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EPISODE FIVE
“Iremi,” Uchenna says quietly, his voice cutting through the heavy air. “Who exactly was Tobi to you?”
For the first time since she met him at his sister’s house, she sees something brand new flicker across his features. It isn’t the sharp flash of jealousy or the hard lines of anger. It is something much quieter.
Uchenna looks away, his gaze dropping to the hardwood floor. He gives a small shake of his head. A laugh slips out, quiet and empty. Without a single drop of humor.
“Was this recent?” he asks, looking back up, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studies her face. “Because I haven’t heard you mention any Tobi to me. I haven’t even heard Shade talk about any other man.”
Iremide blinks, her fingers instantly curling into the seam of her high-waisted jeans. “Tobi was... complicated, Uche. Nothing happened between us.”
Uchenna waits.
Iremide presses her lips together. “People just assumed we would eventually end up together.”
“Did you?”
Her gaze drops. “That’s not important.”
Uchenna’s thumb rubs slowly against the side of his phone. It is a restless, nervous habit she has rarely ever seen him display.
“Iremi, you looked terrified,” he says, his voice flat and even. “You looked like there was a whole part of your life you wanted hidden from me.”
Her mouth opens, then closes again.
Silence stretches between them.
His dark eyes find hers again. They aren’t cold. They are warm, hurt, and honest. Heat crawls up her neck. She drops her gaze. She can’t bear to look at him. Because he is right. The living room suddenly feels much smaller, the air thick and warm.
She looks down at her slippers. The grain of the hardwood floor blurs slightly.
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you, Uchenna.”
“You were.”
The correction comes gently. He isn’t accusing her. He is simply stating a fact.
She swallows the dry lump in her throat. “Because it is nothing. It’s not a big deal.”
“Iremi.” His voice softens even further, dropping into that deep tone that usually grounds her. “I married you.”
Something tight in her chest cracks wide open.
"Iremi, I married all of you. Not just the parts you think are easy to show me. But right now, "I'm scared you don't trust me enough to let me in," he says, taking half a step forward.
The words settle heavily in the space between them. Tender. Dangerous.
“Uchenna, why would you think I don’t trust you? Let’s not make a whole mountain out of a mole—” She forces a loud, airy laugh, her typical defense mechanism kicking into overdrive as she tries to turn it into a joke. But the words die in her throat.
Uchenna isn’t smiling. He looks completely serious, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes waiting for real honesty, not another comedic deflection.
She walks slowly toward the kitchen island, her shoulders drooping as she sinks onto one of the barstools. Her prayer journal still lies exactly where she left it. Open. The pages are half-filled with her chaotic, scribbled prayer points against the multiplication of triplets. Somehow, the sight of her own handwriting makes her throat tighten until she wants to cry.
Uchenna remains standing by the couch, turning his body to face her. He doesn’t press into her space. He gives her room to breathe. He just waits.
The silence stretches until her ears ring.
Finally, she whispers into the quiet room, “Everybody keeps telling me how lucky I am. I know I am.”
Uchenna’s brows pull together, a small crease appearing between his eyes.
She stares fixedly at the marble countertop, her index finger tracing invisible, tight circles over the polished stone. “I know you are a good man to me. Unlike my past relationships that barely lasted because I said I was keeping myself for marriage. The moment I said no, they packed their bags and left. I have never had a single relationship that lasted up to six months before I met you.”
Uchenna doesn’t interrupt. His breathing shifts, becoming slower, more deliberate.
A shaky, breathless laugh escapes her lips. “You are almost annoyingly good to me, Uche.”
A tiny, involuntary smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, but it disappears just as quickly.
She keeps talking, her words coming faster now. She knows if she stops to take a breath, she will lock down and never finish. “You make this whole marriage look so easy.”
Uchenna’s forehead creases. He slides his phone into his shorts pocket and takes three long, measured strides toward the island, stopping just short of her stool. “What does that mean?”
Her fingers curl tightly into the edge of the marble counter. “It means I keep waiting for the difficult part to start.”
The entire room goes still. Outside, far beyond the estate walls, a neighborhood dog barks faintly. Inside, the quiet is absolute. Iremide keeps her eyes glued to the counter, unable to lift her gaze to meet his.
“For years, all I ever heard were stories,” she says, her voice growing smaller, dropping into a whisper. “Everyone says marriage changes men the moment the ring slips on.”
She lets out a weak, bitter laugh. “They say marriage is endurance.”
She pauses, her chest heaving.
“They say marriage is sacrifice.”
Another sharp pause.
“They say marriage is suffering for the woman.”
