Chapter 1 The Rivals
Samantha “Sammie” Okoye had hated Tosin Adebayo long before she knew his full name carried weight.
It began in a second-year African Literature seminar at the University of Abuja. The room smelled of old books and harmattan dust. Sammie sat near the window, braids tied high, defending Kambili’s quiet strength in Purple Hibiscus with the kind of fire that made lecturers pause.
Then Tosin spoke.
He leaned forward in the middle row tall, shoulders broad under a perfectly ironed shirt, voice low and measured like he was reading from a script
“Kambili’s silence isn’t strength,” he said. “It’s trauma wearing a crown of virtue. We romanticise suffering too easily here.”
The class went still.
Sammie turned so fast her braids whipped her cheek.
“Some people survive by staying alive first,” she said, voice sharp. “Not everything has to scream to be powerful.”
Tosin met her eyes without flinching. “Staying alive isn’t the same as living.”
She wanted to throw something. Preferably at his calm, annoyingly handsome face.
From that day, they were locked in war.
Every seminar became a duel. Group projects were mutually assured destruction. Their third-year joint presentation had them trading increasingly vicious comments in Google Docs until 2:17 a.m. in the empty library, voices rising until the night guard threatened to lock them inside. They still scored an A.
Graduation should have ended it.
It didn’t.
Somehow through some cruel cosmic joke they both landed at the same boutique creative agency in Abuja. Now, in 2026, Sammie still braced whenever she heard his low laugh drift across the open-plan floor. Tosin still raised one brow every Monday when she walked in wearing red (he’d once called it her “aggression colour”; she’d worn it religiously since).
They kept it professional. Barely.
Then the Lagos pitch arrived.
A major travel brand wanted a campaign that would make people feel something. The agency needed two creatives to fly down, lock themselves in a hotel suite for four days, and come back with gold. The creative director looked between them with a grin that said he knew exactly what he was doing.
“You two fight like you’ve been married for ten years,” he said. “Channel it.”
They didn’t speak the entire flight.
The suite overlooked the Atlantic floor-to-ceiling windows, connected living area, two separate bedrooms. One long neutral sofa that already felt like a battlefield.
Day one: tense brainstorming.
Day two: silent marathons broken only by “That’s flat” / “Then fix it.”
Day three, the rain came.
Not ordinary rain. Lagos rain thunder that sounded like the sky was tearing open, power cut, generator taking its sweet time. Darkness except for lightning flashes and the blue glow of their laptops.
They ended up on the living-room floor, mood boards scattered like casualties, arguing over whether the tagline should chase dreams or echo memory.
“You always want everything wrapped in nostalgia,” Tosin muttered, rubbing his temples.
“And you always want everything cold and clinical,” Sammie shot back.
Lightning cracked. It lit his face sharp jaw, tired eyes, the top button of his shirt undone.
It also lit the faint scar above his left eyebrow.
She asked before she could stop herself. “How did you get that?”
He touched it absently. “Bike accident. Twelve years old. Chasing my sister. She was faster.”
Sammie blinked. “You have a sister?”
“Had.” His voice dropped so low she almost missed it. “Car accident. Six years ago.”
The storm outside roared louder in the sudden quiet between them.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He shrugged, but his shoulders stayed rigid.
She didn’t know why she reached out. Maybe the dark. Maybe the rain. Maybe seeing him look human for the first time in four years.
Her thumb brushed the scar soft, tentative.
Tosin went completely still.
She should have pulled away.
Instead the space between them vanished.
In the next flash of lightning their eyes met raw, unguarded.
He leaned in first.
She met him halfway.
The kiss was angry at the start years of swallowed insults crashing together, teeth and frustration. Then it changed. His hand slid to the back of her neck like he was afraid she’d vanish. Hers fisted in his shirt.
They broke apart, breathing ragged.
“This is a terrible idea,” she whispered.
“Probably,” he said, voice rough.
But he kissed her again slower this time, deeper, like he was memorising the shape of her mouth.
Clothes came off carefully his shirt, hers, the rest with shaking hands. They moved together on the rug under the throw blanket, bodies finding each other in the dark gentle, intense, full of everything they’d never said aloud.
Afterward, rain still hammering the windows, Tosin traced slow circles on her arm.
“We’re going to fight tomorrow,” she murmured.
“Definitely,” he said, lips brushing her temple. “But I think I want to do this after we fight, too.”
She laughed soft, surprised, real.
He pulled her closer. “I’ve hated how much I notice you. For years.”
“Same,” she admitted into his chest.
Outside, the storm kept raging.
Inside, something had just begun.
To be continued…
