Michael's POV
"So have you asked her yet?"
I looked at my little sister with confusion filling my face. We were walking from the stables by our house after feeding the animals, and was about to go find a movie to watch. That question had came completely out of the blue. "Ask who what?"
"Liyah. Did you ask her?" she said.
I stared at her, completely clueless. She wasn't being very specific at all. "Dunk, I don't know what you're talking about."
She sighed shaking her head. "Mike, sometimes you can be very slow."
"How can you expect me to know what you're talkin 'bout when you are not tellin me anything?"
"Because, Mike, you should already know what I'm talking about." She said as she stopped at the sidewalk. " We talked about it last week."
It was then that it hit me what she was talking about. " Oh...that! No, I haven't."
Her face fell immediately. "Mike! What are you waiting on?!"
"She's not ready!"
"She's not ready?!" she retorted then let out a loud snort. " Hmph! Whatever! I think she's just scared."
"Oh, so I'm not the only one...." I said mostly to myself.
"Do she you even know you got it?"
I shook my head as I shoved my hands in my pocket. "No."
"So you bought it what, two or three months ago and she still don't know you got it?"
I shook my head.
"Why not, Mike?"
I rolled my eyes and sighed before speaking: " She say that she wants to wait until she is 'Well in her twenties" She's about to turn twenty- one soon, and I'm gonna be twenty-five. Honestly, I think she's just using that as an excuse. I feel like a part of her is just holdin back, you know?" I brushed some of the curls from my forehead. "I wanna do this right. I've already broke enough rules as it is. When she see that ring, I'll be right in front of her on one knee proposing."
"Well, why don't you just do that?'
"I want to know for a fact that she will say yes." I explained.
We started walking again, this time, in silence. She was thinking. I could tell by the look on her chubby face that she was. Then she looked up at me with a somewhat humours look on her face. " I'm pretty sure once she see that diamond she will say yes."
I chuckled and shook my head from side to side. " Liyah, doesn't care about that stuff. " I said. " She's not materialistic."
" Yeah, I've noticed." She agreed.
Not to long ago, maybe about two and a half months ago I had gone to Tiffany's with my mother, La Toya, and Janet. They had closed down the whole mall just for us. We were searching for a gift for my grandmother for mother to bring back to her when she visited her that following weekend. They couldn't decide on anything so I went off to look at other things. Not exactly thinking that I would find something that would catch my eye, I was just trying to get away from all the bickering.
I found my self looking at rows of engagement rings and wedding bands-they were way on the other side if the store and I could hear their bickering becoming a him in a distance while I was staring at them. None of them would have been something Liyah would wear, they all had gold bands and she didn't wear gold - only silver, but I kept looking until on the very far end I saw one that caught my eye.
It was a ten carats princess cut diamond ring with two one carat diamonds on the side, and there were little silver diamonds going around the band. I could picture being on her long skinny finger. Along with the ring that she cherished from her grandmother. She had told me that she would never stop wearing that ring, even when we were married. It would just take the place of the wedding band also. That ring would look perfect with the ring that I was looking at.
I didn't even realize how hard I staring at it until I heard a soft voice ask: "Do you need any help?" I looked up to see a short woman with blonde hair and blue eyes.
I blushed slightly and glanced down at the ring. " Can I see that one?"
She nodded and took her keys, opening up the box where they were securely safe. She sat down in front of on the glass top and smiled. "The three diamonds represents the past, present, and future. You know, everlasting love." She explained. "Very popular now."
"Do you have this in a six?" I asked as I picked it up to get a better look at it.
"That's actually a six."
I took my attention off of it and glanced at her, surprised. " Really?"
"Yes, sir, and it's the only one we have left." She said, going into sales mode. " Do you plan on proposing to anyone, Mr. Jackson?"
I gently placed the ring down in front of me. " Yes, my girlfriend."
"Liyah?"
I nodded. I had instantly remembered that I had bought things from her before for my mother, my sisters, you name it. She knew our family very well. I think her name was Jane.
"Do you think she would like any of these? The gold and silver is very popular as well."
I shook my head." No, she doesn't wear gold." I said. " How much is it?"
"It's on sale for 478, 800 plus the tax. So, about..." her blue eyes darted up towards the white ceiling. " 500, 000."
I nodded my head up and down and reached in my pocket pulling out my wallet. " I want it." I handed her my credit card.
"Okay, hold on a moment." She said as she walked in the back.
While I was waiting Janet came around the corner. "We're ready to go," she said. " we found something."
"Okay, I'll be there."
She eyed my wallet in my hand. " What are you buying?"
I told her that I had found a ring for Liyah and that I was thinking about proposing to her soon. She nearly had a heart attack when she saw the ring. By the time Jane had came back with a black box for the ring to go in they all were there eyeing it. La Toya told me she wanted one just like it bit bigger. I told her that she would have to buy it herself. Mother told me that I needed to think it through and be sure that this is what I wanted to do. The thing was, I knew Liyah and I would be married the first day I had laid my eyes on her.
I could see our whole lives right I'm front of me.
The ring was in my room. In my closet on a top shelf where I knew she wouldn't find it. Hiding it was hard considering the fact that Liyah liked to clean my room every time she visited. It was almost like a habit of some sort. As soon as she entered - even when it wasn't all that messy, she would still pick up shoes, straighten up the dresser, my movie shelves, book shelves. Sometimes I wondered if she was OCD.
As we walked back into the house and kicked off the shoes she asked me one last question: "What if you do ask her and she say no?"
