Chapter Thirty One
After damage control early this morning, I went back to sleeping by Clay's side. However, I woke up a mere hour later to his phone ringing. I reached over his body and unplugged his phone from the charger. Then, I squinted my eyes as I read the caller ID. It was George. He's up surprisingly early. Usually he sleeps until five in the evening his time. It's only two in the afternoon in England.
"Hello?" I mumbled into the phone after answering it.
"Salem? Why do you have Clay's phone?"
"Because you calling had woken me up and it was on the nightstand so I answered to shut it up. Clay's sleeping. He didn't get to bed until like five this morning; it's almost nine in the morning now."
"Oh," he exasperated.
"Why? Did you need to talk to him?"
"It's not too important. Actually! I called him to talk about you."
I quietly chuckled, "Oh yeah? What about me, George?"
"You're a fucking bitch. Why the fuck would you tweet about Dream and I being in a relationship?"
I giggled, "If I remember correctly, I never confirmed that you and him were together."
"No, you just told everyone to ship DreamNotFound because it has a better chance of sailing. You added a winky face! What the fuck?"
"I think you're overreacting. I mean, in what universe are you guys getting together anyway? Not this one. He has a girlfriend. You know it's lies."
"But the fans don't."
"Nick thought it was quite funny."
"Yeah, that's because he's not trending with his best friend worldwide for being in a relationship!"
I rolled my eyes and smiled, "Do you want me to tweet out a public apology?"
"That'd be great."
I held Clay's phone against my ear as I grabbed mine from the nightstand on my side of the bed. I opened up Twitter and stifled a laugh as a DNF related tweet was the first thing I saw on my feed. I heard George scoff on the other end of the line. I took no time writing out an "apology" to appease George.
"There, I tweeted out an apology, you stupid lil' bitch."
@CalPal: Guys thE tweet i made abOut geoRGE and dream IS obviously false. hiM And dream are not together, K? I will Never be confirminG dnf. My twEet last night and all my TWEETs are false. THank you for lIStening.
"Why did you randomly capitalize letters?" He questioned.
"All letters deserve to feel like big men, George. Are you discriminating against lowercase and uppercase letters?"
"What? No? That—You just sound ridiculous."
"Well as much as I love talking to you, George, I'm going back to bed."
I could imagine him rolling his eyes and giving me attitude, "Whatever. Goodnight Cali."
"Bye George."
I hung up the phone and scrolled through the replies on my tweet. Everyone decoded it immediately. I'm surprised that George didn't catch on; he's a fellow Ravenclaw after all. Maybe he woke up too early and he's delirious from the sunlight.
@user3: idk why, but I feel like George made her tweet this
I decided to have some more fun and responded to this person.
@CalPal: You know, gEorge would never force me to tweet Such a thing.
The fans were having a blast with the recent stream of tweets from me. They even went as far as to get the hashtag "SaveCalFromGeorge" trending. That was super fun. I'm honestly surprised George hasn't called me back about this. He definitely went back to sleep.
"Good morning," whispered Clay from beside me.
I jumped, "Oh hi. I didn't know you were awake."
"I just," he yawned, "Woke up."
"Well good afternoon, sunshine."
He grabbed his phone from the table and I assume he either went on Twitter or was going through his messages. I bet George had messaged him while he was sleeping.
"Caelum," he wheezed, "What is this?"
"What is what?" I questioned innocently.
"Save Cal from Ge-George?" He stuttered through a wheezing laugh.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I responded in monotone.
"Oh my god!"
I leaned over and looked at his phone screen. He was scrolling through the array of tweets on my account from damage control to "George made me tweet this".
I chuckled, "Damage control?"
He continued scrolling through his home feed. After five minutes, he whispered, "I guess your damage control worked."
I breathed a sigh of relief, "George called you like an hour ago and I answered and he like cussed me out because he was mad that I got DreamNotFound trending."
"Sounds about right," then he laughed, "I think it's funny. The fact that you tweeting something cryptic about George and I being in a relationship moved the attention away from a clip of you and I kissing is just amazing."
"Oh my god, quick! Share patches content! That'll be the final nail in the coffin."
"Everyone's going to think I'm doing that to move the attention away from you being kidnapped by George."
He tweeted out patches content anyway. One was a twelve second video clip of Patches dragging my shoe across the living room floor by its shoelace. The next was a photo of Patches in a onesie that I had sent Clay like two months ago. She looked really adorable but seemed to be angry about the little booties that were attached. Needless to say, dttwt was a mess so far today.
When Clay and I were done having fun on Twitter, he decided to go take a shower and get ready for the day. I just got dressed and brushed my teeth in the other bathroom since he was occupying the one in his bedroom. Today was the day I was meeting his family and I'm not going to lie, I was absolutely dreading it. I knew meeting his parents and his siblings was something I'd eventually have to do. What if they hate me though?
I dressed in some plain light wash skinnies with no rips. Then, I threw on Dream's ten million edition hoodie and tucked it into the side of the waistband since it was a bit oversized. I think that was a tame enough outfit to wear to meet the family. It was their son's merchandise and some skinny jeans. Nothing revealing. My kneecaps are even hidden. Am I overthinking this? I mean, their son does Minecraft for a living. How judgmental could they be?
"I like your hoodie," Clay said when he came out of the shower. He was wearing his merch. I don't know what it was, but it's red. He also wore dark wash jeans. His hair was also twisted up into a towel hat that long haired people usually do after it's wet.
I started laughing, "Uh, thank you," I replied, staring at his towel hat.
He caught on, "My hair needs to dry!"
"It's cu—" I was laughing a little too hard, "It's really cute."
He rolled his eyes and shoved my shoulder, "Shut up."
When he finished getting ready, we both tied our shoes on and headed out the door. My hands were practically shaking with the crippling anxiety I felt. Due to this, Clay offered to drive and I took him up on the offer. We stood in the driveway debating what car to take for the next ten minutes.
"We should take yours. You always complain about Sam not having an aux."
"But I can't just pull up in a Tesla the first time I meet your family!"
"Why not? It's just a car."
"But it's an expensive car. What if they judge me and like think I'm rich or spoiled or something because I own a Tesla? I don't—"
"Caelum, I can guarantee you they will not think that. In fact, I think you're the only one thinking that."
In the end, we ended up taking the Tesla that is yet to be named. He really wanted to try driving a luxurious car and I wasn't going to take away the enjoyment of driving a Tesla away from him. The short ride there, he was having way too much fun messing around with the car. At one point, he configured the car to release a farting noise on the passenger seat every time he flicked the indicator. I'd have to figure out how to turn that off later. Knowing me, I'll forget.
When we pulled into the driveway of his family home, I refused to get out of the car because I was on the verge of having a panic attack. Clay typed something on his phone, then turned to me and began trying to calm me down. I was very nervous, so he couldn't completely calm me down, just make it manageable enough. I still didn't think I was ready to meet his family. I was completely ready to walk back to Clay's house and never turn back. Clay would never let me do that, though. Well, here goes nothing.