Novels by Araoluwa Keji

Diamond noticed everything.Every glance he gave another girl. Every message he typed and quickly deleted. Every laugh shared with his friends that didn’t include her. She noticed how his world moved, smooth, chaotic, like a river he had learned to navigate perfectly. And she wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.Instead, she was curious. Observant. Strategic.At lunch, she let him approach first, but she didn’t meet his eyes right away. She twirled her pen, scrolling her phone, pretending absorbed, but aware of his every movement. He smiled, leaned casually on the table, tried that same charm that had worked on countless girls before. The one that made them lean in, laugh, blush.She didn’t flinch.He raised an eyebrow, his confidence flickering just slightly. “Hey,” he said smoothly.“Hey,” she replied, voice light, eyes still on her screen.A pause.Her phone buzzed. She glanced at it, let out a soft laugh, tapping a reply slowly, deliberately. He leaned in, intrigued, watching her carefully

Josh’s nights were a carefully choreographed chaos. His phone never left his hand; names, emojis, and texts scrolled faster than anyone could read. Some girls were gone, others still present, all of them living in the orbit of his charm. Each one required a balance, a rhythm, a careful calculation he had perfected over years.“Yo, bro, you even sleeping?” one of his friends laughed, tossing him a drink at a party. “You’ve got texts from three girls waiting. And it’s barely nine.”Josh grinned, leaning back, eyes flicking between his friends and the buzzing screen. “I manage,” he said, voice smooth. “It’s all about timing.”Timing. Strategy. Control. That was the code. The rules. The way he kept the game running without letting it fall apart. Every girl had her place some casual, some serious enough to feed attention, some disposable. Every message, every smile, every party visit had to be calculated. One slip, one jealous glance, and chaos could erupt.He scrolled quickly, sending a

Josh sat in the corner of the party, leaning back with a drink in his hand, but his mind was elsewhere. The laughter, the music, the chatter — it all felt distant, like he was observing through a pane of glass. Around him, his friends moved with the same confidence he had once commanded effortlessly. Girls leaned close, whispered jokes, flirted, and smiled. The game continued.But he wasn’t playing.Not really.His thoughts kept returning to her — Diamond. The girl who had refused to be just another piece. The one who had seen too much, noticed too much, and yet… held her ground. Every smile he had tried to charm her with had been measured, careful, restrained, and now he realized she had been measuring him right back. Watching him. Judging him. Reading him like a book he wasn’t allowed to write himself.He felt a flash of frustration. He was Josh — he controlled his world. He controlled the game. But with her… he had lost control.“What’s up with you, man?” one of his friends nudged

It started like every other conquest he had ever planned.Josh remembered the first time he saw her — Diamond. Her laugh had cut through the noise of the cafeteria, bright and unassuming, like it didn’t belong to him yet but was screaming for attention anyway. Her eyes met his once, and something in him stirred — not curiosity, not interest, just a flicker of amusement.“She’s cute,” he had told his friends later that day, smirking as he leaned against the wall. “I’ll get her. Easy. Just like the others.”The plan was simple: charm her, tease her, make her laugh, collect her like a trophy, repeat. Nothing personal. No feelings. No complications. That was the code he lived by — attention, flirtation, conquest. He had played the game expertly for years, guided by his friends, reinforced by every girl who had ever laughed at his jokes, leaned too close, or whispered secrets.But Diamond… she was different.From the start, she noticed things he didn’t plan for. She noticed the casual char

Josh’s world moved like a carefully orchestrated play. Every laugh, every glance, every whispered compliment had a place. His friends, all around him, were part of the choreography — enablers, mirrors, accomplices in a game most wouldn’t even recognize as a game.“Bro, you’ve got the charm on lock,” one of them said, leaning back on the sofa, sipping from a bottle. “Any girl, anywhere, and she’s yours in minutes.”Josh grinned, the familiar arrogance settling over him like a second skin. “It’s not just charm,” he said smoothly. “It’s… knowing what they want before they even do.”Another friend chuckled. “Yeah, you collect them like trophies, bro. Just make sure you don’t mix them up — don’t want drama in the squad.”Josh leaned forward, phone in hand. Names popped up, emojis, little flirty texts ready to be sent. He scrolled casually, thumb flicking with ease.“She’s different,” one friend whispered, nodding toward a name on the screen. “You’re not just playing with her, right?”Josh

The next day, campus felt different. Not the campus itself — it was the same crowded walkways, the same lectures, the same laughter echoing off the walls. But I was different. Everything was different.I didn’t walk beside him today. I didn’t glance at his phone. I didn’t answer his casual jokes with the same warmth. I didn’t laugh at the things I used to.Josh noticed, of course.He tried subtly. A brush of his hand when we walked past each other. A lingering gaze when he thought I wasn’t looking. A smile — that same, familiar smile — meant to charm, to reassure. But it didn’t reach me.I felt the fire simmering in my chest as I watched him try. And it was intoxicating and terrifying at the same time. I could see him beginning to feel the weight of the distance I’d created, and the power that gave me surged quietly, like an unseen current under calm water.In the cafeteria, he leaned closer to me, voice low, attempting casual intimacy. “You’ve been quiet lately… everything okay?”I k