I stood up straight and frowned my eyebrows as I thought about the question. I shrugged my shoulders. "Then I don't know what I would do with myself."
Liyah's POV
"I never really liked that girl. " Leena told me. We were sitting at Sasha's and Liana's house waiting for the to show up out the kitchen. They had called us while we were in New York for the couple of days were to tell us that when we were back in town they needed to talk to us about something very important. I had been killing myself for the past couple of days trying to figure out what it was she wanted to talk to is about, because she didn't give any specific details. My brain was going towards the worst. Was she sick? Did someone die? I was completely losing it.
I shook my head at her and took a sip of my juice. " Yeah, I can't stand her." I said.
"Did she really sleep with Michael?" She asked in a whisper as of there were other people in the room to hear.
"Girl, she used to date him."
Her mouth dropped. " What?! He dated that bitch before you?"
I shook my head again." No, he dated her, then it was Tatum O'Neal and then it was me." I explained. I pulled a pillow from behind my back. "He dumped her though."
She started laughing." And all this time I thought you were like, his first girlfriend or something."
"Nope, he dated Stephanie mills for a little too but I don't think they were serious. She came after Tatum."
Her face filled with slight disgust." I'm sorry, but Stephanie Mills ain't all that pretty, and she's too short for him. How the hell did he go from Vanessa Holiday, to Tatum O'Neal, to fucking Stephanie Mills?"
That comment made me laugh. I shrugged my shoulders and held out my hands saying, I don't know. " He met her while he was doing The Wiz."
She rolled her eyes. " Whatever."
"Oh," I held up my finger and shifted myself towards her. " no to mention that he slept with Diana Ross too."
"WHAT?!?!" her voice echoed through the room, as her mouth dropped to the floor. "Are you kidding? Please tell me you're kidding!"
"I wish I was," I said with a sigh. " He said that it was a one time thing. It happened when he was a teenager. I think seventeen or eighteen. I don't remember."
"Dude, that's fucking rape."
"I can't talk because I was sixteen the first time we did it..."
"So?" She asked cutting me off. " She's like fifteen years older than him. If he was sixteen that mean that she was..." she glanced towards the ceiling, doing the math in her head. "Thirty?"
"Thirty-one I corrected."
Her face began to scrunch up with disgust but her laughter took over. " Ewwwwwwww!"
I couldn't help myself but start laughing.
"Oh, my God. I bet she was all stretched out and everything."
That only made me laugh harder because I remember having that exact same thought.
"Wait a minute, wasn't she married too? To that one guy?" I nodded my head. " Oh, my God! and she....that is just nasty. Do he have like, a thing for young and older women or something?"
'What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean, you're four years younger than him. Tatum is I think, a year younger than you. Vanessa is your age. Diana is old as dirt. I mean what the fuck?"
I shrugged my shoulders. " Age ain't nothin but a number."
"I guess so...but why Diana?"
"He had a crush on her and them she broke his heart because she didn't know what she wanted."
She snickered. " It's kinda messed up they divorced."
"Mhmm...." I said.
She shook her head. " So why don't Vanessa like you?"
I shrugged my shoulders up and down and rested my back in the brown sofa. " I don't know, and I honestly don't care."
"What did she tell you the other night. You know, when she started speaking Spanish.
"Oh, she called me a ghetto ass."
"And what did you say."
"I called her a slutty ass bitch and said that I knew how to speak Spanish too. "
"See?" She laughed. " I knew you had a little bit of me somewhere in you."
I only laughed with her. I loved the fact that Leena and I were bonding. We never was able to sit and have a conversation without arguing about something. It gave me a warm feeling considering that she was the only piece of me that I had left. My father was probably dead for all I knew, and even of he was alive I probably wouldn't be able to find him. I didn't even have a name.
"What is all this screaming in here for?" Sasha asked as she and Liana walked in to the living room.
"She just told me something that caught off guard."
She sat down in the couch in front of us that and crossed her legs in front of her. She held a coffee mug in her hand. Liana remained standing but leaned on the end of the couch quietly. She seemed unusually quiet. "What did you want to talk to us about?" I asked, remembering why we were there.
Sasha sighed and frowned. "I don't know how to tell you this?"
"Why?" Leena asked. " Did something bad happen?"
"No," Liana said, softly. " she's just scared. "
"Scared? Of what?"
"Your reaction," Liana was being very monotone. I felt suspicion building up in me.
"What? Whatever it is I won't..."
"Not your reaction," she interrupted. "Ali's"
My face crumbled in confusion. "What do you mean? What's going on?" I asked. I
My mind was racing again. This time like an Olympic track star. I was shaking as my suspicion build up inside of me. What is going on? I asked myself this a million times before and the more I asked the more afraid I was becoming for the answer. I looked up at Liana but she wasn't looking at me or Leena. She was just looking at the cream colored carpet. Her eyes were dead, as if she was out it.
Something was definitely up.
Sasha took a sip of her coffee and sat it down on the wooden table that sat in between us. "We received a phone call the other day," She began slowly as her brown eyes fell to her hands that were folded in her lap.
"From where?" Leena asked.
"Child protector services in Brooklyn. "
"Why were they calling?" Leena asked the question that I was wondering.
Sasha looked over at Liana and ran her fingers through her hair. Shifting it over to one side. " We found out why your mother went back to New York."
Leena gasped. " Why?!"
Her darted towards me and back to her, clearing her throat, she spoke slowly. " Your mother had another kid. You have a little sister."
My mouth dropped.