Hooking my sports bag on my shoulder, I exited the locker room with my next destination being the Science building.
After the whole shower incident, Daniel was taken to Coach Sarah's office whilst Ethan headed over to the infirmary to have his nose fixed.
It was so hard to believe that those two used to be friends. The way Daniel glared at Ethan after he'd punched him...it was like he'd been harboring ten years of pain and anger. If Seth and the others hadn't intervened, I was absolutely certain that Ethan wouldn't be breathing by now.
"Hey bestie!" Princess appeared at my side, and as if on cue, the image of she and Ethan kissing flashed in my head. I hurriedly brushed it away.
"Where are you heading?"
"The Engineering Science building, for my club meeting."
"Oh the nerds."
"They're not nerds."
"They definitely are," she chortled beside me, "All of them, including you. But the only difference is that you're a cute nerd."
My head snapped in her direction. The last time a girl called me cute was back in senior high school form three, and she only did so because she wanted me to teach her during our WASSCE exams.
Dude, relax my subconscious chipped in, she's just flirting.
Flirting? Why would she be flirting? She already had a boyfriend and speaking of him, "Hey, shouldn't you be at the infirmary?"
"No, why would I be there?" Princess lifted an eyebrow.
"Ethan is there. He got hurt this afternoon."
"So?" She let out a light chuckle. "I'm not his babysitter. Ethan can take care of himself." With that, she slipped past the building entrance.
I could hardly call myself a relationship expert, but I was also a hundred percent sure that no girlfriend would behave this way after finding out that her boyfriend had been hurt. She would either panic or freak out, but to act indifferent? My gaze locked on Princess as she descended the stairs. Is she really dating Ethan?
Pushing past the doors, a swell of hot air hit me in the face and I immediately began missing the AC inside the Sports Complex.
"Hey, Akwasi." Princess waved at me from the bottom of the stairs. She had stopped a *FanYogo vendor and was happily sucking on a FanChoco packet. "Which flavour do you want?"
I quickly jogged down the stairs. "You know, Coach would kill us if she saw us buying packets of processed sugar."
"Mm," Princess pulled the packet out of her mouth. "She's even lucky I didn't add a pastry."
I chuckled before turning to the vendor. "What do you have in there?” And the vendor began listing the variety of yoghurt flavours he had in the icebox attached to the front of his bicycle.
"Ok give me one Funky Banana.”
The vendor slotted a hand into the icebox and pulled out a frozen Funky Banana packet, wrapped it in paper, then handed it over.
"So how much will the two packets cost?” I asked, pulling out my wallet to pay for both mine and Princess' yoghurt.
"Three cedis," the vendor replied and before I could open my wallet, Princess slapped a fifty cedi note in the vendor's hand.
"Take, keep the change.” She smiled.
"Oh thank you!” the vendor beamed, delighted with the gesture.
"Ah, no. Wait," I opened my mouth to protest, but Princess had already started moving away. The vendor too shoved the money into his vest pocket and mounted his bike.
"Ah Princess, wait!" I darted past the vendor, sprinting towards her. It was only when I grabbed her shoulder that she turned around, still sucking on the cocoa treat.
"What?"
"What do you mean what?" My eyebrows dipped low. "You just paid fifty cedis for two packets of yoghurt that cost less than five cedis."
"Yeah, I know," she pulled the pack out of her mouth, lips crawling into a smirk. "And you saw how grateful the vendor was, he needed the money."
Her feet started moving again and I quickened my pace to be at par with her. "Yeah well as much as I admire your generosity, I still think you should've saved that money and let me pay."
"Oh please," She spared me a glance and scoffed, "With the money Ethan showers on me, I could even buy you."
"Ethan?" I stopped dead in my tracks. "Wait, Ethan gives you money?"
"Yeah." Princess flashed me a grin. "That's one perk of being friends with the Mayor's son."
A number of questions stacked themselves up in my head. But before I could sort out which ones to ask first, Princess tossed an "I gotta go" over her shoulder.
"See you at practice tomorrow!" She added, running across the street to a group of girls from the cheerleading team.
I sighed, watching her until my phone whistled with a text message. Shola's name glowed on the screen.
Change in our meeting venue.
We're all grouping at the department's lab.
See you soon.
*****
*FanYogo ~ also known as FanYoghurt, is a skimmed frozen yoghurt treat produced by a company called FanMilk. The product comes in a variety of flavours; strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, mango and passion fruit, funky banana and cocopine. They're usually sold by vendors on bicycles with a medium sized ice box on the front and another box of pastries at the back.