Marcus hadn’t even opened his eyes good yet.
6:47 in the morning and the room was still gray half-dark like it was cloudy outside. He was laid up on his back, one arm behind his head, covers pulled up to his chest, not fully asleep but not fully awake.
Then his phone went off.
Ding ding.
Facebook Messenger. He already knew it wasn’t nothing important. Don’t nothing be popping Facebook Messenger. He almost pushed the notification to delete.
Almost.
He reached over to the nightstand, eyes still half-closed, and grabbed the phone. Screen damn near blinded him. He squinted, waited for his vision to adjust, and tapped the notification.
Kristie.
He smiled before he even opened it. Kristie was wild. Yeah wild since the tenth grade and hadn’t changed one bit.
He opened the message.
View once Image.
He opened the image.
Took a second to load. Then there they were — Kristie’s girls, front and center, no shame, no filter, just free and beautiful. And underneath the picture, a text in all caps:
T. TUESDAY.
Marcus pressed down and stared at the screen for a solid four seconds.
Then he laughed. Not a little chuckle. Loud enough the neighbor could hear him. He dropped the phone on his face trying to hold it together.
He laid there for a minute just grinning at the ceiling.
He typed back: Damn they nice you wild as hell for this.
Three dots popped up immediately. She was already up. Already waiting on my response.
Don’t act like you mad tho 😂
He shook his head, still smiling, and set the phone back on the nightstand. The heat from outside was starting to heat up the bedroom and the day was getting ready to start whether he was ready or not.
But for right now, for just this one minute, Marcus pulled the covers back up, closed his eyes, and decided that Tuesday was already off to a pretty decent start.