Chapter Text
The first time Sapnap walks in on him crying, George confesses everything.
Well, okay, he thinks about confessing everything. For about one second. Then he abandons that idea and lies through his teeth.
“My mum just called me and told me–” He sniffles in what he hopes is a convincing manner. “She told me that my pet fish McGinty died.”
Sapnap frowns. “You have a pet fish?”
George shakes his head mournfully. “Not anymore.”
“Right,” Sapnap says, backing away slowly. “Well, I’ll just… leave you to it.”
It’s fine. George will tell him later.
George stands outside Dream’s door, studying the grain of the wood. He wants to knock, he does. But every time he tries, he remembers tapping a silly rhythm into the wood for the first time just a few weeks ago. He remembers being invited in, remembers climbing into Dream’s bed, remembers warm, gentle hands in his hair.
Maybe he was a little too harsh in the stairwell. This isn’t the first time he’s thought that over the last few days. Sure, Dream hurt his feelings, but Go fuck yourself might have been a bit unfair.
Oh, well. He’s over it now. Completely, totally over it. He’s done with their stupid fake relationship, and after today, he’ll be done with Dream for good. Besides, it’s not like Dream wasn’t mean, too. They were both just… mad. Dream’s probably still mad. George should just go home. At least then he won’t have to make himself knock.
No. He’s being ridiculous. He lifts a hand and knocks three times, sharply. He regrets it immediately. That was really weird. He should have knocked twice. Three times is just excessive. Dream is definitely going to think he’s–
“George?”
George looks up, and his mouth goes dry. Dream doesn’t look mad. He looks like himself, tall and gentle. “Hi,” George says. “I…” He’s forgotten what he’s here for. He can’t think anything past I’m sorry.
“Do you want to come in?”
George nods, and Dream steps aside to let him into the room. He doesn’t sit down, just stands in the middle of the room, careful not to touch anything. Dream is watching him with those eyes, the ones that know him.
George closes his eyes, clears his mind. “I think I left one of my sweatshirts in here.” He opens his eyes. “Do you have it?”
In an instant, Dream’s expression hardens. He looks like a stranger. “What?”
“My– my hoodie?” George wills his voice not to shake. “I think it’s the black one, it has–”
“You’re not here to apologise?”
In an instant, all of George’s remorse evaporates. “Apologise?”
“George, we had a deal. We had a deal, and you’re pulling out of it at the last second after I held up my end for weeks. If you’re not giving me fifty bucks, I think an apology is the least you owe me.”
Dream is so– so infuriating. Suddenly, George can’t remember why he ever might have felt bad for anything he said. “I’m so sorry, Dream. I’m sorry I believed in you.” He shakes his head, pushing past Dream and back to the door. “I’m sorry I thought for one minute that you were a good guy and that you might actually care about me.”
And before Dream can say anything else, George leaves, slamming the door behind him. It’s only when he’s alone in the hallway that he realises he didn’t even get his sweatshirt.
He can’t tell Sapnap it’s over.
It’s not that he hasn’t tried—he has, multiple times—but every time he gets close, he thinks about having to look Sapnap in the eyes and see pity there, and then the lump in his throat gets so big he doesn’t manage to get the words out.
It’s a lump of anger, by the way. George is still so angry. Dream really is everything George always thought he was: arrogant, selfish, cruel. He probably set this whole thing up deliberately to trick George into thinking they’re friends so he could rip it all away. He probably knew what he was doing the whole time. He’s probably going to show up to Sapnap’s party anyway, just to collect the money. That may not seem like something he would do, but George doesn’t know him anymore. He can’t be sure he ever did.
“Where’s Dream?” Sapnap asks a few times, on the rare occasions he’s actually in the room. These days, he’s been spending more and more time running around setting everything up for his party.
Every time, George just shrugs, muttering some excuse about a long essay he’s writing or a mysterious illness he’s fighting. He’s fine. He’s just busy. And for all he knows, Dream could have a big assignment or the plague. It’s not like George has been going to class to see.
He knows it’s bad to skip so much school, but when he tries to go to class, he thinks about sitting in a little desk next to Dream for an hour, and he wants to be sick. Right now, he’s supposed to be in his Science in Literature lecture. Instead, he’s a few thousand words into the Wikipedia article for Valentine’s Day. Apparently, some historians credit Chaucer and Shakespeare with making the day about love. George sends a silent fuck you up to the two poets.
