I only [care] about you, Micah

[Aliana Donahue]

Aliana was a happy girl. She had finally gotten what she wanted. Indeed, it had taken a while. But it sure as hell had been worth the wait. He was such an amazing guy. He treated her well, he was always there when she needed him, and he was a pretty caring fellow. Not to add to the list, but he was amazingly attractive and great in bed. Go figure, yes, she was one lucky girl. Not even going to lie. She knew she was lucky to have him. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever pictured herself with such a great man, and settling down at nineteen years old. Love was something that scared so many people. It left you vulnerable, and easily hurt by the people you gave your heart to. Yet the two had jumped in head first, not knowing whether the water was shallow or deep. She hoped it was deep, she didn’t want this to end. This ecstasy that she felt when she was with him. It was amazing, and quite frankly she had never felt like this before. It was not something she wanted to end.

Micah had done quite a bit for her. Course, she had also done a lot. Most of her friends would not even look at her, feeling as though she had betrayed them in some sense. However, that was not so. She hadn’t betrayed them, she had just fallen in love, and she wasn’t going to give that up just because her friends said he was too dangerous for her. She could make those decisions on her own. She was a big girl, and she was old enough to make her own decisions about things, and to her Micah was a loving guy who would never hurt her. Micah, on the other hand, had dealt with a lot too. Kade was angry with him. Feeling as though Micah was sleeping with the enemy, if you will. Which, technically he was. Ali was the enemy to Brit and Kade, and it was her fault. She had lured Kade in, and he had kissed her. He had kissed her, that’s right, he kissed her, but she had pulled him into it. Whether he was doing it to make her mad, or to just get it over with was not the point. It happened and Brit had been angry. She didn’t care, and apparently neither did Micah.

Ali was just one of those girls who really didn’t care what people thought of her. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and how she wanted. She wasn’t the kind of girl who would change herself to please others. She was who she was, and she wasn’t going to change her personality to make you like her. In new York, people had loved her. Friends weren’t and issue, and of course, money was no matter either. She was one of the plastics, if you will. She wasn’t going to lie about that. She was one of those girls that would cut you down to nothing and then spit on you for good measures. She wouldn’t do it for no reason. There was always a reason behind things, she wasn’t that mean, but she didn’t put up with shit, and she wasn’t going to start. She knew who she was, and she wasn’t bending over for any body, and she wasn’t changing. Micah seemed to love her for who she was and she loved him for who he was.

Apparently, there were a lot of cons about Micah. Her friends hated him. That was the one that she was most hung up on. This was a la deed a, type of hate. This was a full on hate. They felt as though she was putting herself out there to be hurt. Their opinion on Micah was that he was a drug dealing murderer. Which, she couldn’t say either way. But her heart was telling her he was a good guy, and he was. So what was the deal. She loved him and why couldn’t her friends just be happy with the fact that she was. If her heart was broken, well, there was always the memories. If this worked out, well, then she would have to find a maid of honor, now wouldn’t she? He was not too worried about Kade, or her didn't let on to be, and she could easily get new friends. Ali would get new friends here in Seattle if she needed to, it was more easy that most would think. When you had money like Ali did, it wasn't a problem to get more friends.

Right now, Ali was not thinking of anything but Micah and how amazing he was. He had his arm wrapped around her and she snuggled up into his side with her head resting on his chest. Just incase you haven’t figured out yet: Yes, they had just been having sex. Ali was tired, she couldn’t deny that. She was always tired after such a work out, yet this time she didn’t go to sleep. She wanted a second round, but for now, she just wanted to cuddle. Her body was dampened slightly with a now cold sweat, and so was his, yet she still cuddle gently up to him, her skin pressed to his. She looked up into his eyes for a moment. Those deep blue eyes were playful as she gazed into his, she was just a happy camper. Sex always made her that way. Especially when it was sex with Micah, and for the past months she had only been having sex with him. Which, was perfectly fine with her. He was amazing at what he did. On the first night that they ever did anything, it was made very clear to her that he knew what he was doing with the woman body, and she was more than knowledgeable about the male. But, he was excellent, and to be quite honest, she didn't want to share him. However she had, for a really long time, but now he was all hers.

Ali now sat up a bit, her up body now leaning on his stomach. Her whole demeanor had changed from happy and lazy to inquisitive. She had some questions that she still hadn’t learned of yet. She gave him a kiss, her lips pressing gently to his before moving down over his jaw, down his neck, and over his collar bone. She than moved back down to her original position; head on his chest, and body cuddled up into his side. One hand being under her head, the other hand moving down his body to please him further. ”Mikey?” When he mumbled a ‘hmm’ she continued on lightly, after glancing around his apartment. There was no brunette, so maybe her friends had been wrong about that, of course, there was another bedroom, and she hadn’t seen whether or not it contained a woman’s heir. ”What do you do? For a living I mean.” She said and looked up at him, kissing him lips again. She wanted to keep the conversation light enough, but she still wanted to know. She had to know if her friends were right or wrong. they were always right, but she wanted so badly for them to be wrong. It was not that she had a thing against dealers, it was more like her Daddy, and brother would never approve. She didn't figure she would call things off just because he was dealing, but maybe he could play around with the idea of choosing a different occupation. This could be bad, huh?

[micah orsino ,]

Wouldn’t you know it? Life was still going pretty well for Micah Orsino, the man that never seemed to have any kind of problems or anything that makes some sort of rough patch in among all the smooth sailing he got to do. Of course, that all depended on perception and how one looked at it, but to Micah, everything had been going pretty freaking well. There had been that short amount of time that he hadn’t been talking to the woman that he loved, but that was all done and over with now. Now there were some other issues on the rise, but was he letting it get to him? Hell no. Micah wasn’t the kind of guy that every let things get to him, and if they did, he sure as hell didn’t let anyone see that they were getting to them unless he was super pissed off and wanted them to know about it. It might sound a little complex, but that was just Micah for you. Micah’s life, regardless of what was going on in it, was always going to seem like smooth sailing to him. It was his way of thinking that allowed him to believe that no matter what was going on, it could always be worse, therefore whatever he was going through couldn’t possibly be that bad and he could probably make it through without making a big deal out of it. Again, that was just Micah for you, but if you think about it, his philosophy did make some sense. In a kind of warped and twisted little way that most people can’t comprehend or adapt their lives to. Or maybe it wasn’t that they couldn’t, but more like they wouldn’t. Whatever it was, Micah’s way of looking at things really was unique. He’d seen things like that from an early age, the drug and alcohol abuse that came later on in his life having no part in altering his perception at all like it would be easy to believe that it had.

He had one hell of a great thing going for him at the moment, and that was that he was with Aliana Donahue. God, was he grateful that Kade was a loyal son of a bitch and had passed Ali up that night at Jared’s, allowing Micah himself to move in on her. That probably sounded awful, but it was the truth. Had Kade not have told Ali that he couldn’t go with her, then Ali most certainly would have went with him, leaving Micah with no chance of getting her. They might have met up later on, but it wouldn’t have played out the same way. That night at Jared’s when Micah had flirted and danced with the beautiful blonde, he had had no thoughts in his mind about falling in love with her. No, his thoughts had been more along the line of just getting one good night with her and that being the end of their story. But, that it hadn’t ended there. One night had turned into two. And then three. Four… As the time went by and they had spent more of it together, Micah and Ali had gotten to know one another fairly well. Micah felt that he knew a great deal about Aliana, anyway, and she knew more than what a lot of people knew about him. He knew what made her laugh, and she knew most, if not all, of his favorites by now. They were just highly compatible, them being a lot a like but different enough to make the relationship complete and to keep it from getting too boring.

It was certainly something new, Micah being in a relationship like this. He hadn’t been in anything that even resembled a real relationship since Greece up until now. Micah was a wild spirit and a hard man to tame, but Ali was proving that she could handle it. Well, she was handling what she saw of it, at least. While she did know a great deal about Micah, there were a lot of key points that she didn’t know. However, she was one of the ones that Micah vented a lot things to, things that he could have vented to any one of his other friends but chose to confide solely in her. She was his girlfriend, right? She was the one that he was supposed to be able to talk to about things like this, and that’s why he had trusted her with it. While most things in Micah’s life were great and well and going along without a single bump, there was one thing that Micah wasn’t particularly liking. Micah was the kind that liked to share the happenings in his life with his friends, and therefore had gone on to tell all of his close friends that he had in fact fallen for Aliana. Most had reacted with shock, them not fully understanding how something like that could happen. It was Micah, after all. They were used to his lifestyle that didn’t have a thing to do with committed relationships and having to try to keep up with the names of all the women that he saw within a given period of time. Kade, on the other hand, had seemed to tense at the news, and had distanced himself a bit. Micah and Kade didn’t have secrets, and that meant they Micah had been very upfront and questioned Kade about it later. The other man hadn’t tried to lie or beat around bush, but had had instead come right out in saying that he didn’t care for Ali, and that he wasn’t sure how he felt about Micah being with her given the messy little history that they all had. Meaning, Brit and Ali were mortal enemies, and Kade was having difficulty remaining neutral in this one, almost having to chose Brit’s side. Micah understood, but he didn’t like to think that he and Kade had this thing between them. They’d never been here before, and while they didn’t let it get in the way of their friendship, it was so odd having to watch what was said because neither of them knew who they might offend.

Micah didn’t let it eat away at him, though. He simply spouted off to Ali every once in a while, and she listened to him faithfully. Then, he would be done with it for that day and be able to go on like nothing was really bothering him at all, and really it wasn’t. Micah was the sort that once he got things off of his chest, he was fine and good. They just tended to come back easily and he’d have to go through the whole process again. Not that it seemed to matter much. Aliana was fantastic in the way that she was willing to listen, even though Micah’s venting was usually only a couple of quickly spoke lines, usually accompanied with a heavy sigh, and then he was done. He had never been one to by whiny or complain about things. Being that way did nothing for someone other than cause them to get on peoples’ nerves. It didn’t solve the problem, and Micah didn’t want to be one of those people. Instead, he dealt with things as they came, very little coming up to a level that he needed to vent it to someone. But, this was Kade, someone that Micah considered to be family, and Micah was a man that cared for those people more than he did for himself. He hated the thought that things weren’t right between them, but knew at the same time that there was relatively little that he could do about it. So, venting was what he did because if he kept it all to himself, it wouldn’t end well. That’s when things got so bottled up that they just exploded one day, and Micah knew that he was one to take his frustrations out on the ones that had caused them. Taking it out on Kade didn’t just have a possibility of ending disastrously. Kade was a fighter, and if the two of them got into it, it was hard to tell what the hell kind of injuries they’d come out of it with. Not to mention that their friendship of nearly seventeen years would be over in a flash. That wasn’t something that Micah was willing to risk.

