Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

The blistering heat beat down on Clarke from the second she got out of her car. God, she hated to think of how hot her leather seats would feel after she finished up at the store. With that in mind, she marched forward quickly, determined to make quick work of her grocery shopping.

She zig-zagged through the parking lot, dodging kids with out-of-control carts and parents with out-of-control kids. Walmart. Ugh. She really did hate this store. But it was convenient and had more variety than all the other little food stores in Arkadia. The mission was to get in and get out, though, maybe get home and do some drawing to relieve her stress.

Stress. She slowed her pace as that stress started to creep back in. She’d managed to keep it at bay all morning, distracting herself with errands and catchy pop songs on the radio. But when she walked inside the big sliding double doors, she found herself reaching inside her purse for her phone rather than reaching for a shopping cart.

The Instagram tabs she’d opened this morning were still open, which must have meant she was a glutton for punishment. She looked first at the picture of Finn with a baby girl in his arms. All smiles. Proud new dad. And when she went to Lexa’s page, it wasn’t any better. She and Costia’s happy smiles still beamed from the screen, both of them holding up their ring fingers to announce their engagement.

Be happy for them, Clarke told herself, and large part of her truly was happy. It seemed to her that Finn had matured a lot over the years, so he’d probably be a good father. And Lexa . . . well, she deserved to be happy, and if Costia was the girl who was going to make her happy for the rest of her life, then so be it.

Putting her phone back in her purse without closing the Internet tabs, Clarke sighed heavily and rummaged around for what she really needed: her grocery list.

It was fairly easy to zip through the aisles of Walmart’s food center. She knew where most everything she wanted was at, and the frozen foods aisle in particular gave her most of what she needed. In the middle of a mental debate over grape Uncrustable sandwiches or strawberry, her phone rang, and she groaned.

“What?” she answered sharply without even checking to see who was calling. If this was another supposed friend from high school calling to see what she thought about the photos of Finn and his baby, or another person from her LGBTQ group ‘checking up’ on her because of what Lexa had posted . . .

“Well, hey to you, too, best friend.”

She breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Raven.”

“Miss me?”

“So much.” Clarke tossed both the grape and strawberry Uncrustables into her cart and continued down the aisle. “So how was Jamaica?”

“Beautiful, amazing,” Raven raved. “Well, the place was amazing.”

“Oh, no.” Clarke cringed. She knew this whole vacation had been a way for Raven and her boyfriend Wick to ‘figure things out.’ They’d cut themselves off from technology for an entire week, so Clarke had no idea how it’d gone. But Raven’s tone was a pretty clear indication.

“It’s just time, Clarke, time to end things,” Raven went on, sounding only the slightest bit sad about it. “And we both knew it. I mean, if Wick and I can’t recapture our spark sitting down on the beach sipping margaritas at sunset, what’re the chances we’re gonna be able to make it work back here?”

“Slim to none,” Clarke admitted, rounding her cart into the next aisle. Uh, cake mixes? No, thanks. She didn’t cook. “I’m sorry, though,” she apologized, backtracking a bit so she could swing over into the next aisle instead. “I know you really loved him.”

“I did,” Raven acknowledged, “and it was great while it lasted, but it just wasn’t meant to be, you know?”

Those two Instagram pictures seeped into Clarke’s mind again, and she felt a heavy, resigned feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Yeah. I know.”

“But it’s okay,” Raven insisted, sounding more bubbly than Clarke would have imagined possible. “We ended things on good terms, and he’s got a friend who offered him a place to stay, so it’s not like I have to find a new apartment or anything.”

“That’s good,” Clarke agreed, ransacking the crackers and cookies. “Well, I’m glad you’re taking it so well.”

“Clarke, you know me. I’m tough like an Amazon,” Raven boasted. It wasn’t an understatement, though. The girl really was that tough.

“That you are.” Clarke sighed, holding her phone in place with her shoulder, pushing her cart lazily forward, wishing she had her best friend’s same spunk and resilience in the face of a break-up. Raven and Wick had been together for over a year now—it wasn’t some meaningless fling. And yet here she was, ready to bounce back from it, and Clarke was still having trouble bouncing six months after Lexa.

“Well, I was gonna suggest we go out tonight so you can show me all your pictures and give me all my souvenirs . . .” Clarke segued.

“What makes you so sure you’re getting souvenirs?”

“But you’d probably rather just curl up with Thelma and Louise again.”

“Uh, no,” came Raven’s emphatic response, for which Clarke was grateful. “Let’s go out. Let’s do something fun. I’m not just gonna sit here and wallow.”

“Really?” Clarke felt a wave of relief wash over her. “Thanks, Raven.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Raven said. “I heard about . . . well . . . them, their news. And I figured you’d need a little pick me-up.”

“I need a huge pick me-up,” Clarke confessed. “Girls night?”

“Girls night it is,” Raven chirped. “No boys allowed. Unless they’re exceptionally hot.”

Clarke smirked. “Sounds like a plan.”

Perhaps her call with Raven slowed her down, or maybe she just got distracted in the arts and crafts section again, but Clarke’s trip to Walmart ended up taking her longer than she’d thought. By the time she was in the checkout line, she’d been there for forty-five minutes, and she knew those leather seats of hers were really going to be painful. It didn’t help that the couple in front of her was taking forever to check out. It was like they had to pause every three seconds to be nauseatingly adorable and give each other a kiss or a squeeze or playful nudge or something. They made Clarke roll her eyes because . . . well, because she was envious.

Get the fuck over it, she told herself as she pushed her full cart across the parking lot towards her vehicle. People can be happy. You can be happy, too, if . . .

No. She couldn’t even think about it, couldn’t entertain the idea. She’d let herself reminisce about it too much lately, about the way it felt to be in a committed relationship. She’d had exactly two of those in her entire life, and neither one had worked out for her. But . . . well, they had been pretty great while they’d lasted. And it had been six months. In six months, not only had Lexa started dating someone else and fallen in love again, but she’d gotten engaged. She had a whole life ahead of her, a whole future. With someone.

Down in the dumps, Clarke began loading all her grocery sacks into her car. (Really, why did Walmart cashiers put, like, one item in one bag? God, she hated this store.) She was almost done, backseat practically stuffed full, when she heard a man yell, “Watch out!”

She looked around, instantly on alert, but she didn’t know what she was supposed to watch out for.

Seconds later, she felt something heavy hit her foot and ankle. “Ow,” she yelped, stepping aside. She looked down and saw a . . . watermelon? Why was there a watermelon by her feet?

“Sorry,” a dark-haired man apologized, rushing forward. “Runaway watermelon.” He bent down and picked it up and smiled at her.

Good lord, Clarke thought, smiling back dazedly. This guy was . . . hot. He had this whole bronzed olive skin tone going on, adorable freckles on his nose and cheeks, bulging biceps beneath the arms of his t-shirt, and a smile that literally made her knees feel week. “It’s okay,” she said lamely.

“Really sorry,” he said again in a gravelly voice, walking away with his watermelon cradled in his left arm.

Jesus Christ. For a second, Clarke felt shook. Since when did guys that good-looking exist? And in Arkadia of all places? She watched him walk away, unabashedly, pushing her cart a little further out into the parking lot to get a better glimpse of him.

Damn, he filled out those jeans.

Telling herself she didn’t stand a chance and it didn’t matter because she’d never see him again, Clarke turned to go put her cart away when she heard him swear, “Shit!” She took another peek and noticed that now he was having problems with a different kind of fruit: apples. He had at least seven apples rolling all around on the ground by his truck.

Abandoning her cart, Clarke scampered forward, eager to help. “Here,” she said, retrieving a few that had rolled an entire parking space away.

“Stupid sack ripped,” he muttered, piling the ones he could grab into his shirt.

Once it looked like they’d gotten all of them, she brought the three in her hands up to him and deposited them . . . into his shirt. Which was now hiked up enough to show off some pretty nice abs. “Here you go,” she said.

“Thanks.” He smiled at her again, and this time, she managed to smile back.

He was gorgeous.

“I’m Clarke,” she introduced herself, surprised by her own forwardness.

“Bellamy,” he returned.

Bellamy. She let the name roll through her mind. Hot name for a hot guy.

“I have apples in my shirt,” he muttered, quickly dumping them into a sturdier sack. He hoisted that sack up into the bed of his truck, along with his watermelon, and said, “I’ll be lucky if any of this makes it home.”

She laughed a little, wondering why he didn’t just stuff it all in the backseat when she caught a glimpse and saw that it was already as full as hers was.

“Well . . . thanks, Clarke,” he said, and he was that type of guy who could say it and keep eye contact with her the entire time.

She kept eye contact with him, too, not because she had that same kind of confidence, but because she couldn’t look away. “Have a good day,” she said, feeling like an idiot the second she said it.

“Yeah, you, too.” He took hold of his cart and pushed it to the nearest cart station, and she turned and walked away, disappointed in herself. Have a good day? That was what the freaking Walmart greeters said when people left! She couldn’t have thought of anything better, anything flirtier or sexier? Raven would have. Raven would have said something like, ‘Let me know if you ever wanna check out my melons,’ because Raven was bold and brazen and uninhibited like that. Raven didn’t second-guess herself.

Clarke could barely even pay attention to the fact that her car door was hanging open, all her food practically falling out, because all she could think of was . . . that guy. That hot, hot guy with the incredible smile. Him and his runaway watermelon and his scampering apples and . . .

“Hey!” she called, whirling around.

He stopped just as he was getting into his truck.

“Do you wanna . . . hang out for a while or something?” she offered unsurely. Because she’d never done anything like this before.

He didn’t seem to think it was weird. In fact, when he grinned, he seemed sort of into the idea. “Sure,” he said. “I gotta get some of this food in the refrigerator, though.”

“Oh, yeah, me, too,” she said, trying to keep her composure, even though inside she was freaking out. “Maybe later, though?”

“Yeah, alright,” he said nonchalantly. “You know where Dropship’s at?”

She’d heard of it, couldn’t remember if she’d ever been there before, though. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Alright, well, how about I meet you there at 7:30 or something,” he suggested, pushing his dark brown hair out of his eyes.

“Okay.”

“Alright.” She could have sworn she saw his eyes kind of sweep over her for a minute, which was usually a good sign, and when he smirked and said, “See you later,” she felt that knees-go-weak feeling again.

Trying to play it casual, she headed back to her car as he drove off. Inside, her heart was pounding with excitement, though. Had that really just happened? Had she really just managed to channel Raven and be outgoing with a guy? With a guy who looked like he could be a male model, no less?

Had she really just scored herself a date at Walmart? If so, then maybe she didn’t hate that store so much after all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Since Raven’s apartment was only a few blocks away, Clarke darted straight over there after getting her groceries put away. Using her key to let herself in, she barged through the door and shut it quickly. “Raven,” she said simply.

Raven was swaying around her kitchen in a towel, her wet hair held up with another towel around her head. She stopped singing Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” long enough to notice Clarke and remark, “Wow, you are really eager for girls night.”

“Raven,” Clarke repeated.

“I’m gonna need another hour, at least,” Raven said, taking the towel off her head. “Maybe forty-five minutes if I push it?”

“Raven, the most amazing thing happened to me in the Walmart parking lot today,” Clarke bubbled excitedly.

“Oh god.” Raven made a face and turned off her music. “Walmart?”

“Yes. I met this guy . . .”

“A guy you like?” Raven cut in.

“No, a guy I hate.”

“A hot a guy?”

“No, he’s four feet tall and bald. Raven!” Clarke exclaimed. “I actually met a guy.”

“Wow.” Raven sat down at her kitchen island, towel-drying her hair. “Does this guy have a name?”

“Yes.” Clarke had been wracking her brain trying to remember it the entire drive home. “Billy, maybe.” She cringed. “No. Benry?” That definitely didn’t sound right. “Bellagio?”

“Bellagio?” Raven echoed, making a face. “That’s a Vegas hotel.”

“That’s not it.” Try as she might, she just couldn’t remember, so she’d have to subtly try to get that out of him when she saw him again. “Well, whatever, he has a name, and this . . .” She smiled blissfully, leaning back against the door like she was made out of silly putty. “. . . this amazing skin tone that makes him kind of racially ambiguous, you know? And this dark curly hair that I just wanna run my fingers through, and these deep brown eyes.”

“Body?” Raven asked.

“On point.”

“Better than Finn’s?”

Clarke huffed. “Please, Finn was a boy next to this man.”

“Ooh, he’s a man now, is he?” Raven grinned and wriggled her eyebrows excitedly. “Well, Clarke, this is intriguing. Did you get his number?”

“No,” she replied, “I was too busy grabbing his apples.”

Raven squinted at her curiously.

“There were apples,” Clarke tried to explain. “And a watermelon.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know if that was code for something sexual.”

“No, nothing sexual.”

Again, Raven grinned. “Not yet.”

Clarke couldn’t help but blush and crumple over a bit just thinking about it. “Oh my god, Raven, I don’t even know how it happened, but all of a sudden I was just inviting him to hang out tonight, and he agreed to it. So now we’re supposed to meet up at Dropship later.”

“Really?” Raven stared at her in shock and slowly started to applaud her efforts.

“Yeah, so I was kind of hoping we could spend our girls night there,” Clarke hinted. “I know we said no boys allowed, but . . .”

“Unless they’re exceptionally hot,” Raven reminded her. “This guy seems to fit the bill. Have at it, Clarke. I don’t care.”

“Well, you can still come along,” Clarke told her. In fact, having a wing-woman there might be kind of nice.

“Oh, no way,” Raven dismissed immediately. “You don’t need me there being a third wheel. This guy agreed to meet you, not you and your best friend.”

“But I don’t want you to feel like I’m ditching you.”

Raven shrugged flippantly. “You are, but I’m okay with being ditched. Honestly, I was just gonna go out tonight for your sake. But I’m perfectly content hanging out with Thelma and Louise.”

“Are you sure?” Clarke pressed, trying to be a good best friend. Raven had just broken up with her boyfriend, and even though she seemed okay, it was possible she really needed this night out.

“I’m positive,” Raven said emphatically. “I’m jet-lagged anyway, Clarke. I wouldn’t be much fun.”

That wasn’t true, though. Raven was always fun. Whenever they went out, whether Wick was with them or not, Raven was the fun, sassy girl guys were drawn to. Clarke, on the other hand . . . well, she was the nice girl guys settled for. So in a way, maybe not having Raven there would be a good thing. Then there wouldn’t be anyone else for Bill-Ben-Bella—whatever his name was—to notice.

“What if he ends up being a loser?” Clarke fretted, suddenly fearing the worst. “Or a creep?” This was what she did every single time, over-analyzed the situation, got pessimistic about things which otherwise seemed good. That probably explained why she hadn’t done anything more than make out with any guy or girl for the past six months.

“Then just leave. Or call me and I’ll get you out of there,” Raven promised. “But I have a good feeling about this one, Clarke. You might just have gotten yourself a new boyfriend here.”

The thought of it . . . thrilled her to no end. But realistically, what were the chances? It’d probably just be a one-time hook up, which Clarke didn’t usually do, but . . . well, this guy was good-looking enough for her to make an exception.

“Clarke.” Raven gave her a warning look and got up from the counter. She walked around to Clarke, grabbed her shoulders, and literally shook her. “Don’t do this. You’re second-guessing yourself again, talking yourself out of it.”

“No, I’m not,” Clarke denied.

“Well, you’re about to. And I won’t let you. You need this. Finn’s a freaking dad now, Lexa’s getting hitched. You need something for yourself right now. You need this.”

Clarke nodded. She definitely needed . . . something. Maybe just a really good orgasm. Maybe some spark of hope that she wasn’t doomed to end up alone. Either one was fine.

“So loosen up,” Raven urged.

“I’m loose,” Clarke insisted, realizing how wrong the words sounded once she’d already said them. “I wish I’d said something else.”

Raven laughed.

An hour later, back at her place, she was all dressed up for her . . . date. If it could really even be called that. Her first inclination had been to put on a sexy, short dress, but Raven had talked her down from that, warning that she’d look like she was trying too hard if she was too dressed up. So they managed to find one pair of skinny jeans that weren’t covered in paint, along with a black tank top that was pretty low-cut and definitely emphasized her . . . watermelons. Raven loaned her a black cropped leather jacket to go over it, and after touching up her makeup and pulling her hair up into a casual, messy bun for her, her best friend proclaimed her ready to go.

“Looking good,” Raven said proudly. “This Bellagio guy isn’t gonna know what hit him.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dropship was one of maybe seven bars in all of Arkadia, but it wasn’t Clarke’s usual hangout. She’d only been there a handful of times, and not one of those times had been a good time for her. She faintly remembered getting sick at someone’s birthday party last year, and she vividly remembered getting kicked out when the fake ID that Raven had gotten her hadn’t been convincing enough. Hopefully tonight would be a better memory.

There were a couple of trucks parked out front, but none of them appeared to be . . . his. (God, she really needed to re-learn his name.) And when she walked inside, she didn’t see him there yet, which was a bit disheartening. Maybe he’d forgotten or had gotten busy doing something else. Or maybe he’d never intended to meet up with her at all.

Here I go again, she thought, remembering Raven’s parting advice. Loosen up. She just had to let loose. For once.

It was a little awkward being there all by herself when everyone else seemed to be with someone else. There looked to be a double date going on at one table, where the girls were practically sitting in their boyfriends’ laps. And there were a couple women dancing with each other drunkenly, so that was obviously hilarious. Then there was a group of loud, obnoxious people her age sitting at a huge round table in the corner, and they appeared to be the ones in control of the old-fashioned jukebox by the back wall. Some hip hop song she didn’t even know was playing, and she just felt totally and completely out of place.

Dropship wasn’t exactly a bar for college students. More like college dropouts.

She sat at the counter and waited, trying to be patient. Yeah, she’d shown up ten minutes early, because she was a spaz like that. So she ordered herself a beer to get started and sipped on it gingerly while the naked lady clock on the while ticked past 7:30. She kept waiting as it became 7:45, and by 7:50, she was really starting to contemplate leaving.

He said 7:30 ‘or something,’ she reminded herself, pouring what was left of her beer into a glass. She swirled it around dejectedly, looking at her fragmented reflection in the bottom, and debated whether or not to get up and go.

Just when she was thinking she might head out of there and go home to see where Raven was at in Thelma and Louise, the door of the bar swung open, and in he came. Him . . . the smoldering man whose name she couldn’t remember but wanted to know so badly. Unlike her, he hadn’t changed out of what he’d been wearing in the parking lot. He was still dressed in the same blue t-shirt and jeans, and he still looked like a Greek god, so . . .

He scanned the room and smiled when he saw her at the bar. She smiled back, trying to play it cool, calm, and collected when he came and sat down beside her. “Hey, Clarke,” he said.

“Hey . . . you,” she returned, feeling bad that he remembered her name and she didn’t remember his. But hey, that was a good sign, right, that he remembered her name?

“Sorry I’m late,” he apologized, and god, his voice was so low, so deep, so sexy, she could barely handle it.

“Did your watermelon run away again?” she teased.

He chuckled. “No, it behaved. Couldn’t get my truck to start, though.”

“Oh, I see.” Well, that sounded like a legit reason to be late. Besides, now that he was here, she really didn’t care about how long it had taken him to show. She was just glad he actually had.

They small-talked a bit after that, with him asking her the question she so often got asked: How the hell had she, a girl, ended up being named Clarke? She told him about how her parents had been convinced she’d be a boy up until she came out of the womb. He made some kind of joke about having a hole instead of a pole, which made her laugh, and then she asked what the story was behind his name, hoping something he’d say would jog her memory. But he just shrugged and said, “No, story behind it. My mom heard it somewhere and liked it. So that’s it.”

She nodded, needing more than that. Because she was still coming up blank.

It must have been obvious that she had no idea what to call him, because he finally just said, “You don’t remember my name, do you?”

Since he didn’t sound offended by that, she confessed, “No,” quietly.

He snorted. “I don’t blame you. It’s a weird name.”

“And that name is . . . ?”

He thanked the bartender when he finally got his drink, and he took a big swig of it first before he answered her. “Bellamy.”

“Bellamy.” Now that she heard it, she wasn’t sure how she’d forgotten it in the first place. “I knew it started with a B.” This time, she wouldn’t forget.

An hour (and several drinks) later, she’d gotten some information out of Bellamy. He was only two years older than her, twenty-three, which was perfect, and he had a little sister named Olivia or something—honestly, she was a bit too buzzed to remember that name, but Olivia was close enough. He and his sister had lived in Arkadia their whole lives, but neither of them attended college there. He wasn’t a dropout, though, he assured her. He’d just never gone in the first place.

He asked questions about her, too, some of which she dodged in an effort to be slightly mysterious and cool. But some she answered openly, like the ones about her age and what she was studying in college. He asked where she was from, too, and when she told him she’d grown up in the D.C. area, he cringed and muttered, “Politics,” under his breath. But they didn’t talk about politics, because they were both in way too good of a mood for that.

By the time she was halfway through her third beer, her jacket was off, and she was feeling good. Really good. Very giddy, very silly, very willing to have fun. And Bellamy, even though he clearly could hold his alcohol and wasn’t a lightweight like her, was more than willing to play around with her. She kicked his ass at darts, but of course he claimed to have let her win. They started a game of pool, got bored with pool, and ended up sitting on the side of the pool table taking selfies instead. At one point, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, and she snapped that picture without hesitation.

“That’s a good one,” he said.

Yeah, it looked pretty damn good to her, too.

As the night wore on, the bar started to get more crowded, and each time a beautiful girl walked in, she worried for a second that she might lose his attention, that he might notice someone else and forget all about her. But he never did. He didn’t stop smiling at her, talking to her, teasing her. In fact, every half an hour or so, he’d ask her what his name was, just to make sure she remembered.

“Bellamy!” she answered, pretending to be all exasperated.

“Bellamy what?”

“Blake.” Yeah, she’d learned that, too. His last name was Blake.

She was having more fun with Bellamy Blake than she’d had in months. For the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel like she was just going through the motions, working her way through life’s monotonous routines. She felt . . . spontaneous with him. Like when he suggested they do shots? Yeah, she just went for it. But she only went for it because she got this sense about him that he was a safe and trustworthy guy. And he proved her right when he stopped her after two shots and said, “No more for you. I’m cuttin’ you off.”

“Why?” she complained, thinking she could probably handle a couple more shots. She’d been munching on chips throughout the night, and now he’d gotten them a pizza, too. As long as she ate, she’d be fine.

“No more,” he repeated, taking her shot glass from her so he could knock back what was left in it.

“Why not?” She leaned against him, her hands on his chest, and a shiver zipped up her spine when he put his hands on her waist.

“Because,” he said, eyes gazing into hers, face mere inches away from her own. “I wanna give you a night to remember.”

Her whole body tingled with anticipation, but even though they were having a great time, and even though they were both flirting with each other . . . she still didn’t want to get her hopes up.

Around midnight, she had to pee. Badly. In fact, she was surprised she’d been able to hold it this long. The bathroom was little more than a closet-sized space with a rickety door that didn’t shut very well, so she had to keep her hand on the doorknob while she went. When she was done, she washed her hands and checked her reflection in the mirror, taking a moment to fix her makeup. She’d done a lot of laughing tonight, which had made some of her mascara and eyeliner smear. Her lipstick had worn off a long time ago, even without a lip-lock, and her hair was starting to fall a bit, a few loose strands spilling out here and there. But for the most part, she still looked pretty decent. Tempting probably wasn’t the right word, but . . . not horrible.

She pulled her tank top down a bit, showing off what she would normally consider to be a ridiculous amount of cleavage, but . . . hell, Bellamy’s eyes had done their fair share of wandering downward tonight, so why not give him something to look at? Her breasts were definitely her best physical asset, and with as horny as she was feeling right now, she wasn’t above using them to her advantage.

When she walked out of the bathroom . . . there was Bellamy, just standing there, waiting for her. He had his arms crossed over his chest, head tilted to the side, and this look in his eyes . . . good god, it was so—so enticing. When he looked at her like this, as he’d been doing all night, she felt sexy. And it wasn’t normal for anyone, guy or girl, to be able to make her feel that way.

She shut the bathroom door, not breaking the eye contact with him, and before she knew what was going on, he was moving forward, bringing his body in very close to hers as he backed her up against the wall wordlessly. He was big enough to practically encompass her, and maybe she should have been freaked out, because yeah, she barely knew the guy. But she wasn’t scared; she was excited, because it was clear that he wanted her. And obviously she wanted him, too.

One of his hands pressed against the wall next to her head, and the other one cupped her face as he bent down to kiss her. It was a good kiss, not too soft but not too forceful. Needy but not sloppy, insistent but not aggressive. And it just felt so natural to kiss him back, to rub her hands up and down his sides and slide them around his stomach to feel the rock-hard muscles of his abdomen.

Despite the fact that it was happening in a narrow hallway outside the bar’s bathroom, it was the kind of kiss that made Clarke’s head spin and all coherent thought fly out the window. The more she responded to him and kissed him back, the more daring he became, deepening the kiss, letting his tongue dart out to brush against her lips, then to slide into her mouth. His hands began to explore more, too. The one that had started against the wall gradually came down to rub her shoulder, but when cupped and squeezed her breast, that’s when she knew the extra cleavage had worked like a charm.

Music and laughter and conversation filtered in from the rest of the bar, but here they were, just the two of them in a secluded little hallway, and she didn’t want to stop. She didn’t usually do this, but how was she supposed to protest as he kissed his way down her cheek to the side of her neck? It felt so good, his hot mouth on her skin, his tongue lapping at her flesh, and she rolled her head to the side to give him better access. He sucked so hard that she knew she’d have a hickey there tomorrow, and for some reason, the thought of that made her smile and moan.

When he suddenly pressed his hips against her and she felt how hard he was through his jeans, her moan turned into a sharp gasp. And he kept doing that, too, pressing and rubbing himself against her, his denim-clad groin scraping against hers. She could already feel a wetness between her legs, probably dampening her jeans at this point. There was no hiding her desire, and there was definitely no hiding his.

It got to the point where he stopped kissing her and instead just concentrated on grinding the bulge in his pants against her. It turned her on to see him so turned on, and knowing that she was the one responsible for it . . . bonus.

When his hands reached around to cup her ass and pull her hips into his even harder, she thought it was going to happen right here. He was going to fuck her right up against that wall . . . and she was going to let him. When he lifted one of her legs to wrap around his waist, she really thought it was going to happen. But gradually, he stopped grinding against her, and then he even set her leg back down. He looked at their surroundings as if he wasn’t satisfied with something.

“What?” she asked, frowning.

“Not here,” he said, grabbing hold of her hand. “Come on.”

So they went back out to the bar, finished their drinks in record time, and he slapped down enough money to pay for both of them. She barely remembered to grab her jacket—Raven’s jacket, actually—as he scurried her out the door. He was parked around back, which worked out well, because . . . well, it was more private.

Maybe the intention had been to drive her home and do it there, or maybe to take her to his place and just . . . But it didn’t happen. They were too eager, too hungry for it. One second, she was sitting in the passenger’s seat while he pushed the driver’s seat backward a bit. The next . . . well, she was just in his lap, halfway naked, riding him. They’d moved so quickly that she barely even remembered how he’d gotten her pants off, or how he’d gotten his pushed down past his knees and put that condom on. All she knew was that he had done all of those things more swiftly than she’d thought humanly possible, and then he’d pushed her panties aside and held his cock steady while she sank down onto him. There was no time to adjust. He pressed his hips up into her wantonly right from the start, so she started bouncing up and down right away, right there in the front seat of his red pickup truck where anyone who walked by could see.

His cock was, simply put, fucking huge, and the fit was definitely snug; but she didn’t let that deter her from moving at a frantic pace. The position was a great one for her. She could control the angle of his penetration and make it so that all the friction was good friction. She could watch him throw his head back against the seat as he reveled in the feel of it all. She could feel every inch of his hard cock sliding in and out of her, and it all felt so wild and so good.

The windows steamed up quickly, a thin veil to their activities.

Honestly, in that moment, though, she didn’t care if anyone saw them fucking or heard their breathless moans and knew exactly what they were doing. She didn’t even care that she barely knew him and that they were doing this in a parking lot. Why not? They’d met in one today.

“Come on,” he coaxed, reaching down between them to rub her clit. She cried out loudly when he did that, feeling instantly close to cumming. She stopped doing so much bouncing and settled onto him as deeply as she could, taking as much of his cock inside as possible while she ground and circled her hips against his, desperately seeking release.

When he whispered, “Come on, baby,” in that deep voice of his, she lost it. A powerful orgasm tore through her, and she squeezed her eyes shut and dug her hands into his shoulders as she rode it the waves of pleasure out. He kept rubbing her clit, even when her limbs shattered and she practically went boneless against him. Only when she slumped forward did he wrap his arms around her and hold her steady so he could thrust up into her exhausted body a few more times. That was all it took for him to cum, too. With a loud, low grunt, he pressed his face into her shoulder, jerked his hips up into her jarringly a few times, and got off good.

Afterward . . . it was awkward for the first time. Because they weren’t in a bed, so it wasn’t like they could just cuddle and recuperate. So there she sat on top of his lap, his cock still nestled inside of her, still stretching her. She was spent and sweaty and shocked by what she’d just done, and most of all . . . she was trying not to read too much into the way his hands were rubbing up and down her spine soothingly.

Once they untangled themselves from each other and got dressed, he offered to drive her home. She gratefully took him up on that, because she’d probably done a little too much drinking for her to chance it behind the wheel. She had him take her to Raven’s instead, though, because . . . of course she was going to go talk to her best friend after a night like this. He didn’t need to know that, though. He didn’t need to know that she was going to go inside and gush about what an amazing night she’d had and how liberating it had been to go outside of her comfort zone for the first time ever with a guy she was insanely attracted to.

When Bellamy pulled his truck to a stop outside of Raven’s apartment complex, she said, “Thanks for giving me a ride,” and her eyes got wide after the words left her mouth.

He chuckled, amused. “Anytime.”

“A ride home, I meant,” she clarified. “But, I mean . . .” She was glad it was dark and that he couldn’t see her blushing. “The other ride was good, too.”

“Yeah, it was,” he agreed, yawning.

Oh, no, she thought, dejected. He was going to go home and go to sleep, like this was nothing, like he did this all the time. (Maybe he did do this all the time.) Whereas she was going to lie awake in bed tonight, her hand between her legs, thinking of him, of having sex with him, fantasizing about doing it again.

But Bellamy didn’t make any move to get her phone number, didn’t say anything to lead her to believe he wanted to meet up with her again. He just sat there patiently, probably wondering why she was staring at him so curiously, probably wondering why it was taking her so long to get out.

Dammit. The sex had been fun. The hanging out before the sex had been fun, too. She definitely wouldn’t have minded doing it all again. But she’d known heading into this night that this was a possibility, that he was just looking for one night, nothing more. She had to be okay with that.

“Alright,” she said, hand on the door handle. “Well . . .” She gave it a few more seconds, just to see if he might whip out his phone and take her number. But nope. He didn’t. “See you around,” she said unsurely.

He smiled at her. “See ya.”

In what felt entirely anti-climactic despite her earlier climax, she got out of the truck, nearly rolled her ankle when she hopped down onto the sidewalk, and waved goodbye to him as she made her way to the front entrance of Raven’s building. To his credit, he waited there while she punched in the security code she wasn’t supposed to know, and only when she slipped inside did his truck rumble off down the street.

The elevator was broken, so she had to trudge up four flights of stairs to get to Raven’s floor. Her legs felt shaky, her thighs sore, so she’d probably really be feeling it tomorrow. She touched the side of her neck, wondering just how visible that hickey would be in the morning. Because there was bound to be one.

When she let herself into Raven’s apartment, the only light was coming from the TV. Raven had piled a vast array of blankets and pillows on her living room floor and lay there with the remote in her hand, dozing off while the Thelma and Louise DVD menu played on repeat.

Clarke kicked off her shoes, draped Raven’s jacket over the back of the recliner, and lay down beside her friend, carefully taking the remote out of her hand. Raven felt her do that, though, and stirred a bit. “Clarke?” she said sleepily.

“Hey, didn’t mean to wake you,” Clarke said quietly, pressing Play so the film would start again. “I just got back.”

“What time is it?” Raven asked, rubbing her eyes.

Clarke wasn’t even sure, so she just said, “Late.”

Raven yawned, handing Clarke an extra pillow. “Did you have fun?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Clarke replied emphatically, setting the remote aside. “I had a lot of fun.”

“Hmm, how much fun, Clarke?”

“Well, on a scale of one to ten . . .” She trailed off, grinning. No need to say more.

“Oh my god!” Raven sounded wide awake now. Even with barely any light, Clarke could see her eyes go wide when she exclaimed, “You hooked up with him?”

“In his truck,” Clarke admitted. “We did it in his truck.”

“Wow,” Raven laughed. “Clearly I’m a bad influence on you.”

“Clearly.”

“Wow,” Raven said again, sounding somewhat dumbfounded. But also, like oddly proud. “So was his dick big?”

“Raven!” Clarke hissed.

“What?” Raven said innocently. “I’m just curious.”

Clarke supposed there was no harm in gushing, not when there was quite literally so much to gush about. “I didn’t even know how it was gonna fit, Raven.”

“Oh my god!” her friend yelped through laughs. “This is awesome. You are like such a different person right now.”

“I had fun,” Clarke said. “That’s all that matters.”

“Definitely,” Raven agreed. “Are you gonna do it again, with this guy?”

“Bellamy,” Clarke informed her.

“No, I’m still gonna call him Bellagio. So are you guys gonna hook up again or what?”

Clarke sighed, wishing the answer to that was an obvious yes. But it wasn’t. Maybe she’d run into him at Walmart again sometime, or out at some bar or some club. It wasn’t like Arkadia was a huge town, but she definitely wasn’t guaranteed to see him again, either.

“I don’t think so,” she answered finally.

“What? Why not? You really like him.”

“I do,” Clarke admitted, staring at the TV screen while the beginning of this movie she’d seen a dozen times played. “I think it was just a one-time thing for him, though, so that’s fine.”

“I guess,” Raven mumbled disappointedly.

“Oh, but I did get a picture of him.” Clarke ignored the movie and grabbed her phone out of her pocket, quickly navigating to the selfies they’d snapped tonight.

“Damn,” Raven said, swiping through them. There was one where they were just smiling normally, one where they were both making weird/goofy faces, and then, of course, the one where he was kissing her cheek, which was Clarke’s favorite. “Damn,” Raven said, handing the phone back. “Way to go, Clarke. At least you got the one time. Bellagio’s fine as fuck.”

“Bellamy,” Clarke corrected, looking at the picture a little bit longer than she should have, a little bit more wistfully than she should have allowed herself to be. Yeah, Bellamy was cute, and Bellamy was nice, and Bellamy was fun to be around. She really did like Bellamy Blake. But here she was now, just as she’d been when that runaway watermelon of his had hit her in the foot today: alone.

Oh, well, she told herself, setting her phone aside as she clamored under Raven’s mass of blankets, hoping the movie would lull her to sleep. At least looking at that picture of her and Bellamy made her feel slightly less pathetic than looking at those pictures of Finn and Lexa had.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

Bellamy made a mental list of all the things he needed to fix when he walked up to his front door that night. The truck—it still was having problems starting, so obviously something wasn’t right. That broken step on his porch—what he would have given for cement steps instead of these crappy wooden planks. And his screen door was about to fall off its hinges, so he had to do something about that, too. One of these days, he needed to just take a day off to fix shit around his own place instead of fixing stuff for other people.

He had to hold onto his screen door carefully as he stepped inside his house, had to give it a good, solid tug to get it to shut again behind him, too. The whole thing made quite the noise, which startled the two male figures in his kitchen. The lights were off, but he made out Miller right away, pressed up against the counter, making out with some guy Bellamy didn’t recognize.

“Sorry,” he apologized, since it was pretty obvious he was interrupting.

“It’s fine,” Miller assured him, straightening out his clothes. “Bellamy, this is Jackson. Jackson, my roommate Bellamy.”

Bellamy crossed the living room and joined the two men in the kitchen. “Hey,” he greeted, extending his hand.

Jackson shook it politely and said, “Nice to meet you, Bellamy. Nate’s told me a lot about you.”

Bellamy’s eyebrows shot upward, because whenever anyone called Miller by his first name, that meant it was serious. “New boyfriend?” he asked.

Miller grinned sheepishly and confirmed, “New boyfriend.”

“That’s great,” Bellamy said, reaching into the refrigerator for the orange juice. “Well, don’t let me stop you two from . . . doing your thing.”

“Actually, I was just leaving,” Jackson said. He turned to Miller and cupped his face, giving him a quick kiss. “See you tomorrow?”

Miller nodded. “See you then.”

“Bye.” Jackson smiled at Bellamy and said, “Good to meet you,” again as he started to leave.

“Yeah, you, too,” Bellamy called, settling in at his kitchen island. He unscrewed the lid of the orange juice carton and drank straight from it. Why did he always crave orange juice after he got laid? Mystery to him, but it was his thing. Maybe something to do with vitamin C? He’d read an article once about how vitamin C could help increase your sex drive, so it was probably more of a ritual than anything else at this point.

“So . . .” Miller said, smiling hopefully. “What do you think?”

Bellamy shrugged, probably the wrong one to judge whether or not a guy was boyfriend material. “Seems nice.”

“Yeah, he is.” And that was all it took for Miller to launch in and start raving about the guy. He talked a mile a minute, which he never did unless he was really into someone, and told Bellamy all about how smart Jackson was, how he was studying to be a doctor, how he was so easy to talk to and so proud of being a gay man. Bellamy just sat there and listened, happy for his best friend, but also . . . tired as fuck.

Miller probably would have kept on talking had their other roommate, Murphy, not come trudging down the hall, shirtless, hair tousled, hunched over and holding his back as if he were an old man.

“What happened to you?” Miller asked.

“Emori,” he replied. “Sex with Emori. I think I threw my back out.”

Bellamy and Miller both exchanged a look and laughed.

“Shut up,” Murphy hissed, “she’s in there right now.”

“Waiting for more?” Miller teased.

“No, sleeping, but I can’t sleep ‘cause I’m in pain,” Murphy complained. “Real agony here. Bellamy . . .” He shot him a helpless look, like he expected some miracle cure. “Please.”

“Please what?” Bellamy asked.

“Help me. You fix things. Fix me.”

A broken step, broken screen door, and even a broken truck were way easier to fix than a broken back, and Bellamy had absolutely no intention of helping Murphy, only of giving him a hard time. “Okay,” he said, standing up. “Come here.”

Murphy hobbled closer, and when he was close enough, Bellamy bent down and punched him in the side.

“Fuck, Bellamy!” Murphy yelled, wincing. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“Does your side hurt worse than your back now?”

“Yes!”

“Well, there. Problem solved.”

Miller chuckled, stepping around the two of them. “You guys go ahead and beat each other up,” he said. “I’m goin’ to bed.”

“Night,” Bellamy called after him as he headed upstairs.

“Dammit, Bellamy,” Murphy swore, holding his side. “I hate you, you know that?”

“Hate you, too.” Bellamy sat down at the counter again, resuming his orange juice consumption. “So Emori really does this to you, huh?”

“Yeah, she’s a freak.” Murphy grinned fondly. “That’s one of the things I like best about her.”

Bellamy shook his head, amused, only because Murphy having a serious girlfriend would never not be weird to him. But Murphy was happy. And now Miller was looking pretty happy, too. So things were good.

“Did you meet Jackson?” Murphy asked.

Bellamy nodded. “Seems decent.”

“Yeah. I think you’re the only single one now.”

Bellamy shrugged, unbothered by that. “Still get laid, though.”

“Is that what you were doin’ tonight?”

He smirked, unabashedly smug about his ride with sexy little Clarke tonight. “Right in my truck.”

“Wow,” Murphy said. “You’re actually a master. If I didn’t think I’d break my back, I’d bow down.”

“Well, it was either gonna be my truck or the Dropship bathroom.” Clarke had been way too cute to fuck in the Dropship bathroom, so . . . his truck it was.

“So what’s the verdict?” Murphy asked. “One and done? Or something more?”

Bellamy grunted. Did Murphy even have to ask? “It was just sex,” he said, standing up again. He put the lid back on the orange juice and stashed it back in the refrigerator, then added, “You know how it goes.”

“Yeah, I know how it goes,” Murphy muttered.

Feeling tired, Bellamy gave his friend one more halfhearted punch to the gut before he headed for the stairs. “Night.”

“Night,” Murphy echoed.

Yawning, Bellamy trudged up the steps, surprised by how exhausted he was. Yeah, it was late, but he and Clarke had only done it once. Usually it took a couple rounds to tire him out. He had worked all day, though, before heading to Walmart, so that was probably why.

He smirked. Walmart. Good old Walmart. He’d never actually picked up a girl there before, but hey, there was a first time for everything.

When he made it into his room, he felt like he had no energy left in his body, so he flopped down onto his bed heavily, face first. The headboard fell forward a bit, not enough to be dangerous, but enough for him to add it to his ever-expanding mental list of things around that house that needed to be fixed.

Slowly, he turned over onto his back and reached down to cup his dick through his pants. Damn, Clarke had felt good on him tonight. If only he’d been a little more patient; then he could have brought her back here and fooled around with her until morning. Although maybe it was better this way. Clarke seemed like a sweet girl, and he hated seeing sweet girls look sad when they realized he didn’t want anything more with them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In the week following her wam-bam-thank you, ma’am hook-up with Bellamy, Clarke settled back into her normal routines. She went to class, went to work, came home and studied, did some drawing, did some painting, hung out with Raven and continued to be amazed by how resilient her best friend was after a break-up. The only notable change was that, when it was time to go to bed and she was under her covers all alone . . . she masturbated a lot more. Like a lot more.

Six months ago, she hadn’t had any reason to do this, because her sex life with Lexa had been both consistent and consistently satisfying. Since breaking up with her, she’d done it about once a week, twice if she was feeling horny. But after Bellamy, she felt like she had to do it every single night. It was frustrating, not being able to get herself off every time, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get her fingers or her vibrator to feel as good as his cock.

Sex with Bellamy had left her feeling thirsty as fuck, and when she asked Raven what to do about it, Raven’s advice was simple: “Get out there and do it again.”

She lay in bed a week after her encounter with Bellamy, unable to fall asleep, contemplating it. Could she do it again? Physically, sure. Did she want to? That was where the uncertainty came in. Bellamy was . . a one-night stand, technically, and she’d never had a one-night stand before. She wasn’t exactly looking to make a habit out of it, because even though he’d worn a condom, she knew it wasn’t the safest or healthiest sex practice. But it had been fun, and since it was so out of the ordinary for her, it had been exhilarating.

It wasn’t just the sex that had made the night so memorable, though. It was . . . Bellamy. The guy was charming as hell, and she’d had a lot of fun with him. She’d enjoyed hanging out with him and getting to know him, even if all she had done was scratch the surface. Another one-night stand wasn’t guaranteed to be as great, because whoever she hooked up, guy or girl, couldn’t just be good in bed (or in truck, as the case may have been). They had to be . . . likable. Likable and entertaining.

What probably wasn’t helping things was that part of her return to normal routines meant a return to following her exes on social media. Finn kept posting more and more pictures of him, his daughter, and his daughter’s mother. And they were all adorable, of course. And Lexa kept posting more and more pictures of her and Costia, and they were all adorable, too. And Clarke kept willingly subjecting herself to the torture of looking at those photos, reading their happy tweets. It didn’t matter how glad she was for them, deep down, because undeniably, she was still envious. Not exactly envious of their significant others, but envious of what they had: relationships. Real, serious, committed relationships.

She wanted one of those, but all she had were these selfies with Bellamy. Pictures she couldn’t even post, because then all her followers—okay, she only had about a hundred followers, but still—all her followers would ask if he was her new boyfriend. And he wasn’t. He probably hadn’t even thought about her once since he’d dropped her off at Raven’s the other night.

Her vibrator broke on Saturday, which meant that she was really struggling to get through her Sunday study session at Raven’s house. She sat in the cushy recliner, reading but not really reading a passage about Picasso, while Raven and Niylah chatted on the couch. Niylah probably should have been studying, but it wasn’t much of a priority to her, and Raven didn’t need to study, because she was a legitimate genius who could teach all of her grad school professors more than they could teach her. Wells lay sprawled out on the floor, probably the only focused one of the bunch, well-accustomed to tuning three girls out.

When she simply couldn’t even pretend to concentrate anymore, Clarke set her book down and blurted, “Am I girlfriend material?”

Her friends all stopped what they were doing and looked at her curiously. “Huh?” Raven said.

“Am I girlfriend material?” she repeated. “Would I make a good girlfriend?”

“I’ve always thought so,” Niylah said, grinning suggestively. “That’s why I flirt with you so much.”

Clarke blushed, used to Niylah’s flirting. They hadn’t ever done anything beyond kissing, mostly because she didn’t want to jeopardize the friendship. But if she didn’t get some other offers soon, she was giving Niylah a go. “Wells?” she asked. As the only male in their group, his perspective was both unique and important.

“I used to have a crush on you,” he recalled.

“Never mind her,” Raven said to them. “She’s been feeling down in the dumps ever since her one-night stand.”

“Ooh,” Niylah said, leaning forward. “Do tell.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Clarke denied.

“Sure there is,” Raven corrected. “She met him at Walmart. They hooked up at a bar. In his truck, if memory serves.”

“Scandalous,” Niylah teased.

Wells set his textbook aside and sat up, looking similarly intrigued. “That doesn’t sound like you, Clarke.”

“It’s not,” she admitted. “But . . . yeah, I had a good time. I’m not gonna sit here and tell you I didn’t.”

“Now she’s bummed,” Raven summarized, “because she wishes it was something more.”

Clarke huffed exasperatedly. “Well, do you blame me? Here, look at him.” She whipped out her phone, found the pictures of her and Bellamy, and held it out for Niylah and Wells to see. “He’s hot, don’t you think?”

Wells stared at the phone, dumbfounded. “I’m probably the wrong person to ask.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Niylah said.

Clarke rolled her eyes and put her phone away again.

“Hey, if you like the guy, just call him up,” Niylah suggested simply.

“I can’t. I don’t have his number.”

“So go back to the bar and see if you run into him again,” Raven advised. “It’s worth a shot.”

Clarke fell silent, thinking about it. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought about it. Last night, before her vibrator had quit working on her, she’d been squirming underneath the covers, imagining what would happen if she walked in and saw him sitting there. Maybe he’d bring her home this time, or be willing to come back to her place. The truck had been fun, but having a whole bed to fool around in, having the proper space to get completely naked and fully appreciate him . . . it turned her on just thinking about it.

“Maybe I will,” she mumbled, returning her eyes to her book. Who was she supposed to be reading about again? Picasso? Monet? She didn’t care about either one of them right now.

It took five more days for Clarke to work up the courage to take Raven’s advice. Faced with the prospect of a Friday night alone while Raven and Wick bickered about how to divide the furniture in their apartment, Clarke set her new vibrator aside without even trying it out. Instead, she got up, got dressed—t-shirt and jeans, casual was probably still best—and straightened her hair. It’s worth a shot, she kept telling herself as she touched up her makeup. Worst case scenario, Bellamy wasn’t there, and then she either went home alone or possibly met someone else instead.

Dropship was bustling when she got there around 9:00, a lot busier than it had been a couple weeks ago. Judging by the guy wearing a hat with 21 on it, there was a birthday party going on, and that’s where a lot of the noise was coming from. Several tables had been pushed aside to make a larger dance floor, too, and that was filling up, mostly with couples who were clearly using dancing as a form of foreplay.

Clarke strolled in, looking around as casually as she could. There were plenty of guys there—dark-haired guys, hot guys, even, but no Bellamy. Attempting to swallow her disappointment, she sat down atop the only empty stool at the counter, unsure what to do from here. Should she just sit and wait, see if he came in? 9:00 was early for a bar, after all. There was plenty of chance that he’d show. But if he didn’t, then she’d be that poor, pathetic girl sitting by herself the entire night. Which didn’t sound fun.

When the bartender came over to take her order, she said, “Oh, actually I was just looking for someone. He was in here a couple weeks ago. Really good-looking, really deep voice.”

“Bellamy?” the bartender guessed.

“Yes.” Excitement bubbled up inside her. So he was a regular here after all. “Bellamy Blake.”

The guy sitting on the stool next to her snorted out a laugh, and the bartender just motioned to him. “You’re lookin’ for Bellamy, huh?” the guy said.

“Yeah.” She spun to the side, surveying this scrawny person with the sharp bone structure and Metallica t-shirt. “Do you know him?”

“Oh, I’d say so. He’s my roommate.”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “Really?” Small world then, but this was . . . sort of perfect.

“I’m Murphy,” the guy introduced himself as the bartender put a small bowl of nuts and pretzels in front of him.

“Clarke,” she returned.

“Clarke.” He let his eyes roam up and down her, then smirked. “So how do you know Bellamy?”

“Oh, we’re, um . . .” She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t exactly want to tell the truth, either. “Uh, we hung out here not long ago.”

“And now you’re hoping to ‘hang out’ with him again?” Murphy said, using air quotes to indicate that he knew exactly what she and Bellamy had done.

“Maybe.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Murphy said, popping a pretzel into his mouth. “He’s on his way here now.”

Her stomach immediately knotted up, even though this was what she’d wanted. She hadn’t planned this out, though, at least not well. What was she going to say when she saw him? What was she going to do? What if he didn’t even remember her? How mortifying would that be?

She was grateful when a girl with long dark hair came up to Murphy, immediately distracting him and giving her something else to think about, too.

“Hey, baby,” Murphy said, circling an arm around her waist.

“Hey, you.” The girl bent down and kissed him, then looked up at Clarke and smiled. She was gorgeous and exotic, the kind of girl people would normally think was way too pretty for a guy like this. She had a very unique design tattooed on her face, down her nose and across her left cheek. It was a brave choice for permanent body ink, but she pretty much rocked it.

“Who’s this?” the girl asked.

“Oh, this is Clarke,” Murphy replied, pulling his girlfriend down onto his lap. “She’s a friend of Bellamy’s.”

“Oh,” the girl said, nodding slowly. “I see.”

Clarke frowned. What did that mean?

“I’m Emori,” the girl said, stealing her boyfriend’s drink out of his hand.

“Emori,” Clarke echoed. “That’s a pretty name.”

“Thanks.” Emori took a drink, put the bottle back in Murphy’s hand, and became very blunt when she remarked, “So I take it you slept with Bellamy.”

Clarke felt her eyes widen, and she knew she must have turned various shades of red.

“Relax,” Emori said. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”

No, she wasn’t ashamed. She just wasn’t used to this, talking about sex so openly with people she didn’t even know. But then again, maybe that happened as a result of having sex with someone she didn’t even know.

“So how was it?” Emori asked, grinning.

Murphy gave her a sharp look.

“What?” she said innocently. “I’ve always wondered.”

“You have?”

Clarke laughed a little bit, glad that these two could actually make her feel a little less nervous as she waited for Bellamy to show. “It was . . . fun,” she said, figuring that was an accurate yet harmless enough word to describe it.

“That’s it?” Emori made a face, clearly disappointed. “Come on, tell me more.”

Clarke wasn’t about to do that, though, so she said, “Really fun?” hoping that would suffice.

“It’s fine,” Murphy said. “We don’t need details. She’s already satisfied with what she’s got.”

“I am,” Emori said, taking a moment to gaze at her boyfriend affectionately. For as much as she claimed to have wondered about Bellamy, it was clear that she only had eyes for one guy. “Funny story,” she said to Clarke, “when I first met Murphy, it was right here at this bar. I was out with some friends, and he and Bellamy came in. All my girls had eyes for Bell, but I was the only one who noticed this guy here.”