“George, do you have a red shirt I can borrow?” Sapnap asks out of nowhere.
“Probably.” George closes the tab. “Why?”
“Well, today I was in calc, and we were doing a review for an exam, and this one girl—she’s so annoying—was asking about ways we can get a higher grade. This isn’t an example of her being annoying, by the way. She’s annoying in other ways. And our professor was like, oh, did I ever tell you about the first time I met my wife–”
“Sapnap,” George interrupts. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that brevity is the soul of wit?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means shut up and get to the point.”
“Fine. My calc professor is giving us extra credit on the exam tomorrow if we wear something Valentine’s Day themed.”
George’s heart drops, but he forces a casual tone, not looking up from his computer. “Wow, is Valentine’s Day this week already?”
“Uh-huh. Friday.”
George clears his throat. “Do you have everything set up for your party?”
“Yeah. The lacrosse guys have all the stuff there already, and I’m getting decorations this week.”
George hums. “How did you even convince them to let you have it at their house?”
“I’m friends with them.”
“When did you make friends with the lacrosse team?”
“Um, maybe whenever you were hanging out with Dream and only Dream for this whole semester?” Sapnap scoffs. “I had to come up with stuff to do to get me out of the room. There’s only so long I can sit in a room with a lovey-dovey couple before I want to kill both of you.”
“You love when Dream’s here,” George argues, ignoring the way it hurts to say his name out loud. “And we aren’t lovey-dovey.”
“Sure, you aren’t. Have you heard the way you guys talk to each other? It’s like you think he’s a kitten, and he thinks you’re a newborn baby.”
George finally turns around in his desk chair. He opens his mouth, and he almost says it. He almost says it. Five words. Dream and I broke up.
“Alright. I gotta head out.” Sapnap stands up, pulling his coat off the back of his chair. “I’m meeting someone.”
“Oh.”
“See you later.”
“Yeah,” George says. At least if Sapnap’s going out, he has a little bit of time to wallow in peace. “I’ll… find you a red shirt.”
He knows that he can’t keep putting it off. He needs to tell Sapnap before Friday. If he can’t leave his room, there’s no way he can go to a Valentine’s Day party without having a public breakdown.
He has to tell Sapnap. He can’t go to that party.
George goes to the party. (He does not bring a Benjamin. He doesn’t even understand, really, where he would even get a $100 bill from—he doesn’t even know how ATMs work.)
At the party, he develops a foolproof system. He flits from person to person, staying long enough for them to ask him how he is, but never long enough for them to ask where Dream is. Any time he sees Sapnap out of the corner of his eye, he blurts out an excuse and rushes to the bathroom.
And he’s fine, really. He’s made the decision not to think about it anymore. Every time a thought about Dream pops into his head, he just thinks LALALALALALA really loud so he can’t hear it. Everyone knows repression is the fastest way to healing, and George is almost completely healed. In fact, if Sapnap asked him right now–
“Why are you avoiding me?”
George freezes in his tracks. He’s coming out of the bathroom for the 27th time, and Sapnap is standing right in front of the door, waiting for him. “What are you doing here?”
Sapnap crosses his arms, leaning back against the wall and squinting like he’s an old-timey detective and George is his prime murder suspect. “I’m waiting for you, because you’re avoiding me.”
“I’m not avoiding you.”
“Then where have you been all night?” Sapnap presses. “Why isn’t Dream here?”
George does the only logical, rational thing he can think of: he bursts into tears.
Sapnap is taken aback. “What– George, are you oka–”
“It wasn’t my fault,” George blubbers. “I mean– We were doing a group project and he just wanted me to stop going on dates. And I really tried to find someone I liked, but then it was just easier to lie. And it was his idea, but I just went with it because—I don’t even know why, because it was a horrible idea. And I lied to you, and I lied to him, and–” he breaks off in big, messy, gasping sobs– “and I think I was lying to myself because it wasn’t a lie anymore and he broke my stupid heart, and I never really even had a pet fish–”
“George!” Sapnap surprises him by pulling him into a hug. “Slow down. What happened?”
George clings to him, crying into his shoulder. “Dream’s not coming,” he sobs.
“What? You guys broke up?”
George just cries harder. He has no right to be this upset. They didn’t even break up. They didn’t even date. He’s pretty sure Dream couldn’t even pick him out of a lineup.
