Trending | Dreamwastaken

16. Rhythmic, steady, familiar

      "It's an essay for psychology that I haven't turned in yet, put it down," Adaline scolds Clay, who's poking around her room like a dog sniffing new surroundings. He's been here before, of course, on Halloween, but this time he's sober and not hungover so it's different. It's his first time seeing her room and being able to remember it clearly.

      "It's so dark in here," Clay comments, hand tracing along her gaming chair. "So this is where you make the magic happen, huh?"

      "Magic?" Adaline tilts her head and raises an eyebrow.

      "Your streams," Clay laughs. Adaline straightens her back. "They're good."

She knows that and she's confident in it. She didn't spend hours upon hours teaching herself how to be a good streamer, editor, and social media user for nothing. Still, she thanks Clay for the compliment.

      "You have to show me your room now, it's law," I say. I'm sitting on my bed while Clay stands in the middle of the room. He crosses his arms and looks down at me, raising his eyebrows.

      "Law? I have a friend in law school, he'll get your ass-" Clay starts, but Adaline quickly cuts him off.

      "I already know Quackity! And he loves me!" The girl refutes, crossing her own arms. "He would never."

      "Really now?" Clay says. Adaline gets a feeling in her stomach that's different than the one of butterflies.

Clay is attractive. From his constantly messy hair to that jawline to his hands. Adaline has never kissed anyone in her life but if she had the confidence she would kiss him right now. She would more than kiss him right now.

But she doesn't. Because they're just friends and friends don't randomly kiss friends. Friends don't feel this way about friends and to him, Adaline is just a friend.

      "Really," Adaline confirms. She's a damn good actress, she can act as confidently as she wants, even if she's feeling a slight amount of panic in her chest. Maybe Clay notices, he always notices little things like that.

      "Right." He stares at her just a little longer, just a little harder with that testing expression before breaking into a smile. His arms fall to his sides and Adaline lets her shoulder relax. For a few moments there, she made herself believe that he's actually angry.

He's not. Of course he's not. Adaline has never seen him get angry but she sure has heard about it, not only from the story he told her in the car but from stories his friends have told her. George and Sapnap have told her stories, they tell her them when the four of them, George, her, Clay, and Nick, are on call and Clay has to go do something else. It's rushed and full of laughter, Adaline always ends up making fun of Clay for what his friends tell her.

      "Your room is cool though, I like it," Clay adds, nodding.

      "Yeah? I didn't spend ages perfecting it for it not to be," Adaline responds with a laugh.

Clay raises his eyebrows, amused. "You spent time perfecting your room?"

      "Of course I did," Adaline responds by furrowing her own brow. "You didn't?"

Clay laughs sort of dryly. It's only now hitting her that she doesn't know him in the same way he knows her. She wonders if he feels the same way, maybe he feels like she knows more about him than he knows about her.

She wants to know more. She wants to ask about his family, about his sister, stories about his growing up that she's never heard before. She wants to ask about his friends outside of streaming, if he even has any, that he hasn't mentioned. She won't ask though, because he is Clay and she is Adaline and Adaline doesn't ask things like that.