Insight of a Kenyan Girl

A week later, my phone buzzed with a message.

“Hi, I will be coming back to your town. Can you organize accommodation for me?”

I stared at the screen, my heart skipping a beat. He was coming back? A rush of emotions hit me—excitement, nervousness, confusion. Would he ask me for coffee this time, or was I just his go-to person for travel arrangements?

I laughed to myself and agreed, still trying to process it all. After booking his stay, I sent him the details and threw myself back into work, pushing thoughts of him aside. But before I knew it, he had arrived, and this time, I wasn’t just arranging his accommodation—I was hosting him in my home.

He settled in easily, opening his laptop, getting comfortable like he belonged. Meanwhile, I found myself pacing, restless, uneasy. I hated this.

Callum Carter still looked as good as I remembered. In the beginning, it felt like he had made flowers bloom in my lungs, and as beautiful as they were, I couldn’t breathe anymore.

I hated people in my space. I hated the way he moved around my house like it was his own, touching my things, rummaging through my fridge, using my kitchen. It felt invasive. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted him out. But he had already paid me, and if there was one thing I wasn’t about to do, it was return that money. Three days. I just had to survive three days.

To distract myself, I ordered food from my favorite restaurant. Beef—my one true love. If there was anything that never disappointed me, it was a good, juicy piece of meat. Maybe I had been a lion in a past life. Honestly, if reincarnation was real, I must have spent my previous existence in the wild, hunting and thriving on red meat.

When the food arrived, I invited him to eat. The awkward tension between us slowly melted as we chatted between bites. He had an appetite, that was for sure—at some point, I wondered if he had swallowed a vacuum cleaner in his past life. But at least it kept the conversation going. It wasn’t all bad.

After dinner, he took the dishes to the sink but didn’t wash them. Oh. One of those guys—the kind who thought dishes were a woman’s job. I sighed but said nothing. They were my dishes, anyway. No big deal. Although, in my head, I was already drafting an angry feminist manifesto.

I stood at the sink, washing up as we kept talking. To my surprise, the conversation flowed naturally. We laughed. We shared stories. It felt… comfortable. For a moment, I forgot how much I hated having him in my space.

Then something shifted.

His scent filled the room, surrounding me, making it impossible to ignore his presence. When I turned, he was already watching me. His gaze was intense, like he could see through me, past the walls I had put up. My breath caught in my throat.

And then, he kissed me.

It happened so fast, yet it felt inevitable. One moment, I was washing dishes; the next, we were tangled together, lost in a night that neither of us had planned for.

By morning, everything was different. He held me like it was the most natural thing in the world, his voice soft as he called me ‘baby.’ My chest tightened. I felt trapped, suffocated—not by his presence, but by the weight of what we had done.

It felt like sin. It felt dangerous. And yet, Callum seemed perfectly fine, as if this had been his plan all along.

Then, on the third day, he looked at me with certainty and said, “I love you.”

I froze.

Love? Was this love?

A boyfriend—he wanted to be my boyfriend.

For how long?

My mind spiraled with questions. Was this real, or was I just another stop on his journey?

That night, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling while he slept beside me, breathing softly. I turned on my side, watching the rise and fall of his chest, trying to find an answer in the quiet. My heart ached with the weight of uncertainty.

By the time the morning sun filtered through the curtains, my stomach was in knots. Callum stretched beside me, his eyes filled with a warmth that unsettled me.

“Come with me next time,” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair from my face.

I laughed, though there was no humor in it. “And then what?”

“And then we figure it out together.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and dive into whatever this was. But something inside me whispered that Callum Carter was a man of fleeting moments.

Still, as I looked into his hopeful eyes, I found myself nodding.

Maybe, just maybe, I would take the risk.

Or maybe I would need a strong drink first.