Though, he wasn’t thinking about it much at the moment. He and Kade had taken Cooper out for ice cream the evening before, along with Hunter and Anna. It had been a nice outing, and one that had relaxed the situation for the time being. He felt okay about it, and that had caused him to not have much venting to do, meaning he and Ali were just a love crazy couple that afternoon when she had come over. Micah was just glad to have her there with him, and one thing had led to another, and that had led to them with their clothes off in his bed, passionate sex a must for that moment, it seemed. By the time they had finished, both bodies were covered with a light film of perspiration, and both regaining a steady breath as they lay side by side and skin on skin. Micah let his arm go around Ali, knowing that she usually fell asleep after they had sex and he himself letting his eyes drift shut. He wasn’t all that tired, but give him a comfortable place and enough time of sitting still and he could sleep just about anytime. Micah felt Ali snuggle in closer to him, and he couldn’t help but to grin a little playful grin, his blue eyes opening once again to look down at this beauty that he had in his arms. She was looking up at him, and he couldn’t help but to think that she had the kind of eyes that he could look into forever. Believe it when it is said that that wasn’t the kind of thought that Micah usually had about the women that he held. Aliana had won him over in a very special way, a way that none had ever done before. Micah knew that he loved this woman, and while that still sometimes send a jolt of fear through him, it was the best reason to have that sort of feeling. If he had to fear anything, this was what he wanted it to be.

Aliana sat up then, Micah’s blue eyes watching. She seemed to be passing up that little nap that she usually took, instead taking on a slightly curious way about her. That made Micah curious himself, wondering what was going on in that mind of hers. Ali kissed him then, first on the lips and then letting her own lips trail down over his jaw, neck, and then onto his collarbone. God, the girl knew what she was doing. Micah had never been one that was hard to tempt over and to turn on, but Ali didn’t even have to try. He loved the way her lips felt against his skin, and she knew it too. Ali let herself go back to the way she had been before with her head on his chest, him feeling her free hand move down further over his body. He had still been grinning at her, getting the idea that she wasn’t ready to quite with just one time, but wanting to go back for more. But, she seemed to want to do some talking in between. She said his name, or rather the nickname that she was fond of calling him. Micah mumbled a “hmm” type of response, wanting her to know that he had heard her and was paying attention. It was her question, though, that snapped him out of any kind of dirty little thought he might have been having. Remember those key points that she didn’t know about? Well, she had just asked about one of them. Micah had always said that honestly was the best policy unless being questioned by a police officer or some other authority figure. Then, the policy was lie your ass off if it meant staying out of jail. But, this was Ali. Honesty with her might not be the best option, but Micah really couldn’t see himself lying to her for anything. Well, almost anything. There were a few things that he was not willing to tell her, for her safety and his own, but this one wasn’t one of them. If Micah had any hopes of this girl being in his future, she had to find out the truth sooner or later, didn’t she? It was made obvious to him by that last kiss that she didn’t mean for this to be a tough question, and therefore the answer shouldn’t have been that way either.

”I’m self employed,” he said as if there were really nothing wrong with it at all, like it was nothing out of the ordinary. With just that bit of information, it really wasn’t. He could have stopped there, but it would have just let to a lot more questions, and Micah was going to try and be as upfront about this as was humanly possible for him to do. Had it been someone else, like Tish or Kade or Brit, he wouldn’t have hesitated to discuss business with them. With Ali, his main concern was scaring her off when he wanted nothing more than for her to stay. His blue eyes were still looking down into her pretty ones, hoping this didn‘t send her flying right off the deep end. His tone softened, knowing this wasn‘t something that she would probably see as light hearted and easy to take in. She wasn‘t really the type to run in that sort of world now, was she? Where drug dealing was an everyday thing? ”You know that shady guy in the dark alley ways, selling drugs to people that are desperately hooked? Well, I’m kind of that shady guy.” He put it out there very bluntly, but he didn’t want to beat around the bush. He wanted her to know, and he watched her carefully for a reaction. ”I’ve done a few other things, but that’s what I do. … Are you mad?” It might have seemed like a dumb question, or one that the usually overly confident Micah Orsino would never ask, but he didn’t want to freak the living shit out of her with this, and he didn’t want to lose her just because of the occupation that he had chosen for himself was mostly illegal. She had been the one to bring it up, though.

[Aliana Donahue]

Ali had been so happy since she had been back in his arms. Forgetting more or less about her lack of inner body self confidence. She didn’t like her tummy, there was nothing there, but to her there was. She didn’t like how short she was, and just all in all, she wasn’t pleased, but then when was she? Ali was probably one of the hardest women to please. She liked the life she lived. Her fancy house, her high priced horses that she never hardly rode, her clothes, her shoes, her hair, her nail… the list just went on and on. She could hardly even stomach the thought of how much her Dad had spent having that house of her’s built. That was one nice house. Placed nicely up on the house, then the inside had been decorated by the highest priced Interior Decorator she had ever heard of. But the house was built better than most, and she absolutely loved the house, she didn’t love the fact that she was all alone there, now living with her newly adopted dog. Thor was a retired police dog, a Rottweiler to be exact, and he was a big ass dog. Probably close to one sixty, one seventy. He was trained well too. All in German, but still. One word and the dog would tears someone’s face off. That was the key. She still wasn’t satisfied.

There was one thing that she was satisfied with and that was Micah. Boy did she love that man. She knew just how lucky she was to have him. He knew so much about her, yet he loved her anyway. He put up with her mood swings, and she did have them often. She was the kind of girl that could hold grudges for just about ever, and she would, however she could never hold a grudge against him. No matter what he said she just couldn’t stay mad at him. He was just so darn cute when he was trying to cheer her up. He always did a good job. He was more than happy to just cuddle with her on the couch and watch a good movie. Sure, he loved sex, what guy doesn’t, but what was the best was if she wasn’t in the mood, or it was her time of the month he was just fine with cuddling or making out. That was what had brought her to loving him more. One thing, she believed, was that the thing that had showed her how much she actually loved him. She didn’t even care to think about what would have happened had she not sat down with him that morning in Starbucks. The two now frequented that place, always having more fun than most in one of the booths.

The two had done a lot in public places, much like the movies, the bathroom at Starbucks, that was just a few places. Ali was classy as all get out, but she liked to have a bit of an adrenaline rush. It was the thought of getting caught that really gave her the rush. He was always happy to help her with her needs. That was another thing to love about him. He wasn’t one of those men that wanted all the pleasure and never wanted to reciprocate. She hated that. He was always happy to do anything to her she wanted, as was she with him. Hence the fact she had come to his house that afternoon like he had asked. They hard started out on the couch cuddling, but when she made it apparent she wanted more, he had not hesitated. It had not taken the two long to strip and end up in his bed. For once they had finally made it to his bed. It wasn’t her bed. It was his. She liked that much more. She found it comforting to be in his bed, in his apartment, and able to have fun in his place. She didn’t know why she liked it so much, maybe it was because it was a change, but either way, she just did. One thing she didn’t care for was the fact she had to keep quiet. Mr. Kade Trent, Brit, and Cooper lived right across the hall, and she found it to be very impolite for her to just be loud like she normally was. Course Ali was never that loud that was annoying, she was that cute, sexy and totally a turn on.

Though moaning for Micah was the furthest thing from her mind. He was self employed, that was another fancy meaning for unemployed. She looked deep into his eyes, getting lost in them just like she always did. She could feel her eyelids getting heavy and she stifled a small kitten like yawn. Snuggling a little closer, she was cold, and it was easy to feed of his heat. Her hand still doing the work that she was doing before. She kissed his chest gently, though when he began talking again. Shady, what? What did that have to do with anything? Wait, come again? A dealer. Her Micah… Her Mikey was a drug dealer. You have to be kidding. Micah didn’t seem like that. He couldn’t be one of those. One of those scums who always was carrying a gun. The kind who would do anything to get their money. Everything was falling down around her, trapping her, chocking her. He wasn’t he couldn’t. He had to be kidding. She smiled at him, and shook her head a little. Hell Yeah she was mad. What the fuck did he think was going to happen when he told her that. How could he have kept that from her? The woman he supposedly loved, he kept that from her. The fact his life was in danger everyday. Any day he could be taken from her just because a deal went bad. ”Wait. Ha Ha. Funny.” Ali said smiling at him, but when he still looked solemn and he did not crack out and laugh she knew he was being serious. ”What? Come again? A drug dealer Micah?” Ali sat up, wrapping the blanket around her naked body. She sighed. She had to calm down. ”More utter shock than anger. But.. But will you stop. Can you stop and find a normal job. I could get my Father to have you work out home for him. Micah. Would you stop? She knew she was asking the hard questions. Her friends had been right, why did she ever think differently? They never had been before.


[sorry, I ran out of my muse. I tried to lead us up to where he can say, no. I li emy job, or whatever]

[micah orsino ,]

No kid wakes up one morning and thinks to himself, “Hey, I want to be a drug dealer when I grow up.” It doesn’t matter what kind of childhood they have or what kind of influences they’re exposed to. No one has ever thought that as a child. At least, it was in Micah’s opinion that there really was no way in hell any kid should ever think that. Being a dealer isn’t something that people choose by choice. It’s a profession that most turn to when they have nothing else left in the world to do, or they get in so far over their heads that it’s the only thing they can do to make it back up to the surface. If they’re lucky. Micah knew a lot of different dealers with a lot of different stories. One had grown up in the drug dealing world, and had gotten so caught up in it that there was nothing left for his life by the time that he had tried to turn it all around. His grades weren’t good enough for further schooling. He was only getting a minimal cut of the profits, meaning he had enough to live on and that was about it. He couldn’t have paid for college, no matter how badly he wished he could go on and do something with his life. One woman that Micah had met a long the way had started trafficking as a way to earn some money to feed her children after their father split and she was left to raise them on their own. It was risky and stupid, and it led to a pretty shitty life for herself and her children, but it was something that she had tried to do to better her chance of survival. Some guys just grew up in it and it was the only thing that they knew. They hadn’t really chosen that lifestyle, but it had chosen them, sucking them in so far that there was no way that they could ever get out.

Micah’s story wasn’t anything like those. Actually, after seeing those kind of things, he really wondered why he hadn’t done something more with his life sometimes. When he was younger, he had gotten into the drug scene simply because he was one of those teens that experimented with them. He had never considered himself an addict, able to take the drugs or leave them, but that was the kind of world that he had adapted himself to. He liked to drink after he learned to hold the drinks down, and he liked to party and have a good time out with his friends. There was an older guy that sold the drugs around that part of the North Carolina coast, and that’s where Micah and his pals had gone to for their fixes. The guy was pretty down to earth, and liked to chat a bit with customers from time to time. Micah had just asked what kind of money was made in that line of business, and after hearing the answer, he was interested. He was still younger then, and the dealer, whose name was Chris, didn’t really think much about letting Micah in on the trade. But, Micah has always had a way with words, and Chris decided to give the kid a try. It turned out that Micah had the right kind of mind for it, being sneaky and smart about what he was doing. He and Chris worked together for awhile, but after awhile, Chris stopped making his trips down to that area of the state, letting Micah take control of it. It was a gateway crime. Micah had started out with small stuff, and it had led to much harder drugs and more risk with every deal.

