ACID RAIN // DNF AU

Chapter Ten (Clay)

He had called Marilyn back to order dessert for them—two pieces of chocolate cake, because George refused to share food with him—but they'd finished that quickly, and he'd already paid. They were just waiting for her to return before they could leave and settle the bet. He needed to see George in a skirt. His face felt hot, and he scolded himself, more than a little ashamed of making that deal.

The girl returned, a sway in her step. "Here you are." She went to turn away, but he caught her wrist gently in a way he'd tried to do to George a day before. Speaking of him, he looked supremely annoyed from his side of the table, which pleased Clay. He liked to think the envy was because Marilyn was getting his attention.

"Could I maybe get your number?" He had to at least try a straightforward approach before she left. The opportunity was too good to pass up. There was a perfectly normal explanation for the skirt dare, too.

Marilyn looked to be debating with herself, biting her lip. "Why don't both of you come to a party my friend is having? It started an hour ago, and my shift is about to end." She wrote an address on a scrap of paper, passing it to him.

He didn't know what to say, grabbing the note. "Sure, we'll be there." As soon as the young waitress left, he stood. "We slept, like, four or five hours already, so we shouldn't get tired at all. Do you want to go?"

"Uh, I guess. Why'd you just tell her we were going?" He licked chocolate frosting off of his fork, sweeping his tongue over each of the tines carefully. Clay died a little inside.

His voice cracked, but he distracted himself by fiddling with the edge of the chair, drumming his fingers against it. "She said she wasn't getting off her shift yet, so she'd never know if we were there."

"So you lied," George accused.

"Well, I didn't know if we were going or not. I lied politely," Clay informed him. "Anyway, I got us invited to the party, so I won the bet."

"Wait, you definitely didn't. She specifically invited both of us, and you didn't actually get her phone number. It was a tie," he insisted. "Neither of us have to do our forfeit."

He laughed maniacally, amused by George's defeat. "I won, and you know it."

"You didn't win!" They burst out of the restaurant, heading to the car.

"Maybe I'll dye my hair temporarily," he said smugly, "but I won, fair and square."

"You have to do it permanently if I'm wearing a skirt. If I'd asked, she would have invited us too, and she was looking at me just as much as you while she was talking." George was being so incredibly petty, but he must have known Clay would indulge him.

He programmed the address into his car's GPS. "What if I dye it however I want to, but I do it permanently, and I won't show anyone the pictures of you in a skirt."

"You can't take pictures! And it has to be a color, not lighter blonde, in your hair. And you have to be the one to buy the skirt for me," George ordered, buckling his seat belt.

"You're just making me your- your sugar daddy," he accused playfully, wheezing in the middle of his sentence. "That's too much. I'll do the color thing, but I will be taking a picture. I won, and you don't even have to go anywhere in the thing." Clay pulled out of the parking lot, beginning to follow the directions to the house the waitress had pointed out.

A car in front of them stopped short, and they both slammed forward into their seat belts. George wasn't deterred. "Your forfeit is barely anything! I'll pick out the skirt and pay for it, but you have to go up to the salesperson, and you can't take pictures." George looked satisfied, folding his arms across his chest and huffing adorably.

"I'm taking at least five hundred pictures, but the rest is fine."

"No," he whined as they stopped at a red light. "I don't want there to be pictures."

"I already said I won't show them to people, so why do you care?"

"Then why do you need them?" George narrowed his eyes in suspicion. The light turned green, and the car surged forward.

He made a face, blushing lightly and laughing. "What are you insinuating right now?"

George's face turned so pink at that. "No- nothing!"

Clay's smile stretched wider as he made a turn. "I just want to remember the day you wore a schoolgirl skirt."

"Ugh," he groaned, conceding without saying the words.

They reached the house quickly, identifying it from the people in the backyard and the line of cars around. He parked down the street, hopping out. George shivered in the cold wind, and he so badly wanted to give him his jacket. Should he do it? Would George even take it?

Clay removed the coat from his shoulders, his arms working of their own accord. "Here. How are you cold if I'm not?"

"Exactly. I'm not even cold," he said, refusing to accept the jacket. "Keep it. Or give it to someone else," he added.

"Take it anyway-" he cut himself off, almost adding a 'baby' to the end of the sentence. What the hell was wrong with his brain?

Still shaken up, he hadn't noticed that they were just about at the door. He draped the jacket around George's shoulders. "Please," he said seductively, giving him puppy dog eyes. He leaned their foreheads together, lips only inches apart. "Take my jacket, so you won't be cold." He felt like he was about to implode, to collapse in on himself like a dying star.

He heard George breathe in sharply before he pushed him away with one hand flat on his chest. "I get that you're not done flirting with people, but can it not be me?" His voice was steady. Dismay welled up within him.

"I'm just letting you know that I love you and I don't want you to be cold." His heart raced in his chest when he said those words, laced with false sarcasm. He meant every syllable.

"I. Am. Not. Cold," George enunciated, pushing past him and shoving the coat into his arms. "Leave me alone."

Clay reached for the nearest red plastic cup when he got inside, downing it with his eyes closed. He was starting to think they should lower the drinking age in America. After all, the bitter burn of the drink was nothing compared to the hurt in his soul.