The words feel like sandpaper scraping against her throat. She shrugs her shoulders—a small, helpless movement. “Everybody said it, Uche. Everybody.”
Her eyes burn unexpectedly, a sudden film of tears blurring the counter.
Uchenna’s expression softens, his shoulders dropping. “Iremi—”
“So when you are kind to me...” she continues quickly, blinking rapidly to clear her vision, her voice cracking as she forces the truth out. “When you actually listen to my rants. When you are patient with my chaos. When you actually care about what I think and what I want...”
She immediately looks away toward the refrigerator, her face flushing with deep embarrassment and shame.
“A huge part of me just keeps waiting for it to stop.”
Uchenna goes completely rigid.
The jokes. The excuses. The endless detours.
Beneath all of them was the same fear: that one day this gentle version of him would disappear, and her marriage would become the exact story everyone had warned her about.
Slowly, Uchenna closes the remaining inches between them.
He reaches out for her hand. His movement carries no force, no sudden urgency—just a quiet, grounding weight. His broad fingers wrap around her smaller ones, his palms radiating a steady, comforting warmth that immediately cuts through her panic.
“Iremide.”
She forces her gaze up from the marble counter.
His dark eyes are shiny. He doesn’t look angry anymore. He just looks at her quietly.
“You know the funny thing?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
“What?”
“I’ve been completely terrified too.”
Iremide blinks, the air catching in her throat. “What?”
A small, genuine smile breaks across his lips. “I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours wondering when you would finally realize that I snore occasionally when I’m exhausted, or that I leave my things scattered everywhere. I was genuinely worried you would dislike living with the real me. Or worse, that you weren’t even truly attracted to me.”
A sudden, sharp laugh bursts out of her before she can choke it back.
Uchenna’s grin widens, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “There she is. My baby.”
She quickly swipes the pad of her thumb beneath her eyes, clearing the moisture before it can drop. “You are not serious, Uche.”
“I am very serious.”
“You don’t even snore nau.”
“I do when my body is totally crashed.”
“You don’t,” she insists, her chest finally loosening.
“I do. I was just praying you wouldn’t find out on night one.”
The absurd image of the perfectly organized Uchenna Okoye worrying about snoring breaks the final layer of her defense. A proper, bright laugh escapes her lips, filling the kitchen space with its usual familiar sound.
Uchenna watches her face lift, his expression softening as he lifts her hand to his mouth. He presses a slow, intentional kiss against her knuckles, his breath warm against her skin.
“Iremi.”
Her smile turns tender, her shoulders dropping. “Hmm?”
“Is that the real reason you are running away from consummating this marriage?” He doesn’t let go of her hand; instead, his thumb begins to brush light, soothing circles across her knuckles. “I’ve been sitting here thinking I did something wrong, or that you were repulsed by me. Because I know you well enough to know you aren’t on your monthly cycle.”
Iremide’s fingers stiffen slightly in his grip.
“Baby, I've known you long enough to know something isn't adding up,” Uchenna continues gently, his eyes locking onto hers. “You are never this hyperactive. You’ve been spinning around this house with so much drama and chaos since Saturday morning. I know you are playful, baby, but this performance is on a whole different level. It means you are hiding behind a shield because you are scared.”
Iremide sighs heavily, her gaze slipping past his shoulder toward the kitchen window to avoid his eyes. “Uche, look at yourself. You are incredibly handsome. I am highly, physically attracted to you… and I am not scared.”
“You are,” he counters softly, his voice leaving no room for her usual deflections. “We courted for months, Iremi. I know your facial expressions. Isn’t this why you tried to trap me with a seven-day fast against intimacy? Isn’t that why you were shouting those wild, endless prayers over my hands earlier?”
Iremide shifts uncomfortably on the high barstool, her lips tight as she keeps her eyes fixed on his chest, refusing to look up. She remains silent.
“Why are you scared, baby?” Uchenna’s voice drops into a quiet, tender rasp. “Do you think it will hurt too much? Or are you just feeling shy?”
“Both,” she says, the word slipping out so quietly it is almost swallowed by the kitchen air. She looks down at where his large hand blankets hers. “I know you are probably tired of me dodging you. But I am just terrified you won’t like what you see when I am undressed. And... I’m scared of the pain too.”
Before Uchenna can offer a single word of reassurance, the heavy vibration of his phone explodes in his shorts pocket.
BZZZZ.
He frowns, pulling the device out. The screen flashes brightly with a single name: Janet.
Uchenna lets out a long, slow exhale through his nose. Without a word, he taps the side button to silence the call, hiding the glowing screen, and slides the phone back into his pocket.