“Thanks,” Murphy deadpanned, “that makes me feel great.”

When she kissed him, though, the love between them . . . it was clear. Everything else was just good-natured teasing. These two . . . they were it for each other, clearly.

And here came that envious feeling again.

“Hey, here he is,” Emori said when she finally stopped kissing her boyfriend and came up for air.

Clarke glanced to the left momentarily, just long enough to see Bellamy walk in the door. He was stopped almost immediately by two guys on their way out. They did that whole bro-handshake thing, said a few words to each other, and then laughed about something boisterously.

Oh god, Clarke thought, looking down at the counter. He was of those guys everyone in the neighborhood knew, wasn’t he? He was like the popular guy in high school, and she was that little artsy wallflower at the dance trying to get noticed.

“Bell-oh-my!” Emori called in a sing-song voice as he waved goodbye to the guys heading out.

“Hey, guys,” he said as he approached them.

“Bell, your friend’s here,” Murphy said, pointing to Clarke.

Heart beating a mile a minute, she peeked up at him quickly, managing a shaky smile.

“Oh, hey,” he said, and a couple seconds later, he added, “Clarke.”

Inwardly, she breathed a sigh of relief. At least he remembered her name. “Hey,” she greeted in return.

“We were just keeping her company,” Emori said.

“Oh, I bet she loved that,” Bellamy said sarcastically.

“Screw you, man,” Murphy said. “We’re very good company.”

“Very good,” Emori agreed emphatically.

“If you say so.” Bellamy squeezed in between the stools, leaning against the counter, standing so close to Clarke, she could smell his musky cologne—or maybe that was just sweat. Whatever it was, he smelled good. He gave a quick signal to the bartender, and the bartender nodded in response, already preparing a drink for him.

“Where you been?” Murphy asked him. “Work run late?”

“Yeah, I had too much shit to do,” Bellamy lamented, taking a seat at the stool next to Clarke’s when the person sitting there got up and left. “Not enough hours in the day.”

Clarke kept her eyes averted, managing to glance out the corner of them to take in his clothes, though. His white t-shirt was dirty, his jeans a bit muddy. His jacket was frayed around the zipper, and his hair honestly looked like he hadn’t combed it since he’d gotten out of bed. Damn, he looked good, though.

“Well, screw work,” Emori said. “It’s the weekend now.”

“Yep,” Bellamy agreed, thanking the bartender when he got his drink. Before taking a sip, he asked Clarke, “You want one?”

She didn’t even know what he was drinking, and her stomach was probably too nervous to even handle a beer. So she said, “I’m good, thanks,” to politely decline.

The four of them sat in somewhat awkward silence for the next couple seconds until Emori got up off her boyfriend’s lap and grabbed his hand. “Let’s dance,” she said.

Groaning, he practically made her pull him to his feet. “I don’t dance.”

“Yes, you do.” She smirked at him lovingly, and he smiled back at her, and all his resistance just melted like ice cream as he let her pull him out into the midst of all the other couples. Clarke watched them for a moment, amused by Murphy’s incredible lack of rhythm, and then she peeked over at Bellamy again. Maybe he’d want to dance, too? Not that that’d be a good thing for her. She had a worse case of two left feet than Murphy did.

“So what’re you doin’ here, Clarke?” he asked as he drank.

“Oh, nothing,” she replied nonchalantly, hoping she actually sounded nonchalant. “I was just in the neighborhood, thought I’d swing by and see if you were here.”

“Well . . . here I am.”

Here you are, she thought, rubbing her legs together discreetly. How was it possible for him to look so good after he’d just gotten off work? At the end of her workdays, she looked like a corpse. He still looked like the hottest guy she’d ever seen.

“So where do you work?” she asked, trying to strike up a conversation that actually had some legs to it.

“Huh?”

“Well, you said you were working late, so . . . where do you work?” She didn’t want to give off stalker-vibes, though, give him the impression she’d be showing up with flowers and chocolate candy on his lunch break, so she added, “I’m just curious.”

“Oh, I don’t really work anywhere,” he replied. “I kind of just fix things and do things for people when they need help.”

“Oh, like a handyman or something?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So you own your own business?”

“Not really.” He took another drink, then spun the stool to face her a bit more. “I kinda just . . . find work, you know? Like today I fixed somebody’s roof and sink. Tomorrow it’ll be somebody’s car or dishwasher.”

“Dishwasher?” she echoed, trying not to get turned on by this whole hot handyman image she was conjuring in her head.

“Yeah, those are complicated, though. You really gotta know what you’re doing there.”

“Well, you sound like you know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, I always know what I’m doing.” He grinned at her mischievously, and she blushed, thinking that . . . he had to be referring to sex, right? Because that sounded sexy.

“Well, I—I have some things in my apartment that aren’t quite working right,” she sputtered, not exactly sure what those things might be. Her microwave, maybe? She couldn’t cook, so she could easily fuck up her microwave. “Maybe sometime you can come fix things for me.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, that grin still stuck on his face. He chuckled lightly, shaking his head before he took another drink. “You’re cute, Clarke.”

“What?” Had she really heard that correctly?

“I said you’re cute,” he repeated. “Actin’ like you just happened to be around here, just happened to come in when you haven’t been here for weeks.”

Shit, he was onto her. She was so not mysterious, and guys liked a little mystery in a girl, so she’d have to deny the hell out of this one. “No, I really did just drive by,” she lied, “and I just thought to myself, ‘Hey, maybe that guy from Walmart’s there tonight.’”

“That guy from Walmart?” He threw his head back, laughing louder. “Did you forget my name again?”

“No . . . Bellamy.”

“Ah, good.”

“I remember your name.” Raven still didn’t, but . . . well, he didn’t need to know she’d talked to her friends about him.

“That was fun the other night, huh?” he said, sounding as casual about it as she wished she could be.

“Yeah, it was really fun,” she agreed. She sensed a segue, a chance to talk about that night a little more in-depth, so she took it, hoping it wouldn’t freak him out too much. “Actually, the whole night was fun, not just . . .” She lowered her voice, even though that bar was way too loud for anyone else to hear and way too wild for anyone else to care. “Not just out in the truck,” she said. “You were fun. Hanging out with you, getting to know you a little bit . . . I really enjoyed it.”

“Well, thanks,” he said, finishing the drink in front of him. “You really don’t do this a lot, do you?”

“Do . . . what?” she asked.

“Hook up with people you barely know.”

She felt her words get trapped in the back of her throat for a moment, and all she could do was laugh nervously. “Well, no,” she admitted, “I don’t make a habit out of it. Do you?”

He shrugged. “I mean . . . I probably do it more than you do.”

“Am I doing it . . . wrong?” Was there some one-night stand etiquette she wasn’t aware of? Was she violating that unspoken etiquette just by sitting here talking to him right now?

“No, you’re fine,” he assured her. When he said that, though, he got up, and for a split-second, she feared he was leaving.

“Wait, Bellamy--” She got up and followed him, stopping abruptly when she noticed that he was just grabbing a menu off of one of the tables. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Feeling like an idiot, like she had no game whatsoever, she cringed. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’ll just go. You’re here with your friends. You don’t need me bothering you.” She turned to leave, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.

“You’re not bothering me,” he said, his voice low and seductive. Well, it was always low and seductive, but . . . especially now.

That look in his eyes, the constantly flirtatious one . . . it made her heart feel like it skipped a beat. But what if he wasn’t flirting? What if this was just the way he looked at every girl, talked to every girl? The obvious insinuation he’d made was that he’d had way more than just one one-night stand in his life. He was probably far more experienced and far more sexually adventurous than she was, and she was probably out of her league here. Whatever spurt of confidence she’d felt in that Walmart parking lot was gone, and she was so unsure of herself now.

“We had fun the other night,” he recapped, pulling her a bit closer, “together.”

“Yeah.” At least they agreed on that.

What he said next shocked the hell out of her: “You wanna do it again?”

What? she thought, trying to process the question. Wait, what? First he was calling her cute, and now he was . . . what was happening?

“Sure,” she said, answering with her gut instead of overthinking it. Shutting her mind off had worked well last time. Why not try it again? If he was offering, she wasn’t about to turn him down, not when she’d broken her whole damn vibrator trying to replicate the feel of him.

“Alright,” he said, setting the menu back down on the table. “Let’s go then.”

Go? she thought. Go where? She didn’t ask the questions out loud, just tried to stay relaxed and not be a spaz when he put his hand on her back and ushered her towards the door.

“Murphy!” he called to his friend.

Murphy’s eyes were transfixed on his girlfriend’s gyrating body out on that makeshift dance floor, so he didn’t even look up as he gave Bellamy a wave goodbye.

“Come on,” Bellamy said, one arm around Clarke as he led her outside.

They got into his truck, which was weird since she couldn’t stop thinking about having sex with him there, and he didn’t tell her he was taking her to his place, but she pretty much assumed that was where he was taking her. When he turned on the radio, she felt relieved, because having some guitar rifts flow through the vehicle meant that she didn’t have to say much to fill the silence.

Talking to Bellamy hadn’t been hard the first time, maybe because she’d had a couple of drinks in her then. But what was she supposed to say right now when he was clearly just driving her back to his place so he could fuck her again? Can’t wait? I’m looking forward to it? Can you be on top this time? As exciting as the whole thing was to her, it was awkward as hell, too.

Her heart was pounding with anticipation by the time they arrived at his house. With no driveway, he had to park out on the street.

“So this is your place?” she said as she got out of the truck. It was a white two-story house, not a shack by any means, but nothing fancy, either. The front yard was small, as was the backyard, which was separated by a chain link fence from its neighbors.

“Yep.”

She tried not to be too judgmental of the neighborhood as they walked from the truck to the front door, but truthfully, it was the kind of neighborhood her mom had forbade her to ever go play in when she’d been a kid. She could hear dogs barking nearby, music pulsating a few houses down the street, and various other loud noises, like adults yelling and babies crying. Bellamy’s house was quiet, though, and dark inside.

“So does Emori live here with you and Murphy?” she asked as he pulled open a rickety screen door.

“No, but she’s here a lot.” He shoved his key into the lock and pushed open the front door. “We have another roommate, but he’s probably out.” He stepped inside, motioning with his head for her to follow him.

The first thing Clarke thought was that it smelled nice in there, which was weird since three guys lived there. The second thing was that . . . it really wasn’t bad at all. The living room was actually kind of spacious, and she knew her stepdad would appreciate the Washington Redskins blanket draped over the back of the couch. There were video game controllers on the coffee table, which made her suspect Playstation or Xbox or whatever was a big pastime for Bellamy and his friends. And the whole living room space kind of blended into the kitchen, which looked to have some out of date appliances, but it was a fully-sized kitchen nonetheless.

“This is nice,” Clarke remarked.

“It’s old,” Bellamy said with a shrug, kicking his shoes off. “Here, watch out.” He reached behind her, grabbed hold of the screen door, and gave it a hard tug to get it shut. “Gotta fix that,” he muttered.

She toed off her shoes and set her purse down next to them, not sure how this was supposed to work. Did he show her around his house now, did they grab a snack so they could fuel up for the night, or did they just head into his bedroom and start fucking?

“You good?” he asked, leading her to believe her nervousness was written all over her face.

“I’m good,” she assured him.

Taking off his jacket, he murmured, “You let me know if you’re not good,” and stepped around her so he could hang it up on a haphazardly assembled coat rack. When he turned to face her again . . . he had that whole smoldering look in his eyes again, the same kind of look he’d had when she’d stepped out of the Dropship bathroom and seen him standing there. He moved in closer to her, eyes roaming all over her body, but when his face was mere inches from her own, his eyes just locked onto hers. He smiled encouragingly, cupped her face with one hand, and kissed her.

From the moment their mouths met, everything changed. It was as if, in an instant, her nerves just vanished, and she started to melt against him. Her hands splayed against his chest, and his rubbed the small of her back and the back of her neck. As awkward as she’d felt on the drive over there, there was no awkwardness in this kiss.

It didn’t take long for the kiss to deepen, for their tongues to start swirling around each other, for her hands to start pulling at the collar of his t-shirt, needing to feel his skin. Almost like he was reading her mind, he tore his mouth away from hers just long enough to lean back and lift his shirt over his head, dropping it onto the floor. She raked her fingers up and down his chest appreciatively as he resumed kissing her, because she’d missed out on this last time. Ridding themselves of all their clothing had been neither a priority nor a possibility in his truck. So seeing and feeling his sculpted chest for the first time . . . it turned her on so much.

He was able to keep kissing her while his hands worked furiously on his jeans, unfastening them as quickly as possible. With an almost animalistic groan, he shoved his pants down past his knees, pretty much around his ankles, and then hoisted her up in his arms before she could even process what was happening. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders, holding on tightly as he carried her towards the stairs. It wasn’t graceful—didn’t need to be—as he waddled up to the second floor, step by step with his pants around his ankles. He navigated the stairs without even looking, because he kept kissing her the entire time.

She took her shirt off when they got up to the second floor, dropping it near some bookshelves as he shuffled them past another couch and an old piano. She quickly took off her bra and flung it aside right before they crashed into a bedroom that had to be his. She didn’t even really get to look at the room, nor did she care to, before he dropped her down on his bed and fell on top of her.

His bare chest felt so good pressed against hers, and she arched her back up into him to feel as much of him as she could. He gave her breasts a few good squeezes, which almost instantly caused her nipples to harden, but he clearly had other things on his mind as he frantically kicked off his jeans and sent them flying to the floor with a flick of his ankles. He sat up a moment later, on his knees, giving her full view of the straining erection beneath his tight, black boxer briefs.

“You want it?” he asked, rubbing himself through his underwear.

She slithered up on the bed, whispering, “Yeah,” as her head hit the pillow.

“Yeah?” He didn’t hesitate to pull his underwear down over his hips, then sat down so he could get them off altogether. He threw them down atop his jeans and got up onto his knees again, and that was when her eyes bulged.

It’s so big, she thought, trying not to stare too much. She’d known it was big, of course, and hell, she’d already taken it once before, but she hadn’t really been able to see it then. Seeing it right now, hard and jutting out from his groin, already glistening on the tip with pre-cum . . . it terrified her and thrilled her all at once.

Getting naked happened quickly for her. One second, she was just topless, and then the next second, it seemed, his agile fingers had her jeans unbuttoned and unzipped. She lifted her hips to help him remove first her pants, then her underwear. She’d worn a lacy black thong, not that it mattered, because he hadn’t left it on her long enough to appreciate it. But the way he licked his lips when he looked down at her naked body let her know that he was definitely appreciative of other things.

Prior experience led her to expect that he would just put a condom on and start doing her, but Bellamy surprised her when he pushed outward on her knees, spreading her legs open, all with a mischievous grin on his face. She didn’t even realize how much she wanted to feel his mouth on her until she did, until he’d moved down to the bottom of the bed and bent forward to press a series of hot, wet, sucking kisses to her core. She started to shake and quiver right away, and when she felt his tongue slide up and down her folds, she inhaled sharply.

Oh god, she thought, eyes fluttering shut despite how much she wanted to watch him. Oh, god. She opened them again, truly mesmerized by the sight of his face between her legs, his talented tongue flicking and licking at the most intimate part of her body. Having dated a girl, she obviously had plenty of experience with oral sex, and she loved it. It was the easiest way for her to get off. But doing this with a guy was different, because the only other guy she’d been with was Finn; and on the rare occasions when he had done this for her, he’d treated it like a chore. Never had he gone down on her so eagerly.

Bellamy acted as though it were a privilege, though. He basically made out with her pussy, kissing and sucking and licking at her there just as he did her mouth. He ate her out so good, her hips started to buck up off the mattress on their own accord, desperately seeking out the heat and friction of his mouth. He put one hand on her hip to hold her down, hold her steady, and continued to just absolutely devour her, making her feel like she was about to fly apart into a million tiny pieces.

“Oh . . .” she whimpered shudderingly, digging her head back into the pillow. He had her so close to cumming, but she was self-conscious to do so. She barely knew the guy. What if he didn’t want her cumming all over his face?

He didn’t let up, though, didn’t slow down. In fact, he only ratcheted things up a notch when he found her clit and purposefully directed all her attention there. He nipped and sucked on the tiny cluster of nerves there, teasing it deliberately with flicks from his tongue, and all that attention made the orgasm swirl in her stomach. Before she knew it, she felt it rising up within her, building to its peak, and then suddenly . . . it just happened. It was like an explosion, like a tidal wave crashing into the shore. She came, and she came hard, all over Bellamy’s face. He licked and lapped at her greedily, never once tearing his mouth away, as if he didn’t want to spill a drop. As she gradually came down from it, she saw him grinding his own hips against the mattress. Which was probably the hottest thing she’d ever seen in her life.

“Oh my god,” she gasped, completely euphoric in that moment. That had to be one of the best orgasms she’d ever had, in no small part due to how damn good he was with his tongue. Hands-free orgasms weren’t the easiest thing to get out of a girl, but one of his hands was still on her hips. The other had never left her inner thigh.

Still dazed after cumming, she was barely aware of what was happening as he crawled up the bed and opened his end table drawer. She heard him tear open a small foil package, but he kept his back to her as he rolled the condom on. When he was done, he turned around again, got on top of her, and kissed her passionately. She could taste herself on his lips, which was . . . surreal and intoxicating.

There was no slowing down, though, not with Bellamy, not tonight. He grabbed her hips and flipped her over onto her stomach in one swift motion. She moaned, automatically lifting her backside up off the bed so that he had better access. Pressing her cheek to the pillow, she lay there, limbs still shaky with pleasure, and waited for his cock. The mattress squeaked beneath him as he shifted his weight, positioning himself behind her. When she felt the head of his cock tease her entrance, her whole body jerked forward a bit, but he put one hand on her waist to pull her back into him again. He rubbed his cock up and down her entrance a few times before pushing it inside.

“Oh . . .” she moaned, reveling in the feeling. Thank God she’d already cum once and had plenty of natural lubrication working in her favor, because his cock was huge, and it made her feel so . . . so full. It wasn’t a bad feeling, though, at all. It was different than Finn, and a lot different than Lexa’s strapon, but it was a good kind of different.

It was Bellamy.

He started thrusting right away, and they weren’t slow, shallow thrusts, either. They were long, hard, powerful thrusts, the kind that made her whole body rock back and forth, the kind that made the headboard of his bed hit the wall. His hands gripped her hips tightly while his skin slapped against hers, and that sound alone was enough to make Clarke feel like she was going to cum again. His determined grunts were a serious turn-on, and even though he never quite moaned the way she did, he tended to make these low, guttural groans that more than clearly indicated his pleasure.

He fucked her, just straight-up fucked her from behind, harder than she could recall ever being fucked before. And she loved it; she loved every second of it. She’d never felt more wanted, more desired, than she did right now by Bellamy Blake. The way his hands gripped her, the way his cock slid in and out of her . . . god, it made her feel so wild, so out of control, so fucking sexy.

He got his hands in on the action this time, reaching around to rub her clit. It didn’t take long, and she probably would have gotten off without that extra stimulation, but his touch assured it happened quickly. She came again, even more easily this time since she was still riding the high of her previous orgasm. Her body weakened and started to flatten out as he pounded a few final thrusts into her, and soon, with a loud, long groan, his hips stilled, pressed in hard against her, and he came, too.

Unable to move, barely able to breathe, she lay in a boneless heap as his body settled heavily on top of hers. His cock was still nestled inside of her, and as irrational as it was, she really wished he wasn’t wearing a condom so she could really feel him.

“Fuck,” Bellamy choked out, gasping for air. His breath tickled her hot skin and rustled her sweat-soaked hair.

She laughed dazedly, hoping he had more in him tonight. Because she wanted to do that again.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3

Waking up was always a challenge for Clarke. Once she was up, she was a productive person, but the struggle of getting out of bed in the first place was very, very real.

Waking up in Bellamy’s bed was . . . interesting. It only took her a second and a few rapid blinks of her eyes to clear her head out of its sleepy haze and remember where she was. But it had just been so long since she’d woken up in anyone’s bed other than her own—Raven’s didn’t count—that she had to just lie there a bit, taking it all in.

Bellamy wasn’t asleep beside her, not that she’d expected him to be. But he had fallen asleep with her, she was pretty certain. Not cuddled up with her or anything, but next to her, sweaty hair completely plastered to his forehead. He’d fucked her three times before succumbing to exhaustion, and even though she’d contemplated calling a cab or seeing if Raven could come pick her up, she’d decided it was fine to just crash there for the night. If he wasn’t kicking her out of bed, why leave?

She sat up slowly, holding the covers to her chest, getting her first real look at this room. It’d been too dark in there—and they’d been too preoccupied—for her to see much of anything last night. But now that the sun was peeking in through the gap in his curtains and she didn’t have him to distract her, she was able to see it more fully. For a bedroom, it was pretty big, probably the master. And even though there were a few items of clothing on the floor, it was actually pretty clean. The bed itself they’d fooled around in was quite nice, probably a queen-sized, with four different pillows strewn about up at the top. The headboard was looking a little iffy, and she wasn’t sure if it’d been like that before or ended up like that because of them. The sheets were simple and probably filthy right about now, but . . . it was comfortable.

Glancing over at his nightstand table, a big red 10:06 greeted her on the alarm clock, meaning she’d definitely slept in. Beside that clock was a picture that caught her attention, a picture of Bellamy with a beautiful, thin, dark-haired girl. She picked up the frame and took a closer look at it, smiling because she assumed the girl was his sister. They were both wearing white t-shirts that said Blake on the chest, and both white t-shirts were covered in paint splatters, like they’d just gone and played paintball before it was taken. His sister had on dark sunglasses and posted with attitude, pouting exaggeratedly, and making a sideways peace sign with her right hand. Bellamy kind of looked like a big dork compared to her, wearing big, round glasses and a goofy smile.

Clarke set the picture back down and decided to get up, because she had to be at work in two hours and definitely had to get home and take a shower before then. As she scooted towards the side of the bed, she winced, feeling a dull ache between her legs. Damn, he’d really done her hard last night. Not that she was complaining. She’d loved every second of it.

Wrapping the sheet around her naked body, she padded towards the window, pulling one of the long curtains back so she could look outside. There were some kids running around and playing across the street, and a young guy walking a huge Sandlot-type dog down the sidewalk. Bellamy’s truck wasn’t parked out front anymore, which she took as an indication that he was gone.

Damn, she thought, disappointed as she closed the curtain.

Next to the window was an old, possibly antique blue chair, where she noticed he’d folded and piled all of her clothes for her. Thank God. The idea of walking through the house and picking them up like pieces of a puzzle had been mortifying. Her purse was sitting there, too, and on top of it was a yellow post-it note with his name and phone number. She smiled excitedly, because that had to be a good sign. He wanted to see her again.

Even though she probably should have just gotten dressed and been on her way, Clarke was nosy as fuck. She walked over to his dresser, once again scoping out the framed pictures set up there. His sister was in a few more of them, along with another dark-haired woman who Clarke assumed to be his mom. There was a picture of Bellamy and his sister in front of a Christmas tree back when they’d just been kids, a picture of Bellamy and his mom standing by a Berlin Wall exhibit at some museum; and in between those photos was a picture of the three of them at Bellamy’s high school graduation, standing together outside a building that had East Arkadia High School painted in faded letters above its entrance. Bellamy looked ridiculous and so different in his blue cap and gown, but when Clarke squinted to get a closer look, she spotted something else in that picture, too: There was a gold stole around Bellamy’s neck, the thing that valedictorians and salutatorians wore. Clarke knew exactly what that was since she’d graduated third in her class and just barely missed out on wearing one herself.

Smart and sexy, she thought as she pulled open the top dresser drawer and snooped around. Rare combo. She didn’t disturb the contents of his drawer too much, and there didn’t seem to be much more in there than a vast collection of t-shirts. When she looked over her shoulder at his closet, though, the door was opened enough for her see that he had plenty of nicer shirts, too, and nicer pants, even a couple suits shoved in the back, it seemed.

She shut his drawer again and shuffled towards what she assumed was a bathroom. She twisted the knob carefully, hoping it didn’t lead her to Murphy’s room, and when she stepped on a cool tile, she knew her first assumption was correct. She flipped the light switch, and a bright overhead light flickered on, revealing a modest, but once again fairly clean, bathroom to her eyes. There was a tub that doubled as a shower, and she immediately wondered if he’d gotten in there and washed off this morning. If he had, she really regretted sleeping through that.

When she caught sight of her own reflection in the bathroom mirror, she was horrified. She clutched at her hair in distress and whimpered dramatically. Was this what Bellamy had seen when he’d woken up this morning, her looking like a cat had just died on her head?

After desperately raking her fingers through her unruly mane and making it at least presentable, she used her finger to brush her teeth and thankfully found some mouthwash in one of the bathroom cabinets. She browsed a couple pages of the Playboy magazine sitting next to his toilet while she did her morning business, then contemplated squeezing in a quick shower before leaving. But that just seemed weird to do without him actually being there, so she put on a bit of his deodorant, not caring if she smelled like a dude, used her hands to comb out her hair one more time, and then went back into the bedroom to get dressed.

Once clothed, she pocketed his phone number, slipped on her shoes, grabbed her purse, and headed out without fixing up his bed. Because really, she wasn’t some hotel maid, and the bed hadn’t been made last night anyway, so maybe he was the type of guy who left his bed unmade. Halfway to the stairs, though, she remembered that she hadn’t left her number for him, so she scurried back to his room, rummaged around his nightstand drawer, and managed to find a Sharpie. She couldn’t find anything to write on, though, so she ended up picking one of last night’s silver condom wrappers up off the floor. She smoothed it out and scribbled her phone number on it, hoping he’d be able to read it and would notice it if she left it right next to his alarm clock. Then she left.

The goal, of course, had been to slip out without being noticed, get outside and figure out the address of this place so Raven or Niylah or Wells could come get her. But she heard noises coming from the kitchen as she was creeping down the stairs and knew that wouldn’t be possible.

It wasn’t Murphy scrambling eggs atop the stove. It was a different guy, African American, built like a wrestler, pretty awesome beard. He glanced up when she stepped onto the bottom stair with a creak and said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said, assuming this was the third roommate Bellamy had mentioned. It would’ve been nice if he’d been there to introduce them.

“I’m Miller,” he said, turning the heat on the stovetop burner down.

“Clarke,” she said, taking a few hesitant steps forward.

Nothing about him was hesitant, though. He strode towards her with his hand outstretched and said, “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you, too.” God, it would have been nice to be so effortlessly friendly and at ease around strangers. The good thing about this guy, though, was that he didn’t seem like he was judging her for this very obvious walk of shame. Which perhaps prevented it from being a walk of shame at all.

“Hey, uh, Bellamy had to leave early this morning,” Miller explained. “Someone called him up for work, so . . .”

“Oh, yeah, that’s fine.” Somewhere in that neighborhood was probably a broken dishwasher, and Bellamy, with his talented hands—oh so talented hands—was probably fixing it.

“I can give you a ride home, though,” Miller offered, using a spatula to push his eggs around in the frying pan.

“Oh, you don’t have to. I can have someone pick me up.”

“It’s not a problem,” Miller said, turning off the heat on his breakfast altogether. “I got the whole day open.”

“Are you sure?” She didn’t want to inconvenience him, but if he was willing . . .

He grabbed his keys off the end table next to the couch and said, “Yeah, let’s go.” He walked out the door, motioning with his head for her to follow.

Sensing that Bellamy’s friend was perfectly trustworthy, Clarke got into his car with him and told him her address. He just nodded as though he knew exactly where it was, and indeed, as he started zipping down the streets, she got the feeling he knew this town like the back of his hand. His vehicle rumbled worse than Bellamy’s, and it was a bumpy ride; but even though she lived across town, he’d probably get her there in record time.

“So are you the Walmart girl?” he asked as he slowed to a stop at a red light.

Her heart fluttered a bit, just because that meant Bellamy had mentioned her. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

Miller smirked. “Cool.”

“And you’re . . . Bellamy’s friend, I take it, if you live with him.”

“Best friend,” he corrected. “You met Murphy?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Well, don’t let him tell you Bellamy likes him better, ‘cause he doesn’t. Bellamy and I have been best friends since high school.”

“Oh, really?” She supposed he’d know if Bellamy had been the valedictorian or salutatorian then, but that kind of seemed like a weird question to ask.

“Yeah, I moved to Arkadia as a freshman,” Miller explained, “‘cause they had a good wrestling program. So that’s how I met Bellamy. We were on Varsity together all four years.”

“Ah.” So Bellamy had wrestled. Great. Now all she could do was picture that amazing body of his in a skin-tight singlet, rolling around on a mat with another man.

The light turned green, and Miller honked impatiently when the vehicle in front of them remained stationary. It leapt forward then, and he pressed down hard on the gas, doing the same. “Bellamy’s actually one of the first people I came out to, a couple years ago,” Miller revealed.

“Oh, really?” As awful as it was to have judged a book by its cover, she never would have pegged him as gay.

“Yeah, but he already knew. I guess everyone already knew. There were all these rumors goin’ on about me in high school, and it got really bad, you know? Guys wouldn’t share a locker room with me, wouldn’t even wrestle with me during practice. But Bellamy didn’t give a fuck. He just kept bein’ my friend, and then when I finally did tell him I was gay, he was just like, ‘Yeah, what else is new?’”

She laughed, knowing how important it was to have that kind of person in your life. Raven had been that friend for her, back when she’d had the courage to come out about her own orientation. “I’m bisexual,” she told Miller.

“Awesome.”

“Yeah, I haven’t really told Bellamy yet. But it sounds like he’d be cool with it?”

“Oh, yeah, he won’t care,” Miller said, barely applying the break as he whipped the car around the corner at the next big intersection. “He’s a guy, so he’ll probably think it’s hot.”

She really wanted to hear more Bellamy stories, but there wasn’t enough time as he zig-zagged down a couple backroads, pulling up in front of her apartment before she had the chance to ask just how big of a history nerd Bellamy really was—underneath that Playboy magazine had been a World War II book, and hanging on the wall of his bathroom was a newspaper report about the Kennedy assassination.

She thanked Miller for driving her, and he reiterated that it was no problem. Then he said, “Hopefully I’ll see you again,” as she got out of the car.

“Yeah,” she said, shutting the door and waving goodbye. He waved back and drove off down the street.

She frowned when he was gone, not liking the sound of his last words to her. Hopefully he’d see her again? Was that not likely? She’d assumed that, with Bellamy leaving her his number, maybe it was likely she’d be back. But then again . . . maybe it was just wishful thinking. Sure, she’d managed to transform her one-night stand into a two-night one, but . . . what if that was all it would be?

Don’t worry about it, she told herself, turning to head into her apartment. She had other things to think about today, things that weren’t spontaneous and sexy and ridiculously skilled in bed. Routine things, normal things. Work. Studying. The usual.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy got done fixing Diana Sydney’s dishwasher at 3:00 in the afternoon. That woman was a real bitch, and he hated her with every fiber of his being. But she had plenty of money in her bank account ever since her divorce, so in that respect, she was his favorite customer. She paid him double what anyone else would have, and the tip she gave him was insanely generous, probably because she had a cougar crush on him. He used that to his advantage, going shirtless whenever he worked on anything for her. The more he went shirtless, the more she paid up.

He flopped down on the living room couch next to Miller when he got home, back hurting. Maybe part of that was because he’d spent hours today hunched over a dishwasher. Maybe part of it was because of what he’d done last night.

Miller was absorbed in a game of Grand Theft Auto and didn’t even glance up from the TV screen. “Wanna play?” he asked, thumbs moving quickly and expertly on the controller.

“Nah, I’m good,” Bellamy said, yawning.

“Hey, I met Clarke today.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, I drove her home. She seems nice.”

“Yeah, she is.” He shut his eyes for a moment, feeling like he could just fall asleep right there.

“Guess where she lives, bro.”

Bellamy opened his eyes again, trying to remember the apartment complex he’d dropped her off at after their . . . truck ride. “I don’t remember.”

“Polaris.”

“Polaris?”

Miller nodded emphatically.

“Really?” He scratched his head, confused. He was pretty sure that wasn’t where he’d driven her. He would have remembered dropping a girl off at that fancy of an apartment complex.

“Didn’t we used to call that place ‘the palace?’” Miller recalled.

“Yeah, we did.”

“Well . . .” Miller shrugged. “Looks like you scored yourself a princess.”

Bellamy chuckled, a little bit mind-blown by that. Girls from Polaris didn’t know guys like him. What the heck had a girl from Polaris been doing at Walmart in the first place? Clarke was a mystery, it seemed.

“Hey, did O stop by?” he asked his friend, changing the conversation abruptly.

“No.” Miller swore under his breath when the game froze up suddenly. When he whacked the side of the controller, somehow that started it going again.

“Probably holed up with Lincoln, if they’re even back from Mexico yet,” Bellamy muttered, none too happy about that possibility. He used to see Octavia all the time, every day, almost, but ever since she’d gotten this damn boyfriend of hers, their sibling time was increasingly limited. When Octavia wasn’t gallivanting off to Mexico with the guy, she was . . . doing things with him behind closed doors Bellamy preferred not to think about.

“I’m sure she’ll come by soon,” Miller said.

“Yeah.” If not, he’d swing by the campus rec center and sit in on one of those martial arts classes she taught. She’d hate that. “Alright, well, I’m gonna go crash for a little while,” he announced, standing up and stretching. “I’ll come kick your ass at this later, though.”

“In your dreams,” Miller said, right as his character finally died. “Dammit.”

When Bellamy walked into his room, the first thing he did was make a detour for the bathroom and grab some room spray. Because it still kind of smelled like sex in there. He sprayed a generous amount, then took the wad of money from Diana Sydney out of his pocket and slapped it down on top of his dresser. That’d pay for this month’s electricity, his phone bill, and Octavia’s birthday present.

Exhausted, he lay down, still fully clothed, thinking he could squeeze in a few good hours of rest before his neighbors stopped by for the evening. It didn’t even matter that they didn’t have plans. Jasper and Monty almost always came over on Saturday nights, and usually they brought their girlfriends with them, so it was a full house.

Something on his nightstand caught his eye as he was about to drift off, though. What the hell was a condom wrapper doing up there? He reached over and picked it up, perplexed to see numbers written on it. But when he realized it was a phone number, that made more sense.

You frisky princess, he thought, staring at the number a little longer than necessary. She wanted more.

He flicked the condom wrapper back onto the table, not about to throw it away. Hell, no. Clarke was a pretty girl, and even though he’d really put it to her good last night, she’d kept up, handled it better than he’d thought she would. She’d surprised him, honestly, with her tenacity, and if she wanted another go-round . . . well, maybe he’d call her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Clarke stuck the post-it note with Bellamy’s phone number onto her bathroom mirror and looked at it every morning when she brushed her teeth and every night before she went to bed. She wanted to call him, really, but she was nervous to do so. What if that came across as too clingy, too desperate? She’d already been blatantly obvious when she’d ‘just happened to drive by’ Dropship the other night. Maybe it was best to let him make a move this time.

She waited for four days, not even bothering with her brand new vibrator during that time because she knew it would be unsatisfying. Each time her phone rang, she got her hopes up, thinking it might be him. She’d already programmed his number into her phone so that she’d see his name on the screen if he called. But he never did, and she was starting to think he never would.

On Tuesday, Wells aced a particularly difficult political science test, so he suggested a night out on the town to celebrate. Clarke didn’t feel especially energetic, but Niylah was always down for clubbing, and Raven proudly proclaimed that she was ready to “get her flirt on” with some new guys. So they got dressed up and headed out to Mount Weather, which was one of only two clubs in all of Arkadia. The other, TonDC, was way grungier, and they hardly ever hung out there. Mount Weather had two floors, a VIP lounge area they sometimes managed to squeeze into by accident, mixologists instead of regular bartenders, and an in-house fog machine that occasionally hazed up the dance floor.

Clarke didn’t really mind clubbing, but it definitely wasn’t her favorite thing to do. Usually she found a booth, table, couch, whatever and sat there sipping on a martini while her friends hit the dance floor. On the rare occasions that she drank too much, she’d get out there and join them, but there had to be enough alcohol in her system to get all her inhibitions to come down for that. Raven and Niylah didn’t have that same problem. They were both naturally good dancers, and whether it was a pulsating techno beat or a hard hitting rap one, they were able to find their rhythm right away. It wasn’t uncommon for guys to forget about their girlfriends and start watching Raven dance, which seemed to be happening tonight. Without Wick there to lay claim to her, Raven was a totally free-spirited girl. She danced with all sorts of boys, never really letting them get so close that they were grinding, but allowing them close enough to get them worked up. Niylah did the same thing with the girls. If they weren’t bi before, they certainly were questioning it when she started making out with them right out there on the dance floor. And Wells . . . well, poor Wells didn’t have as much luck as the girls did, but he was usually charming enough to find some nice girl to chat up, and sometimes those girls would recognize him the next time they were there. Eventually, it was going to get to the point where he took one of those girls home and finally lost his virginity, but for now, he was still too chaste for that.

Despite sitting by herself for the majority of the evening, Clarke was still having a decent time. It was fun to watch her friends have fun, particularly Raven, who was always most lively when she was a single woman. Clarke didn’t even really allow herself to feel lonely until a couple sat down on the couch across from her, both of them clearly intoxicated and very into each other. The girl’s dress was so short, her ass was practically hanging out, and her boyfriend didn’t hesitate to rub his hands all over it. She practically straddled him, and the two of them made out like they were the only two in the club, like no one else was there.

Seeing them made Clarke think about Bellamy, made him wish that he was there with her. Not that they needed to make out like that in front of everyone. No, that much PDA was a little too much PDA. But it would have been nice just to have someone there, to have someone to talk to and maybe get out on the dance floor with. If he gave her that grin, the one that she swore should be illegal, he’d have been able to convince her to get out there and dance.

Something told her to reach into her purse in that moment and pull out her phone, and when she did . . . it was like fate. There, right in front of her on that screen was a new text message. From Bellamy.

No way, she thought, clicking on it. It was very short, very blunt, very to the point: Want to come suck my dick?

It was such an obscene question that she surely blushed. Even though no one was looking, she tried to hide her phone from prying eyes and texted back, Maybe. Because yeah, maybe she did.

She set her phone face down in her lap, looking around the club, trying to locate her friends again. Niylah was nowhere to be seen, which usually meant she’d found someone to hook up with. Wells was up at the bar with some adorable girl in a short skirt, saying something that made her laugh. And Raven was in the middle of a circle of boys, arms in the air, tossing her hair about and yelling, “Woo!” as she shook her hips in time with the song.

They don’t need me here, Clarke thought. She wasn’t adding anything spectacular to their night. They were having fun without her, and Bellamy . . . well, Bellamy wanted to have some fun with her.

Her phone vibrated a minute later when he texted her back. Come on over, it read invitingly.

Her stomach clenched with nervous anticipation. Oh god, what if she wasn’t as good at giving him head as he was at eating her out? Clearly Bellamy had ten times the sexual experience she had. What if she couldn’t give him exactly what he wanted and ended up being a letdown, a disappointment?

Well aware that she was psyching herself out and over-analyzing again, she quickly texted back on my way before she could change her mind.

She finished her martini and grabbed her clutch, slinking past people to the center of the dance floor. “Raven!” she called.

At first, her friend didn’t hear her.

“Raven!” she called again.

Raven stopped dancing and said, “Clarke, come dance!”

“No, I’m leaving!” Clarke tried to tell her.

“What?” Raven squeezed past the men around her so she could hear Clarke better. “What’d you say?”

“I’m leaving,” Clarke repeated. “I’m not really feeling that well.”

“Oh, no.” Raven frowned. “Well, I’ll go with you.”

“No, you should stay,” Clarke told her. “You’re having fun.”

“No, Clarke, I don’t have to stay.”

“I just have a little headache anyway. It’s not that bad.”

“Are you sure?” Raven asked, ever the best best friend in the world.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just stay and do your thing.”

“Are you good to drive?” Raven made sure to question.

“Yeah, I only had, like, one drink.”

Raven sighed, reluctantly agreeing to it. “Okay. Just call me if you need anything, alright? I’ll be right over.”

“Okay.” Clarke gave her best friend a quick hug and said, “Bye.”

“Bye.”

On the drive over to Bellamy’s—in which she took several wrong turns because she couldn’t exactly remember where it was; Miller had driven her home at light speed after all—she wondered why she hadn’t told Raven about her second night with Bellamy yet. Raven wouldn’t judge her behavior at all; hell, she’d probably encourage it. But if she told Raven that she and Bellamy had hooked up again and that she was on her way over there now, then Raven would assume they were starting up a relationship. She’d start referring to Bellamy as her boyfriend. She’d want Clarke to invite him over for dinner. And Bellamy might not agree to all that.

But . . . he might, if she mentioned it.

It took her a little longer than she would have liked to get to Bellamy’s house, and she found it more by accident than anything else. Finally, though, she got there, and when she walked in the door, he already had his pants undone and was waiting for her.

He sat leisurely on the couch, legs spread while she knelt in between them, bobbing her head up and down his cock. She held her hand around the base, gripping and squeezing it gently, trying to keep up a steady rhythm with her mouth. It wasn’t easy. Because he was so well-endowed, she could at first only take the head of his cock without gagging. Gradually, she loosened up her throat muscles, managing to take more of him, about half. And what she couldn’t fit into her mouth, she made sure to lavish with long strokes of her tongue, licking up from base to tip before resuming her sucking rhythm again.

“Oh, yeah,” he groaned quietly. He’d kept the TV on to drown out some of his sounds, but he managed to keep it pretty quiet altogether. That probably meant his roommates were home tonight. At any minute, either of them could stroll out into that living room and see her sitting there on her knees, sucking him off. For some reason, that was an incredibly arousing thought, and she felt a subtle wetness between her legs when she imagined it.

“Good?” she asked, hoping she was delivering what he’d wanted tonight.

“Yeah, keep going,” he urged, reaching down to tangle his hand in her hair. He pushed her head back towards his cock, and she swirled her tongue around the head of it engulfing as much of him as she could again. He hit the back of her throat, causing her to cough and gag a bit.

“You’re a good girl,” he praised, massaging her scalp.

She pressed a kiss to the underside of his cock, inhaling the musky, manly smell of him, and then sucked some more, surprised by how natural this felt. She hadn’t given a genuine blow job in years, not since Finn. In fact, Finn had been the only person she’d ever blown before. Strapons didn’t count, so yeah, it had just been him. And Finn was nowhere near as large as Bellamy was. Regardless of size, though, it seemed like giving a blowjob was like riding a bike. You didn’t ever forget how. And Bellamy seemed to be enjoying what she was doing, so she just kept at it.

When his hips started to buck up into her mouth a bit, almost as if he couldn’t control them, she figured he was getting close. And even though she knew guys liked it when girls swallowed, she didn’t feel quite ready for that yet. That was something she hadn’t even done with Finn, and she wasn’t sure she’d like it. So she released him from her mouth with a loud pop and then jerked him off with her hand the rest of the way. He came quickly, flinging his head back into the pillow, shutting his eyes. His cum squirted all over her hand, and some of it even shot up and splattered on her eyes.

“Sorry,” he apologized right away.

She wiped off her eye with her free hand, laughing a little, and stroked his cock a few more times until she was convinced he was done. His whole body went languid on the couch and he smiled appreciatively. “Wow.”

“Did you like that?”

“Yeah, it was great.”

She wasn’t about to tell him how relieved she was to hear that, but . . . oh, yeah, she was relieved. Getting up, she treaded into the kitchen, needing to clean up. She lifted the sink handle with her elbow and washed off her hands very thoroughly, then splashed some water on her face. There didn’t seem to be any other . . . remnants.

“You did good, Princess,” Bellamy said from the living room.

“Princess?” she echoed as she wiped down the whole sink.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna call you.”

“Well, I’ve had worse nicknames.” She shut off the water, grabbed a paper towel to dry off her hands, and tossed it the trashcan. “I’m glad it was good, though,” she said, returning to the couch. She sat down beside him, watching in fascination as he tucked his cock away and pulled up his pants again. He didn’t bother zipping them, though, which led her to believe that the night might not be over. Oh, she prayed it wasn’t.

Before she could even try to be seductive and tell him how wet she’d gotten just by blowing him, some moaning and groaning sounds started to come from a room down the hall. Distinctly guy/girl sounds, which could only mean one thing.

“Is that Murphy and Emori?” she asked.

“Yep.” No sooner had he confirmed that, a bed upstairs started squeaking. “And that’d be Miller and Jackson.”

“God, it’s like a symphony of sex sounds around here,” she teased.

“Yeah, the mating den,” he agreed, readjusting his cock inside his jeans. “You know,” he said, staring at her suggestively, “we could make a few sex sounds of our own.” Then he was cupping her head, leaning in to kiss her, and at first, she just wanted to kiss him back. Because yeah, the idea of making sex sounds with Bellamy Blake? She loved it. She wanted it. But doing that while both these other couples were doing the same thing . . . something about it bothered her.

She actually opened her eyes and frowned while he kept trying to kiss her, and it didn’t take him long to realize something was off. “What?” he said.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“What’s wrong?”

As much as she just wanted to go with it, as much as she tried to shut her mind off yet again, there was just no avoiding these thoughts. “What’re we doing, Bellamy?” she asked, needing some kind of solid answer.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Just . . . all of this.” It wasn’t feasible to keep waiting for her next night with him, never knowing when it would happen or how often it would happen or even why it would happen.

“We’re having fun,” he said, squeezing her knee. But that was what he always said.

“So are they,” she said, gesturing down the hall and upstairs. “But they’re . . . dating.”

He groaned exasperatedly and scooted away a bit, and she worried she’d just majorly fucked things up, like that one word had really freaked him out.

“Clarke,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Don’t ruin this.”

“Ruin what?” she asked, not about to let up now. Hell, there was no going back now. She’d brought up the issue, and now it would be the big fat elephant in the room if they didn’t talk about it.

“This. Us.”

“And what are we, exactly?”

“We’re . . .” He paused for a few seconds, tongue-tied for the first time that she could remember. She’d never seen Bellamy be anything but smooth, but now, he seemed frazzled. “We’re Bellamy and Clarke,” he finally said, and it wasn’t the answer she was looking for.

“I feel like you’re avoiding the question.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I am.”

“Why?”

“Because you probably aren’t gonna like my answer.”

She had to look away from him then, because that felt like a knife to the heart. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Was this all just about sex to him?

“Maybe you should just leave,” he mumbled, looking down at his lap as if he were too ashamed to look at her.

Oh my god, she thought, mortified. Unbelievable. Was this really the same sweet guy who’d kissed her cheek at Dropship a couple weeks ago, the same thoughtful guy who gathered up all her clothes for her the other morning? Was this the same adorable guy whose runaway watermelon had started all of this in the first place?

“Way to be a jerk, Bellamy,” she squeaked out, quickly heading for the door.

“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” he said.

“Well, it’s a jackass move, so . . .” Suddenly, she felt like she couldn’t get out of there fast enough, so she shoved on her shoes, grabbed her clutch off the floor, and grumbled, “Glad you enjoyed your blowjob,” on her way out the door.

He didn’t come after her. Apparently that was the kind of thing that happened in romance movies, not in real life.

On the drive home, she alternated between feeling pissed off and sad as hell. By the time she walked inside her apartment, it was all just sadness. She’d even started crying, which made her feel pathetic, but . . . what was she supposed to do? He’d basically just insinuated that he was using her for sex. And it wasn’t like that for her. Yeah, she liked having sex with him, but in addition to that . . . she liked him. She liked Bellamy Blake as a man, as a person, and knowing that he didn’t care to see anything else or anything deeper in her . . . it hurt.

She must have brushed her teeth, like, five times, all in an attempt to get the taste of him out of her mouth. Then she changed into her ugliest plaid flannel pajama pants and an FCCLA t-shirt from her senior year of high school. Once she’d scrubbed all her makeup off and looked as dumpy as she now felt, she figured she’d crawl into bed and maybe just stay there tomorrow. Screw class. She could miss one fucking day.

She lay down in her bed, checking her phone, and saw a text from Raven asking if she was feeling okay. What was she supposed to say to that? The headache lie had been just that, a lie. But saying that she was fine was a lie, too . . . one that would put Raven at ease and allow her to continue enjoying her night at Mount Weather, though.

I’m fine, she texted back, debating whether or not she’d tell her tomorrow about all things Bellamy-related. The great sex, his magnetic personality, the dick move he’d just pulled right after she’d so willingly sucked his dick . . .

Right after she’d shut her eyes and forced all leftover tears back down where they belonged, her phone actually rang, and she dreaded answering it. The only person who called her all that often rather than texting her was her mom, and she was in no mood to talk to her mom right now.

When she peeked at the caller ID, though, it wasn’t her mom calling. It was . . . Bellamy?

What the hell? she wondered, confused. This all felt like déjà vu, though, like Finn. Finn used to be a jerk to her all the time, and what had he done to get back on her good side? He’d called and apologized. And she’d forgiven him every single time.

Part of her wanted to just not answer, but dammit . . . that was exactly what she did. “What, Bellamy?” she bit out shrilly.

“Hey, I’m outside your apartment right now,” he said, that low, gravelly voice of his sounding even lower over the phone.

She sat up straight, surprised. “What?” Finn would have never done that.

“Yeah, can you buzz me in?”

She frowned, trying to make sense of his motives and her feelings all at once. Whatever his reason for being there, inviting him up to her place seemed . . . too risky. He’d say something or do something that would make her turn into silly putty, and then they’d probably just end up in bed together. And that wasn’t gonna fix anything.

“I’ll come down,” she said, abruptly ending the call.

She didn’t bother to change out of her hideous pajamas or even put on any lipstick. She convinced herself it didn’t matter, because whatever conversation they were about to have would be the last conversation. She wasn’t willing to be his little fuck doll, wasn’t about to let him use her like that. Finn had used both her and Raven for that very purpose, and she wasn’t subjecting herself to that kind of unhealthy relationship again.

“Hey,” Bellamy said when she came out.

She wrapped her arms around herself, not cracking a smile, not saying a word.

“Miller told me this is where you live, so . . .” He looked around at the front of her apartment complex, which was undeniably lavish. “It’s nice.”

She saw a flicker of insecurity in his eyes as he took in the fake palm trees, meticulously cared for shrubbery, the marble statues, the freaking fountain. Yeah, Polaris was a nice apartment complex, paid for almost entirely by her mother and stepdad. It was a far cry from his neighborhood, and she wondered if, in that moment, he felt ashamed of living where he did.

She hoped he didn’t, because his neighborhood might not have been nice, but his house was. There was no shame in that.

“What’re you doing here, Bellamy?” she snarled impatiently, trying to remember that she was mad at him.

“I just wanted to talk,” he replied. “I didn’t like the way we ended things.”

“Well, things can’t really end if they never begin,” she pointed out dejectedly, walking down a rosebush lined sidewalk towards the fountain. He followed her wordlessly, and she swore she could feel the heat of his gaze on the back of her neck.

They sat down on the edge of the fountain, and he took a penny out of his pocket and tossed it over his shoulder into the water. “I’m sorry I upset you,” he apologized.

She didn’t dare look at him as she denied, “I’m not upset.”

“No, clearly you are,” he said. “You’re mad at me. And you have every right to be. I should’ve been more upfront with you right from the start.”

Just stay standoffish, she coached herself. If she didn’t engage in conversation, maybe he’d get fed up and leave.

No matter what she told herself she should do, though, she ended up doing something different. “I thought you liked me,” she said quietly.

“I do,” he insisted. “I do like you.”

She grunted, because that just felt meaningless. “You like having sex with me.”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “And you like having sex with me. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I like you, too, Clarke. I like getting to know you.”