Sapnap just holds him through it. “It’s okay. You’re okay,” he says quietly. “Do you want me to take you home?”
George shakes his head. “It’s your party. I won’t make you miss it.” He holds on tighter to Sapnap’s middle, feeling a hundred pounds lighter now that the cat’s out of the bag (or, well. Maybe a hundred dollars lighter). “Not for stupid Dream.” He pulls away, wiping at his eyes.
“What did he do?”
“He was only in it for the money,” George sniffles. “And– I know that was the whole point of it, it was never even real, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I told him– I told him it was over.”
“What money? Wait– you broke up with him?”
George shakes his head again. “Forget it. I’m going home. I don’t know why I even came here.”
“I’ll walk you,” Sapnap offers again, but George waves him off.
“Don’t. I’m fine. I’m just gonna–” he gestures back towards the bathroom, and Sapnap relents.
“Okay. Text me if you need anything, okay?”
“Fine.”
“And you’re telling me the full story tomorrow!”
George shuts the door in his face.
He splashes his face with water, trying not to think back to doing the same thing at the party a few weeks ago, how Dream was on the couch waiting for him when he came back. That was the night everything started to feel real.
George shakes his head. It wasn’t real. And there’s nobody waiting for him now.
When George looks in the mirror, his eyes are still pretty red and his face is still a little blotchy, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He just wants to go home.
He steps out of the bathroom and heads straight for the front door, keeping his head down and walking quickly. He gets to the door without anyone trying to talk to him, but when he opens the door, he bumps face-first into a broad chest.
He looks up, and for a second he thinks he must be seeing things, because right in front of him is the face he’s been dreaming about every night for the last week.
“Dream,” he breathes, then he remembers that he’s supposed to hate him. “What are you doing here?”
Dream opens his mouth. “I’m…” He swallows. “Well…”
George scoffs, stepping out onto the porch and closing the door behind him. “What, are you here for your money? Well, don’t bother. I already told Sapnap. I already ruined everything.”
Dream shakes his head. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t care?” George laughs humorlessly. “Fine, let’s just keep pretending. We can walk in there arm-in-arm like everything’s perfect.”
“George, stop.”
“No, come on.” His blood boils. “We’ll put on a little show, if that’s what you want. Why don’t we write some more poems? Here, I’ll start: roses are red, violets are blue, Dream is a liar—”
“I’m in love with you!” Dream yells.
All the air whooshes out of George’s lungs. “What?”
“I’m–” Dream falters. “I’m in love with you.”
George can’t help it—for the second time that night, he starts to cry. He puts a hand over his face, trying to hide, but his shoulders shake with the sobs he can’t hold in.
“I’m sorry, I thought– I thought that would help,” Dream says, and he sounds so small, so unsure. “It’s just– you said in my room that you thought I didn’t care about you. But I didn’t think you wanted me to care about you, and I thought maybe if I came and told you–”
“I do,” George says, stepping into Dream and wrapping his arms around his middle.
Dream doesn’t move. “You– what?”
“I want you to care about me,” George says into the fabric of his sweatshirt, and finally Dream comes to life, hugging him back until his tears slow.
“So why are you crying, idiot?”
At the sound of the familiar insult, George pulls out of the hug, wiping his eyes. “Because…” he can’t say it. “Because…” Oh, fuck it.
He kisses Dream. Just once, just a quick press of lips. Just enough to get the message across.
He thinks it works by the way Dream is looking at him, cheeks red and lips parted and eyes so, so hopeful. “Yeah?” He breathes.
George smiles a little. “Yeah.” And then he leans in again, because he wants to. Because he can.
It’s so good immediately. There’s just something so simple about it, so sweet. The warmth and life and breath of him, the relief of feeling Dream’s mouth after weeks and weeks of wanting and wondering. He sighs into it, clinging to Dream with all the strength in his body. This is so much better than communicating, he thinks dizzily. Maybe they never have to talk. Maybe they can just kiss forever.
Dream breaks the kiss first. “I think we should talk,” he says breathlessly. He stays close, forehead tipped against George’s.
George groans. “Can’t we just, like, have a conversation with our minds?”
Dream pulls back, rolling his eyes. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”
“Dignify,” George scoffs. “That’s a big word for you.”
“What? How are you making fun of my vocabulary? I have a way better vocabulary than you. I probably have the best vocabulary in the entire English department.”
