Bestie Bestie by Anjolaoluwa Aderounmu
Synopsis
For years, Lola and Victor were inseparable—office husband, office wife, and unshakeable best friends. Romance was never on the table, and neither ever expected it to be.
Then came Victor’s last day before relocating to the UK, when a shocking, out-of-nowhere confession changed everything: he asked Lola to be his girlfriend.
Now, separated by six thousand miles, they are forced to rebuild their entire dynamic from scratch. Over ten agonizing months, screen-to-screen calls replace shared desks as they struggle to forge a romantic spark where platonic comfort used to live. As long-distance miscommunications pile up and new lives pull them in separate directions, the boundary between what they were and what they are trying to become begins to fray—leaving them both to wonder if love was ever worth risking the best thing they ever had.
1
The air inside the Toyota Corolla was a tepid mix of blasting air conditioning and the humid August heat sneaking through the slightly cracked window. Outside, third-mainland bridge was doing what it did best: transforming a straightforward journey into a slow, crawling pilgrimage. But for 6:30 PM on a weeknight, they were actually making decent time.
“If you don’t buy that Gala now, don’t ask me for a bite when we hit Ikeja,” Victor said, leaning his elbow on the window frame. He was watching a street hawker expertly weave between two long-distance buses, a tray of cold drinks balanced precariously on his head.
Damilola didn’t break her gaze from the brake lights ahead, though a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “I have self-control, Vic. Unlike some people who started crying over Suya last night because it’s ‘the last real pepper’ they’ll eat for a year.”
“It is the last real pepper!” Vic protested, signalling the hawker with a flick of his wrist. “You think Manchester has suya? They’re going to give me boiled beef and call it spice.” He wound down his window, handed over a crumpled five-hundred-naira note, and retrieved two rolls of Gala and a sweating bottle of LaCasera.
He popped the cap off the soda and held it out to her first. Lola took a quick sip, the familiar citrus fizz hitting the back of her throat, before handing it back and gripping the steering wheel a little tighter than necessary.
For three years, this was the cadence of their lives. Same open-plan office in Victoria Island, same shared spreadsheets, same late-night dinners at the buka down the street when project deadlines went off the rails. To the rest of the company, they were practically a package deal. “Office Husband” and “Office Wife,” the HR team called them, teasingly asking when to expect the wedding invitation. They’d always laughed it off. It was easy to laugh when the boundary was clear, comfortable, and completely uncrossed.
“I’m going to miss the noise, honestly,” Vic said softly, peeling the yellow wrapper off the Gala. His tone had shifted, the playful exaggeration dropping away to reveal the raw edge of someone about to step off a cliff into the unknown. “Festac at 6:00 AM. The bus conductors shouting Obalende! The fact that everything here is completely chaotic, but somehow it all moves.”
“You won’t miss it when you’re sitting in a heated lecture hall in Manchester, living your dream,” Lola said, keeping her voice light, rhythmic, anchored.
“Yeah. Maybe.” Vic turned in his seat to look at her profile. “I’ll miss the office, though. Who’s going to cover for you when you’re ten minutes late for the Monday morning sync?”
“I am twenty-eight years old, Victor. I can manage my own attendance.”
“You say that now, but by week two, Mr. Adebayo is going to notice your slide decks don’t have my aesthetic touch.”
“Your ‘aesthetic touch’ is just changing the font to Arial Bold.”
“It brings structure to your life, Lola. Admit it.”
She chuckled, but the sound caught slightly in her throat. She blamed it on the exhaust fumes seeped in from the petrol tanker ahead.
She couldn’t look at him right now—not at the sharp line of his jaw, or the way his shoulders filled out the casual linen shirt he’d worn for the flight, or the slight crease between his brows that appeared whenever he was trying to process an emotion he hadn’t fully named yet. If she looked at him too long, she wouldn’t focus on the red brake lights in front of her. She’d focus on the fact that in four hours, his passport would be stamped, his bags would be loaded into the belly of a Boeing 777, and her Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays would suddenly become very quiet.
