(Ryan's outfit for the dinner in the media above)
(Ryan's POV)
"Ryan I'm so glad you called me to help because baby girl I'm sorry to tell you, you would've burnt this kitchen down." Faith pats my back covering the food with aluminum foil.
"Thank you for helping, I really appreciate it. I don't know where Justine is and she isn't answering my calls after she told me she'd help. I know you probably had better things to do than help your son's girlfriend cook."
"Nonsense sweetie. I'm always happy to spend time with you, you're wonderful." I smile at the older woman she speaks.
"Thank you, you're amazing too. Okay I want you to rate my gift." I walk into the living room and grab the giant cardboard box.
"Is there something in it?" She tilts her head in confusion at the box. I spin it around to the side I wrote on. "I'm moving in?" She reads out slowly before gasping and holding her hands together. "You're moving in?!" She yells excitedly and I nod. She pulls me into a tight hug. "Michael is going to be so happy. What made you change your mind?"
"I'm really understanding why he wanted me to move in now. Michael is too tired to drive over to my place after shoots and he's been working really hard lately. So I have to drive over here every night and drive back to work. He lives closer to my job than I do if you take the back roads. But from here to my place is like a forty minute drive. I just want to come home and just snuggle up with Michael."
"Well I'm glad you are making this big step in your relationship."
"I am too, okay you get out of here I need to get ready."
"Alright I hope this dinner goes amazing! The food taste great and call me if anything goes wrong." She hugs me again before leaving.
"Bye Faith." I call out as she leaves. I jog upstairs showering, exfoliating and shaving. I finish straightening my hair and wrap it up as I hear the front door slam close. I swear I told Sterling to keep Michael out of the house until eight. I snatch my phone up opening it seeing that it was seven thirty. Shit what the hell have I been doing for the past two hours? Dialing Sterlings number I place the phone to my ear.
"Before you trip the fuck out on me, I couldn't stop him from coming home. He's pissed he hasn't heard from you all day other than as he says the dry ass happy birthday you gave him. He just wanted to go home and go to sleep. It was hard as fuck trying to keep him away for this long." As he speaks I quickly unwrap my hair again.
"Fuck Sterling I'm not even ready, don't let him upstairs or in the kitchen." I say through my gritted teeth shimmying into my dress.
"Alright I got you I'll try to get him to stay in the gym, I'll tell him to work out the stress. I'll hit you up if he's coming upstairs."
"Okay thanks please don't fuck this up for me."
"I'll try." He hangs up and I don't have time to do a full face of makeup. So I fix my eyebrows, put on some dark lipstick, highlight and some mascara. Slipping on my heels I grab the small black box that contains his first gift and scramble downstairs and go outside to try and set up the table.
"Sis, I'm sorry I'm late I got caught up with work. I know I was supposed to be here I already set up the table and heated the food up." Justine says still adding some touches to the table.
"I'm just glad you're here now this almost went to straight shit." I help her place plates and napkins.
"I locked them in the garage and hid the remote so they couldn't open the garage back. They gave up on trying to leave like five minutes ago. Girl you look good." She shoots her eyes over to me and I laugh thinking about Michael and Sterling being locked in the garage.
"Thanks no time for that, grab the salmon and I'll get the mash potatoes and green beans." I whisper as we go back into the house collecting the dishes to place back at the table. "This shit is hot!" I whisper yell running back to the table placing the dishes down.
"Why didn't you get an oven mitt dummy? Okay I'm going to freshen up bring the boys inside." Justine goes into the bathroom and I go to garage door taking a deep breath before opening the door.
"Hey baby." I walk over to where the pair were sitting on the bench.
"Why the hell was the door locked? And why are you all dressed up where are you coming from?" Michael stands up looking down at me.
"Just come with me. Sterling, Justine is upstairs." I pull Michael with me inside.
"You didn't answer my question." Michael grumbles and I can tell he has a bad attitude. "You haven't contacted me all day and I didn't even get to wake up with you this morning." He pulls me to a stop and places his hands on my hips.
"If you see what I'm doing you'll understand why I haven't contacted you all day."
"Where were you last night? I went by your apartment and you weren't there."
"I slept over at Johns."
"For what?"
"Michael just come on, I have something to show you." I try and tug him outside to the dining area.
"Look, I just want to go upstairs and go to sleep. You know I don't sleep well with out you here. I'm tired Ryan." I place my hand on his cheek and press my lips onto his softly.
"Just come see and you'll be happy."
"Fine, but you're staying here tonight I hope you know that." I bite my lip going to cover his eyes. "Why you trying to blind me?"
"Just go along with it damn Michael calm down." I waddle behind him with my hands cupping his eyes leading him to the seating area. "Tada!" I pull my hands away and look at his face.
"You cooked?" He lifts up the foil looking at me with an eyebrow raised.
"I'm not going to lie, your mom helped but it's only because I didn't want to poison you." I admit and he bursts out laughing coming over to press a kiss to my lips.
"I'm sorry I was acting like that earlier, thank you for cooking for me I really appreciate it. But why are there four plates?"
"I thought since it's your birthday we could have a double date so you can spend your night with your girlfriend and your best friend." I smile up at him and his smile falters.
