She finally finished unpacking. Propping a photograph on the window ledge by her bed, she glanced round at her new flat. The plant that Kate bought her as a moving in present sits next to an empty bottle of Cava and two ancient champagne flutes.
A bed, two stacks of books and a bulging clothes rail make this half of her flat look overcrowded already.
A sofa acts as a divide between the 'bedroom' and the 'kitchen', consisting of a coffee table, three deep purple floor cushions and a 1970s kitchenette that she couldn't wait to repaint.
This is her new studio flat containing everything that she owned in the world. To a stranger, it might look pathetic, but to her it's perfect.
After a relationship that should have ended a lot sooner, she finally broke up with her boyfriend of three years three months ago. She had been couch surfing ever since she moved out and it feels incredible to finally have her own space.
She had craved this opportunity for so long that she didn't mind forking out the extra rent for a studio flat. Now that she finally bagged a serious job, it's time to have a place of her own as well.
The last year with her ex was unbearable. He'd always been jealous, but the further they grew apart, the more suffocating his possessiveness became.
If she went out without him she would have to 'forget' her phone to avoid getting fifty texts and having to reassure him that no, she hadn't danced with any guys, and yes, it was a crap night without him.
It got so bad that she stopped wanting to see her closest friends – even a night with Neyla would result in a fight.
But the worst sacrifice she made was losing contact with Sam. Aso is her oldest friend, but Sam was her closest.
She met him at her first Saturday job, supporting at her friends restaurant. He made her laugh on her very first shift and they were inseparable from that moment on, always slinking off every chance they got to get a cigarette.
Sam is one of those drop dead gorgeous guys that every girl wants to go out with. There's nothing between them, just friends, but try telling her ex that. They had so many fights over Sam that she stopped seeing him and that allowed them drift apart completely.
One time when she wondered whether anything would happen between them. They had been on holiday together to stay with his aunty in Abuja. They had so much fun spending long, lazy days hiking, sipping cold beers with countless Jameson shots.
It was one of the only times in eight years of friendship that neither of them was in a relationship. In fact, she was only there to stand in for a girlfriend he'd broken up with days before.
The night before they went home he dared her to go skinny-dipping. They were sitting on the pier behind ShopRite in Jabi, where one of the restaurants had placed a few tables up by the water's edge.
She knew he thought she'd'd never do it and she was more than a little tipsy so she pulled her strapless dress off there and then and jumped straight in. The water was freezing and she rushed to the surface, squealing.
Sam was bent over with laughter. Reaching down to pull her up out of the water, he gripped her in his tanned arms and a wave of electricity ran between them.
She hadn't been wearing a bra and, as she clambered up to him, she realised her tiny knickers were see-through from the water. Of course she felt self-conscious, but as his eyes flickered along her body, lingering on her hardened kneepples.....
......she almost forgot my embarrassment.
She wanted him to look at here, she felt like it was the first time that he'd really seen her. A wave of energy rushed through her, tingling between her thighs.
She wanted him to look at here, she felt like it was the first time that he'd really seen her. A wave of energy rushed through her, tingling between her thighs.
If she hadn't seen the waiter walking over just then, well, she didn't know for certain, but she felt sure he'd have kissed her.
She pulled her dress on before she was seen and they sat back down to finish their drinks, but the atmosphere had changed completely.
On their way back to his auntie's apartment, he put his arm around her, a gesture that he'd repeated a hundred times, but this one it was different, more tentative, his fingers gently circling her sun-kissed shoulder.
Her heart was pounding, her senses felt heightened. The smell of water in her hair was mingling with the subtle scent of his skin. The humid night air felt like it was closing in on her with sound of music and people and chatting in the restaurants that they passed.
Everything was intensified and unreal. Her mind was already in his auntie's flat, her sat on the edge of her dining table with him stood kissing her neck,.......
......pushing her dress up to her waist and slipping inside her. Sam, her best friend Sam, licking the wetness off her skin and biting down on her breasts.
But none of that was meant to be. His aunty was waiting for them with a room full of friends and neighbours. In front of this crowd of people, they slipped straight back into their familiar role, totally platonic friends.
She wasn't able to sleep that night though; it was infuriating knowing that he was lying there in the next room, tantalisingly close. She imagined him naked in bed, fighting with the blanket in the heat, as sleepless as she was.
She couldn't stand it, the desire that he'd awakened in her had to be released.
She slipped her fingers between her legs and imagined Sam's strong hands running up her thighs, his hot, hard lips and soft, wet tongue inside her. 
She bit down on her lip and clenched the sheets. With the thought of him, hard and thick, pulsing inside of her, she reached a shuddering orgasm, before falling into a frustrated sleep.
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