Keepsake

Chapter 16

Marcus Evers

The sunlight shined through the curtains and showed through my eyelids. I roll around squinting. When my eyes focus, next to me is a figure of light. Alysia is lying down with her eyes shut and body partially covered. I remove some of her dark brown hair from her face and examine if she's awake. It doesn't seem like she is.

I stand from the bed and put on my boxer briefs. Out the window I can see the sun is rising fast and entering the room reaching Alysia. I open one of the blinds and allow the light to shine on her face.

She stirs and turns about before opening her eyes. "Marcus? What are you doing?"

I sit down next to her, lean over and place a hand on her back. "Good morning," I say low. "How are you feeling?"

Her smile grows big showing off her white and perfect teeth. She moans happily.

"Wake up," I say softly.

She laughs and puts her arm up over and behind my neck, pulling me down against the pillow. "I don't want to go anywhere, today. I'm going to stay here."

"We can't stay. We have to go to work. And we have classes to attend and so on and so forth."

"Are we going to see each other later?" she asks me.

I smile. "Of course."

She turns over onto her back and her precious brown eyes look at me invitingly. I climb onto the bed and hover over her, then begin kissing her lips again.

"Let's do it again," she says.

I clear my throat. "Your mom and dad may be at the door looking to wake you and me. We need to get dressed." I jump off the bed and grab my pants. I wanted to stay and spend the day with her, and that would've been perfect, but we needed to take care of our responsibilities.

"Don't look," Alysia says to me.

"What are you talking about?" I ask with a funny look.

"I'm going to get dressed so look away." She sits up with a blanket covering her. Her eyes are squinting from the amount of light coming into the room. "Turn around."

I do as she asks while dressing myself.

Once dressed, we both try to sneak to the kitchen wondering if anyone is awake. Lawrence and Pamela are already there and there's the smell of breakfast in the air.

"Good morning sleepy heads," Lawrence announces. "It's time to get a head start on the day."

Alysia and I shyly sit at the breakfast table and try not to make eye contact with her parents. "Good morning," she and I say.

Lawrence holds a cup of coffee to his mouth and clears his throat, "Did you two sleep well?"

Pamela turns around and smacks him in the back of the head with a spatula. "Be quiet," she whispers.

"What?" he answers back with a pretend look of confusion. "What did I say?"

She points the spatula at him like it was a threat to strike again. "They're grown up. Leave them alone."

"I was just asking if they slept comfortable last night, that's all," he continued to fake the confused look. Then he turns to us. "Don't mind her, kids. Pamela's just having a good morning of her own." Then he winks at me. He finishes his coffee and then gives Pamela a kiss. Lawrence passes by Alysia and I. "I'll see you two later."

"Bye," we say together.

Pamela faces us, watching with a smile and holding a cooking tool in one hand. "What do you kids want to eat?"