worth the risk • dean portman

chapter twenty nine

dean

I guess you can say that the last twenty-four hours have been quite eventful.

After dinner last night, I somehow ended up staying the night at Morgan's. Her father whisked me into his study as soon as he could, and gave me some ground rules that I have to follow if I want to date Morgan. It was all in good fun though, because he poured me a glass of expensive whisky afterwards and let me drink it.

I was feeling it a bit after one glass, so I ended up showering and going to sleep after I finished my drink. I'm glad I ended up leaving a couple of t-shirts and a few pairs of sweatpants here, because I would've been in an awkward situation otherwise. It also helps that Morgan has half of my sweatshirts buried somewhere in her massive closet, so I was going to end up being fine regardless.

I don't know when Morgan came in here, but I wake up with her head on my chest. I open my eyes and see her sleeping peacefully, so I tighten the arm I have around her. Since it's still dark out, I close my eyes again and hope that I'll fall back asleep. I haven't slept well in over a week because I've been so stressed about this plan, so I deserve to get a good night's rest.

When I wake up a few hours later, the smell of freshly brewing coffee and french toast fill my nose. I feel Morgan stretch from beneath me, so I open my eyes and look down at her with a smile. "Good morning beautiful."

"Good morning." she answers, a sleepy smile on her face. "I'm glad you're here."

I let out a laugh and let my free arm come around her, holding her tightly in a hug. "Me too. Did you sleep okay?"

She nods, which makes me smirk. "Good, I'm glad. I knew my muscles were just that awesome. Thanks for confirming."

"Oh get over yourself." Morgan responds, rolling her eyes at me and sitting up. "You set me up on that one."

I'm unable to control the laughter that takes over me, which Morgan doesn't find as amusing. I lean in and place a kiss on her forehead before giving her my most innocent smile. "You know you love me. Don't even try to deny it."

She pretends to think about it, but her grin breaks free and seeing it makes my heart pound. "You're right. I do love you."

"That's what I thought." I tease, sitting up and grabbing her hand. "C'mon, let's go get some breakfast. I can smell it from here and I'm starving."

We leave her room and go downstairs, following the delicious smells coming from the kitchen. When I walk into the room, my eyes nearly pop out of my head with the amount of food on the island. There are plates of fresh french toast, assorted fruit plates, a big bowl of scrambled eggs, a plate filled to the brim with bacon, and more toast than I've ever seen in my life.

"Did I ever mention that my mom loves to cook?" Morgan asks, her cheeks turning a slight shade of pink. If it's from embarrassment, I wouldn't understand why. My mom is an amazing cook, and I'm really fucking proud of it. I brag about it every chance I get, because her food is that good.

"Are you embarrassed or something?" I ask, causing Morgan to look at me in confusion. When she doesn't answer, I clarify quickly. "I thought you were embarrassed about the fact that your mom made all this food."

"I guess I am a little bit." she admits, looking down at the floor to avoid eye contact. "I love her food, but I just feel like making this all was a bit over the top. She didn't need to make an entire feast for the four of us, and I feel like she thought she had to. So I guess I feel a little embarrassed because I feel bad, that's all."

I take both of her hands into mine, which makes her look back up at me. "Don't ever be embarrassed about something like this." I say firmly. "She put all of this time and effort into making this huge breakfast buffet because she wanted to. Think of all the love that's in the food. Don't focus on feeling bad, because I can promise you that she wouldn't have done this if she didn't want to."

Morgan sighs and blinks quickly, trying to make sure that what I assume are tears don't spill out of her eyes. "You're right, again. I feel like a horrible daughter now for being embarrassed about it."

"Don't." I reassure her, pulling her in for a hug. "Sometimes we don't know how to react to the ways our parents show us love, especially when we don't understand why they're doing it a certain way or in one that's different than you're used to. It's still love regardless. Trust me, I learned the hard way."

"You literally never fail to amaze me." Morgan mumbles from against my chest. "I don't know how I got so lucky with you."

"Believe me, I don't know how I got so lucky with you." I counter, which brings a smile to her face.

Without another word, I grab a plate and start to pile pieces of french toast onto it. Don't get me wrong, I could stay in a hug with Morgan for the rest of my life and be perfectly fine with it. But right now, I'm starving and I need to put food in my body before I explode.

By the time I sit down at the table, my plate is pretty much overflowing. I piled as much food as I could onto my plate without being obnoxious about it, because even though I'm starving, I didn't want to be greedy with the amount of food I took.

Just as Morgan sits down next to me, the front door opens and I hear Morgan's mom call out to her from the entryway. "Morgan! Can you grab three folding chairs from the basement?"

Morgan groans and puts her fork down, clearly annoyed with her mom. "Why?" she calls out. "I literally just sat down to eat. Thank you for the food by the way, but why do I need to get the folding chairs?"

Suddenly, Vanessa and Dave appear with three people at their side. By the way Morgan's face drops, I panic. When I look closely to see who they are, I immediately lose my appetite and stare at the tall blonde kid standing behind his parents.

"Because the Kennedys are joining us for breakfast." Dave says in response to Morgan's question, with an uncomfortable expression on his face.

Thank goodness they don't see the look on his face right now. Because if they did, this would've just become a lot more awkward than it already is.