She shook her head, because again . . . meaningless. “You don’t know me, though.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she wouldn’t let him get a word in.

“And knowing how to get me off isn’t the same thing as actually knowing me, so don’t even say it.”

He smirked, chuckling lightly. “Look, you know me, though. You knew exactly what I was gonna say.”

She held back a smile, refusing to laugh at that, refusing to be amused, refusing to look at that smoldering face of his; because even though she was sitting down, that face could still make her knees go weak. It was a real problem like that. “We don’t know each other, Bellamy,” she said, accepting the truth of that. So she’d met a few of his friends and seen his bedroom and heard a couple things about his sister. That was all just skimming the surface.

“Well, we’re just getting started,” he reasoned. “There’s no reason why we can’t get to know each other better.”

She frowned, unable to keep from shooting him a confused look upon hearing that. Something wasn’t making sense to her, wasn’t adding up. Half an hour ago, he’d basically kicked her out of his apartment. Now he was suggesting they spend more time together? “What?” she said.

“Clarke.” He moved in closer, close enough that his knee could touch her leg. “I like you. But I don’t wanna mislead you; I don’t wanna give you the wrong idea.”

Her frown intensified.

“I’m not . . . looking for a relationship,” he explained, speaking slowly as if he were choosing his words carefully. “At least not the romantic kind.”

Well, that was disappointing, she figured, but not exactly shocking at this point.

“If you want somebody to call your boyfriend, somebody who says ‘I love you,’ somebody to celebrate an anniversary with, I’m not that guy,” he straight-up informed her. “It’s just not in the cards for me.”

She wanted to ask him why he would think that, but . . . there probably wasn’t some huge reason. Lots of guys his age were determined to play the field their entire lives. “So you wanna keep having sex with me,” she concluded.

“Of course.”

“But you don’t wanna date me.”

He cringed a bit, as if he felt bad for saying that out loud. “I don’t wanna date anyone.”

“So you really do just wanna use me for sex then?”

“No. No, I don’t wanna use you at all,” he denied vehemently. “I could never just use you for sex, Clarke. You’re . . .” He reached up and stroked her cheek, which seemed to be one of his patented flirt maneuvers. “You’re too sweet.”

She turned away from his touch, trying not to be affected by him, by this. By any of this.

“Listen, I know I don’t know you very well,” he acknowledged, “but I think you can be a friend to me. And . . .” He paused, one again struggling uncharacteristically to find his words. “I would like that.”

Everything he was saying rolled around in her mind, and she tried to make sense of it, to piece it together in a way she could understand. “So you wanna be friends,” she recapped.

“Yep.”

“But you also wanna have sex.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“So . . .” That was only bringing her to one conclusion. “Friends with benefits, basically?”

“Yeah.” His whole face lit up with excitement at the prospect of it.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, leaning forward, dragging her hands through her hair. She laughed a little, rocking back. “Bellamy! Are you serious?”

“I’m dead serious.”

“Friends with benefits? Half the romantic comedies ever made are about friends with benefits. And it never works.”

“Yeah, because the movies shove these crappy love stories down your throat,” he argued, sounding like he’d given this some thought. “But that’s not how it has to be in real life. Do you really think it’s impossible for two mature, consenting adults to have sex with no strings attached? Because I don’t. I think it’s simple. If we both know what we’re gettin’ into and we know what the outcome’s gonna be, then it’s fine.”

“And what’s the outcome gonna be?” she pressed. If this was the beginning, then what was the ending?

“Well, that’s the beauty of it,” he said. “Because no matter what, we stay friends. There’s no pain, no heartbreak. Nobody gets dumped or cheats or anything like that. You’re friends who fuck and have fun. And that’s it. You care about each other and trust each other, but you don’t expect anything more from each other. You don’t have all the added pressures of a relationship. You just have this really deep, really true friendship, and when you take the time to build that up, that lasts a hell of a lot longer than romance does. That can withstand anything.”

The more he talked . . . the more it really started to make sense to her. As confused as she’d been at first, she found herself starting to become . . . very persuaded as she listened to him. And she wasn’t sure whether that was just because of his natural charisma—the guy must have aced speech class—or if there was actual merit to this whole idea. But maybe it was a combination of the two?

“So I take it you’ve done this before?” she guessed.

He shrugged. “A couple times.”

“Must not have worked, though.”

“No, it did,” he said. “But both times, these girls ended up meeting someone else, and I was fine with it. The sex stopped then, but they’re still my friends. We still get along, we could still hang out. And they’re happy, so I’m happy for them.”

Happy for them? she thought, thinking about Finn and Lexa. Especially Lexa. How many times had she looked at those engagement photos and made a conscious effort to feel happy? It should have just come naturally, and she felt guilty knowing that it didn’t. But here Bellamy was, sounding completely sincere when he said he was happy they’d moved on from him. Maybe he really did have something figured out that she didn’t.

“So if we were to do this,” he went on, “and you went out and found someone, you wouldn’t have to worry about me. And vice versa. Although, like I said, that’s not gonna happen for me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I just know it won’t,” he said. “I don’t want it to. But it’ll probably happen for you, someday. So if you wanna pass some time with me until that day, if you wanna—if you wanna have some more fun, whether that’s sex or something else, ‘cause we don’t have to have sex all the time . . .” His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “If you wanna get to know me more and have me in your life as a friend, then . . . I’m willing to do that because . . . I mean, who wouldn’t be willing to do that with you?”

“Oh, you’re good,” she said. “You’re very good.”

“I’m not tryin’ to lay it on thick or anything. I’m serious.”

“Oh, I know you are.” Her mind was just spinning right now, trying to imagine it, trying not to fantasize about it, debating whether it was a great as he made it sound. “But Bellamy, I don’t wanna just be . . . one of your girls.”

“One of them?” He made a confused face. “I don’t have any others, Clarke. I’m not gonna go out and recruit more. If we’re doing this, then we’re doing this, you and me. I don’t have any reason to go out and sleep with other women.”

“So . . . so it’s like exclusive friends with benefits then?” she stammered.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“How is that any different than dating?”

“Because we just know we’re not dating, and we know it’s not leading up to that, and if it ends in an instant, then it’s all good. It’s just all good, Clarke.”

God, she thought, he makes it sound so simple. But then again . . . maybe it was. Maybe for people like him who just did what they wanted to without questioning it, without constantly over-analyzing the situation and finding problems where problems didn’t exist, maybe it was a really simple thing after all.

“I’ll be honest, that first night we hooked up,” he went on, moving closer, so close that he nearly had his arm around her, “I thought it was just gonna be that one time. But then there was the second time, and then tonight, and now . . .” He trailed off and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s up to you. Ball’s in your court . . .” He grinned flirtatiously. “So to speak.”

“Oh my god.” She couldn’t help but smile, because the innuendo about his balls was obvious with that one.

“It’s whatever the hell you want, Clarke,” he told her, jaw clenching as he looked away from her. “You know where I stand.”

She did. He’d made that perfectly clear, and for that, she was actually grateful he’d come over. She knew now that his assholery back at his house didn’t actually mean he was an asshole. He just hadn’t communicated his intentions as well as he should have. And she hadn’t been open-minded enough to consider that . . . that maybe she didn’t need someone in her life with a ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ title to get that fulfilling relationship she longed to have. She’d had exactly one boyfriend and one girlfriend in her entire life, and neither relationship had ended in anything long-term for her. She wasn’t still friends with either Finn or Lexa, she wasn’t as happy for them as she should have been, and she wasn’t able to stop being envious of them. Except when she was with Bellamy. Because when she was with him, even if he didn’t intend to make it a romantic thing . . . that was when she felt like she had something, too, something special that was all her own. Maybe not a brand new baby, maybe not an engagement ring on her finger, but something. Something she didn’t want to let go of. Not yet.

“Okay,” she heard herself say quietly.

“Okay?” he echoed. “Okay, what?”

“Okay, let’s do it.” There. She’d said it. No backing out, no second-guessing now. The decision had been made.

Even though he’d been the one to champion the whole idea, he looked shocked that she’d agreed to it so quickly. “You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah.” If she got someone who could make her smile and make her laugh and also give her ridiculously intense orgasms, it was like the best of both worlds. No way could she turn him down.

“You’re positive?”

“Yes.”

“Because if you don’t think you can handle it . . .”

“Oh, you’d be surprised what I can handle,” she told him, shocking herself with how Raven-esque she’d managed to sound there.

“Damn, Clarke,” he said, reaching down to readjust the crotch of his pants.

“Still think I’m sweet?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re sweet,” he said. But then he bent down and pressed a hot kiss to the side of her neck. “And sexy,” he added, warm breath tickling her ear.

Yeah, really sexy, she thought sarcastically, not sure how he could say that with a straight face while she was wearing these hideous pajamas. Oh, well, though. He wouldn’t say it if he didn’t think it.

“I’m gonna make you feel so sexy, Clarke,” he murmured as his fingers intertwined with hers, “you have no idea.”

She inhaled shakily, so aroused by the thought. This guy had already made her so wanted, so desired. If this was just the tip of the iceberg, as he made it sound, then she couldn’t wait to see what else he had in store for her.

“Well, you’d better,” she said. “I’m no expert, but I think that’s what friends with benefits are for.”

He laughed lightly, leaning in to kiss her then, a surprisingly tender, even short kiss. “I’ll let you get some sleep,” he breathed out against her lips.

Sleep? What even was what? She had no desire to do that right now. “Okay,” she said, a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t . . . come sleep with her.

They got up, holding hands as they walked back down the sidewalk to the main entrance of her building. “So I’ll probably see you tomorrow then,” he said, letting go of her hand as he started to back away.

“Yeah. Sure.” Tomorrow was . . . tomorrow. She’d just have to try out her new vibrator tonight.

“Alright,” he said. “See you then.”

“Yeah, see you.” She stood there and watched him go, wondering if it’d be too forward to run up to him and just pounce on him and drag him inside. Because the thought of him alone in his bed, probably jacking off to thoughts of her, and her alone in her bed, definitely working herself into a frenzy over thoughts of him . . . it just seemed ridiculous.

He’d only taken a few steps when, slowly, he turned back around and met eyes with her. His chest was heaving with heavy breaths, ones that matched her own, and she could see the lust in those brown eyes of his, knowing it was probably mirrored in her own.

He marched back towards her and literally swept her up in his arms, kissing her hungrily, ferociously, staggering backward with her towards the door. She flung her left hand out, fumbling to punch in the security code, and when the doors clicked open, they stumbled inside together, a frenetic mass of arms and legs and mouths that wouldn’t come up for air.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4

Bellamy’s first week as Clarke’s friend with benefits was amazing. For her and for him. They didn’t hang out every night or anything, because that was what dating couples did. But they got together a lot, usually with Bellamy’s other friends. Murphy and Miller didn’t question his relationship with Clarke—they didn’t need to; they already knew him well enough to know what it was. Emori, though, actually asked Clarke herself if she was Bellamy’s girlfriend, and much to Bellamy’s relief, Clarke said, “Nope, just a friend.” And that was that.

Time with Clarke was awesome. She fit in well with his friends, so well that Emori begged him to bring her to Dropship one night for a game of pool. He did, and he was glad he did, because when she bent over the table to take a final shot at the eight ball, Bellamy stood behind her, rolling his cue stick between his fingers. “That’s a hell of a view,” he noted.

Clarke peeked over her shoulder, smiling, then returned her attention to the task at hand. The girl was surprisingly good at pool, and when she took her shot, she sunk the eight ball in the corner pocket with ease. “Yes!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air while Murphy and Emori groaned in defeat.

Bellamy lifted her up with one arm and swung her around victoriously. “Woo!” he howled, cackling at Murphy. Murphy always lost at every game, and he always glared at Bellamy and flipped him off when he did.

Seeing Clarke play pool so well was a major turn-on, so of course it led to sex. And it was the kind of sex that couldn’t wait, either, the kind where they had to duck into that narrow, dark hallway outside the bathrooms together and make sure they were just far enough out of sight from prying eyes so they could do what they wanted to do. With his pants pushed down only far enough to let his cock out and her skirt hiked up just enough to give him access, he pressed her back against the wall and fucked her quickly, quietly, getting a kick out of how hard it was for her to stay quiet when he was inside her. It was over almost as soon as it started, but it was hot as hell doing it where anyone could walk up and find them going at it.

A few nights later, Emori came over to hang out with Murphy, but Murphy was too busy playing on the XBox with Bellamy and Miller to pay much attention to her; so she called Clarke herself and invited her over. Bellamy pretty much left the girls to their own devices, because he just had to help his roommates’ kill these zombies in Left 4 Dead 2. He was faintly aware of the fact that Clarke was lying on his kitchen table and Emori, being the tattoo artist she was, was drawing something on her back; but when they came into the living room and Emori proclaimed, “Ta-da!” while Clarke lifted up the back of her shirt . . . Bellamy’s mouth gaped. Because Clarke now had a fake tramp stamp that said BLAKE in all caps drawn on her skin.

He nearly dropped his controller, and both Miller and Murphy started to yell at him when he did nothing while the zombies attacked.

Emori took his place after that, because he had to go upstairs with Clarke. He stripped her naked in record time, positioned her on all fours on that old blue chair of his grandmother’s, and fucked her furiously from behind, fixating on the temporary tattoo on her lower back.

Then there was her day off, when she complained about being so bored that he finally just gave in and let her ride around with him while he went from house to house, fixing everyone’s busted odds and ends. On the way to Diana Sydney’s place, he warned her that she’d have to stay low in the truck, because Diana wouldn’t tip him well if she saw a girl on the premises. Clarke took this quite literally, and right out on the middle of the highway, she leaned over to his lap, undid his pants, and took his cock into her mouth, blowing him while he drove. The whole thing was so fucking hot, and there was no way he was getting to Diana’s until he came, so he took a few unnecessary detours, staying out on the highway a little longer than was necessary.

When they pulled up to a red light, he noticed a police car a few vehicles back behind them, and an officer getting out. “Cop, cop!” he warned, pushing her head away.

“What?”

“Just pretend you’re lookin’ for a contact or something,” he told her as he quickly zipped up his pants.

She bent forward, pretending to look under the passenger’s seat for something that didn’t exist.

Bellamy watched in the rearview mirror as the cop knocked on the window of a red car one row over and behind them. “Oh, okay, it’s not us,” he said, relieved, already undoing his pants again. “Get back down there.”

Daring little princess she was, she did just that. But she kept her head a little more stationary this time and got some quality deep-throating practice.

There were so many things he wanted to do with Clarke Griffin. Titty-fucking. Sixty-nine. Anal. Now some of those things were definitely going to require them to work their way up from here, but he felt like it could all happen. So far, it seemed like he was earning her trust.

It wasn’t just the sex, though, that was good. Clarke continued to be good company, so much so that, when he surprised her on campus after class and she regretfully informed him that she had to spend the afternoon studying for her midterms, he wasn’t even all that disappointed. She said it’d be fine if he hung out at her place for a while, and he in turn offered to study with her if she needed help.

Most of the time, they hung out and hooked up at his place. Save for the one night they’d spent at hers, Polaris was still a strange environment for him. The place had a pool and hot tub area that looked more like a small spa. The elevators had glass doors. There was even a gym. It really almost felt more like an extended-stay hotel than an apartment complex, and Bellamy didn’t quite feel like he belonged there. But it was where Clarke lived, and Clarke was a pretty down-to-earth girl despite the obvious wealth she came from. So he didn’t dwell on it.

“So your dad’s really one of our Maryland senators, huh?” he said, trying to wrap his mind around that as they got off the elevator and headed down the hall.

“Stepdad,” she corrected. “And yeah. Weird, huh?”

It was weird, but D.C. was only a twenty-minute drive away, so it made sense. “Man, no wonder you have such a nice apartment.”

“Actually, my mom makes more money than him,” she said. “She’s a doctor.”

“Wow.” A doctor and a politician. Clarke definitely had lived a cushy life. “My mom’s a seamstress.”

She just smiled, like she wasn’t sure what to say to that, and fumbled around in her purse for her keys. “You want something to eat?” she asked, stopping in front of her door.

“Yeah,” he said, standing close behind her. Bending down, her murmured in her ear, “Watermelon.”

“I don’t have any,” she said, shoving the key into the lock.

“That’s okay. I’m sure you have something else I can eat.”

She tossed her head back against his shoulder and laughed as she pushed open the door. Bellamy already had his hands on her hips, eager to see if he could squeeze in a quick one with her before she started studying. But someone else was already in that apartment, some beautiful brown-haired girl he didn’t recognize.

“Raven,” Clarke said.

Oh, he recognized that name, though. The best friend. Clarke had mentioned her.

“Hey,” Raven greeted, frowning curiously at Bellamy. Squinting her eyes, peering at him closer, she asked, “Bellagio?”

Bellamy wasn’t sure what the hell that meant, so he just said, “Huh?” in response.

Five minutes later, they all sat together at Clarke’s kitchen table, each of them taking part in devouring a leftover hamburger pizza she’d had in the fridge.

“So forgive my surprise,” Raven said, “but last I heard, you were a one-night stand.”

“Well, I was,” Bellamy admitted. “But then it was two nights.”

“And then three,” Clarke added. “And then four.”

“Then twenty.” Bellamy grinned smugly.

“It hasn’t been twenty. Don’t listen to him,” Clarke told Raven. “It’s been, like, seven. Or something.”

Raven nodded slowly, reaching for another slice of pizza. “A seven-night stand. I didn’t even know they made such a thing.”

“Well, he’s my friend, Raven,” Clarke said.

The brunette tilted her head to the side skeptically. “With benefits?”

“Yeah, actually.” Bellamy broke the crust of his pizza in half and shoved one half in his mouth. She’d hit the nail on the head there.

Raven frowned at him for a moment, then swung her head back towards Clarke. “Seriously?” she gasped.

Clarke smiled tersely and said, “Bellamy, would you mind going and hanging out in my room for a bit?”

Did he mind? When this Raven chick was obviously about to question the choices Clarke was making? “Sure, no problem.” He finished his pizza, pushed the chair back from the table, and hastily made his exit from the kitchen. Clarke’s bedroom was the only room here he actually had any familiarity with anyway. He’d probably be happiest in there.

He shut the door right as Raven started in with, “This is new for you,” and their voices were thankfully muffled after that. He took a good look at Clarke’s bed, admiring the sturdy headboard—yeah, he still had to fix his—and then wandered over to her desk, surveying all the loose papers she had scattered there. Some were pages of notes for her classes, but most were drawings. Lots of landscapes, some still-lifes of things like fruit and jewelry and shoes. There was one particularly sensual drawing, though, of two hands clasped together on top of a bed, lost in the throes of passion of whatever. Bellamy smirked, wondering if that was supposed to be the two of them.

Raven said something that sounded like, “You know it never works,” from out in the kitchen, but Bellamy ignored that as he continued around Clarke’s bedroom, scoping out everything that was indicatively her. Besides all the clothes strewn about near her closet, there was a brush with clumps of hair in it lying on the floor, and a dinner plate with silverware on it at the foot of the bed. Apparently the only thing the Polaris apartments didn’t have was a cleaning service, but Clarke probably could have used one. Not that he was judging. His house wasn’t spotless by any means, either. Besides, wasn’t there some saying about the messier the apartment, the prettier the girl?

“He’s a boy. He’s a friend. He’s just a not a boyfriend,” he heard Clarke say. Didn’t sound like she and Raven were arguing. Raven just needed more of an explanation for their whole arrangement than a girl like Emori did. She didn’t know him. Of course she had her doubts.

Curiosity got the best of Bellamy when he discovered Clarke’s underwear drawer. It was like the holy land. He really couldn’t resist snooping, and hell, since he was the guy currently taking her underwear off, he doubted she’d mind. He dug around for the good stuff, thongs mostly, but got a little distracted when he stumbled across what could only be called ‘period panties.’ Most were hilarious. There was one that said Shark Week and just had this blood-red ocean with buoys and life preservers in it. And there was another that said Cunt Dracula and had a picture of a very unhappy-looking cartoon vampire, blood dripping from his fangs. Clarke probably didn’t want him to see those, but it was no big deal to him. In fact, he thought they were fucking funny.

In the middle of appreciating her thongs (and debating whether or not he should pocket that silky green one and try to sneak it home), a pair of rainbow panties caught his eye. He lifted them up to find that they had Bi, Bi, Bi written on the front, along with a winking emoji that had its tongue out.

Bellamy cocked his head to the side, brow furrowed in confusion. What? he wondered, pretty sure that could only mean one thing.

“Bellagio!” Raven called in a sing-song voice—he really had no idea why she kept calling him that. “You can come out now!”

He stuffed all of Clarke’s panties back in the drawer, shut it, and rejoined the girls out in the kitchen. The pizza was completely gone now, so clearly they’d eaten and talked at the same time.

“So how long have you been into girls?” he asked Clarke outright.

“Ooh, since she came out of the womb,” Raven squealed.

“How did you know?” Clarke asked him.

“I saw your rainbow underwear.”

“Oh, you just happened to see those, even though they were stashed away in my underwear drawer?”

“I was . . . just passing through,” he said impatiently, wanting to get an answer out of her. “So how long?”

Clarke shrugged. “Probably forever. I didn’t know until high school, though.”

“Huh.” Clarke being bisexual opened up a whole new realm of fantasies for him, and he was intrigued. “What clued you in?”

“Well . . .” Clarke hopped up onto her table, kicking her legs as she thought back. “Probably sophomore year, when I tried out for cheerleading. Because, I mean, I knew I got turned on seeing other girls change in the locker room, but . . . that’s nothing. You can be straight as an arrow and still get turned on seeing naked breasts.”

“True,” Raven agreed readily.

“But I only tried out for cheerleading because the head cheerleader was so hot,” Clarke went on, closing her eyes and shuddering with delight. “Anyway. That’s when I knew.”

“Interesting.” The more he found out about Clarke, the more he liked her. Now there was this whole cheerleading thing to consider. “So did you make the squad?”

“No, they cut me after the first round.” She pouted.

“Damn, I was hoping you’d have one of those little skirts.”

“I have one,” Raven chirped. “She can borrow it sometime.”

Clarke made a face. “Since when were you a cheerleader?”

“Since never, ugh,” Raven said, her tone a disdainful one, as though she had something against cheerleaders. “But Wick and I . . . we used to dress up sometimes.”

“Ew, no,” Clarke said, making a squeamish face. “God, I can’t even.”

“It’s fine,” Bellamy said, already picturing what she’d look like wearing one of those for him. “We’ll take the skirt. Thank you.”

Raven stuck around for about fifteen more minutes and grilled him after that. Standard best friend questions, like did he have a job?—yes. Did he go to school?—no. Was he going to break Clarke’s heart at the end of all this?—hell, no, that was the point of their arrangement in the first place. When she seemed satisfied with all the answers he’d given, she headed out, but not before making Clarke solemnly swear that they’d have a girls night with Niylah soon, whoever the hell that was. Clarke promised, and Raven was on her way.

Bellamy settled in on the couch, trying to find something on TV to watch while Clarke laid out all her books and notes on the kitchen table. She’d only sat down for a few minutes, though, before she got up, crossed the living room, and opened the sliding the door that led out onto a balcony. She went outside wordlessly, shutting it behind her, and stood by the railing, looking down with this thoughtful expression in her eyes, wind blowing back her hair from her face.

What’s wrong? Bellamy wondered, distractedly arrowing his way through the program guide. Clarke had been bubbly and upbeat with Raven there, but now that she was gone, she looked . . . not sad, exactly, but kind of serious.

Oh, crap, he thought, hoping Raven hadn’t said anything to make Clarke second-guess this whole friends with benefits idea. They had a good thing going, he was sure of it, and the last thing he wanted was for her to reconsider.

He joined her out on the balcony, getting his first glimpse of the incredible view she had. There was a garden/courtyard down below that looked meticulously-maintained, and . . . were those tennis courts? Did Polaris really have its own tennis courts?

“You alright?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she answered quickly. “I just . . .” She looked over at him, smiling appreciatively. “Well, I’m just really glad you didn’t make a big deal out of that whole thing.”

“What whole thing?”

“Me . . . being bisexual.”

“Oh.” He shrugged flippantly, because really, it was no big deal. “Why would I make a big deal out of that?”

“Well, I didn’t think you would, because Miller told me you were totally cool about him. It’s just nice, though.”

He leaned back against the railing, folding his arms over his chest. “That stuff doesn’t even really matter to me,” he assured her. It never had.

“Well . . . it matters to some people,” she mumbled, hanging her head.

He frowned, wondering who she was referring to. An ex, maybe? A family member? “Who’s made a big deal out of it with you?” he questioned, feeling an automatic anger towards whoever had upset her before.

“My mom,” she replied quietly. “And my stepdad. Neither one of them likes it.”

He snorted, shaking his head. It was a different generation, and he understood that, but sometimes, it really pissed him off how close-minded people could be.

“I never really acted on it until I was twenty,” Clarke revealed. “That’s when I dated a girl for the first time. Lexa. So I told them, and . . .” She made a face. “It’s not like they disowned me or anything, but it still strained things for a while.”

He nodded, wishing she hadn’t had to experience that. But her stepdad was a Republican senator, from what he gathered, and . . . well, most Republicans were obviously more conservative. Bisexual stepdaughter probably didn’t fit in with his campaign image very well. Her mom, though? That one really pissed him off, maybe because his own mother would have loved and accepted him whether he was into chicks, dudes, or something else entirely.

“Has it gotten any better since you told them?” he asked.

“Yeah, it has,” she said. “I mean, they’re not going out and marching in any pride parades, but it’s still better.”

“Good.” He reached over and put his arm around her, pulling her in closer to his side, glad that she’d been willing to open up to him about all of this. This was definitely the friends part of friends with benefits, and it felt good to be someone she could talk to. Besides, it helped him get to know her better. Clarke Griffin came from privilege, clearly, but knowing all of this . . . he knew that didn’t mean she had everything she wanted.

“I think it’s kinda hot, honestly,” he told her in order to lighten the mood.

She laughed lightly. “Miller said you would.”

Needing to know if his suspicions were true, just so his fantasies could have some substance, he inquired, “Did you and Raven ever hook up?”

“No. Did you and Miller?”

“No,” he answered emphatically, before joking, “Well, there was that one time . . .”

“What?” she shrieked, playfully hitting his chest.

“No, I’m kidding.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. It never happened.”

Still, she was reluctant to believe him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I would remember if I did a dude, Clarke.”

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Alright, if you say so . . .”

“Sorry to disappoint.” He rubbed her arm, catching a whiff of her shampoo when her hair blew up towards his face. “Hey,” he said, turning to face her and look her right in the eye. “In all seriousness, though . . . I think it’s awesome, Clarke. You are who you are, and you never have to worry about that with me.”

A slow, content smile spread across her face, and she asked, “Are you trying to seduce me?”

“No.”

She tilted her head the side skeptically.

“I’m really not,” he insisted. Sex was like the last thing on his mind right now. Well, not the last thing, but . . . well, now it was on his mind.

“Because you are,” she informed him, placing both her hands on his chest. She rose up on her tiptoes, lips ready for a kiss. He circled his arms around her, pulled her in close, and kissed her deeply, wondering if he could convince her to go put on those rainbow panties. Today seemed like a fitting day for them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Clarke?”

Reluctant to open her eyes, Clarke murmured, “Mmm,” hoping she could keep sleeping.

“Clarke.”

As sleep started to give hold on her, though, and she remembered where she was, and she recognized her boss’s voice . . . she jolted awake.

“Sorry,” she apologized quickly, ashamed of falling asleep at the front desk of the art museum. She was supposed to be the information station for any guests who showed up. But it’d been a slow day so far, and she’d had a late night last night, so . . .

Her boss, Dante, smiled down at her understandingly. “Why don’t you go home?” he suggested. “You can come back tomorrow once you’ve gotten some rest.”

Forever, she would be grateful for this old man. Not only did he hire her entirely based off her appreciation for art, disregarding all her notable lack of work experience, but he’d always been super empathetic when it came to her schedule. She was one of the many college students who worked at the museum, which meant that juggling her responsibilities as a student and an employee wasn’t always easy. But Dante assured her that he had been just like her once upon a time, and more often than not, if it was clear that she needed a day off, he’d give it to her.

“Thanks,” she said, gathering up her stuff. He took her seat at the front desk, and she yawned on her way out the door. Out of habit, she checked her phone as she made her way to her car, and awaiting her was a very flirtatious text from Bellamy: Our lips should have a meeting.

She laughed, shaking her head. God, he could be as adorable as he was sexy. Even though she knew she wouldn’t get any of the rest she needed if she went and spent time with him—hell, he was the reason she was so tired in the first place—she texted back, I’ll cum over later, knowing he’d enjoy her intentional misspelling.

Bellamy had warned her that Saturday nights at his house tended to be wild. It wasn’t just him and Miller and Murphy on Saturdays. Emori was there, of course, as she usually was. Miller’s boyfriend, Jackson, would be there, too, if he didn’t have to work. Their neighbors, Jasper and Monty, would likely come by and bring their girlfriends along with them. So it’d be a packed house. He said his friends congregated there every Saturday night with what was pretty much an open invitation for them to come by and party, drink, and get high if they wanted to, and he made sure she understood that the open invitation now extended to her, too.

An intense pot aroma flooded Clarke’s nose from the second she walked in the door, the result of one of Bellamy’s neighbors, Jasper. When Bellamy introduced Clarke to him, he exclaimed, “Oh, you’re so pretty!” and grabbed her arm, leading her away from Bellamy so they could sit down on the couch together. Clarke let him touch her hair for a minute, only because he was so obviously stoned and seemed fascinated by it, and Bellamy just chuckled and said, “Good luck,” as he headed into the kitchen to set out more booze on the counter.

Everyone seemed to have their role to play. Miller kept the music going, which meant a lot of 80’s and 90’s hip hop, Jackson kept a beer in his boyfriend’s hand, the girls danced and convinced the Asian guy—was that Monty? Clarke was getting them all confused—to dance with them, too. Murphy seemed content to just lie on a beanbag in the middle of the living room floor, barking out orders to everyone, things like, “Bellamy, get me another drink,” and “Emori, make out with Harper. Please.”

Jasper talked a lot, and when he wasn’t talking, it was usually because he was passing out joints to whoever wanted one. And most of them did want one, except for Jackson, which made sense since he was studying to become a doctor, and Bellamy, which Clarke found surprising given how free-spirited he was. Bellamy’s role very much seemed to be the guy who made sure his friends were having fun. He kept the counter littered with alcohol, but he didn’t actually drink that much of it, and he encouraged Monty to dance with the girls, but then he rescued him when he got overwhelmed.

Maybe being fine as fuck is his role, Clarke thought, struggling to keep her eyes off of him while Jasper talked her ear off.

“I mean, it’s just bullshit, is what it is,” Jasper was saying, in between taking hits. “I mean, yeah, they decriminalized it, finally, but that’s only for under ten grams. And it’s not like cops are walkin’ around with scales in their pockets, so what’re they doing? They’re just eyeballing it. And if they think you got too much, they can still call it a misdemeanor, even a felony. Isn’t that bullshit, Clarke?”

“That’s . . . bullshit,” she agreed, not quite where she stood on the whole marijuana legalization thing. She knew where her mom and stepdad stood on it, but . . . well, their views weren’t necessarily her views.

“I’ve been fined . . . a lot,” Jasper admitted, “and one of these days, they’re probably gonna lock me up. But you know what? I don’t even care. I’m still gonna grow it; I’m still gonna smoke it. Why? ‘cause it makes me happy.”

“Well . . . whatever makes you happy.”

“Damn straight. I like you, Clarke. You want some?” He held out his joint towards her.

“Oh, no, thanks,” she said, leaning back a little. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure, Clarke?”

“She said she’s fine,” Bellamy cut in, stepping over Murphy on his way to the couch. “I know you want this, though.” He handed her a red plastic cup, and she took it appreciatively, taking a sip. Simple, straight-forward beer. Now that she could handle.

“Bellamy won’t get high, either,” Jasper said disappointedly.

“I gotta protect my brain,” Bellamy reasoned. “That’s my best body part.”

Clarke gave him a pointed look.

“Besides that.” He smirked, then sat down beside her, just barely squeezing between her and the arm of the couch. “Move, Jasper,” he said.

“Alright, alright.” Jasper got up, joint still in hand, and bounded towards Monty, exclaiming, “Let’s go get the bong, man!”

“He’s interesting,” Clarke remarked, scooting over a bit so Bellamy had more room.

“Yeah, he’s a little out there,” Bellamy agreed. “Ah, he’s a good kid, though.”

“Kid?” she echoed. “Isn’t he, like, a year younger than you?”

“Two years,” Bellamy corrected. “He’s kinda like a little brother, though.”

“Aww.” She found it adorable that Bellamy’s friends were like his family, and it was certainly something she could understand, given how much of a sister Raven had come to be in her life.

“So you think you got everyone’s names?” he asked, taking her cup from her. He took a drink and put his arm around her lazily.

“I think so,” she said, surveying everyone one last time. She pointed them out as she said their names. “Okay, stoner friend, Jasper.”

“Right.”

“Non-stoner friend . . . Monty?”

“Well, he’s kind of a stoner, too, but he’s cuttin’ back.”

“Okay, Monty’s girlfriend . . . Maya?” She cringed as she said that, because she sensed she was wrong.

“Strike one.”

“Okay, Monty’s girlfriend, Harper.” That girl was gorgeous and looked like a walking advertisement out of a fitness magazine. The pale, dark-haired one belonged to Jasper. “Jasper’s girlfriend Maya. Did I get it?”

“Good job,” he said. “And you already know everyone else.”

“Yep.” She’d met Jackson for the first time a couple mornings ago, when he’d been rushing out of Miller’s room and she’d been right next door, rushing out of Bellamy’s. Both of them had been on their way to work, and both of them had been, unsurprisingly, running late.

“You have a lot of friends,” she noted.

“I do?”

“Yeah. Way more than I do.” Perhaps that said something about his charisma, or her lack thereof.

“I still gotta meet all your friends,” he said. “You should bring ‘em next time.”

“Oh, I can probably bring Raven and Niylah,” she said, “but Wells would be totally freaked out here.”

“We can be on our best behavior,” Bellamy promised.

As if on cue, Jasper howled, “Yeah! Take your clothes off!” and lifted his girlfriend up onto the table. She climbed down immediately, but Harper and Emori climbed up in her place, dancing like they were on the Coyote Ugly bar or something.

“Really?” Clarke said skeptically. Did any kind of best behavior exist with this crew?

“Well, we can try,” Bellamy amended.

As the party raged on, Miller turned the music up louder. No one seemed concerned about creating a noise disturbance, which was sort of refreshing. In Clarke’s neighborhood, people called the cops just to complain about fireworks on the Fourth of July. Monty did duck out for a moment to run over to his house and get a bong, which Jasper did not hesitate to put to use.

At one point, Harper moseyed over to the couch and coaxed, “Clarke, come dance with us.”

“No, I don’t really dance,” Clarke informed her.

“Oh, come on, it’s fun.” Harper grabbed her arm and tried to pull her to her feet.

“Actually . . .” She pulled her hand back and curled her legs up onto the couch. “I kinda just wanna . . . make out with Bellamy.” She leaned into her non-boyfriend, hoping he would oblige her here.

“Alright, suit yourself,” Harper said, tripping over Murphy as she skipped over to her own boyfriend and threw her arms around him.

“Can’t get enough of me, huh?” Bellamy teased, setting her drink—his drink, their drink, whatever—down on the coffee table.

“Well, that and . . . if you saw me dance . . .” She shuddered exaggeratedly. “You’d never be attracted to me again.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” He leaned in and kissed her, one arm still draped over her shoulders, his other hand coming up to cup her cheek.

So much better than dancing, Clarke thought as the tip of her tongue brushed his. Unfortunately, they’d just barely gotten started when the front door opened, and in strode the girl from all of Bellamy’s framed photos, the one with the tiny stature and big attitude: his sister.

“Octavia!” Harper exclaimed, immediately leaving her boyfriend’s side. She walked over Murphy without concern for him and flung herself at the dark-haired girl, hugging her like she hadn’t seen her in months. The other two girls were quick to follow, and soon enough, it was a hug-fest.

“Hey, guys,” Octavia said.

Bellamy got up, too, slower than the girls but with a similarly excited smile on his face. “About time you came home,” he teased, giving her a hug of his own.

“Missed you, too, big brother,” she said.

Their hug seemed to be cut short when a big, burly man also came inside, multiple bags flung over his shoulders. He dropped them at his feet, gave Bellamy a nod, but Bellamy ignored him and sat down next to Clarke again.

“How was Mexico?” Harper squealed excitedly.

“Who cares?” Emori grunted. “Did you bring us souvenirs?”

Octavia gave a look to her . . . boyfriend? And he lifted up a bulging blue bag full of souvenirs with one hand.

It was pretty much a frenzy after that. Jasper’s souvenir was a collection of Mexican beer, which pretty much just looked like American beer with Spanish labels on it. But it was enough for him, Monty, Miller, and all the girls to go wild. All the girls got swimsuits, which they wasted no time changing into, even though it was way too cold to go swimming anywhere. Miller got a sombrero, which he thought was the coolest thing in the world, and Murphy got two Spanish issues of Playboy. He immediately took those into the bathroom, and Bellamy muttered that he wouldn’t be back out for a while.

Octavia saved Bellamy’s souvenir for last, bringing it over to the couch for him while all their friends—and her boyfriend—ran outside to do something with Miller’s sombrero. “Here,” she said, handing him a book. “You’re like the hardest person to buy for.”

He made a face. “Why?”

“Because you don’t like normal things.”

He started flipping through the book, and from what Clarke could see, it was one of those travel books that had photos and info about all the cool tourist attractions and historical sites of Mexico. “Nah, this is good,” he said. “Thanks, O.”

“No problem.” She looked down at Clarke and said, “Well, since my brother’s gonna be an ass and not introduce us . . .”

“I was gonna introduce you,” he said weakly.

“I’m Octavia,” she said. “And you are?”

“Clarke.” She held out her hand for a shake, but Octavia frowned as if handshakes were weird. So Clarke slowly withdrew her hand.

“She’s my friend,” Bellamy explained.

Octavia glared impatiently at him, growling, “What kind of friend, Bellamy?”

“O . . .”

She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly and stomped out the front door.

What did I do? Clarke thought, horrified. How was it possible to make such a bad impression so quickly? “She scares me,” she confessed.

“No, she’s really nice once you get to know her,” Bellamy promised. But Clarke found that hard to believe. “Once you get to know her,” he repeated.

Murphy came plodding out of the bathroom a few seconds later, a satisfied smirk on his face. “Man, those Mexican chicks are hot,” he proclaimed, stopping when he saw how empty the living room now was. “Where’d everyone go?”

“Outside,” Bellamy replied.

Murphy motioned between the two of them, questioning, “Are you two gonna screw?”

Bellamy groaned, digging his head back into the couch.

“Can I watch?”

“Come on,” Bellamy said, standing up, pulling Clarke up along with him. They headed outside, and Murphy followed them.

The backyard ended up being the location of a game that looked very much like Keep Away, except instead of a basketball or football, it was the sombrero everyone was keeping away from Miller. He chased them around the yard like a chicken with its head cut off, and when Bellamy got involved, that’s when it got serious. Bellamy was faster than Miller, so he could keep the sombrero away from him without even having to pass it off to anyone else. Miller, who was winded at that point, suggested a wrestling match for it instead.

“Team Miller!” Jackson exclaimed, raising his hand.

“Yeah, my money’s on him, too,” Murphy said, slinking over to Jackson’s side. “Sorry, Bell.”

“Clarke, you have to captain Team Bellamy,” Harper said as a circle started to form around the two men, “be his cheerleader.”

“But I didn’t make the squad,” Clarke protested to no avail as Miller and Bellamy started wrestling. Luckily for her, as soon as it got started, Jasper seemed more than happy to be Team Bellamy’s captain. He danced around and kicked his legs in the air like a little cheerleading reject, and even when Bellamy nearly got pinned, he shouted, “Bro, you got it! You’re my hero!”

Clarke watched with interest, partially because it was two hot guys rolling around together, partially because it was hilarious to hear Miller boast about how he was a two-time state champion and Bellamy was nothing. Bellamy was bigger and probably stronger, too, but Miller definitely seemed to have more technique. So it was probably only a matter of time until Bellamy would be pinned, but at least he was putting up a good fight.

Octavia sauntered up to Clarke, arms crossed over her chest, and said, “I’ll join Team Bellamy, even though he hates my boyfriend.”

Clarke looked across the circle of friends, where the big guy was just kind of watching with a half-smile on his face. “What’s his name?” she asked.

“Lincoln.” Octavia grinned proudly and boasted, “He could kick both their asses if he wanted to.”

Of that, Clarke had no doubt. Lincoln was built like an amateur bodybuilder, and his size was intimidating. Octavia was intimidating, too, though, in her own right. Intimidatingly beautiful, intimidatingly confident, intimidatingly hostile. Clarke wanted to like her, but she was just . . . unnerved by her instead.

“Sorry if I seemed like a bitch before,” Octavia muttered, getting the words out quickly as though apologizing wasn’t a normal thing for her. “You do whatever you want with my brother. I just . . . well, I wish he’d try something serious with someone. No offense.”

“No, none taken,” Clarke assured her, returning her attention to the wrestling match. Miller had Bellamy pinned now, and Jackson was down on the ground, examining it, counting. He slammed his hand down like a referee on a mat, and everyone cheered.

“Yeah!” Miller hollered, shooting to his feet. He paraded around the circle victoriously with his arms in the air. “Victory again! What is this now, Bellamy, huh? What’s my streak?”

Bellamy stood up slowly, holding his arm and laughing. He had dirt on his clothes and on his face and in his hair, and he looked . . . so adorable. Young and boyish and adorable. And nothing like the man who was probably going to get on top of her later tonight.

No, it’s not serious, she thought, because it never hurt to remind herself of that. But at least it’s fun.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

Clarke’s mother invited her out to lunch at the start of midterms week, and it couldn’t have been worse timing. She had so much studying to do, so many projects to complete before the end of the week, and the thought of having to set aside time to try to impress her mother honestly sounded exhausting. But she agreed to it, because she pretty much had to. She did love her mom, and she knew it was important to spend time with her to try to close up that gap that had formed between them ever since she’d announced her bisexuality.

Her mother, Abby, was a beautiful woman, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to mistake her and Clarke for sisters when they went out. Sometimes, it even seemed like the waiters were flirting with her, which was awkward for Clarke to sit there and watch, but she was used to it by now. No one ever flirted with her when Marcus Kane was out with them, though. Clarke’s stepfather was well-known and well-respected all over D.C. and the surrounding area. When Abby told Clarke that he’d be accompanying them for lunch, there wasn’t a doubt in Clarke’s mind that he’d get them into the nicest restaurant and get them seated at the nicest table where they’d be served the nicest food by the nicest waiters.

“So, Clarke,” Marcus said as he halfheartedly ate his way through a salad—Abby had him on this whole healthy food kick since election year could be so stressful. “How are your classes going?”

“Fine,” she replied, although truthfully, they hadn’t been her biggest priority lately.

“Are you on track to graduate this year?”

“I think so.”

“And then what’s the plan?” her mother asked as he removed all the croutons from her own salad.

Clarke shrugged, reaching to the center of the table to grab a breadstick, because salads were not her thing. “We’ll see.” Nothing was set in stone yet, so her options were open. Very open. An art degree wasn’t the easiest thing to launch a career out of, but she had ambitions. Not plans, exactly, but ambitions.

“Well, if all else fails, you could always come work for me,” her stepfather offered.

She just smiled politely, but . . . there was no way she’d ever do that. It was nothing against him, either. For a politician, he was a decent guy, and he’d been a good stepdad. But a career in politics was not for her, just like a career in medicine hadn’t been.

“How’s Raven?” her mother inquired, switching the subject much to Clarke’s relief.

“Good,” Clarke replied. “She went through a break-up last month, but it was mutual, so she’s good.”

“Which one’s Raven?” Marcus asked. “The lesbian?”

Clarke bit her tongue, because . . . as good of a guy as he was, did he not hear how that sounded? The lesbian? “No, that’s Niylah,” she clarified. “Raven’s the one in grad school.”

“Her best friend,” Abby reminded him. “Well, that’s good that she’s doing well. Beautiful, smart girl like that . . . she’ll probably have another boyfriend in no time.”

“Probably,” Clarke agreed. For as much as Raven did enjoy being single, she never seemed to stay that way for long.

“What about you, Clarke?” her mother kept on questioning. “Who are you seeing these days?”

And here we go, Clarke thought as her stomach churned a bit. Those questions about Raven had just been an elaborate segue to this. She should have seen it coming. “I’m not really seeing anyone,” she responded calmly, and it wasn’t a lie. Not technically. “I’ve made some new friends, though, lately.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” her mother said. “Do they go to the university?”

“Um . . .” She set what was left of her breadstick down on her plate, feeling less and less hungry the longer and longer this conversation wore on. “No.”

“So they’re older then?”

Leave it to her mother to jump to that conclusion. “No, they’re about my age,” she said, sensing what both her mom and stepdad were thinking. What kind of friends were these? Were they lazy bums? What kind of no-good nonsense were they into?

Her mother frowned. “Hmm. I thought Arkadia was supposed to be a college town, though.”

“It is, but it’s a small college,” Clarke pointed out. “They’re really fun, though. And one of them . . .” She smiled fondly when she thought about all the documentaries Bellamy had stocked on his bookshelves. “One of them really loves history. He’s really smart.”

“I don’t understand why, in this day and age, though, anyone would opt not to go to college,” her stepfather said, much to her displeasure. “Maybe it sounds pretentious, but just knowing what the job landscape is, young people these days almost have to pursue an education if they want to have any sort of future. Or at least anything beyond blue collar work.”

Clarke frowned, looking down at her lap. Bellamy was blue collar. What was wrong with that? So were Miller and Emori. Murphy . . . well, he was probably more no collar since he didn’t have a job, and Jasper was a different breed altogether. But they were all good people, and here her own stepfather was, talking about them as if they were . . . inferior.

The conversation continued to deteriorate after that, with her mother and Marcus doing most of the talking. They talked about grad school, about the possibility of Clarke going to grad school. They talked more about this job opening at Kane’s office, which Clarke didn’t want to hear anything about. They even talked about some ‘nice young man’ who was an up-and-comer on the political scene, someone they thought Clarke might really like and wanted to introduce her to at some point. Neither one of them seemed to notice that she’d essentially exited the conversation and was just sitting there in silence, waiting for the main course, hoping they’d skip dessert.

When it was finally over, she hugged and said goodbye to them both, thanked them for the lunch like the good little daughter she was, and then proceeded to blast some angry chick rock music on the drive home. She poured herself into her studies for the rest of the afternoon, but by the time evening rolled around, her attention span was shot, and she slammed her books shut and went over to Bellamy’s.

He was still in his work clothes when she dragged him up to his bedroom, but he got out of them quickly. She sat in his lap and ranted while he removed her clothes from her, so focused on her frustration that she didn’t even do much to help him.

“And the whole time, I was just sitting there thinking, ‘What’s so great about white collar anyway?’” she rambled he lifted her shirt over her head. “What, like it’s the social class everyone’s supposed to aspire to? What’s so great about it?”

“I don’t know,” he breathed against her lips, kissing her sloppily as his hands wound around her back to unhook her bra.

“It’s all stuffy luncheons and charity events if you ask me.” She shook her shoulders so her bra fell off. “Not that there’s anything wrong with charity.”

He lifted one breast and bent down to press a hot, sucking kiss to it.

“What’s wrong with being a plumber or a handyman or an artist?” She groaned, shifting in his lap as he pulled her pants down. “They don’t like my job, my orientation . . . do they like anything about me?”

“I like you,” Bellamy murmured, kissing his way up her collarbone to suck on her neck.

“It’s just so frustrating,” she lamented, moaning as his large, calloused hands slipped down the back of her panties to cup her ass. “Bellamy, just . . .” She threw her head back, already panting for air. Having his hands and mouth on her was making her forget about what was pissing her off. “Bellamy, please . . .” She grabbed at his hair and dug her fingernails into his arm as the juncture between her legs started to throb for him. “Just fuck me,” she told him, knowing that would put her in a better mood.

She got exactly what she’d asked for when he put her on all fours and pounded her hard for the next ten minutes. He was a little bit rougher than normal, perhaps venting some workday frustrations of his own. It took Clarke longer to cum than she would have liked, only because she was so tightly wound after everything today; but the longer he was inside her, the more she felt the tension in her body start to dissipate. After she came, she felt completely relaxed, completely at ease, and cuddling up next to him afterward was icing on the cake.

“You feel better?” he asked, rubbing his arm up and down her back.

“Yeah.” She traced lazy designs on his chest, wishing they could do this every time she felt stressed or distressed about something. Like tomorrow when it came time to take that art history midterm she was probably going to fail. It would have been really nice to be able to get up during the middle of the test, go fuck Bellamy, and then come back afterward and finish.

“Not to upset you again,” he said leadingly, “but was it just your mom today or your mom and your dad?”

“Stepdad,” she corrected. “And it was both of them.”

“Stepdad,” he echoed. “How long has he been your stepdad?”

“Mmm, like two years now.”

“Two years?” His fingers started to play with the tips of her hair. “Where’s your actual dad? Is he still part of your life?”

She nuzzled her face against his chest, sadly mumbling, “Not anymore.”

Bellamy sighed, rubbing his legs against hers beneath the blankets. “I’ve never met my dad,” he revealed. “I don’t even know who he is. I don’t even care.”

She’d kind of gathered that much from the blatant lack of any father figure in all these pictures in his room.

“Octavia has a different dad,” he went on. “She knows him.”

He thinks my dad just abandoned me, she thought, like his abandoned him. She didn’t want to let him think that. It wasn’t fair to him to keep it a secret or fair to her dad. She wanted him to know the truth, but the truth wasn’t an easy thing to talk about. She supposed she should, though, in the interest of being friends. One of the biggest benefits of her relationship with Bellamy was supposed to be the closeness that their friendship could provide. He’d already listened to her about the bisexuality stuff, and he’d been a good listener. So she knew he’d listen to this, too.

“My dad and I were best friends,” she reminisced, smiling fondly as she remembered all the ‘take your daughter to work’ days and bicycle lessons in the park. “We did everything together.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” If nothing else, she had those memories. Nothing could ever take that away from her. “But then he died when I was sixteen.”

Bellamy stilled beneath her. His hand stopped playing with her hair, and his chest quit moving up and down. “God, Clarke,” he finally said. “I’m sorry.”

She shifted so that her hands were pillowed beneath her head and she could look up at him. “It was a brain tumor,” she revealed. “Smartest guy I ever knew and . . . a brain tumor.”

Bellamy shook his head sadly, tightening his arm around her. “That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “I think he’d be proud of me, though. He loved that I love art, and he’d probably even love that I love girls. He was very open-minded.”

“Sounds like a cool guy.”

“Yeah.” Honestly, Bellamy reminded her of him in a lot of ways. His intelligence, his charisma, his ability to fix things . . . those were all traits her father had possessed in spades.

Propping herself up on her forearms, she urged, “Tell me something about you, though. Something deep.”

“Something deep?”

“Yeah, we’ve talked about my dad, my bisexuality . . . we never talk about you.”

“There’s not much to say.”

She gave him a look. Since when did he hold back? Bellamy liked to talk, liked to hear himself talk, and other people liked to hear him talk, too. Now here she was, asking him to say something and . . . nothing? It didn’t make sense.

“You already know the main things,” he said. “I love my mom, love my sister. Love my friends. That’s it.”

