The rain had taken a break. The sky was dry for the first time in weeks, sunlight leaking through clouds like shy hope. Amara stood outside her kiosk, brushing powdered sugar over fried buns as Dimeji painted quietly beside her, his canvas propped against the wall, half-finished.
Customers came and went — familiar faces, new faces. Children called her "Aunty Amara" now, and older women asked for recipes. Business had grown, but she hadn't moved locations. Something in her wanted to stay rooted. Not stagnant — just grounded.
She glanced over at Dimeji, who hadn't looked up in over an hour. He was working on a portrait — not of her, not this time. This one was of a little girl, sitting alone on a swing, her head tilted to the sky.
Amara placed a bun on a napkin and walked it over.
He accepted it without a word, eyes still locked on the child in the painting.
"Who is she?" Amara asked softly.
Dimeji blinked, pulled back, and finally looked at her. "Someone from a memory I thought I'd forgotten."
Amara didn't press.
Instead, she sat beside him and waited.
"She was a neighbor's daughter," he said after a while. "I used to babysit her when I was sixteen. She had this way of believing every cloud was a secret."
"She looks… lonely," Amara said.
"She was," he replied. "And I think I was too."
A breeze passed between them, lifting her scarf gently.
"Do you think we ever really heal from loneliness?" he asked.
Amara thought of the nights she had eaten alone in silence, the years she'd listened to her parents' absence like a familiar hymn. "I think we learn how to make space for someone else in it."
He turned to her, something like relief in his eyes. "Then stay with me in the space."
"I already am," she whispered.
---
That night, they cooked dinner together in her tiny apartment — rice and beans with spicy stew, her favorite. Dimeji insisted on slicing the onions, though his eyes watered so badly it made Amara laugh until she couldn't breathe.
They ate on the floor, backs against the wall, legs stretched out and tangled.
"What scares you the most?" she asked, not out of nowhere, but from that place where honesty rises.
He stared at the ceiling for a long moment. "Failing again."
"In painting?"
"In love," he said.
Her chest tightened, but she leaned her head against his shoulder. "Then don't aim for perfect. Just stay honest."
He kissed her temple, his touch gentle. "What about you?"
She closed her eyes. "That I'll build a life no one wants to stay in."
He turned and faced her fully. "Amara, you are not a shelter. You're the storm and the warmth after it."
She blinked, heart racing.
"Don't look so surprised," he said. "You taught me that."
---
In the days that followed, their rhythm deepened. Dimeji began offering free art lessons on Saturdays to children in the neighborhood. Amara encouraged it, even though the kids sometimes left smudges on the kiosk walls. He laughed more. She trusted more.
But not all was smooth.
One Thursday evening, Amara found him pacing his studio, a gallery invitation clutched in his hand.
"They want me to submit work for a Lagos showcase," he said.
"That's great," she replied.
He didn't smile.
"I haven't shown anything since Ife died. They'll want me to talk about it. About her. About the tragedy."
Amara approached slowly. "Do you want to?"
"No," he said. "But I feel like I should. Like I owe it to her."
"Or," she offered, "maybe you owe it to yourself to start painting the future, not the past."
He looked at her, eyes soft.
"What if they reject it?"
"Then we eat pepper soup and laugh at their lack of vision," she grinned.
He pulled her into a hug, burying his face in her neck. "You make even failure feel like a detour."
She held him tighter. "Maybe that's all it ever is."
---
One night, when the moon hung full and round like a quiet witness, Dimeji reached into the drawer beside his bed and pulled out a velvet box.
Not a ring.
A key.
He placed it in her palm, not saying a word.
Amara looked at him, her heart drumming against her ribs.
"Not an ultimatum," he said. "Not a demand. Just… an invitation. To stay. As long as you want. As much as you want."
She blinked back tears. "You sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything."
She didn't say yes.
But she didn't give it back either.
And that was enough.