Page 5 of The Friend Zone
“A novel? Look at you.” Omar slow-clapped.
“Don’t clap yet. I have a lot of work to do, and I’m not sure I’m up to the task.”
She stood, getting ready to leave, so Omar stood too.
“I’m sure you are.” He didn’t doubt for one second Dana would kill it as an author, and as far as he was concerned, she spent too much time preparing to write instead of actually writing.
“If only there was a way to bottle your optimism so I could drink it down whenever I doubt myself.” She grinned across the desk at him, and the earth shifted beneath his feet.
Her smile placed a stranglehold on his heart, tightening the muscles in his chest and forcing him to make a conscious decision to breathe. That’s what Dana did to him, ever since his drunken ass showed up at her house—all up in his feelings over another woman—and kissed her. To this day he wasn’t sure if he was glad he did, or if he wished he’d never known the pleasure of her soft, sweet lips. But he kept his distance, being a good guy and treating her with the respect she deserved while secretly wanting to sully her with every carnal fantasy that crossed his dirty mind.
“I’ll see you later,” Dana said.
“I’ll walk you out.”
3
Dana watched Omar walk—no strut—down the narrow hall ahead of her in gray slacks and a pale green long-sleeved shirt.
As her eyes followed his movements, she silently lavished praise on his athletic body. He shocked the sporting world when he retired a few years ago and wasn’t as physically large as he used to be then, but nonetheless, he had an amazing body with wide shoulders and a thick neck. He turned heads often because people either recognized him as a former Atlanta Falcon or they simply admired his physical beauty.
As a linebacker he’d been known as Omar “Motherfucking” Bradford, a beast on the field whose furrowed brow and piercing eyes planted fear into the hearts of many quarterbacks. Fast on his feet, he achieved among the highest number of sacks in the league during his career. With thick arms and thighs she knew for a fact looked like sturdy tree trunks sprinkled with dark hair, he was exactly the kind of man any woman would notice.
Women noticed him, and he noticed them and went for the same type over and over again—wannabe models and actresses who didn’t care anything about the person inside. He could do so much better. All those women cared about was the exterior—a six-two man with a low-cut beard dusting his chiseled jaw and blemish-free caramel-toned skin—but there was so much more to Omar. He had a big heart, especially where kids were concerned, but most of the women he came into contact with only saw the tight body, handsome face, and dollar signs.
“I’m stepping out for a minute, Jay,” he said to the young man at the front desk.
Jay acknowledged them with a nod and returned his attention to the computer screen.
Omar held the door open for Dana and she slid past, but not without getting a full blast of his sandalwood cologne, the deep woodsy scent making her imagine being slammed on a mattress and taken aggressively.
Whew.
She hid the tremor licking through her body as she led the way to her champagne-colored Camry parked in the lot.
“Is your brother still in town?” she asked, standing beside the car.
Omar squinted against the sun, his green eyes looking greener because of his shirt. “Yeah. He’s been vague about when he plans to leave.”
Dana had never met Omar’s older brother, Cole, who was visiting for the first time from New York. He’d arrived a couple of weeks ago. Omar suspected something was amiss and couldn’t figure out what caused him to take an extended trip to Atlanta, but the suspicions about his brother were pure speculation.
When Cole arrived, he brought Omar’s son, Prince, from New York with him, and after Father’s Day, Omar would take him back.
“How do you feel about him being here?”
His relationship with his brother was similar to her relationship with her parents—tolerable at best.
Omar shrugged. “Doesn’t make any difference to me. I see him when I go over to my parents’ house. Otherwise, we don’t spend time together.”
“Eventually, the two of you are going to have to reconcile your relationship.”
“It’s not me, it’s him. He doesn’t want to have a real relationship with me, and it took a long time for me to understand and accept the truth. Anyway, you’re one to talk. You hardly speak to your parents.”
“We speak, but our conversations never go well. Their negativity is draining, and as you know, they’re not the most supportive people in the world.”
She couldn’t remember her parents ever once attending an awards ceremony when she was a kid. They were always too busy at work, so they said, but their lack of support extended into adulthood. By then, she’d become accustomed to being the only person who didn’t have family in the audience cheering and clapping for her.
Thank goodness for her friends. When Georgia Piedmont Technical College gave her an outstanding teacher award and a leadership award back in April, her besties and Omar were in the audience, screaming as if she’d won an Oscar, and then they took her out for drinks afterward.
