No More What Ifs (DreamNotFound)

18. No More Day Dreaming

"Clay."

I opened my eyes groggily, feeling myself being shaken by the arm.

"Clay, wake up. You have school," George's mom said, frowning slightly. "It's a right shame, considering how cute you are with George here, but you have it nonetheless."

I groaned and begrudgingly relinquished my boyfriend. He was still deep in his slumber, which only hurt more - I could only imagine how sad he would be when he woke up and noticed I wasn't with him.

I then checked the time, George's mom following my gaze.

"I know school starts in about an hour, but I wanted to give you time to wake up so we weren't rushing when it was time."

I nodded. "Alright. I'll go shower and get changed, then."

"Of course," she nodded. "I'll leave you alone."

She quietly left the room, allowing me to look down at George and admire him for a moment. His breath was soft and slow, his chest rising and falling with it. I reached out and squeezed his hand, but didn't do anymore. I didn't want to wake him up, after all.

I checked the mirror after stripping down. My face was slowly healing, but it had really only been two days, so there wasn't any significant progress besides the bruises looking less purple. My head throbbed with pain every so often, but it was easily ignorable.  After a brief and slightly painful shower, I returned to George's room in a bath towel.

I quickly put on my shirt and pants, which I had removed during the night. After I got everything back on, I looked back at the sleeping beauty that was George. I wanted to stay with him for a very long time, preferably forever, but I had a whole month and a half of school left until winter break and I didn't have any injuries serious enough to warrant me staying home. And as much as I wanted to give him a kiss before I left, I needed him to be awake to consent to that, so I held off on that, too.

When I got downstairs, I saw George's mom dressed in her medical scrubs and tying up her hair. "Hey, I wasn't expecting you this early," she said.

"Well, I didn't really want to go back to sleep just to be woken up again," I said, crouching and holding my arms out toward the gray cat a few feet in front of me. He jumped into my arms and I held him close to my chest, scritching him behind the ears. "By the way, I thought you started work a lot earlier."

"My supervisor is understanding about this whole situation and filling in until I can get there," she said, smoothing out her hair bun. "But since you're already up, want to leave sooner and go to Starbucks for breakfast as a treat?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

"Okay. Go finish getting ready and we'll leave at 7:20."

I went to brush my teeth and borrowed George's backpack, seeing as I didn't have my own with me. Though I had a few classes differing from his, they didn't require books or notes, so I had all my other classes covered. Both of us were ready at the same time, so we left on time (after I gave the cat a treat for being a good boy).

The drive was mostly quiet, neither of us speaking much. But as we pulled into the shopping center with the Starbucks,  I was curious about something.

"Hey, so you know how you said you didn't want me sleeping with George 'cause he could get infected or something?"

"Mhm," she said, turning into the Starbucks drive-thru line.

"We were sleeping together for a lot of yesterday and last night, but you didn't comment on it."

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, the line ahead of us not moving in the slightest. "If I'm being honest, there was no actual risk of infection. Well, there was some, but that's not why I said it. I said it because I wanted to make sure you two were taking your time, so once you were comfortable enough to break an arbitrary rule I had set on you, I'd figure you were genuinely comfortable enough to actually be sleeping together."