“See? This is why we shouldn’t talk.” George shakes his head. “We would never argue if we just made out all the time instead.”
“You’d miss me, though. Me and my vocabulary.” Dream smiles down at him, knowing.
George smiles back. He can’t help himself, really, not when Dream is so happy, so sweet. “I know.”
“Were you about to leave?” Dream asks suddenly. “When– just now, when we ran into each other. Were you going home?”
George nods. “Turns out, Valentine’s Day parties are no fun when you’re single.” He finds he misses touching Dream, so he steps forward again, just leaning into him.
Dream’s arms settle around his waist. “What if I could change that?” he asks. George can’t quite tell if he’s joking or not. “Would that make you want to go in?”
George hums into Dream’s sweater, mulling it over. “Depends, I guess.”
“On what?”
“Well, would you get down on one knee?”
Dream laughs, and George feels it rumble through him like an earthquake. “You’re so demanding,” he says, and it doesn’t feel like an insult. “And you know something? I love that about you.”
His warmth disappears, and George is suddenly left supporting all of his own body weight. He opens his eyes, confused, and finds Dream on the ground in front of him, on one knee, holding his hand and gazing up at him.
“I love when you give me shit just for existing, and I love how you fill your pockets with pistachios so people will think you’re mysterious–”
“I don’t do that,” George interrupts. “They just appear when I need them.”
“Shush,” Dream scolds. “I’m giving a speech here. I guess– I guess I’m trying to say that… I know that this whole thing was supposed to be fake, but the way I feel about you is– is real.”
George suddenly has to blink very hard for no particular reason. “Dream,” he says, and his voice is thick with emotion. He’s not sure how to get the words out.
Dream just smiles, always so knowing, always so kind. “Oh, wait. I remember how you wanted this story to go. You were gonna tell Sapnap I begged you to date me, and then I bought you a slushie.”
“And a neck pillow,” George adds quickly.
Dream grins. He puts his other knee on the ground, clasping George’s hand in both of his. “Please, please date me, George. I’ll do anything.”
George pretends to think about it, mostly to hide how grateful he is that Dream saw him getting choked up and took them back into familiar territory. Dream’s good at that—at knowing him. “Will you buy me a neck pillow?”
“Anything but that.”
“Dream.”
“I’ll buy you a slushie?”
“Fine. Deal.” They shake hands without changing their grip, which is ridiculous because Dream is holding onto George’s hand with both of his like he’s a knight from a faraway land and George is a princess he’s wooing. George likes him so much.
At least, until he asks, “Can I get up now? My knees hurt.”
“What the hell?” George yanks his hand away. “You ruined it.”
Dream rolls his eyes. “Come on. Let’s go in.”
“Fine.” George waits for him to get to his feet before quietly lacing their fingers back together and letting himself be led back inside.
They run into Sapnap almost instantly. “Uh,” he says. “What… are you doing here?”
“Hi,” George says cheerfully. “Here we are! I win.”
“But– I thought–”
“Oh, I was just kidding earlier.” George hugs Dream’s arm to his chest. “Dream and I are in love.”
Sapnap blinks. “You said it was never real.”
“To be fair–” Dream starts. George kicks him in the shin. “Ow. Stop, idiot.” He turns back to Sapnap. “Technically, it was fake. But it’s real now, so George met your terms.”
“But…” Sapnap squints at them. “You cheated. You fucking lose, you cheaters.”
“Nuh-uh. You said I had to be in a relationship at the party. We met your terms.”
“You cheated.”
“We met your terms! ”
“What on earth?” They all turn, and it’s Hannah standing there. “What the hell are you guys arguing about?”
George rolls his eyes. “Sapnap and I bet a hundred dollars on me being in a relationship by now. The deadline was this party.”
Hannah’s jaw drops. “What?”
“Yeah, and they were never fucking dating,” Sapnap argues. “They made it all up! They tricked everyone!”
“What?”
“But that was, like, ten minutes ago,” Dream argues. “We’re actually together now. Officially.” He smiles down at George like he can’t help himself.
George feels the smile spread to his face, too. “I thought you said ‘officially’ was dorky.”
“What? I never said that.”
“You literally did. In the car, when we were planning what to tell Sapnap. You were all like, You can’t use the word ‘officially,’ he’s gonna think I’m an idiot.”
