Living With The Enemy

Chapter Three

Michael raised his eyebrow in mock expression to Prince.

      "Michael, he's right. Just explain to him what you want to happen so you both can stop all this craziness," Amir chimed in. Both Michael and Prince look at each other, poison both evident in their pupils.

      Michael leaned back in his chair and placed his right hand on the table, slightly tapping a random rhythm while looking at the other man that was seated across from him. Prince's tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. He put his hands up and sat back in his seat.

     "Fine. Just tell me what's what so I can get the hell out of here." He was fed up and it hadn't even been fifteen minutes yet. He put his hands down, waiting for an explaination.

      "Here's how it is," Michael started, "the media puts us as pure emenies."

    Something they wouldn't be wrong about, Prince thought with an eyeroll.

     He went on, "But that isn't true." He received a look of confusion from the prince that was across from him. "Well, we don't despise one another that much," he tried. Prince raised his eyebrows in spite of himself.

     "Okay, I know this. What's so special about it?"

     "In order to show them that we have a friendly competition between us, I have decided to create something for them as well as you and I." Prince moved a corner of his lower lip to the side in way that told Michael he was listening intently. Amir and Dan were nervous and kind of off edge with all of this.

      "Jackson, where are you going with this?" Prince asked with his eyes flickering from Amir to Dan and back at Michael.

     "Well..." How was he gonna put it so that Prince wouldn't overreact? Prince was hoping that Michael would just hurry and spit it out! "I want the both of us to live together." Prince's mouth flew open as he narrowed his eyes at Michael. Dan put a hand to his forehead in a hopeless fashion as Amir moved his eyes, studying Prince's reaction through all of this.

      Suddenly, Prince found his way out of his seat while closing his mouth, but his eyes remained squinted. He put his hands up in front of him as he quickly found his voice.

    "Look--" Michael stood, too. "--what the hell are you trying to do to my reputation? Do you not know how that will look on both me and you?" Michael was quick to approach that topic.

     "I'm not saying 'Hey, let's tell the world we're dating,' I'm trying to finally get the damned media off of our backs. This will help; if we just show them we're staying together, they'll see we don't fully hate each other, and that way we both can have some peace and quiet by getting rid of them." Prince blinked blankly.