“You don’t want to pick that up?” Iremide asks, finally lifting her eyes to meet his.
“No, baby. It’s just Janet,” Uchenna says, a small, reassuring smile returning to his face. “I don’t know why she is calling my personal line at this time of the evening. I explicitly told everyone at the office to respect my hours this month. I just got married, for God’s sake.”
Iremide nods slowly, a familiar tight feeling settling in her chest. She knows Janet. The woman has always been notorious for calling Uchenna at the most random hours for urgent work issues, even interrupting a few of their dates during courtship.
Uchenna pulls up the second barstool, sitting directly opposite her so their knees brush. He takes her face gently between his wide palms, forcing her to look straight into his eyes.
“Let’s go to a private resort for a quick staycation,” he suggests, his thumbs lightly tracing her cheekbones. “Our official honeymoon isn’t for another two weeks, but I think getting out of this house and doing something exciting together will help ease all this tension in your shoulders.”
Iremide immediately shakes her head, her hands coming up to gently grasp his wrists. “No, Uche, I can’t leave right now. My students need me. Most of those kids are homeschooled and don’t go to traditional schools. I have to be there for them. I already gave their parents a definitive date for when I’ll be traveling in two weeks. Leaving for a resort now would mean abandoning those children for more than a month.”
She pauses, her cheeks flushing a deep, furious pink as she looks down at his chest. “And besides... I want our first time to be right here. In our own home. Isn’t that why you spent all that money building this home and furnishing it to my taste?”
Uchenna stares at her, his expression visibly softening at her words. He lets out a quiet breath, his hands sliding down from her cheeks to anchor securely on her waist.
“Okay,” he murmurs, his dark eyes fixed on her lips. “We won’t be having sex for the next forty-eight hours, just like we agreed, even though we both know your period is a myth. But hear the new plan: we are going to try every other form of intimacy. We have only really kissed once since Saturday, Iremi, and that starvation is officially ending today.”
Iremide’s heart skips a frantic beat against her ribs.
“Physical touch is my absolute favorite love language,” Uchenna warns, his lips twitching with a wicked, teasing grin as his hands tighten slightly around her waist. “So you are going to be receiving a whole lot of it. Okay?”
Iremide can only manage a small, breathless nod.
Uchenna leans forward, his broad chest colliding gently with hers as he pulls her into a deep, consuming hug. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, right beside her bonnet. “I love you so much, Iremide. Please, stop using other people’s failed marriages as a yardstick to judge what we are building here. We are going to grow old together.”
Iremide closes her eyes, her arms wrapping around his neck as she inhales his clean, soapy scent. “I am going to hold you tightly to those words, Uche.”
“Please do, Mrs. Okoye,” he whispers against her skin. “Please do.”
“Baby, come over,” Uchenna calls out, his deep voice bouncing off the bedroom walls. “Sister Ada is calling me on video.”
Iremide abandons the pile of nightwear she is trying to smooth out inside the brown wood wardrobe. A bright smile automatically takes over her face as she crosses the thick brown rug toward the bed. Uchenna is propped upright against the headboard, his laptop balancing securely on his thighs.
She slides onto the mattress, digging her bare toes into the duvet as she angles her shoulders into the camera frame next to him. The screen connection clicks through, displaying a brightly lit children’s nursery.
“Good evening, Mummy Eric!” Iremide greets instantly, leaning forward so her bonnet fills the right corner of the screen.
“How are you, smally?” Ada’s sharp, clear voice echoes from the speaker. She looks up from a stack of children’s picture books, her expression immediately softening.
“Fine, ma,” Iremide says, her smile stretching even wider.
“Uchenna, kedu?” Ada asks, her eyes shifting to her brother.
“Adị m mma, Sister,” Uchenna replies, his thumb tapping steady against the side of his laptop trackpad.
“Good, good. I hope you are taking proper care of Iremide? She is an absolute gem to my kids, a truly wonderful woman.”
“Yes, Sister, I know all about that,” Uchenna says, a teasing glint in his eye as he looks from the screen to his wife. “You have told me a million times already.”
“Daalụ. Let me leave you two alone, okay? I will visit properly after you get back from the honeymoon.”
Iremide nods rapidly. “Okay, ma. Thank you so much, ma.”
“Take care of yourselves, biko,” Ada adds, waving just before the screen goes black.
Iremide breathes a small sigh of relief and makes a move to slide off the edge of the mattress. Before her feet can even touch the cold floor, Uchenna’s large hand wraps around her forearm, pulling her right back into the center of the bed.
Her pulse gives a sudden, heavy thud against her ribs. “Uchenna.”
