My Life In Ruins

26. Daddy, Can I Have A Castle? I Want A Castle!

 Chapter 26

Daddy, Can I Have A Castle?  I Want A Castle!

The next morning, I woke up with someone brushing their fingertips across my cheek over and over again.  Before I opened my eyes, though, I just laid there, letting them.  I finally opened them a few moments later and saw Max staring at me.

“Good morning,” I said, snuggling more into his chest. 

He chuckled.  “Good morning, beautiful,” he said, kissing my forehead. 

I smiled into his bare chest, breathing him in, and tightened my hold on his waist.

“I hate to ruin the great moment we’re having, but we kind of have to get up.  Your dad and Brielle have already been in here a few times to say so, but I couldn’t find it in myself to wake you when you were looking as beautiful sleeping as you were.”

I laughed, leaning away from him.  “My hair’s probably a mess,” I said, reaching up to run my fingers through it.  “I probably look like a mess.”

He laughed, leaning in to give me a kiss.  “No, you don’t,” he said. 

“So we have to get up because…”  Then I realized just what he said.  “Dad and Brielle came in here?”

He laughed again.  “Don’t worry.  They said that they knew this was what we would do and not make one or the other sleep on the couch. They didn’t have a problem with it.”

I groaned, burying my face in his chest again.  “I hate how they’re so…okay…with this.  You and me, I mean,” I said.

“Why do you say that?”

I sighed.  “Well, it’s like they don’t care what we do.  They’re fine with it either way.  I thought that a dad was supposed to despise your first boyfriend, threaten that he would kill him if he so much as stood two feet away from you.  With you and Dad, it’s like the complete opposite.  I don’t get it!”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Max said, tucking my hair behind my ear.  “Besides, your dad likes me.  I had to win him over before I got you to make sure that he wouldn’t kill me.  I’d say my master plan worked.”

I snorted.  “You’re such a dork sometimes,” I said.

He grinned, kissing me on the tip of my nose.  “Of course, but that’s one of the traits you love most about me.  I just know it.”

I froze at that small, four letter word that came out of his mouth. 

There it was again.  And now that he said it, everything that I’d been thinking about the night before came flooding back in full force.

Pushing the covers off, I quickly sat up, so fast that the room started to spin. 

“Hey?” Max asked, sitting up behind me.  “What’s the matter?”

I couldn’t answer him.

Why couldn’t the epiphany that I had the night before leave my mind?  I really wished it would and I could just go on like we normally would.  I wish that it didn’t have to be awkward now…on my part at least.  I was not going to tell him what I was thinking about. 

“Callie?” Max said. 

Biting the inside of my lip, I turned my head slightly just so I could see him.  “It’s nothing,” I lied.  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up, adjusting my tank top that had ridden up.  “I’m going to…talk with Brielle about today.”