“You love history,” she added.

“Okay, yeah, I do love history.”

“You were valedictorian.”

“Salutatorian,” he corrected, mumbling disgruntledly, “I should’ve been valedictorian.”

“What else?” For the most part, this was pretty much stuff she already knew. And she wanted to know more.

“I was homecoming king,” he said.

“Wow, you really got deep there.”

He chuckled. “I don’t know. I don’t know what else to say.”

She sighed heavily, pretending to be all exasperated. “Fine, we’ll keep it lighthearted. What’s your favorite fruit?”

“I don’t know,” he said again.

“Not watermelon?”

“No, I don’t even like it that much. I was getting that for Miller.”

“And the apples?” she asked.

“For Murphy. I don’t like them that much, either.”

She shook her head disapprovingly. “Look at what they started.”

“It’s all their fault.” He smirked flirtatiously and pulled her head down towards his for a kiss, the kind that didn’t stop, the kind that felt like it could go on forever. And in that moment, as she lay all warm and comfortable in his arms, Clarke kind of wished it would.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy hated going to the gym with Miller, because Miller was a drill sergeant when it came to workouts. But every once in a while, when he had no jobs lined up for the day and nothing better to do with his time, he went, only because Miller was his best friend and practically begged him. Well, and because he didn’t want to look like a shrimp next to Lincoln. But whatever.

“Five more,” Miller said, serving as his spotter while he bench pressed what was probably ten pounds over his limit.

“I hate this,” Bellamy groaned, lowering the bar to his chest, struggling to lift it back up again.

“It’s good exercise,” was Miller’s rationale. “Maybe not as good as sex with Clarke, but . . .”

Bellamy had to keep from laughing so he wouldn’t drop the heavy bar. “Gotta stay in shape,” he said, finishing it out. Three, two, one . . .

Miller took the bar and helped him put it back in the holder. “Good job,” he said.

“That sucked,” Bellamy grumbled as he sat up, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “Clarke and I aren’t having that much sex, are we?”

Miller choked out an incredulous laugh. “Uh, yeah, you are,” he said. “I can’t even get to sleep most nights.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” Bellamy pointed out. “What about you and Jackson?”

“Jackson spends the night maybe twice a week,” Miller said. “Clarke’s over all the time.”

“Three or four nights,” Bellamy said.

Miller held up five fingers and proclaimed, “I counted. Five nights last week, man.”

Five nights? Bellamy thought. How had that happened? Not that it mattered. They could spend as many nights together as they wanted to. Or as many nights apart as they wanted to. That was the glorious freedom their kind of relationship allowed. There was no expectation.

“I think she likes our place,” he said, standing up.

“Better than the Palace?” Miller swung his leg over the bench press and lay down, taking Bellamy’s place.

“Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, Polaris is nice,” Bellamy said, removing one ten-pound weight plate from each side, “but I think it’s a little too nice for her.”

Miller chuckled, positioning his hands on the bar. “Who knew our house was the real Palace all along, huh?”

“Yeah, really.” Bellamy lifted the bar off of the rack, and Miller started his reps.

Before leaving the rec center, Bellamy swung by one of the studio rooms, where he knew it was likely Octavia was teaching one of her classes. Karate, tai-kwon-do, martial arts. Whatever it was, he could never really tell the difference. He heard her yelling from all the way down the hall, and when he peeked in, he saw her putting her class through a punishing workout. She had them doing hip flexors and lunges, and the people who couldn’t do that were doing squats. It looked like boot camp; it looked like torture.

“Bellamy!” she called over some annoying techno beat from her speaker. “Join us.”

“Nah, I think I’m alright,” he declined.

“You might wanna build up some core strength if you wanna keep . . . doing what you’re doing,” she suggested, giving him a pointed look. “Or if you wanna do it for longer periods of time.”

“Can we stop?” one desperate, overweight woman in the front of the room asked. She was dripping sweat and looked like she was about to die.

“One more minute,” Octavia told her. “One more minute, people! Finish strong. You got this.”

Bellamy hung back, occupying himself with a yoga ball while Octavia finished up with her class. Seeing his little sister like this never ceased to impress and amaze him. And also terrify him. Her dedication to fitness was something he definitely hadn’t seen coming when she’d been growing up, but she’d started karate lessons in eighth grade to help channel some anger issues, and that had ended up being the start of everything. Of course, he was fairly certain she’d met Lincoln in one of these classes, so . . . he wasn’t a fan of that.

When everyone was gone, she jumped in front of him and said, “Are you my supervisor now? Are you monitoring this just like you try to monitor every other part of my life?”

“Hey, I think I’ve loosened up over the years,” he said, even though he could definitely still be overprotective. “I let you go to Mexico for four fuckin’ weeks.”

“Oh, you let me go?”

“You know what I mean.”

She sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes. “I’m not a little kid anymore, Bellamy. You know that.”

“I know.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Uh-huh.”

“A grown woman.”

He grimaced. “That sounds weird.”

“Why? Because grown women have sex?”

He rubbed his forehead, muttering, “I really don’t wanna think about that.”

“You know, I’m pretty much the same age as your little ‘friend,’ Clarke or whatever.”

“That’s different,” he argued.

“Why? How is that different?’

“It just . . .” He was well aware of the double-standard, his sexual promiscuity being completely acceptable in his mind while her monogamous relationship with Lincoln wasn’t. “It just is, okay?”

She glared at him judgmentally. “What are you doing with her anyway, Bell? Are you trying that friends with benefits crap again? Because that’s exactly what it is: crap.”

“O . . .” He was starting to regret coming in here at all. Here he’d thought he and his sister could maybe go hang out this afternoon, catch up after her month away, maybe figure out what Christmas gifts they wanted to get their mom. But apparently she was in one of her vicious moods, which he’d learned to tolerate but still didn’t enjoy.

“No, Bellamy, you deserve more, okay?” she pressed on. “You’re a good guy—annoying sometimes, but generally good. And you’re just wasting your time in these meaningless relationships, just so you can get laid. But you know you’re a good boyfriend. You know there are plenty of girls out there willing to date you.”

“And you know I’m not interested in that.”

“Well, Lincoln said--”

“Oh, please,” he cut in vehemently, “do tell me what Lincoln said about me. His opinion matters so much to me.”

“Forget it,” she said dismissively, waving him off as she collected the yoga mat and ankle weights she’d brought to the gym today. “If you and Clarke ever stop fucking and have an actual conversation, tell her I said hi.”

He absorbed that parting shot and stood there alone in that studio after she’d gone, shaking his head in frustration. He loved his sister more than life itself, but there were times . . . times when she made him want to punch something. And this was one of those times. Even though they’d grown up together for virtually their entire lives, there were just certain things they struggled to understand about each other. He, for instance, couldn’t understand what she saw in Lincoln, a guy who was six years older than her and supported her decision not to attend college, even though she had the option to go. She in turn didn’t understand why his relationship with Clarke was a good thing, how it was possible for them to have plenty of sex and plenty of actual conversations at the same time.

He didn’t need her approval, though, any more than she needed his.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Clarke wasn’t sure how Bellamy convinced her to do so many of things he did—sex in his truck was the primary example, of course, but visiting a sex shop with him? That was another quizzical thing she had no explanation for. She didn’t even know Arkadia had a sex shop, but apparently it did. It was this little store shamefully tucked away at the end of the town’s very small, very pathetic outlet mall. It was called Ice Nation, so naturally, Clarke had always assumed it sold ice skates.

Bellamy seemed to want to go explore it with her as more of a joke than anything else, but Clarke called Raven and convinced her to tag along as backup. Raven didn’t need much convincing. She was a little bit of a freak and enjoyed the slightly wilder things in life. Clarke felt better having her there, because if Bellamy started talking about some weird sex mechanisms she didn’t even have the vocabulary for, Raven could probably enlighten her.

“God,” Clarke said as they strolled past the whips and handcuffs, some of which were furry. “I feel like I just walked into 50 Shades of Grey.”

“Crap movie,” Bellamy denounced.

“Are you into that kind of thing?” She really hoped he wasn’t, because as willing as she was to try new stuff with him and be adventurous, all that BDSM pain and humiliation was probably taking things a little too far.

“No, not really,” he replied, much to her relief. “But I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a little . . . spanking once in a while.” He reached down and smacked her ass as he said that.

She jumped a bit, startled. Although, no, she supposed there was nothing wrong with that, within reason. “This place is crazy,” she said, subconsciously veering off in the direction of the strapons. She’d never been a huge fan of strapon sex, but Lexa had sometimes worn this purple one that she knew how to work pretty damn well. She used it better than Finn had used his real one, so that was saying something.

“You’ve really never been to a place like this before?” Bellamy said, sounding surprised.

“No, never.”

“Not even to get one of these?” He held up one of the vibrators. “Or those?” And then he gestured towards the strapons.

“I don’t own a strapon. And I order my vibrators online,” she informed him. “I’m an Amazon Prime member. I get free shipping.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Crazy,” he said, putting the vibrator back up on the shelf. “Oh, and look at this.” He nearly knocked down a display of dildos as he squeezed around her to pick up some weird-looking interconnected metal rings.

“What is that?” she asked.

“I don’t know, like a dick harness or something.”

“Yours wouldn’t even fit in there,” she said, not only to boost his ego, but also because it was true.

“Damn straight.” He shuddered a bit and put that back down.

She stumbled over something down on the floor and picked it up to get a closer look, perplexed. “What is this, like a construction cone?” she asked. It sort of looked like one, only it was smaller and pink.

“You’re probably supposed to stick that up your ass,” he said.

“Ew.” She immediately dropped it onto the floor. “Isn’t there anything normal in here?”

“No, Clarke, it’s a sex shop.” His eyes lit up when he spotted something in the back of the store. “Get a load of that.” He scampered towards a life-sized blow-up sex doll, one who had a conveniently placed hole in her mouth, in between her legs, and probably one around back, too. “Come here,” he said, setting the doll in front of him.

“Oh my god, Bellamy.”

“Just come here.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her in close, and just for the sake of playing along, she pretended to be all over the doll, making an exaggeratedly aroused face as he snapped a quick selfie.

“There,” he said, putting the doll back. “Now we had a threesome.”

“Please don’t post that picture anywhere,” she begged. “I really can’t have my mom finding it.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, Princess,” he promised, pocketing his phone.

Raven, who had been more than content to let them browse together while she wandered off on her own, suddenly called, “Clarke!” from the other side of the store. “Come here for a minute.”

Clarke left Bellamy to look around at whatever else caught his fancy or piqued his curiosity, and she joined Raven in the clothing section of the store. Some of the clothes, upon first glance, actually looked pretty cute.

“Look at this,” Raven said, holding up a red bra and panties set.

“Lingerie,” Clarke said. “Nice.”

“Edible lingerie,” Raven informed her.

“What?” Clarke took a closer look and noticed that the whole thing was made out of candy, Red Hots, to be exact. “Oh, no way.”

“You should get this,” Raven suggested. “I bet Bellagio would love it.”

“I can’t wear that,” Clarke said.

“Why not?”

“I’m too . . .” She glanced down at her chest. “Top heavy. You could get it, though.”

“Hmm, maybe.” Raven held up the miniscule clothing—was it even really clothing if there was no cloth involved?—and studied it closely. Her eyes wandered to the side, though, when Bellamy dropped something. As he bent down to pick it up, Raven swore, “Damn, Clarke. Look at his ass.”

“I know, it’s ridiculous.” Clarke just stood there for a minute, admiring the view. Girls were typically the ones with the better backsides, but Bellamy’s was just so perfectly sculpted, just like the rest of him.

“How the fuck did you meet this guy at Walmart?” Raven asked in astonishment, practically salivating.

“Hell if I know.” Clarke licked her lips, loving these tight jeans he was wearing. He really needed to wear them more often.

“Sorry,” Raven said, tearing her eyes away. “Don’t mean to ogle your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Clarke reminded her.

“Boy who’s a friend. With benefits. Better?”

Clarke nodded affirmatively. “There you go.”

“Alright. Go make sure he’s not getting into any trouble. I’m gonna keep looking,” Raven declared, hanging up the Red Hot outfit again.

“Let me know if you find anything I actually could buy.” As weird as this store was, Clarke wasn’t opposed to purchasing something if it wasn’t too out there.

When she rejoined Bellamy, he’d found something that had his full interest: a book. “Leave it to you to find something to read in a sex shop,” she teased.

He shut the book and held it up for her to read the cover. Tantric Sex, it was called, and there was a picture of a couple in the middle of some heavy duty lovemaking on the front of it.

“Educational?” she asked.

“It’s not bad,” he said, reopening it. “Lots of positions and stuff. Look at this one.” He showed her a diagram of a couple that looked . . . backbreaking.

“I don’t think I’m flexible enough for that,” she fretted.

“Oh, you are,” he assured her, snapping the book shut. “I might get this.”

“Go for it.” She highly doubted Bellamy needed a book to get inspiration for new positions, but maybe it’d be interesting reading for her.

After laughing at and poking fun of a few more of the so-called ‘toys’ on display, Clarke and Bellamy headed up to the front counter to pay for their book. It was hardcover thing, so it was marked at twenty-five dollars. Even though Clarke offered to pay for half of it, Bellamy wouldn’t let her. He rang the bell for service at the register, and a few seconds later, a long-haired guy with a half-ponytail shuffled out from an office. He neglected to shut his door, though, so Clarke caught sight of his computer, which was still in the middle of playing a video on some porn site.

“Bellamy,” he said. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, you, too,” Bellamy said. “I thought you were dead.”

The long-haired guy cracked a smile. “Not dead. Just needed a break. But now I’m back. The king of Ice Nation has returned.” He glanced at Clarke and introduced himself as he scanned their book. “I’m Roan.”

“Roan,” Clarke echoed. “The king, huh?”

“Well, this is my store,” he proclaimed proudly.

“Why is it called Ice Nation?” she inquired. She’d asked Bellamy on the way there, but he hadn’t known.

“It’s an homage to one of cinema’s greatest sex scenes,” Roan explained, “from the movie 9 ½ Weeks.”

Clarke cocked her head to the side, still confused. “I don’t get it.” It probably didn’t help that she’d never seen the film.

“It involves ice cubes,” Bellamy told her. “I’ll show you later. You’ll like it.”

“You could try it with one of these positions,” Roan suggested as he put the book in a non-transparent sack.

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” Bellamy handed over three ten dollar bills to pay for the book.

“Don’t waste your time,” Raven advised as she meandered to the counter with the red edible lingerie in hand. “I’ve tried the whole ice cube thing. It’s overrated.”

Roan stared at her as though he were star struck, and distractedly handed Bellamy’s change back to him. “Well, well, well,” he drawled, eyeing her up and down, “what do we have here?”

“We have a Raven,” Clarke’s friend answered confidently, setting her lingerie down on the counter. “Just this, please.”

Roan lifted up the fragile garment and nodded his head in approval. “This will look amazing on your skin tone,” he speculated.

“It’ll look better off of it.”

Damn, girl, Clarke thought, always impressed by her friend’s outgoingness. She and Bellamy stepped aside so Raven and Roan could . . . well, flirt.

Roan seemed to take his sweet time ringing up Raven’s purchase, and was even brazen enough to ask, “Who gets to see you in this?”

“That’s to be determined.” Raven smiled at him seductively, and it was as if Roan suddenly had no interest in the porno he’d left playing on his computer. When they left, he’d probably switch to some Latina porn site, because that was clearly what he’d be craving.

It wasn’t just Roan, though, who felt the spark. When they left the store and were out of earshot, Raven eagerly announced, “I love the king,” and practically pranced towards the car.

Bellamy gave Clarke a curious look, and she just smiled. Hey, the Walmart parking lot, the Ice Nation sex shop . . . sometimes sparks happened in the weirdest places.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy felt like he was truly blessed when he got to shower with Clarke for the first time. She’d had a flat tire, so she’d called him to come fix it. He had, of course, but since all she had was this little temporary tire in the trunk, he insisted on following her home, making sure she got there okay.

How all of that resulted in the shower, he wasn’t quite sure, but he didn’t care to question it. At first they kind of just stood under the water and made out, and he even ran some shampoo through her hair for her. But when her shower doors were sufficiently steamed up and he was getting turned on to the point where he had to adjust the temperature of the water downward, that was when she got on her knees and took his cock into her mouth.

Damn, it was good, feeling that steady stream of water on his back while she licked and sucked every droplet off his length. She was trying lots of different techniques, too, first concentrating on the head by circling her tongue around it. Then she gave him lots of long licks, her tongue pressed flat to the underside of his cock as it glided all the way from base to tip. But eventually, she opened up wide and really took him in, keeping her lips tight as she moved her head up and down. It felt sort of like a vacuum, which felt amazing, and he made sure to whisper and groan, “Yeah,” and “Like that,” so she knew she was doing well. She made sounds, too, throaty moans that vibrated all around his shaft. Hearing her moan made him realize it wasn’t just him who was enjoying this; she was enjoying it, too.

When the hand she was using to grip the base of his cock shifted ever so slightly to cup his balls, he about shot his load right then and there. This was new. She gently massaged them while continuing to suck him off, and he knew he was a goner. His princess was treating him so well.

“I’m gonna cum,” he warned her, trying to push her head away. She wouldn’t let him, though. He knew she’d heard him, but she didn’t pull away like she usually did, didn’t use her hand to finish him off. Her gorgeous lips remained wrapped around his cock, and he took that to mean it was okay. So he closed his eyes, reveled in the sensations a bit longer, and then just let go. He came pretty hard in her mouth, hoping she could handle it. He knew the taste or the texture or whatever grossed some girls out, and Clarke had never actually done this before. At least not with him.

Eyes shut, she slowly slid her mouth off his cock once he was done, pressing her lips together tightly to keep everything inside. He watched in awe as she tilted her head back determinedly, and her throat moved as she swallowed. Judging by the look on her face, it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable taste, but she did it; she did it for him.

When she opened her eyes and looked up at him with this sweet, innocent look on her face, he wished he was able to cum again right that minute. “Wow,” he breathed out in amazement.

Her breasts jiggled as she stood up, she smoothed her wet hair back from her face. “Did you like that?”

“Yeah.” Maybe it was recency bias, but it was the best damn blow job he remembered getting in a long time. “You didn’t have to that, though.”

“I know,” she said, rubbing her hands against his chest. “I wanted to.”

Damn, he thought, gazing at her appreciatively. She was one hell of a good girl.

He could have left and gone home for the night, but she offered to cook him dinner. That was a disaster, one he had to rectify by whipping up some spaghetti, but it was fun to see her try. After they ate, she complained about having to study, and he lay down on the bed with her, flipping through the TV channels while she flipped through her textbook.

“Sure you don’t want me to return the favor?” he asked, still high off that shower blowjob.

“No,” she said. “Well, I mean, I want you to, but you can’t. I have to study.”

He took a peek at what she was reading, frowning when he saw some big flowchart on one of the pages. “What’re you studying? That doesn’t look like art,” he remarked.

“It’s not. It’s for my business class.” She turned the page disinterestedly, then turned another without reading anything.

“Why are you taking a business class?”

“Because, after I graduate, I wanna start up my own gallery. But you gotta have some kind of business knowledge to do that, so . . .”

“Ugh,” he groaned, rubbing his head, “you know who has his own art gallery?”

“Who?”

He shot her an unhappy look. “Lincoln.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he owns it with his friend Nyko.”

Clarke thought about it a moment, and then her whole face lit up with excitement. “You mean the Trikru art gallery? I love that place! I used to go there all the time when I needed inspiration.”

“Oh, great another Lincoln fan,” he grumbled sarcastically, redirecting his attention to the TV.

“Sorry,” she apologized.

“No, if you need to talk to him to get some advice or anything . . . have at it.” He finally settled on American Ninja Warrior, because . . . really, that shit was just fucking awesome.

“Why don’t you like him?” Clarke asked, totally forgetting about the open book next to her as she stared at him intently.

“Ah, I’m just an overprotective big brother,” he confessed. “Plus, I walked in on him and Octavia having sex when she was eighteen.”

“Oh god.”

“Yeah, it was awful.” He grimaced, squeezing his eyes shut as the horrible memories came back to him. Octavia had been living with him at the time, sleeping in Murphy’s room before it had been Murphy’s room. And she’d brought Lincoln over while she thought Bellamy was at work. But he’d come home early, and it had all just gone to hell from there. “He deflowered her,” he said dramatically, because that was the only terminology he could think of to describe it. “He deflowered her, and I saw it. I’m gonna have nightmares about that for the rest of my life.”

“Well, at least she waited until she was eighteen,” Clarke pointed out. “I was sixteen.”

“The high school boyfriend?” he guessed. He’d heard a couple things about that guy.

“Yeah, Finn.” She rolled her eyes in annoyance. “I thought he was so cute, though, and to his credit, he was really there for me after my dad died. So that’s how we got together. But he was cheating on me with Raven, and he was cheating on Raven with me. So when we found out about it, we decided to hate him instead of hating each other, and that’s how we became best friends.” She smirked proudly.

“That’s . . . kind of awesome.” He’d never understand guys who cheated on their girls, and he had no qualms about being highly judgmental of the ones who did.

“What about you?” she asked, scooting a bit closer. “How old you were you?”

“Uh, fifteen.” That seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Who was it?”

“Some random chick.”

“Some random chick?” she echoed laughingly. “Well, it must have been a magical night.”

“It only lasted two minutes,” he openly admitted. “I was over-eager.”

“Well, you’ve gotten better since then.”

“I would hope so.” Hopefully that girl, who he was going to have to avoid the fuck out of if he ever attended a high school reunion, wouldn’t hold the bad experience against him. He was pretty sure it’d been her first time, too.

“How many girls have you been with?” Clarke inquired suddenly.

The question threw him for a loop, not because he wasn’t expecting it, but because . . . it wasn’t like he kept a tally. “A few,” he answered vaguely.

“Like ten?” she pressed. “More than ten?”

“More than ten.”

“Do I even wanna know?”

“Probably not.” Sometimes even he didn’t like to think about it.

She reached over and put hand on his lower abdomen, gently drumming her fingertips against it. “Is that how you got so good?”

He shrugged as best he could lying down. “Practice makes perfect.” He knew most of it was from experience, some of it from porn, and plenty of it was just natural-born talent; but yeah, he’d done a lot of different things with a lot of different women. But he paid attention, gauged their reactions, and figured out what they liked. And what they didn’t.

“God, no wonder I have such a hard time keeping up,” she said.

“What’re you talking about?” For a second, he actually thought she was joking, because . . . since when didn’t she keep up with him? “You do so good. You’ve had practice.”

“I’ve only ever been with two other people, Bellamy,” she informed him.

“Seriously?” That surprised him.

“Yeah, Finn and Lexa. And Lexa didn’t have the same equipment you do. Actually, neither did Finn. That was, like . . .” She held her fingers apart and squeezed the air to demonstrate. “. . . half-size.”

As much as it thrilled him to know that he was one of only three people she’d slept with, (and that he was bigger than her ex), he still couldn’t help but be bit shocked by the whole thing. “I’m really only the third person you’ve had sex with?”

“Yes, is that so hard to believe?”

“Kind of.” He’d assumed he was the fifth or sixth, maybe.

“What, do you think I’m like a slut or something?”

“No, just . . .” He didn’t want to offend her by insinuating that. His surprise was more of a compliment than anything else. “Wow. You had me fooled.” He pictured her mouth on his cock, doing what it did so well, and all he could figure was that she was fast learner. Because a high school relationship couldn’t have been that educational, and a relationship with a girl was just different. “It’s a good thing,” he assured her, genuinely impressed. “You . . . you’re good, Clarke.”

Of course, Clarke had this thing about praise; he’d noticed it and doubted she was even aware of it. But when he complimented her, she loved it, so it wasn’t all that surprising when she started to nuzzle up to him and murmur, “Mmm.” She was horny.

“No, no, you gotta study,” he reminded her, gently pushing her away.

She groaned frustratedly and buried her head in her pillow, so he reached over and turned the pages in her book back to that flowchart page where she’d technically left off. As much as he would have loved to distract her for the night, she was his friend. And he wasn’t about to let his friend flunk her midterms.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6

“Almost done?”

“Yeah.” Clarke lay out on the increasingly-prickly grass of her campus’s center plaza, putting the finishing touches on her quick sketch. She added a little shading where necessary, then then held her notebook to her chest and said, “Okay. One, two, three.” She and Niylah both flipped their sketches around, revealing their best penis drawings, and unsurprisingly, Niylah’s was horrible. “Niylah!” Clarke screeched in outrage. “What is that?” It didn’t even look like a human body part.

“I tried my best, okay?” Niylah said. “It’s not like I’m an expert.”

“But you’ve seen one, right?”

“One. But I didn’t get up close and personal with it or anything.”

“Clearly.” Niylah’s drawing was so . . . puny. A true embarrassment to men everywhere.

“I can’t help it,” her friend said. “I think they’re unsightly.”

“Well, some of them are,” Clarke admitted. “Not Bellamy’s, though.”

Niylah motioned to Clarke’s drawing. “Is that supposed to be his?”

“Yeah.” She smiled at its likeness, though it didn’t look exactly the same. “I didn’t get all the freckles, though.”

“Well, I must admit, size-wise . . . it’s impressive,” Niylah acknowledged. “I could almost go straight for that.”

Clarke laughed at the absurdity of that statement. “Yeah, right.”

Niylah crumped up her drawing and aimed it at a nearby trashcan. It bounced off the side and didn’t go in, so she got up and threw it away. “No, seriously, though,” she said, sitting down next to Clarke again. “I’d love to meet this guy. We could compare notes on going down on girls, see who has the better technique.” She wriggled her tongue excitedly.

Clarke purred contently, because all she had to do was think about that to feel aroused.

“Well, well, well,” Raven’s voice rang out as she approached, an overstuffed backpack slung over her shoulders, “if it isn’t my two favorite undergrads.”

“And our resident genius,” Clarke said.

Raven dropped her backpack down at her feet and lay down, using it as pillow. “So what’re we talking about?” she asked.

“Clarke’s boyfriend’s package,” Niylah replied.

“He is not my boyfriend,” Clarke said emphatically. Sooner or later, they were going to have to get the terminology right, because she didn’t them calling him that in front of him.

“Fuck buddy, Niylah. Get it right,” Raven scolded. “Please, Clarke, do tell. I’m living vicariously through you right now.”

Clarke smiled blissfully, because there were only good things to report. Sex with Bellamy was just as exhilarating and unpredictable now as it had been the first time. She got the sense that there was still so much more she could do with him, so much more she could try, and they were working their way up to all of that. “He’s amazing,” she raved.

“Best sex you’ve ever had?” Niylah questioned.

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She didn’t even have to think twice.

“What makes it so good?” Niylah asked on. “Besides the big dick.”

That was hard to explain, but since they were asking, Clarke figured she might as well try to explain it. “Just him, you know? He’s so . . .” She trailed, shivering with delight. “Okay, like, no matter what we’re doing or how hard we’re going at it, he’ll always stop and check in with me, you know? He’ll ask if I’m okay or just kiss me.”

“Ugh,” Raven muttered, “Wick would never.”

“And he’s not one of those guys who overdoes it on the dirty talk. You know how in porn the guys are always like, ‘Yeah, suck it, bitch. You’re a dirty little whore.’”

“I don’t watch straight porn,” Niylah reminded her.

“Well, Bellamy doesn’t say stuff like that. But he’s always like, ‘You’re such a good girl.’” She got butterflies in her stomach just imagining him saying that. “And he calls me Princess.”

“That’s called a praise kink, Clarke,” Raven informed her. “See, I’m the opposite. I don’t mind being called a bitch. Call me a bitch. Tell me I’m your dirty little slut. Oh, I bet Roan would have a filthy mouth in bed.”

And here we go, Clarke thought. Raven couldn’t stop thinking about that guy.

“Who’s Roan?” Niylah asked.

“This guy who owns the Ice Nation sex shop. Raven has the hots for him.”

“He’s gorgeous,” Raven enthused. “Besides, I’m so sexually frustrated. Which I don’t expect you to understand, Clarke, because here you are having the most sex of your life. But even with Wick, I wasn’t satisfied. Did you know that he could never get me off in missionary? I always had to be on top.

“Seriously?” Clarke wasn’t opposed to being on top, but sometimes it was nice to just lay there and let Bellamy do all the work.

“Yeah. Me on top or bust.” Raven sighed dramatically. “But I bet the king would be much more skilled.”

“Oh my god,” Niylah cackled, throwing her head back, “we are thirsty as fuck!”

It’s not my fault, Clarke wanted to say. She’d always enjoyed sex, but she’d never been quite this fixated on it until Bellamy.

The next day, while doing some last-minute Halloween costume shopping with her non-boyfriend, Clarke told him about the sex-infused girl talk, and he seemed surprised that they talked about it (and him) so much. “I think girls talk about sex more than guys sometimes,” he speculated as they strolled through the mess of a store that was Party America.

“But guys talk about sex all the time,” she argued, stepping over some children’s Halloween costumes that had fallen down. Everything was ransacked.

“No, guys think about sex all the time,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”

She wished she could read his mind, just to see what filthy thoughts might be going through it right now. “Do you think about sex all the time?”

He didn’t hesitate. “All the time, Clarke.”

“All the time?”

“Yes.”

With me? she wondered. But there were probably plenty of ex-girlfriends who popped up in his fantasies, too. “Even when you’re looking at this?” she asked teasingly, holding up a big, bulky, polka-dotted clown costume.

“Maybe not that.” He shook his head.

“God, this is awful. Everything’s picked over,” she complained, hanging the costume back up on the sales rack. “I should’ve got my costume sooner. But I was busy flunking my midterms.”

“Passing your midterms,” he corrected, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Come on, I’m sure we can find you somethin’ here. And I’m gonna buy it for you. Whatever you want.”

Bellamy maintained his optimism while they shopped, but Clarke remained hopeless. He convinced her to try on so many ridiculous costumes, including a bumble bee, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and a Minnie Mouse costume that she swore was actually meant for little girls, because she couldn’t get it up past her butt. After every failed attempt, he insisted she come out of the dressing room and show him—“model it for me, baby,” as he put it—and then he proceeded to laugh his head off, because she looked miserable and stupid in each one.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying this,” she muttered as he tossed her the next option. She didn’t even look at what it was when she ducked back into the dressing room to put it on.

As it turned out, this last costume he’d picked . . . wasn’t bad. There wasn’t much to it, as it was basically just a short white dress with matching wings and a halo. It was comfortable, though, and it fit pretty well, so maybe it would work.

“Don’t laugh at this one,” she said, stepping out of the dressing room.

He didn’t. His mouth dropped open a bit, and his eyes danced all over her, but he didn’t laugh. “Wow.”

She smoothed her hands over her stomach, feeling a bit self-conscious about how tight it was. “I wish it was in black, though,” she said. “That’d be slimming.”

“You can dye it,” he suggested, standing, moving in close to her. “Be a dark angel.”

“Hmm.” That was probably more work than it was worth, though. Besides, hooking up with Bellamy these past few weeks had probably caused her to lose a couple pounds, so maybe she didn’t even need a slimming color.

“How much is it?” He lifted up the price tag and swore, “Shit. A hundred and fifty bucks.”

“For this?” Maybe he was misreading it. That seemed ridiculously high for what was basically a stretch of fabric and some accessories.

“It’s probably real silk,” he said, sighing. “Oh, well. I said I’d buy it for you, so I’ll buy it.”

There was no way she could let him spend that much money on a Halloween costume she’d wear once, though, especially not when his income was . . . unpredictable. She probably had more money in her savings account, courtesy her parents, than he had in his entire bank account right now, and she wasn’t about to allow him to waste so much of the cash he’d worked hard for. “It’s not worth it,” she said, removing the halo. “I can come up with something else at home. And then I can surprise you.”

“Surprise me, huh?” He grinned suggestively, backing her up into the dressing room again. He shut the door, locking it into place. “I like surprises.”

“Bellamy, what are you doing?”

He pressed her back against the wall as far as he could, but her wings got in the way. “Take these off,” he said, unclipping them from her costume so he could press her back all the way.

“Bellamy.” She knew they’d done stuff in his truck and at Dropship before, but this just seemed like a new level to think about doing it here. There were other people in that store, mulling about for their own costumes mere feet away. If they heard them or had seen them slip in there together, they’d know exactly what was going on.

“You want to?” he asked huskily, a gleam of mischief in his eyes.

“We’re in a dressing room,” she pointed out.

“So?”

Of course that wasn’t enough to deter him. And honestly . . . it wasn’t really enough to deter her, either. The door went all the way down to the floor, so no one could actually see them in there. If they just kept it as quiet as possible and made it quick . . .

“We could get in trouble,” she whispered, nibbling playfully on his ear.

“I don’t care,” he whispered back, spinning her around. She gasped a bit too loudly, earning a “Shh,” from him as he pressed on her back, urging her to bend over.

Oh god, she thought, hiking her dress up and pushing her panties to the side as he slid his zipper down. Were they really doing this? They really were, weren’t they? Bellamy was crazy, and somehow he always convinced her to do these things she’d never been brave enough to try before.

“Shit,” he swore suddenly. “I don’t have a condom.”

“I do.” She tilted her head in the direction of her purse.

He reached in there and found the little foil package, smiling thankfully. “That’s my girl,” he said. “Always prepared.”

She figured she had to be nowadays, what with the two of them being so . . . active.

He tore the package open with his teeth and quickly rolled it onto his cock. She’d barely had time to position her hands against the wall when he plunged inside her, nearly causing her knees to buckle. He coiled one arm around her waist, holding her up, tugging her ass back against his groin, and settled his cock deeply inside of her.

Clarke didn’t know how she was going to stay quiet when he started thrusting. He kept his movements pretty short and simple, just to avoid the obvious sound of his skin slapping against hers. His hips grinded against her while his hands tightly gripped her waist, and she just closed her eyes and let him fuck her. This would probably be too quick for her to get off, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If he had to leave her hanging, then maybe he’d go down on her once they got home or—or reach over to the passenger’s seat and finger her during the drive there. He’d never done that before, but he’d probably be willing to, right?

“Look,” he encouraged huskily, bending forward so he was breathing into her ear.

“What?”

“Look at us.”

She knew what he was asking her to do, so slowly, she turned her head to the side and took in the sight of the two of them in the dressing room mirror. Those mirrors were never the most flattering, but what she saw . . . looked good. It looked hot.

“Look how sexy you are,” he said, his eyes locked on their reflections as well.

Oh, god, she felt sexy. Her whole body felt like it was on fire when he was touching her, when he was inside her like this. She felt out of control in the best way possible, and actually watching him fuck her, seeing them in that mirror as though they were people in a movie . . . it added this whole new level of thrill to an already thrilling situation.

She wanted to cum so badly, but he came first, fighting to keep himself quiet as he rammed his hips into her a few more times. He mumbled something about taking care of her later, which she liked the sound of, and then started getting both of them dressed. She felt dizzy with pleasure, barely able to even remember her own name, let alone remember where she’d set her shirt. But thankfully he fixed her up.

When they left the dressing room, they tried to be subtle about it, but . . . it was bad. It was so bad. There were two preteen boys with acne on their faces loitering about, cell phones out as though they’d been recording what they’d heard. They averted their eyes and tried not to laugh, of course, but Clarke knew they’d been listening.

Even more mortifying, though, was the little girl standing there with wide eyes, a pink princess dress in her hands. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and they’d probably just scarred her for life. Her mom had probably told her to come back here and try that costume on and . . .

“Oh my god, Bellamy,” Clarke mumbled hastily, feeling like they’d just corrupted all of Arkadia’s youth.

He must have felt that same sense of horror, because he just stared at the little girl for a moment, dumbfounded while the acne boys started to laugh louder. “Let’s just get outta here,” he finally suggested, grabbing her hand.

They practically fled the store.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Halloween wasn’t much of a holiday—nothing compared to President’s Day or Columbus Day or anything like that—but Bellamy still went all out for it. As a kid, he’d stopped dressing up in the fourth grade, because his mother had worked the night shift at a factory, and it’d become his responsibility to take Octavia trick-or-treating. So the holiday became all about her, her costume, her candy, until she didn’t want to go trick-or-treating anymore. It wasn’t until after he’d graduated that he bothered with a costume again, which was pretty much just a toga. Over the years, he’d kept the same outfit, though, adding to it so that he now had these ridiculous gold gladiator sandals and a gold laurel wreath crown. To complete the look this year, he found a matching gold cape at the thrift store, and when he put it all together . . . it was his best version of Apollo yet.

“There he is, god of the sun,” Miller said as Bellamy came downstairs. He and Jackson were pouring themselves some drinks in the kitchen to get their night started early. They were likely using each other’s clothes as costume, since Jackson was wearing a security guard uniform and Miller was in scrubs.

“And god of music and poetry and pretty much everything,” Bellamy made sure to add.

Jackson chuckled as he took a drink. “Why’s he your favorite?” he inquired.

Bellamy shrugged. “He’s kind of a boss. Plus, he’s got the sister, like me, loves his mom. And he’s the most beautiful god, so . . . if the shoe fits.” There was no need to be modest.

“You should’ve died your hair blonde this year,” Miller said.

“Nah, I’d rather rip my toenails off than do that.”

“I’d make a hot blonde,” Murphy boasted as he shuffled out of his bedroom. He didn’t look much different than he usually did, except that his clothes were dirtier and baggier.

“What’re you supposed to be?” Bellamy asked him.

“I’m a homeless person.”

Emori came bounding out of the room a few seconds later, looking way too hot for him in her Tomb Raider costume. “You guys ready to go?” she asked.

“Almost,” Bellamy replied, checking the clock on the wall. Clarke should have been there ten minutes ago. Maybe her costume was taking her a while.

“What’s Clarke dressing up as?” Miller asked him.

Before he could respond, Murphy grunted, “Probably Marilyn Monroe.”

Bellamy sent him a warning look.

“What? She’s got the rack for it.”

Bellamy thought about it and shrugged. Fine, that was true. And he definitely wouldn’t mind seeing Clarke as Marilyn. He was also kind of hoping that Sandy from Grease was a possibility.

“I know what Clarke’s wearing,” Emori bragged. “She sent me a picture earlier.”

“She did?” Bellamy’s interest was piqued. “Can I see?”

“No, she said it’s supposed to be a surprise.” She whipped out her phone, though, and showed her boyfriend, and he chuckled and said, “Yeah, he’s gonna love that.”

For fifteen more minutes, Bellamy and his friends waited. They talked and speculated a lot about who the live music at TonDC would be tonight, but Bellamy didn’t really care about that. He was way more interested in speculating about Clarke’s costume. It had to be something she could have thrown together pretty quickly, since she still hadn’t had one as of yesterday. Maybe she’d finally gotten that cheerleading skirt from Raven. If she went that route, he definitely looked forward to seeing her shake her . . . pom poms.

Nearly half an hour later, Clarke finally showed up, letting herself inside without knocking. Bellamy went speechless the moment he saw what she was wearing, because . . . Murphy was right. He loved it. She had on this shiny, short blue dress that looked like a sexier version of Cinderella. It was a corset style one-piece that really emphasized those amazing breasts of hers and showcased an ample amount of cleavage, and there was a layer of white lace peeking out from underneath the skirt. On her feet were sparkly shoes, on her head a sparkly crown, and her hair was pulled up off her neck, loose tendrils curtaining her face.

“Nice, Clarke,” Miller said.

“Damn, girl, you look good!” Emori complimented. “Took you long enough to get here, though. Let’s go!”

Bellamy stood up slowly, still a bit slack-jawed at the sight of this girl, and walked towards her as his friends piled out the door. “Wow,” was all he could say. She looked stunning, no doubt about it.

“You like it?” she asked, twisting from side to side, flicking the bottom of her skirt up a bit. “I had to drive to D.C. to get it, but I figured it was appropriate.”

His princess dressed as a princess? Hell, yeah, it was the most appropriate costume ever. And it filled his mind with so many inappropriate ideas.

“I love it,” he told her, happy that she’d taken inspiration from the nickname he’d given her.

“Thanks,” she said. “I like yours, too. Zeus?”

He scoffed at that. “Zeus was dumb as a box of rocks. Apollo.”

“Oh, that explains all the gold.”

“Yeah, I literally wear the same costume every single year,” he confessed. Next year would probably be time to switch it up.

“It looks good,” she said, using the strings of his cape to pull him in closer. “You’re wearing a dress.”

“A toga, Clarke,” he argued.

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes.” He had this same conversation with Murphy every year.

“Are we sure?” she teased playfully.

Unable to suppress a smile, he shook his head and pointed a finger at her, warning, “I’m not gonna have sex with you later,” as he headed out the front door.

“Yes, you will,” she said, following him. “You can’t say no to the princess.”

Per Clarke’s request, they started the night out at Mount Weather. Bellamy wasn’t sure how long they were going to stay there, but he hoped not long. Mount Weather was nothing compared to TonDC. The music was shit, the fancy drinks were shit, the people were shit—it was very much the college crowd since it was located close to campus. Not that there was anything wrong with Arkadia’s college students. They just didn’t party the way the people at TonDC did. Mount Weather was like a child’s birthday party compared to TonDC, and Bellamy couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Raven was there, dressed as Wonder Woman, and she was accompanied by some long-haired girl in a pirate costume. Clarke introduced him, and he realized the pirate was Niylah, the chick who liked chicks. The first thing she said to Bellamy, though, was, “I like your dick,” which both shocked and confused the hell out of him.

“I drew it for her,” Clarke explained.

“Oh.” That made him wonder what else she was drawing in her spare time.

In addition to Niylah, he also got to meet Clarke’s friend Wells, who was dressed as Will Smith from Men in Black. That poor kid looked like he would have rather been at home studying or playing Tetris or something, but he seemed nice enough.

Murphy and Emori didn’t last more than half an hour at Mount Weather before they told Bellamy they were leaving for TonDC. Miller and Jackson were next to go, and Monty and Harper never showed up in the first place. There wasn’t a chance in hell Jasper would ever visit Mount Weather, because it was way easier for him to get high at TonDC. By 9:00, even Octavia was texting him, asking if he was on his way.

All his friends were at a better club, and technically, he could have left to go hang out with them. Clarke wasn’t his girlfriend; they weren’t dating. He wasn’t obligated to spend the entire night with her. She would have been fine on her own, because she had other friends there. Like Wells, who she talked to about finals, which Bellamy didn’t understand, because it was Halloween and finals were months away. So why talk about school? But that kind of seemed like Wells’ thing. She had Niylah, too, who she was able to talk to about girls, and she even helped Niylah scope some out. She helped Raven scope out guys, and she had a drink or two, the colorful, fruity kind. She was having fun.

And it wasn’t that Bellamy wasn’t having fun. No, watching Clarke prance around in that princess get-up was fun, even though she had yet to get out on the dance floor. Seeing her interact with her closest friends gave him a better idea of who she was, and just like she enjoyed his friends, he enjoyed hers. Niylah seemed awesome, and watching her grab random chicks out on the dance floor and start making out with them was hot. And even though Wells was pretty reserved, he did make a few jokes about how Will Smith and OJ Simpson were the only viable options for black men to dress up as on Halloween. Bellamy genuinely cracked up when Wells lamented, “Yeah, we lost Michael Jackson when he turned white.”

He still didn’t want to stay, though. He wanted to take Clarke to TonDC and show her what a club could really offer up on Halloween. But he didn’t want to take her away from her friends, so he pulled her aside at one point and suggested, “Let’s get out of here. All of us.”

“You wanna leave?” she asked loudly over the music.

“Yeah. Let’s go to TonDC.”

“TonDC?” her eyes bulged. “That place is crazy.”

“Yeah, so let’s go.”

She looked back out at the dance floor she hadn’t even ventured onto and said, “I don’t know . . .”

“Come on, Clarke,” he urged, putting his hands on her hips. “You wanna go to a real party?”

It took a bit of convincing, but finally, she agreed to it. Wells politely declined, of course, but Niylah was down to tag along right from the start. Raven seemed to have found a couple suitable men to dance with, so she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go, but Bellamy knew how to convince her.

“Roan’s probably gonna be there,” he informed her.

She immediately shoved both her dancing partners away and said, “Well, what are we waiting for then? Let’s go.” And then she was the one to lead the way outside.

On the drive across town, Bellamy warned Clarke that TonDC would be crowded. It was a smaller space than Mount Weather, and there would probably be twice as many people there. He told her it’d be hot inside, and loud, but he also told her it’d be fun. Because if she let loose the way he knew she could, then it would be.

There was a bit of a line out front, but since the guy at the door was one of Miller’s ex-boyfriends and recognized Bellamy, they were able to bypass everyone who was waiting and get right in. The music, some real hardcore rap shit, was blasting, and the speakers were amped up so loud on the bass, it kind of felt like the whole room was shaking. People were packed in like sardines on the dance floor, one sweaty body pressed up against the next, all of them rubbing and writhing against each other, and anyone who didn’t have enough room out there seemed content to climb up on the stage or even on top of the bar and dance there. Lots of the women either hadn’t shown up in much clothing to begin with or had stripped down significantly, because bras were definitely a big theme.

“Wow,” Clarke said, coiling her hands around his bicep. “This is intense.”

“This is awesome!” Niylah exclaimed. “We should’ve been coming here this whole time.” She squeezed out onto the dance floor, immediately finding her groove and a group of people she didn’t even know to dance with.

Raven was a woman on a mission, though. Her eyes scanned the crowded dance floor with purpose. “Where’s Roan?”

He’s gotta be here, Bellamy thought, looking around.

“I swear to God, Bellagio,” Raven growled, glaring at him, “if he isn’t here . . .”

Thankfully, Bellamy spotted Roan at the bar and pointed him out to Raven before she could finish her threat. He had one blonde girl sitting on his lap and was talking to another, both of whom were dressed as Playboy bunnies.

“Thanks,” she said, quickly ditching him and Clarke. With surprising strength, she shoved aside anyone who was in her way and stepped right in front of the talkative blonde. Roan tossed the other one aside, his attention immediately diverted to Raven.

“The start of a love story?” Clarke wondered aloud.

“Who knows?” Anything was possible, he supposed, but he didn’t know much about love stories anymore.

Suspecting his friends would have staked out their own section rather than bothering with the dance floor, Bellamy braved the massive clump of people in front of him, trying to make his way to the back of the club where they usually hung out. Clarke kept hold of his arm and followed, clearly a fish out of water here. She wasn’t Niylah or Raven, both of whom seemed pretty fearless in any social situation, but she wasn’t petrified like Wells would have been, either. Still, Bellamy felt bad when a couple of drunk guys ran into them, forcing her to let go of his arm as they stumbled toward the exit. He lost sight of her in the crowd before he even knew what was happening.

“Clarke!” he called. Dammit, she was so short, he might never find her again. He stood up on his tiptoes, trying to see over all these arms that were flinging in the air. He didn’t see her, but he heard her saying his name, so he just followed the sound of her voice until he found her again.

“Hey, you alright?” he asked, holding both her arms.

She nodded, but . . . yeah, she looked a little overwhelmed by this place and happy to see him again.

“Come on.” He took her hand in his, making sure to hold it tightly as he zig-zagged through the remainder of the crowd. Once they were off the dance floor, they had room to breathe again, and he caught sight of his friends at a huge round table and couches in the back corner, their usual spot. They all roared when they saw him, and he felt Clarke relax a bit beside him. Familiar faces.

“About time!” Harper squealed, running up to hug him. She looked to be doing her best impersonation of Britney Spears tonight, with the midriff-bearing school girl outfit she had on. “Hey, Clarke,” she chimed, hugging her as well. “You look great. I love your outfit.”

“Oh, thanks.” Clarke tugged down on the skirt a bit, but it didn’t do much to hide the gorgeous curve of her ass.

The party was definitely already in full swing. Jasper sat surrounded in his own personal cloud of smoke, smiling stupidly when he saw them. Bellamy couldn’t tell what his costume was supposed to be at first, until Maya came out of the bathroom and sat down beside him. She was wearing a red one-piece swimsuit and a blonde wig, but it wasn’t Baywatch; she and Jasper had gone the couples costume route. She was Wendy Peffercorn and Jasper was Squints from The Sandlot.

Beside Jasper, Murphy and Emori were sprawled all over each other, looking dazed and happy as they shared a joint. Miller and Jackson were making out while dancing, and Harper was doing some of her own dancing for costume-less Monty, moving seductively like a stripper on his lap.

Bellamy and Clarke found enough space to squeeze in among all the other couples, and immediately, he started looking for Octavia. Even though he was high, Murphy must have noticed what he was doing, because he said, “Bathroom.”

As if on cue, she came out from the back, Lincoln with her. Bathroom, he thought. Yeah, right. They’d probably been . . . he didn’t even want to think about what they’d probably been doing.

“There he is!” Octavia called, sounding like she’d had a bit to drink even though she wasn’t of age yet. “Big brother.” She came and gave him a hug, asking what he thought of her costume. “It’s historical,” she said. “Xena.”

He wasn’t about to burst her bubble and point out that Xena was little more than a made-for-TV character, so he just said, “Good job,” and tried to ignore the fact that Lincoln had dressed as Hercules. What the fuck was that about? He should have known mythology costumes were Bellamy’s thing.

Clarke leaned over once Octavia had meandered over to Lincoln again and said, “Ah, so this is why you wanted to come here so badly, to keep an eye on your sister.”

“No,” he said, rolling his eyes in disgust when Lincoln and Octavia started to dance. “Well, maybe a little bit.” It wasn’t like the dancing they were doing was even that nauseating, though. Most of the other people in that club were grinding, but Lincoln and Octavia appeared to be doing some salsa stuff. There was practiced footwork and plenty of space between them, but Bellamy still didn’t like it. “Where’d they learn that?” he grumbled. “Some Mexican favela?”

“Aren’t favelas in Brazil?” Clarke questioned.

“Whatever. Why don’t we just call up Dancing with the Stars right now? They look ready for it.”

“Oh, she’s fine,” Clarke said, whacking his arm. “Look at her. She’s more covered up than Harper and Emori are. And as far as dancing goes, that’s very PG-13.”

“I guess,” he mumbled, looking away, letting the sight of the sweat glistening between Clarke’s breasts distract him instead. It was, like he’d warned her, hot in there. But then he wondered if sweaty breasts were something Lincoln noticed about his sister, and that was just disturbing, so he glanced over at the bar, desperately in need of a buzz. It was busy, but the bartender was another one of Miller’s ex-boyfriends, so if he brought his friend with him, he could probably get served quickly. “I need a drink,” he decided, standing up.

He got Clarke a beer and himself something stronger, and he and Miller brought back plenty of shots for the group, too. Bellamy just did one, and much to his surprise, Clarke knocked one back, too. She scrunched up her face and went, “Blegh,” after she’d downed it, though, which probably meant she didn’t do shots very often. He’d never seen her do any since their first night together at Dropship.

“I want another,” she told him, though, and he supposed it was her attempt to loosen up. He went back up to the bar and got more for the whole table, and Clarke didn’t hesitate to do a second one. She didn’t make as much of a disgusted face this time.

“Go get her some pretzels or chips or somethin’,” he told Murphy, because he had a feeling his princess was going to need some food to go along with all this alcohol.

“I wanna do another one,” she declared, taking his shot glass right out of his hand. “But what if I get, like . . .” She trailed off, already struggling to find the words.

“Relax, I’m right here,” he assured her, rubbing her back. “I got you.”

“You’ll take care of me?” she asked.

“I’ll take care of you.” Hell, the prospect of seeing Clarke Griffin get really and truly drunk was too good to pass up. Yeah, she had a couple of drinks when they went out to Dropship or when they all hung out on Saturdays, but this was gonna be at a whole different level, and he couldn’t wait to see it.

