CHAPTER 03 PART 01
' Re - Acquainting Ourselves '
"That's the last of it." Emerald said as she flopped onto the couch, and proceeded to overdramatically say "And sir, I do declare.. This southern belle is right famished."
Michael snickered as he raised a brow, asked her, "Where did you live at when you didn't come here?"
"My daddy and I had a houseboat and a beach house in Mobile. I was a total beach brat growing up, it was amazing. I love the ocean." Emerald said as Michael flopped down into the chair, and said quietly, "I went to my dad's island once.. I was kind of protecting my younger half sister, Kristina.. But I loved it there."
"Lucky shit, you have a whole freakin island? And you're not living on it, because?" Emerald asked as she reached for the soda sitting on the black and chrome coffee table in front of the couch, Michael chuckling, handing her the soda before she quote 'fell on her head' end quote.
"I was not gonna fall, Michael." Emerald poked her tongue out in a teasing manner as she said quietly, "Back to the island, Michael.. The fishing there.. Is it good?"
"You fish?"
"All the time.. You're lookin at Mobile County's Father Daughter Fishing Rodeo champ, 4 years in a row, bud." Emerald said as she added, "Some of daddy's old friends had this shrimping boat, we all used to go out on it for weeks at a time, I did a lot of deep sea fishing. You've never been fishing? You're shitting me, right?"
"Nope."
She giggled and then sat upright, looked at him for a moment, biting her lip. "Sunday, you come with me and daddy then. It's high time you actually caught your own dinner, Michael."
"Whoa, you sure about that, I mean.. Couldn't help but overhear earlier this week when we were at the Floating Rib.."
"Dang it. I'm gonna tell you like I keep tellin daddy.. I'm pregnant, not terminal." Emerald said as she smiled at Michael and said quietly, "Besides.. Daddy started me when I was old enough to hold a pole in my hands."
Michael chuckled and then said "I can go, but I have to spend a little time with AJ. He's kind of going through things."
"Yeah.. The whole Kiki's Not A Q thing, right?"
"Basically, yeah. He had a lot riding on her being an heir."
"Ya know, you are nothing like I thought you'd grow up to be, Michael." Emerald blurted as Michael raised a brow, his face reddening a little as he coughed to clear his throat and said quietly, "Thanks, I think?"
"No, trust me, it's a damn good thing." Emerald said as she smiled and then said "I'm sorry, I'm apparently still an annoying little shit."
"Nope. You actually didn't turn out how I figured you would, either.. I thought that considering you spent all your time in boarding schools with other stuck up girls, you'd wind up like them."
"Me? You serious?" Emerald asked as she laughed a little then said "Thanks.. My dad, he did his best to keep me down to Earth."
"Yeah, he's good about stuff like that. That guy is the most laid back guy I have ever really met. I used to wonder how exactly he and Sonny became friends."
"Me too."
"So you went to the University of Alabama?"
"Roll Tide, babe." Emerald said as she sighed and said "I went for two semesters before I managed to get myself right in the middle of the shit storm of the century.. I should have listened to my dad, but no.. I had to think he'd actually be a good guy.. Nope, he was every bit the scoundrel that my daddy said he'd be."
Michael chuckled and then asked, "What were you going to major in?"
"Don't think I'm a nerd or something.. I wanted to either major in medicine, or early child education. I still might enroll in online courses, actually. I mean just because my life's sort of at the low right now, doesn't mean I can't honest to God make something of it."
"Good point." Michael said thoughtfully as he smiled at her.
"So, what about you? I mean I've been sitting here, telling you everything about me, I know nothing of you since the time I kinda busted you in the eye with a sand shovel." Emerald teased with a slight grin as Michael sighed and then said quietly, "You're probably gonna hear it from everybody else in town, I might as well tell you now. I had some really, really bad things happen to me.. I kinda missed half my teenage years because I was in a coma.."