He had had several chances to walk away from that life, though. Chris wouldn’t have cared if Micah left that world and went for something else, but Micah hadn’t know what else there was to do. He was making good money as a dealer, and he had more than enough to go on to college. There was just nothing out there that really interested him. He has that little issue against the government, and that really stopped him for thinking too hard about paying more and more money into it. Dealing was allowing him to have the kind of life that he wanted for himself. Meaning, he had all the money that he needed, he could go wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted, and just be whoever he wanted. Sure, he had certain places that he had to be at certain times, but that wasn’t a big deal. Micah was pretty much in charge of his own operation, him being the one that had runners and other people to do the transporting of the products and do a lot of the dealing for him. That came with the risk of him not getting his money, the people thinking that they could screw him over, but he had yet not to get his money. Only two people had ever tried it, and one of them hadn’t been seen again afterward. Not that Micah killed him. No, he hadn’t killed him himself, just kind of stood back and let it all happen. But anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that while Micah could have had a different kind of life, one that had a college degree and a respectable job in it, but it just hadn’t made sense to him. Why quit something that he was really very good at and making a life for himself in just so he could go get a formal job somewhere that he might suck at and hate with every fiber of his being? The way that he saw it, why ruin a good thing? He was perfectly fine where he was. He was one of the top drug dealers of just about anywhere, his name probably getting tossed around in the drug chains fairly often. He had pull in their system. Why give that up?

Of course, Micah knew all sorts of reasons why he should hang up his criminal life and trade it in for a different one. For one, it was all highly illegal. The kind of drugs that he handled on a daily basis were ones that would have him locked away for years and years and years. He usually held enough of the controlled substances in his hands that would kill a person if they took too much of it at a time, making it all that much more dangerous. Then, there was always the possibility that a deal would go south. Micah had been in a few tight spots before where guns had been pulled and people had died, but he himself had yet to be threatened. It was a dangerous gig, one where he never knew what to expect when he went out to make a trade or a sell, but Micah wasn’t the type to let that bother him. The way that he saw it, every job had it’s risks. People that drove transport vehicles could crash and die. Businessmen could get mugged and killed on the streets, or hit by a car or something. Teachers could get shot. Electricians electrocuted. People just never know, and Micah looked at it that his job was just like any other one. They all had their risks. His just had the part where it was illegal and he could face a very long prison sentence if he were ever caught. That was another reason to quit though, wasn’t it? Nah. Micah was good at what he did. He wasn’t going to get caught. Yeah, his name was out there in the drug chains, and if the wrong person got caught, they would probably sing like a freaking canary and give the police his name. But, for every squealer, Micah had someone that would be in contact with him immediately to let him know what had gone down. He could be under the radar within the hour, traveling with his cash and using fake names. It would be a hellish sort of life, but Micah could make just about anything work. He’d traveled the world once. He wouldn’t mind doing it again.

But, Micah knew that not everyone was so willing to accept what he did. There were people out there that frowned upon the world that he dealt in everyday. Micah had just been lucky enough to have friends that really didn’t care what he did. Micah’s younger brother, Tyler, knew all about everything that his brother had done, as did Kade. Those two didn’t care that Micah dealt in illegal drugs and had burned houses to get money. Tyler worried, and Kade probably did too, but neither of them had ever though any less of Micah for what he had done. Ali, on the other hand, might be a different story. Micah hated that he had to tell her, but he just was not comfortable with lying to her. Some might say that he had been lying to her all along, but really, he was just omitting the truth. It was something that hadn’t come up before now, so really, he hadn’t lied. They just hadn’t discussed it yet. Of course, Micah could have told her that he was just working odd jobs, like at Jared’s, but that would hardly be believable. Working odd jobs didn’t get him this apartment or a pass to travel the world. Or the ability to do whatever the hell he wanted to and never have to worry about money. Or, maybe he could have gotten away with it. Looking around the apartment when one entered, it was hard to believe that anyone of great wealth lived there. Micah and Tish weren’t much into decorating, so it didn’t really look like anyone lived there at all except for the TV and the and few dishes that were in the kitchen. They kept their personal items in their rooms and in the bathroom. The apartment didn’t boast of great wealth, either. It was big, but not as big as Kade’s, and most certainly not the size of Tyler’s huge house-like apartment. It was decent, though, and decent didn’t come without having money somewhere. Plus, he always came back to that same base thought. He didn’t want to have to lie to Aliana. He loved her and wanted this relationship to work. Relationships didn’t work if they were built on lies.

However, he kind of wish that he would have lied when he saw her reaction. She wanted him to be laugh, for this to be some sort of awful joke that he was pulling on her. Micah wished it were that simple, but it wasn’t. He couldn’t laugh, and when he didn’t, realization came to Ali’s pretty face. Damn. He really should have lied. At least it would have kept her happy for the time being. She had been snuggled in so close and had been being so loving, but then she pulled away, taking up part of the blanket on his bed to cover her body as she did. Micah sat himself up, also getting some blanket to cover the lower half of him. This wasn’t going to turn out well; that much he could already see. His blue eyes searched her, his ears alert as she spoke. She didn’t really seem all that mad, but that wasn’t what froze Micah for a moment. She was asking him to stop, to find a “normal” job. What the hell? Work for her father? Now he was the one that was hoping that she was kidding. He could tell that she wasn’t, though, and he was more than certain that this was going to end on a sour note now. And she was calling him Micah, which wasn’t good at the moment. Maybe he could save it somehow. He worked up a little smile for her. ”Ali, come on. You know me. Just because my job is a little unorthodox doesn’t mean I’m some dangerous gangster with a drug problem. I don’t even use…that much. And, quite frankly, I don’t think I’d be good at working with your father.” Micah had never met Ali’s father, but from what he had heard, he wasn’t sure he liked the man all that much. ”I’m good at what I do. I’ve been doing it for years. I promise you that it’s nothing for you to worry about, babe.” He reached out for her then, hoping that they could breeze passed this one without it causing the upset that he had this sinking feeling as bound to happen. But hey, he could still hope, right?

[Aliana Donahue]

Ali wasn’t one to over react, well, not much anyway. She didn’t do it hardly at all, but the thought of him being a dealer, well that one was a shocker to her system. Maybe he wasn’t dangerous, but the people he associated with were. It wasn’t the thought of him being a dealer that upset her so. It was more along the lines that she was worried about losing him. She didn’t like the idea of having to get a call one morning telling her that her boyfriend had been shot. She loved him far too much to want to risk that. Sure, he may have been doing it for years, but all it took was one trigger happy noob who decided to wield that gun all over the place and fire a random shot that hit Micah. She didn’t know what she would do with herself without him. He was so much of her day to day life. God, thinking about what she would, she still couldn’t come up with anything. Drug dealing was a dangerous job, and she had heard more than once about drug deals starting out perfectly fine then getting all shot to hell and everything goes wrong. Just thinking about it was enough to bring the girl to tears. She didn’t want to think about it, yet she couldn’t take her mind off it. She couldn’t stand the thought of him being one of them. The low life people who were more than addicted to drugs, and were more than okay with preying on Teens needs for the drugs. It was morally wrong. What was more wrong was that nobody had told her this.

Well, nobody with the exception of her friends. Damn, had she blown them off or what? She had chosen Micah over her best friends. She had chosen to be with him, to have a great time with him, if not a great life with him over being friends with the girls that had had her back through everything. The girls had told her on way more than one occasion they didn’t like him, they didn’t think he was good enough for her, and they thought he was a drug dealing murderer. Well, they had the drug dealer part right. She had no idea why she had ever doubted them in the first place. The girls were always right, she couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t been. Now the questions were, was Micah actually cheating on her with some fucking skanky brunette and was he a murderer? She wasn’t ready to pop out the question about the other girl, but she sure as hell was pissed about everything now. Ali was one of those girls who bottled things up inside her, and when one thing blowed, everything was going to blow. It was just a matter of time till everything came out of her mouth. She was trying hard to control herself at this moment. It was not working well.

When Ali was angry she said things she did not mean. She was just one of those women that were quick to lash out at the tongue and inflict pain before it can be brought on to her. Course, it had already been brought on to him. It had hurt more than you could think hearing that Micah had kept such a major thing from her. It was major, he may think of it as nothing, but it was something. It was a major something. Why couldn’t he just do something normal like work out of an office, work at a clothing store, and car shop, anywhere. She couldn’t think of any that really fit Micah, but there had to be something besides the given. Which was indeed, dealing. That was another thing that pissed her off. It was so obvious. A dealer was something that was so obvious for Micah to be doing. It was just him. His personality. His hippy ways, just everything now screamed to her “I’m a drug dealer!” Now she felt stupid. She should have known. She wished that someone had just hinted around it. Someone that knew Micah so she could have been sure that it was the truth, yet no one had told her. Why would they? She was the enemy. The enemy to Kade, Brit, Hunter, anyone that worked at that bar. Go figure something like this would happen.

Ali finally thinks she may have found the one, and then she finds out that there is a major problem. Why couldn’t she ever be faced with little minor problems? Like a pimple? Or… He was moving to a different town. No, Ali always had to have major fucking problems. When it rained at Ali’s house it poured. There was no misting, it was pouring cats and fucking dogs. How great was that, and to top it off, Ali didn’t know what scared her more. The fact that Micah was a drug dealer, or the fact she knew she had nothing nice to say to him. She really didn’t. She had nothing nice to say to him at that moment in time. “Ali, come on. You know me.” Those words froze her to the core. She knew him, yeah. She had thought she knew him. She obviously knew nothing. She had thought she did. She had confided in him, she had trusted him to be open with her. Yet he withheld this information from her. Apparently he didn’t trust her at all. She had been so faithful with listening to him vent about whatever he wanted. Always listening to him, more than happy to offer him advice. She had nothing now. Absolutely nothing. She didn’t know what was coming from this, but she did know it was nothing good. She zoned back in on him as he finished, calling her babe.

Babe was a pet name that she absolutely loved to hear him call her. She really did love it. It made her feel very happy and loved and warm and cuddly. She just loved it. Plus, it was more the fact of who it was coming from, and that was Micah Orsino. The man she still loved. Despite everything, she still loved him, if not more. At least he had told her the truth this time right? Maybe she could just forgive him and move on, maybe that was a possibility. But, he had blatantly said that there wasn’t really a chance of him stopping what he was doing. That shocked her. Not thinking she would hear a No. She knew he wouldn’t be for working for her Dad, but it was worth a shot, right? She glanced away from him as he reached for her, moving slightly out of reach. She didn’t want him touching her at that moment. She was thinking to intently on the new information she had received. She turned, reaching down, having to bed over as she grasped her jeans and then pulled them onto her body, not really wanting to look for her thongs. However, she did find her bra and she latched that around her body. Now she turned her attention back to him, feeling a little more comfortable under his eyes.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t comfortable under his gaze, it was just she wasn’t as self confident as he pegged her to be. Ali didn’t have an eating disorder or anything, but she had been known to skip meals upon meals at a time, then gradual go back into eating by eating things like cottage cheese, any fruit or vegetables, and yogurt. Things that would speed her metabolism up so that all the pounds lost from her crash diet wouldn’t come back. Mark always used to get so mad at her, not knowing why such a beautiful girl never was happy with her body. She always wanted something more. Ali would never go to the extremes of plastic surgery. That was more along the line of because of the fact that her mom was a plastic surgeon, rather than most’s reason of it being morally wrong. Ali didn’t have many morals. She had been known in New York to be the girl who would go after a man whether he was single, dating, engaged, or married. She really didn’t care. Apparently she was getting the same reputation here in Seattle, though the only man that Ali really wanted was Micah. As stated, Micah had made it pretty clear that he wasn’t stopping, but he had tried to be as nice as possible. It was obvious he didn’t want her to freak out on him. Calling her babe, telling her she had nothing to worry about because he had been doing it for years, he wasn’t dangerous and hardly used. Those things didn’t matter. She couldn’t care less about his using. It was the fact he put his life at risk every day. Sure, she put her own at risk every time she got on a horse, but that was different.