“Okay,” she said, about to bring the glass up to her lips. She hesitated, though, and said, “But you gotta promise you won’t let me start dancing.”

“Okay.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.” He had no intention of living up to that, though, because dancing was another thing he really wanted to see Clarke do.

“Alright.” She downed another two shots, and the other girls cheered her on.

Clarke started feeling really good after that, it seemed. She burst into random fits of giggles that were the most adorable thing in the world, and at one point, she just exclaimed, “Bottoms up!” and kicked both her feet in the air. Sitting across from her, Jasper’s eyes got big as saucers as he caught an eyeful, and Bellamy had to push Clarke’s legs back down and help her sit up again. She smiled at him goofily, and he just shook his head at how spacey she looked and readjusted her tiara for her.

Around 11:30, Raven finally found them again. She told Bellamy she was going to take off—with Roan, of course—and he told her to have a good time.

“You got her?” she asked, motioning to Clarke, who was now dipping her pretzels into her next shot of vodka.

“I got her.”

Clarke’s fifth shot was her last shot—he’d already decided that much. She complained a little when he announced he was cutting her off, but when he secretly switched her alcohol with a glass of water, she didn’t even notice.

Harper, Emori, and Maya didn’t give her a chance to complain anyway. They plucked her up from her seat and said, “Let’s go dance!”

“Okay!” Clarke agreed readily, and Bellamy just smirked and let her go with them. That gave him a chance to knock back another beer of his own and replenish her pretzels for her. Since all the girls were a little tipsy, he and Monty made sure to keep an eye on them while they were out on the dance floor, and luckily that was easy since they stayed close to the side. They were pretty much a hot mess, falling all over each other and constantly collapsing into laughter, and he and Monty got a kick out of them. Especially Clarke. Because Harper and Emori were both good dancers, so their strategy seemed to be to sandwich poor Clarke in between them and disguise how badly she sucked.

The live music that night turned out to be nothing more than a House of Pain cover band, but when they started in on their rendition of “Jump Around,” the place went nuts. The whole crowd just started bouncing up and down, singing along at the top of their lungs, and even Jasper shot to his feet and got out there. The band kept playing after that, but the girls came back, looking tired and sweaty.

“She’s having fun, Bell,” Emori said, depositing Clarke onto his lap.

“I’m having fun!” Clarke yelled, squirming in his arms. She managed to get to her feet, but then she just fell back down onto him again.

Eazy-E’s classic “Boys-N-The-Hood” came over the loudspeaker, which Murphy had somehow adopted as his ‘theme song’ over the years even though he still mistakenly called it “Cruisin’ down the street in my ’64.” The girls hollered at him, but he was already climbing up onto the table to do his dance. It was a stupid dance Bellamy had seen dozens of times before but still couldn’t help but laugh at. Lots of arm movements, some pointing, some vogue-ing, all mixed with this sinister facial expression and tendency to lift up his shirt at the end. Sometimes Bellamy thought Murphy was just high off his ass when he danced like this; other times, it really seemed like Murphy believed he was a good dancer.

Niylah finally wandered over to the table a little after midnight and after Murphy’s performance. She introduced herself to everyone with ease, then plopped down next to Bellamy as Clarke nuzzled her face against his neck and nibbled on his earlobe. Clarke seemed to be going through many phases of intoxication in a short period of time. This was an overly-affectionate one. Sober Clarke never would have shown this much PDA.

“So I hear you have skills,” Niylah started in. “Tell me your technique.”

At first he thought she was joking, but he soon found out she was completely serious. So there he sat with Clarke’s lesbian friend, comparing notes on how to eat pussy. Niylah had some good strategies, things he mentally filed away to try next time, and she seemed to respect his process and get a few ideas from him, too.

They’d just started talking about fingering technique when Clarke started to get antsy. “Bellamy . . .” she whined. “I’m thirsty.”

“Clarke, you can’t blow me right here,” he teased. “We’re in public.”

“No, not . . .” She frowned exaggeratedly. “Thirsty, Bellamy.”

“Oh, I see.” Keeping one arm around her waist so she wouldn’t fall right out of his lap, he leaned forward and grabbed her glass off the table. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Oh, tequila.”

“Really?” Her face lit up with excitement, and she started chugging.

“What is it, really?” Niylah leaned over and asked quietly.

“Mountain Dew. She’s already three sheets to the wind.”

“Oh, no,” Clarke said when she accidentally spilled some of her drink on herself. She handed her drink to Niylah and mumbled, “I dropped something.”

“You what?” Niylah asked.

“I dropped an ice cube,” she said, tugging down on the top of her costume, “down my shirt.”

“Whoa, Clarke, put those away,” Bellamy said, pulling her top back up when one of her breasts popped out.

“You like them,” she said, smiling dopily.

“I do. That’s why I don’t want anyone else to see them.”

Giggling, she put her arms around his neck and tried to press his face against her chest.

“Jesus, Clarke.” He was more than willing to get lost in those things a little later. Although she’d probably pass out before they got home.

“Let’s have sex, Bellamy,” she urged, rolling her hips against his.

“Clarke, you are such a little drunk slut right now,” Niylah informed her.

“I know,” Clarke admitted. “I even danced.”

“You did?” Niylah shot Bellamy an alarmed look. “She did?”

“Not well,” he replied.

“I wanna dance some more,” Clarke declared, and Bellamy almost felt bad about not keeping his promise. But despite her lack of rhythm, drunk Clarke clearly enjoyed dancing. So why not indulge her?

“You hear that?” he said.

“I heard it,” Niylah confirmed.

“Hey, Miller!”

His friend untangled his tongue from Jackson’s and looked up.

“This one wants to dance some more,” he said, pointing to Clarke. “I think you know what that means.”

“I think I do,” Miller agreed. “I’ll go request the song.” He shot to his feet and darted towards the DJ booth. The DJ was another one of his ex-boyfriends, so when he put in a song request, it got played right away.

As was their tradition, the guys completely cleared off the table, and the girls climbed on while they formed a circle around it. Bellamy made sure he was standing on the opposite side of table as Octavia and couldn’t see her. At all. “Get on,” he encouraged Niylah, and she didn’t need to be told twice, but Clarke refused to get up there. She stayed by Bellamy’s side while “Wop” started to play.

It was a really dumb song, and Bellamy wasn’t even sure how this had become a club tradition for them in the first place; but when the chorus of the song kicked on, he and all the other guys pretended to ‘make it rain’ with invisible cash in their hands. It was basically their excuse to act like they were pimps, even though they were just idiots. Bellamy swayed from side to side in time with the music—finding the beat was not an issue for him—and Clarke just stood there, mouth gaping in astonishment.

When the actual “wop” part of the lyrics kicked in, the girls went nuts with the ass-shaking, giving all the guys—even Miller and Jackson—quite the show. Harper, by far the best dancer of the bunch, went into full-on twerking mode. Emori’s technique was more of a side-to-side approach, and Maya, being the more reserved one of the bunch, usually just popped her chest a bit. Bellamy wasn’t sure what Octavia’s wopping technique was, nor did he care to know, but he did have a nice view up Niylah’s skirt as she snaked and slithered all over the place like a pro.

“It’s easy,” he told Clarke. “You just stick your ass out.”

In her drunken state, she took that way too literally and just bent right over, once again giving Jasper a great view of . . . everything.

“No,” Bellamy said, lifting her up again. “Like this.” He tried to demonstrate as best he could while still looking like a pimp instead of a stripper.

“You’re good at dancing, too?” she screeched. “You’re good at everything!”

“I know!” he yelled back over the music. “I can’t help it!”

He and the guys ‘made it rain’ again on the next chorus, and he put his hands on Clarke’s hips and tried to get her doing anything that might even remotely resemble Harper’s twerking. But the girl was stiff as board and drunk as a skunk, so for tonight, at least, it was lost cause. She got all pouty and frustrated when she couldn’t get it, and it was cute as hell.

By the end of the night, when the club was starting to clear out and the dancing was dying down, Clarke took his wreath crown off his head and replaced it with her tiara instead. He gave her a confused look, not sure what she was doing, but he didn’t question it. Right now, she didn’t know what she was doing, either.

“You’re a brave princess,” she said, kissing his cheek before she snuggled into him like she was ready to go to sleep.

He chuckled and shook his head, not sure what she meant by that, if she even meant anything, and cuddled her closer. Hopefully she wouldn’t be too furious with him when she woke up tomorrow with the hangover from hell.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The night was catching up to Clarke. She wasn’t sure how late it was when she lay down and put her head in Bellamy’s lap, but it was definitely past her usual bedtime. And she was dead tired. Her eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each, and she couldn’t keep them open to save her life. Voices started to drift in and out all around her, muffled and distant. Sometimes she was aware of what was happening around her, sometimes not. But as long as she felt Bellamy’s hands on her side or in her hair, she felt okay.

“I think your princess is worn out,” she heard someone say. Octavia?

“Yeah, she is.” Bellamy stroked her cheek, making her moan. Words were too difficult right now, but sleepy moans were easy.

She heard someone else, probably Niylah, ask, “Is she going home with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, I’m gonna head out then.”

“See ya.”

Clarke stirred a bit, wanting to at least say goodbye. But she couldn’t lift her head up to do so. Her head weighed a thousand pounds, too, now.

“You ready to go?” Bellamy asked her, rubbing her shoulder.

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured.

“Alright, I’m gonna go get my truck. You wait here.”

She didn’t like it when he got up and left, because she didn’t have a pillow without his lap. It wasn’t comfy without him, so she forced herself up, feeling dizzy even though she was sitting. She had to squint her eyes to make out anything around her. The club looked kind of empty now, and all Bellamy’s friends—her friends, whatever—were gone. Except for Octavia and . . . Octavia’s boyfriend. She was too drunk to remember his name. They sat on the couch across from her, looking totally awake.

“You alright?” Octavia asked. “You hit it pretty hard tonight.”

She tried to say something in response, but all that came out was a burp.

Lincoln—that was his name, Lincoln—laughed. “I think you’re gonna have to sleep this one off, Clarke.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, yawning. Sleep sounded good.

“This place is a little wilder than Mount Weather, isn’t it?” Octavia said. “Not so much of a college crowd.” She snorted. “College kids think they’re so cool.” She must have remembered who she was talking to then, because she added, “No offense.”

Clarke couldn’t have been offended in that moment if she’d tried. In fact, she sort of didn’t even know the meaning of the word offended in that moment. Still, even in the haze of her intense drunkenness, this talk of college got her thinking about something, something she’d wanted to ask Octavia for a few days now, or any one of Bellamy’s friends, really. But Octavia was probably the best person to ask. “Why didn’t Bellamy go to college?” she inquired, struggling to separate her words. “He’s smart.”

“He is,” Octavia agreed, looking very thoughtful for a moment. “He was gonna go,” she said, “but then . . .” She trailed off.

“What?” Clarke asked. Right now, this conversation was the only thing keeping her awake.

Octavia stared off into space, shaking her head a bit. “Things . . . changed.”

Clarke frowned, because she didn’t know what that meant. And she wasn’t sure if she didn’t know simply because it was vague or if it was because she was drunk. She didn’t get a chance to ask anything else, though, because Bellamy came back inside, jiggling his keys in his hand. “You ready to go?” he asked her.

“Mmm.” She’d been ready an hour ago. But she didn’t move.

“You can’t get up, can you?” he figured.

Maybe she could, but she really didn’t want to try it on her own. So she held out her hand, and he grabbed it and hoisted her up. “Bye, O,” he said as he walked off with Clarke, his arm around her waist to keep her steady.

“Bye,” she called after him. “Sleep it off, Clarke!”

Clarke rested her head against Bellamy’s shoulder, pretty sure she could fall asleep while walking if she had to walk too far. Luckily, though, he’d pulled his truck up right outside the front.

The drive was a complete blur. Clarke didn’t have her eyes open for any of it. She didn’t even know they were home until he opened the car door and she nearly fell out onto the sidewalk. He caught her, unbuckled her seat belt for her, and helped her out onto her own two feet. “Almost there,” he said, practically dragging her inside.

She felt like a rag doll, so she was very thankful for his support—literal support. She would’ve fallen over without him. He helped her in the door, and when she got one look at those steps and groaned in agony, he bent down, put one hand under her knees, the other around her back, and lifted her up. “You owe me,” he told her as he carried her up the stairs.

“I owe you,” she agreed, holding on limply to his shoulders. The stairs made her feel queasy, so she kept her eyes closed and her face pressed against his chest. When she finally felt the bed, it felt great, like the best bed ever, and all she wanted to do was lay in it for the rest of her life. She wanted to lie down and get comfy on her back, but he made her sit up and put her legs over the side instead.

“Alright,” he said as he started to look through his t-shirt drawer, “I’m gonna get you in somethin’ comfortable, and you’re gonna get some sleep.”

That all sounded good. That sounded really good. She started to tilt to the side.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He rushed back to her and grabbed hold of her to keep her up. “I got you.”

“I’m sorry, Bellamy,” she apologized sleepily. “I’m a little drunk.”

“A little bit, yeah.” He grinned. “You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Alright, stay there.” He went back to his dresser, getting out of his clothes quickly, and put a t-shirt and some sweatpants on in place of his man-dress. Toga. Whatever.

“I had lots of fun, though,” she said, hearing the slur in her own words. “Your friends are nice. I like them.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty great,” he agreed, pulling out a grey football t-shirt that was way too big for her.

“Do you like my friends?” she asked. “They’re nice, too.”

“Yeah, I like ‘em.” He knelt down in front of her and took her shoes off, and she giggled, because it felt really Cinderella-y.

“Maybe we can all be friends,” she rambled on. “Like on Barney.”

“Barney?”

“Yep.” She scratched her head, letting him move her all around and manhandle her as he got her out of her princess costume. “My dad used to watch that with me all the time when I was little.”

“Did he now?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She smiled fondly as she remembered. “We used to sing the ‘I love you,’ song.”

“Sounds like a good dad.”

“He was.” She realized he’d gotten her completely naked now, except for her panties, and she thought he might just tell her to sleep like that. But then he helped her put her arms through the sleeves of that grey t-shirt and pulled it up over her head for her. “Ow,” she said when he had to yank it over her hair.

“Sorry.” He reached behind her head and took her hair out for her. “Better?” he asked.

“Much better.” She felt comfy and cozy now, ready for bed.

“Alright, lay down,” he told her.

She tried to tilt straight backwards.

“On your side,” he said, pulling her back up. He lifted her legs up onto the bed for her, and she did as he instructed, curling up on her favorite pillow of his, the one he usually let her have when she stayed the night.

“Alright, I’m gonna put this here,” he announced, bringing a small metal trashcan out of the bathroom to set by the side of the bed. “In case you need it. You’re gonna need it.”

“Will you cuddle with me?” she asked. Because that just sounded really nice right about now.

“Yes, I will cuddle with you,” he replied, already crawling into bed behind her, pulling blankets up over the two of them. “Don’t throw up on me, though.”

“I won’t.” She sighed contentedly when his arms wrapped around her waist and he scooted in close behind her, his whole body curling up against hers. He felt so big and warm, like a teddy bear.

She felt like she was going to fall asleep at any second, so she squeaked out a “Thank you, Bellamy,” while she still could.

He didn’t say anything, but he did kiss the side of her neck. So she took that to be his way of saying, “You’re welcome,” before she drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7

Poor Clarke. The vomiting seemed to have started right away that morning. Bellamy wasn’t sure whether she was using that trash can he’d put next to the bed or if she’d made it into the bathroom to lurch over the toilet. But wherever she was, it was loud. Even downstairs, he could hear it. And it just kept going and going.

“Oh, I love the sound of nausea in the morning,” Miller remarked sarcastically as he finished his breakfast.

“Yeah, it’s not pretty,” Bellamy agreed, struggling through his plate of scrambled eggs. There was just nothing appetizing about eating when someone was puking up above you.

“She was wasted, man,” Miller said, chuckling.

“Ah, everyone has that inaugural night at TonDC,” Bellamy pointed out. “Clarke’s no different.”

Miller finished his coffee and put his plate and cup down in the sink. “You know,” he said as he rinsed them off. “Clarke’s kinda . . . she’s alright, man.”

“Okay.” Whatever that meant.

“I like her,” Miller elaborated, drying off his hands. “Even though she’s in college and lives in the Palace and . . . didn’t you say her dad’s a senator?”

“Stepdad, yeah.”

“She’s still kinda down-to-earth, you know?”

Bellamy grunted. “Well, yeah, she shops at Walmart.”

“True. You really can’t be too high and mighty if you shop there.”

“No, I get what you mean, though,” Bellamy said. He knew girls in this town, sorority girls, mostly, who thought they were so much better than everyone else, including him. Sometimes he did jobs for people who lived in nice neighborhoods and probably wouldn’t have hired him if they knew where he lived. The world was full of pretentious people who judged guys like him, but Clarke wasn’t like that. She was restoring his faith in the upper-middle class.

“So did you like her costume?” Miller asked, wriggling his eyebrows. “I liked it, and I don’t even swing that way.”

“Yeah, it was pretty good.” Bellamy really hoped she’d hold onto that, because . . . well, that and the cheerleading skirt, if they ever got a hold of it. Could be interesting.

“She wore that just for you,” Miller noted. “You know that, right?”

“Well, she’s a good girl.”

“That’s what you keep saying.” They both heard a toilet flush upstairs, and Miller said, “Alright, I’m gettin’ outta here. Tell Clarke I said hi.”

“See you later.”

Miller slipped out the door right as Clarke started trudging down the stairs like a zombie. Bellamy almost didn’t even want to look at her, because there was a very real possibility she’d look like actual death. He risked it, though, taking a peek out of the corner of his eye, and it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. Sure, her hair was all over the place, her makeup was smeared around her eyes, her skin was flushed and kind of sweaty, and she looked like she could throw up again at any minute. But she was also still wearing his grey Redskins t-shirt, so that was the one saving grace.

“Morning, Clarke,” he said, quickly finishing his breakfast.

The only response he got was an anguished groan.

“Hey, you know what’s the best part about being sober?” he asked.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh, I’m struggling, Bell,” she complained, dragging her body to the center island so she could sit down on one of the stools. “I feel like I’m gonna regurgitate my whole self.”

“Yeah, you were pretty plastered last night.” He returned to the frying pan on the stove, using the spatula to lift out the rest of the scrambled eggs and set them on a plate for her.

“I don’t know what got into me,” she said. “I’ve never been that drunk before.”

“How much do you remember?” he asked.

“Parts. But parts are fuzzy. Like I remember seeing Murphy dance.”

“Good.” That was a memory everyone deserved to have.

“And I remember you complaining about Lincoln and Octavia.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t count. That was before you had a drink.”

“No, it counts,” she insisted. “I’d already been drinking at Mount Weather. Maybe that was the problem. I started too early.”

“Ah, you did alright.” He set the plate down in front of her, urging, “Eat up.”

She looked at the eggs, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “No, I can’t right now,” she said. “Food sounds so gross.”

“Eggs are good for hangovers,” he reasoned. “I made ‘em just for you.”

She smiled at him lazily and slowly picked up her fork. “I do remember that you took care of me,” she recalled.

“Of course.” He’d been the one to encourage her to loosen up and go wild like that in the first place. She was his responsibility.

“I am really sorry, though,” she apologized. “It was Halloween, and you ended up having to babysit me.”

“No, don’t feel bad,” he told her. “It was fun watching you have fun. I had a good time, too.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Are you just saying that?”

“No.”

Sighing, she moved her eggs around her plate, eating just a small bite off the tip of her fork. “Well, did I do or say anything embarrassing?” she asked.

Oh, the inevitable question. He’d already thought a lot about how much he was going to tell her, and the conclusion he kept coming to was that, if he didn’t tell her everything, someone else would. So if she wanted to know, he was going to be completely honest. “Well, you almost took the top of your costume off,” he told her. “But I think Niylah was only the only one who saw, so you’re good there.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Yeah. And you kept wantin’ to have sex with me. But I can’t blame you for that.”

She smiled and blushed a little.

“And then . . . well, you flashed Jasper.”

“What?” she shrieked shrilly, eyes suddenly wide with horror. “Like my boobs?”

“No, your crotch.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, twice.”

“Oh my god,” she groaned dramatically.

“Don’t worry, he enjoyed it.”

“Please tell me that’s the worst of it.”

He opened his mouth to tell her it wasn’t, but then he just ended up nodding slowly.

“Oh, no, what?” she said.

“Well . . .” It was hard to even keep a straight face when he thought about her incredible lack of limb coordination. “Then there was the dancing.”

“What?!” she shrieked, looking truly mortified, even more so than she’d been when they’d strolled out that dressing room together. “Bellamy!” She slammed her fork down on the counter, all worked up. “You said—you promised you wouldn’t let me dance! I remember that part!”

He shrugged flippantly. “I lied.”

“Ugh!” She picked up an apple off the counter and hurled it at him angrily. He had to spin to the side so it hit his leg instead of his crotch.

“Watch the junk, babe,” he cautioned. “We need that.”

“You are such an ass,” she seethed. “I’m never sleeping with you again.”

“Oh, never?”

“Never.”

“Hmm.” He already knew that wasn’t true. “We’ll see about that.”

“Ugh, I can’t believe you let me do that,” she muttered, shaking her head infuriatedly. It was actually kind of hilarious how she was more upset about the dancing than she was about flashing Jasper or flashing Niylah or just getting that drunk in the first place. “I don’t dance, Bellamy. I’m horrible at it.”

“Oh, trust me, I noticed.” He glanced at the clock on the microwave, wishing he had a little more time to tease her this morning. “I had you tryin’ to the do Wop and everything.”

“The Wop?” she echoed. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“You really don’t.”

“Oh, and I suppose you’re great at it?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty good,” he openly boasted. “I can dance, Clarke.”

“Of course you can.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you sometime,” he promised, giving her shoulder a squeeze as he headed toward the door. “Not right now, though. I gotta go work.”

“Well, I’ve got the day off,” she said, “so . . . do you mind if I just hang out here?”

“Sure, go ahead.” That just made everything easier. When he got home, he wouldn’t even need to call her up. “Don’t burn down my kitchen, though,” he warned. “I gotta teach you how to cook sometime, too.”

“Ass!” she growled again, but he could hear amusement in her voice on his way out the door.

“Wait, Bellamy!” she called suddenly just as he was about to shut the door. He stopped and backtracked, figuring he was already gonna be late to Diana Sydney’s house. Why not be five minutes later? As long as he fixed that sink of hers without a shirt on, she wouldn’t care.

“I do remember another thing,” she said, spinning on the stool so she was facing him. “I asked Octavia something about you.”

“Oh, great.” This was gonna be good.

“No, something serious,” she said.

He frowned, not exactly sure where she was going with this.

“I asked her why you never went to college,” she revealed. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Not that it’s an expectation. But you were salutatorian, so . . . I’m just curious.”

He frowned, sort of . . . caught off guard by the question. “Well, what’d she say?”

“Nothing much. Just that . . . things changed?” She gave him a confused look.

Bellamy knew she wanted him to elaborate more, to tell him what had changed, but he really did have to get going. Besides . . . that was a potentially long conversation, one he didn’t have time for.

“My mom lost her job that year,” he explained, deciding to give her the abridged version, “so I had to work and help her out. That’s it.”

“Oh.” She thought about it a moment and nodded. “Well, that makes sense.”

Yeah, he thought. It does. “I gotta go,” he said, quickly slipping out the door, shutting it firmly this time before she could ask him anything else about it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It took Clarke a while to finish the scrambled eggs Bellamy had made for her. She ended up throwing a few bites away, just because her stomach was still somersaulting and she didn’t want to overload it. But she trusted Bellamy’s hangover remedies. If he said eggs were good for her right now, then they were good for her.

She sat down on the couch, flipped on the TV, and tried to find something mind-numbing to watch for the next hour or so. Murphy came lumbering out of his room before she’d settled on anything, though, and flopped down beside her, seizing the remote. “You look like hell,” he remarked, switching to the channel The View was on.

“And you smell like shit,” she shot back jokingly. Although it wasn’t much of a joke. He really did smell bad.

Murphy lifted his t-shirt up to his nose and took a whiff, but that wasn’t enough to make him go shower or even change. He tossed the remote aside and sprawled out, his feet on the coffee table, hands behind his head. He watched those women on The View intently, with interest, and Clarke wondered if this was a daily routine for him. It certainly seemed like it. If she caught him watching General Hospital later, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

Towards the end of The View, she started to feel restless and headed back up to Bellamy’s room to use his bathroom and take a shower. The eggs had definitely helped. The tidal wave of nausea seemed to have passed, and besides a dull headache, her only complaint was that she was slow-moving and tired. But with no class and thankfully no work today, either, she had plenty of time to relax, maybe even take a nap.

She wished Bellamy were in that shower with her while she washed her hair. They really hadn’t done anything in his shower yet, or in his bathroom at all. Given the thrill of that dressing room sex they’d had the other day, though, she couldn’t help but want him to bend her over the bathroom counter and do her there, too. He had a nice big mirror, after all.

Since her only outfit was a shiny blue princess costume she had no desire to squeeze back into, she put on another one of Bellamy’s t-shirts and slipped into a pair of his boxers, rolling them up several times around her waist so they wouldn’t fall down. Then she grabbed a couple of his Playboys out of the bathroom and brought them to his bed, lounging around for a good hour and a half, trying to read the articles even though she was distracted by all the naked women. Miss July had this amazing patriotic centerfold that had to be one of Bellamy’s favorites. It certainly caught Clarke’s eye.

By the time she got to the August issue, though, she was a little bit bored. She set the magazines aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed, wondering what she could do for four or five more hours until Bellamy got home. Maybe Murphy was still around.

The best way to pass the time, though, and the thing Clarke always found herself doing when she was bored, was drawing. So she dug around Bellamy’s night stand drawer and managed to find a dull, eraser-less pencil and a few crumpled pieces of paper. She smoothed them out, figuring she could make them work, and then just let her pencil roam, drawing whatever came to mind. Before she knew it, she had cartoon sketches of all her friends in their Halloween costumes: Raven as Wonder Woman, Niylah as a sexy pirate, Wells as Will Smith, and Bellamy as Apollo. His tan skin tone was impossible to replicate with just a pencil, though, especially a crappy pencil like this.

Next, she started drawing a house. Not just any house, she quickly realized, but Bellamy’s house. Sure, it wasn’t in the nicest neighborhood, but it had charm; it had character. And she liked it there.

Halfway through that drawing, her pencil snapped in half. She’d been pressing too hard. “Crap,” she muttered, checking the drawer again. She fumbled and reached around inside, willing to use anything if she couldn’t find a sharpener, even a pen or a freaking crayon if she had to. She just hated leaving a sketch unfinished.

Her hand settled on top of a small metal box, and for some reason, that struck her as odd. Everything else in that drawer had just been dumped in there, like a junk drawer. Maybe this was a box full of condoms or something.

She took it out and jiggled it a little bit. There were definitely a few things in there, things that made noises condoms wouldn’t have made. For such a small box, it felt kind of . . . full.

Curiosity got the best of her.

When she opened the lid, she nearly melted. Because it was so adorable. He had tons of old photos of himself with Octavia stashed in there, many of which had probably been taken in the pre-iPhone day and age. There were pictures of the two of them at amusement parks, water parks, hiking, canoeing. The best photo was definitely one of them at a mud-volleyball court, though. Bellamy couldn’t have been older than junior high, and little Octavia looked so precocious. She was covered in mud and dirty, but he was miraculously still pretty clean. She had a clump of mud in her hand, though, and a mischievous look in her eyes, so Clarke was willing to wager that, the second after that photo was snapped, she’d probably lobbed that mud at her brother or smeared it all over his face.

Seeing all these pictures of the Blake siblings actually made her a bit envious. Never had she resented the fact that she was an only child—it’d forced her to be very imaginative when it came to playtime, and imagination was a good thing for an artist to have. Besides, siblings could be annoying. But Bellamy and Octavia were just so close, and in every picture, it was obvious how much he adored her. He had to be one of the best big brothers in the entire world, so she really did hope Octavia appreciated that. As overprotective as he could be, it was clear that it all stemmed from a loving place.

As it turned out, the pictures of Bellamy and his sister were just a small part of the treasure trove of memories in that box. He had plenty of photos of him and his mom, too, and goodness, it was obvious where those kids of hers had gotten their genetics, because she was beautiful. She looked young, too, younger than Clarke’s mom, so maybe she’d had Bellamy really early on in life, perhaps even as a teenager.

As she got closer to the bottom of the box, Clarke found other evidence of Bellamy’s love for his family: newspaper clippings about Octavia’s high school volleyball team, who apparently had been state runner-ups; a DVD that said Mom’s 40th Birthday on the front; an address hastily scribbled on a wrinkled Post-It note, one unsure word scrawled below it: Dad? There were so many things packed into that box, Clarke wasn’t even sure how he’d made it all fit. (But then again, Bellamy was good at fitting things into small places.)

She had to move down to the floor after a while, because she’d littered his bed with his artifacts. It faintly occurred to her that maybe he’d kept this box stashed away for a reason, because he didn’t want anyone else to know about it. But it was too late to stop now.

Towards the bottom of the box, things got . . . interesting. Confusing. Really confusing, actually.

There were multiple pictures of a girl Clarke didn’t recognize. Tall, in shape, long dark hair. The first one looked like a senior picture with her leaning back against a brick wall, gazing at the camera intently. The others looked mostly like selfies, but Bellamy was in a few of them. He had on glasses in one of them, and in another, he was kissing her cheek.

That looks familiar, Clarke thought, recalling the pictures on her own phone.

This girl, whoever she was, had been Bellamy’s high school girlfriend. There was even a photo of the two of them at prom. Bellamy was in a tux. She’d never even seen him wear a suit before.

The bottom of the box had more than just photos, though. There were two ticket stubs from a concert, a silver bracelet, a dollar bill that had European Vacation Funds written over George Washington’s face. And then there was a ring. A simple silver ring with a small, round diamond on top of it. Clarke held it up and stared in astonishment. Was that . . . was that what she thought it was? On the inside, the word Forever was lightly engraved.

Oh my god, she thought, suddenly feeling very blown away by all of this. Bellamy . . . had been in love. Clearly. Whoever this girl was, he’d thought the world of her, enough to hold onto their memories, enough to buy her a ring.

Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, she thought, but even as the words ran through her head, she couldn’t stop herself from picking up one of the last things in that box. Another newspaper clipping, but this one was . . . different. Not happy.

It was an obituary.

That long, dark-haired girl’s smiling picture was at the top of a two-column article titled Miss Roma Bragg.

Oh, god, Clarke thought as a sinking feeling filled her stomach. Oh, god.

“Miss Roma Bragg, 19, of Arkadia, Maryland, died Friday, June 1, at Howard County General Hospital and Trauma Center,” it read, “due to injuries received during an automobile accident that same day.”

Clarke clasped one hand over her mouth as she read on. It talked about when Roma was born and who her parents were. It said she had attended East Arkadia High School and had been a member of the softball team. Then it listed all the family members she was survived by—parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins. There was a line all its own that said, “She will also be remembered by her boyfriend, Bellamy Blake.”

Clarke blinked back tears and the article fluttered in her hand. The rest of it talked about when and where the funeral would be held, and indeed, the very last thing in that box was a funeral program. Bellamy’s name was listed as a pallbearer.

Bellamy . . . she thought sadly, her heart going out to him. She wished he would have told her. But maybe he never would have. Maybe . . . maybe he didn’t want her to know. But she’d found out on her own. She’d found out plenty.

What was she even supposed to do now?

She was still sitting on the floor, Roma’s obituary in one hand, funeral program in the other, when she heard footsteps outside the bedroom door. Then Bellamy’s voice. “Hey, Clarke, you wanna go get lunch?” he asked as he came into the room.

She quickly set those items back down in the metal box, tensing up immediately. She felt like a little kid who’d just gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar or been discovered snooping through the Christmas presents. She couldn’t even say anything.

“Hey,” he said, smiling at her curiously. “I had a break, so . . .” He trailed off as his eyes started to roam the bed, where all of his family photos and such lay scattered. And that smile just fell right off his face. He got really quiet, really still, until he asked, “Where did you get all that?”

“Bellamy . . .” She gazed at him wordlessly, guiltily, because she knew this was wrong. She was snooping, plain and simple, and she’d probably seen way more than he wanted her to see.

Oh, god. She felt horrible as she tried to put all the other Roma artifacts away again. She clamored to her feet, barely able to stammer, “I . . . I can explain.”

“Explain what?” he roared accusatorily. “That you were you looking through my stuff?”

“No, I . . .” She stopped short. Because yes, that was exactly what she’d been doing. “I mean, yes, but . . .” Her words felt strangled. She couldn’t get anything out. Maybe because there was nothing to say. There was no explanation that would make this okay, make it right. She’d made a mistake, a big one, and she hadn’t even thought twice about it. “I just saw these pictures of you and Octavia,” she said shakily, “and I thought--”

“Thought you’d invade my privacy?” he yelled, glaring at her. He looked . . . angry. Really and truly infuriated for the first time that she could remember. But when his eyes flittered down to that ring on the floor, he just looked sad. Heartbroken. Like he was reliving it all again.. “That stuff’s personal, Clarke,” he growled.

“I know.” She wanted to just break down and cry, because it was so personal, and she’d had no right . . . she knew she’d had no right to look at any of it.

“Then why the hell would you--”

“I’m sorry!” she cut in, her voice high-pitched and wavering with emotion. “I’m sorry, Bellamy. I . . .” She felt a few tears spill over, and that made her feel even more guilty. Because what gave her the right to stand here and cry when he was the one whose girlfriend had died, whose dead girlfriend’s pictures were now staring up at him from his bedroom floor?

She wanted to ask him to forgive her, but in that moment, she didn’t even feel like she deserved it.

“Get the hell outta here, Clarke,” he grumbled suddenly. “Don’t come back.”

“What?” She’d hoped that maybe they could talk about it, maybe cool down and talk about later if that’s what it took, but . . . not this. “Bellamy--”

“I said leave!” he bellowed, his face a mask of fury as he stormed into his bathroom and slammed the door.

She inhaled sharply, shakily, looking down at everything that lay scattered around her feet and on the bed. So many things. She’d taken so many things out of that box, and she could have stopped at any point. Then again, she could have been a decent person and never opened it in the first place. But she’d opted to do otherwise, and now . . .

Now Bellamy hated her. And he had every reason to.

She felt so ashamed.

Even though she respected his desire for space right now, she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to put all those things away where they belonged so he wouldn’t have to do it himself when he opened that bathroom door. She wanted to sit there and wait for him to come out so she could apologize some more. But he probably didn’t want to hear it, and she probably didn’t deserve to say it. If he wanted her gone, then what choice did she have right now? She had to leave.

She cried as she left the bedroom, as she trundled down the stairs and flew out the front door. Murphy was still sitting on the couch watching TV, and he must have noticed her. But he didn’t say anything.

Her eyes were heavily clouded over with tears when she finally got to her car. Before getting inside, she heard some kind of loud thud come from the upstairs of that house. It sounded like Bellamy had thrown a chair at the wall. Because of her. Or because of Roma.

Maybe because of both of them.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8

Clarke was a mess. Plain and simple, no other way to put it. She called Raven right when she got home, begging her to come over. But Raven had class and a midterm to take for that class, so she couldn’t miss it unless it was an emergency. Clarke assured her it wasn’t, but being the good friend that she was, Raven still rushed over anyway right after her class let out. She already had a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream with her and the Thelma and Lousie DVD, but Clarke was a bit too worked up for either of those things.

They sat on Clarke’s bed, and Clarke told her everything. She didn’t sugarcoat her snoopiness, didn’t try to make it seem like it hadn’t been as bad as it was. Because it had been bad. And very wrong.

“Wow,” Raven said, taking it all in once Clarke was done. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” Clarke sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“So he was probably nineteen when it happened?” Raven asked.

“I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t have even told you about all of that. It’s private.”

“Well, it was private when you looked through his stuff, too,” Raven pointed out, “but that didn’t stop you.”

“Nope.” She shook her head, so pissed off at herself. Sure, she’d been a little bit snoopy over there before, back when she’d woken up in his room for the first time. And technically he’d snooped through her underwear drawer, too, but . . . whatever, that was underwear. This didn’t even compare.

“So he told you to leave,” Raven recapped, “and then . . .”

“Then I left,” Clarke filled in. “He doesn’t want me to come back.”

“He probably didn’t mean that.”

“No, I think he did.” She shuddered, remembering that look in his eyes, the way he glared at her as though he couldn’t stand the sight of her anymore. “He was so angry, Raven. I’ve never seen Bellamy that angry before.”

“Well, he has every reason to be,” Raven admitted. “And you know that.”

“I know.” She wasn’t looking for sympathy or anything of the sort. She just needed advice. “I don’t even know what possessed me to do that. Deep down, I knew it was wrong. I knew I shouldn’t be doing it.”

“I hate to break it to you, Clarke,” Raven said sternly, “but this is totally like you.”

“What?” What did that mean? Was she routinely a horrible person? Did she invade people’s privacy on a regular basis?

“You have this incessant need to control things,” Raven expanded. “You always like to have a plan and know exactly what’s going on in your life. I mean, the most free-spirited I’ve ever seen you is with Bellamy. But you still don’t know that much about him, and you want to. So when you found that box, that was like the Bellamy Blake bible dropped into your lap. And you opened it.”

“I did,” Clarke groaned, seeing some validity in what her friend was telling her. “And I feel so bad. If I could just take it back . . .”

“Well, you can’t.”

“But if I could . . .” She trailed off, sighing dejectedly. “It’s not even just that I snooped through all his personal things, you know? It’s that I drudged up the past. Now, because of me, he’s gonna be thinking about everything that happened with her.”

“Probably,” Raven acknowledged. “I’m not gonna lie, Clarke, you fucked up. Big-time.”

“Yeah.” It had been a selfish thing to do, and even now . . . dammit, she still felt selfish. Because as much as she was concerned about him and wanted to know if he’d be okay tonight, she felt bad for herself, too. Because if this was it, the end of her abbreviated yet amazing friendship with Bellamy Blake, then she was going to be devastated and filled with regret for a long time to come. These past few weeks, she’d spent more time with him than anyone else, even more than she’d spent with Raven. She’d talked to him about her dad’s passing, about her mom and stepdad’s treatment of her bisexuality. She’d opened up to him, had so much fun with him, loosened up and tried new things with him, and to think of all of that just being over in an instant . . .

“What should I do?” she asked, needing a plan of action. Raven was right, she liked to have a plan. And right now, she felt aimless, hopeless. It wasn’t a good feeling.

Raven thought about it for a moment, then shook her head sadly. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Clarke whimpered. She didn’t want to sit back and do nothing.

“He needs space,” Raven said rationally. “He needs time to figure out how he’s feeling, because I really doubt he hates you. But he probably does hate what you did.”

Clarke looked down at her lap, trying to keep the tears inside. What I did, she thought remorsefully. What I did.

“Just leave him alone for a while,” Raven suggested. “I’m sure eventually he’ll give you a call and you guys will sort things out.”

“You think so?” Right now, Clarke had her doubts.

“Yeah,” Raven said. “You and Bellagio--”

“Raven.”

“Fine, you and Bellamy . . .” she corrected. “You guys have something special.”

As nice as that sounded, it also sounded a little . . . too romantic. “It’s a friendship, Raven,” she reminded her.

“I know, so I’ve heard,” her friend said. “But it’s still special.”

Clarke thought about it, wanting to believe it was true. Because if that was true, then maybe he would be able to forgive her. And if he forgave her, then she could forgive herself. She nodded, a silent acknowledgement that she was going to take Raven’s advice. As difficult as it would be, she wouldn’t call Bellamy, wouldn’t text him, wouldn’t venture over to his house or purposefully try to run into him at TonDC or Dropship. She’d wait until he reached out to her, and hopefully that’d happen sooner rather than later.

It didn’t.

One day without hearing from Bellamy wasn’t unexpected. Neither was two, though at the end of that second day, Clarke felt anxious. At the end of the third day, though, she was starting to lose hope. They’d only known each other for a couple of weeks. What if he’d decided she wasn’t worth it?

To make matters worse, all his friends had gone silent on her, too. The only thing she got from any of them was a sad face emoji texted from Harper. And she didn’t know how to respond to that, so she just didn’t text back.

By the end of the fourth day with no word from Bellamy, she felt resigned. Resigned to the fact that she’d fucked things up beyond the point of no return. If this friendship between her and Bellamy was really as special as Raven claimed, then wouldn’t he have reached out to her by now?

She lay in bed that night, clutching her phone, feeling pathetic. All she wanted was just one phone call, one text. Anything to let her know that he didn’t hate her. If he didn’t forgive her, either, then that was okay, and she could understand. But the thought of him hating her, which, at this point, it seemed like he did . . . that was almost more than she could bear.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy decided it was best to keep busy, so he threw himself into work. It was a good distraction from any crap going on in his personal life. He took on more jobs than he normally would have, skipped lunch so he could work longer hours each day. It ended up being pretty lucrative. In four days, he made more money than he had in the past two weeks.

Diana Sydney must have sensed that something was up with him, because after he fixed her broken showerhead—which he was convinced she had broken herself—she slid up behind him and started rubbing his shoulders, claiming he looked tense, offering a massage.

He just stood there and let her rub his back, just because he didn’t want to lose her business. But all the while, he kept thinking to himself, If she was a dude and I was a chick, this would be assault.

At night, he stuck to his routine, hanging out with his friends, kicking their asses at whatever video game they decided to play. Murphy and Miller both knew better than to ask him what had happened with Clarke, and they’d probably told Emori and Jackson not to say anything, either. But when Jasper and the rest of the crew came over like they did every other Saturday night, that was when things got awkward.

“Hey, where’s Clarke?” Jasper hollered right when he walked in.

Everyone immediately fell silent, looking at Bellamy.

Jasper was clueless, of course, so he kept going. “She’s comin’ over, right?”

More silence. Bellamy was pretty sure the only thing making noise were the crickets outside. “No,” he answered simply.

Jasper looked confused, and sort of like he wanted to say more, until Monty nudged his arm and shook his head, wordlessly communicating that he should probably shut the fuck up.

They carried on after that, not much differently than they usually did. Jasper got high, Miller cranked the music, and Murphy got situated on his beanbag with a beer in his hand. The girls did a little dancing, but they seemed more subdued this time. Not that Clarke would have gotten up and danced with them, at least not without some liquid courage helping her along. But still, it was clear to him that they kind of missed having her around.

So did he.

He made some excuse about feeling tired around 10:00 and headed upstairs early. Not his typical Saturday night. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d spent a Saturday night like this, pissed off at the world, lethargic, and admittedly, very lonely.

Even though he’d packed up that box of loved ones memorabilia again, he hadn’t put it away, hadn’t even tried to since Clarke had gotten it out. Quite the opposite, actually. He found himself looking at the things in there every night before he went to bed, smiling at the pictures of Octavia and his mom, not smiling at the ones of Roma. He read her obituary every night, the way he used to back in the months following the accident. He twirled her ring in between his fingers, trying to remember what it’d looked like on her hand. And he looked at the dollar bill that was supposed to have been the start of their vacation fund, wishing they’d had the chance to add to it. Back then, they’d talked about going to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower and London to see Big Ben. They’d talked about going everywhere, doing so many things. And five years later, he had yet to do any of them.

Luckily, he’d put the Roma stuff away and was only sifting through old snapshots of him and his sister again when the door to his room swung open. In came Octavia herself, wearing one of her shirts from Mexico and more makeup than she actually needed.

“Hey, loser,” she greeted.

“When did you get here?”

“Half an hour ago.” She shut the door and came to stand beside the bed, looking down at him. “Why aren’t you downstairs?”

“I’m tired,” he lied.

“You’re not sleeping.”

“Yeah, I know. Just lookin’ at some old pictures.”

“Ooh, nostalgia.” She sat down on the side of the bed, asking, “Can I see?”

He wasn’t about to hand over that whole box to her, but he had no problem giving her a small stack of pictures to look at.

“Oh, wow,” she said, making a face as she looked at the one of them from the Six Flags amusement park. “Look at my hair.”

“It’s awful,” he agreed.

“Look at yours.”

“It’s awesome.”

She rolled her eyes, going through the stack rapidly. “I look cute there,” she would remark on one before declaring, “Hideous,” on the next.

“You never looked hideous,” he assured her.

“Oh, I was referring to you.”

“Oh, thanks.”

She laughed, handing the photos back to him. “Those are pretty neat, Bellamy. I’m glad you hold onto that stuff.”

“Yeah, someone has to.” He gave her a pointed look, because she was that quintessential millennial who had no problem storing all her photos on her phone.

“I’m gonna get the Mexico photos printed,” she said.

“Oh, great, you and Lincoln,” he mumbled, carefully putting those photos back in his box. “Can’t wait to see those.”

“Oh, stop it, Bell,” she snapped. “I don’t care if you don’t like him. You can at least be nice.”

“I’m very nice,” he claimed.

“You don’t even talk to him. He’s downstairs right now, and everyone else is getting along fine with him. Do you realize that?”

“Do you realize I don’t care?”

She huffed, frowning. “You’re in a bad mood tonight.”

Oh, she had no idea. “I told you, I’m tired,” he grumbled, pulling open the drawer on his bedside table again. Only because he didn’t want her to question what else was in there, he stashed that compact tin container away again, hoping he’d have the willpower to leave it there.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously.

“Nothing.”

She saw right through him, though. If anyone could tell when he was lying, it was Octavia. “No, something’s wrong,” she said knowingly. “And I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that Clarke isn’t here.”

He groaned, rubbing his forehead dramatically. “I don’t wanna talk about this.”

“Did you finally realize friends with benefits is crap? Did you fall in love with her? Did she break your heart?” she rambled on.

“No.”

“Which one?”

“All of the above.”

She furrowed her brow in confusion. “What’s the issue then?”

Figuring it was best to keep it vague, he answered, “She just did something to piss me off, that’s all.”

“What’d she do?”

“I told you, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Oh, this is so platonic between the two of you, Bellamy,” she said sarcastically. “I can’t even.”

“No, our arrangement was working fine,” he insisted. “This isn’t some flaw with friends with benefits. This is . . .” He didn’t exactly want to divulge all of it, but he’d been keeping it to himself for days now, so maybe, in a way, letting it out would be a good thing. “She found out some stuff about Roma,” he finally just blurted. What the hell, why not?

He didn’t have to elaborate for Octavia to know what that meant. “Oh,” she said, lowering her head.

“Yeah. And I didn’t tell her. She just . . . found out. In here. She looked through my stuff, basically, O. She looked through my stuff without asking.”

“And found out about your ex-girlfriend.” Octavia nodded slowly. “Well, as far as reasons for being pissed go, that one’s pretty legit.”

“Yeah, so I told her to leave, and now I haven’t talked to her for five days.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, figure it out!” she demanded shrilly.

“It’s not that easy.”

“Sure it is.” Typical Octavia. For her, things tended to be very black and white, very cut and dried. “Do you miss her?”

For a second, he didn’t know if she was talking about Roma or Clarke. But then it dawned on him that, for either one of them, the answer was the same. “Yeah,” he replied. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters, Bell,” she persisted. “Call her up. Invite her over. Text her. Something. You look miserable right now.”

“Yeah, but if I talk to her, then I have to be willing to talk to her about . . . everything. There’s no avoiding it.” He shook his head, not sure if he’d be able to do that. There were about two people in the world he could talk to about Roma, and one of them was sitting beside him right now. The other was downstairs with Jackson. Even his mom wasn’t an option for that kind of conversation. She’d loved Roma like a daughter-in-law, and it made her too sad to talk about her.

“Bellamy, I know you don’t like talking about all that stuff,” Octavia empathized, “but if you do, I’m pretty sure Clarke will listen.”

He swallowed hard, wanting to believe that was true. But he didn’t know if it was. He and Clarke had had a few meaningful conversations, sure, but those had been conversations about her. Her parents, her bisexuality. Not him.

“Think about it,” Octavia urged, patting him on the chest before she got up and headed out of the room.

Oh, he thought about it. A lot. In fact, he lay there and thought about it all night. At one point, he looked over at his chair, where Clarke’s princess costume lay draped, and he let himself remember how cute she’d looked in it, how adorably out of place she’d been at TonDC. Her tiara was still on his nightstand, so he picked it up and stared at it for a long time. He couldn’t help it. He wondered what his princess had been up to these past few days.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sometimes it really sucked being a politician’s daughter. Or step-daughter, as was Clarke’s case. During these ‘campaign years,’ she often found herself feeling obligated to attend Marcus’s political rallies and conventions. Her mom went to all of them, because as his wife, she pretty much had to. Clarke showed up sporadically, whenever her schedule would allow. Or whenever her mother really guilt-tripped her into attending.

Today’s wasn’t so bad, she supposed. The speech was outside in a park, and it was a nice sunny day, unusually warm. Clarke put on a nice, floral dress, curled her hair, and stood off to the side of the podium with her mother, trying to look focused and interested as her Marcus addressed his constituents. A couple hundred people had shown up, which would have intimidated the hell out of Clarke, but her stepfather spoke with ease.

“As your senator, I strive to represent what you the people want,” he declared grandly, “and I will continue to do so for as long as I hold this position. Those who have voted for me know what I hold dear: a conservative value base that upholds the basic principles and integrity of our government, our people, and our culture.”

That got a mild round of applause, but Clarke couldn’t muster any claps of her own. That conservative value base wasn’t any friend to her, to Niylah, to Miller or Jackson.

She started to space out as the speech wore on. It was well-written, she supposed, and Marcus spoke very eloquently. But he wasn’t actually saying anything all that substantial, wasn’t giving the specifics of his proposals or ideas, wasn’t taking questions from anyone in the audience. It was the kind of a speech that was more of a show than anything else, a chance for him to get up in front of everyone and have the spotlight, to keep himself in their minds while the smear-ads started to run on TV.

I hate this, she thought, wishing she could just bolt. Hopefully she was standing far enough to the side that she was off-camera, because she must have looked painfully bored.

Afterward, they had to hang around while Marcus did a meet-and-greet with some of the people who had shown up. Clarke found herself yawning, and whenever her mother caught her, she nudged her inconspicuously so she would stop. There were required photo ops, too, which Clarke got roped into. News reporters from local stations gathered them together in front of a huge Kane for U.S. Senate sign and posed them like they were mannequins.

“Smile, Clarke,” her mother told her through clenched teeth.

She forced a close-mouthed smile, because anything more genuine was impossible.

After the rally, her mother invited her home for what was either a late lunch or an early dinner—Clarke wasn’t sure—and she reluctantly agreed to it, because her only other option was to head back home to her apartment and work on a paper for her art history class. Neither option sounded particularly appealing, but since she did actually love both her mother and Marcus despite all this stupid political crap, she figured sitting down to eat with them was a slightly more appealing option.

Her mother cooked, which was good, but Clarke sensed they’d be getting a maid soon, which was less good. Apparently campaign years were just “too busy” for housework.

Clarke knew she was being horrible company. She picked her way through her food, not sure if she was eating chicken or quail, and barely took part in the conversation, barely even listened to what they were saying. They were talking about voter demographics or the opposition or the next speech or something. Whatever it was, Clarke just couldn’t find it in herself to give a damn.

“What did you think of the speech, honey?” her mother asked her.

“Huh?” She’d been spacing again.

“The speech today,” her mother repeated. “Did you like it?”

Did she like a speech that wasn’t aimed at her sector of the voting demographic at all? Not really. “Well, I obviously have a different ‘value base,’” she said, using the same terminology. “But your voice inflection was on-point, Marcus.”