"Wow.. Okay, what happened? If I'm not being too nosy?"
"No, it's fine.. Some guy had a hit on my dad, thanks to my ex stepmother Claudia, and somehow, I got shot instead. For a while, when I came out of it, I blamed Sonny, but now I'm older, I realize what happened.. After that, I started having these episodes where I lost my temper really, really easily, and almost to the point of blacking out.."
"Yeah? But you're okay now, right?"
"Yeah, for the most part." Michael said as he continued finally, "Then Claudia, she snapped and tried to kidnap my baby sister, Joss.. So I lost it on her, and when I caught her trying to hurt my baby sister, I accidentally killed her. I wanted to confess, but my parents wanted to cover for me, because of how it happened.."
Emerald sucked in a breath and then laid her hand on his shoulder carefully as she said "Hey.. You don't have to tell me this stuff it you don't want to."
"But you've told me everything about you, almost." Michael pointed out, before continuing, "No, I need to get this all out now. That way if you decide not to keep living here, or even being a friend.."
"Hey.. Look at me, Mr. I'm not that kinda girl. I judge by what I see sittin in front of me now. And what I see sittin in front of me now, is a man I wish to all hell I'd have been around more to get to know."
"Thanks. I mean I'm not some saint though.." Michael trailed off as Emerald gave him a glare then said "But nobody expects you to be perfect."
He nodded, took a few more deep breaths and then continued, "I went to Pentonville Prison for a while and by the time I got out, I was 18, a senior in high school with rage issues, and some stuff that happened to me in prison weighing on me heavily. I'm actually still dealing with what happened to me in prison." Michael admitted as he avoided looking at her, not wanting to lose the first actual female friend he'd had in a long time. Probably since Abby.
He and Starr kind of skipped the friendship phase, he thought, and he also wondered sometimes if that's not what messed them up so badly in the end.
And he really couldn't call Kiki a friend, not given what he'd thought he felt for her, originally.
"Whoa... What did happen to you in.." she asked as she trailed off, started putting two and two together, realized that he must have been raped. She sighed quietly and shook her head as she said "Don't answer that. You don't have to.. I just guessed. God, Michael, I am so sorry.. I know, that was probably the lamest thing I could possibly say.." she muttered as she looked at her hands awkwardly, then eventually up at him and admitted quietly, "I never actually consented to sex with my jerk of an ex either.. I don't.. I haven't told anyone, because my dad would murder him and.."
Michael looked at her and then said quietly, " should tell someone what really happened though.. Holding it in.. It doesn't ever help, trust me. I held it in until this guy, Franco, outed me."
"I want to, but I'm afraid of what people will think about me, especially considering I am not giving up my baby." Emerald said quietly as she sighed and then added quietly, "I'm sorry. I really am."
"Me too. And I'm definitely not gonna let your ex near you."
"Whoa.. How'd you know he was here?" Emerald asked quickly, her defenses going up as she fixed her eyes on him intently.
"Because he sort of found me when I walked down to the lobby after you, and we had words. I punched him.." Michael admitted as Emerald bit her lip and asked, "That son of a bitch.. He didn't do anything to you or say anything threatening, did he?"
"Whoa, calm down."
"No, the hell I am not, Michael, you're my friend, you're an innocent bystander in all this, I'm the one who made this mess."
"You didn't make a mess. You just trusted someone. It's called a mistake, Emerald." Michael said quietly as he looked at her and asked, "Why didn't you say anything to your dad?"
"Because, I'm trying to handle this on my own. I'm trying to be an adult."
"There's being an adult, Em, and then there's being stupid about something. That guy looked dangerous."
"Hence the reason I've talked to the local police about him, filed a report. If he gets within a foot of me, I can have him thrown in jail."
"He deserves to go under the jail." Michael said quietly as Emerald nodded in agreement then said "Sorry I came unglued, it's just.. I'm not used to having many people in my life, other than my dad, the girls in my sorority.. I'm sort of a private person."
