“Sorry, sorry,” Devon said, sliding the phone into her purse with visible reluctance. “Work is absolutely insane right now. Where were we?”
“Targeted engagement,” I said lightly, even though something in my chest had already closed off.
“Right, so the key is understanding user patterns and…” She continued, but her purse lit up with another notification. Her eyes flicked towards it unerringly.
Devon was beautiful, probably smart, and definitely successful. But she was also somewhere else entirely, and honestly, I didn’t mind.
“You know what,” I said, standing up and pulling a twenty from my wallet, “I’m going to hit the restroom real quick.”
“Oh, sure.” She was already reaching for her phone again. “Take your time.”
I left the twenty on the bar and walked towards the back.
The restroom was mercifully quiet. Just me and my reflection in the mirror above the sink, trying to figure out what exactly I was going to do next.
I washed my hands slowly, buying time, wondering how to exit politely.
“…and the most annoying highlight of it all was one oyibo who bumped into me first at the airport and then started acting rude with her annoying accent,” a woman’s voice said from one of the cubicles.
Foreign accent. Animated. A familiar prickle at the voice. But I shrugged it off.
I paused, listening quietly.
Oyibo?
No idea what that meant. Probably not flattering. None of my business, I told myself, switching off the faucet and adjusting my hair in the mirror.
“Like, do you get? And the worst part was I couldn’t even defend myself because I was still trying to figure out her gender, I mean, was she a man or a woman?—”
The cubicle door opened.
As I looked into the mirror to see who it was, my eyes clashed with a pair of familiar dark eyes.
Well, shit.
It was her.
Airport princess herself, standing there in a simple, flowy dress, phone pressed to her ear, looking just as startled to see me as I felt. A muffled voice carried from the other end of the line.
We stared at each other for a second too long before she slowly lowered her phone.
“I’ll call you back,” she said quietly into the device, ending the call.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with both recognition and embarrassment.
I turned around to face her properly, crossing my arms and leaning back against the sink.
“Huh,” I said, unable to keep the smirk off my face.“Didn’t know my accent was that annoying.”
Her face flushed dark, the colour rising from her neck to her cheeks in a way that was actually quite…..striking.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Clearly.” I tilted my head, studying her. Up close, she looked softer than I remembered.
Less defensive and more… human.
“Though I have to say, I’m curious about the gender confusion part. Is my presentation really that ambiguous, or do you just not meet many butch women where you’re from?”
