Sweet Lantern

Chapter 17

Darry

I'm laying with my fiancé... fiancé. I shake my head in disbelief. Alice said yes to me last night. This is incredible! Hopefully her parents will still be happy for us and be supportive. I know my family's already expecting this, so no worries there. I expect that we'll hear how we're too young and that this is moving too fast, we just started dating... blah,blah, blah... But I don't care. I love her. I've always loved her. My feelings aren't going to change, not now, not ever.

She looks so peaceful sleeping her next to me. I hope her parents are accepting of this. I really don't want them to get her down, not today. Really, I'd like to not tell them today, but I don't know what she's going to say about that.

Alice starts to move and wake up. She turns toward me and pulls herself closer to me, wrapping her arm over me. "Good morning", I hear her muffled voice saying into my chest. "Good morning, my sweet Alice", I say and move back so I can see her face. She looks up at me and smiles, "Did we really get engaged last night or was I dreaming all of that?" She asks me.

"Engaged? You don't remember the part where we went to Vegas and got married?" I tease her. She smacks my arm and rolls her eyes at me.

"Did you feel that? I think there's a fly in the room. It just bumped into my arm." I laugh and stick my tongue out at her.

"Daryl Norman Williams! You are so not funny!", she says as she's smiling.

I hook my arm around her waist and pull her into me, her fighting me the whole way. When she stops moving, I bend down and look her in her eyes. She looks up at me, waiting, anticipating my next move, but before I can go in, she raises up and kisses me, quickly on the lips and then she slinks down and out of my arms, turning to run into the bathroom... giggling the whole way.

I put my clothes on and wait at the edge of her bed for her to come out. When she walks into the room, she takes my breath away. I don't think I'll ever get used to how beautiful she is. She's brushed her hair and curled it, she has very little makeup on, but you can tell it's there, mostly around the eyes. The black mascara and little bit of eyeliner bring out the green in her gorgeous hazel eyes. She's got on a sexy little yellow top that opens right above her belly button and a pair of khaki short shorts. "You look incredible", I tell her, and she blushes. She walks over to where I'm sitting and leans into me, putting my mouth right at her navel. I kiss her soft skin and she jumps as goosebumps raise up all over her stomach.

"We need to go downstairs, Darry. If you keep that up, we won't leave this room", she tries to warn, but it sounds more appealing than dangerous.

"Alright, let's go", I give in.

When we're done with chores, we meet back at her house. "Hey, Kevin called me earlier, they're all getting together at Rico's tonight for dinner and wanted to know if we'd like to join them", I tell Alice as we rock back and forth on the wooden porch swing on her front porch. "Do you think you'd like to go hang out with them for a little bit tonight?"

She agrees so I text Kevin back and let him know we're on for tonight. When the sun starts to dip, we head out to the restaurant. I love that she automatically reaches for my hand when we're in the car now. And how she sneaks peeks at me as I'm driving. I can see her smiling at me out of the corner of my eye, but I don't let her know I see her, afraid that she'll stop.

When we pull up to the restaurant, everyone's waiting out front. I get out and walk around to open her door and hear the guys behind me, "Awwwww, how sweet!" Then I hear Joel say, "Awww, Kev, why don't you open my door for me anymore?", and everyone laughs.

"Alright, alright, we get it", I tell them, shooing them inside.

When we get in the front door, the hostess greets us and asks us how many. She takes us to a large round table in the corner of the back of the restaurant and seats us. We're all quietly careful not to seat Jessica and Alice next to each other. The table is round though, so they still end up catty corned across from one another. I silently pray that the night goes well. I want her to be comfortable tonight so that she'll want to do this more often. I love my friends, not as much as I love Alley, but I love them too. I like being around them all and would really love to have both of my worlds meet in the middle and become a part of each other.

Matt and Brittany are kissing behind their menus, while Joel is leaning over Jessica's shoulder, looking at her menu, she's smiling back at him, and he smiles at her. I really hope this is a good sign. I'm happy to see him so unphased by the kissing going on right next to him and silently hope that he's giving up on that whole Brittany obsession and thinking about giving Jess a chance. Kevin is sitting back, cool as ever, looking through his phone, waiting on the waitress to come back to us.

When everyone has ordered, that's when the questions start. "How have you two been?", "What have y'all been doing?", "Are you married yet"? They're joking of course, but we both look at each other and smile on that last question and immediately hear the air being sucked in across the table. There are five sets of eyes, now all looking at us, full of curiosity and excitement. "What?! Explain yourselves." Joel and Kevin say in unison, laughing and turning to look at each other. "Get out of my head, man!" Joel tells Kevin, playfully.

All eyes are back on us and we have to give them what they want. To my surprise, Alice starts first, "Darry asked me to marry him last night..." I interrupt with my favorite part of this story, "And she said yes!"

They clap in excitement, everyone but Jessica of course. "Oh man, that's awesome!" Joel says to us. "That's great! We're so happy for you", Brittany and Matt say. "When is the big day?" Kevin asks.

"We haven't really talked about anything yet. We haven't even told our families. You guys are the first ones to know", I tell them, and they seem very pleased with the news.