To his credit, he didn’t take offense at that. He chuckled and said, “Well, thank you, Clarke.”

Her mother gave her an impatient look, though, and said, “What’s the matter with you today? You seem like you’ve been in a bad mood.”

Was it that obvious? She really had tried to conceal it as much as possible at the rally itself. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I’ve just had . . . some stuff going on, that’s all.”

“Well.” Her mother smiled excitedly. “Maybe I have some good news then.”

Oh god, Clarke thought nervously. Is she pregnant? Was that even still a possibility, or had the menopause started up already?

“Your stepfather spoke with Daniel, the young man who’s been helping out with the campaign,” her mother revealed. “He said he’s interested in having dinner with you if you’d like.”

Clarke stared at her incredulously. This was supposedly the good news? “Are you kidding me?”

“No. He’s interested.”

“Very interested,” her stepfather emphasized. “I showed him your picture; he thought you were very beautiful.”

“You guys are trying to set me up.” Clarke set her fork down, exasperated. “Unbelievable.”

“Clarke, I’ve met him,” her mother kept on, apparently not getting the hint that she wasn’t interested. “He’s very smart and very driven. Very nice, very good-looking.”

I already know somebody like that, Clarke thought, staring down at her plate.

“He’s quite the upstanding young man,” her stepfather declared enthusiastically. “He comes from a good family, and he has a very bright future ahead of him. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he ends up running for office someday.”

Clarke grunted, shocked that they would think for one second she’d be interested in someone with that kind of aspiration. She was into art, not politics. So many of the things that they focused on and thought were important were just things that didn’t even register with her. How did they not understand that? Did they really know so little about her, or were they just trying to mold her into someone she wasn’t?

“Look,” she said, trying to keep herself calm. “I’m sure this David guy is very nice.”

“Daniel,” her mother corrected.

“But I don’t . . .” She squeezed her hands into fists momentarily, not sure how to reject the offer without possibly upsetting her mom. “I’m not looking for a relationship right now,” she said, parroting what Bellamy had once said to her. “At least not the romantic kind.”

“But Clarke--” her mother protested.

“I have plenty of other things that I’d rather focus on.”

“And that’s good,” Marcus interjected. “That’s important. We’re glad you make your education a priority, and with grad school on the horizon . . .”

“Grad school?” What thin air were they pulling that out of? “I don’t even know if I’m going to grad school.”

“Sure,” he said, “but the possibility exists . . .”

“Just like the possibility of Daniel exists,” her mother added.

“Look, I don’t care about Daniel!” Clarke erupted suddenly, unable to contain herself any longer. All afternoon, she’d played the part of doting stepdaughter, putting on the pretty dress and smiling for the camera. She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t sit here and act like she wasn’t annoyed and wasn’t frustrated when, in reality, that was all she was.

“I was just trying to do something nice,” her mother said, sounding hurt.

“I know, but I didn’t ask for your help. I am perfectly capable of starting up a relationship all on my own.”

“Like you did with Lexa?” her mother asked coldly.

“Yes, like--” She stopped talking abruptly, because . . . well, that really said it all, didn’t it? Her tone alone made it so obvious. “Oh. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You just wanna set me up with a guy so I don’t date a girl again.”

“Clarke . . .” Marcus said softly.

“No, I see right through it. It’s so transparent.”

“Are you seeing Lexa again?” her mother asked.

“Lexa’s engaged, Mom! Oh, and Finn has a daughter now. So in case you’re keeping track, both the people I was involved with have happily moved on to someone else.”

“Maybe you should do the same,” her mother suggested.

“No, you don’t get it!”

“What don’t I get, Clarke?”

She huffed in exasperation, unable to fully explain. What exactly was she supposed to say? Sorry, Mom, I know you’d rather I have a boyfriend, but up until a few days ago, at least I had a boy who was willing to fuck my brains out?

“I think I’m just gonna go,” she announced, getting up from the table.

“Clarke, you can stay,” her stepfather offered.

He was being a lot more level-headed than her mother was right now, so for that, she was actually grateful; but there was no way she could stay in that big house of theirs any longer when they were talking about things like this. “I have a paper I need to write,” she informed him. And hey, that wasn’t a lie.

She made the short drive back to Arkadia, wishing she would feel better once she got back there. But she knew she wouldn’t. No, there was no way. This same stress and anxiety and tension that she felt all over her body right now . . . it wasn’t going anywhere. Her fancy little Polaris apartment wasn’t going to make her feel any more relaxed or calm about things.

It would have been different, though, if she was able to go over to Bellamy’s. To lie down in that warm bed of his, to be in his strong arms . . . even if they didn’t do anything, even if he didn’t kiss her, just being around him right now would have made everything feel so much better.

She missed him so much.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9

The art history paper went nowhere fast. At 7:00 that night, Clarke had a whole whopping two sentences of it written. And they were crappy sentences, ones she’d probably delete. How was she supposed to even try to focus on this, though, when she was still upset about her parents meddling in her life? How was she supposed to compare and contrast ancient and modern Chinese art when she was still upset how things had gone down with Bellamy and dwelling on the fact that it’d been a week since she’d heard from him?

Maybe I just need to have an orgasm, she pondered, lying down on her bed. She did not have the patience to go locate batteries for her vibrator, so she just slipped her hand beneath her underwear and gave it a shot. She rubbed and worked on her clit furiously, desperate for some sort of release. But she never got there. Actually, she never even felt close. The sad fact of the matter was, her fingers were a lousy substitute for Bellamy’s fingers, and they most definitely couldn’t compare to his mouth.

She felt so frustrated in every way she could possibly imagine. Academically, emotionally, and sexually frustrated. The tension coursing through her limbs made her whole body feel tight with agitation, to the point where even lying on her bed didn’t feel comfortable. She groaned in distress and shot to her feet, pacing around the room angrily. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stay awake all night feeling like she was about to lose it. No paper was going to get written in that state of mind; none of that frustration would start to fade. She felt restless and anxious, and if she didn’t do something about it, she was gonna explode.

Screw this, she decided, picking up her phone. She quickly called Raven, relieved to hear her friend’s chipper voice answer on the second ring.

“Hey, what are you doing tonight?” Clarke asked her.

“Um . . . probably going out with Roan,” Raven replied. “Why? You wanna tag along?”

As much as she didn’t want to be a third wheel, anything was better than being stuck here at home by herself. “Please,” she begged.

Perhaps she overdid it on the outfit. There was a gold sparkly thing in the back of her closet she’d never actually worn before, mostly because she didn’t know if it was supposed to be a shirt or a dress. It was probably short enough to be a shirt, but whatever. She was wearing it as a dress. She paired it with some skin-toned strappy sandals that went halfway up her calf, combed her hair out into a wild lion’s mane, and decided she was good to go. A little slutty? Possibly. But if it got her laid and the laying was good, then that was all that mattered.

Roan was driving, and his first question when Clarke climbed into the backseat of the car was, “Do I need to go pick up, Bellamy, too?”

“Shut up,” Raven growled.

“No, we can just go,” Clarke said, tugging down on her dress/shirt thing. God, how was she even going to keep her ass covered tonight?

Roan offered to take them to either TonDC or Mount Weather; he said he enjoyed either one. Raven said it didn’t matter to her, either, so that left the decision up to Clarke. “Where to, Griffin?” she asked.

Clarke sighed, wishing she felt adventurous enough for TonDC. (She was certainly dressed for that place.) But if she ran into Bellamy or even some of Bellamy’s friends, then that would just be strange and make it look like she was trying too hard. Besides, that place was pretty crazy, and she didn’t exactly trust her own decision-making there, not without Bellamy looking after her.

“Mount Weather,” she decided. It wasn’t a bad club by any means. She could mingle and meander there and hopefully meet someone passable. Didn’t have to be a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Certainly not anyone who was going to be her next friend with benefits. Nope, tonight was truly going to be a one-night stand. She could do it. She’d done it before.

Well . . . almost.

The fog machine appeared to be malfunctioning when they showed up, because a greenish haze was billowing out of the club, and people were evacuating. The manager came out shortly after everyone else and promised that they were working on fixing the problem and that the doors would open back up in half an hour. Plenty of people just left for good, but the ones who stuck around got in line and waited. It worked out perfectly for Roan, gave him ample opportunity to press Raven up against the building and make out with her. They were so into each other, and they were both so ridiculously good-looking that Clarke didn’t really mind watching. But it started to feel a little weird when Roan reached behind Raven to cup and squeeze her ass, and Raven responded by unbuttoning two buttons on his shirt.

“Okay, no,” she said, finally tearing her mouth away from his. “Not here.”

“Right here,” he growled lasciviously.

“Later,” she said, threading her hands through his long hair.

When Roan went to go bribe the bouncer to get them to the front of the line, Raven turned to Clarke and squealed. “Okay, do you see us? Are we hot as fuck or what?”

“It’s so hot,” Clarke confirmed. “I would watch you guys have sex. I don’t even care if it would ruin our friendship.”

“Okay, first of all, nothing would ruin our friendship,” Raven assured her. “And second . . . Roan said he’s down for a threesome.”

Clarke’s eyes bulged. No way. Was Raven really suggesting . . . that?

Much to her relief, Raven laughed. “No, just kidding. I mean, he is down for a threesome, but I’m not.”

“Phew.” Clarke breathed a sigh of relief. As much as she loved her best friend ,she wasn’t willing to love her that much.

“He’s into some kinky shit, Clarke,” Raven went on. “I mean really.”

“Well, yeah, he runs a sex shop.”

“We’re taking things slow, though. Tonight . . .” She wriggled her eyebrows mischievously. “It’s the edible underwear.”

“Please tell me you’re not wearing that right now.”

“Oh, I’m not wearing any underwear right now,” Raven boasted. “Are you?”

“A thong.” Clarke whimpered worriedly and tugged her shirt/dress down again. “I feel self-conscious. I feel like my ass cheeks are just flapping around out in the breeze.”

“Your ass cheeks don’t flap,” Raven informed her. “But even if they did . . . just own it. I mean, that’s clearly why you came here tonight, right? To get laid?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Her hand had been such a complete disappointment, and she didn’t hold much hope for her vibrator to do any better. The only thing that was going to make her feel better was some authentic, genuine dick. Or maybe even a pussy. Whatever. Didn’t matter to her as long as she got off on it.

“Are you sure you want to?” Raven asked, sounding . . . concerned.

Clarke made a face. “Yeah, why would I not be sure?”

“Well, you know.” Raven lowered her voice. “Because of Bellamy.”

“What about Bellamy?” If this was going to work, she had to try her best not to think about him. “He’s not my boyfriend. We didn’t break up.”

“Yeah, but still . . .”

“No, still nothing. I’m a free, single lady, and I’m here to have fun,” Clarke proclaimed proudly.

“Good for you,” Raven said supportively. “But in case you don’t . . .” She grinned as Roan reapproached, “I’ll have enough fun for the both of us.” She laughed in delight as he hoisted her up with one arm, holding her like she weighed nothing, and her legs wrapped around his waist. He pressed her back against the wall again, and they resumed their make-out. And it was still very, very hot.

When the club doors finally opened up again, it was nearly 11:00, and the scenario for picking up some hot guy or girl was not ideal for Clarke. Probably only about half the people who had originally been there had stuck around, so her options were limited to begin with. The dance floor was not packed, very open with every dancer being very exposed, so there was no chance in hell she could get out there and mingle, not when there was no camouflage for her lack of rhythm. It took a good half an hour for the drinks to start flowing again and for people to regain their buzzes, but once they did, the atmosphere started to pick up a little.

You can do this, Clarke told herself, scoping out her options. There was a group of three beautiful girls up at the bar, all of them wearing the shortest of shorts and low-cut tops. Her lesbian radar wasn’t quite as finely attuned as Niylah’s was, but chances were, she could convince at least one of those chicks to throw down with her tonight. Even straight girls were willing to experiment these days.

Deep down, though, she knew that wasn’t what she wanted. Maybe it was just the Bellamy effect, but tonight, she wanted a man. He didn’t have to be as sculpted as Bellamy, or have that same gorgeously tan skin. He didn’t have to have that deep, gravelly voice or be quite as big—Be real here, Clarke, she thought. She wasn’t going to find anyone else that big. He just had to be a guy, an attractive guy, who was willing to hook up with no strings attached. She didn’t think that would be so hard to find.

Unfortunately, it was.

The first guy she talked to was studying to be an accountant. Nope.

The second guy she talked to had a cat named Larry. Uh-uh.

The third guy she talked to exclaimed, “Your name’s Clarke? Like Clark Kent? Awesome. I’m gonna call you Supergirl.”

Ugh. No way. Princess was a better nickname.

By the time she started talking to the fourth guy, Doug, she was feeling desperate. Doug was . . . cute. He was a little too dressed up for a club, and his nervousness led her to suspect he was only a freshman or a sophomore. He babbled like a spaz, and Clarke couldn’t believe it. For once in her life, she was the experienced one.

They sat down in the nearly empty VIP section and talked for twenty minutes, but the conversation was disjointed, stiff, full of awkward pauses. That level of attraction that she’d gotten so used to feeling with Bellamy just wasn’t there with Doug. And it wasn’t his fault. He was trying so hard to connect, to make her laugh. But even that wasn’t working. In fact, some of his jokes were making her cringe because of how un-funny they were.

“So—so tell me something about yourself,” Doug urged.

“Well . . .” She gurgled the remainder of her fruity drink through her straw and shrugged. “I’m bisexual.”

“Oh, really? Cool,” he said. “You know, I—I find it really hard to argue with bisexuals ‘cause you never know which way it’ll go.” He laughed—a really annoying laugh—at his own joke.

Clarke just tried to smile and nod.

“Get it?” he said. “‘cause a bisexual person can go either way.”

“Yeah, I’m . . . clear on that.”

“It’s funny, right?”

It so wasn’t funny, but at least it wasn’t offensive. “Hilarious.”

Clarke wasn’t an idiot. She knew she was reaching with this guy, really struggling to make it work. And chances were, if they got into bed together, they wouldn’t be compatible. For all she knew, he was a virgin, and she wasn’t exactly looking to be somebody’s first time tonight. No, this just wasn’t going to work. Maybe it was time to just cut her losses and go the girl route. It wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind, but neither was this kid.

“You know what, Doug?” she said, interrupting him while he rambled. “I just don’t think this is gonna work out. But it was really nice to meet you.” She tried to get up and leave, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her back.

“No, wait,” he said. “I really like you.”

“Doug.” She shook her hand away from his sweaty palms.

“No, come here, please.” He grabbed hold of her arm this time, pulling her back to the point where she lost her balance and practically fell on top of him.

“Okay, stop,” she said, trying to untangle herself from him, but he kept holding on.

“Wait, Clarke--”

Suddenly, she felt two familiar hands on her arms, pulling her to her feet. “She said stop,” Bellamy growled warningly.

Her breath caught in her chest, and her heartbeat instantly sped up. Bellamy?

“Sorry,” Doug apologized, holding his hands up in front of himself like a shield. “Mixed signals.” He backed away, keeping one eye on Bellamy as though he were very afraid of him, and when he was out on the dance floor, he turned and sprinted.

Oh my god, Clarke thought, unable to take her eyes off of Bellamy. Was he really there right now? Or was she dreaming this? Because it seemed like it could be a dream.

“Hey, Princess,” he said, cracking a half smile.

She smiled, too, relieved. Nope, not a dream. Not a dream at all.

Obviously they needed to talk, and Mount Weather wasn’t the place for it. Clarke didn’t really want to leave Bellamy’s side, fearing that he’d be gone if she left and then came back to get him, so she just texted Raven that she was leaving with him and that she’d talk to her tomorrow. She got into Bellamy’s truck, wishing for a second that it could just be simple, that she could hop onto his lap like she had that first night and they could forget about everything else. But he drove to her place in silence, so she refrained from saying anything, too.

She would have much rather gone to his house, but her apartment would have to do, she supposed.

“Thanks for driving me home,” she said as they walked inside. “Raven and Roan are in their own little world.”

“Yeah, no problem,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

God, he looks good, she thought, appreciating the way those dark jeans hugged his legs and the black t-shirt showed off his biceps. Maybe it was just because she’d gone a weak without seeing him, but the thirst was real. Not that she should have been thinking about that right now. There were more important things to deal with.

“Nice shirt,” he remarked.

“Oh, thanks.” Once again, she tried to tug it down, even though she supposed it didn’t really matter. Bellamy had already seen everything underneath. “It’s a dress, though. I think.”

He scratched the side of his head confusedly. “If you say so.”

Even though she knew she was showing lots of leg this way—and hopefully that was enticing or something—she actually wished she was wearing leggings or pants. Because the longer she stayed in this outfit, the more she felt like a Spice Girls reject in it. It was so not her.

“You doin’ alright?” he asked her quietly. But of course he would ask that. Leave it to Bellamy to still be checking in on her, just like he did when they were in bed.

“Yeah,” she said, but that wasn’t entirely true. She’d been miserable this whole week, and today had been the height of that misery. “I miss you,” she blurted suddenly. The words came out on their own accord before she could stop them, before she could second-guess herself.

He locked eyes with her and whispered, much to her surprise, “I miss you, too.”

You do? she thought, feeling that spark of hope again. Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t hate her after all.

“Look, Clarke . . .”

Or maybe he did. Because he sounded pretty serious.

“I’m not gonna stand here and act like I wasn’t mad at you,” he started in. “I was, and I think I had every reason to be.”

She looked down at her feet, nodding shamefully in agreement.

“I mean, if you’d just been looking at pictures of me and my mom and Octavia, that would’ve been one thing, but that other stuff . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “There’s a reason I keep it hidden away.”

She gulped, hating that she’d been the one to bring it all out in the open again. It hadn’t been her place to do so, and she hadn’t even given it a second thought. What kind of person did that make her?

“It’s just . . .” He exhaled heavily, averting her eyes. “It’s really hard for me to talk about.”

“I understand,” she said. For over a year after her dad had died, she’d barely been able to talk to anyone about him. “I’m so sorry, Bellamy.”

“I know you didn’t mean to--”

“No, I was wrong,” she cut in, taking a few hesitant steps towards him, hoping he wouldn’t back away. And he didn’t. “It was the wrong thing to do, and I should’ve known that. I just . . .” She stopped herself before trying to make excuses, because . . . well, there was no excuse.

“You want forgiveness?” he asked, sauntering towards her, hands still in his pockets.

“Yes.” More than anything, she wanted that.

“Then I’ll give that to you,” he offered. “You’re forgiven.”

She blinked back tears, feeling like she didn’t deserve it. “Bellamy, I never meant to hurt you.”

“Clarke, I’m fine.”

“No, but I brought it all up again. And I feel like . . . like I betrayed you.”

“No, you didn’t . . .” He closed the space between them, putting one hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t betray me.”

She shook her head adamantly, feeling like he was letting her off too easily for all of this. “I invaded your privacy. I looked at stuff I had no right to be looking at.”

“Clarke, look at me.”

She lifted her head, meeting his eyes, and he just looked so . . . so soft. So compassionate. It comforted her; it overwhelmed her.

“It’s okay,” using his thumb to wipe a tear track off her cheek.

“It’s not okay.”

“I’m okay,” he emphasized. “I was mad for a while, I was sad for a while, but now I’m okay.”

“No, you shouldn’t have to just be okay, Bellamy,” she argued.

“Clarke.”

“If you wanna be mad at me, be mad. Don’t feel like you just have to forgive me. I completely understand if--”

“Clarke.”

“If you don’t wanna forgive me because, I mean, it should’ve been up to you if you ever wanted to tell me about any of that, and I didn’t give you the choice. I just went in there and--”

“Clarke, shut up.” He bent down and kissed her so suddenly, her mouth couldn’t even react. She just stood there, breathless, blissfully happy for that second that his mouth was on hers. Because it’d been seven days, and she’d almost forgotten how good it felt.

“I forgive you,” he reiterated more firmly this time. “Okay?”

In a way, she still felt like he was letting her off the hook, but all she could mutter was a breathy, “Okay,” in response.

“Alright.” He took her hands in his, rubbing his thumbs across her knuckles.

“Are you still my friend?” she asked nervously, afraid of the answer to that question. Because forgiveness was one thing—it was noble and commendable and one of the most gracious things a person could give. But friendship . . . maybe it wasn’t so easy to fix that, and that terrified her. Because her friendship with Bellamy had come to mean so much to her so quickly.

“Clarke.” He pressed the softest of kisses to her forehead, the softest kiss she could remember him ever giving her, and murmured a promise with his lips against her skin: “I’ll always be your friend.”

She shuddered, a relieved sigh escaping her. If he knew how much it meant just to hear that . . .

“Come here,” he said, letting go of her hands so he could wrap his arms around her and pull her in close for a hug.

Oh god, this was it. This was what she’d yearend for all day today, during that speech, those photo ops, the dinner back home. To feel this with him, to be this with him, was such a comfort. That sense of warmth and security that she got when his arms were around her was worth just as much as his forgiveness was. And she was so grateful for that that she let herself cry, not caring if she looked stupid or weak. They were happy tears.

“I missed you so much,” she cried, scrunching his shirt up in her hands.

He just stood there with her and held her, rubbing one hand up and down her back, massaging the other through her hair. It was just what she needed, and he seemed to know that.

“Clarke?” he finally said, his hands stilling on her body. When he spoke again, his voice was shaky, and he sounded unsure for the first time she could ever recall. “Can I talk to you about it?”

She leaned back slowly, shocked that he would want to. She lifted her head and gazed up at him in bewilderment, her heart breaking when she noticed the tears in his eyes, too.

“Sure,” she replied. After everything she’d done, she owed it to him to listen. She wanted to listen. She wanted to know.

He took her hand in his and led her to the couch, sitting down.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” she made sure to add.

“Well, I don’t . . . I don’t want to,” he admitted, “but . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I have to.”

She didn’t know if that meant he had to because she’d seen everything already or because he didn’t want to stay silent about it any longer. She decided not to ask, though, because if he felt like he had to . . . well, then he had to.

“All my other friends already know,” he said. “You should know, too.”

“Okay.” She tucked her knees up underneath her, turning to face him, watching him intently, waiting. He could take as long as he needed.

And it did take a while. For probably three minutes, he just sat there, unable to get any words out, unable to look at her. There was an expression on his face and in his eyes she didn’t recognize, one that wasn’t flirty or mischievous, one that wasn’t smug or playful. He looked like he was on a bit of an emotional roller coaster in his head, reliving everything, and she wasn’t sure he’d even be able to tell her. But finally, he just started in.

“So Roma . . . she wasn’t the girl I lost my virginity to,” he said. “She was the girl I wanted to lose my virginity, too, but . . .” He trailed off, chuckling, never really meeting his eyes, always kind of off in his own world. “She was a year ahead of me in high school, and she lived down the street from the house I grew up in. I always liked her. I thought she was really beautiful and . . . interesting.” He smiled fondly, as though he were remembering something good. “Anyway, we got together the summer after my freshman year. Pretty standard, you know? I took her out on dates. We hooked up. We . . .” He paused for a few seconds, looking up at her ceiling, taking a deep breath. “We fell in love.”

Clarke smiled sympathetically and put a hand on his leg, silently urging him to continue.

“We dated for three years,” he went on, still staring straight ahead at nothing. “And it was serious. We wanted to be together. We said we would be . . . forever.” His jaw got real tense, his brow furrowed, when he said that word, but he managed to keep going, somehow. “Anyway, I got her a promise ring, which you probably saw.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering what word had been engrave don the inside of it. Forever.

“If I’d had another year, it might’ve been the real thing,” he admitted. “She was my first love, you know?”

Oh, yeah. That much was very clear.

“But we had all these plans. We were gonna go do so much stuff, and someday we were gonna have a house of our own, maybe get married, maybe have some kids.”

Oh god, she thought, feeling her heart break on his behalf. All of that at eighteen? And here she’d thought her relationship with Finn had been intense. But it didn’t even compare. What she and Finn had shared was a sham, but Bellamy and Roma . . . that was the real deal.

“And I was gonna go to college,” he added. “I got a full ride to Boston College, so we were gonna move up there. And Roma wasn’t goin’ to college or anything, but she was still gonna move there with me.” He smiled as more memories undoubtedly played out in his head. “She was excited.” His smile faded shortly after that, though, and Clarke shifted uncomfortably, not even sure if she could bear to hear anymore. She’d read the obituary. She knew what happened next.

“Anyway, we were on our way up there one day,” he said. “We were gonna look at apartments. And then . . .” His bottom lip started to tremble, and his eyes looked so glassy, like the tears were going to fall at any minute. “We were just talking,” he said, his voice cutting out. “I don’t remember what I was saying, but . . . one minute everything was fine, and then the next . . .” He had to stop, close his eyes for a moment, and swallow the lump in his throat. “I had the green light, so I just pulled forward into the intersection,” he said, using his hands to demonstrate, “and out of nowhere, this other car comes up on the side, runs the red light, and hits us. It hit her.”

Clarke covered her mouth with her hand, literally starting to feel sick to her stomach. She’d known it was a car accident, but . . . for him to be in that car with her? She hadn’t known that part.

“I don’t really remember anything after that,” he confessed. “The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital, and my mom was there, and Octavia was there. And they told me what happened. And my mom had to tell me Roma died.”

Even though she tried not to let it out, Clarke could help but start to cry. Because the thought of Bellamy, especially an eighteen year old Bellamy, going through all of that . . . it broke her heart.

“It wasn’t a drunk driver or texting or anything,” he said. “It was just an accident. It just happened. And they said she died on the scene.”

Clarke bent forward, raking both hands through her hair, trying to keep it together. Because Bellamy needed her to be strong right now. He was the one reliving all the traumatic memories. For once, he, the guy who fixed things and took care of things for everyone else, needed someone to take care of him.

“I don’t really know why I made it and she didn’t,” he said sadly. “I mean, she died, and I—I had a broken wrist, Clarke. And some cuts and bruises. But that’s it.” He finally looked at her, for the first time during the account of this whole thing, and he looked . . . so confused, like even all these years later, he still couldn’t make sense of that.

“Bellamy . . .” She wanted to say something comforting, consoling, but she didn’t know what to say. So all she managed was his name.

“Uh, when you asked me the other day why I didn’t go to college,” he kept on, “I kind of lied because . . . well, I mean, my mom did lose her job that year, and I did have to work, but . . .” He wrinkled his forehead, looking regretful and anguished when he said, “I couldn’t go. Not after that. I was . . . I was in a pretty dark place for about six months there. I was depressed. I had to go therapy and everything.”

Depressed? she thought, trying to wrap her mind around it. Therapy? Given the horror of what he’d gone through, it was definitely understandable. But Bellamy was so lively and capable that it was almost difficult to imagine.

“Anyway, clearly it worked, right?” he managed to joke, cracking a sad smile. “I’m all better?” A few of his tears finally fell over, and he quickly tried to wipe them away. “Anyway. That’s that.”

Oh my god, she thought, stunned. Reading about it in a newspaper clipping was one thing, but hearing it straight from Bellamy’s mouth? That was quite another.

“You alright?” he rasped out.

Oh god, was he really asking her that after everything he’d just shared? “Am I alright?”

“Yeah.”

Oh, Bellamy . . . “I’m fine,” she said. “I just feel really bad for you.” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, sniffling. “I got to say goodbye to my dad, you know? I had time. I knew it was coming.”

Bellamy shook his head. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”

“No, I think it does,” she disagreed. She couldn’t imagine just having her father ripped away from her in an instant, with no warning whatsoever. She wouldn’t have wished that on her worst enemy.

“I’m glad I told you,” he declared suddenly, sounding a bit surprised by that fact. “Sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”

She shook her head, wishing he didn’t feel the need to apologize. “Sorry I basically forced you to.”

“No, I’m glad,” he repeated. “It kinda feels good to talk about it.”

Well, as much as she was still ashamed of her actions leading up to all of this, if there was something good that had come out of it, perhaps this was it. He’d mentioned therapy? Talking to people who cared was probably the most therapeutic thing there was. She was more than willing to listen to him whenever he started thinking about this, whenever he needed someone to talk to. She wanted to be that person. And maybe now she could be.

“Come here, Bellamy,” she said, sensing that he could use one of those hugs right now like the one he’d given her. She pulled gently on his arm, and he leaned into her, for once letting the roles be reversed, for once letting her be the one who was looking after him. “Are you okay?” she asked, checking in with him the way he always did with her.

“Yeah,” he said, slowly lifting his head. “Clarke.” When his eyes looked into hers, though, she saw something there, something that definitely wasn’t just lust or desire. She couldn’t quite figure out what it was until he said, “I need you,” in a hushed whisper.

Need. He needed her.

“I need to feel you,” he said, looking down as though the word embarrassed him to say out loud. Need. Need.

“I’m right here,” she said, picking up his hand, placing it over her heart. He wondered if she could feel it practically beating out of her chest.

“Please,” he pleaded as his lips sought hers out. It was just a quick, barely-there kiss at first, then another one. His mouth quivered against hers until the kisses became deeper, more insistent. She lay back on the couch, and his body followed hers, settling in on top of her, a heavy weight on her smaller frame. But she could bear it.

He hardly ever stopped kissing her while he undressed her. It happened quickly that her stupid shirt/dress ended up on the floor, her shoes and thong soon to follow. He managed to get his own clothes off quickly, smoothly, almost effortlessly, and she was so glad when he did. She loved the feeling of his naked body against hers.

The sex was . . . different. He settled in between her legs and sank right into her, but his hip movements were small, subtle, not exactly full-on thrusts. He seemed content to just be inside her while his hands roamed and rubbed her body, while his lips rained kisses down onto her neck. His body encompassed hers, so she clung to him, holding on as they gently rocked together. As much as he needed to feel her, she needed to feel him, too, right now. A week without this had felt like a month, and that was way too long.

His breath rasped against her neck hotly when he came. She wasn’t quite there yet, and she wasn’t going to get there, but she didn’t really care. Tonight wasn’t about her. It was about him, him opening up, talking about things he obviously tried to keep buried. As long as he got what he needed out of this, then she was satisfied, too.

He lay on top of her afterward, obviously completely exhausted, physically and emotionally. His forehead was coated in sweat, hair sticking to it, so she brushed it away from his eyes. He pulled his hips back just enough to slip out of her, but he didn’t move much else. Using her breasts as a pillow, he rested his head against her, breathing deeply, eyes closing. She stroked his head and his hair, content to just let him lie there as long as he needed. Because tonight, he needed her.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10

Clarke started to stir awake early that morning when the sun peeked through the gap in her curtains, hitting her eyes. Usually it took multiple alarms to wake her up this early, but not today. Even before she opened her eyes, she knew something was different. She wasn’t in her bed, for starters; she was on the couch. And she wasn’t alone like she had been for the past seven mornings.

When she opened her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of Bellamy next to her, curled up on his side, still asleep. His head was on her shoulder, one of his legs draped over both of hers, and a thin blue blanket covered them both.

He looked so peaceful, so different than the guy who had opened up to her about everything last night.

Last night, she thought, smiling softly. Last night had been . . . something. Really something. Not something romantic, surely, because there was nothing romantic about the trauma he’d endured and recounted for her. And even the sex had been more intimate than anything else. But whatever it had been, whatever had transpired . . . it made her feel so close to him right now.

As much as she didn’t want to disturb him, she had to move. Her back hurt from sleeping on the couch all night, and her arms and legs felt stiff. She tried to stretch out a bit, and that woke him up, too.

“Hey,” he said, slowly lifting his head.

“Hey.” God, he looked so cute with his tousled hair and sleepy eyes. She could only hope she didn’t look like nightmare. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Probably should’ve slept in the bed, though.”

“Yeah, really.” Her couch was barely big enough just for her, let alone the two of them.

He yawned, reaching over to put his hand on her hip. “Thanks for lettin’ me stay,” he said, rubbing lightly.

“Of course.” How many nights had she spent at his place? This was the least she could do. Besides, it wasn’t like she’d wanted him to leave.

“Thanks for . . . everything, Clarke,” he mumbled, looking down at the small sliver of space between them. “Just . . . thanks.”

He didn’t have to elaborate for her to know what he meant by that. He was thanking her for being there with him last night, for listening.

Her phone rang shrilly before she could tell him that last night was the least she could do after bringing all of this back to him again in the first place. She groaned, because it was her mother’s ringtone.

“You want that?” he asked reaching down onto the floor to fumble in her purse.

“I guess.” With the way she and her mom had left things yesterday, it was probably best that they talk.

He found her phone and handed it over to her, and she braced herself for what might not be a pleasant conversation. “Yes?” she answered.

“Hi, Clarke,” her mother said. “I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”

“Well, I did.” She shot Bellamy an annoyed look, and he just smiled.

“I was hoping we could talk,” her mother said. “Yesterday was just so . . . unpleasant at the end there. I hate to leave things like that.”

Clarke did, too, honestly. As aggravated as yesterday had made her feel towards her mother, she didn’t want to fight with her. Anything could happen at any point, like it had with Bellamy’s girlfriend. Life was too short to waste it being angry.

Her mom started to apologize for upsetting her, and Clarke tried to pay attention to what she was saying, but Bellamy made it difficult to do that when he tossed the blanket aside and slithered down on the couch. She watched him confusedly until it became blatantly clear what he wanted to do: He put his hands on her knees and tried to spread her legs.

“Bellamy, no,” she scolded incredulously, covering the phone. She couldn’t do that while she was talking to her mother.

He just nodded as if to say, Yes.

“Don’t you think so, Clarke?” her mother was saying.

“What?” She hadn’t been paying attention. Did she think what?

“That my intentions were in the right place,” her mother said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Powerless to stop it—hell, she hadn’t cum last night, so she wanted to get pleasure as much as he clearly wanted to give it to her—Clarke allowed Bellamy to open up her legs and then watched in disbelief as he lowered his mouth to her cunt. “Oh!” she couldn’t help but gasp the moment she felt his tongue in between her folds.

“Oh?” her mother echoed.

“Oh . . . yes,” she said, halfway to her mother, halfway to Bellamy. “Yes, I know you didn’t mean to upset me,” she said, struggling to put together a coherent sentence as he kissed, licked, and suckled on her.

“I really didn’t,” her mother insisted. “And I feel awful. I know I can be pushy sometimes.”

She pushed herself down onto his face, delighting in the friction.

“Clarke?”

“Yeah?” That was her name. At least she could still respond to her name.

“Are you listening?”

“Uh-huh.” Bellamy’s breathing was loud down there, his breath hot on her sensitive flesh. He moaned and moaned and made Mwah sounds as he made out with her lower lips, and when he cast a glance up at her, she gave him a warning look. Because if he got too much louder, her mother was going to hear him.

“I feel like you’re not really listening,” her mother said dejectedly.

“No, I am,” she insisted, squirming slightly, circling her hips against his face. “I just, uh . . .” She fought to hold back a moan as his tongue zig-zagged all the way up to her clit. “I’m kinda . . . busy,” she offered.

“Well, I just wanted to clear the air,” her mother said. “And I promise I’ll let up on the matchmaking.”

That’s good, Clarke thought, because right now, her only match had his head between her legs.

“But please don’t get mad at me if I ask you about your personal life every once in a while,” her mother pleaded. “I’m not trying to be nosy. I just like knowing what you’re up to.”

Clarke laughed a bit, because if her mother knew what she was up to right now . . .

Her mom just kept on going, and Clarke tuned her out completely as Bellamy’s tongue flicked rapidly at her clit, very determined to get her off. It was so hot to watch him work, to see his eyes close in concentration, only to open moments later and shoot up to her face, gauging her reaction.

“Anyway,” her mother said. “I should probably let you go now.”

“Yeah, probably,” Clarke agreed quaveringly. Her impending orgasm had her feeling like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff, and Bellamy was most certainly about to push her over.

“Oh, but Marcus wanted me to tell you . . .”

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut, not caring what Marcus wanted to tell her. She had to press the phone into the back cushion of the couch when she felt her thighs start to quiver. Every muscle in her body tightened, and it sort of felt like a volcanic eruption . . . down there. She clenched up, arched her hips against his mouth, and tried not to make any sounds as she came. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t focus on anything except the wave of pleasure coursing through her. And what a wave it was. It left her feeling mindless, boneless, completely satiated afterward. She just lay there, unable to move, still feeling some pulsating aftershocks down in her core, where Bellamy’s tongue was lazily lapping up her juices.

Oh god, she thought, finally remembering that there was a phone in her hand. She brought it back up to her ear just in time to hear her mom saying, “Well, alright, I can tell that I’m boring you, so I’ll just talk to you later, okay?”

Words, Clarke thought, head still spinning. Say something. “Okay,” she managed to get out before she ended the call, dropping her phone onto the floor. “God, Bellamy,” she gasped.

Smirking proudly, he crawled back up her body, lying between her legs, propping himself up with an arm on either side of her head. “You like that?” he asked gruffly.

“Yes, but . . . that was bad.”

“Oh, it felt pretty good to me.”

Unable to keep from smiling, she rolled her eyes in amusement. Who was she kidding? It’d felt pretty damn good to her, too. Bellamy was an oral sex aficionado. He did things and got reactions out of her that she couldn’t even explain. Like right now, her toes were tingling. What even was that?

“I have to shower,” she said, hating the thought of getting up and getting ready.

“Alone?” he asked.

“Probably.” She would have loved to get in there with him, but if they did that, then they’d end up having sex again, and she’d lose track of time and fail to get clean. “I have to go work,” she told him, already wondering if there was any way she could convince Dante to let her leave early.

“That sucks,” he said. “If you have to, though . . .” He sat back on his knees and grabbed her hand, pulling her up along with him. He took a moment to steal a few more kisses, though, which was incredibly arousing since she could still taste herself on his lips. It took everything she had to get off that couch and head into the bathroom.

He lay on her bed and turned on the TV while she showered. She went about her morning routine with him there, just lounging, hanging out, and it felt so natural. At one point, he even offered to braid her hair for her. (Apparently, he’d learned how to do that with Octavia.) She didn’t take him up on that, only because she didn’t have enough time, but she did hop onto his lap so she could give him one big goodbye kiss before leaving for the day.

“Feel free to hang as long as you want,” she told him. “You can snoop through anything.”

“Nah, I think I’ll head home,” he said. “I got some work to do today, too.”

“Okay.” She patted his stomach and tried to get up, but he put he grabbed her hip, holding her in place.

“Come over tonight, though,” he murmured against her lips before giving her one more peck.

She smiled, looking forward to that. Because the only thing more enjoyable than a night with Bellamy at her place was a night together at his.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Since she knew she was spending a lot of time with Bellamy these days, Clarke started using her lunch breaks for girl time with Raven and Niylah. It was becoming a nice daily tradition—or almost daily—one that always ended up in the three of them talking about sex. It was inevitable, it seemed, especially once Clarke and Bellamy got past their slump and started hooking up again. If they were all having sex, they could all rejoice in the glory of it together.

Niylah had found a girlfriend . . . sort of. The official terminology was ‘maybe starting something.’ Her name was Luna, and she was real modern-day hippie, by the sound of it. When Clarke saw the pictures, she understood the attraction, because Luna had a mane of curly brown hair and prominent eyebrows that made her look very modelesque. Niylah raved about how amazing it was to sixty-nine with her, which Clarke had to admit was something she and Bellamy had not done yet. But it seemed to be heading in that direction.

Raven and Roan still weren’t coming up for air, and it seemed that the Ice Nation sex store owner was getting her to try some kinky things. Raven was a little tight-lipped about what it all was, but she assured the girls she was enjoying it, and that was really all that mattered. She also bragged that Roan was amazingly well-endowed and proposed that she and Clarke do an inconspicuous dick measuring contest to see whether he or Bellamy was bigger.

“Roan’s, like . . .” Raven tried to use her forearm to give them some accurate measurement, but when that didn’t work, she just reached across the table and flopped her hand against Clarke’s cheek. Then she dragged it across her mouth and back again like it was a big, limp snake.

“What are you doing?” Clarke asked, accustomed to her friend’s weirdness.

“This is my impersonation of it,” Raven said, flapping her arm against the side of Clarke’s face before dragging it up over Clarke’s eyes. “It’s everywhere.”

Ultimately, however, even though sometimes they talked about Luna and sometimes they talked about Roan, both of Clarke’s friends seemed content to let most of the conversations focus on her sex life with Bellamy. Niylah had only met him a handful of times, and Raven still insisted on calling him Bellagio, but they both liked him and were interested in his and Clarke’s relationship. Niylah, for one, was completely serious when she requested a front-row seat the next time he ate Clarke out. She said that, based on Clarke’s descriptions and Bellamy’s own explanation of his technique, he was a “Grade-A oral master.” Clarke definitely wasn’t about to dispute that, but she wasn’t about to let Niylah be a spectator while Bellamy went down on her, either.

Raven, in contrast, was more interested in the full-on sex. It seemed to fascinate her that Clarke’s favorite position with Bellamy was simply having him on top. Due to her lackluster experiences with Wick, Raven was reluctant to try missionary with Roan, fearing that she might be disappointed by the experience.

“Just try it,” Clarke urged her. “Worst case scenario, it sucks, and then you have him ask Bellamy for advice.”

“This guy . . .” Niylah shook her head in amazement. “God, Clarke, you should have him write a how-to manual or something. Seriously.”

Clarke tossed her head back and laughed.

She told Bellamy about Niylah’s suggestion when she was over at his house for her first Saturday night shenanigans since they’d patched things up. He got a kick out of the idea, chuckling, “A how-to manual, huh?”

“Well, yeah, you’re really good.” She leaned against the counter and stole pieces of mozzarella cheese off the top of the pizza he was preparing. “I could send it to Finn for Christmas or something.”

“I thought you said he had a daughter.”

“He does, but that doesn’t mean he has sex skills.”

Bellamy shook his head as he arranged pepperoni slices on top of the cheese. “Why’d you stay with that guy for two years if it was so bad?”

“It wasn’t bad,” she clarified. “It was just . . . high school. Clumsy, awkward high school.”

“I wasn’t clumsy and awkward in high school,” he boasted. “Well, just the first time.”

“Just the first time?”

“And the second. And the third and the fourth and the twentieth,” he confessed. “But after that, I got really good.”

“With Roma?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He smiled a bit, not a sad smile this time. Just . . . reminiscent. These past few days, he hadn’t really talked about her a whole lot, but if her name ever did come up in conversation, he didn’t shy away from it, either.

Since Bellamy was taking on the role of chef that night and Clarke had absolutely nothing to contribute in the kitchen, she left him there and rejoined the others in the living room. Nobody was really saying it, but everyone sort of knew tonight’s get-together was sort of a welcome back party for her. Miller let her pick the music, then complained when she requested something he didn’t like; Jasper offered her some of his best pot, which she politely declined; the girls all wanted to play with her hair, and even Murphy was nice enough to give up his beanbag and let her lounge there for a few minutes. Once he told her time was up, though, she had to go back to the couch.

Octavia and Lincoln showed up right when Bellamy was pulling the pizza out of the oven. Octavia took one whiff and exclaimed, “Did you use Mom’s sauce recipe?”

“Of course,” he replied, winking at her.

Cooking. Yet another thing Bellamy Blake was randomly good at. Clarke had no cooking abilities, nor did she have any desire to learn, so she was perfectly content to just sit back and watch him work. Because he looked good tossing that salad, and he looked good sprinkling parmesan cheese all over those breadsticks, and he looked good slicing that pizza.

She was thirsty for him.

By the time he was done, it looked like Olive Garden up in that kitchen, smelled like it, too. All his friends piled over each other to be the first one at the pizza, and since Murphy took three pieces, they ran out. Bellamy seemed to have anticipated this, though, as he already had a second pizza in the oven.

Clarke hung towards the back of what could very loosely be defined as a line, but she didn’t need to. Bellamy already had a plate ready to go for her, even though he didn’t have one for himself.

“This looks good,” she said, inhaling the Italian aroma as she headed back over to the couch.

He sat down beside her while his friends ransacked the kitchen, and she felt sort of bad being the one eating when he’d done all the cooking. She tried to give him one of her breadsticks, but he just said, “I’ll get one later,” and put his arm around her.

“Where’d you learn how to cook?” she asked, blowing on her pizza slice to cool it off. “Your mom?”

“Yeah, kind of,” he replied. “She worked nights at this factory, though, while I was growin’ up, so I had to make dinner for O a lot.”

“Oh.” That made sense, she supposed, with what she knew about Bellamy’s childhood. He didn’t speak about it with resentment or anything like that, but it seemed pretty clear to her that he’d had to be a lot more than just a regular big brother. He’d been the man of the house at a very young age, so given that fact, maybe it wasn’t surprising that he was so skilled at so many things.

“Is it good?” he asked as he watched her eat.

Her mouth was full, so all she could do was nod and say, “Mmm-hmm.”

“The salad probably sucks. I don’t eat salad a whole lot.”

“No, it’s all good,” she assured him. The fact that Bellamy had gone to all the trouble of making an entire meal for everyone, though, was probably his way of contributing to the welcome back celebration. He didn’t say that that was what it was, but she kind of suspected.

Most of their friends ate themselves to the point of being sick—Harper, all toned with her six-pack, even complained about having a food baby in her flat stomach. But Clarke, what with her thirst for Bellamy being at the forefront of her brain, limited her consumption. She was intent on having a great deal of sex with him tonight, and she didn’t want any stomachache derailing that plan. Bellamy didn’t eat much, either, mostly because, by the time he finally got around to fixing himself up a plate, there was barely anything left.

Since everyone was weighed down with food and no one felt like dancing or wrestling or doing all the other crazy things they usually did, they ended up just turning on the TV. Finding something everyone could agree on watching was nearly impossible, especially with Murphy in charge of the remote; so while their friends bickered and argued with each other and just generally attacked Murphy for his poor viewing choices, Clarke and Bellamy made out on the couch. Nothing major, obviously, because Octavia was there. But eventually, Bellamy’s tongue got a little too rambunctious, leading Octavia to yell, “Ew, could you guys stop? Ugh!”

Nothing ‘ugh’ about it, Clarke thought, reluctantly tearing her mouth away from Bellamy’s. Kissing technique. That was another chapter for his hypothetical how-to manual.

Even though Murphy lobbied hard for softcore porn, he was outvoted on account of there being two gay men and a sibling pair in the room. Miller eventually just wrestled the remote out of his hands and turned on Family Guy, which, it seemed, was something everyone could enjoy. Most of them lay on the floor, but Miller and Jackson curled up in the recliner, both of them looking like they could fall asleep early after a long day of work. Jasper wandered over to the kitchen table at some point, possibly mistaking it for a bed as he climbed up on top of it and lay down on his side. The snoring started almost instantly, and Maya even brought a blanket over to her boyfriend and covered him up.

Clarke didn’t have anything against Family Guy, but it hadn’t been her first choice. Truth was, no matter what TV show they’d settled on, it wouldn’t have held her interest. The only thing she could think about was the man beside her, whose jeans seemed to have gotten a little tighter around the crotch once they’d started making out. She waited until the commercials, when chatter rose up among all the others, to attempt to casually broach a subject she’d put off addressing for days.

“Hey, so the other night at my place,” she said, “when we . . . you know.”

“Had sex?” he filled in.

“Yeah.” She didn’t know why she was embarrassed to say it when she was having so much of it. “Well, I didn’t really give it much thought at the time, but . . .” She lowered her voice, glad to find that everyone was absorbed in a joke Monty was telling and wouldn’t overhear her. “You didn’t wear a condom,” she informed him.

“Oh.” His eyebrows darted up in surprise. “Yeah, I didn’t think about it, either. Hmm.” He thought about it for a moment now and shrugged helplessly. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s okay,” she said. “I mean, I’m on the pill, obviously. I just wondered . . . is that a thing we’re doing now?”

“Is it something you wanna do?” he asked back.

“Well, not like regularly or anything.” Maybe an exception could be made for his birthday or New Year’s or something like that. “I mean, we probably shouldn’t.”

“Right,” he agreed. “No, I get it.”

“Is that okay?”

“It’s fine,” he said. “Damn, no wonder it felt so good, though.”

She whacked his shoulder playfully, and the commercial break ended, allowing the episode to resume. Their friends quieted down a bit, just lightly buzzing amongst themselves while, for the most part, they watched the show, laughed at the jokes, and tried to figure out who in their group was the Meg.

“It felt good to me, too,” Clarke whispered to Bellamy. “I mean, not just because it was condom-less. Because it was very . . .” Try as she might, she still couldn’t find the right word to describe what that night had been like for her.

“Brief,” he supplied. “Not my longest performance.”

“Well . . .” Fine, that much was true.

“You didn’t even cum that night, did you?”

“No. But it was still good.”

“Shh!” Murphy shushed them loudly. “I can’t appreciate crude humor if you two are constantly yakking.”

“Shut up, Murphy,” Bellamy growled. And, as usual, that seemed to do the trick. “It was nice,” Bellamy agreed, keeping his voice low and quiet as he grazed his hands up and down Clarke’s bare thigh. Despite how chilly it was getting outside, she’d worn a skirt tonight, just to give him easy access, because . . . well, she wanted him to have easy access. That was the thirst at play again.

“I hope you don’t think it’s gonna be like that every time, though,” he went on.

She tilted her head to the side curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Well, like tonight, when all these people leave?” He locked eyes with her, staring at her seductively. “I fully intend to throw you over my shoulder, carry you up those stairs, toss you down on the bed, and fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”

Holy mother of god, she thought, feeling her insides clench with anticipation. “Oh my god.”

“You like that, huh?”

“Yeah.” Bellamy could be the sweetest guy in the world sometimes, but when he decided it was time to throw down, he could turn it on like no one else she’d ever known before. “We might have to try some of that dirty talk stuff a little more,” she said.

“Ah, it’s overrated,” he declared dismissively. “Besides, that’s more of the whole ‘bad girl’ thing.”

“I can be bad.” She tried to make a sassy, pouty face, but it just kind of morphed back into a smile.

“No, you’re good,” he said, chuckling lightly. Leaning over, he murmured, “You’re such a good girl, remember?” and kissed her cheek.

That simple kiss combined with those simple words . . . it did something to her. Maybe it was a praise kink, as Raven had called it, or maybe it was just the way he said it. Whatever it was, it made the juncture between her legs feel a little slicker. “God, Bellamy,” she said.

“What?”

It wasn’t surprising that she was getting turned on by that, but sitting in a room full of other people perhaps wasn’t the best place for it. “Just hearing you say that,” she replied, smiling sheepishly, “makes me wet.”

“Really?” He quickly scanned the room, apparently convinced that no one was watching them, because he subtly slipped his left hand underneath her skirt and touched her panties. “Wow.” He gave her a few good strokes, then removed his hand.

And now I’m just getting wetter, Clarke thought, mesmerized by his daring hands, by the way he’d literally just felt her up with no one noticing.

“Well, in that case . . .” He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “You’re such a sexy girl.”

Oh god, this was just getting out of control. She felt herself getting so wet, there was surely about to be evidence of it on that couch if she didn’t get some kind of . . . thirst-quencher. “Bellamy,” she said, rubbing her legs together wantonly, “I can’t wait.”

He stared at her with a look of wonder and intrigue in his eyes. “No?”

“No.” Normally she had more self-restraint than this, but her hormones were just out of control. Maybe subconsciously she was trying to make up for the seven day drought without him, because all she could think about was getting him naked and getting him inside her. But the night was still young, and these people would likely be over here for a while, possibly watching one episode of this stupid show right after another . . .

“Let’s go,” Bellamy decided, shooting to his feet. He pulled Clarke up, too, and they scurried up the stairs, completely obvious about what they were going to go do.

“There they go,” Miller narrated, unsurprised.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Murphy muttered.