“It’s more than a little unorthodox, Micah. It’s a dangerous job. You… You could get hurt.” It was apparent that she was more afraid for him than anything. “I mean, how am I suppose to trust you now? What else have you kept from me, Micah. Cause I am just dying to know. What, are you a murderer too? I mean, I have been pretty damn upfront with you on everything” (Almost everything).She snapped, her tone cold, but her eyes remained soft on him. “I have never pictured you a danger to me. However, the people you work with are mostly terrible people who wouldn’t think twice about shooting you for the things that they want. I can’t… I won’t… I don’t want to have to find out you are dead because you are dealing. You can be doing it for years upon years, and shit can still go bad, Micah.” She snapped again. Her tone was not as cold this time but the anger was more and more apparent. He had hurt her, and now she was pissed. Ali got up. Digging around for her shirt, yet she couldn’t find it, so she continued searching. Moving around the room. Where the hell was the friggan shirt? Things were not going good. Such a great day had taken such a rotten turn for the worst.

[micah orsino ,]

He really should have known better, but he hadn’t even thought about it. Micah was so used to being around people that were tolerant of him and the lifestyle that he had adapted as his own. His brother was his brother and would love him no matter what he did. The Trent boys had always been right there with Micah, sticking with him through everything. The Morgan girls from North Carolina knew what he did, worried about him, but didn’t try to stop him from doing it because they knew that it was pointless. Tish was one of Micah’s customers from time to time, getting heroin off of him. Of course she didn’t care about what he did. Other than those people, no one that was particularly close to Micah knew what he did. The people that he had traveled with over the last two years weren’t aware of what his business deals were. Sure, some had found out after buying something off of him, but those were the only exceptions. Lena hadn’t even known what Micah had done. But, there had just been something about Lena that had suggested to Micah that while she wouldn’t have liked what he was doing, she wouldn’t have said much to him about it. It wouldn’t have changed her mind about him, nor would it have deterred them from thinking about marriage. It would have just been one of those things. Though, what had suggested this about her to Micah was the fact that Lena’s brother had been in the same sort of business himself. She was a tolerant girl and one that understood the lifestyle. Micah had been surprised that she hadn’t pieced together that he was in that trade himself, but who knew. Maybe she had. Maybe it would have been okay to divulge to her about his past, and she would have still cared about him and not pushed him away. Not that it mattered much now. Micah hadn’t loved Lena like he loved Ali, and Ali was the one that was telling his tale to now. He still should have known better.

Why would he even hope that things would be okay? Why would he really be so stupid as to think that she wouldn’t have seen something wrong with this? Aliana Donahue obviously wasn’t a girl that was from that side of the tracks, so to speak. She was a high class woman with a lot of money to her name that was clean, not dirty was Micah’s was. She wanted him to stop what he was doing, and had asked him to do it right on the spot without even hesitating. Did she really think it was that easy to just get out of? There was no way that Micah could drop it all on a dime like that even if he wanted to. He had tried to talk about it lightly, to keep the conversation from delving into a place that he knew would be no good for them, but it hadn’t seemed to work. He could see it in the way that she was looking at him, but that was nothing compared to when she had pulled away from him. Micah couldn’t remember one time since they had known one another that he had reached for her, and she had pulled away other than to be teasing or when they were just fooling around. This time was nothing like those times, though. She was hurt, and she didn’t want him to touch her or to reach out. That was the moment that Micah really lost hope that this could turn around and they could have their perfectly lazy day back. She had asked him a question that had the potential to unravel everything good that they had going for them. He gazed at her for a moment, and then brought his hand back when he saw that there would be no change of heart. She wasn’t even looking at him. God, this really wasn’t going well, and Micah couldn’t think of one thing that he could say or do that would make it better, to stop the train from going off of the tracks. Sure, he could have said that he would stop, but he wasn’t going to stop so it would have just been a lie. One might think that to keep the woman that he loved, Micah would have been willing to do anything, and he really was. He’d do anything for this woman, except for change who he was.

Aliana turned away from him then. Micah watched as she pulled her jeans from the floor and slid them onto her legs without finding her thong first. Damn. Was she leaving? Was she in that big of a hurry to get the hell away from him? Shit. She had her bra on, and then finally looked back to him. Just by looking at her face, Micah almost wished that she would just leave instead of sticking around to talk. Maybe if she walked away from this for awhile, she could think and cool down. That would have been much better than the kind of things that she was about to say to him, he had no doubt in that at all. But, she didn’t leave, and she did talk. Though, at first it seemed that she wasn’t going to go all out on him. The words that she said suggested that she was more afraid for him than mad at him. He understood that it was a dangerous job that he was in, and yeah, he knew that any day something could go wrong and he could get blown away, but that was a risk of working the job. Again, he was thinking that any job had risks. Hell, people walking down the street could get gunned down, or hit by a car, or anything could happen. One just didn’t know what their time was up. Micah was firm believer that everyone had a set time on this earth, and when it was over, it was over. You died the time that you were supposed to, no matter where you were or what you were doing. If you were on a plane, the plane crashed. If you were walked, you tripped and fell into the middle of a street with a car coming at you full speed. That was just his belief, so in his mind, it didn’t matter what he did. But, he knew that a lot of people didn’t see eye to eye with him on that one, either.

Ali’s next words were what told him that this was going to hell in a hand basket. Her tone of voice was cold, and the words came snapping. What the hell? She didn’t think that she could trust him anymore? Just because he had neglected to tell her something that hadn’t even come up in a conversation before now? What, did she expect him just to spill this kind of information out to her that first night that they had been together? It was a sensitive thing, talking about what he did, and he couldn’t tell it to just anyone anytime that he wanted to. But did she seem to be understanding of that? Hell no. She hadn’t stopped there, the icy cold words spilling out of her mouth one after another. What else had he kept from her? His expression had been pretty void of emotion, but when she said the word, “murderer,” a frown came to his lips. What the hell. He listened to rest of what she had to say, but he wasn’t really concerned with it. Yes, he knew that he was in league with people that weren’t top of society. Yes, he knew that if there were guns involved, his life was in danger. He knew that she was worried, and he knew that no matter how good he was at keeping control and working under the extreme tension of his job, things could still go bad. But her saying “murderer” kept running through his head. Something here wasn’t right, and it wasn’t just that she was freaking out because having just learned her boyfriend was involved in highly illegal activity. She got out of bed then, looking around for her shirt. Micah was up on his feet too, finding his boxers and pulling them on, and then his jeans. He was able to do both quickly, and then was over to the side of the bed where Ali was still hunting for her shirt.

”Who told you I was a murderer?” he asked, his tone low, his face serious. Micah then just happened to look down and see her shirt beside of his foot. He bent down, picked it up, and then handed it over to Ali, able to catch her eye then. ”What else do you think I’ve kept from you?” This could get real messy real fast, and Micah didn’t like it at all. It was one thing for her to find out that he was a drug dealer, but another thing entirely for her to learn about this other part of his past. Micah didn’t want to lie to her, and that’s why he hadn’t made up some other job for himself when she had asked what he did for a living. But, if this one came to the surface, then he knew he was going to have to lie. Well, maybe not outright lie to Ali, because he still didn’t want to do that, but Micah couldn’t tell her about the murders. That would put her too much in the know, and he was sure that it was better to stay in the dark on this one. He didn’t want her to fear him, but he didn’t want her to not know who he was either. It was a hard conflict to face, but it was one that he knew was going to cause something bad to go down between them, whether it be heated words, or a break up all together. He didn’t want either, but he still didn’t know how to stop it from happening.

[Aliana Donahue]

He wasn’t understanding anything. In his mind everything he was doing was perfectly okay. Well, she had news for him… It was not okay. Nothing was okay now. The two had been okay. They had been perfectly fine mere minutes ago. Her wanting to go at it again with him. That was something she never got enough of. When she was round him she was always wanting sex. That was the way it had always been with the two. She just did not ever get enough of him. Though right then, she had her fill. She wasn’t done, she wasn’t going to end the relationship just because he was a dealer, but it had pissed her off that he had said no. In a way that made her perfectly happy. She didn’t want a man that would bend over backwards to grant her wishes. She needed a strong man that was willing to do what he needed to keep her happy enough, to protect her, but not to be a complete and total push over and girl about it. Ali was now regretting her preference on men. She was now kicking herself in the ass.

Speaking of kicking herself in the ass she now regretted her words. She should not have brought up the murderer thing. It was too early, too soon, too bad a time. She had been stupid to do that. She had a horrible feeling he wasn’t going to take too kindly to that at all. That was a huge slap in the face, and she knew she was wrong to have said it. Murderer, he couldn’t be a murderer. Micah was far too gentle, and far too kind. He just wasn’t. He couldn’t be. Murderers were men that normally had a criminal record that included a lot of domestic violence, sometimes rape or abuse, something along those lines. Now Ali had checked that shit out… Well her lawyers had checked out his records and there wasn’t much on there. Sure, he had been brought in for questioning on some thing, course her lawyers had not mentioned why, but that was all she knew. From what Ali saw, knew, and felt; Micah was no murderer. Her friends had to be wrong on that. What was shocking was the fact that her friends had been right on the drug dealing thing.

Her friends were pretty amazing when it came to knowing things. Angie was probably one of the most ‘In the Know’ people that she knew. Angie always had her nose somewhere, she hears things that most would over look. What was more shocking was that all of her friends had heard the same thing, slash had been told the same thing. Micah had some murders in his background, he was a drug dealer (well that was true), and he was just far too dangerous for Ali to messing around with. Instead of listening, Ali had gone ahead, she had fallen for Micah. She hadn’t just fallen, she had fallen hard. She was so in love with him that she was going to put up with the fact he was a dealer. She was just going to forget about. She asked him to stop, he had said no, so she was just going to forget about it. What was the big deal? It was his job, he liked doing it, and he was not going to drop it just because of her. Why she had thought he would was just beyond her. It had not been right for her to ask that of him. However, she was still a little sore that he had said no. Though, he had not tried to be mean about it, actually trying to be nice.


She shouldn’t have pulled away like that. Never had she pulled away from him as if she was disgusted by him. That wasn’t the case. It was more like she was more than a little pissed that he hadn’t told her about this sooner. So she had indeed pulled back from his touch. She could see in his face that she had hurt him. She regretted that more than anything. He had let his hand linger there for a moment before taking it back, and seeing him look so shocked and hurt by that made her want to just jump back into his arms and get back their day that they were going to have. Course, that wasn’t going to happen. They couldn’t get that back. Yet, she still wished she hadn’t pulled away from him like that. He was just trying to make her feel better, she show her that he was no threat to her, and that she should not worry about him and his life either. That was easier said then done. She cared too much about him. He was the man that she had pictured when she was a little girl, dreaming about her future life.