“Well.” Dream looks sufficiently embarrassed. “Maybe ‘officially’ is growing on me.”
George just gazes at him, everything else falling away when their eyes meet. “Yeah?”
“Jesus Christ.” They turn back to Hannah, who’s closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Okay, you all lose. Nobody gets any money.”
All three of them try to argue at once, but she puts a hand up. “Hey! I don’t want to hear it. You–” she points at Sapnap– “lost the bet.”
“Yeah,” George says. “Face it, Sapnap, you officially lost.”
“And you.” Hannah whirls around, levelling him with a withering glare. “I can’t believe you lied to all of us. Don’t look at me like that. You cheated. You don’t deserve a hundred dollars.”
George rolls his eyes. “Fine. Come on, Dream. Let’s go.”
As he drags Dream over to sit down, he finds he doesn’t even care about the money that much, really. He has everything he needs right here.
“What?” Dream asks. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” George privately thrills at the horrible, sappy thoughts that have invaded his mind. Being in love is a little bit like being a spy, he decides. Nobody knows he’s all squishy on the inside.
“C’mon.” Dream nudges him. “What are you thinking about?”
“You,” George admits. He hesitates. “Can we, like– can we just go back to my room?”
Dream swallows. “What?”
“Not like that, idiot.” George’s face feels hot. “You said we should talk. I feel like… we have a lot to talk about.”
Dream softens. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”
At home, they sit on George’s bed. Not cuddling, just sitting next to each other. Dream looks so lovely in the soft light of George’s bedside lamp.
“You’re pretty,” he informs him.
Dream flushes. “I’m– what? I– George.”
“I can say that now.” He reaches a hand up, brushing over the softness of Dream’s cheekbone. “I don’t have to hide it.”
Dream closes his eyes, leaning into it until George lets his hand fall away. They’re quiet for a moment, and the air is heavy with everything they’re not sure how to discuss.
Dream is the first one to ask: “How long?”
How long what? George thinks. How long have I wanted to tell you that? How long have I loved you? How long has there been a simmering thread of tension between us? Instead, he says, “I think some part of me always wanted to talk to you. I didn’t really realise how deep it went until, like, two or three weeks ago. Just before that party when Sapnap read out my texts.”
“What? Two or three weeks?”
George is suddenly embarrassed about how long he spent pining after Dream. “Well—when did you know?”
As soon as he stops speaking, George realises two things at once. One, Dream would never make fun of him for something like that. And two, Dream is turning very, very red. “Well, okay, to be fair,” he stammers out. “Do you remember that phone call?”
“I remember a few phone calls, Dream. Which one are you talking about?”
“You called me in the middle of the night and you were like, ‘Okay, let’s fake date.’”
“So, our second phone call ever.”
“Um. Yes. Well, that was the point where I... started to realise exactly what I'd gotten myself into.”
George is thrilled. “That was so early. Is that why you asked me to fake date in the first place?”
“No!” Dream shakes his head vigorously. Then he pauses. “…I don’t know. You annoyed me so much, and you were so smart and cute and infuriating, and then you started talking about going on dates and I panicked. I just blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. I really, really didn’t think you’d say yes.”
“And then I did,” George says, grinning. “And you realised you had a big, fat crush on me.”
Dream scoffs, looking away. “And then, after that… I couldn’t back out. I couldn’t let you down.”
“But you did let me down.” George shakes his head in mock disappointment. “I specifically told you not to fall in love with me, and then you did it anyway.”
“Okay,” Dream blushes. “This is just as embarrassing for you, to be clear. You think you probably liked me from the beginning, and it took you months of basically being in a relationship to figure it out.”
“Yeah, yeah.” George waves the accusation off. “Is that my fault? Maybe you just weren’t that good of a boyfriend. I think if you had kissed me, I would have figured it out pretty quickly.”
Dream smiles fondly. “You probably don’t know this, but… that night at the party, I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing you. I had to, like, leave the room to stop myself.”
“Oh.” George shrugs. “No, I knew that.”
“I– What?”
“It was pretty obvious, Dream. We were having a conversation, and you were like–” he demonstrates– “looking back and forth between my mouth and eyes every other second. It was like you were playing whack-a-mole in your mind.”
Dream bursts into incredulous laughter. “What? Was it that obvious?”
