#khamani

The four of them had spent the morning eating heart-shaped Belgian waffles prepared by Luna and Khamani and listening to music. Ximena hung out in her swing while Cannon claimed he 'loved this song' every time a new one played. Luna giggled when Cannon recognized J Balvin and looked up at Khamani. "He's Latino. I don't care what anyone says." Cannon's Spanish was improving and Luna watched him as she finished off her fruit bowl. "Show daddy how you shake it, honey!" She then glanced over to Khamani. "See? We're in trouble. Your fault." That was purely in jest since Luna knew it was very much her fault. Gigging and clapping as their son showed off his new moves, Luna then stood up when Cannon brought her to the middle of the living room to dance. "Are you going to teach your hermanita how to dance too? And teach your uncles how to perfect their Spanish?" Cannon nodded proudly and then went up to his daddy to pull him over to dance as well.

"I have a surprise for you." She grinned as she danced. "Ximena and I have a surprise for you actually. Cannon already made us those gorgeous sugar cookies. Thank you, Pillsbury." Luna smiled. "But I bet you're not ready for what we have in store for you!" She poked her husband's nose after tip-toeing. "After this dance, I'll show you."

@detkhamani​ 

Chris really hated that the nagging in the back of his mind kept coming back to there being something wrong in his brother’s marriage. Between finding out that Marco and Lucy hadn’t signed a prenup (which Chris still couldn’t believe his brother was dumb enough to do) and the fact that Marco would have left multiple times if it wasn’t for the kids (and the lack of a prenup) there was just something that just felt off. Like Lucy was using this as a way to do whatever she wanted, and there wasn’t a way that Marco felt like he could leave. 

But a gut feeling really wasn’t proof of anything, and as this was the first real conversation the brothers had in years, Chris knew that he couldn’t actually say something without there being sufficient proof. 

So asking Khamani to look into it was for his peace of mind. And if Lucy had been up to something, at least then they would actually know.  “Hey, thanks so much for coming,” Chris smiled, opening the door after he had gotten word from his security guard that the private detective was there, “I’ve got lunch ready in the kitchen, and it’s got a pretty nice island, I figured that we could just meet there?”

@detkhamani​ 

When her mother had offered to take her out to lunch, Emmie had a bad feeling. Any time that this happened, she knew that it was because her mother wanted to tell her something where Emmie would be socially pressured into not freaking out and screaming at the woman at the top of her lungs. Like when Emmie was basically forced to take care of her and her father when Rose found out about her cancer. Or when Theo got arrested. Or any other countless things that Rose had decided on behalf of her daughter and Emmie was forced to go along with. 

So between starting the conversation off with Rose announcing she didn’t want to meet Emma because she knew Emmie’s relationship track record and after the disaster that was Sadhbh she wasn’t counting on whatever was going on with Emma to last long, and criticizing Emmie’s design of the children’s room remodel, the younger woman was ready for her mother to just get to the point. 

“So when are you going to pass the store back to Theo? I thought that you would have by now.” 

Emmie blinked, not entirely sure that she heard her mother right. Of the many things that this conversation could have been about, this wasn’t what he expected.  “Is that a joke?” she finally asked, processing the situation.

“Of course not, the store was always supposed to go to Theo, you know that. You were just the placeholder after your father got sick,” Rose continued, very matter of factly, “and now that your brother is out of prison, I don’t know what you think that you should stay in charge.” 

“He wants to sell the store,” Emmie snapped, her voice rising, not even caring about who was listening, if they were listening, “And probably keep the money for himself.” 

“Well then at least he knows his limits, unlike you Emmaline,” Rose snapped back, “it’s not as if you know what you’re doing with the store, that remodel was absolutely a waste of money, and the way that you let your staff talk to customers is horrible customer service. Your father would be appalled that you’ve gone on like this for so long.”

“You don’t get to decide what Dad would have thought because with how sick he is, we just don’t know do we? Maybe he would have fucking loved what I’ve done with everything,” Emmie snapped, not even caring that people were staring and that she was yelling, “but the store has gone up in profit every fucking year since I took over, and I’m not going to let all the work that I’ve done for the past few years be for nothing because Theo gets to waltz back in and take everything without doing any work or learning any lessons from his massive fuck up. So maybe you should be talking to him about getting an actual job then trying to steal mine so he can fuck it up too.” 

“The store is not your place, Emmaline. It is your brother’s. It wasn’t when you took over, it won’t be in the future, and the sooner that you accept that the better,” Rose said, standing up and collecting her things, “But considering that your profits are doing so well,” the woman said, sarcasm dripping off of her voice, “I guess that means you have enough to cover lunch after all. But think about what I said, this wasn’t supposed to be your life, don’t keep trying to do things that you weren’t suited for, I’m just trying to keep your best interests in mind.” 

A frustrated yell left Emmie’s lips before she finally became aware of all the stares coming from the other tables as she wished that she could melt into the ground. But she had to wait for the check, and her emotions just flip-flopped before intense rage and pain - and as much as Emmie wanted to cry, she wasn’t going to give everyone the satisfaction of seeing her do it. But the tears burned against her eyes and she buried her face in her napkin trying to keep herself from sobbing before she heard footsteps and felt someone standing over the table. Reluctantly, she looked up, and seeing who it was truly didn’t make her feel any better. “Shit,” she muttered, “how much of that did you hear?”

@ Normani Kordei what’s this sis?

Chris has been in a mood since he had seen Lucy’s reaction. Even though it was anonymous, he knew his ex-wife’s methods of trolling entirely too well. At this point he didn’t even care what was said, worse had been sad about him, it was more the why. It was always his fault that her plans fell through. That all of her interviews dried up after he got back to work after their divorce, that people got tired of her biphobic slanted stories that he “must” have cheated to have figured that out, that he had ruined her reality TV career at three different times by never agreeing to be on the shows (that he was sure would paint him negatively) and then everything would fall through because he knew it was him that he actually wanted. And for some reason with all of that Marco stayed with her. Maybe they truly loved each other, for reasons that Chris would never understand. 

But Lucy clearly loved fame more than anything, and Chris had supposed to have been her stepping stone to get it. And since that didn’t work, it meant that she would tear him down. And then pretend for his brother that she had nothing to do with it. 

He had probably been alone with his thoughts too long as he threw different rocks into the ocean, a mindless activity to try and get his mind off of Lucy and the drama that awaited him back home. It took him a moment to realize that someone else was there and he looked up and gave an unconvincing smile to Khamani. “Hey, you’re welcome to sit if you want,” he said, motioning to the other side of the dwindling collection of stones he had.