Vic reached over, placing the cold LaCasera bottle against her wrist to break her trance. “Hey. Stop driving like you’re trying to set a lap record. We have four hours.”
“Traffic clears after the tollgate,” she said, her eyes fixed on the road, refusing to let the sting behind her eyelids win. “I just want to make sure you’re checked in early.”
“Lola.”
“Hmm?”
“Look at me for two seconds. We’re at a complete standstill.”
She held her breath, eased her foot onto the brake, and finally turned her head. Vic was watching her, his dark eyes reflected in the warm, orange glow of the setting Lagos sun. The playful front was gone.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “For driving. For… everything these past three years. I don’t think I would have actually applied for this Master’s if you hadn’t forced me to finish the personal statement.”
“You were procrastinating,” she said, trying for a shrug, but her shoulder felt heavy. “Someone had to push you.”
“Yeah,” Vic murmured, his hand hovering over the centre console, just inches from hers. “Someone did.”
Outside, a driver honked aggressively, shattering the quiet inside the car. Lola shifted into drive as the traffic lurched forward ten meters, the moment passing like water through fingers.
The traffic finally thinned out past Anthony, the long asphalt ribbon of the Ikorodu Road opening up into the home stretch toward Ikeja. The sunset had faded into a deep twilight, the streetlights flickering on one by one to cast amber streaks across the windshield.
“I still can’t believe we’re actually doing this in halves,” Vic said, resting his head back against the headrest and watching the airport signs grow closer. “Two years of spreadsheets, Lola. Two years of researching cheap flats in Salford, figuring out conversion rates, comparing university rankings… and now it’s just me on the plane.”
Lola’s grip on the steering wheel tightened slightly. “It’s not ‘just you.’ You’re the advance party. That was the agreement.”
“I know,” Vic sighed, turning to look at her. “I just… I thought we’d be standing in the visa line together. Laughing at the cold weather warnings together. Starting over as a unit.”
“So did I,” Lola said quietly, her voice steady despite the flutter in her chest. “But when the board put me on the West Africa Expansion project four months ago, everything changed. I couldn’t just walk away from that, Vic. Resigning mid-way would have burned every bridge I’ve spent five years building.”
“I know, I know. And the bonus…”
“The bonus pays for my tuition upfront, my flight, and six months of living expenses without me having to touch my savings,” she reminded him, casting a brief glance his way. “You know how tight our original budget was. We were going to be surviving on instant noodles and hope for the first six months. With this bonus, when I come out next year, we actually have a cushion.”
Vic let out a soft, rueful laugh. “I still feel like a traitor for not waiting.”
“Don’t do that,” Lola snapped gently. “We talked about this for three weeks straight until we were both exhausted. You’ve been ready for this Master’s for a year. You weren’t on the expansion project; sitting at your desk for another twelve months just waiting for my timeline would have made you miserable. You would have ended up resenting me.”
“I could never resent you, Lola.” The tone of his voice was dangerously sincere, quiet against the gentle hum of the engine.
“You would have,” she insisted, shielding herself behind practical logic. “It made no sense for both of us to stall. This way is smarter. You go first, navigate the mess, figure out which supermarkets aren’t overpriced, find a two-bedroom apartment that doesn’t leak, and get used to the system. By the time my project wraps up next August and the bonus hits my account, I just pack my bags and fly into a life you’ve already prepped.”
“A two-bedroom apartment?” Vic teased, a faint smile returning to his face. “So I’m your advance scout and your estate agent?”
“And my personal tour guide,” Lola added, catching his eye. “You owe me big time for driving you to MMIA in Friday night traffic.”
“I’ll have a hot cup of tea and a proper winter jacket waiting at Manchester Airport. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said.
As she took the turn leading toward Murtala Muhammed International Airport, the looming silhouette of the terminal came into view. The logic of their plan was flawless, mathematically sound, and completely sensible. But as the departure gantry signs flashed overhead, the twelve-month gap between tonight and ‘next August’ suddenly felt less like a strategic pause, and more like a chasm.