Even though he didn’t follow through on his plan to carry her up those stairs, Bellamy did seem fully intent on following through with his promise to make it a wild time. He managed to get her completely undressed before they even reached his bedroom, and once inside, he kicked the door shut loudly. He made good on his idea about throwing her down on the bed, and his problematic headboard lurched forward when he did so.

“Take your shirt off,” she told him when she noticed his fingers getting right to work on his pants.

He grabbed his t-shirt at the hem and pulled it over his head swiftly. Yeah, that was one good masculine chest right there. She loved Bellamy’s build. He had defined muscles but wasn’t bulky like a bodybuilder. No, he was a lot leaner than that. And his skin . . . seriously, how had his parents’ genetics combined to create that skin tone? Plus, the freckles. Even though most of them were on his face, they were still kind of everywhere.

Everywhere.

“Come here,” he said, grabbing hold of her ankles, pulling her over to the side of the bed. He pressed her knees up towards her chest, getting her positioned exactly how he wanted her: on her back, legs spread at the perfect height for him to stand next to that bed and drive into her.

“Condom,” she reminded him as he pushed his jeans and underwear down past his knees.

“I know.” He grabbed one off his nightstand—god, just how horny were they that they had a box of condoms just sitting out there in full view?—and quickly sheathed himself, bending his knees so he could press the tip of his cock against her entrance. Then, holding onto her calves with both hands, he slammed inside roughly, making her whole body jolt.

“Oh!” she cried out, having to instantly stretch to accommodate his girth. There was no foreplay, no easing her into it this time, no going slow. Nope. He’d told her he was going to fuck her, and that was exactly what he was already doing.

“Shit,” he swore as he began moving his hips into her.

“Oh god.” Thankfully, her natural lubrication made it easy for him to establish his rhythm and give her long, hard thrusts right away.

He moaned—and she could count on one hand the number of times she’d heard Bellamy Blake legitimately moan—as he pounded her. It was a loud moan, too, the kind that echoed off the walls of that bedroom in time with the squeaking of his mattress. “Fuck,” he swore, penetrating deep enough and hard enough that the skin of his thighs slapped against the back of hers.

Clarke was faintly aware that, downstairs, Octavia was shrieking, “That’s disgusting, Bellamy! I can hear everything you’re doing!” but that was nowhere near enough to make her consider stopping.

“That’s too bad,” Bellamy decided, likewise undeterred. He leaned forward a bit, pressing his hands down hard on the back of her knees, and kept pushing her legs further backward, opening her up to him even more. Clarke wasn’t especially flexible, so it wasn’t the most comfortable position. But even though there was some slight discomfort, the knowledge that it was Bellamy who was the one stretching her like this was enough to make her relish it.

“Oh . . .” she purred as he continued to fuck her. It felt like he was going really deep this time, maybe due to the position or just due to the power of his thrusts. He kept leaning forward, hovering so far over her that her legs had nowhere else to go but up over his shoulders. God, she was gonna be sore tomorrow.

“Fuck, Clarke,” he grunted, grabbing hold of her hips to yank her back towards the edge of the bed.

“Ah!” she yelled, wincing in some pain when she felt something she hadn’t ever felt before. It just felt like there no room for him left to go, and she could literally feel his balls slapping against her ass. “Ow, Bellamy,” she whimpered.

“What?” He immediately stopped and moved his hips back a bit, alleviating some of that ‘full’ feeling. “You okay?”

She took a second to breathe and try to relax her muscles again. “Yeah.”

“Did I hurt you?”

She knew how concerned Bellamy would be about that, probably to the point where he’d stop altogether, and she didn’t want that to happen. “I’m fine,” she reassured him, moving her legs off his shoulders strictly for comfort reasons. “Keep going.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.” She tried unsuccessfully to roll her hips against him, but he was very much the dominant one in this position, so it was kind of up to him to start moving again.

He thrust forward again, not all the way this time, and his pace had slowed significantly.

“Bellamy, fuck me,” she urged, feeling like she could get off pretty quickly if he just kept pounding her. Maybe not quite as deep as he’d just been, but . . . going pretty deep was still fine. She liked feeling him inside her. It was a rush.

Bellamy was pretty much in a haze, even though he had broken out of it long enough to check on her. He soon did resume the pace of his thrusts, really doing her, and even brought his thumb down to massage her clit while he did so. The sensations started to overwhelm Clarke, and there was no doubt she’d be cumming in no time. “Oh god, Bellamy . . .”

“Clarke, my headboard,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“It’s gonna fall over.” He was still fucking her, but his eyes were fixated up on the top of his bed now.

She didn’t care if it fell over. She just wanted to get off on this. “Don’t stop,” she begged.

“Clarke--”

“Please.” If he just kept touching her, she’d get there in no time.

“Shit, Clarke.” All of a sudden he lifted her up off the bed, right as the headboard came crashing down. The wood made a horrible splintering sound, and half of it landed on the pillows, just above where her head had been. The whole bedframe kind of a shifted, and the mattress sank down slightly on Bellamy’s side.

Somehow, though, thankfully, miraculously, he was still inside her. The only difference was that now he was holding her up. “Ah, this works,” he decided, locking his arms tightly around her to hold her in place while he fucked up into her.

Later that night, with the bed out of commission, they lay on the floor, a big comforter he’d dug out of the back of his closet underneath them. He’d stripped the sheets off his bed, and she’d grabbed the pillows, so now, the floor was pretty much converted into a bed. It wasn’t quite as comfortable, but it would do. Hell, Clarke would’ve slept out on the street as long as Bellamy had been with her. After sex, she just liked being with him, being close to him, keeping some kind of physical contact.

“So what was that called,” she asked, using her finger to trace invisible drawings on his bare back, “where I felt really . . . filled up?”

“Bottoming out,” he replied, his head pillowed on both arms.

“I think Raven likes that.” She remembered hearing the terminology before but never actually experiencing the sensation herself. “Do you like it?” she questioned him.

“Well, yeah,” he confessed. “I basically got to put my entire dick inside you, so yeah, I thought it felt great.”

The thought of him being that deep inside her was both head-spinning and exhilarating. She’d gone from being able to handle about half of Bellamy’s cock during their first time together to this? Crazy. “It only hurt a little,” she assured him, tracing light hearts on his back.

“That’s ‘cause I fucked it up,” he said. “I did it wrong.”

“What?” She’d never heard Bellamy speak about his bedroom performance with anything but the utmost pride and confidence before.

“Yeah, you’re supposed to go slow,” he said. “I wasn’t even tryin’ to . . . but, you know, I was caught up in it, so it just happened.”

She sensed that he was feeling a little bad about the whole thing. He’d been quieter tonight than he normally was, not quite so flirty and definitely not so willing to do it all again. “It’s fine,” she reassured him. “We can try it again sometime.”

“No, we don’t have to.”

“I want to.” She liked the thought of being able to take all of Bellamy. It wasn’t easy, that was for sure, but it was worth it to at least try.

“Well, we’ll see,” he said. “What’re you drawing on my back, by the way?”

What was she drawing now? She kept switching it up. “Property of Clarke Griffin,” she teased.

“Oh, really?”

“No, I’m drawing a cat.”

He wrinkled his forehead in confusion.

“I’m seriously drawing a cat,” she said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She’d pretended to draw lots of things. If he’d allowed her to use that Sharpie in his drawer, his back and shoulder blades would have been a mural by now.

“You’re weird,” he remarked.

“I thought I was sexy.”

“Weirdly sexy.” He smiled drowsily, looking like he could fall asleep any minute now. Clarke was actually feeling a bit tired herself, but she also felt kind of . . . sore. The more she lay there, the more everything was starting to hurt, and she kept having to move around to try to get comfortable.

She rolled over onto her back, first trying to stretch out, then brought her knees upward when that didn’t make her feel any better.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“I just can’t really get comfy,” she said, trying to arch her back. “I have cramps.”

“Oh, is it that time?” Being a guy, he started to lean away, as if period cramps were contagious or something.

“No, I just kinda hurt,” she said. “My stomach hurts. My back hurts. I have cramps.”

He frowned worriedly.

“We’ve had a lot of sex, Bellamy,” she pointed out. “I think it’s all just catching up to me.”

“No,” he said, rolling over onto his back, sighing heavily. “This is my fault, too. This happens sometimes after . . . that happens.”

He sounded sure, so maybe he’d had some prior experience with this. “So . . . I have cramps because you bottomed out?” she said.

“Pretty much.” He cringed. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” It was definitely a reasonable explanation, what with him possibly hitting some things inside he hadn’t hit before. Ultimately, on a pain scale of one to ten, though, this was a very minor four, more annoying than it was actually painful. “It’s not that bad.”

He, however, seemed to think it was that bad, because he got right up, grumbling, “Can’t even get in the bed right now” frustratedly. He surveyed the headboard, shaking his head in defeat, and sat down on the mattress, testing it out. It sank even more under his weight, so maybe it wasn’t just the headboard that had given out. Maybe there was something underneath, too, that needed to be repaired.

“I’m just breakin’ everything tonight,” he lamented. “Maybe I can fix it.”

“No, Bellamy.” She frowned. “Can’t you just lay with me?” As sweet as it was that he wanted to fix his bed so she could get comfortable in it, the most comfortable thing of all was just to have his arms around her. As long as she had that, she’d start to feel better.

“Okay, give me a minute,” he said. “Wait here.”

She was a little surprised that he just headed out of the bedroom without a stitch of clothing on, but she figured he had some sort of plan in mind. She heard him doing something out there. Moving something, perhaps? It was hard to say.

When he came back into the room a few minutes later, he said, “Alright, come here,” and knelt down next to her, scooping her up into his arms. “I got you,” he said, wrapping the both of them up in that big white comforter. He managed to stand up and carry her out to . . . a bed. A bed that was usually just a ratty old green couch.

“I didn’t know this was a fold-out couch,” she remarked randomly.

“Actually, it’s Miller’s fold-out couch,” he said, first sitting down with her, then lying down. He kept them both wrapped up in that comforter, their bare chests mating, but she had a feeling she’d be even more comfortable if he spooned up to her from behind, so she turned over onto her opposite side.

“Mmm, this feels better,” she murmured.

“Yeah? That’s good.” He seemed to want to make sure the comforter was pulled up all the way over her shoulders and that his arms were wrapped securely around her waist, holding her close. “Maybe we can break this one, too,” he joked.

She laughed a little, but not too much because . . . yeah, things were still a little sore. A few minutes of this, though, and she’d probably feel a million times better.

“Can I ask you something?” he announced suddenly.

“Sure.” She realized what he was doing before he even started doing it. He was going to get her talking about something else to get her mind off of how tense her abdominal muscles felt.

“How’d you ever get into art?” he inquired. “Because you’d say you’re a logical person, right? You’re a thinker; you have plans. You use your head, have a sense of control in your life.”

“Right.” Well, that certainly showed that he knew her. Because even though her plans weren’t always set in stone, they did exist. And even though she’d tried not to overthink things and use her head too much these past few weeks, she still found herself doing so from time to time.

“Well, aren’t artists supposed to be the opposite of that? Like really free-spirited?”

If she could have, she would have shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“And when we’re together . . . I’m not sayin’ we’ve got 50 Shades of Blake goin’ on or anything . . .”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“. . . but you don’t seem to mind relinquishing some of the control to me.”

“Well, you’re more experienced,” she pointed out. “Plus, truth be told, Bellamy . . .” She found his forearms beneath the comforter, tracing her fingertips across his skin in more lazy patterns and designs. “I got into art at a young age because it was the one thing I could do where I could shut my brain off and not think and not overanalyze. I could just do it and try it and see how it turned out.”

“Hmm.” He nuzzled his face against the back of her neck. “Sounds familiar.”

“Exactly, right? That’s kind of how I feel with you. Because when I’m with you, I don’t feel worried about all the things I can’t control. I don’t feel like I have to have everything figured out. I just feel . . .” Her eyes fluttered closed, so heavy, so tired, and she struggled to find the right word. “Happy,” she finally decided on. Because even though it was a generic word, it was also important. And accurate. “I’m happy, Bellamy.”

She was way too tired to elaborate, too tired to do anything other than lie there in his arms and slowly fall asleep. But as she was drifting off, she did feel him press a kiss to the top of her head and whisper, “I’m happy, too.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 11

Bellamy awoke to a confused, “What the hell?” from Miller, who was already up and dressed for work.

It took him a few seconds to remember why he and Clarke were lying on the pull-out couch, wrapped up in a comforter, each other, and not much else. “Hey,” he said, tugging upward on the comforter so he could cover up Clarke’s chest for her. Not that his gay best friend was going to stand there and ogle it.

“What’re you guys doin’ out here?” Miller asked.

Bellamy yawned. Apparently Miller had come upstairs and gone to bed early last night, because it had probably only been 11:00 when he and Clarke had moved on out to the couch. “My bed broke,” he explained, wondering if Jackson, too, had wandered out of Miller’s bedroom earlier this morning and experienced a similar confusion.

“Was that was that sound was?” Miller asked, adjusting his tie.

“Yeah, go look.”

Miller opened the door to Bellamy’s room, surveyed the damage, and chuckled. “Wow, man.”

Even though Bellamy knew that was gonna be one hell of a fix-it job, if he even could fix it at all, he couldn’t deny the cool factor. He and Clarke had broken the bed. They had literally broken his bed. That was a first, even for him.

“You guys are crazy,” Miller said, shaking his head in amazement as he headed for the stairs. “Morning, Clarke.”

Bellamy looked down next to him, where Clarke was stirring just a bit. Her hair was all over the place, her makeup smudged, and knowing her, it’d take a good ten minutes of trying to wake up for her to actually wake up. She wasn’t a morning person.

At 9:10, Clarke remembered that she had class at 9:30, so that sent her into a panic. She took the quickest shower he’d ever seen her take, threw on some clothes she’d stashed in his bottom dresser drawer the other night, and begged him to drive her to campus so she wouldn’t have to worry about parking her car. Even though he wasn’t the most familiar with all those one-way campus streets, he managed to get her there with five minutes to spare.

“Thank you,” she said, leaning over to give him a quick kiss before she reached for the door handle.

“Hey, you feelin’ alright?” he questioned before she could get out. “You good?”

“Yeah. Last night’s snuggle session did the trick.”

“Good.” He hated knowing that having sex with him had caused her some discomfort afterward, but at least it wasn’t anything major.

“Good luck with your bed today,” she said as she carefully climbed out of his truck, moving a little gingerly.

“Yeah, I’ll see you later, alright?”

“Alright.” She shut the door and headed up the sidewalk towards a building that said Burnett Hall on the outside. She was walking kind of weird, had a little waddle going on. And he knew that was because of him. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

He smirked, watching her go, because even though he felt kind of guilty for making her so sore, he also felt . . . kind of proud.

Since the only job he’d booked for the day was fixing Diana Sydney’s toaster—the woman was really running out of things for him to do—he had plenty of free time that afternoon to figure out a plan for his bed. He moved the mattress outside the room and got to work, like a doctor fixing up patient. Except his patient was in critical condition. That damn bed was more busted up than he’d thought. The problem was, he’d let that headboard get way too far out of alignment with the rest of the old wooden frame, and that was bad news for the frame. So now there were other boards besides the headboard that had split apart, too. The box springs were a mess, but that was mainly because they were old, and all in all, it looked like it was going to be a pain in the ass to even try to fix. Around 2:00, after an hour of attempting to resurrect his patient, he just stared down at the mess of it helplessly, pretty sure he’d just made it worse.

“Bellamy?”

He heard his sister say his name when she came in downstairs, so he called back, “Up here!” He put his hands on his hips and shook his head, resigned to having lost the patient. It’d been a good bed, but it was time for a new one. Time of death: 2:05 p.m.

“My god,” Octavia said, climbing over the mattress as she made her way into his room. “What happened here?”

“Clarke and I broke the bed,” he replied.

“Ew.” She scrunched up her face in disgust.

“It’s been in bad shape for a while,” he said, kicking at the one of the broken boards. “I probably just need a new one.” He wasn’t looking to spend a whole lot of money, but he had enough on hand to make a trip to the thrift store. Hopefully he could find something there that could accompany a queen-sized mattress, because there was nothing wrong with his mattress, and he wasn’t about to give it up.

“You guys are psychotic,” Octavia declared, rubbing her temples.

“What? It was gonna break no matter what.”

“No, not just ‘cause of this. Because of . . .” Octavia made dramatic circles with her hands as she tried to explain. “. . . you guys.”

“Huh?” He wasn’t following.

“You and Clarke, your whole relationship. It confuses me.”

He grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s ‘cause you never took the time to be friends with Lincoln. You went straight from meeting him to falling in love with him. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Lincoln is my friend,” she informed him. “But he’s also my boyfriend. And Bellamy, you and Clarke . . .”

“Are not like that,” he filled in.

“Really? Because last night, you sat on that couch together like a couple, came up here and screwed like a couple . . .”

“But we’re not a couple,” he reminded her emphatically. Truth be told, this wasn’t even a conversation he was interested in having, especially given the things he wanted to say about her own relationship. So he shook his head and treaded downstairs.

She followed him, though, of course, unwilling to let it go. “So let me get this straight,” she said. “If Clarke was out there having sex with somebody else right now, you’d be totally fine with it?”

He’d be confused what she was getting from someone else that she couldn’t get from him, but other than that . . . “Yeah,” he replied.

“And if she said, ‘Hey, Bellamy, I can’t break any more beds with you, because I have a new boyfriend now,’” Octavia went on, “that wouldn’t bother you?”

“Nope.” He pulled open the refrigerator and took out two bottles of water, handing her one. “I mean, I’d miss the sex, but we’d still be friends.”

Octavia squinted at him skeptically and shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, you don’t have to believe me.” At the end of the day, it didn’t matter whether she understood or not. As long as he and Clarke understood it, then it was fine.

“I think you’d be jealous,” Octavia speculated. “And I think she would be, too, if you hooked up with someone else. Because you guys like each other, Bellamy, a lot.”

“Yeah, of course we like each other. That’s why we’re friends. See how we’ve come full circle here?”

She rolled her eyes, opened her water bottle, and took a drink. “You know what else I don’t understand?” she grumbled. “Why is it okay for you to pass judgment on my relationship but I can’t pass judgment on yours?”

“Judge it all you want,” he allowed. “But that’s not gonna change it. It’s a friendship. Nothing more.”

“Nothing more,” she echoed, grunting. “Bellamy, I love you, but I think you’re full of shit.”

He shrugged, content to let her think that. As long as she loved him, she could think whatever she wanted to think about him, about his relationships. She could get annoyed at him for not attempting something serious with Clarke; she could get pissed at him for not accepting Lincoln. For as close as they were, they’d never seen eye to eye on everything, and these things were no different.

In the days following his sister’s visit, Bellamy didn’t speak to Octavia much. He wasn’t mad at her, per se, but he was admittedly frustrated. She knew what he’d been through in the past, the heartache he’d endured. She knew why a romantic relationship wasn’t in the cards for him. Yet she was trying to force one onto him. What was that about?

The next time he saw her was on “Thirsty Thursday” at TonDC. Some local rapper was making his stage debut, so the place was pretty packed, though nowhere near as crowded as it had been on Halloween. Everyone showed up, which meant Bellamy was forced to sit there and watch Lincoln and Octavia be . . . Lincoln and Octavia. And he wasn’t happy about it.

“Look at that,” he said to Clarke when Lincoln put his arm around Octavia’s shoulders. “Look at that overt display of public affection.”

Clarke gave him a look. “Seriously? We had sex in a dressing room.”

He took a shot, getting the feeling that Clarke might be the one carrying him out of there tonight.

“I think they’re cute,” she bravely declared.

“What?” Since when the fuck was she was on this bandwagon? “I thought you were on my side.”

“I didn’t know there were sides.”

“Yeah, there’s their side, which sucks, and there’s my side, which I thought you’d be on since I give you orgasms.”

Groaning frustratedly, she rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’m on your side then.”

That wasn’t convincing. “No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” she admitted easily. “I can’t help it, Bellamy. Look at them.”

“I’m trying not to.”

“They’re adorable. He loves her.”

“But you know what I don’t get?” He had to look away when his sister started toying with the buttons on her boyfriend’s shirt. “She acts like they’re the ideal thing. Like everyone should aspire to have that kind of relationship. She doesn’t understand that what you and I have is different, but it works for us.”

Clarke frowned. “What do you mean she doesn’t understand?”

He sighed, not sure if TonDC was the right place for him to vent his frustrations. But oh, well. Too late to stop now. “The other day, she came by, said some stuff.”

“Stuff?” Clarke echoed, tilting her head to the side curiously.

“Yeah.” He glanced over at Octavia and Lincoln again, having to look away quickly because they were kissing now. “She doesn’t think we’re just friends. She doesn’t get it.”

“Oh.” Clarke thought about it a moment, then shrugged. “Oh, well. You don’t get her and Lincoln.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Dammit, when she put it like that, it made him feel like a hypocrite. But he was still frustrated. “I don’t know why it’s so hard for her to understand.”

“Well . . .” Clarke set her drink down on the table, shrugging. “It is a little unconventional,” she acknowledged. “I mean, I know we’re not the first people in history to do friends with benefits, but we’re only doing it with each other.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So in her mind, that probably just blurs the line between friendship and romance,” Clarke rationalized.

“Huh.” He supposed he could see that. Octavia was more the whirlwind romance type of girl—hell, that was her and Lincoln’s relationship in a nutshell. As much as she claimed to be friends with him, they’d never truly been friends, at least not without that romantic aspect involved. Octavia didn’t know how one could exist without the other because she’d never experienced it.

“Not in your mind, though, right?” he asked, just to make sure their boundaries with each other were still clear. “It’s not blurry?”

“No, I know what we are,” Clarke reassured him. “I like what we are. It’s fun.”

“Very fun,” he agreed. Still, though, in a weird way, maybe his whole talk with Octavia had brought up something important. He and Clarke were close, no doubt about that, and they were spending a lot of time together. But perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad thing to branch out a bit, just for the night, just to remind everyone else that they weren’t really dating. Because they didn’t need to remind themselves, or each other. No, they themselves were perfectly clear. But if that line between friendship and romance was blurry for Octavia, then maybe it was blurry for Miller, too, for Murphy, for all of them. But he and Clarke could fix that.

“I got an idea,” he announced.

“Oh, no, this doesn’t sound good.”

“No, I think we should prove her wrong,” he said, “prove we know what we’re doing.”

“And how exactly are we gonna do that?”

He motioned around to the club they were in, where there had to be plenty of single people, or at the very least people who were pretending they were single for the night. “Why don’t we get out there and meet people? You meet some guy—or girl, whatever—I’ll meet a girl, and we’ll just . . . do our own thing tonight.”

“Our own thing?” Clarke echoed. “You want me to go have sex with someone else?”

“Go have fun with someone else,” he urged. “If that’s flirting, it’s flirting. If that’s sex, it’s sex.”

She blinked rapidly a few times, then looked down at her lap dejectedly.

“Don’t do that,” he said, feeling guilty.

“Do what?”

“Look sad.” He hated seeing her look that way.

“I’m not sad,” she claimed. “Just . . . kinda bummed. I mean, I don’t wanna have sex with just anybody, Bellamy. I wanna have sex with you.”

“Then don’t have sex.”

“Are you gonna have sex?”

“Probably not.” Truth was, he wasn’t particularly interested in sleeping with anyone else right now, either.

Clarke definitely wasn’t quite as socially outgoing as he was, so he wasn’t sure she’d agree to it. It took her a minute or two of contemplation, but finally, she decided, “Fine. Let’s prove Octavia wrong. Let’s do our own thing tonight.”

“Alright.” If she was down for it, he was down.

“Alright. I’m gonna start right now.” She got up and whisked herself away from their seats, making a beeline straight for some beautiful black chick at the bar. Bellamy watched as she sat down next to her, smiled, and started talking right away.

Well, well, well, he thought, sort of impressed. Maybe Clarke had gotten a little more confident since they’d begun fucking.

Harper flittered over to him, taking Clarke’s seat and immediately started babbling, “Oh my god, what’s going on? Are you and Clarke fighting?”

“No, we’re just not dating, either,” he reminded her.

She looked bewildered for a moment, and he realized she had probably forgotten that. Maybe they all had. Maybe every single one of his friends had the same assumption that Octavia had. They were, after all, all in relationships. Every single one of them. It wouldn’t be surprising if they doubted that he and Clarke had what it took to pull this unique type of relationship off.

Well, if that was the case, then it was time to prove them all wrong.

Confident in his sense of rhythm, Bellamy opted to mingle out on the dance floor instead of at the bar, thereby giving Clarke plenty of space. He ran into a few girls from high school, chatted them up a bit. Then a few of his clients spotted him and said, “You’re the guy who cleaned my gutter,” or “You fixed my broken windshield.” A woman who looked to be in her forties even said, “I hear you’ll do some plumbing work. Wanna clean my pipes?” Not subtle, and he was not interested.

He’d been mingling for about thirty minutes, a bit aggravated that no one had really caught his eye yet, when he let his attention drift back toward the bar, just to see what Clarke was up to. She was still talking to the same girl, but she was leaning forward even more now, showing off plenty of cleavage.

Man, I gotta up my game, he thought, impressed by how outgoing his princess was being.

Almost as if on cue, the crowd parted, and he caught sight of another beautiful blonde girl, this one dancing with her friends. She wasn’t quite as shapely as Clarke, definitely didn’t have the same type of chest, but she had the same hairstyle. Unlike Clarke, she also seemed to be a good dancer.

He strode towards her, grabbing her arm gently, pulling her away from her group. “Hey,” he said, hoping he wouldn’t have to say anything more to get her interested.

She looked him up and down and grinned. “Hey.”

Bullseye, he thought. This was the simple kind of girl, the kind he could get with so easily if he wanted to. In fact, prior to Clarke, this was the kind of girl he’d spent his nights hooking up with.

He learned the basic facts about her, just because. Her name was Bree. She didn’t live in Arkadia but was there visiting some friends for a couple days. She was nineteen. She was pretty.

Bree stayed with him rather than returning to her friends once the rapper came up on stage. They danced a bit, even though neither of them knew the songs. He pretty much kept his hands on her waist while she moved in front of him, deliberately swirling her ass back against his crotch the whole time.

Oh, yeah. She could definitely move.

In between songs, Bellamy looked over at the bar again. Clarke was still there, but she had a new companion now: a guy. A chubby, pale guy who was using a napkin to wipe the sweat off his prematurely balding head. Whatever he was saying was currently making Clarke laugh.

Huh, Bellamy thought. That was an interesting choice.

Bellamy made it through two more songs before he started feeling restless. This rapper wasn’t great; all his songs sounded the same. Besides, the guy at the bar got up and left for a minute, so now was his chance to go check in with Clarke, see if she was having fun, make sure she wasn’t drinking too much. That sort of thing.

“I’ll be back,” he told Bree, not sure if she even heard him as he slipped through the crowd and off the dance floor.

Clarke must have noticed him approaching, but she deliberately looked away.

“That guy, huh?” Bellamy said, leaning against the counter.

“Yeah, he’s nice.”

“He’s like the opposite of me.”

“And your little Barbie’s like my spitting image.”

“No,” he denied.

“Blonde hair, half ponytail? Really, Bellamy?”

He stuffed his hands in his front pockets, unable to deliver a comeback because, yeah, from a distance, the resemblance was uncanny and he knew it. “You doin’ alright?” he asked.

“I’m good,” she said. “I’m having a great time.”

“Yeah, me, too,” he said, although honestly . . . he wasn’t quite sure that was true. Bree was . . . fine. She was just fine.

“You might wanna get back out there before somebody snatches your girl up,” Clarke suggested.

My girl? he thought. Nah, even if she wasn’t his girlfriend, his girl was sitting right there at that counter. She was the one he wanted to take home, the one whose body he couldn’t wait to get his hands on. Bree was just a replacement.

“Alright, well, have fun with Jonah Hill here,” he urged.

“Goodbye, Bellamy.”

He sighed and headed back out onto the dance floor.

Bree was still there, still waiting for him, still wanting to dance with him, although this time she was a little more daring. She turned to face him, eyes fixated on his hips as they moved. He wasn’t doing his best dancing, but apparently it was enough to turn her on, because all of a sudden, her hand was sliding down his pants, cupping him through his underwear.

“Ooh,” she said excitedly. “God was generous with you.”

Her hand . . . her hand right there . . . it wasn’t that it didn’t feel good. Because he was a guy, and that was his penis, so yes, of course it felt good. But he just couldn’t help but think of how Clarke’s smaller hands felt so much better.

Yeah, he just wasn’t into this.

Grabbing Bree’s wrist, he lifted her hand, much to her confusion. “Sorry,” he said. “Not tonight.”

She frowned at first, then pouted exaggeratedly.

“Sorry,” he said again, figuring he didn’t owe her an explanation. He left the dance floor and made that same trek to the bar, glad to see that Clarke was still sitting by herself. The stool next to her was conveniently empty, so he sat down.

They just stared at each other for a moment, both of them trying not to smile.

“I was bored,” he finally admitted.

“I was, too,” she said quietly.

“Not jealous, though,” he made sure to clarify. Because that was important.

“No, me, neither.”

“Good.” He looked over at Octavia, who seemed to have caught sight of him and was literally face-palming. “I think we proved our point, though,” he said, “don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You met someone, I met people.”

“We weren’t jealous,” her reiterated.

“We did our own thing for, like, two hours.”

Really, that was it? It had felt longer than that. “But it just seems stupid to bother with these other people when we know we have each other,” he said.

“Right. I mean, we could go home and we could just . . .” She trailed off, leaving it up to his mind to conjure up all sorts of fantasies.

“We could just,” he echoed, grinning at her. God, there were still so many things he wanted to do with her. They’d barely scratched the surface of all the amazing things their bodies could do together.

She got up off her stool, coming to stand in between his legs. Her hands found his, her eyes all innocently downcast as he murmured, “We could probably just leave now, if you want.”

It was only midnight, and all their friends were likely going to stay for a while. But if the alternative was an early start to getting it on with Clarke Griffin, then there was no decision to be made. “I like the way you think,” he said, pressing up on the underside of her chin so she would look at him.

She smiled prettily, and he kissed her.

Fifteen minutes later, he was still kissing her as they tumbled in the front door of his house, stepping on each other’s feet in their haste, clamoring to get each other’s clothes off. He made more progress than she did, ridding her of both her shirt and her skirt while her fingers fumbled with his jeans.

“I don’t care what people think, Bellamy,” she moaned passionately as he sucked hungrily on her neck. “I love our friendship.”

“It’s the best,” he agreed, moving her hands aside so he could take over. He quickly divested himself of his jeans, then lifted his arms in the air as she pulled his shirt over his head.

“Did you get your new bed?” she asked breathily as he backed her towards the staircase.

“Not yet.”

“No?”

“No.”

Clumsily, they tried walking up the stairs together, but they’d only made it a few steps up when he realized . . . there was no point. Right now, his bed was just a mattress on the floor. Why not just stop and do it right there instead?

“Come here,” he said, encircling his arms around her waist. He pulled her body in tightly against his, taking a moment to rub his groin against her. But she gasped when he suddenly spun her around and pressed down on her shoulder blades, effectively bending her over right there on the staircase.

“Oh my god, Bellamy,” she whispered, holding onto the railing.

Oh, yeah, he thought, lifting one of her left leg up to the railing as well. This is gonna be hot. He swiftly shoved his boxer briefs down and shucked them off his feet, then moved in close behind her, positioning himself at her entrance. She was already wet, so when he started to slide in, it felt so good. So, so good.

And that was when he realized he wasn’t wearing a rubber.

“Shit,” he swore, pulling out quickly. “Stay there.” He had to run down the stairs and grab his jeans off the floor, praying he had a condom in one of the pockets.

“Bellamy,” she whined impatiently.

“I’m coming.” He finally found one, tearing open the package as he hurried back up the stairs. He slid it on in record time, got right back behind her where he belonged, kneading the round flesh of her ass he plunged right back into her hot, tight pussy. A rush of air escaped her lungs.

God, this was always such a fucking rush for him, this first moment when they were joined. For a second, it was like he forgot his own name, and all he could think about was how warm and soft she felt, and how lucky he was to be inside her.

Fuck the hell outta her, his mind screamed, so he started pounding away.

“Oh!” she cried out. “Oh . . .”

“Yeah.” It felt good to him, too.

She started to lean forward as he fucked her, so far forward that he was actually kind of worried she might lose her balance and fall over that railing; so he grabbed her hair, pulling on it to get her to lean back a bit. She must have thought he was just being rough with her because she moaned. Loudly.

With one hand tangled in her hair, the other gripping her hip, he watched in amazement as her body accepted his. It was such a turn-on, getting to see his cock sliding in and out of her, seeing the way it stretched her. She was so small, so petite, but she took him so well. Such a good girl she was.

As much as he was enjoying the position, particularly the view, being on the stairs for this was already killing his legs, and it couldn’t have been easy for her to be perched on the railing, either. So he put one hand around her stomach, the other around her chest, and lifted her torso up so that her back was to his chest, carefully making the move to sit down and bring her along with him. Unfortunately, his cock slipped out of her, which he’d been trying to avoid, but at the very least, it elicited a disappointed whimper from her.

“Here we go,” he said, helping her straddle his lap. “Get on there.”

She looked a little confused at first, almost like she’d been expecting him to turn her around. But he wanted to try a new position, one he had no doubt she would enjoy.

With one hand, she held his cock steady as she slowly sank back down on top of it. She rolled and circled her hips a bit, getting situated to her liking, and he forced his own hips to stay still, willing to relinquish some of the control to her this time. Yeah, usually, he ended up on top, but she was more than capable.

When she started to ride him, he had flashbacks to their first time together in his truck. He hadn’t had the privilege of seeing and feeling her full naked body that night, but now he did. He could feel her ass sliding against his lower abdomen as she moved up and down on him, could watch her tits bounce when he peeked over her shoulder. Fuck, her breasts were a thing of beauty, probably the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. They fascinated him to the point where, even though he was trying to keep his hands off her and just let her go to work, he couldn’t resist bringing both of them up to cup her tits and give them a good squeeze.

“Oh, yeah,” she moaned, throwing her head back against his shoulder when he did that.

He pressed his cheek against her, sensing that he was probably closer to cumming than she was, even though she was clearly enjoying this just as much as he was. Sometimes, as much as he loved the foreplay, he just felt like skipping it and getting to the main event; but if she needed a little more, he could give that to her.

Gradually, he slid his hand downward, past her flat, smooth stomach to the juncture where he was penetrating her. He rubbed her clit with his middle finger, smiling at the reaction that got out of her. She inhaled, her entire body stilling for a moment before she started riding him again. He rubbed furiously, desperate to get her off before he came. He could tell she was close when she stopped bouncing so much and sank down as low onto him as she could, shifting her movements to more of a grind. She moved as forcefully against his hand as she did his cock, and watching her entire body wriggle and writhe as she chased her climax . . . it was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen.

“Cum for me, baby,” he whispered in her ear. And she was a goner after that.

His name fled her lips, and her pussy clamped down on his cock as her orgasm shattered through her. Her juices coated his cock and seeped out onto his fingers, too, but for some reason, the thing that really got him was how her fingernails dug into his thigh while she rode out the wave. All he had to do was jerk his hips up into her a few more times to find an equally satisfying release.

He sat with her afterward while they both came down from it, still inside her, one arm around her midsection, the other holding her breasts. Her eyes were shut, her whole body slumped back against his, and she looked completely spent. Her sweat-soaked hair was proof of how hard she’d worked just now.

“Good job, Princess,” he praised, a bit breathless himself. Her stomach muscles fluttered in response.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12

Thanksgiving used to be Clarke’s favorite holiday, back when her father had been alive. He’d been an amazing cook, so he knew how to make the turkey just right so that it wasn’t too dry or too juicy. He’d taken on the responsibility of preparing everything for their family’s meal—the stuffing, the potatoes, the green bean casserole—and never once had he acted disappointed that Clarke wasn’t a wiz in the kitchen like he was.

Now that he was gone, though, Thanksgiving had lost some of its appeal. It wasn’t her mother’s fault. Abby was a decent cook, too, and to her credit, she tried to make all the same meals Clarke’s dad had. But her turkey was never quite as succulent, her mashed potatoes never quite as well-mashed. She put something in the stuffing Clarke didn’t particularly like, and her green bean casserole was more like green bean mush. She really did try, but it just never turned out quite the same.

Without her dad around, Clarke didn’t really get to see his side of the family on the holidays anymore. Her paternal grandparents were little more than names on a Christmas card at this point. In contrast, her mom’s side of the family all congregated at their huge home in D.C., and there were a lot of them. Aunts and uncles, cousins and half-cousins, and of course, Clarke’s grandparents. Her grandpa couldn’t hear well anymore, so he was pretty laid-back and easy to get along with. But her grandma was kind of nitpicky. It wasn’t uncommon for her to critique Clarke’s clothes or try to run a brush through her hair whenever she first saw her.

This Thanksgiving, Clarke’s plan was just to try to stay invisible, do her time with her family, and then leave as soon as she possibly could. It wasn’t that she didn’t love them. They just were a bit much sometimes.

She parked on the street behind her uncle’s minivan, checking her phone one last time before she headed inside. Raven had sent her a pic on Snapchat of herself and Roan that said “Happy Thanksgiving from Roven.” (Oh, they were in deep now. They’d given themselves a ship name.) She had her trademark bright, effervescent smile on her face, but Roan was just staring grumpily at the camera. Raven had mentioned something about how he didn’t like holidays, except for International Fetish Day, which . . . was that even a real thing?

From the second Clarke walked in the front door, she tensed up. There were all sorts of awkward hugs with relatives she didn’t really know that well, and she had to plaster a smile on her face to disguise the fact that she wasn’t really all that excited to be there.

“Clarke, honey, you look so beautiful,” her grandmother raved, even as she got to work pulling out some loose threads on Clarke’s dress. “How have you been? You’re not still going through that bisexual phase, are you?”

It took everything she had to bite her tongue and keep smiling.

They all congregated in the living room and dining room while her mother worked zealously in the kitchen. Clarke tried her hardest to avoid her grandmother by hugging her grandfather instead and asking him how he was doing. He didn’t hear her, so he didn’t respond. She was glad when Marcus’s mother showed up. He didn’t have any kids of his own, so his mother was his only guest, and she was quite possibly the only easygoing guest. She was a sweet, soft-spoken lady with a penchant for plants—she brought Clarke’s mother a potted fern as a hosting gift every year. Clarke would have been content to just sit and talk to her all afternoon, because she didn’t nitpick, boast, or judge. But her time with her son was limited, so of course she and Marcus spent the majority of their time talking to each other. Clarke didn’t want to intrude.

Unfortunately, with both her mother and her stepdad occupied, that meant Clarke mainly had to associate with her cousins while she waited for the meal to be finished. And most of her cousins were just not nice people. One of them, Brent, ran his own law firm and liked to complain about having to represent clients from “blue collar walks of life.” Another, Ron, had moved to New York City a few years back and he couldn’t seem to carry on a conversation without name-dropping celebrities anymore. The worst, though, was Anna, who was Clarke’s age and very much entrenched in Ivy League academia. She had this air of social elitism about her that Clarke couldn’t stand, and an overestimation of her own skills and abilities that matched. Apparently she’d already been accepted in grad school. Big freaking deal.

“I mean, Harvard law was my first choice,” she babbled, “but Yale should be fine, too.”

Oh my god, Clarke thought. Get me out of here.

Anna took a sip of her tea, doing the whole hoity-toity pinky-up thing, and inquired, “So what have you been up to?”

Clarke just gave her a despondent look, not because she hadn’t been up to anything, but because she didn’t care to tell her about it. How could an arrogant Ivy League student possibly find anything interesting about a small college in Arkadia? Or wild nights with blue-collar people at TonDC? Or nights tangled up in a certain man’s bedsheets?

Thankfully, the meal was done around 3:00, which gave Clarke an avenue out of any and all further conversations with these people. She sat down at the table, next to her mother, who sat at one end, and surveyed the food. That stuffing did not look like her dad’s. And where were the mashed potatoes? It looked like there were only sweet potatoes this year.

“Did I do okay?” her mother asked nervously.

Clarke smiled, quelling her disappointment. “Yeah.”

Her mother breathed a sigh of relief, and Clarke remembered that this was a stressful day for both of them.

As they ate, the tradition was that they would all take turns saying what they were thankful for. Since there were a lot of them at the table, it sometimes took a while, and Clarke had plenty of time to contemplate what she wanted to say. She wasn’t about to say “my educational opportunities,” like Anna did, because that was just lame. Nor could she say, “my career,” as Brent did, because she didn’t have one yet. When it was her turn, she went with her gut and said, “My friends.”

Everyone smiled pleasantly, of course, but no one really said anything until her grandmother grumbled, “Not girlfriends, I hope.”

She squeezed her fork tightly, feeling as if she were about to burst.

After dinner, she went outside to get some fresh air, wondering if it’d be too rude to just . . . leave. Had it not been for her mother, who now had the pressure of both a pumpkin and pecan pie on her mind, she probably would have. Or at the very least, she would have pretended to be sick just so she could cut out early.

How much longer? she wondered, checking the time on her phone. One hour? Two? Marcus had to drive his mom back home to her assisted living center, and he’d probably want to do that before it got dark. Maybe the extended family would leave around that same time? A girl could hope so.

She felt like she just had to text Bellamy, even though he was spending time with his mom and sister today. I’m going crazy here, she typed out quickly, hoping he’d have some words of encouragement.

A minute later, he texted back an interesting suggestion to alleviate her insanity: Send me a dirty pic.

Clarke stared at the words on the screen, checking carefully to make sure she was reading them right. Not just any picture, not just a selfie or something. No, a dirty picture.

What do you want to see? she asked, surprised that she was even considering it. Sexting was never something she’d done before—actually, she was pretty vehemently opposed to it because of all the horror stories she’d heard about pictures getting leaked. But she trusted Bellamy. If she sent him a picture, no one else would ever see it.

Surprise me, was his response a few seconds later.

A feeling of excitement started to bubble up inside her when she thought about what he might like to see. Bellamy made it a habit to pretty much worship her body on a regular basis, but he definitely had a favorite thing about her, and she definitely knew what it was.

Part of her couldn’t believe she was doing this, but a larger part was eager as hell. She scurried back inside, heading straight for the bathroom, where she could have a little privacy. She shut the door and locked it into place, then took a look at her reflection in the mirror. She thought she looked tired, but Bellamy would still think she looked good. Whatever picture she sent him, he’d like it.

She slid both her sleeves down over her shoulders and lowered the top of her dress enough to take her breasts out. Then she pushed the cups of her bra aside, exposing them completely. She held her phone up and out to the side, facing the mirror, and tried to think of some seductive pose to do. Nothing came to mind, so she just put her other hand on her hip and jutted it out to the side. She snapped the picture brazenly and then took a look at it. The lighting in there was crap, and she felt like she looked really pale, but Bellamy would love it. He had this thing about her boobs. More often than not, when she woke up in the morning, he had his hand on them. And she wasn’t complaining.

He must have been eagerly awaiting that picture, because a few seconds after she’d sent it, he texted back, Nice.

Clarke pulled her dress back up, wishing he was there. The afternoon would have been so much more bearable if she could have slipped away with him, just for a few minutes, to get a quick fix. She still had a bedroom in this house. They could have gone up there and just . . . been quiet.

Just as she was about to trudge back out and rejoin her family, Clarke got another message from Bellamy. And it had a picture of its own this time: his cock, pulled out of his jeans, one of his large, strong hands wrapped around the base.

Oh my god, she thought, blushing intensely. No one had ever sent her pictures like this before, but it was a great picture. Bellamy was unabashedly proud of his cock, and he had every reason to be. Just seeing it spawned a wetness between her legs.

Gonna need some of that when I get home, she texted him, hoping she knew how turned on this was making her. It was a rush, that was for sure, doing something so dirty, something anyone in her family would have disapproved of if they knew about it. In fact, it was such a rush that she was even considering slipping upstairs to her old bedroom by herself and seeing if her fingers could work some magic.

I got my new bed, he quickly sent back.

The thought of that thrilled her to no end. There was nothing better than spending hours fooling around with Bellamy in his bedroom, nothing she enjoyed more.

“Clarke?” her mother’s voice rang out suddenly, startling her. She knocked on the bathroom door and said, “When you come out, Anna’s gonna show us some pictures of the work she did with the Peace Corps.”

Clarke’s shoulders slumped, and she groaned inwardly. That . . . sounded horrible. But she supposed she could suffer through it as long as she had something to look forward to when she got home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy pocketed his phone as he strolled back downstairs, unable to suppress the satisfied smirk on his face. Sexting. Not something he did very often, but maybe he’d have to start doing it more. That picture Clarke had sent him today was sexy as hell, and he had no doubt that the one he’d sent her back had her feeling all worked up now.

His mother, Aurora, and his sister were sitting at the small kitchen table, already eating without him. They had a plate full of food set out for him, though, ready to eat. “What were you up to?” his mom asked him.

“Nothing.” He sat down, inhaling the tempting aromas, and commented, “This looks good, Mom.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I tried something new with the stuffing this year. You’ll have to let me know what you think.”

He picked up his fork, and that was the first thing he went for. It definitely tasted different, but he didn’t know enough about her recipe to know what ingredient she may have either added or taken away. “It’s good,” he declared.

“Yeah, everything’s really good, Mom,” Octavia agreed. “Way better than anything I could’ve cooked.”

“Way better,” Bellamy agreed.

She picked up her roll and lobbed it at him.

“Oh, it’s nice having both of you here,” Aurora said. When she smiled, Bellamy swore she and Octavia looked so much alike. “Nice to have a couple days off, too, not have to work.”

“Are you still workin’ fifty hour weeks?” Bellamy asked, noting the bags under her eyes. She looked tired.

“No, they cut it back to forty,” she informed him

Cut it back, he thought bitterly. That was ridiculous. She was still working a 9-5 day, and that was cutting back? “If you need help with money or anything, I’ve got a little I could give you,” he offered. He would’ve had more if he hadn’t had to splurge on the new bedframe, but . . .

“Oh, Bellamy, I’m fine,” she reassured him. “You don’t have to take care of me.”

He wanted to, though. He wanted to save up enough money that she’d be able to quit working someday, or at least cut back to part-time. He wanted to buy her a new house, because this one was small and old and had way too many things wrong with it. He wanted her to not have to worry about money anymore, but since he wasn’t exactly swimming in cash himself, that didn’t seem like a possibility.

“So what about you?” his mother asked. “Have you been busy with work?”

Octavia snorted before he could respond. “Oh, he’s been busy.”

He shot her a warning look.

“With work?” his mother asked.

“Mmm-hmm.” He focused on the food in front of him, shoveling in more of it so he had an excuse not to talk. There was just no need to delve into his personal life right now.

His mom knew him well, though, of course, and she must have sensed there was more to it than that. “Or with something else?” she asked, sounding hopeful. “A girl?”

“Bingo,” Octavia chimed.

“Bellamy!” His mother’s whole face lit up, and she looked excited for him. “That’s great. Tell me about her.”

He shook his head, desperate for an exit from this conversation. “It’s not really--”

“Clarke,” Octavia cut in. “College student. Very blonde, very pretty. Very into him.”

“We’re not really dating,” he muttered.

“They do everything together,” Octavia went on, holding nothing back. “They hang out together, they make out together, they break beds together.”

“Oh my,” his mother said.

“O.” He gave her an incredulous look, silently pleading with her not to say stuff like that in front of their mother.

“Oh, she’s used to it,” Octavia said. “She used to hear you and Roma up in your bedroom all the time.”

He picked up his own roll and tossed it at his sister, but she ducked out of the way and he missed. “Sorry you have to hear all this, Mom,” he apologized on her behalf.

“No, I’m very happy for you,” she told him. “I’m glad you’ve found someone again.”

“No, it’s not like that,” he cautioned.

His mother frowned. “What do you mean?”

Once again, Octavia answered for him. “He says they’re just friends. But I say that’s a load of crap.”

“You know what, O? I don’t care what you say,” Bellamy snapped.

“Then I don’t care what you say about me and Lincoln,” she retorted.

“Fine.”

“Perfect.”

He glared at her, she glared at him, and their poor mother sat in between them, probably a bit stunned by the hostility. They weren’t really mad at each other, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t argue.

Bellamy felt bad that they were arguing in front of her, though. In front of Miller and Murphy and the rest of his friends? Not a big deal. They were used to it. But it was Thanksgiving, and their mother had cooked this entire meal for them, and they owed it to her to get along. “Sorry, Mom,” he apologized quietly.

“Yeah, sorry,” Octavia added.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Aurora said nonchalantly, almost as if she expected their bickering. “I’m happy for both of you.” She looked at her daughter and said, “I’m happy you have Lincoln,” then turned to Bellamy. “And I’m happy you have . . . Clarke?”

He nodded.

His mother smiled at him. “Even if she is just a friend.”

He breathed a sigh of relief, thankful, on this Thanksgiving, for that much. This was the difference between his mother and his sister. Despite how similar they looked on the inside, their personalities definitely weren’t the same. For starters, his mom wasn’t so pushy, so nosy. She’d let him do his own thing his own way. But Octavia would nag and nitpick to the point where it drove him crazy. Sometimes, like him, she didn’t know when to butt out.

Bellamy wanted to help his mother with the dishes after they got done eating, since she didn’t have a dishwasher or anything. He’d assumed that Octavia would go up to her old bedroom to give Lincoln a call, but much to his surprise, she took the drying towel from their mother and said, “Go sit down. I got this.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine--”

“Mom.” Octavia gave her a decided look.

Aurora sighed, leaving her kids in the kitchen to clean up.

“We’re assholes,” Bellamy muttered as he scrubbed at their plates. Their mother must have gotten up early that morning to get that turkey in the oven. Who knew how long she’d spent in the kitchen that day? And what did they do? Came over and fought in front of her? What a way to show their gratitude.

“She loves us anyway,” Octavia said. “Yeah, we probably shouldn’t be like that in front of her, though.”

“Well, you started it.” He felt like a fifth-grader saying that, but it was true.

“I know,” she conceded. “I just get so frustrated with you sometimes, Bell. You piss me off.”

“Well, you piss me off, too.” He nudged her side, and she nudged him back a little harder, and he couldn’t help but smile. “I still love you, though.”

“I know you do. And I know it’s because you love me that you’re so protective. But Bellamy . . . you drive me crazy with this Lincoln stuff.”

“So what’s your plan then?” he said, handing her a plate to be dried. “To drive me crazy with the Clarke thing?”

She sighed heavily, rolling her eyes. “Alright, I’ll make you a deal: If you let up on me about Lincoln, I’ll let up on you about Clarke.”

Ooh, that was tempting. Not having to listen to her claim he and Clarke were dating when he knew they really weren’t? Yeah, he liked the thought of that. But if the tradeoff was that he had to be nice to Lincoln, that was gonna be difficult for him.

“Deal?” she asked expectantly.

Bellamy handed her another plate, even though she hadn’t dried the first one yet. “What exactly do you want me to do?” he asked skeptically.

She thought about it a moment, then said, “Lincoln and I are going out to dinner this weekend. You could come with us.”

He grunted, thinking that sounded awful.

“And you could be nice. The whole time.”

That sounded awful, too.

“Will you do that for me?”

Dammit, he thought. What choice did he have? He couldn’t very well say no without seeming like the biggest dick in the world, probably starting up another argument in the process. So he agreed to it, reluctantly. “Fine.”

“You promise?”

