Prove It

Chapter XVI

The only thing I hate more than waking up, is being woken up by someone telling me to get up.

"Manda. Come on, everyone else just went upstairs to start eating" Marcus says trying to shake me awake.

"Mmmmhmm" I groan as I stretch, my back arching up as I do. I rub my eyes and look up at him. He clearly woke up a few minutes ago. His hair is messy and he still has a sleepy look in his eyes. Of course he still looks great, something I'll always envy about guys.

"You're beautiful" he whispers, moving a crazy strand of hair out of my face. I try and suppress the heat I feel creeping up my neck to my cheeks. I've been called beautiful before by guys, but no boy has ever seen me just out of bed. Then something dawned on me. Oh my God this is embarrassing.

"Did I fall asleep on you? I'm so sorry, you should have woken me up to tell me!" I say, jerking up from his lap. He doesn't let me though, wrapping his arms around me.

"No, don't worry about that. I, um, I don't mind at all. If I did I would've woken you up," he assures me and I feel a churn deep in my stomach. God he says all the right things, things I had no idea teenage boys said.

"Let's go upstairs" he says. He stands and holds his hand out for me. I take  it and rise as gracefully as I can from the saggy bean bag.

He walks behind me up the stairs, as well as when we enter the dining room where everyone is helping themselves to what the Kane's housekeeper, Willow, had made. The spread looks endless, as it always has been at every event at this house I've ever been to. I have always been curious how she does it all, I mean, she's only one woman.

"Oh this looks awesome!" Marcus whoops from behind me. He walks around me and over to Aaron to steal a bite of bacon off of his plate, to which Aaron smacks him hand telling him to get his own.

"So you and Marcus got pretty cozy last night, didn't you?" Lauren whispers from next to me. I can practically hear the triumphant smirk on her face.

"I didn't mean to" I counter.

"Ah ah, but you didn't care if you did. If you wanted away you would have."

I roll my eyes and don't respond. I'm usually good at arguing, but recently I've been at a loss as for defending myself.

"Was this the first time you two have slept together?" she asks, but I ignore her while plating my food. I need to have something in my stomach in order to deal with this.

"Come on Amanda, I'm not going to let up until you say something" she nags, but I know it's a lost cause for her. I grew up with two nosey younger siblings, I have enough patience for almost anything.

"Amanda-" she begins to whine again, but thank God my phone starts ringing. Emma. I accept the call and walk out of the room with the phone to my ear.

"Yeah?"

"Mom just wanted me to remind you about our brunch with Grandma" she says. I look at the large gold clock in the center of the fireplace mantle. Shit, I have an hour.

"I'll be home in a few" I tell her and hang up the phone.

I walk back to the dining room and start to approach Marcus, but he's standing in a circle  with a bunch of his friends. I can't get in the middle of their conversation, I don't know them well enough to push my way through the circle.

I turn away and go to Georgia. "I'm leaving. Tell Lexi for me, 'kay?"

"Yeah, sure. Aren't you going to tell Marcus?" she asks.

I shake my head. "No. He's talking to people, he'll figure it out." I'm surprised when she doesn't repremand me for not telling him, but I am relieved. I don't need that shit when I'm running late.