The smell of coffee was slowly penetrating his nose trills and he could hear someone entering the room. He couldn't feel the warmth of the other body that he normally woke up lying next to. Someone put something down on the nightstand beside the bed, he could tell just from the sound, but he didn't want to open his eyes. The other person in the room went over to the window and drew the curtains apart so the room was flooded with light.
"We're getting new neighbors," the voice that belonged to the other person, a woman, said. "We should go over and say hello later today."
The man just grunted in response.
"Did you have a lot of fun yesterday with the guys?" the woman sat down on the bed beside him stroking her hand across his face "You're paying for it now, aren't you?" he could hear the smile in her voice.
"Yeah... I'm too old for this," the man said finally completely awake. He watched the beautiful woman pick up one of the cups she had put on his nightstand and take a sip of coffee "This is really all Sturgis fault. People shouldn't get married that old and especially, they shouldn't have a bachelor-party... so late and in a bar. I don't know what the best man was thinking," he continued.
"You are the best man," she protested and when he raised himself up to sitting position she gave him one of the cups of coffee and took a sip of her own.
"I think that might have been the problem..." he said. She had just put down her cup. One of her hands was resting on his thigh. "I love you, my darling."
"I love you too," she gave the response back just like they both had done a million times before to each other. He put his arms around her body and brought her to be sitting on the other side of him with her legs resting across his lap and her head leaning on his shoulder.
"Why is everything so quiet? Why don't we have a loudly screaming four-year-old running around in here? Jumping on the bed because she wants to go out and play."
"Well, Mattie came home from Boston last night after you'd left. Something about a boyfriend who wasn't the reliable type... I haven't gotten the whole story out of her yet."
"She sure knows how to pick them."
"I guess she does... but she'll figure it out eventually, just like her parents," she paused and put her whole hand to his chest for a second "Anyway she took her little sister to store to buy Frosties."
"Oh no, Alex is going to be on a sugar-rush all day. Remember last time."
"Yeah, I do, but Mattie already offered to baby-sit so apparently her memory is shorter. "They sat silent from time to time taking a sip of coffee and enjoying the calm and silence that rested across the whole house.
"Your mother called yesterday. She said she'd call you back."
"What did she want?"
"I don't think there was anything special, I think she just wanted to catch up. However she did say that you were too old to go out on Friday-nights and instead you should stay at home with your wife and child."
"Sometimes I think it was better before you started ganging up on me," he said mockingly.
She leaned forward to kiss him. "Sometimes you're really cute, you know that."
They deepened the kiss and he started to work on getting her out of the nightgown she was wearing. They froze when they heard the front door being slammed shut and small elephant-steps were heard climbing up the stair.
"Mom, Dad," the little voice said very excited. She opened the door to her parents bedroom and found them sitting together drinking coffee. She proudly showed them the box with cereals "Look what Mattie got me. I like Mattie." She ran up to them and climbed up on the bed and made herself some room between the two of them. She started working on getting the package open.
"Oh, please not in the bed," her father complained.
"You can have too," she said and took a fist of the sugary flakes and put them to his mouth.
"Put the cereals back in the box, Alex. We're going downstairs to have breakfast," came the words from the little girl's mother. All three of them got up from the bed. "Same place later tonight?" she whispered in her husband's ear before they exited the room.
"Oh yeah," he whispered back, kissing her cheek
And then they went downstairs to for the first time in a while have breakfast with the whole family.
The End