He was the exact replica of him. When she was a little girl, Ali used to day dream about the man she would marry. He would be sweet and sensitive, handsome, supportive, and successful. Micah was all of those things. Apparently more successful than she had originally known. She had always fantasized about her wedding day with the man of her dreams. Her long flowing strapless wedding dress that hung low all the way to the ground with her long blonde hair done all curly and fancy by her hairstylist. The diamonds hanging off her like little raindrops. The man of her dreams waiting for her with the Preacher. Her little flower girl moving down the isle of the white and pink decorated church, throwing out the petals of water lilies and white roses. Everything just so picturesque. Her Dad was there to walk her down the isle. Her Mom was not drunk. Mark was smiling standing next to her fiancé.

Ali took her shirt from him, only muttering something that nobody could have understood but in her mind it was,” Show off.” She pulled that amazingly cute Abercrombie tank over her body, fixing her bra so that it worked correctly and gave her the desired clevage. She then ran a hand through his hair. What? Hell no. He had just asked who had told her he was a murderer. Was he fucking serious? Why, why would he care about that? What was the difference. Normal people wouldn’t have been hung up on that. However that was the first thing out of his mouth: “Who told you I was a murderer?” Well, lets see. She could totally rat out her friends, they already were pissed at her, wouldn’t talk to her much, and were still dead set against Micah. That wasn’t going to happen though. He asked her another question. What else did she think he had kept from her. Well, she didn’t have that long of a list, but number one on that was really the murderer thing.

Ali shook her head lightly. ”What? No one told me. It was just figuratively speaking.” she lied, not looking at him but merely looking to the floor. She didn’t like having to lie to him at all. She never liked lying to people that she really cared for. Caring for Micah was an understatement. She was damn head over fucking heels in love with that blonde haired, blue eyed man that had found himself standing beside her. He was close to her, pretty close, asking he what is was that she figured he had kept from her. She could almost feel his body heat radiating off of him from how close they were. She turned now to face him, looking up to look him in the eyes. He had quite a height difference on her with her bare feet, and having to look up at him only made her feel more inferior. Normally she liked having to look up at her man, but not now.

Ali was an amazing poker player. She really was. She used to play it all the time on Boys Poker Night with Mark and all of his friends. She normally won, them being too distracted by her. Either way, she really was rather good. Half of the time she was playing strip poker with people at her parties. However, she normally had the men stripped in no time, then she would just strip for the fun of it. Wasn’t that the point? Getting naked and looking at one another? Yeah, that kind of was the point, but not now. She was very good at bluffing. Bluffing was a key point of poker, and that was pretty funny. Cause bluffing was exactly what Ali was about to do.

She moved a little closer to him. Her eyes now cold and piercing as if they could bore a hole through him. ”Hmm, babe. Lets think…” Ali broke off for a minute, faking thought. She was not going to bring up the fact that he may or may not have been living with another woman, but hell, he asked her to be honest. ”Maybe the freaking fact that you live with another fucking girl? I mean, cause maybe I would have liked to know that. I guess that’s just my point of view. Maybe you don’t see it as a bad thing since you can double dip. Right? Sex with me isn’t good enough for you, so then you go and have it with someone. A room mate. I don’t know.” Now Ali was on a roll. She was pissed, and this afternoon was shot to hell. ”I am sure you hadn’t figured you would get caught. Well guess what Micah? You did. I am smarting than you think. I really fucking appreciate it. And why the hell did you ask who told me you killed someone. Did you? I mean, that would be nice to know. You know the man I am in love with is a murderer, Oh, and he lives with another girl. How amazing right? Maybe I will just have some man move in with me. How would you like that. The thought that just maybe someone else is getting a piece of your thing.” she snapped. Ali was pissed, and she wasn’t going easy on him just because she was in love with him. Sure, Ali really had just bluffed that whole, thing, but it had been worth a try. She sure as hell hoped she wasn’t wrong about the other girl, because if she was, man oh man, had she just made a fool of herself.

[micah orsino ,]

Strange how a day could take a turn for the absolute worse in a matter of seconds, wasn’t it? The day had started out with such promise. Micah wasn’t so worried about his and Kade’s friendship because they had kind of rebuilt that bridge the night before. Micah had also gotten his favorite ice cream then, so that had made him extra happy. He had came back to his apartment and gotten a good night’s rest, setting up the day with a good start. Ali had come over, and they had started out with some nice cuddling on the couch. It had led to them having sex in his bedroom, a pretty normal day for the two of them, but it wasn’t something that Micah would trade for anything. It had all been going so smoothly, a perfect day in store for them. Or, it had been in store for them until Aliana had asked that one simple little question. After that, it had all gone to hell and it didn’t look like it had a very good chance of coming back. Micah had seen good things go to bad in short amounts of time, but this was just ridiculous. No, it was more than ridiculous. It was outright stupid. There was no reason that she should be so pissed off and angry at him for this. Sure, she should be worried. Any person that found out a loved one had a dangerous job like his with all those extra risk factors would be worried. And yeah, she had some right to be maybe just a little upset with him for doing what he did, but really, she had no reason to be mad at him for not telling her. He thought for what must have been the tenth time in the last two minutes that what he did for a living had never been in any of their previous conversations. Why would he willingly bring something like that up? Anyone that knew Micah knew that he wasn’t one to talk business and jobs in an everyday conversation. He just wasn’t the type. That kind of thing usually bored him, so he just didn’t talk about it at all.

Though, Ali wasn’t really seeming to get that. She was more concerned with pulling her shirt back on over her head and fixing it so that her boobs looked just right. While Micah could appreciate that somewhat, it annoyed him too. He had asked her a question this time, and there she was fixing her bra and her shirt. Maybe she wasn’t aware of just how important her answer was to him, and really, why would she be? It was important, though, and when he finally did get an answer, there was something to it that told him that it wasn’t the truth. She wasn’t looking at him for one, and another was that it hadn’t sounded like figurative speech when she had said it. Or maybe he was reading too much into it. Micah really didn’t know, and he really wished that he didn’t care so much about it, but he couldn’t afford not to care. He realized that he had probably just sent up a red flag on himself, his questioning about where she had heard that bit of information probably too much. Why would he assume that someone had told her that he was a murderer if he really weren’t? Why would he fucking care what someone else said about him? Micah wasn’t the type to care what other people said and thought. Ever. Him asking about it now was a dead give away, now that he thought about it. He did care about who was talking about him killing someone, though. He had to care; his own life and safety depended on it. Hopefully, Aliana hadn’t read that much into it and had just passed it off as yet another thing to be pissed at him for in that moment. That’s what she seemed to do, anyway, and while Micah hated what this was becoming, he had to be at least a little thankful that she hadn’t seemed to catch on to that bit and had just kept on going with her words.

Not that they were words that Micah particularly wanted to be hearing. She had moved closer, her words still like ice as she spoke. He knew she was mocking thought, and the way the word, “babe,” had rolled off of her tongue had been slicing. He had said it as a term of endearment. She had said it in a way that Micah took as sarcasm. Even though the words might slice and sting, Micah stood his ground, looking down at Ali as she spoke. She was really on a roll, not leaving Micah any room at all to get a word in even if he wanted to. Of course, if he had really wanted to speak, he could have raised his voice and gotten her attention. Micah wasn’t one to ever yell or do anything of the like. At least, not very often. When he did raise his voice, it easily got the attention of the people around him, it being a thing that most people knew that they shouldn’t wish to see twice. Micah was a gentle man, but when he was pissed off he wasn’t one to mess with. Ali had only gotten to see a hint of that temper in him before, but if she kept digging the way that she was, then she might have the misfortune of seeing it again, and maybe a bit more of it this time around. That wasn’t at all what Micah wanted, as he had been the one to try and go about this in a way that wouldn’t cause all hell to break loose, but if she pushed the right buttons and he didn’t keep himself in check, it could happen pretty easily. Damn. Why hadn’t he just lied? He might have felt bad, but at least they could have avoided all of this. Hell, they’d probably be having sex again right now had he just made up some awesome story about some fictional job that he held down. Either that, or that his parents were filthy rich and helped him along. Or his uncle had died and left Micah and his siblings all of his fortunes. Any of it seemed like it would have been better than telling her that he was a dealer at this point and time.

When it seemed that Ali was done with her verbal lashing, Micah knew that it was his turn. Part of him just wanted to walk away from it, to go out and sit in the living room and let things cool down. Though, had he done that, she probably would have followed after him, still ranting and raving about something. There was another part of him that felt like he shouldn’t have to explain himself at all to her. She knew what kind of man he was when she had first gotten involved with him. Why the hell would she expect him to be any different now? Micah Orsino didn’t change for anyone, and he had thought that that was a quality that she had liked about him. Apparently, the story was changing now that he hadn’t jumped when she had asked him to. Then, there was yet another part of him that really wanted to stick it to her, to tell her just how things were. That wasn’t the part that was going to make things any better between them, but none of them seemed like they were going to be able to do that. What the hell. If this thing was going down, might as well do it right. She had sparked some of his temper, and that’s what she was going to see. His blue eyes narrowed, not leaving her for a second. His face was that of stone, his mouth a hard line as he looked at her. God, he really didn’t want to be this way with her. Micah knew that even after all of this, he was still going to love Ali, and that’s what made all of this that much harder. But, it was already set into motion, and it wasn’t something that was easy to start once it got started.

”All right, you really want to know? Yeah, I live with another woman. Her bedroom is right across the hall if you want to go and have a look for yourself. She‘s been my friend since I was seven years old, and yeah, I‘ve slept with her, but not since I‘ve been with you. I don‘t cheat.” Micah had succeeded in keeping his words in check, them not being of the foul language that he might have used any other time. His tone was still low with a slight edge to it, though, showing that sparked angry she had worked out of him. But, just like she had done with him, Micah wasn’t much in the mood for giving her a lot of room to talk. ”Did you ever think that maybe I haven’t told you about her is because you haven’t asked? This is the first time you’ve ever taken an interest in where I live or what I do. Don’t you think that’s a little sad, seeing as we’re supposed to be together, Ali? And if you want to live with some other guy, go for it. I’m not stopping you. I trust you more than that, which for all I know might be a mistake, but I’ve at least got some faith in you.” This was crazy. Absolute madness. This wasn’t the kind of conversation that Micah wanted to be having with Ali. Had someone told him that this was how his day was going to do go, he wouldn’t have believed them. He and Ali were much too cool and fun to be at each other’s throats like this. That’s what he had thought. Now, he didn’t really know what to think other than this was so stupid, but his mouth kept going anyway. He had pretty much taken care of the subject of him living with Tish. Now it would be onto discussing the topic of him being a murderer. Micah really should have thought more about it, but he didn’t. He was usually better about this sort of thing, but there was something about Ali that just made him forget about being careful with his words. Maybe he was just that comfortable with her, and if that were the case, then it was a weakness, a flaw in that cover up he’d perfected over the years.

”And you really think it would be nice to know if I had killed someone or not? You think that’s something you really want to get into with me? I mean, the way you act about the drug dealing, what difference does it make whether or not I did kill one or three people, huh Ali?” These words were spoken with a little more severity, his gaze turning hard as he continued to look at her. He was looking her dead in the eye and never looked away once. ”What if one of them had raped my best friend’s little sister? Would that make a difference? Or would it matter at all if the second was a sick bastard that molested a six-year-old boy, killed him, and left him in the woods for his parents to find hours later?” That was the way it had really happened. The first man that Micah had killed had raped his best friend’s little sister. The second had killed that poor little boy in the woods behind his own home. The third life that Micah had taken had been of a man that Micah hadn’t really known, nor had he known a lot about. There had been money involved on that one, though, and it wasn’t the best example to toss out there at this point. He left it there, a challenging look on his face as he practically dared Ali to come back to those things that he had said. It had started out being such a great day, too.

