Infinity Is Too Short For Us.

Chapter 4: I'm Looking At You and My Heart Loves The View.

A week later...

Clara's POV

"Alice?" I questioned, moving forwards in my seat. "Why are we listening to High School Musical?" We were currently on our way to Brighton, and I reckoned we'd been driving for about half an hour now. And about 5 minutes ago, Alice had decided to put in a copy of the High School Musical soundtrack into the stereo.  At least she wasn't singing along, yet. "I felt we could do with some cheering up, Clara!"  Alice proclaimed, as I slumped back in my seat. Ben finally spoke for the first time this entire journey, asking, "How long until we get there?" Alice shrugged her shoulders.
"An hour and a half?" She estimated, as Ben let out a sigh of annoyance. I glanced at him. At first glance, you really couldn't tell that he and Alice were siblings. Physically, they were polar opposites. Ben's hair was always messy and scruffy, and a deep black colour, whereas Alice's hair was brightly coloured and organised. There was only one similarity between the pair, which took me quite a while to notice. Both of them had the same deep green eyes. Silence fell once again in the car, making this journey more awkward than it had been before. Ben was curled up on my left, staring out the window, I was in the middle attempting to untangle my headphones so I wouldn't have to listen to Alice's music, and Richard was on my right, his head bent forwards so he could actually fit in the car. He was too tall for his own good. Placing my headphones in my ears, I leaned back in my seat. I was absolutely exhausted. These past few days had been ridiculously stressful for me. I had discovered how much trouble my brother was in. He had insisted that he wasn't going to get me involved in whatever had happened, but he just wanted to let me know that he was safe. 

The stupid idiot had gone and got himself in debt. And even though I knew he was safe, that didn't stop me worrying about him. I knew our mum and dad wouldn't care about Theo, so I had to. And even though he was a moron, all we had was each other. Letting out another sigh, I shut my eyes, attempting to focus on the music in my ears instead of everything else that was happening. But I suppose that was easier said than done. 

I drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, and I wasn't quite sure when sleep definitely took over, but the next time I became aware of my surroundings, we had stopped moving. I forced my eyes open slowly, and realised that at some point, I had fallen to the right and was currently resting my head on Richard's shoulder. I almost immediately sat up, and ran a hand through my hair. "Sorry." I apologised. Well done, Clara. Way to make things even more awkward! Richard shook his head. "I don't mind." He replied. "I think I can finally get out of this car now." 
"We've arrived?" I questioned, blinking the sleep out of my eyes, realising that Ben, Alice and Jennifer weren't in the car. Richard nodded, opening the door next to him. "Yeah. We got here about 20 minutes ago." He explained, holding the door open, and offering me his hand. 
"20 minutes?" I repeated, taking hold of his hand and climbing out of the car. "You actually sat there for 20 minutes waiting for me to wake up?" He nodded. 
"You looked really peaceful." He stated, shutting the car door behind him. "I know you've been stressed out lately, and I didn't want to risk waking you up." 

I held back my 'aww', and instead smiled at him. "Thank you." I whispered softly, as he did something that I really hadn't expected. He pulled me into a hug. Admittedly, it was a slightly awkward hug due to the height difference and myself being incredibly awkward, but still there was something about this hug that caused my heart to race at the speed of light. I regretted pulling away the moment I did it. "S-Shall we go and check in, then?" I stuttered, attempting to regain control of my heart speed. Richard nodded, producing Alice's car keys from his pocket. I took the remaining bags out of the car boot, and after I slammed it shut, he locked the car. He took his bag off me, despite me insisting that I was fine, and we walked up to the hotel reception desk. The receptionist was a relatively young woman, whose attention was solely on her mobile phone. Letting out a noise of irritation, she looked up at me and Richard. "Yeah?" She questioned. "What do you want?"
"Umm, hi." I started awkwardly, running a hand through my hair. "We have a reservation under the name Logan?" She glanced at the tiny computer on her desk, and then turned to us.
"Yeah. One lot's already come through." She turned around, and handed me one room key. I stared at it in confusion. "Umm, excuse me? How many rooms were booked under that name?" I inquired, and the girl looked at her screen once more. "Three." She replied. It then occurred to me what Alice had done. I handed the key to Richard and picked my bags back up.