“And then–” George laughs too—he can never stop himself around Dream. “And then, you were like–” he lets his eyes go dead and leans in like he’s going for a kiss– “Do you want some water, George? A soda? Please give me a task so I can get up and leave and be far away from you.” He speaks in a monotone, like he’s a robot or a zombie or something.
“I did not,” Dream argues, stopping him an inch away. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re in love with me.”
“Well.” Dream closes the small distance between them to give him a sweet, lingering kiss. “I can’t argue with that one.”
“You smell good,” George murmurs against his mouth. “You always smell really good.”
Dream pulls back, delighted. “You like it? I have this cologne that’s supposed to smell like new books. I wear it, like, every day.”
“Oh. I thought you just naturally smelled like that. From– from reading too many books or something.”
He bites his lip. “Are you disappointed?”
“Mm. So disappointed,” George sighs. “No, seriously. I don’t think I can ever get past this. This whole thing isn’t really working out. It’s not me, it’s–”
He is very rudely interrupted by Dream’s lips, kissing him silent. Even worse, he can’t bring himself to be annoyed about it.
One Year Later
“I will never forgive you, by the way,” George says, glancing over at Dream from the passenger seat of his car. “Because of you, we have to be one of those stupid couples with Valentine’s Day as our anniversary.”
In the driver’s seat, Dream rolls his eyes. “Happy anniversary to you too, baby.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I could always break up with you,” Dream offers. “And then we could get back together on a different day.”
George could kill him. “You’re not breaking up with me.”
“Hm. Then I guess we’re stuck with it.”
George reaches out, intertwining their fingers. After a year of dating Dream, this passenger seat pretty much belongs to him. He has permanent aux privileges, a neck pillow, and a foot rest.
Do you have any idea the levels of simping you would have to be doing to buy somebody else a neck pillow? Dream asked him a lifetime ago.
He didn’t back then, not really. He does now.
They hold hands the whole way to the restaurant.
Inside, Dream pulls George’s chair out for him. “Do you think Professor Martin is reading our first draft right now?”
“Stop it, idiot.” George shoots his boyfriend a glare. “We’re not supposed to be talking about school right now. We’re supposed to be having a fancy dinner and making goo-goo eyes at each other across the table.”
“If those are your goo-goo eyes, I’m not sure I’m interested,” Dream jokes.
George sighs. “I hope he thinks it’s good.”
“Hey!” Dream kicks him. “What happened to not talking about it?”
George bites his lip. “Sorry. I’m just…”
“I know. Worried about sullying your good name in the world of the English department.” Dream perks up. “Hey, maybe we should wait a few years, and then we can publish it as Davidson and Davidson.”
Well, that’s certainly enough to distract him from their Hamlet paper. “You are getting way ahead of yourself.” George grins. “I kind of like it.”
“Dr. and Mr. Davidson,” Dream intones. “Just two rich, clever, high-level academics. They’re English professors at rival schools of Harvard and Yale, but at the end of the day, they come home to the same cottage in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.”
“Who’s Doctor and who’s Mister?” George asks. “Wait– if we’re rich, why do we live in a cottage? And where’s Sturbridge, Massachusetts?”
“Me, you, for the vibes, small town vaguely halfway between Harvard and Yale,” Dream rattles off. “We would both have a little over an hour’s commute.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Besides, if you marry me, I promise–”
George’s eyebrows shoot up. “You can’t propose to me today,” he says quickly. “Then we’d have another Valentine’s Day anniversary.”
“And I’m the ridiculous one in this relationship?”
“Correct. Good to see you understand that much.”
Dream sighs. “Fine. I promise not to propose today. Or on any Valentine’s Day.”
“Thank you. Your cooperation will be rewarded handsomely,” George says in his geeky American voice, wiggling his eyebrows.
Dream laughs, bringing his hands up to cover his red face. “You’re an idiot.”
“Welcome!” A smiling waiter materialises next to their table. “Can I get the two of you something to drink?”
George lets Dream order their drinks, studying his profile as he talks to the waiter. It strikes him, not for the first time, just how much he adores Dream. Every breath out of his mouth, every bone in his body is just good. George never thought he would get this lucky. Never, ever.
“What, baby?” he asks when he sees George’s face.
“I love you so much,” George says. (Dream knows this, but—he can’t keep it in.)
He smiles, bright and happy. “I love you too. Happy Valentine’s Day, George.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Dream.”