Promises We Keep

9

MARCUS POV

I wake up to Ken sprawled out on the bed barely leaving me any space. The blanket is tangled around him again and both his arm and leg are thrown over me, basically having me trapped laying on my back and staring at the ceiling that is now just a dark blue purple color in the daylight. His face is turned away from me and I am just met with his dark curly hair. 

I sigh. All night, I dreamt about my father. Memories of when I was younger. And then some fake ass shit about him and Kaitlin being together and us being one big happy family. As soon as I opened my eyes from that nightmare, I knew I was going to call him.

If I do it, I can just get it over with. Maybe he has a really good reason. Maybe he wants to be in my life. I feel my stomach clench, a reminder not to give myself some false sense of hope. Who am I kidding? I will still hold onto hope a little bit. I'm usually good at ascertaining what people are going to do or what they are thinking inside that head of theirs. But, I guess a fatal flaw of mine is giving those people who don't deserve it the benefit of the doubt by ignoring the initial assertions. 

So I'm going to hope that there is a possibility that my dad will want to be a dad again. Or if not, then that he is some lonely drug addict or some shit. Completely miserable or a resemblance of a father. Those are the only two fucking options. I groan. Does that make me weak or pathetic? What am I thinking? I've definitely always been pathetic.

I turn my head back towards Ken and his hair. I lift the arm that's not pinned down and play with some of his curls remembering how he played in my hair last night. Not going to lie, I almost punched him in the face. But the way he was looking at me, I just....yeah. I pull on one of the curls gently and watch it bounce back into place. I know that Ken has to have some black in him. It must come from his dad's side because his mom is definitely white. But with his medium brown skin and this hair there is no way he's not mixed with something.

Ken shifts in his sleep turning his face towards me interrupting the fun I was having with his curls. My eyes widen as now his face is really close to mine. He slowly opens his eyes and his eyes widen too as he registers me looking back to him. I expect him to automatically move away from me. 

Like bruh, why hasn't he moved?

I'm trying to be considerate and not flip his ass off his own bed. Instead he smirks, pulling me closer with his arm and interlocking his leg with one of mine.

So you got jokes?

I shove him off of me and he falls to the floor with a loud thud. "OOOWWWW! My ass!"

I lean over the bed to look at him scowling on the floor. "Yeah, remember that feeling next time you play around."

He laughs and just smiles up at me from the floor. "Here I was thinking you were comfortable because you spent about ten minutes playing with my hair."

I can feel the heat rush up my cheeks and neck. I am definitely blushing. "Whatever," I say leaning back against the headboard. Ken gets up and lays next to me resting his head on his hand and just stares at me like he's thinking about something heavy. I look back at him. I notice we seem to be doing that a lot. Just staring at each other, trying to figure each other out. My eyes trace his strong jaw up to his full lips and then to his dark brown eyes. I feel calmer just looking into his eyes. He really is pretty attractive. Don't go there, Marcus. You wouldn't go there with Grace so why would you go there with Ken? Does he even like guys? It doesn't seem like he would be particularly against the idea. No no no no. I'm not doing this.

I tear my eyes away from his and clear my throat. He shakes his head as if he is trying to break from a trance.

"So..."