"Yeah.. But this is something you don't need to be private about, Em."
"Okay, Mike.. Point taken." Emerald said as she smiled at him weakly then added, "Hope to hell you broke his nose though."
"Oh trust me, he went down." Michael smirked as Emerald giggled and then stood, mocking a clumsy boxers stance. Michael laughed and standing said "You're doing it completely wrong. It goes like.." he stood behind her, moved her arms and feet into the correct form as he finished, "Like this."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
"No wonder people laughed their ass off when I sparred."
"And you don't fold your thumb in either. Unless of course, you want it broken." Michael chuckled as he fixed her thumbs then said with a smirk, "Try it."
"Swing at you?" she asked with her brow raised.
"Miss, but yeah, swing."
She swung and he ducked, jokingly reversed the hold. In a way, he was trying to teach her a little self defense, he worried a lot since they'd started becoming friends again when she came back to town, given the run in he'd had with her ex.
"Hey.. What the hell was that?"
"That's what you do if someone swings at you." Michael said quietly as he suddenly noticed how close they were standing. "You wanna try?" he asked to keep things neutral, not so damn tense.
"Sure. Okay, swing." Emerald said as she smirked to herself. When he swung, she did a jijistsu defensive block, grabbing his arm, giggling as she looked at him with a semi innocent smirk as if to say 'Oops?'
"Okay, where did you learn that?"
"Jijitsu?" she asked with a giggle, her hand on her mouth.
He stood, picked her up over his shoulder and spun around a little, now the two of them were sort of wrestling around in the middle of the living room, Michael being careful not to do something that'd hurt her or the baby she was carrying.
Until, of course, a throat cleared from above and Carly asked with a raised brow, "Interrupting something?" as she eyed her son's new roommate warily.
On the one hand, she was glad that this girl was NOT Kiki.. On the other, she didn't really know her too well, and she didn't know if she liked the idea of her son having a female roommate, especially one who was supposedly about a month or so pregnant.
She just didn't want Michael getting hurt if say this girl turned out to be a gold digger.
"No ma'am." Emerald said quickly as she jumped up and rubbed the back of her neck, falling silent. She got the distinct feeling that for some reason, Michael's mother didn't really trust her. She had the passing thought that maybe it had something to do with who Michael's fathers were, but she kept the thought to herself.
"I was showing Emerald some self defense." Michael blurted quickly as Emerald spoke up and said "And I was showing him that I took a few jijitsu classes."
Carly nodded, still not entirely convinced she hadn't interrupted something.. She knew her son, she'd seen him in flirting mode over the years, he appeared to be, now, with his new roommate.
"So you're Coleman's little girl.. What was that like?" Carly asked, making it obvious that she knew Coleman had to have been a man of little money. If she were a gold digger, Carly wanted to nip this in the bud now, intimidate her.
Emerald, however, seemed amused by the question and Carly's hidden meaning behind it, and she said calmly, "Oh trust me. It was definitely not normal. We were always on his house boat or at his beach house, and into something. We did everything together, fishing, you name it."
Carly wrinkled her nose in distaste at the fishing thing, and Emerald smirked a little. So she had been insinuating that Emerald was after Michael only because of his 'money' and family ties. She found herself thinking, 'Bet she's never once caught and skinned, then cooked her own meal.' and almost bursting into laughter at the thought, but luckily, she held it.
The door shut and Michael turned to her and then said "Wow.. I'm sorry about my mom, she's.."
"Michael, trust me.. I've dealt with overprotective parents, hello? My daddy liked to answer the door with a gun on his person and a liquor bottle in his hand to sort of dissuade the boys from talkin to me.. So I get it. I'm not offended. I do find it amusing though."
"It was."
They both began to laugh a little as she said "It's nice having someone to actually talk to."
"It is." Michael said as they both just looked at one another for a little while.
