S RETURN

That evening, after what seemed like forever, Cayden called and told me he was back in town and that he was already heading to my house from the airport. I felt excited to hear his voice again but at the same time, I was mad at him for keeping me hanging for days. I saved the earful I wanted to give him on the phone, for later when he would appear before me.

Thirty minutes later after nana left the house, I heard my doorbell ring and it was Cayden!

“Seriously?!” I didn’t even usher him in yet before I thought to reprimand him. In a bid to calm me down, he drew me into his embrace immediately and held on to me tightly.

“I’ve missed you so much my love,” he cuddled me tightly.

I was in no mood to let my anger and vexation be dissolved easily so I pushed him. “Your antics won’t work on me this time, mister. Back off!” I said not smiling.

“Believe me when I say I’m deeply sorry for everything, darling. Honestly, I didn’t intend for things to go down the way they did,” he apologized warmly.

“I called you, Cayden! I called you so many times! Do you know how worried I was?! I thought something bad had happened to you!” I scolded.

“I’m so sorry. Honestly, I’d forgotten my phone in my car I left at the airport and there was no way to reach you. It’s been hell without you my love. Please let me hold you for just one minute,” he walked to me, with his arms wide open beckoning for another hug. I retraced my steps thereby widening the distance between us to show him I was not even playing.

“I’m still angry with you, that excuse is not acceptable to me,” I turned my back on him when he finally closed the distance between us.

“I’m sorry Lily. I got called to work on an impromptu notice,” he placed both hands on my shoulders as he tried to explain his predicament to me but I wasn’t paying him any attention. “Let me show you something.” He brought out his phone and showed me what seemed like text messages.

“What’s this?” I took the phone from him.

“Just read,” he urged.

I read through the texts and it was supposedly official, turned out he left on getting impromptu requests from some colleague of some sort. While reading through, I paused when I saw a logo imprinted on a letterheaded paper sent to him via the texts. I very much recognized the logo – Grey’s Empire – and felt shivers run through my spine. I went silent and just stared all frozen.

“Lily?” he tapped me gently on my shoulders and reminded me of his presence. “What’s wrong? Why are you not saying anything?”

“Why’s this logo here?” I held out the phone to him, displaying the picture.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“It’s obviously an official text so it’s a given that that’s there.”

“Grey’s Empire?” I voiced.

“Yeah?”

“Is this where you work?” returning my gaze to the screen, I asked.

“Yeah, any problem?” Cayden must have been confused as to why I took particular interest in that but at that point, I just could not help it. I had a bigger matter on ground.

Lost in the pool of my thoughts, all jumbled up, different thoughts raced through. My man worked for my father whom I was not in good terms with and was forced to cut ties with. I still found it hard to process in my thoughts, the fact that my past may come back at anytime to haunt me down and screw me up for good. I stared intently at the picture, not knowing exactly how to proceed. ‘Was I just unfortunate or was life teasing me all this while by giving me a moment of peace and tranquility?’. It was then I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about the man I claimed to love dearly while he on the other hand walked with me through virtually all my major ordeals.

“Lily?” he called my attention using a serene tone. “Is there an issue with the logo?”

“Not really.”

“Then why won’t you talk to me. I said I’m sorry, okay? Please don’t stay mad at me, I hate it when you do,” he pleaded.

“For how long have you been working here?”

“Ummm…a while now. Why do you ask?” He was obviously bemused at why I was so hung up on that logo. “Do you have an issue with it or something?”

I put my acts together and faced him again. “Not really,” handing him over his phone, I feigned a smile and embraced him to flush down his confusion and anxiety.

“I missed you so much,” he cuddled tightly.

” I missed you too.”

“Let’s go out on a date some time to catch up on all the times we’ve lost together. What do you say?”

“A date?” I pulled back a little from his embrace, still wrapped in his arms.

“Yes, date.”

There was no way I was going do say no to his proposal. I needed to learn all I had to while I was at it. The idea that he knew almost everything about me – my family and the circumstances surrounding them – and I knew almost nothing about him, didn’t sit quite well with me. I discerned it was best I drew even closer to him to feed the insatiable curiosity I felt welling up in me at the time. “Sure!” I gave in without giving it a second thought.

“Sure?” I affirmed by nodding my head continuously.

“I love you so much and I’m sorry once again.”

“It’s okay. You’re forgiven.” I smiled affectionately.

He pecked me on the cheek and returned to cuddling me tightly. Although I could see from the looks of his face, he felt I was a bit uneasy; guess he wanted to ease the tension by not asking further questions and just went with the flow.