[Aliana Donahue]

Such a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were out, people moved along the streets, oblivious to what luck they had with such nice weather in Seattle. Seattle was a city that more than half the time it was rainy and or over cast. Yet today it was just so beautiful Course, outside was not the only place where it had been beautiful. The loving couple had been cuddling innocently on his couch when it had taken a turn and gone into a little bit more of the sexual sort. Within moments their clothes were dispersed evenly over his bedroom’s floor, and they were in his bed. Things had been going so beautifully. Just them two having a bit of fun. Well, it was more than fun to her. It actually meant something. It really did have more meaning to her now. They weren’t just having fun, it was more of a testament to their love. Cheesey as it may sound, that was really how she saw it. Ali was a hopeless romantic, though she tried to hide it, Micah was really bringing that out of her. She was showing him how much she cared about him with every kiss to his skin, his lips, other places. Her simple touches, her back rubs that he seemed to like so much, and just her love in general. She was loving what they had. Damn her! Why couldn’t she just have taken a damn nap like she always did.

If she had taken her usual nap, none of this would have ever happened since she would have been asleep and she would not have been able to ask any questions. Damn her, damn her, damn her. She had been so stupid to ask any questions. Why couldn’t she just have been happy with what she had been told. Why couldn’t she have just left it well enough alone and waited for him to tell her about it. Better yet, why the hell had she made such a big deal about it. Things like that just didn’t pop into everyday conversations, especially not their conversations. They were far too free spirited to talk about boring stuff like jobs, politics, authority figures. She knew Micah didn’t like talking about any of those things. Knowing that, why would she have brought that up to begin with? Maybe it was because the not knowing thing had been gnawing at her for quite some time. Not knowing whether to believe her friends, or her boyfriend. Ali was the kind of girl who would choose her boyfriend over her friends, and that is what she did, and for some reason, she still didn’t regret it.

She was in love with him. She really didn’t care what he did for a living, she didn’t care if he even had a job or not. She still loved him. It was the fact he had kept such a thing from her. Well, that wasn’t even it either. It was the fact she had been so blind as to not see it. Every little thing about Micah screamed drugs, why had she not seen it? He was just that way. His hippy personality was really a big one. His mellow demeanor, that typical stoner

mellowness that he had about him. His totally off topic conversations. Just everything she saw now said that was what he was, and she really couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before. She had just been so blinded by the love that she had totally avoided all of his flaws and had only seen perfection. Now all his flaws were becoming all too apparent. More or less the fact he had been so hung up on the fact that someone had said he murdered someone. Why had his attention been so hooked on it if he really hadn’t done anything of the sort? Most would have just brushed something off like that. Thinking that it was just a crazy rumor that meant nothing, but Micah had been hung up on it, and Micah didn’t get hung up on things often he really did.

Shit. Ali could see Micah was ready to lay into her. His eyes narrowing, not leaving her eyes for a second, his jaw setting, and his face was that of a solemnest that she rarely saw on him. She could see he was trying to keep himself in check, trying hard not to freak on her. Then she was listening, that was all she could do. So he did live with another woman. How fucking lovely. Well, she had to say, it was nice to know that her bluffing hadn’t been all a waist. Now she was pissed even more. That was something a guy should not keep from his girlfriend. Course, how would you bring that up? “Oh I love you babe, but by the way, I live with another woman, so we are going to have to time things right when you come over.” Yeah, cause Ali would have reacted really well to that. She couldn’t believe the way he was speaking to her, it was worse than what he had done at Jared’s. It scared her a little. His anger showed in his cold blue eyes. He went onto say that the woman had been his friend since he was seven. So sure, maybe it did make a little since that the two could be roomies, but she still wasn’t happy about it, never would be.

Despite her fear that she had as he laid into her, she did not back up in the slightest. She held her ground, despite her knew knowledge, she still didn’t think he would hurt her. So she stood there, her face void of any emotion besides the emotion of hurt. Yes, that was right. She was hurt by the way he was talking to her. Sure, she kind of deserved it, but she hadn’t expected it. He didn’t have a viable reason to be laying into her like this. All she had done was ask one fucking question and it had ruined everything. Abso-fucking-lutely everything. Damn, shit was not going well at that moment in time. Why hadn’t she just taken her friggan nap and then had another round of sex with him just like she had wanted. Well, they sure as hell weren’t headed back to bed now. She had royally pissed him off, and she regretted everything. He always had a way of making her feel bad for her actions. Ali’s thoughts froze as she heard him. He wasn’t sure if putting faith in her was a mistake or not. That stung. That stung her deep to the core. She bit her bottom lip, fighting back the tears that were ready to roll down her cheeks. Now she was not pissed anymore she was just hurt. So deeply hurt by him. Why would he doubt her? What had she done to make him think otherwise? Well if he thought that, she sure as hell could give him a god damn reason not to trust her. If that was what he friggan wanted, she sure as hell could give him a reason to keep her on a shorter leash than she had been. She could give him a reason, if he wanted one, then she was going to give him one.

The he went on, his tone even more severe than it had been. Almost full of sarcasm, and almost held a tone of hate. Was the hate for her, or what he was saying? Because from what she could tell, Micah had just given her reasons for why he killed two people. He had been so mean to her about it. Huh, Ali? He had snapped at her, mocking her almost. Taunting her, giving her the reasons why he may have killed a few people. Then he was daring her. His facial expression was daring her to just come back at him with her words like she always did. He was challenging her, daring her to lash back at him, and to be honest, she didn’t know if that was a good idea or not. She didn’t want to be hurt anymore than she already had been, but it was for too late. Her temper had already been set. ”I don’t care to think any further any more about how some woman is living with my boyfriend. That just isn’t something I like to discuss. Talking about mislaid faith.” Ali snapped back at him. ”And why don’t you rethink the statement you made about me never being interested in where you lived, or what you did, Mikey.” Shit. That had been a big mistake. She never should have used that name the way she just had. She knew that was going to come back and bite her on the ass.

”We were sitting in that booth in Starbucks a couple weeks after we had slept together for the first time, and you again suggested my place. I then asked you why it was my place again, and that was when you said your place was still pretty much in boxes and you would have me over when you could. Well this afternoon was the first time you invited me over. So yeah, it is a little sad, but is it all my fault? I don’t pry into things. I asked a friggan question about your occupation and everything just went straight to hell. So don’t act like I don’t care, because I do. I always sit and listen to your venting, offering advice when I can, not that I mind listening, because I like listening to your venting because half the time I laugh. But you are making an assumption that I don’t care, and you know that is bull shit. You know I care. I always do, so that is a little sad that you think I don’t care.” It was then, thinking about that morning in Starbucks that everything made sense. She had openly state she loved trouble. The he had said back to her that she didn’t know how much trouble he was, she had said she still loved trouble, he had then said to her, “Then you’ll love me, babe.” Meaning he was trouble, and everything made sense. The drug dealing, and the murder. She now made sense of it all. Ali had paused again, but only for a moment. She gave his chest a little poke with her index finger, which was rather laughable considering the size difference between the two. This short tiny blonde picking a fight with a tall, muscular man. ”My intentions had been on another round of sex, but that isn’t going to fucking happen. I don’t know what to tell you if you really don’t know how much faith you can put in me. What kind of relationship can you really have when there is no trust?”

Ali would not have been surprised if he laughed. That little poke to his chest, her pugnacious behavior, and the fact she was picking a fight with him even after the look he was giving her and she had just found out he had killed people. She was still picking a fight with him despite all that. Was she retarded? She was just so small compared to him. It really was quite funny to think that that small blonde was standing there, holding her ground, picking a fight with a man that was a least twice her size in muscle and mass. Ali now sat back. She was waiting for him to tell her to get the hell out, knowing she was going to hear it for using that pet name in such contexts. Shit, why didn’t she ever fucking think before she spoke? Sex seemed like such a better alternative to all this. She should’ve taken her nap. Things would have gone much better for them, huh?

[micah orsino ,]

This was all so fucking wrong and messed up. Micah absolutely hated this. He hated how he sounded, he hated how he knew he must look. He hated the way that Aliana was looking at him, and he hated how he felt in that moment. This was not Micah. Micah was a happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care kind of man that could always find a way to laugh and smile, or to make other people laugh and smile. He was that creative little boy that had always seemed wise beyond his years, even if he didn’t apply himself in matters of school or his grades. He was the one that was insightful, caring, and yet as unpredictable and wild as a horse freshly pulled out off of the plains, one never knowing what the hell he was going to do. Himself included. Micah Orsino had been all of that all of his life, his temper rarely showing as it usually took a lot to set the man off. He had an ability to laugh things off, to go on as if he never heard some jackass’s insults made toward him, and that the weight of the world had never touched his shoulders. Of course, there was a point when people took it entirely too far, but even then, Micah was able to approach it in an eerily calm sort of fashion, keeping his voice on a level tone and never raising it. His temper hadn’t flared up much over the years, but when it did, people knew to get the hell back. Those rare times that his angry had gotten the better of him had been the times when people had thought that they could run him over by not paying him back his money or when they thought that they could fuck with the people he cared about and get away with it. Some of the fist fights that he had gotten into during middle and high school had been brought on by small sparks of anger, but mostly, he had gotten into them because the other guy threw a fist first, and Micah just retaliated. He had done it mostly for the fun and the rush of it all. Otherwise, that just wasn’t him, much like the person he was in that moment with Ali wasn’t him.

This wasn’t the kind of person that Micah enjoyed being. He didn’t like burning down houses, and he hadn’t liked killing those men. They were things that he had done and hadn’t really given much of a second thought to, but it wasn’t like those were the kind of things that he did regularly for entertainment. He didn’t walk down the streets and target people as prey, nor did he constantly think about burning things like some pyromaniac. He liked being the happy person that he was that never seemed to have a care in the world. That was him, that’s the person that he wished he could always be. He was like that with his friends. He was always like that with Tish and Kade, and everyone else. Why was it that it was so damn difficult to be like that with Ali? This wasn’t the first time that he had snapped at her like this. That night at Jared’s after the whole ordeal with Kade and Brit, Micah had gone to Ali and addressed her in a pretty insensitive way. He had been thinking about how Kade and Brit were feeling, and he had totally neglected to think about how she felt in that situation. Though, he was still battling with his own feelings for her at that point, and that had serious clouded his judgment. It had been a bad call, but he wasn’t sure that he could say the same for what they currently dealing with. This time, there were no outside circumstances to make him waver. There was no worrying about a friend’s relationship, or trying to figure out how the hell he felt about Aliana. Sure, Kade and Brit were still on the rocks, but that wasn’t a concern of the moment. And Micah knew that he loved Ali. One would think that if he loved her, he would have been able to hold his tongue with her better, but it didn’t seem to work that way. What it came down to was that Micah and Ali were alike in so many ways. They were stubborn, and strong willed, and yet, they were so different. She was a high class woman with so much just dangling at her fingertips. Micah had come from the other side of the tracks, dealing in a far darker and dirtier world. No wonder they were fighting.