They were two halves of a perfectly constructed routine, an ecosystem so seamlessly balanced that outsiders continuously mistook its comfort for romance. For three long years, Vic was the permanent fixture in her Saturdays, patiently carrying a shopping bag through the chaos of Mile 12 market or holding her purse at the supermarket while she debated between brands of olive oil. In return, Lola had learned the precise mechanics of the offside rule, sitting beside him on sunken sofa cushions, yelling at referee decisions on a fuzzy TV screen with a cold beer in hand. To her friends, who endlessly scrutinized their chemistry and threw deliberate, knowing glances across crowded rooms, Lola was always armed with the same practiced defence: We’re just not dating compatible. She said it with the casual certainty of someone quoting a physical law. They were too synchronized, too sensible, too familiar. They were colleagues who had simply survived the Lagos corporate grind by leaning on one another until their lives intertwined.
Yet, as the airport lights blurred through the windshield, a single, buried ghost of a memory suddenly broke through her mental defences.
It was a rainy Friday night over a year ago, right after the company’s mid-year party. They had both consumed far too many gin cocktails, laughing until their ribs ached in the back of an Uber. He had walked her up to her third-floor apartment to ensure she made it inside safely, but neither of them had bothered to turn on the lights. Instead, sitting on the cold tiles of her living room floor, the laughter had quieted into a strange, heavy stillness. What started as an absentminded brush of his hand against her cheek had turned into a slow, breathless kiss—deep, urgent, and thick with an unspoken longing that neither had ever permitted in the daylight. They had collapsed together right there on the rug, arms wrapped tightly around each other, breathing in unison until sleep took them.
When morning came, washing the living room in harsh, unforgiving sunlight, the spell vanished completely. They woke up, stretched their stiff limbs, bought akara at the corner stall, and went about their day without uttering a single word about the night before. They locked the moment in a vault and threw away the key. Vic never knew that the quiet, sudden breakup between Lola and her then-boyfriend three weeks later had been triggered by that exact night. She had confessed the kiss to him, unable to bear the guilt, and watched her relationship dissolve in real-time. She had never given Vic even a hint of the truth.
Now, with the engine idling at the curb of the departures terminal, the ghost of that kiss felt suddenly loud. Lola stared at the steering wheel, her chest tightening as she wondered, just for a fraction of a second, what trajectory their lives might have taken if one of them had been brave enough to break the silence that morning. If they had chosen the chaos of love over the safety of companionship. But even as the thought flickered in her mind, her fiercely logical brain pushed it back down into the dark. She looked over at him—at his familiar, comforting presence—and still, she couldn’t fit him into the shape of a romantic partner. He was Vic. Her anchor, her office husband, her best friend. And in ten hours, he was going to be an ocean away.
She shifted the gear into park, leaving the engine idle so the soft, humming chill of the air conditioning could buy them a few more minutes against the oppressive night heat outside. On the digital clock mounted to the dashboard, 7:15 PM glowed in faint green numbers. Check-in wouldn’t even close for another hour and a half, but the silent ticking felt unnaturally loud.
Vic unbuckled his seatbelt, turning his body fully toward her. “Lola, look at me.”
She eased her hands off the leather-wrapped steering wheel, letting them rest in her lap, and finally faced him.
“I don’t think I’ve said it enough, or properly,” Vic began, his voice dropping into that quiet, steady frequency he reserved for moments when he was entirely stripped of his usual sarcasm. “Thank you. For being my person. For every single thing you’ve done to get me to this seat tonight.”
“Vic, stop it,” she began, a small, dismissive wave of her hand already halfway formed. “You worked for this—”
“I’m serious,” he interrupted, reaching over to catch her wrist gently, forcing her to listen. “I wouldn’t be holding a passport with a visa in it right now if you didn’t lend me that six million naira for the proof of funds and visa balance. You know how tight things were. You gave me a lifeline.” He took a breath, his thumb tracing the back of her hand once before letting go. “I promise you, as soon as I settle in Manchester and secure a part-time job, I’m sending every kobo back. Within the year. You won’t have to ask.”
