If You Love Me || COMPLETED!

9 | Let's Make A Deal

"Michael," Nicole said making Michael look from the computer screen and over to her. "Are you okay? You seem spaced out."

He was having what he had come to know as "Semaj withdrawals" which was similar to an addict missing his fix. It was going on three days since he had last saw or talked to her, and it became a new record for their relationship for the last time this happened only two days had passed.

Michael knew Semaj was wrong for taking the car without her parents' permission, for there were other alternatives than that, but he believed James and Janelle weren't going about it right way.

She was eighteen and for all her parents knew they got the car back in one piece, so Michael figured that grounding Semaj had more to do with Kearston's pregnancy than it did with her taking the car. Since Kearston was pregnant, Semaj's parents believed that putting their daughter on lockdown was their own form of homemade birth control.

Contrary to their beliefs the last thing Michael wanted was to get Semaj pregnant. Sure, a child was in his future, but Semaj had practically raised Simone, so the last thing he wanted to do was force Semaj to take care of another.

That would mean her life would be placed back on hold and he didn't want that for her. If anything, he wanted her to have everything she deserved... which included her own life.

"Michael" Nicole snapped her fingers in his face when he didn't reply. This immediately annoyed him and it was evident on his expression.

His expression had turned from calm to one of annoyance as he looked at her. "What?"

"I said are you okay? You look like you got a lot on your mind."

Michael scoffed and shifted in the computer chair. He mumbled a short reply while moving the mouse over the computer screen. "You don't know the half..."

"You can talk to me if you want you know?" She offered, but Michael's paranoia wouldn't allow him to take the bait. Semaj had let their first kiss slide, but if something happened between him and Nicole again he knew Semaj wasn't going to have it. She'd be pissed, hurt, done with him, or all the above. Nicole sighed when Michael ignored her again, so she reached out to touch his hand. Again, he gave her a look of annoyance before sliding his hand from underneath hers. "I told you we were friends. I'm not trying to come on to you... anymore that is."

Michael raised his eyebrows and Nicole nodded her head trying to reassure him, but he wasn't going for it. "I ain't got shit to say."

Rolling her eyes Nicole turned back to her own computer her eyes connecting with the numbers at the bottom of the screen. Time was slowly creeping closer and closer to ten at night and she looked around to see that they were practically the only people in the library besides the two janitors that were finishing up their cleaning on the second level. She guessed Michael had noticed the time too because when she looked back over at him he had started packing up his stuff.

"We present next week so we need to make sure this paper is finished by Sunday," she said as she exited out of her tabs and logged out of the computer.

"Yeah Nicole I know," Michael replied and he sounded highly irritated.

"What's going on with you? Because for these past couple of days you've been irritated." She eyed him as she packed up her own stuff. "Does this have something to do with Semaj?"

The sound of his girlfriend's name made Michael's head jerk up and his eyes to connect with Nicole's. Nicole's eyes widened in curiosity as she realized it was because of Semaj.

"Trouble in paradise, eh?" She laughed, but Michael found no humor in her joke.

He ignored this and replied to her previously said statement. "Same time tomorrow."