It's So Much More Than That (A Selection Story)

Chapter 19

Chapter 19: 

 “Maxon, wake up.” He groans and rolls over, covering his face with his pillow. I sigh and walk over to the other side of the bed and kneel down so that I can whisper something in his ear.

“Maxon, dear, you better get up or you won’t get your surprise.” He clenched his pillow more. “It’s nine thirty.” I said.

Now that gets him up.

He sits up in the bed, surprised. “You let me sleep in until nine thirty?! Dang it, I have –“ He stops when he sees my giggling. “What’s so funny?” He asked.

“Oh Maxon, I cancelled all of your meetings for today.” He gaped at me.

“Whhhyyy…?”

I planted a small kiss on his cheek. “Because it’s your birthday.” I reminded him. A dozen different thoughts play across his face.

“And you let me sleep in?”

“Yes. I do think the King of Illea needs to get some sleep sometimes. If you haven’t forgotten, your birthday is almost a national holiday.” I giggled. “I made sure that no one would disturb us this morning, so that you could rest.” I don’t mention the extra chamomile that I added to his tea last night or the fact that I know Maxon sleeps better when I’m in his arms.

“Jeez Ames, good thing you remembered. I almost forgot.” He smiled playfully. “Since it’s my birthday, it means that I can do things like this.” He cups my face in his hands and gives me a long, lingering kiss. I pulled him closer, and we kiss for what seems like forever. I try to ignore the dull pain in my arm. Even though I was officially released from the infirmary a little less than a week ago, I still have a piece of gauze that is wrapped around the top of my arm and shoulder. The bullet hit me right below the collarbone, almost in the exact same place as Maxon’s did. I was lucky that my head hit the floor and that I passed out though. I couldn’t imagine going through the same thing Maxon did; slowly bleeding out and having to think about everything you almost lost.

“Mmmm…” I finally break away. “You’d better get up and get your kingly butt downstairs before your party. I did take time to plan it, you know.”

He grabbed me and pulled me close. “What if I want to stay in bed all day? Surely they could allow that, if they let me have the day off.”

“I wish we could, Maxon, but Marlee might kill me if we don’t show up.” I giggle. “Please? It’ll be fun, I promise.” I gently untangled myself from his arms.

“Okay, okay. I’ll do whatever my queen bids me to do.”

“That’s the spirit. We’ll have all of tonight.” I teased. “Come on, you won’t be getting any of your surprises if we stay in bed.” We both go and get ready. Today, Mary helps me into a short mint green dress that goes well with my hair. While she finishes my hair and make-up I’m thinking about last night on the report. I had discussed our recent attack and how I had been injured. We left out some of the more gruesome details, however, we wanted to give the country an accurate account of the reasons behind the attack and the actual security of the nation. Unlike when Clarkson ruled, Maxon and I made sure we were honest about the extent of the damage. We didn’t want the public to panic, but we wanted to be honest all the same. The public now knew that the families involved in funding were now being tried. Many of them were still concerned about me, and it surprised me the amount of support that I got. I could see that the country was beginning to support us, seeing how much Maxon and I are a team.

When I’m done I go over and knock on Maxon’s door and he answers it with a huge smile. He’s in one of the white shirts he got in Italy that I said looked particularly good on him. Mostly because it showed a lot of his defined muscles.