Black Sparkle Romance by AMARA NICOLE OKOLO Page A

pot on the stove and they were discussing which sauce he should make when his phone rang. He looked at the screen. “It’s Ajoke,” he said with a sigh. “Give me a minute please.”
    She smiled as he left the kitchen and walked into the living room, but, as he turned his back to her to answer the call, her face creased into a sceptical frown. Why was Ajoke calling him? She knew she shouldn’t be suspicious (it wasn’t like she was his girlfriend or anything), but sometimes she wondered at the closeness Ajoke and Dominic shared. It seemed platonic, but on some occasions it felt so … wrong. For starters, why is that girl calling him at such an odd hour? And for goodness’ sake why did Dominic leave the kitchen to answer the call? The thoughts rammed her skull like an angry bull charging at a matador, and Mira felt her nerves go numb with weariness.
    Oooh, jealous much, aren’t we, Mira? Her Rational Mind piped in. She framed a retort for it but just then Dominic returned with an easy grin on his face. “She said something about a leaking roof, but then I told her you were over here at my place.” He began chopping the onion and celery sticks.
    Her eyebrows came together. “And is she OK with that?”
    He seemed surprised. “Of course, why wouldn’t she be?” he chuckled. “Ajoke is actually stronger than Rufus made her out to be, you know.” He let out a breath and rubbed his palms rapidly together. “Now enough chitchat … let’s get cooking!”
    He cooked a meal of spaghetti, tomato sauce and fried fish. Fifteen minutes later they were sitting in the living room with a bottle of wine, ready to eat. She took a forkful and nodded her amazement. “Wow, not bad. It actually tastes nice.”
    He chuckled. “It tastes more than nice. You just don’t want to admit it. Go on, tell the truth – I am Gordon Ramsay’s rival.”
    She raised her eyebrows at him with amusement. “Please. Don’t get all puffed up … everyone can cook spaghetti. Your culinary skills are still limited to water and pasta!” she laughed and he joined in. They sat in companionable silence, eating and listening to the rain outside.
    Mira looked around the room. It was spacious and bold-coloured. Apart from the brown leather sofas, glasstable with Persian rug underneath, a plasma TV and framed photographs he had taken on the wall, everything else belonged to a century or two before. A cane rocking chair stood by a window. There was an old Singer sewing machine in the corner. Several knick-knacks and two vases of pink roses sat on a small table next to the chair, and a picture with the word ‘Dominic’ hand-stitched in wool hung above it. He saw her looking at it. “That was a gift from my grandmother. She was very creative and stitched my name herself in those words. She died four years ago; I framed it afterwards.”
    “It’s so beautiful,” Mira said. She gestured at the old furniture. “Were these all hers?”
    “Yes, this was her house too. See, the thing is, I grew up here. My dad died when I was two and my mum left me with my grandmother and travelled to London for some … business. I spent a lot of my formative years here.”
    “That’s why you interact well with the locals. You know the terrain.”
    “Yes. I discovered my talents here too. Grandma wasn’t just an artist … she was also a tailor. But most times she sat on that rocking chair, looking out of the window and drawing anything that came to her mind.” He smiled at the memory. “On my 15th birthday, she gave me a camera. We read the manual and went out to the beach where we spent the afternoon taking pictures. When we had them developed, she noticed how unusualmy pictures were and she said, ‘Dominic, I think you should study photography.’ I was almost done with secondary school and was still at a loss as to what to study at university. So when grandma said that, I knew that was it … I was destined to learn photography as both an art and a