Falling For Thy Enemy

26 : My Place, Midnight, You In?

CLARA

I didn't even realize that I was sleeping until Stefan shook me awake.

"Emery, get up." His voice drags me away from my dreams where he and I were still playing at the beach, me running and him catching me, only to bring back tickle monster and it's sweet torture.

"Hmm." I mumble sleepily, squinting my eyes to peek a glance at him and then snuggling back to the warmth I'm getting.

"Emery, the sun is rising. We have to get back home before everyone wakes up." He says again and trails his finger along my face.

Sun. Home. Everyone.

Shit!

"What time is it?" I ask immediately, sitting upright and looking at my surroundings. We're still at the beach in the same clothes we came here last night. It is then that I realize that the warmth I was snuggling into was Stefan's body warmth. God, this is so embarrassing. "We slept here?"

Stefan yawns beside me, sitting up and nods. "Yeah. We were talking about something stupid and then suddenly you were sleeping and I tried to stay awake so I can wake yo up after a little nap and we can go back but I ended up falling asleep too. I just woke up when Drew called me asking for his bike."

"Oh God." I groan and rub my face, suddenly remembering the hobo I appear after waking up because let's be real, I'm no Kylie Jenner to wake up in make up. "What time is it?"

"Almost four thirty." He replies, standing up and stretching his body.

"Shit. We need to get back home as soon as possible." I say, standing up and cleaning my hair off the sand particles. Well, at least I tried.

"Why else did I wake you up? I was good here, asleep." He drawls and I shoot him a flat look.

"Shut up and let's go." I grumble and dust my pants and sweater off to get rid of as much sand as I can. I start walking towards the slope where our tube is sitting leaving the guy to follow me.

"That's the wrong way, Emery. We have to take the stairs." Stefan calls behind me.

I stop frozen on my spot. "What?" I groan turning to look at him. "What about the tube?"

He shrugs innocently at me. "The guys and I usually carry the tube through the stairs after we've had our fun here."

I groan and stomp my foot childishly. "I'm in no mood to workout this early in the morning."

Stefan raises and amused brow. "People usually work out in the morning, you know?"

"Eh, I'm alien from Neptune." I say with a bored poker face, shrugging him off faux rudely.

Stefan chuckles. "Sure, hobo. Now let's get going."

So Stefan and I start our trek up the stairs. It takes us a while with me being childish and whiny about climbing sooooo many stairs which annoyed the Satan so much that he offers to give me a piggy back ride up. 

Sweet.

After sneaking into Josie's house from the backdoor again after Stefan dropped me off from where he picked me and rushed to Drew's place to return his motorbike, I took a long shower to remove all the sand I had brought home with me, washing and rewashing my hair and body twice. It was barely six when I was done and the hot shower made me sleepy so after setting an alarm for seven am, I snuggled into my covers again and resumed my dreams from where they had paused when Stefan had woken me up in the morning.