ACID RAIN // DNF AU

Chapter Six (Clay)

He walked through the automatic doors and saw George sitting in an armchair, watching the doors. The shorter boy jumped up, crossing the room to him eagerly. "Hi."

"Hey," he said, pivoting to hide his smile at George's excitement and impatience. George trailed after him, rushing to keep up.

"Where are we going?" He asked when Clay led him to his car, hopping into it, pulling the door shut, and turning the key in the ignition.

"You'll see," he answered cheekily, hiding his grin. He could feel George's exasperated sigh behind him. "By the way, how did you even get home if you left my car at my house?"

He pulled out of the hotel's parking lot. "I took the bus," George responded.

"In the middle of the night?" What was wrong with him? That was such an odd thing to do. He didn't even know there were buses going around at midnight. It seemed like a good way for drivers to get murdered by serial killer passengers.

"Yeah, why not?"

He sighed. "Never mind. I wonder if we could take the hotel shuttle to the closest places so I don't have to find parking for them? Well, I guess I'm not staying here. Maybe if we said I was sharing your room, because it's not like you pay per person."

George went quiet, and Clay smiled, but it quickly melted away. George remembered their almost-kiss. What if he suspected how Clay felt? He hadn't told Clay it'd happened on the phone when he'd asked, and he didn't know why.

"Where are we going, Clay? Disney World?"

"Nope." He had actually planned an alternative, but Disney World was too obvious for his liking. Besides, they had both been there as kids.

"Where, then?" They reached a red light, and he eased the vehicle to a stop.

He took a pen out of the wallet. He didn't remember why he had it, but he uncapped it and took George's wrist, drawing a quick smiley face on it. "I dunno. It's a surprise."

"Don't draw on my arm! That won't come off for, like, days." He shook him off. Clay chewed on the end of the pen, then scrawled Hottie in small letters on George's forearm. He grinned as George tried to maneuver his arm so that he could read it, putting the pen away.

"What does that even say?" He twisted his head around to see and went silent. Clay laughed at his expression. "What is wrong with you?" The light switched to green, and he pressed down lightly on the gas. "Why did you write that?"

"Because the people should be warned." Clay smirked.

George bit his lip. "You're so dumb."

"They'll overheat with the combination of being under the blazing sun and looking at you," he claimed, "and then they'll faint in the middle of the street and die. I'm protecting innocents."

"That doesn't even make sense," he protested, cracking a smile at Clay's stupidity. The familiar skyscrapers of downtown Orlando whizzed by the car's windows, fading to more rural scenery.

When he could, he raked his eyes over George's profile, his delicate jawline and light freckles, hair ruffled by the breeze from the open window. What he'd written had definitely not been wrong. George licked his bottom lip absently, and Clay shuddered, looking away. He was extremely, extremely handsome, and Clay wanted to take that lip between his teeth- to respectfully hold his hand, he revised. Shut up, brain.

The oceanfront was a little over an hour away, but time flew by with the wind. He couldn't shake the thought that he and George were naturally suited to each other, because he never got tired of talking to him or of hearing his voice like he did with other people. George made him happy all the time—until he wanted to reach out and touch him and remembered they still had an invisible line drawn between them, and his heart started to hurt all over again.