For Her Honor

Chapter 14

I stretched my arms high above my head as my eyes opened for the next morning. The room I was in was unfamiliar to me and for only half a second, I panicked. But then I saw Toni sleeping soundly next to me, one of her arms draped over my stomach. I wish I could be that friend that pushed her off the bed and woke her up, but she was too enchanting to wake right now.

Slowly I slid out from under her arm, leaving her to sleep in all of her goddess beauty.

My feet gently padded against the floor as I shuffled out of my room and quietly closed the door behind me. When I turned back around, I saw that both Marco and Luke were already awake, sitting in the living room with cups of coffee and reading different materials. Luke was looking through a glistening magazine while Marco was indulged in an actual book.

"Good morning." I announced as I sat down on one of the couches opposite the two boys. Both looked up at me and smiled.

"Good morning, how'd you sleep?" Marco asked, placing a bookmark in between the pages of his read and set it down beside him on the coffee table. I tried to catch a glimpse of what the title was but the angle prevented me from doing so.

I yawned and stretched yet again, feeling my limbs ache pleasantly as I did so, "Actually, quite well. It was good to know that when I closed my eyes, I wouldn't open them again being held captive in a dank basement somewhere."

The boys chuckled before Luke looked towards my room door, "Is Toni still asleep?"

I nodded, "You two should be asleep too, weren't you up even later than I was? Do you people ever sleep?"

Marco and Luke both shrugged simultaneously while Marco mumbled, "We don't really sleep a whole lot. Arnold trained us to function even when we've had only an hour of sleep for one night. But last night we got a full four hours, that's like sleeping in until noon for us."

"Then why is Toni still asleep?" I wondered, hugging a pillow to my chest.

Marco smiled at my movement but tried to hide it, "That's because she's spent most of her years with you. Remember all of those sleepovers? Well she couldn't just sit in the dark through the night while you slept next to her, so Arnold allowed her to break protocol and actually sleep. Since then, she's been on a different sleeping schedule than us."

I huffed, "Well that's stupid. Why can't all of you sleep like me and her?"

Marco reached for his book, a clear indication that this conversation was boring him, "I don't know. Because that's what Arnold decided."

A strange, dull fear swept up through my gut. How could I be boring him?

"She was kicking me all night." I blurted, thinking of something, anything, to keep the conversation going. Marco's eyes snapped back up to meet mine and I saw him smirk, there we go. I didn't know what part made him amused, my words or the look of disgust on my face. But either way, he was still interested. I was also unsure why it was so crucial that he remain interested, but it was.

"Well no need to worry about that." He muttered, smiling down at his coffee as he took another sip, the steam rising around his angelic face in lazy puffs.

"What does that mean?" I asked quietly, a feeling of dread washing over me.

Marco chuckled again before looking back up at me, his dark eyes twinkling in mischief, "We switch off sleeping arrangements every week. This week you have Toni, next week you have Luke, and the week after that...you have me."

I slapped a palm to my head, was he trying to make my life miserable? How could he reject my affection, then act as if it were still acceptable to flirt with me? It was sending my heart into overdrive and it literally felt like I was going to have a heart attack.