Lola let out a soft sigh, rolling her eyes with affectionate exasperation. “Vic, please don’t start stressing yourself about six million naira before you’ve even boarded the plane. Do not bother about it right now.”
“I will pay it back, Lola.”
“I know you will,” she said softly. “Because you always do.”
It was the absolute truth. Over the last two years, their financial rhythm had naturally mirrored their emotional one. Whenever his bank account took a sudden hit, Lola was always there to quietly bridge the gap. A hundred thousand naira here for an unexpected emergency, three hundred thousand there when his car engine needed a overhaul. Vic always repaid her down to the last naira, usually days ahead of the deadline he had set for himself.
They earned virtually the same base salary at the firm, but their financial landscapes were worlds apart. Vic was the firstborn son in a household of six, carrying the heavy, invisible weight of family black tax—paying younger siblings’ school fees, covering medical bills, sending monthly allowances home to Festac. Lola, on the other hand, had only an elder sister who was recently divorced but has a comfortable job more rewarding than Lola’s. With no dependents demanding her earnings, Lola naturally accumulated a financial cushion—spare cash that almost always found its way to Vic whenever he hit a wall. She never held it over him, and he never took it for granted.
“You’re a good man, Victor Mba,” Lola said, offering him a small, genuine smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Just focus on landing safely, finding your footing, and making sure the apartment you rent doesn’t have drafty windows.”
Vic looked down at his hands, a quiet, lingering expression crossing his features before he looked back up at her. “I’m going to miss you, Lola. More than the suya. More than Lagos.”
The heat outside hit them like a physical wall the moment they stepped out into the chaotic drop-off zone of Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Horns blared, baggage handlers shouted over the roar of idling engines, and security officers blew whistles to keep the traffic moving.
Lola popped the boot, and together they hauled his two heavy black suitcases and a oversized duffel bag onto a metallic luggage trolley. The familiar, rhythmic clack of the trolley’s wheels accompanied them as they pushed past the sliding glass doors into the cool, fluorescent brightness of the departure hall.
They walked side by side toward the final security barrier, the hard line in the sand where only ticketed passengers were allowed to pass. With every step, Lola felt a cold knot tightening in her stomach, counting down the meters until she would have to turn back toward an empty car and a very quiet apartment.
Right at the entrance to the departure chute, Vic stopped. He turned the trolley sideways, cutting off the flow of moving travellers around them, and turned to face her.
“Well,” Lola said, forcing a bright, easy smile that felt brittle against her cheeks. “This is it, Mr. Manchester. Go and do clear lines. Call me when you land in Doha for your layover.”
Vic didn’t move toward the security guard checking passports. Instead, he reached out, grabbed both of her hands, and pulled her a step closer, breaking the safe distance they had maintained all evening. His fingers were warm, his grip tight and deliberate.
“Lola,” he said, his voice dropping below the noise of the terminal. “I need to tell you something before I go.”
“Vic, the queue is moving,” she said, nodding nervously toward the line of passengers behind him. “You need to check in your bags.”
“Look at me,” he insisted, his dark eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that made her throat go completely dry. “I’ve been thinking about this all week. Every single day while packing, while sitting at my desk, while looking at my visa. It’s the only thing that makes any sense to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Be my girlfriend,” Vic said, the words falling straight and unadorned between them. “Don’t look at me like that, Lola. I mean it. You are the only woman who truly understands me. You’re the only person I’ve ever felt completely comfortable with, completely myself around. I don’t want to go to the UK as just your ‘office husband’ or your friend. I want us to do this together. Properly.”
Lola’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. The terminal around her seemed to fade into a blur of grey noise. The ghost of that rainy Friday night kiss, buried for over a year, flared back to life with suffocating force.
“Vic… are you crazy?” she stammered, pulling back slightly, though he refused to let go of her hands. “You’re literally holding a boarding pass to leave the country. We’re about to start a long-distance relationship across two continents? We’ve been friends for three years, Vic. You’re just emotional because you’re leaving home—”
“I am not emotional,” Vic countered, stepping closer, his jaw set. “I am clearer about this than I’ve been about anything in my life. I love you, Lola. I think I’ve loved you for a long time, and I’m tired of us acting like we’re just two colleagues who happen to like the same buka.”