"A double date with Steelo and Justine?"
"Yeah, why is there something wrong with that?" I bite my lip now feeling slightly bad.
"No no, I just didn't think they'd want to go on a double date. I didn't even think they were official yet."
"Right? Justine told me that they were actually dating isn't that crazy? Who would've ever thought that they'd end up together."
"We did, I always had a thing for your purple headed friend." Sterling comes out to the table. "Wow this is nice good job Ryan." Sterling pops the back of my head coming around to the table with Justine.
"Thanks." I grumble sitting down.
"So everyone is dressed up besides me?" Michael looks at us up and down before sitting down next to me placing a hand on my thigh.
"It's your birthday you should be comfortable." I look over to him.
"I could've gotten a heads up and I would've dressed up nicely." He grumbles placing food onto his plate.
"And ruin your surprise for your grouchy ass? I almost snapped on your dumb ass like seven times today." Sterling looks at Michael with a glare.
"It's not my fault I had an attitude, that was Ryan's fault she could've at least said she was busy doing something and not ignored me all day and night."
"Why do you think we were here last night? We were dropping stuff off for the dinner."
"That was weird as hell. And y'all niggas just left me there to explain."
"Well that's what you get for scaring me yesterday."
"Yeah I still haven't gone into the fridge I'm scared to get pranked." Michael finally bites into the fish and his eyebrows shoot up. "Damn this is good as fuck! You and moms might be onto something." He compliments making me smile.
"I'm surprised roast beef, I thought it was going to be ass for sure." Sterling brings the nickname back making Michael laugh.
"Oh shit I forgot all about that." He tries to contain his laughter as I fake glare at him.
"Ha ha ha. Hilarious." I grumble dryly. "Anyways, happy birthday." I slide the small box over and Sterling gasps.
"I know you aren't proposing? Hold on I'm finna be a best man!" He yells and I look at him blankly.
"No and shut the hell up." I open the box and give it to Michael. "I know you've been eying this for a while but you weren't trying to drop the coin and get it."
"This is the pinky ring I've been looking at? Do you know how much this was? I wasn't even trying to drop a bag and get this." He inspects the ring and I nod slowly.
"I know it was expensive b-" I was cut off by him slamming his lips onto mine.
"Thank you so fucking much. God you didn't have to do this for me." I rests his forehead onto mine and I hear Sterling gag and Justine Aw.
"I knew you'd like it, plus anything for you." I kiss his lips again before turning back in my seat.
"So y'all not getting married?"
"Can we take this a step at a time? Please and thanks."
"Why can't y'all get married though?" He grumbles and I lean over in flick him in the head.
"Why don't you and Justine get married?" I raise and eyebrow.
"We just got into our relationship. You and Michael are what eight months strong now?"
"Almost eight months, why are you keeping up?" Michael corrects his friend.
"Well I didn't think you'd actually stay in a relationship this long so I was surprised and I counted up the months."
"Wow you didn't believe in our relationship?"
"Thats not what I was saying."
"I'm kidding." I laugh at him and his attempt to explain himself. We continue the dinner and go back inside cleaning up after ourselves.
"Cake and more presents time." I say in a sing song voice, bringing out the cake and setting it down on the kitchen counter.
"Red velvet?" Michael asks with hopeful eyes and I nod. "You're spoiling me. I'm going to have to go off in the gym tomorrow because this cake is getting smashed." He admits and dips his finger into the icing moaning at the taste.
"Before you start doing something I don't want to see, open my gift." Steelo hands Michael a giant rectangular box. Michael slowly opens it and pulls out a few boxes of shoes.
"I know these aren't the unreleased joints." He asked happily opening up the boxes. "That's wild." Michael daps his best friend up gently inspecting the shoes.
"You know I got the hook ups." He smiles and Justine hands him a smaller bag.
"You didn't have to get me anything Justine." He takes the bag looking inside.
"I didn't know what to get and Ryan wasn't any help so I just got you some cologne and some sunglasses I hope you like it." He slowly pulls out the expensive looking Armani cologne and ray ban glasses.
"She has a little taste." Michael gives her a side hug thanking her again.
"You know I do." She smiles dusting off her shoulder.
"Okay last gift." I push the giant box over to Michael turning it to the side that I wrote on. Just like his mother he slowly reads the box in a confused manner before looking up at me excitedly.
"Really?"
"Yes, I can start when ever you want me to." He comes over and scoops me up into his arms.
"I love you so much Ryan. You don't understand how much this means to me." He presses a whole bunch of small kisses to my face and I laugh.
"I love you Michael. So fucking much." I hold his face in my hands looking at him. If it's even possible his smile gets brighter than it was before.
"You love me?"
"I'm in love with you Michael and I don't think I'll ever stop being in love with you."
"You make me so happy. Fuck it." He holds one arm underneath my butt and grabs the cake with the other. "Y'all might want to go to Justine's tonight." He calls to the Sterling and Justine taking me upstairs.
Finally they moving in together 😭😍 I be excited reading the chapter back like I didn't write it 😂 and this chapter long I'm blessssing y'all right now okay I'll be back soon I might not update tomorrow but hopefully I will on Saturday byeeee ❤️❤️❤️❤️