He was sure that both of them wished that they weren’t, though. No one wanted to be standing there chewing out the person that they loved when they could still be lying in each other’s arms, enjoying a perfect afternoon of just lazing about and doing whatever the hell they wanted to do. Micah wished more than anything that this could all somehow disappear and it be like it never happened. He didn’t want to fight her, but there was just enough pride and stubbornness to him that made him not dare back down or give into her. Yeah, maybe he had been in the wrong with keeping some of this from her. Sure, he might apologize for some of it, but there was no way in hell that he was going to go through all of this like some poor little puppy that was too afraid to take a stand for himself. He might not have a lot to stand on, but Micah wasn’t the type to go down without a fight, even in a matter like this where he was fighting and possibly pushing away the woman that he loved. Surely this wouldn’t be enough to cause a split between them, would it? Yeah, it probably was. After all, she was bound to think that he was cheating on her even after he had said that he wasn’t. Then, he had painted some pretty vivid pictures for her with the whole murderer thing. What kind of woman wouldn’t love a cheating, murdering boyfriend? Toss in the fact that he’s also an arsonist, and Ali would think she had really gotten lucky when she had found and fallen in love with him, right? Micah didn’t make it easy for anyone to love him. It either went one of two ways. You knew who he was and walked away, or you know who he was and stayed anyway. Right then, Micah didn’t know which one of those paths Aliana was going to take. God knew he had probably said something to piss her off or to hurt her. Pissing her off could be fixed, but he hated to hurt her. Not that he could take it back; the words had already been said.

Micah didn’t like either side of an argument. When he had to listen to what was being said, it just made him sad and angry at the same time. When he was talking, he usually did nothing but get himself into more trouble than he was already in by not thinking about what he was saying until it was too late. He had already started to dig himself a hole, and right now it seemed that both of them were doing that. He refused to believe that this would be the end of them, so it was only left to reason that what they were saying was only going to add to the things that they would be apologizing for later. But, maybe he was being too hopeful. Maybe this really was going to be it, and this would just be another shortly lived relationship to add to his list. That wasn’t what Micah wanted, but there was a fifty/fifty chance of it ending that way. His blue eyes were still locked on her as she got her turn to dig a little deeper, to go over what he had said and to take her stand in it all. Wonderful. Micah should have just been the bigger person and walked away from it. He should have started apologizing from the get go and tried to salvage what he could of their afternoon together. Damn his foolish pride and stubbornness. Without them, this probably would have turned out a hell of a lot better. Instead, he had argued right back, and Ali had just talked back to him, being on the defense as he had been. This sucked, big time. But, no matter how much he thought that he didn’t want things to go this way, or how badly he just wanted to kiss her, to make things better, he couldn’t. It was like there was some sort of mental block there, something that made him do nothing other than stand there and listen to what his girlfriend was saying to him.

He could tell that she was none to happy with the idea of him living with Tish, but she didn’t know the whole story. Micah knew that she hadn’t really had time to get the whole story, but hopefully once she did, she would see that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Tish had showed up in Seattle around the same time that Micah had, and she had needed a place to stay. She wasn’t one to depend on others, and Micah knew that if it had come down to it, she would have found somewhere to stay by her own means, but that wasn’t what he wanted to see her doing. Despite what Tish might think, she could do better for herself than what she was doing. Micah had offered his long time friend his spare bedroom, and a place to stay until she either got a good foundation beneath her feet or felt that it was time for her to move on. Or, she could stay there for as long as she wanted. Micah didn’t care to support her. He was the kind that would literally give the shirt off of his back to someone that he cared about if he thought they could use it. But, all thoughts about Tish and why she was living there were dashed out of his mind when the words “mislaid faith” left Ali’s lips. What the fuck. Okay, so clearly, she hadn’t been paying attention, or she was just so blinded by her own anger at the moment that she hadn’t heard him. Mislaid faith? Micah hadn’t said one damn word about that. Who was she to put words in his mouth? For some reason, that shot through him more than anything that she had said so far. Mislaid faith my ass, he thought. If anything, there had been too much faith. Micah liked to trust people, to believe that there was a reason that they could be trusted. Well, most of the time. Some people you just know can’t be trusted, but he hadn’t thought that was the case with Ali. Maybe that’s what he got for thinking this time.

Then she recalled with amazing accuracy that day that they had met up in Starbucks. He could remember it as well, but he hadn’t really thought about it much. Yeah, it was true that she had asked then, but she hadn’t asked any afterward. So maybe she wasn’t one to pry and be annoying about that kind of thing. Her not constantly asking about his place and when she had come over was something that Micah had liked about her, thinking that she was just that cool with it and trusted him that much. Obviously, she wasn’t that cool with it and she wasn’t all that trusting of him. As for her not caring, well, that wasn’t what he had been getting at. Micah knew that she cared. She cared enough to sit around and listen to him when he needed to talk. She cared, he knew that. Though, he also knew that the words that he had chosen to say hadn’t really gotten that across all that well. It was just another mistake made on his part, something that she seemed to be finding a lot of today. She poked that tiny little finger of hers into his bare chest, and Micah’s first thought was the realization that he hadn’t found his shirt yet. Then, it was the idea that this woman, the one that he just found out had dangerous he could be, still had enough nerve to do something like that. To him, it wasn’t something that was stupid or annoying. He liked that despite it all, she wasn’t afraid to do it. Or maybe she was, but she just decided not to give a damn anyway. Whatever it was that had fueled it, Micah didn’t know, nor did he dare let it show that he was somewhat proud of his girl for it. Then she was talking about faith and trust again, and all sense of pride in her dimmed for the time being. God, how he wished he had something close by to just beat the shit out of to work out this frustration. Yelling and screaming and hitting something would have been such a great release. Then, Micah would have been able to come back and discuss all of this quite rationally. But the only thing that was close and hittable was Ali, and Micah would never strike her or any other woman. That wasn’t the kind of man he had ever been or would be.

”Hold on,” he said, his expression almost one of disbelief. ”What the fuck are you talking about? I just said that I trusted you. I trust you far more than I have a lot of people that have come and gone in my life. Do you really think I would have told you about the dealing and why you might think I’ve killed before if I didn’t fucking trust you?” He gave her a lingering, cold look before turning to walk around the foot of his bed, his eyes still on her. ”Sounds like you’re the one that doesn’t trust me.” Micah found his shirt, a plain white tee, and pulled it back on, speaking as soon as his head was through. ”I don’t know why I trust you like I do, but maybe you’re telling me that I’m wrong to do it? I don’t know what the hell kind of relationship we have. Yeah, I should have told you about Tish, but guess what, I’m not sleeping with her, so it’s not like it matters. As for the dealing, well, maybe this is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I know how it looks and sounds. I know how people think of people that do it. Maybe I didn’t want you to look at me that way.” His voice had lost a great deal of the edge it had had, instead coming back to his normal speaking voice. He didn’t know what he was even trying to reason with her. This had already gone way out of control. He’d been hurt, she’d been hurt. There was really no turning back from it. They just had to ride it out and see what they could do afterward. Micah sighed, looking down at the floor for a moment before looking back to Ali. ”Leave whenever you want to, babe. I’m not asking you to stay.” Paybacks are a bitch, and her usage of Mickey had stung more deeply than she could possibly know. Yeah, he wasn’t asking her to stay, and it would probably be better if she didn’t that way they didn’t say more that they didn’t really mean, but party of Micah really wished she would stay anyway.

[Aliana Donahue]

Ali was not feeling the love for this little situation that they had there. Not even in the friggan least. She did not like the way she was treating him. It was far beyond unacceptable, and she could not even fathom why he had put up with it thus far. She really couldn’t. That man had the patience of a friggan saint. Sure, he had come back at her with things that weren’t so nice, things she didn’t really care for, but not once had Micah ever raised a hand to her, even when they were messing around and rough housing like little kids. Micah had never hit her, or at least she did not remember it, and since she did not remember it, it could not have been a big deal. She loved that about him. She really couldn’t picture him ever hitting her, he just wasn’t that type of man, despite the fact that she had just found out he murdered at least two people. She still trusted him in that manner. Ali was still not happy by the fact that she had been treating Micah so badly in the past few minutes. Drug dealing wasn’t that big of a deal, was it?

Micah was still Micah. He was still that fun loving, anti government man that she loved. She had no idea why she had been so pissed about it. Well, she did know why. It was the fact that he hadn’t told her about it. She was not the kind of girl that liked to pry into someone’s like. She preferred to take what people offered freely. Sure, Ali had done a background check on Micah, which had led to Kade and Brit. That was how Ali had known Brit’s age that night at Jared’s. She wasn’t trying to snoop, or to be nosy and catty. Ali had to be careful whom she accepted into her life. Aliana was an heiress to a multi million or maybe even billion dollar enterprise system, she couldn’t ever be too careful Apparently nothing that her lawyer had found had been too suspicious because no one had said anything to her. So nothing had thrown a major red flag, plus she knew Micah wasn’t after her money.

Ali was indeed a very, very rich girl. She had come from the leading plastic surgeon in New York, the woman was one she called Mom. Her Mother was the best in her field. She was the most over paid bitch Ali had ever met. Her Father was the man she called Christian. He ran and owned the largest Enterprise System going at that moment; Donahue Empire Enterprises. A fricken multi million dollar company in the palm of her hand, and lets just say that the trust fund she had acquired was well over what a lot of people would make in three lifetimes. So she had a reason to be snobby. However, ask anyone, Ali was never snobby about her money unless she was pushed to it. Ali had only been pushed to that once since she had been in Seattle, and that was with Micah. She had said at Jared’s that night that he shouldn’t forget who she was because she could have anything she wanted. Looking back now, that had been more than bitchy, and that probably had not been the best idea in the world. That really could have sent up huge red flags. She was rather happy that she had snagged Micah’s heart, because with comments like she had made that night, many men would have simply said fuck it, and would have left.

At that money, Ali really wasn’t thinking about how much money she had in her bank account. She was thinking more along the lines of why she had freaked out so badly on Micah. There had been no need of it. There really hadn’t been, that was something he was right on. She had no right to be angry about that, she had not asked before then, so he had not told. She did not come from his side of life. Things had always been handed to her. She wanted a cookie, it was fucking handed to her on a silver platter. She wanted a thousand dollar hair cut, daddy was handing over his platinum. Whatever she wanted: she got. Micah, on the other hand, had to work for what he had. He had had to work hard for all the things he had, what he was, and who is was today. Where as, Ali had only been born to be who she was. What she really couldn’t understand was why he didn’t buy a house. Houses were easier, but she was not about to ask about that.

Apparently Micah trusted her, and what he had said had not come out the way he had wanted it to. He was pretty pissed by the fact she had said he didn’t. She knew he would have had to seeing as he had just given some reasons on why he might have murdered some people. Yeah, that really was something that could have landed his ass in prison for a while. Ah, the two had the same thoughts yet again. They were just so damn alike, yet some how they were so very different. They were both too stubborn to admit they were wrong, though Ali had a feeling she was going to be the one to break again. Something about that man made her want to be submissive, and there was no way Ali was letting this relationship end like it was bound to if this kept going. He now stared into her eyes. A look that made her want to cringe, and hide, but she didn’t. She wasn’t backing down… yet. Micah then walked to the foot of his bed, moving away from her? No, he was getting on his shirt. He pulled that plain tee over his head, then began speaking with her again. The edge had subsided quite a bit, actually he was talking normally to her, which made her happy.

