One night in Manhattan

Seems like you're ready

The next evening.

Jordan and Zac were seated on the bench courtside. Neither of them had really spoken to each other since the day outside the jail when Zac picked him up But Zac called him desperately needing to talk.
"Before I dump all this on you, how are you jailbirds doing?" Zac asked his friend.

"Shut up. We good. Still ain't heard from Shelby tho."

"Damn man, that's crazy. See how everything just be working out. I could have been married to that," Zac shook his head in disgust.

Zac wanted to talk to Jordan about what he heard the other night between the conversation was playing in a loop in his head, and he had no idea what to do about it but first he had to fill him in on why they left the party early in the first place.

"So what do you think I should do?" he asked after reciting what he heard to his best friend.

"I don't think you should do anything."

"So just pretend I didn't hear?" he asked confused.

"There's obviously a reason she doesn't want you to know, so don't press it." Zac thought about what his friend said. He picked up his water bottle and took a drink.

"Zac. do you have feelings for her?"

"I don't know."

Jordan gave him a look. "Don't do that. You know I know you right?"

"Don't do what? I'm not doing anything."

"Maybe you don't realize it, but I've seen the way you look at her. Me and Jamar were just talking about it the other day." It was true. The first time that Jordan and Jamar met Fatima and Lauren they watched Zac be so gentle and soft with her. He'd always been a gentleman but the way that he handled Fatima was different, even in comparison to the way he was with Lauren. Jordan never mentioned it because he knew that he was still healing from Shelby and Zac insisted they were just friends.

"What? She's a beautiful woman. I Look at beautiful women the same way."

"No. You don't. Lauren is gorgeous and you don't look at her nearly the way that you look at Fatima."

"Whatever man. And you said Lauren was encouraging her to tell you?"

"That's what it sounded like."

"look. If she wants you to know, she will tell you. Until then, you need to think about how you feel about her. In the meantime, there's another L wit ya name on it." Jordan said picking up the basketball from between his feet and tossing it to Zac. Zac caught the ball and the hint. He met Jordan in the middle of the court. By the time they were done, Zac had managed to redeem himself from his earlier loss and there was a text on his phone from Fatima. Jordan noticed the smile creeping across Zac's face.

"And you say you don't know how you feel. You've never smiled like that when I text you."

"Man shut up."

"I'm just curious about how you're gonna handle this cruise. She gonna be walking around in nothing but bikinis and you ain't had no ass in a minute."

"Man shut up!" The boys laughed as they parted ways. Zac sat in his parked car thinking about what Jordan said. Maybe he was looking past his feelings for her and calling it friendship.

**

Zac got home and called Fatima. It was early enough for her to still be awake, and he wanted to check on her from yesterday. Unfortunately, when they went to pick Seven up from her friend's house to go to dinner, she was complaining of an earache and Fatima said she felt warm like she could have a fever. So instead of hanging out, he drove them home and ran back to the grocery store to get the things Fatima was picking up earlier. He dropped them back over to her house before calling it a night. She picked up the phone in a cheery tone. Fatima and seven missed out on school and work that day but he was pleased to hear that Seven was feeling a bit better.