Dr Cassandra Williams has lived a neat and tidy life with a very specific purpose for as long as she can remember. Then she spends one of the best nights of her life with a complete stranger in the Tuscan countryside. Taking a risk, she allows her...
Odell took my initial invitation for breakfast far too seriously. For the next several weeks, he showed up to my townhouse almost every morning... without calling.
"I sent you a text." He only brought Khan the biggest of his dogs over today. Khan was the calmest of the three and he sat perched as usual on the small throw carpet that I kept on the wooden floor of the kitchen eyeing the interaction between us humans.
Whenever Odell brought more than one dog at a time, the dogs always found a way to knock over something fragile, which Odell would have to pay for. He would always come back with something twice as expensive as the item that the dogs broke. I think he trained them to do this, just so he had an excuse to bring gifts every time he showed up.
"I know you live around the corner but I keep telling you. Sending a text while you're standing on my front doorstep doesn't count." I rolled my eyes and set a bowl of oatmeal down in front of him and then a bowl of water in front of Khan.
We had actually become friends. Well... friend-like. I was still having those awkward dreams about him from time to time. And I was still suspicious that he had some hidden ulterior motive. "What if I had company last night?"
"How do you eat this shit??" Odell wrinkled up his nose in disgust and then he moved the lumpy oatmeal around with his spoon before dumping at least half a pound of brown sugar on top.
Now I screwed up my nose. The sweetness in his bowl was making me nauseous just by proximity. "You know if you actually called first I might have time to make you a real breakfast like I did the first time."
He scooped up a spoonful and ate it, seemingly satisfied with his bowl full of sugar. He complained every time, but he always ate my oatmeal anyway. So I made it every morning as usual. "You know I'm coming so why call. And what kinda company you got? Tyler sleeping' ovea again? What my lil buddy been up to?"
My little brother sometimes spent the night at my townhouse on the weekends when my mom needed a break. Since Odell was over at my place every morning, inevitably they had already met. Tyler was one of the scarce black kids in his overpriced private school and he did not have very many friends, so he loved having Odell around.
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Aww! Little Tyler 😊
From the moment they met, Odell completely won my little brother over to the point I think Tyler might love him more than me now. In Tyler's mind, we were already married and that was his new big bro. Then Odell dropped him off to school one day in his Rolls Royce Wraith and suddenly Tyler became one of the most popular kids in the school. Now he was asking to play football and begging to spend the night over here every other weekend. It wasn't going to be long before my mom showed up to find out why.
"I meant a man," I replied scooping out my own bowl of oatmeal before taking a seat across the counter from him. "And I'm sure your girlfriend is not happy about you showing up at my place every morning."