“Sir, the line!” an airport official barked from a few meters away, pointing aggressively at the security gate. “Sir, step inside or move off the ramp!”
“Vic, please, you’re going to miss your check-in!” Lola pleaded, her mind racing, searching desperately for a logical exit ramp. “This isn’t the time for this. You’re putting pressure on me at the departure gate!”
“I’m not leaving until you give me an answer,” he said stubbornly, refusing to hand his passport to the guard who was now striding toward them.
“Victor Mba, move into that line right now!” Lola practically hissed, pushing his shoulder toward the queue with all the force she could muster. “You are not missing a flight you spent two years planning because of a conversation we should have had months ago!”
“Then give me an answer,” he insisted, stopping right at the barrier line, holding his ground as the guard reached for his ticket.
“I can’t think right now!” Lola said, her breath coming in fast, shallow gasps as the commotion around them drew stares from nearby travellers. “Go through security. Get on the plane. I… I promise I will give you a proper answer tomorrow after you land in Manchester. When we both have clear heads.”
Vic searched her face, looking for any sign of a brush-off, but the sheer panic and honesty in her eyes held him. He took a slow breath, letting out a heavy exhaled laugh, and finally nodded.
“Tomorrow,” Vic said softly. “The moment I clear customs.”
He leaned down, pressed a fast, lingering kiss to her cheek right near the corner of her lips, and finally handed his passport to the officer. He turned back once, catching her eye through the crowd, before disappearing into the sea of travellers.
Lola stood frozen on the hard tile floor, the warmth of his cheek kiss still burning against her skin, realizing that the quiet, simple twelve-month plan they had built was completely destroyed before his plane had even left the tarmac.
She sat in the driver’s seat, hands resting idle on the steering wheel, making no move to turn the key in the ignition. Around her, the parking lot of Murtala Muhammed International Airport hummed with the constant, chaotic energy of arrivals and departures—headlights flashing, car doors slamming, families shouting farewells into the humid night air. But inside the cabin, the quiet felt almost deafening.
She didn’t see that coming. Not at all.
Replaying the last hour in her head, the memory of his warm hands gripping hers at the security barrier felt almost surreal. Be my girlfriend. The words lingered in the air like perfume, thick and impossible to ignore.
Lola leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Since her breakup a year ago—the quiet, painful split that Vic never truly knew the reason behind—she hadn’t made an effort to date. She had built a fortress around herself, throwing every ounce of her energy into her career, the expansion project, and her financial goals.
There had been moments, of course, during late-night conversations with her sister or quiet drives home from weekend gatherings, when a stray thought would surface. She had wondered if her impenetrable closeness with Vic was quietly sabotaging her romantic life. Who could enter her world without feeling second-best to the man who occupied her Saturdays, knew her coffee order, and held the title of “Office Husband”? Any potential suitor would have been intimidated by the sheer real estate Vic occupied in her life.
Whenever that thought had crossed her mind in the past, she had quickly dismissed it as a benefit, not a drawback. It’s a good thing, she used to tell herself. It kept unnecessary distractions away. It kept her focused on her promotions, her savings, and her long-term relocation plan. She had always reassured herself that whenever she was finally ready to take dating and marriage seriously, she would simply create boundaries with Vic and figure it out.
Now, sitting in the ambient amber glow of the parking lot lights, a sudden, uncomfortable realization washed over her.
She hadn’t been blocking romantic partners just to focus on her career. She had been guarding that space. Without ever admitting it to herself, she had kept her heart locked away, not out of caution, but because the spot was already subtly, quietly occupied.
Was this what she had been waiting for all along? Had she been subverting her own love life for three years, holding her breath, unconsciously waiting for Victor Mba to finally stand in front of her and say the words out loud?
Lola opened her eyes and looked at her phone resting in the cup holder. In less than twenty-four hours, his plane would touch down in Manchester, and he would be waiting for his answer.
