If you’re just joining us, here’s what you missed in Part 1 of “My Hormones Are Betraying Me“:
After a brutal heartbreak with a narcissist, Ada built walls around her heart. As a young woman in Abuja navigating the modern Christian dating scene, her feminist views now clash with patriarchal expectations, especially from the church.
But then, she meets Kene at her office, a man whose genuine smile and respectful demeanor spark a confusing infatuation. Despite the magnetic attraction, Ada’s past trauma forces her to screen him like a criminal. She battles between her body’s hopeful response and her mind’s screaming warnings, all while trying to remember that God’s love is the only source that can truly fulfill her.
(Click here to read Part 1 from the beginning)
Despite attempts at minding her business, the screening of Kene continued with the intensity of a national inquiry. Ada had moved from open-source intelligence (his Twitter likes were clean, almost disappointingly so) to direct field interrogation.
She learned he preferred plantain to potatoes, that he thought the new cathedral opposite the company was an architectural marvel but acoustically dreadful for actual prayer, and that he’d cried at the end of a particular Nollywood film. Each detail was a data point, meticulously logged in the spreadsheet of her mind. The balance was tipping dangerously towards ‘Potentially Non-Toxic Male.’
Two Tuesdays later, the smell of rain was in the air, a metallic promise cutting through the newsroom’s stale coffee scent. Ada’s editor, a perpetually harried man with a brilliant mind, slapped a printout on her desk. “Big one, Adekunle. Senator’s wife. Charity foundation. Major embezzlement scandal. Follow the money.” He dropped a USB drive next to it. “Raw data’s on there. Kene from Sports is helping with the data viz. He’s the best with spreadsheets.”
Ada’s blood ran cold. Kene. Her subject, her distraction.
Working with him meant long hours and at close proximity. It meant her objectivity, both journalistic and personal, was about to be lit on fire. This was the exact kind of professional entanglement her after-heartbreak principles screamed against. A man could derail your career with a smile; she’d seen it happen.
Their first strategy meeting was a masterclass in tension. He pulled his chair so close she could smell his subtle cologne—something with notes of cedar and peace. Her hormones did a full salsa.
“So,” he said, his voice all business, but his eyes smiling. “We’re taking down a corrupt senator’s wife. Just another day at the office.” He clicked open the first spreadsheet, a labyrinth of suspicious transactions. “I’ve already flagged the shell companies. Look at this pattern.”
And then, he did something David never had. He turned the laptop toward her. “What’s your read? The narrative is your thing. The numbers just tell the story.”
He saw her as a colleague. An equal. A partner in the hunt. For three hours, they worked in a focused silence, punctuated by his soft murmurs of “Good catch,” or “I didn’t see that.” It was intoxicating, yet terrifying. The office was empty, the only sound the hum of the server and the frantic beating of her heart. They had hit a wall with a transaction routed through a bank in Ghana.
“It’s a dead end,” Ada sighed, rubbing her temples. “It’s like it just vanishes.”
Kene was quiet for a moment, staring at the screen. Then he leaned forward, his shoulder brushing against hers. A simple, accidental touch. It felt like a lightning strike.
“What if we’re looking at it backwards?” he whispered, his voice low with excitement. He took the mouse, his hand briefly covering hers. She didn’t pull away. “See this code? It’s not a recipient code. It’s a fee structure. They’re hiding it in plain sight.”
He was right. The entire pattern shifted and the story unlocked.
In that moment of shared, electrifying triumph, he turned to her. The professional veil fell away. The air crackled. His gaze dropped to her lips. Her alarm bell was ringing, but a roaring in her ears drowned out the sound. This was it. The moment of disastrous, unprofessional, glorious weakness.
“God, give me a sign. An earthquake, a power outage, anything.” She thought, her pounding like a new pestle.
Kene took a slow, shaky breath. And then he did the most unexpected thing.
He leaned back. He ran a hand over his face and let out a low, strained laugh. “Ada,” he said, his voice thick with honesty that dismantled her completely. “I really, really want to kiss you right now. But I also really respect you. So, I’m going to pack my bag, and I’m going to go home. And tomorrow, when we’ve filed this piece and your byline is shining brighter than the senator’s stolen diamonds, I’m going to ask you out for proper dinner. Is that… okay?”
The relief was so profound it felt like a physical wave. He had seen the conflict. He had named it. And he had chosen to honor her and her work instead of his own impulse. He had passed the final, most important test.
Ada felt a smile break across her face, the first real, unguarded one in months. “Okay,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “It’s more than okay.”
He left. The newsroom was silent. Ada sat there for a full five minutes, the embezzlement story forgotten. Then, she closed her laptop, gathered her things, and walked out into the cool night.
And when she got to her apartment in Wuse, she didn’t even make it to the bed. She slid down her front door, pulled out her phone, and opened her group chat with her girls. Her fingers flew across the screen.
“YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED.” She wrote.
She typed out the whole story, every glorious, tense, heart-thumping detail. She ended it with:
“He was a whole gentleman. A fine, data-crunching, God-fearing gentleman. I did not know they still made them. My head is calm. My spirit is at rest. My hormones are in a permanent state of shock.” Ruth, who happened to be online replied “GOD, WHENNNNNNN?! 😭🙌”