“Why are you trying to run away?” he asks, his grip firm but gentle.
“I am not running away,” she says immediately, the words tumbling out in a fast rush. “I just want to go back and arrange my clothes properly inside the wardrobe. I disorganized the whole thing while trying to pick what to wear tonight. And besides, you're drafting the official thank-you messages for our wedding guests to send out tomorrow. You're very busy too.”
“I am not busy at all.” Uchenna snaps his laptop shut with a sharp click and slides it onto the bedside table.
With one smooth, deliberate motion, he hooks his arm around her waist and pulls her closer. Iremide loses her balance, her hands flying out instinctively as she falls forward, her chest colliding softly with his.
His free hand moves up to the edge of her satin bonnet, his fingers brushing the nape of her neck as he gently lifts her chin, forcing her head up to meet his gaze. His other arm tightens around her waist, grounding her lower body against his, erasing the last bit of distance between them.
“Uchenna,” she whispers, her voice barely carrying across the sheets.
A sudden wave of goosebumps breaks across her skin. The bedroom air conditioner feels ten times colder all of a sudden, but where their bodies touch, a fierce, terrifying heat is blooming. Her fingers curl into tight fists, pressing hard against his cotton nightwear, trying to find her bearings.
Uchenna doesn't break eye contact. His thumb reaches up, tracing the trembling line of her jawline, stabilizing her. “You don’t have to be afraid with me, Iremi. Never with me.”
The words don’t just hit her ears; they settle somewhere deep inside her spirit, silencing the loud, mocking echoes of every failed story she has ever heard. Before she can even whisper a response, he presses a lingering kiss to her forehead. It isn’t rushed or demanding. It is heavy, steady, and sealed like an absolute promise.
For the first time since she walked down the aisle, something tight and defensive inside her chest finally snaps open.
Maybe she didn’t have to spend this marriage waiting for disaster. Maybe she could simply allow herself to be loved.
Iremide nods slowly, her forehead scraping against his jaw.
The playful, teasing guy from the kitchen is gone, replaced by a man looking at his wife with a gravity that makes her throat dry. His gaze slowly drops from her wide eyes down to her lower lip. He lingers there for three incredibly long beats, his own chest rising and falling with a deep, heavy breath that shudders against her collarbone, before he leans down to claim her mouth.
Iremide’s entire body goes rigid, a gasp trapped in her throat. She squeezes her eyelids shut, her legs trembling under the weight of an emotion too large for her chest. She lifts her hands, flattening her palms against his chest as if to hold him at bay, but the sheer, breathtaking depth of the kiss melts her resistance down to the bone.
This feels completely different. The careful, holy restraint Uchenna has carried since their wedding day doesn’t just crack—it shatters entirely. He kisses her like a man relieved to finally arrive at his destination, like someone who has starved for her even while sharing the same house. It is a protective, consuming weight, a silent declaration that she belongs to him, and he to her.
“Uchenna...” she gasps out against his lips the very second he pauses for air, her mind reeling from the intensity.
Uchenna pulls back just an inch, his forehead resting lightly against hers, his nose brushing hers in the dark. His breath is hot and rough against her skin, his heart hammering a rushed, echoing tempo straight into her own chest.
“Do you want me to stop, baby?” he rasps, his fingers tightening on her waist.
Iremide’s chest heaves. She keeps her eyes locked shut, her cheeks burning with an extreme shyness, but the old, lingering fear is gone, swallowed up by the absolute safety of his arms. She swallows hard, her tight fists finally opening, her fingers flattening over his rapid heartbeat in a gesture of total, silent surrender.
“I... I...” She exhales softly, the words slipping past her lips in a tender confession. “I like the kiss, Uche.”
A low, deep chuckle rumbles from Uchenna’s throat, vibrating straight into her chest—a sound of pure, masculine victory and deep relief. “I love the sound of that.”
He doesn’t give her another second to overthink. He leans right back down, his lips sealing over hers once more, drawing her into a deeper, more sacred quiet until the rest of the cold room, the fears of the present, and the entire world vanish around them.
Hello Family, I haven’t decided our official posting days, until we have an official days, this will be coming into your inbox at least twice a week
We can see Iremide is improving gradually 🙈
Kindly engage if you enjoy this 🥹
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"I know you well enough to know that you're not on your monthly cycle".
I'm satttttttt!😂
Awww. Ire is such a baby after all . I’m just glad they’ve finally spoke about it . And your note clarifying stuff also made me see things from Ire’s perspective. Everything is easier in theory .
But was that a deflect on who Tobi was or I missed it
And please Janet, get down fast 😂