He didn’t know why he trusted her so much. That hurt a little. Why didn’t he know? She had never given him a reason not to, that’s why he trusted her. Or why he should have trusted her. Or maybe it was the fact she was his girlfriend and he should be putting faith into her. She was not trying to tell him not to trust her. That was the opposite of how she wanted it to be. She wanted him to trust her, but not too much. She was the kind of girl who needed a shorter leash, or things would happen. She was a cheating type of girl, she really wasn’t. Ali was a faithful girl, but damn was he making it hard or what? Or maybe it was her who was making it hard? Micah was now admitting he should have told her about Tish, but he still didn’t think it mattered because he wasn’t cheating on her with the girl, Tish was it? Then he was saying he might not have told her about the whole Drug things because he had had a feeling that she was going to react that way. Oh no. Ali really had hurt him more than she had wanted. “Maybe I didn’t want you to look at me that way.” Was she looking down on him? She didn’t mean to be. She was the kind of girl to look down upon him, and she actually had a signature look. Yet, she didn’t want to be giving him that look. She wasn’t was she? Maybe. Maybe she was. He was now looking at her, then he broke the eye contact, looking to his floor. She knew nothing friendly was going to be said.

Ahh, the moment she had been waiting for, but not really expecting. His retaliation from her calling him Mikey the way she had. She had been in the wrong in that situation. However what he had just said stung more than anything he had ever said to her before. Yes, it brought a tear to her eye, but she fought it back, forcing it back down. Ali wasn’t angry at him anymore. She was just plan hurt. He wasn’t asking her to stay? That could have had so many meanings. So many meanings. He wasn’t asking her to stay with him, he wasn’t asking her to stay in that apartment? She really didn’t know what he meant by that statement. She didn’t think he really wanted her to leave. One major give away was the fact he couldn’t look her in the eyes and say what he had said. That was the only give away. However, the way he had called her babe had stung too. He had never spoken to her the way he had in those past minutes. It had felt like hours, upon hours of being at each others throats, her going for the jugular, where as he defended himself, well, until his last turn that was, well his last two turns.. He had fought back those times. She didn’t figure he realized how badly he had hurt her with such a little statement, and the way he had said one word. Now she knew how he felt. She figured that had been his goal. Ali was not going anywhere, she was not leaving on such terms with him. She was just as stubborn as he was, and it was happening.

Ali moved back over to him. Her blue eyes and her expression had softened greatly to one of compassion. Sure, it was apparent in those blues of hers that she was on the verge of breaking down into tears. She reached out for him, her hand gently placed on his arm. She hoped to god he wouldn’t pull away from her like she had done to him. She had finally caught his gaze, it had taken a bit, but after the touch he had looked at her and she caught his gaze with hers. She had hurt him too, that was apparent to her, and she really couldn’t have felt worse about it. Something about him made her just want to cuddle again, to be near him. Not being near him was far too hard for her. She didn’t much care for not being near him at all. He was a serious source of comfort for her, and the fact that she had made him angry so quickly was quite the shock to her system. She stood there for a moment, letting him read her, plus she needed the time to shoot down her ego and pride. ”Micah. I am so sorry.” She paused for a moment. ”What you do for a living does not change the way I feel for you. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I don’t want to hurt. That wasn’t my intention. Babe, I am sorry.” Ali looked deep into his eyes. She was not forgiving him, and she hoped to god he didn’t work tonight, cause that girl was headed for the bar. Sure, she was forgiving him in a way. She was apologizing too. She was quite the little actress, though her feelings were not being fake. She really did love him. What he had done with her heart was something special. She hoped to god that he wasn’t about to dump her. Though he had let her walk over to him. That was sort of a good sign, right?

[micah orsino ,]

He was so dumb. He was incredibly dumb. He was a dumb ass. No matter how it’s said, that was Micah’s opinion of himself in that moment as he stood there in his bedroom, practically telling Aliana, the woman that he loved, to get the hell out of his apartment. This wasn’t what he had wanted at all. Whenever he had taken a moment to envision what it was he wanted for the relationship that they were in, it was always happy scenes. The two of them laughing and cuddling, lying in each other’s arms and just letting the love they felt for one another grow. It might sound sappy, but anyone that knew Micah well knew that the man was a romantic at heart. He was tough as nails and a real mean ass when he had to be, but he also had that soft and gentle side to him that really believed that love was out there. A person just has to be patient and find it. He knew that he had found it here with Ali, and yet here they stood, pushing each other away. Why were they pushing each other away? Because Micah was so damn dumb sometimes that it was almost funny. He had reacted badly to her suggesting he was a murderer. Usually, when that part of his past was brought up, Micah could brush it off and go on like no one had really hit on the truth. He had a perfect poker face, no one in the world able to tell if he were lying or telling the truth about anything. It was just the fact that she, this woman that he was so near to, had found it and it had just been the button for her to push that would send him into what was a Micah panic mode. That wasn’t a part of him that he wanted others exposed to. For one, it was dangerous for both him and the people that knew. For two, that wasn’t how he wanted people to see him, either. He had killed bad people that had done bad things, like a cop or a soldier, but people wouldn’t see him in that light. He’d be a monster, someone to stay away from. And yet, he’d told her anyway. Not only that, but he had also told her about the dealing. Dumb was the only adjective for him at the moment.

But, it would be better to end it now rather than wait and get any farther in. Now, if she decided to remove herself from his life, it was going to hurt like hell, but he’d live. Micah had learned to endure all sorts of pain a long time ago. Physical pain was his favorite, that being something that he could bite and claw his way through and come out victoriously every time. Emotional pain was a little bit harder to work through. Emotions are a messy thing, anyway, and the mind and the heart are constantly working against one another. Both play tricks, and sometimes it’s just too damn hard to figure out what to do with it all. Aliana leaving him would cause that second, messier sort of pain within Micah, but at least he hadn’t made her a permanent fixture in his life yet. Sure, he loved her, but they had only just started out. Micah was all for love and happiness, and had been known to do a lot of things without fully thinking them through first. When it came to things like this, though, he didn’t dare rush. Not again. It’s true that no hearts were broken when he left Greece, and Lena, behind, but rushing into something, letting your heart go, and getting all these great images in your mind only hurt in the end when none of it works out. Now, had they been together for a longer amount of time and something happen to where he thought they might break up, that would hurt so much more. It only makes sense. The more in love you are with someone, the harder it is to say goodbye to them when things end, whether by death or a break up. That’s just how it works, and Micah, while an exception to many other things, was not one to that rule. It would be better to end it now before they became really serious rather than wait and ruin every good thing that they had ever shared in a bitter end.

Even so, calling it quits now would take its toll on the man. Micah would do his best not to show his hurt, but he would most certainly feel it. He’d mope around and sulk when he was on his own, put on a fake smile when in the company of others, and do a hell of a lot of drinking and sleeping around to mend that broken heart of his. It was not the best way to heal, and it didn’t make the problem go away, but it sure seemed to help at the time. That’s what he had done after he had left Greece; he didn’t see why it wouldn’t work here as well. Well, maybe he did. It wouldn’t work here because this relationship didn’t seem to be ending like that. Huh. Micah had always thought that he had some good luck about him, but this was just insane. Most women would have stormed out after hearing what he had said about not asking her to stay. Hell, most women would have been finding something to throw at him, maybe even a few some things, and cursed and ranted and raved, making a grand exit. They wouldn’t have looked at him the way Ali did. Micah had been secretly hoping that she would hear the words that he hadn’t said, the ones that said that he really didn’t want her to leave, but wanted her to stay there with him instead. There were a lot of times in Micah’s life where hope hadn’t really paid off, but this time, it seemed like it had. She had had to of heard something in all of that that had made her want to stay, because she didn’t leave. She didn’t say anything cold or smart back to him. Actually, she didn’t say anything at first. It was like they were both starting to realize what they were doing, what they were saying, and they knew it was a mistake. At least, that was how Micah felt about it. He had come to know Ali fairly well in their time together, but he was nowhere near being able to read her mind. Maybe in time, but not then.

Instead of taking her leave, Aliana moved around the foot of Micah’s bed and came to stand near to him. Well, that could go a couple of different ways. She could be playing all sweet and innocent, and then turn violent on him at the last second. She could lash out with her words and her fists, and caused one hell of a scene. But, that wasn’t why she had approached him. Micah felt her hand reach out and gently touch his arm, causing his brilliant blue eyes to look at her, her pretty eyes meeting his. Just with one look, they were able to see how much hurt had been caused by this outbreak of angry words and cold tones. Micah had been hurt, but had too much pride to admit it. He knew Ali was the same way, and hated that he had hurt her. He wanted to apologize and do what he could to make it right, choosing that moment to be the one that broke and did it first. Or that had been his plan. Aliana had beat him to it, though, and had come out with an apology that he hadn’t thought he’d hear until he’d said his own. In her words, Micah thought that he heard a great sincerity. She still loved him, and she was sorry for what she had said. That was all that he needed to hear from her. He didn’t expect to be forgiven just like that by her, but he knew that he had already forgiven her for everything. There was just something about this girl that made it nearly impossible for him to ever stay mad at her. It had been that way the night at Jared’s, and it was still that way. He looked at her for a long moment before letting the tiniest of smiles light up his face. His way of letting her know that her apology had been more than accepted. How about that. Just a few moments ago, they were ready to tear each other apart. Now, all was calm, and they were on good terms again. It had happened nearly as fast as them going from calm to angry had.

”I’m sorry, too,” he said, the tone of his voice soft and low. It was his turn to make the apologies, and while it was something that he wasn’t used to doing, Micah wasn’t a man that was afraid to admit that he had been wrong. ”I didn’t mean to hurt you either. If I ever get defensive about what I do or what I’ve done, it’s not because of you; it’s because it’s just too much to fully trust to someone else. I wish it weren’t like that, but it is what it is and there’s no changing it. And I’m sorry for not telling you about Tish, but I promise you that you don’t have to worry. You’re the only one I want.” For being a man that didn’t apologize often, he did it pretty well. Telling her about Tish was one thing. Ali could even meet Tish for herself and she would be able to hear the reasoning behind the living arrangements. She would be able to understand it all and see why it made sense. The part about the drug dealing and the murders was not something that Micah would let her see, nor did he care to let her make sense about it. He’d do what he could to involve her in all the aspects of his life, including that one, but she was really better off not knowing a lot about it. That way, if anything bad ever did go down and Micah were caught at it, she wouldn’t be held accountable for anything. She might see it as him shutting her out or not trusting her enough, but all Micah really wanted to do was protect her. He let out a soft sigh, bring his hand up to gently cradle her face. ”I’m sorry,” he said again, this time his voice being so hushed that it was almost a whisper. Now he wondered where this would go. Would she stay? Would she leave? What else might be said? Whatever happened, he hoped to God it didn’t put them back in fight mode. That was a place he didn’t ever want to be with her again.

[ sorry it's short. ]