If You Love Me || COMPLETED!

11 | Let It Burn, but then Let It Go

Michael's words caught Semaj off guard and she found her mouth dropping open in surprise. She replayed the words over in her head before standing up from the couch.

"M-move in with you?" She looked around the room almost as if he could've been talking to someone else.

Michael nodded and took a step toward her. "Yeah, move in wit me."

Semaj chuckled and shook her head slowly while rubbing her temples. "As tempting as that sounds, as good as that sounds, I can't do that."

"And why not? Semaj if you was livin' wit me then your parents ain't gon have so much power over you. You eighteen-years-old and they still groundin you. What the hell is that? Yeah sure they say it's because you took the car, but we both know it's more than that. And then James go and introduce you to some guy that I don't know?" His eyebrows raised and he took another step toward her. "Just because he tolerates me now don't mean he like me. I know he still wanna see you wit somebody else other than me."

"As true as that may--"

"Think about it" he interrupted her. "Livin wit me would be rules free... wit the exception of some shit, but you know what I mean. We ain't gotta worry about your parents or anybody tryna come in between us."

The more he talked about it the better it sounded to Semaj. She wanted to say yes, a million times, but she wouldn't allow herself to agree to Michael's offer.

"Michael, what about LaToya, huh?"

"What LaToya gotta do with you?"

"Well she does live in the house with you. You need to consult her before asking me to move in with you, because like it or not she pays bills there and she needs to be okay with it."

"Semaj that's my house, my name is on the damn papers, I'm just allowin LaToya to live there. Matter of fact if I cared enough to ask her she should be fucking ecstatic because she wouldn't be living wit me if it wasn't for you."

This was true for Semaj was the one who convinced Michael to allow LaToya to move in with him. Semaj sat down on the couch and rubbed her hands across her face.

"It really ain't that hard to say yes or no," Michael added as he came to sit down next to her. His phone vibrated in his pocket where Randy was texting him to remind him that he needed to come to Katherine's house. Michael's eyes roamed the message and he put his phone back in his pocket before looking back over at his girlfriend. Semaj was sitting quietly next to him thinking about his offer and whether she should move in with him or not. She turned to look at him her hand over her mouth as her elbow balanced her arm on her thigh.

"You don't think it's too soon?" She questioned curiously. "I mean we've only been together for five months... isn't that a little too soon to be making a big move like this?"

Michael's eyes narrowed as he stared at her. "What you tryna say?"

"I'm saying..." she took a deep breath and looked away from his intimidated stare. "I'm saying what if we don't work out? If I move out of here Michael and we break up then that means I'll have nowhere to go, because I promise you if we go through with this my dad will be so pissed-he won't let me return."

"We ain't gon even have to worry about that."

Semaj smirked and turned her head back to face him as she asked, "what makes you so sure?"

"Because I ain't goin nowhere Semaj."

She couldn't help but to smile widely as Michael said those words and the sincerity in his brown eyes warmed her heart. Maybe moving in with Michael wouldn't be as disastrous as she thought. A lot of good could come from them living together, for example, not having to worry about walking on eggshells around her parents. She'd also be able to see him whenever she wanted to. But just as much good that could come, so much bad could also follow. If she moved out then her dependency would leave from her parents and fall on Michael for she no longer had a job, and even if she did it would be minimum-wage and she'd barely be able to contribute. On top of that her and Michael had never lived together, so what if he got annoyed with her? What if he didn't like some of things she did? She didn't want to hinder their relationship by changing this drastically by moving in with him.