“I’ll try my best.” He wasn’t about to guarantee that he’d never say anything negative to or about Lincoln again. Because that just wasn’t realistic. But if he could lighten up on her and she lightened up on him in return . . . then that would probably be a good thing.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Clarke didn’t anticipate spending her Sunday evening with Bellamy—she had some work to do for her classes, which she dreaded the thought of starting back up tomorrow. Thanksgiving break was too damn short. But when he called her up and basically pleaded for her to accompany him to dinner with Octavia and Lincoln, she couldn’t really say no.

They went to some burger place she’d never been to before and waited for the lovebirds, who, it seemed, were running late. Clarke picked at her fingernails, eager to order her meal, because it smelled so greasy but so good in there, and asked, “Why am I here again?”

“Because I need backup,” Bellamy replied.

“Why couldn’t Miller or Murphy be your backup?”

“Because I might wanna slip away and have sex with my backup if things get too tense,” he explained.

“Oh, I see.” She couldn’t resist making the obvious joke when she added, “You could have sex with Miller.”

“Nah, no thanks.”

Too bad. She still thought that’d be hot.

“I don’t wanna do this,” he grumbled, tapping his leg on the floor nervously. “I don’t know why I agreed to it.”

“Just be nice,” she said, putting one hand on his thigh to stop his fidgeting. “You’re a nice guy.”

“Not when it comes to Lincoln I’m not,” he readily admitted, shaking his head stubbornly. “I’m a jerk. I know it.”

“Okay, then I’ll do you a favor,” she volunteered. “I’ll talk to Lincoln about all sorts of art stuff, and that way you barely even have to say anything.”

He put his arm around her and pulled her into his side. “See, I knew there was a reason I brought you.” He kissed the top of her head.

She laughed a little, then caught sight of Octavia and Lincoln on their way in. “There they are,” she pointed out.

“Oh, great,” he muttered. “Listen, just kick me in the shin if I’m bein’ an ass, alright?”

“Okay.” That she could do.

Octavia took her long, dark coat off as she approached the table. “Hey, guys,” she said.

“Hey, O,” Bellamy said tersely. He seemed to have to swallow all his pride simply to add, “Lincoln.”

“Hi,” Lincoln said to both of them.

“Oh, Clarke, I should’ve known you’d be here,” Octavia remarked as she slid into the booth, moving all the way over so Lincoln had plenty of space for his much-larger frame.

“I hope that’s okay,” Clarke said.

“Oh, yeah, it’s fine,” Octavia assured her. “The more the merrier. It’s a double date.”

Bellamy shot her a quick warning glance.

“Except not really,” Octavia amended. “So, did you guys order yet?”

Even though the whole ‘double date’ thing had probably just been an honest mistake, a harmless slip of the tongue, it was enough to make Bellamy even grumpier. And it wasn’t like he’d been in the best of moods to begin with. He ordered his meal and barely said two words after that. He and Lincoln sat across from each other awkwardly. Tension so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

Clarke followed through on her idea to dominate the conversation with art talk. She asked Lincoln about his gallery, and he told her about some of the new work they had on display. They swapped stories about pieces they’d created over the years, and he even gave her some business advice for possibly starting up her own studio after graduation. For her, the conversation was fluid and easy. Lincoln was a nice guy and therefore nice to talk to. For Bellamy, it just seemed to remain more complicated than that.

“Lincoln wants to see the Mona Lisa someday,” Octavia chimed in while they continued to wait for their food. “It’s his favorite.”

Lincoln smiled appreciatively. “It’s beautiful. Historic.”

“Historic,” Octavia agreed. “Yes. Bell, you love history.”

Bellamy just sat there with his arms crossed over his chest, very standoffish and obviously not about to play into her attempt to find them some common ground. “Yep.”

“Maybe you guys could talk art history sometime,” Octavia suggested way too optimistically.

“Wouldn’t count on it,” Bellamy muttered. And that earned him his first kick to the shin from Clarke.

The conversation veered off into a not so good direction after that. Lincoln mentioned that he and Octavia would see the Mona Lisa when they went to Paris, and Bellamy growled, “Now you guys are goin’ to Paris? Don’t you ever just stay put anymore?”

“I’m not a dog, Bellamy,” Octavia snapped. “I’m free to roam.”

He mumbled something under his breath about her needing a leash, and Clarke kicked him beneath the table again.

That was when Lincoln started talking about their upcoming summer vacation plan, which, as it turned out, wasn’t Paris. It was India. And then Thailand. And then Vietnam. Clarke got the sense that, even though they traveled a lot, neither of them had ever been to Asia, and they were both excited to go.

Bellamy, of course, was less excited. “Vietnam, huh?” he snorted. “Why don’t you just go to North Korea while you’re at it? I hear that’s a real good time.”

Kick.

“I don’t even know how you afford all these trips, O. Your fitness class can’t pay that much.”

Kick.

“And Lincoln, what’s with you always takin’ my sister away, huh? You think you guys are too good for the rest of us here?”

Another kick. A hard one this time.

“Stop kicking me,” he told Clarke.

“Stop being an ass!” She wasn’t used to seeing Bellamy like this. Overprotective and unfairly judgmental of Lincoln? Sure. But now he was just being mean.

“Screw this,” Octavia said, climbing out of the booth over Lincoln. “Clarke, come with me.” She marched toward the bathroom, and Clarke crawled over Bellamy and followed her. She was actually kind of nervous about leaving the two guys alone, but maybe that’d be good for them. Maybe they could just hash things out, and when she and Octavia returned, they’d be best friends. That wasn’t impossible. Right?

Octavia didn’t even wait until they were alone in the bathroom to start ranting. Two of the stalls were occupied, but she didn’t care. “Ugh!” she growled, throwing her hands down at her sides. “I hate this, Clarke! Why does he get like this?”

Clarke shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”

“Lincoln loves me. I love him. Why can’t he just be happy for me?”

“I . . .” Again, Clarke had no answer. “He says he’s overprotective.”

“Oh, trust me, I know that,” Octavia growled as she paced back and forth. “Lincoln knows that. You know that. America knows that. But he promised he’d let up. And he hasn’t. He lied to me.”

“No, I don’t think he lied,” Clarke said, feeling the need to defend Bellamy. “He just . . . he doesn’t know how. It’s hard for him.”

“That’s why you have to talk to him,” Octavia said.

“And say what?”

“I don’t know, Clarke, but if anyone can get through to him . . .” She trailed off.

It’s me? Clarke wondered. If anyone can get through to him, it’s me?

“Look, it doesn’t matter if you guys aren’t dating,” Octavia said. “He’ll listen to you. Please.”

For the first time since Clarke had met this girl, she saw . . . tears in her eyes. Badass (kinda bitchy) Octavia Blake was close to crying. It seemed unreal to even contemplate. But clearly this whole situation with her boyfriend and her brother wasn’t just an inconvenience to her anymore; it really and truly stressed her out, and if Bellamy could see how upset she was right now, Clarke knew he’d feel bad.

“Okay,” she said, not sure what she’d say to him. But she’d say something. “Let’s get back out there before Bellamy rips Lincoln’s head off.”

Octavia managed a laugh. “Please. Lincoln could snap him like a twig.”

When they returned to their table, the boys were talking, which was a good sign. But they seemed to be talking about Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders, which was . . . less good.

“Great, politics. That’s just what you two should be talking about,” Octavia remarked sarcastically, sliding across Lincoln’s lap.

Bellamy stood up to let Clarke back in, but she grabbed his hand and said, “I don’t really feel very well. Can you take me home?”

“Yes. Thank god,” Bellamy said hurriedly. “O. Lincoln. It’s been . . . interesting.” He handed Clarke her coat and said, “Let’s go.”

Octavia mouthed a silent thank you, and Clarke gave her a small nod goodbye. Then, as she and Bellamy headed out, she kicked him one last time, just for the heck of it.

Bellamy didn’t really say anything while he drove, and he stormed upstairs right away when they got home. Clarke stayed downstairs for a moment, kicking off her shoes and hanging up her coat, contemplating whether it was best to just give him some space or try to go to talk to him. But when she heard Emori moaning down the hall in Murphy’s room, she decided there was no way in hell she was hanging out down there. She marched up those stairs and into Bellamy’s bedroom, where he had just begun to change clothes.

“You almost made your sister cry tonight,” she informed him bluntly.

He stopped unbuttoning his shirt halfway down. “What?”

“Yeah. In the bathroom. She had tears in her eyes.”

Bellamy frowned momentarily, then shook his head and kept unbuttoning. “Octavia doesn’t cry.”

“Well, she was about to.”

He fumbled with the last button, ripping it open when he couldn’t get it, and threw his shirt on the ground. He looked visibly upset as he dragged his hand through his hair.

“I don’t get it,” Clarke said. “This isn’t just normal protective brother stuff. It’s something else.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m not just a normal brother,” he said. “Look, Clarke . . . the way O and I grew up . . .” His tongue darted out to wet his lips as he struggled to continue. “I’m not blaming my mom, because she did what she could, but it was just us a lot of the time. She was always working. I had to take care of my sister; I had to help raise her.”

Clarke felt her heart go out to him because . . . well, quite honestly, she couldn’t relate. She’d had all the time in the world to be a kid, to play, to grow. But the more Bellamy told her about his life, the more she realized he’d had to grow up fast. Too fast. And she felt sorry for him for that.

“We didn’t have a dad,” Bellamy went on. “Or I didn’t have a dad, anyway. She did, but . . . he was hardly ever around, okay? So I wasn’t just her brother. I had to be like her dad, too. And maybe in some ways, I still am.”

Clarke considered that, nodding slowly. It made sense. When Bellamy looked at Lincoln, he didn’t just look at him through a brother’s eyes. There was some kind of element of responsibility and duty he felt towards Octavia that fathers felt, or at least what fathers were supposed to feel. Bellamy felt those feelings because there was no one else in Octavia’s life who would.

“I know it’s stupid,” he muttered, undoing his jeans. “I know I should just get over it, but . . .” He stepped out of his pants, shaking his head. “It’s not even just that.”

“It’s not?”

“No.” He grabbed a pair of sweatpants out of his drawer and yanked them on over his underwear, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “It’s stupid, Clarke. It’s all stupid.”

“I don’t mind listening.” Even though she’d promised Octavia she would say something . . . maybe this was one of those things where Bellamy just needed to let it all out, get some things off his chest. Like he had the night he’d told her about Roma.

He stared at her hard for a moment, then slumped over to the bed and sat down. She sat beside him, waiting for him to start talking, because she didn’t want to pressure him. Anytime Bellamy opened up to her, she wanted it to be because he needed to, not just because she wanted him to.

“Octavia went to college for a semester. Did you know that?” he blurted suddenly.

“No.” She tried to picture that girl sitting in a dorm room studying, and . . . she couldn’t. It just seemed so weird. Octavia actually seemed to have a disdain for college students, as far as Clarke could tell. It wasn’t like she tried to hide it.

“Yeah, when she was eighteen, after high school,” Bellamy elaborated. “She hated it, though, decided it wasn’t her thing.” His jaw clenched, and he added, “She decided that when she met Lincoln.”

Clarke frowned, trying to piece it together before he told her more. Had Lincoln convinced Octavia to drop out of school? That didn’t seem like something he would do.

“So she quit, and next thing you know, they’re goin’ all over the world together,” Bellamy said bitterly. “And fine, maybe I’m a little jealous, ‘cause I always wanted to travel, too, but . . .” He grunted. “It’s more than that.”

She angled her body towards him slightly, still listening.

“Where we grew up, the only way out was education,” he explained. “And I wanted that for her. I wanted it so bad. And she could’ve had it. She did have it, all right there at her fingertips.” He looked down at his own empty hands, shaking his head sadly. “She didn’t have scholarships like I did, but it was fine. We took out the student loans. She could’ve gone.”

“And she didn’t,” Clarke said, starting to wonder if this was just about Octavia. Because after all, Octavia wasn’t the only Blake sibling who hadn’t gone to college.

“I—I couldn’t go,” Bellamy recalled. “Not after everything . . .” He trailed off, blinking back tears for a moment. “And then my mom lost her job, and I had to her help her and . . . it just would’ve been too hard for me. But not for Octavia. She could’ve done it. But she didn’t and . . .” He swallowed hard. “Fuck, this sounds awful, but . . . I think I kind of resent her for throwing that all away. And I know I resent Lincoln because I look at him and see the reason why she threw it all away. Sittin’ on a beach with her older boyfriend sounded a lot more fun than sittin’ in a lecture hall, so . . . she just gave up. And it pisses me off that he didn’t convince her to keep goin’. She had that chance to go, and she wasted it, and he just let her.”

Oh, yeah, this is definitely not just all about Octavia, Clarke thought. Now that he’d actually told her about it, it all seemed pretty clear to her: When he looked at Lincoln, he didn’t just see his sister’s boyfriend; he saw an obstacle, and something that was in the way of this future he’d had in mind for her. And it probably reminded him of all the things that had gotten in the way for him.

“I mean, look at me, Clarke,” he said morosely. “I’m a handyman. That’s my job. And I never wanted it, but . . . it is what it is.”

She frowned, not sure what was so bad about it. He fixed things; he helped people. It was a hell of a lot more admirable than a lot of other jobs were.

“I wanted more for her,” he said, his words coated in sadness, regret. “But she doesn’t even have a job. Not really. Those classes she teaches at the rec center don’t pay shit, and she doesn’t teach them that often. She’s completely dependent on Lincoln, and if anything ever happens to him or they don’t stay together, then she’ll be completely dependent on me. And . . .” His jaw trembled, but he held it together. “It’s not that I wouldn’t take care of her, ‘cause I did it before and I could do it again. It’s just . . .” He leaned forward, his hands on his knees, and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know, Clarke. I’m probably not making any sense.”

“No, you are,” she assured him, putting one hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “I understand it a lot better now. But I just wonder . . .” She trailed off, not sure if she’d be overstepping her bounds if she said something more.

“What?” he asked, looking up at her curiously.

Well, shit, she pretty much had to say it now, didn’t she? Hopefully he wouldn’t be offended. “Are you really upset with Octavia and Lincoln?” she asked. “Or are you more upset with yourself?”

He sat up again slowly, silent as he mulled it over. It didn’t take him long to decide. “Me, probably,” he quietly admitted. “I wasted my future, too.”

“Bellamy, you didn’t--”

“I would’ve studied history,” he cut in. “Maybe I would’ve . . . I don’t know, been a teacher or something.” He laughed sadly, as though the mere idea were ridiculous now. “That’s not gonna happen now.”

“It could still--”

“But you know what, you’re right, Clarke,” he interrupted. “I get mad at them because, truth is, I’m still mad about what happened to me when I was eighteen. I still don’t get why . . .” He gulped, fighting back the emotions that were clearly still fresh. “I don’t get why that had to happen to Roma, and I don’t get why that had to happen to me. Because it was like I had this whole life ahead of me, and then I just . . . didn’t. And now here I am.”

That sounded so . . . depressing. So unlike Bellamy. But then again, she remembered, he’d had to go to therapy as a result of that accident. It wasn’t even just an accident, really; it was trauma. It was a life-altering traumatic event. Whatever inner demons it had created for him, he’d probably be dealing with them for a long, long time to come.

“I’m here, too,” she whispered, scooting in close. She kissed his shoulder, hoping that, somehow, just by being there, maybe she could help.

“I’m sorry, Clarke,” he apologized. “I don’t mean to make it sound like . . .” He trailed off, recollecting himself and said quietly, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Good, she thought. Because right now, even with him being upset like this and obviously dealing with some very complicated issues, there was nowhere else she would have rather been.

She remembered how it seemed to have helped him to just be able to be so close to her the night he’d divulged all of what he had about Roma, so she couldn’t help but think that maybe that would help right now, too. She climbed up onto his lap, swinging one leg onto the other side of him, and put her hands on his stomach, pointing out, “Bellamy, you’re only twenty-three. You’re young. You could still go to college.”

“No, I can’t afford it,” he dismissed. “It’s okay, though. College isn’t meant for everyone.”

There wasn’t a doubt in her mind it was meant for him, though. He was the smartest person she’d ever met—besides Raven, of course, but Raven was on a whole different level. The fact that Bellamy could make a living off of fixing all sorts of odds and ends for other people was a testament to how intelligent he was. He’d never studied from anyone, never had any formal training. He’d taught himself everything he knew. He was pretty amazing like that.

“Maybe college just wasn’t meant for Octavia,” Clarke stated simply. “And I know you’re gonna hate this, but . . .” She halfway cringed. “Maybe Lincoln is.”

He rolled his eyes, but that was all he did this time. No ranting or swearing or dramatic sighing. So that was an improvement.

“I think he really does love her,” Clarke said. Even though she’d never actually sat down and had a one-on-one conversation with Lincoln before, she didn’t need to. His feelings for Octavia were written all over his face whenever he looked at her. He adored her, thought the world of her. Clearly. And deep down, surely even Bellamy could see that.

“I think he loves her the way you loved Roma,” Clarke said, not sure if she was overstepping by drawing that comparison. She didn’t know Roma, didn’t know anything beyond what Bellamy had told her about the girl. But just hearing him talk about her, hearing that love in his voice five years later . . . it seemed like a fairly apt comparison to her.

“I’m gonna have to apologize to Octavia, aren’t I?’ he concluded.

“Probably.”

“And I’m gonna have to be nice to Lincoln.”

“Well, he is a nice guy.”

Bellamy exhaled heavily, but he didn’t seem quite as distressed anymore. He wasn’t bouncing off the walls or anything, but once again, it seemed to have done him a lot of good to just open up about what he feeling. Because obviously, he was feeling a lot of things.

“Thank you, Clarke,” he said, caressing her hair softly. “Do you still like me, even though I was a jerk today?”

She couldn’t help but smile, because good god, he was so adorable, even when he wasn’t trying to be. “I still like you,” she reassured him, leaning in closer. She found his hands in hers, smoothing her fingers against his palms, palms that were rough and calloused and used to work. He had jeans with holes in them and shirts with permanent dirt and dust stains on them. He worked. He worked hard. And even if he didn’t think he’d amounted to anything great in life . . . she did. “For the record, Bellamy,” she said, rubbing his hands in hers, “I like you just the way you are.”

His eyes never left hers as a slow smile crept to his lips. He pressed a gentle kiss to her mouth, almost as another way of saying thank you.

They sat together on the foot of that bed, holding each other for a long while after that. She was happy to just stay in his lap, head on his shoulder, and he seemed fine with keeping his face buried against the side of her neck, breathing deeply. He didn’t make any move to start kissing her or touching her. No, despite his earlier logic that she’d been his backup because he may need to have sex with her, right now, he seemed content to just sit there and hold her. And she was more than content to let him.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13

Christmas was still nearly a month away, so Clarke was surprised to walk into Bellamy’s house and see a tree set up. Even more surprising was that Murphy was the one who had decorated it.

“This is mine,” he proclaimed boastfully, motioning towards the tree as if it were a work of art. “I did this.”

For a tree, it was on the small side; even Clarke could reach the top of it. It was plastic rather than real evergreen, and the ornaments were kind of hodge-podge collection, looked to have been gathered up from random places over the years. But Murphy had decorated it himself, and clearly he was proud.

He told her she could pick one ornament to be hers, but then proceeded to say, “No, you can’t have that one. That’s mine,” when she tried to choose the puppy one. She went a different tactic and tried to pick a pretty, dangling gold one after that, but he shook his head and said, “Nope, that’s mine, too.” Finally, after multiple failed attempts, she said, “Why don’t you just pick one for me instead?”

“Hmm.” He went around to the side of the tree and plucked up quite the unusual ornament. It was a topless Mrs. Claus.

“I figured she’d turn you on,” he explained.

And that was how Clarke got her ornament.

But apparently a Christmas tree wasn’t the only festive thing that occurred in the Blake-Miller-Murphy residence. Clarke soon found out that Saturday night’s usual festivities were going to be slightly different this week. “Secret Santa Saturday,” as Miller referred to it. If she wanted in, she was in.

Well, of course she wanted in. She’d never actually participated in a secret Santa gift exchange before, and Miller assured her they all had a lot of fun with it.

Miller had managed to find a playlist full of trap remixes of popular Christmas songs, so that music combined with the tempting aroma of Maya’s Christmas cookies and made everything very festive while they all hung out downstairs, waiting on Bellamy so they could get this thing underway. Bellamy was in the shower, or so he wanted everyone to think; Clarke suspected he was taking his sweet time just because he was trying to put off seeing Octavia and Lincoln as long as he could. It’d been nearly a week since he’d talked to his sister, so tonight was a big night for him.

Jasper wasn’t quite as stoned as usual, but he was clearly still a little stoned when he sat down next to Clarke and handed her one of those annoying Fidget spinners. He insisted that she had to try it, that it was the coolest thing in the world. He told her to hold it between her thumb and index finger and give it a whirl, and she did. And then she just sat there . . . watching it spin. It spun and spun and kept spinning, and part of her was expecting it to do something else, if it was really as cool as Jasper claimed it was.

“I don’t get it,” she said, unimpressed.

“What don’t you get?”

“The appeal.”

“What?” He seized the gadget back from her, spinning it himself. “How do you not get it? It’s awesome.”

Maya came over to the couch and sat down next to her boyfriend. “He has, like, ten of these,” she informed Clarke. “I think they originally made them for kids who couldn’t focus, like kids with ADHD.”

“That’s what I have,” Jasper declared.

“No, you don’t. You’ve never been diagnosed,” Maya said.

“I self-diagnosed when I was nine.”

Maya smiled and shook her head at her boyfriend. Then he leaned over and gave her a kiss.

“Have fun with your Fidget, Jasper,” Clarke said, standing up. She left the adorable couple to their own devices, whether those devices were the Fidget or each other’s bodies, and plopped down onto the floor next to Harper, who was leaning against a mountain of pillows tonight, playing hairstylist. She had just finished putting Emori’s hair into a French braid, and Clarke wanted something similar. “Harper, braid my hair,” she said, situating herself in front of her.

“Just a simple one?” Harper asked.

“Yeah.”

Harper took her hair out of her half ponytail for her and threaded her fingers through it. “You have nice hair, Clarke,” she complimented.

Clarke grunted. “Yeah, when I actually do something with it.”

Harper got to work separating her locks into three sections, continuing to use her fingers as a comb. “So are you excited to be part of our secret Santa this year?”

“Yeah,” Clarke replied. “What’s the budget again? Thirty dollars?”

“Try fifteen,” Harper corrected. “None of us has money, Clarke.”

Clarke wasn’t about to say it, but she wasn’t sure what kind of gift she could get for just fifteen dollars. Sure, she shopped at Walmart from time to time, but that was mostly for food. Maybe she’d have to venture over to the department store and do her shopping there, see if she could find something worthwhile.

“You could go to the thrift store,” Harper suggested, as if she were reading her mind. “You can find some good stuff there.”

“That’s where Bellamy got his new bed.”

Harper giggled and teased, “Try not to break this one, okay?” as she started to weave the sections of Clarke’s hair together.

Clarke blushed. At this point, everyone knew about her and Bellamy breaking the bed. It was no secret, so they all liked to joke about it.

“Who’s the hardest person to buy for?” she asked, hoping to avoid that person in tonight’s drawing.

Harper didn’t even hesitate. “Murphy. Because he hates everything. And don’t think you can just buy him another ornament for that tree of his, because if it doesn’t meet his criteria of excellence, he’ll just chuck it in the trash.”

“Speaking from experience?” Clarke guessed.

“No, not me. But that’s what happened to Maya last year. The poor girl was almost in tears. Emori was so pissed at Murphy. She made him write out an apology and everything.”

Clarke laughed, able to picture that. Murphy was putty in his girlfriend’s hands. Whatever she told him to do, he’d do it.

“Last year I had Bellamy,” Harper revealed. “I got him one of those ugly Christmas sweaters. I’m pretty sure he’s never worn it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Clarke said. “I think that’s hanging in the back of his closet.”

“See?” Harper tied a ponytail holder around the end of Clarke’s low-slung braid and declared, “Done.”

Clarke leaned forward and took a look at her reflection in one of Murphy’s shiny red ornaments. Oh, yeah. The braid was cute.

“So what are you getting Bellamy?” Harper asked.

Clarke turned around, frowning confusedly. “Can I get him something if I’m not his secret Santa?”

“Oh, of course,” Harper said. “I’m gonna get Monty something no matter what.”

“Yeah, but Bellamy and I aren’t a couple like you and Monty are,” Clarke pointed out.

“Oh, close enough.” Harper grabbed hold of her own long blonde hair and pulled it over her shoulder, starting a side braid. “You know what you should do? Just put on some sexy lingerie and tell him that’s his present,” she proposed. “He’d love that.”

Simple, Clarke thought, shrugging. Maybe she could get online and find something Christmas-themed.

“Oh, speaking of sexy stuff . . .” Harper’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Did you hear about my idea?”

“No.” She was in a group chat with these girls now, but sometimes she got lazy and didn’t check every message.

“I wanna do something for the guys,” Harper babbled, “something to surprise them. You know that scene in Mean Girls where they do the sexy Jingle Bell Rock dance?”

“Oh, god.” Clarke sensed where this was going.

“We should do that for the boys!” Harper exclaimed. “We can make our own outfits and learn the choreography. Are you in?”

“Harper, I can’t dance,” Clarke reminded her.

“No, you can fake your way through it. You’ll be fine.”

“Uh-uh.” Clarke shook her head vigorously. “Nope.”

“Maya’s not the greatest dancer, either. You can stand next to her.”

“No, I’m way worse than her,” Clarke insisted.

Harper pouted. “Oh, come on, Clarke, everyone else is already in.”

Clarke kept shaking her head, not about to give in to the peer pressure.

Not dissuaded, Harper tried a different approach. “What’s Bellamy gonna think when we get up to do it and you’re not there?” she pointed out. “He’s gonna be so disappointed. He’s gonna be like, ‘Where’s Clarke?’ And then he won’t even enjoy it.”

Clarke sighed, still not about to agree to it. But Harper had a point. And she did like making Bellamy happy. “I’ll sleep on it,” she decided, getting to her feet when he finally came downstairs to join them.

“You know he’d love it,” Harper called after her as she walked over to Bellamy, stopping him at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey,” he said, wrapping one arm around her waist and kissing her.

Mmm, he looks good, she thought. He had on his glasses for a change, which were so hot in such a dorky way. And even though he wasn’t wearing the ugly Christmas sweater Harper had gotten him, he was wearing a black sweater with the sleeves rolled up. He looked like such a gentleman.

“They’re already here,” she informed him, knowing quite well what his first order of business was for tonight.

He looked over into the kitchen, where Octavia was refereeing a very mismatched arm-wrestling tournament between Lincoln and Monty, and mumbled, “What if she stays mad at me?”

“Just go apologize,” she urged. “Just like we practiced.” And yes, they had actually practiced this several times. Playing the role of Octavia was not easy, but Clarke had done her best.

She hung back in the living room while Bellamy sidled into the kitchen, gently tugging his sister away from the arm wrestling match. They went out into the back yard to talk, and Clarke squinted, trying to see if she could read his lips through the kitchen window. She saw him say the word ‘Sorry,’ several times, and to her credit, outspoken Octavia did just stand there and listen.

“Here you go, Clarke,” Miller said, breaking her focus as he approached her with a pen and yellow sticky note.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“For the secret Santa drawing. Write your name and any presents you want people to avoid.”

“Oh, well, I’m not picky.” She scribbled her name down and handed it back to him, eager to see who she would pick. Hopefully one of the girls. They just seemed easier to buy for. Maybe not Octavia, though. She was still kind of intimidating. She also wondered who would end up picking her. She and Jackson were the new ones in this social circle, so hopefully whoever picked them wasn’t disappointed.

“I wanna get this goin’. How long are they gonna be out there?” Miller asked, motioning to the siblings. Bellamy was talking with his hands now, so that meant he’d probably veered off from their practiced apology.

“It could be a while,” Clarke predicted. Knowing Bellamy, he had a lot to say to his sister.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy had to condense what probably should have been a twenty minute conversation with Octavia down to ten, only because it was so fucking freezing outside. He apologized profusely, but he tried to explain himself, too, tried to get her to understand that his overprotectiveness really did stem from a good place. He made sure to let her know that it was hard for him to accept that she was an adult now, that she could make her own choices, especially when he’d hoped she would make different ones. Once in a while, when what he was trying to say came out wrong, she’d roll her eyes or cross her arms over her chest or do something else to indicate she was annoyed. But for the most part, she really did listen, and that was rare for Octavia.

“So you promise you’ll be nice from now on?” she said as they came back inside. “Because that’s the only way I’ll accept your apology.”

“I promise,” he said. “And if I ever slip up, just bear with me. I’m tryin’ my best.”

“Okay. Good,” she said. “And I’ll stop trying to convince you to make Clarke your girlfriend. Even though I think it’d be the best thing for you.”

He shot her a semi-annoyed look.

“You have to bear with me, too,” she said, half-smiling. Then she hugged him, the way she used to do when she was younger, and he felt a surge of relief. She still loved him. No matter how much of a jerk he was or what asshole things he’d said to her boyfriend, she still loved her big brother. Thank God.

“Alright, Miller,” she called, releasing Bellamy from her embrace. “We’re ready to go.”

“Finally,” Miller said exasperatedly, stepping up to a makeshift podium, where an old fishbowl full of everyone’s names was perched. “Alright, gather round, beautiful people.”

Everyone headed into the living room, but Bellamy stopped his sister’s boyfriend. “Hey. Lincoln.” He grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and handed it to him, figuring beer was a universal man symbol of a peace offering. He wasn’t able to apologize to this guy yet, and maybe he never would; but for right now, a beer was a start.

“Thanks,” Lincoln said, popping open the tab on his way into the living room.

There we go, Bellamy thought, figuring that was his one good Lincoln deed for the night. Got that outta the way.

He joined Clarke on the couch—it wasn’t like anyone else couldn’t sit there, but everyone seemed to accept that as his and Clarke’s spot, just like they accepted the beanbag as Murphy’s—and she inquired, “How’d it go?”

“Good.” Luckily, he hadn’t had to delve into all that stuff about his own regrets. He’d been prepared to, if necessary, but he was glad she’d forgiven him anyway. He could talk to Octavia about Roma and the accident, but Secret Santa Saturday was not the ideal night for it. “Thanks for helping me get my head outta my ass,” he told Clarke.

She laughed lightly. “Anytime.”

Miller turned down the volume of the music and started in, “Alright, people, you know what time it is. It’s that magical time of year when you choose your holiday fate.”

“I hope I don’t get Murphy,” Clarke muttered.

God, Bellamy hoped she didn’t get him, either. More than that, though, he hoped Miller followed through on his plan to rig this for him. He gave his friend a questioning look, and Miller just nodded, motioning him up to the podium first. “Murphy, why don’t you tell them about our lovely prizes this year.”

Murphy stood up, cleared his throat, and eagerly assuming the emcee role from Miller. “Alright, so this year, the person who gives the most heartwarming gift is gonna get this wonderful . . .” He reached behind the TV and pulled out a small box. “. . . Randy the reindeer nightlight. Not Rudolph. Randy.”

Bellamy joined Miller at the podium, making sure all his friends were distracted by Murphy, and reached into the fishbowl, grabbing the top sticky note, as they had arranged. When he unfolded it, though, he didn’t see the name he wanted to. Lincoln.

“Hey,” he nudged his friend subtly. “I thought you were gonna help me pull Clarke.”

“Oh.” Miller inconspicuously looked through a few of the sticky notes, managing to find Clarke’s name, and put it up top for Bellamy to grab. “There, man.”

Murphy continued to hold the others’ attention—“And this, ladies and gentlemen, awarded to the person who gives the funniest gift, is a one-of-a-kind Miley Cyrus ‘Wrecking Ball’ Christmas ornament. Now who here would like that?”—so Bellamy put Lincoln’s name back into the bowl and grabbed Clarke’s instead. Phew, he thought. Crisis averted. Not only did he not want to be Lincoln’s secret Santa, but he really wanted to be Clarke’s. He already had a gift in mind for her.

“Alright, next!” Miller hollered, and Bellamy crumpled Clarke’s sticky note and tossed it into the trash can.

“Who’d you get?” she asked when he sat back down again.

“It’s a secret Santa, Clarke. I can’t tell you.”

When it was her turn to choose, there were no more prize distractions from Murphy, so everyone’s attention was on the drawing. She tried to smile when she looked at the name on the paper, but it ended up being more of a grimace, leading Bellamy to believe that she in fact had been the unlucky one to pick Murphy. Murphy seemed to know it, too, because as she sulked back to the couch, he muttered, “Good pick, Clarke.”

She flopped down next to Bellamy, quietly lamenting, “This is horrible. What am I supposed to get him?”

“Shh,” he hushed, making sure there was enough light conversation going on amongst his friends that they couldn’t hear his horrible gift suggestion. “Go get him that dick harness thing from Roan’s shop. He’s weird. He’d like that.”

“I’m not getting a Murphy a sex toy,” she said.

“It’s better than getting him a book or something.”

“Says the guy who actually got a book at Ice Nation.”

Oh, yeah, he remembered. Tantric Sex. He’d only looked at it a few times, on account of already knowing most of the positions in there. But it definitely had a few to recommend. “We should get that book out tonight,” he proposed, “try one of the positions.”

“What makes you so sure you’re getting laid tonight?” she asked.

They’d gone a couple days without, what with him having to work late and her needing to find the time to study. He was sure. “Well, I’ve been on my best behavior tonight,” he pointed out, “with Lincoln and O. I think I deserve a reward, don’t you?”

She shrugged nonchalantly, obviously just messing with him. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” He readjusted is jeans and said, “Well, if nothing else, I’ll just reward myself.”

She looked at him through half-closed eyes, then glanced down at his crotch. He smirked flirtatiously, knowing he had her. The girl wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

An hour and a half later, after all their friends had either gone home or fallen asleep downstairs, he and Clarke went up to his room and sat down on his bed. His new bed. She straddled his lap, cupped his face in those soft hands of hers, and kissed him. She was such a good kisser.

“You were pretty well-behaved tonight,” she said.

“I gave Lincoln a beer. Did you see that? I was so nice, Clarke.”

“You definitely deserve a reward,” she said, reaching behind her back to take the ponytail holder out of her hair. Her braid fell free, and he threaded his fingers through her hair to spread it out around her shoulders.

“What do I get?” he asked, mind racing with the possibilities.

“Anything,” she breathed.

“Anything?” Well, now his mind was really racing.

“Well, within reason.”

“Ah.” That eliminated some of his ideas then.

“So, Bellamy Blake . . .” She hooked her arms around his neck and gazed down into his eyes. “How do you want me?”

Well, damn, his princess seemed frisky tonight. Hearing her ask that was such a fucking turn-on, so much so that he couldn’t resist reaching around and giving her backside a good squeeze. He wanted her, every inch of her, and truth be told, his biggest fantasy in the world was to lay her flat on her stomach so he could fuck her in the ass. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Clarke had never done that before, and he wasn’t about to broach the subject with her until he was sure she was ready.

He lifted her off his lap and stood up with her, hands on her waist. “Undress for me,” he told her, planting one more kiss on her before he moved over to his closet.

“Like a striptease?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He removed his sweater and hung it up on a hanger, grinning at her.

“I’ll suck at that,” she predicted. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure.” He unfastened his jeans and shoved them down his legs, stepping out of them and snapping the waistband on his black boxer briefs. “Let’s see it.” He lay down on the bed, getting comfortable, ready to watch whatever show she put on for him, regardless of how horrible the dancing was.

“This is gonna be awful,” she warned.

“I don’t care.” Even with her two left feet, she was still the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

She thought about it for a few seconds, then stomped her foot frustratedly as she gave in. “Fine. Play some music.”

He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and played the first song that popped up on his Youtube app. It was an un-danceable punk rock song where screaming was the substitute for singing.

“Something sexy, Bellamy.”

“Fine.” He found a song that would fit the bill and switched it over. It had a real easy beat to follow, so hopefully that would help Clarke out.

She stood at the foot of his bed, tilting her head from side to side in time with the music, then started to shake her hips. Not elegantly, not sexily, but she shook them. He snaked one hand down to his crotch, cupping his bulge, and smiled appreciatively.

“You ready for this?” she teased, reaching down to grab the hem of her shirt. She tried to pull it up and over her head, but it got stuck around her face, and she just stood there with her arms in the air, all tangled up, struggling to get out. “Ow,” she said. “Dammit.”

He laughed, because she looked so absurdly adorable.

Finally, she found her way out of it, tossing it onto the floor with absolutely no grace or finesse whatsoever. “There,” she said, her breasts heaving with a relieved sigh.

Oh, those breasts . . . He had to give his crotch a good rub, because damn, her rack never ceased to amaze him no matter how many times he saw it.

She reached behind her back to unclasp her bra, and then tried to shimmy it off. It was another ridiculous dance move that didn’t look as sexy as she’d intended, but it was still fucking endearing, and it made him smile even more.

Her jeans were the obvious next item to go, and to her credit, she did manage a couple cute side-to-side twists in time with the beat while she unbuttoned and unzipped them. She pushed them down over her hips, bending forward as she slid them all the way down to the floor. But when she tried to step out of them, she tripped over her own, foot, stumbling against the bed. “Oops.”

“Oh, god, Clarke.” He rubbed his forehead, shaking his head in astonishment. She wasn’t this clumsy in everyday life, but for some reason, when dancing was involved . . .

“I got this,” she said, brimming with faux-confidence as she turned around, giving him full view of her ample ass. She had on nothing but a thong, and when she took that off, too, he had to lick his lips. What she lacked in striptease fundamentals, she made up for in raw enthusiasm and beautiful curves.

She peeked back over her shoulder and shook her ass then, like a bunny shaking its tail. She seemed to realize how ridiculous she looked, because she giggled, tossing her head back as a blush swept over her beautiful pale skin. Then she whirled around, exclaiming, “Ta-da!” and held her hands out to the side in what could only be described as spirit fingers.

“Wow.” That was . . . definitely memorable.

“Was that the least sexy striptease ever?” she asked, climbing onto the bed.

“It was . . . really something.”

“Hmm.” She nudged his hand aside and pulled down his boxers. His cock sprang free, hard enough to lie flat on his stomach. “It worked, though,” she pointed out.

Hell yeah, it had. And he’d known it would. All he had to do these days was just look at Clarke, and he could get hard. When she looked all cute like this, doing that horrible little dance, how could he resist?

He lifted his hips off the bed, shoving his boxers past his ass, and she removed them the rest of the way. When he was just as naked as she was, she lay down in between his legs, wrapping her hand around his length, and started to stroke him confidently. Thankfully, this was something she did have the rhythm for.

“This is a good reward,” he told her.

“Better than rewarding yourself?”

“Oh, much better.” Jacking off was a quick and simple way to cum, but there was no comparison between his hand and her hand. Or better yet . . .

Her mouth. His eyes nearly rolled back when she lowered her mouth to him, first pressing a soft, almost chaste, kiss to the tip of his cock. She licked at the pre-cum that had already gathered there, then opened up to take in the entire head of him. She twisted her hand around the base of his length as she sucked on him, and all he could think was, Damn, she’s gotten so good at this.

Her head bobbed up and down on his cock, taking in an impressive amount of him. He didn’t raise his hips up, didn’t put his hand into her hair to guide her movements. He didn’t have to. She was doing so well, all he had to do was lie there and watch her work.

“Can I try something?” she asked after she’d sucked on him for a few minutes. Her warm breath tickled his sensitive flesh.

“Try what?” he asked.

She smiled sweetly and kept pumping him. “Something.”

He wasn’t used to not being the one in control in bed, so it felt a bit strange to him to let her proceed without knowing exactly what she intended to do. If it was anything like what she was already doing, though, it would probably be damn good. “As long as it doesn’t involve my ass,” he said. That was a hard limit for him.

“It doesn’t,” she promised, lowering her head again. She held her tongue out flat and licked all the way from the base to the tip of his cock, let it swirl there for a minute, then licked all the way back down again. It felt good, but it wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary until . . .

Until.

She first kissed his balls, then gently caressed her tongue over them, shocking the hell out of him. It sent a zap of feeling through his body, because everything was highly-sensitized down there, and he hadn’t expected it.

“Okay?” she asked.

It felt like such a role reversal, her checking up on him instead of the other way around. “Okay,” he said, his voice at least an octave above what it usually was.

She kept up her hand-job while her mouth explored his balls. Nothing too extreme. She kept it gentle, which he was grateful for, mostly some light kisses and licks to his sack. He closed his eyes and dug his head back into the pillow, reveling in a feeling that was . . . very different. It wasn’t completely new terrain to him, but it wasn’t exactly well-traveled terrain, either. Most girls didn’t bother with this type of thing, which was fine, but when they did, he liked it more often than he didn’t. And he liked this. Damn, did he like it. Clarke Griffin’s mouth on his balls felt amazing, and he was tempted to just let go and cum right then and there, all over that tiny hand she kept moving up and down his shaft.

At this point, though, he wasn’t the only one who deserved a reward. She was being so good to him, probably better than he deserved, and he wanted her to get some of the same pleasure he was getting. Orgasms always felt better when she had them with him, so he tugged gently on her hair and said, “Come here, baby.”

She lifted her head and sat back on her knees, hand still stroking him, working him dangerously close to the edge.

“Get on me,” he told her, happy to just keep lying there while she did her thing.

She moved up his body, putting one leg on either side of his waist, and pressed her hands against his chest as she positioned her beautiful pussy over his cock. He watched her sink down onto him, thinking about stopping her for a moment, because he wasn’t wearing a condom. But then he just figured . . . fuck it. They were having so much sex that this was bound to happen from time to time. They were both clean and doing this exclusively with each other. And she was on the pill, so if it didn’t bother her, it didn’t bother him.

“Mmm,” she purred, getting herself situated. She started moving her hips up and down, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, really starting to ride him at a gallop not all that long into it. It felt amazing, and watching those breasts of hers bounce was always a highlight of having her on top. But this combined with the incredible blowjob and the fact that he wasn’t sheathed in latex this time? He wasn’t gonna be able to last much long like this.

“Clarke,” he rasped.

“Oh . . .” she moaned, running one hand through her hair.

Fuck, I can’t do this, Bellamy thought, grabbing her hips to still them. He had to switch it up just so he could last a little longer, hopefully long enough to get her over that edge of pleasure with him.

Slowly, he sat up, careful not to let his cock slip out of her. He held her groin close to his while she repositioned herself, too, wrapping her legs around him so that she was sitting in his lap. She draped her arms over his shoulders, and he encircled his around her waist, letting his hands drop down to cup and squeeze the soft flesh of her ass. She whispered her name as he started to thrust up into her.

It was a better position for stamina, that was for sure. His thrusts were more shallow this way, and he had some of the control back. She didn’t seem to have any complaints about the change. In fact, in the midst of moving and grindingly wantonly against each other, she said, “I like it like this.”

Yeah, he liked it, too. Stamina factor aside, it was a good position for intimacy. Her body slid against his, his body slid against hers, and they could hold each other, look each other in the eye, kiss if they wanted to.

He kissed her.

“Are you close?” he asked, praying she was.

She nodded hurriedly.

Yeah, he was probably still closer, though. Had it not been for the blowjob, he likely could have kept this up for a good ten minutes, but since he only had two at the most left in him, he resorted to slipping his hand in between their bodies and giving her clit a good, hard rub with his thumb. That never failed to get a reaction out of her, and this time was no different.

“Oh, god yes,” she gasped.

It didn’t take much rubbing to get her there. She held on tight when she climaxed, squeezing his cock with her pussy, then slouched forward against him. He didn’t even have to make any more movements to get off. He just sat there and let his brain shoot out through his cock, into her this time rather than into a condom. It felt amazing, and he didn’t want it to end.

He sat there with her afterward, drenched in sweat, panting for air. Her hair was damp and clung to both her skin and his.

“Looks like your striptease did the trick,” he teased.

She laughed, and in a weird way . . . making her laugh was just as rewarding as making her cum had been.

Chapter Text

Chapter 14

For someone with even an iota of rhythm, learning the Mean Girls Jingle Bell Rock dance wouldn’t have been very difficult. For Clarke, it was nearly an impossible task. She looked up tutorials on Youtube, but that didn’t help. She went out and bought the movie, just so she have it on the big screen of her TV for assistance. But that didn’t seem to work, either. She practiced every afternoon for four days straight after stupidly telling Harper she’d take part in the whole shenanigan, but she just never seemed to get any better. Memorization wasn’t the issue; she could see the whole thing in her head, envision what it was supposed to look like. But when she tried to mimic their moves, it all just turned to shit, basically.

Groaning frustratedly, she stomped her feet, getting fed up, and somehow accidentally ended up stubbing her toe on the couch. She grimaced, yelping in pain, and tried unsuccessfully to find the beat again. Not that she’d ever found it to begin with.

“What’re you doing?”

She startled a bit when she heard a voice, but thankfully, it was just Raven. “Oh, thank God you’re here.”

“I got your text.” Raven shut the door, cautiously approaching Clarke in the living room. “What’s the emergency?”

“This.” Clarke motioned dramatically towards her TV screen and paused it, right at part where all four of the girls were doing this hip swirling thing she couldn’t get the hang of.

“You’re dancing?” Raven looked to be stifling a laugh.

“No, I’m trying to learn the choreography.”

“Why?”

“Because I got roped into some stupid idea, Harper’s idea,” she growled. Maybe it wasn’t too late to back out, though? Oh, except Harper had already picked up some material for their costumes, and Clarke would’ve felt bad if she’d wasted money on her.

“You guys are gonna do this on Christmas?” Raven realized, her whole face lighting up with excitement. “That’s awesome!”

“No, it’s horrible, because I can’t get it,” Clarke fretted. “And at first, Harper said we’d have practices, but now she’s like, ‘Oh, you can just learn it on your own.’ Except I can’t, because I’m challenged.”

“Oh, this looks fun,” Raven declared, taking off her jacket. “I wanna learn it.”

Clarke breathed a sigh of relief. “I was hoping you’d say that. Learn it and teach it to me.”

“Alright, I got this,” Raven said confidently. “Let’s go.”

A mere fifteen minutes later, Raven had already memorized and perfected the entire routine. She could do the whole thing flawlessly from start to finish without even having to look at the screen for assistance. In fact, she looked like she could just be picked up and put right into the movie, along with the rest of the girls cast. She was pretty enough and a good enough dancer to pull it off.

“Oh my god, I got it!” she exclaimed, jumping up and down, clapping her hands excitedly.

“Good for you,” Clarke muttered enviously. “I didn’t.”

“Well, what part are you struggling with?”

“All of it!”

“Okay, let’s see what we can do here.” Raven stood behind Clarke and put her hands on her hips, trying to get her to move from side to side. “Move your hips. What’re you doing, Clarke?”

“I’m trying.”

Raven kept trying to direct her movements, but with no success. “No, move your lower body.”

“I don’t have a lower body!”

Raven snorted. “Pretty sure Bellamy would disagree with that.”

He would, but that was different. Sex and dancing were not the same. One was instinctive; the other wasn’t. “I can’t do this, Raven,” Clarke bemoaned, throwing her hands down at her sides.

“Don’t give up. You’ve got this,” Raven encouraged. “Come on now. Left, right, left, right. Five, six, seven, eight.”

Before they could proceed, a confused, “Whoa,” from Bellamy caught Clarke’s attention. He was only halfway in the door, eyes fixated on them. “What am I interrupting here?”

“Bellamy.” Clarke seized her remote and stopped the DVD. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Oh, really?” He came further inside, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “‘cause I like everything I’m seeing.”

“We were just dancing, Bellagio,” Raven told him. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Dancing?” He wrinkled his forehead in confusion and pointed at Clarke.

“Well, trying,” Raven amended.

“Fine, the surprise is out!” Clarke yelled exasperatedly. “You weren’t supposed to know, but all the girls are gonna perform this stupid dance for you guys on Christmas. Including me.”

Bellamy didn’t say anything for a moment, just stood there, and then all of a sudden . . . laughter. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just flashing back to your striptease.”

“You did a striptease for him?” Raven gasped. “Way to go, Clarke!”

“Yeah, I got caught in my shirt,” she muttered.

“It was hilarious,” Bellamy made sure to add.

Raven chuckled. “I’ll bet.”

“You know what? You guys sit here and laugh, but this is really awful for me,” Clarke vented. “It’s embarrassing. I’m gonna humiliate myself. And do you have any idea how socially debilitating it is to not be able to dance? I’m actually really stressed out about this.”

Bellamy and Raven quit with the teasing and both fell silent for a moment. “Sorry,” Bellamy finally mumbled.

“Yeah, we’re sorry, Clarke,” Raven agreed.

“It’s fine.” Clarke knew it wasn’t really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, even though it did seem mortifying right now. “Children are dying in Africa. I shouldn’t be stressed about this.”

Bellamy looked like he felt bad for upsetting her, so he took pity. “Alright, I’ll tell you what: We’ll go out to TonDC tonight,” he said. “I’ll teach you to dance.”

“Oh, that sounds fun,” Raven sad. “Can Roan and I tag along?”

“Sure.”

At this point, she would have much rather gone to TonDC to drink, but if Bellamy was going to give her a dance lesson, it was probably best that it happen without all his other friends around. “I have a paper to write tonight,” she mumbled, more so as a way of reminding herself than as a way of making an excuse. “Alright, fine.” She brushed past him on her way into her bedroom to find something to wear. “But I’m warning you, I’m unteachable.”

The thing about Bellamy, one of many admirable things, was that he really did have faith in people. Much like he believed that Jasper would someday stop smoking pot and that Murphy would eventually get a job, he believed that Clarke could dance, even despite everything he’d seen from her so far. He tried to pump her up about it on the drive to the club, tried to inspire some sort of confidence, but her own hopes for success were still dim.

Thankfully, they stopped at the bar first before hitting the dance floor. Even though she wasn’t exactly looking to puke her guts out again, Clarke was definitely entertaining the possibility of getting wasted tonight. Clearly she was less inhibited when she had some alcohol in her system, and if she was drunk enough, maybe she wouldn’t even remember any of this.

Bellamy ordered them two shots of something—of what? She didn’t even care—and asked, “You excited?” as they waited for their drinks.

“Thrilled,” she deadpanned. “You’re not gonna make me Wop, are you?”

“No, we’re dancing together,” he assured her. “Trust me, it’s easier to dance with someone, especially someone you’re insanely attracted to.”

She blushed.

He thanked the bartender when they got their shots and downed his right away. Clarke swirled hers around, looking at the bottom of the glass, and then quickly tossed hers back as well. “I’m gonna need another,” she predicted.

“One more,” he said. “I need you sober tonight.”

“Oh, well, dancing with me should be very sobering,” she warned.

He grinned at her. “Nah, I’m lookin’ forward to it.”

They ordered one more shot a piece and brought them back to the booth they were sharing with Raven and Roan. Clarke was happy to be able to sit down and just chill and talk, but the promise of having to go out on that dance floor still loomed heavy in her mind. Only when Roan started talking about the ‘new inventory’ at his store did Clarke allow herself to become distracted. It was hard not to be distracted when the subject of conversation was sex toys.

“Yeah, the anal beads are selling out fast,” Roan said, “but I think the sex swings are gonna sell well, too, once I put them out.”

Clarke nearly choked on her drink. “Sex swings?” she echoed.

“Oh, yes,” Roan said. “Everyone loves a good sex swing.”

Clarke made a face, not able to comprehend how some of that stuff was even all that appealing to people.

“I’m excited to try out . . . that other thing,” Raven said, wriggling her eyebrows at her boyfriend suggestively.

“What other thing?” Clarke asked.

“Oh, you don’t wanna know,” Raven warned her.

“Of course she does,” Roan said boastfully and unashamed. “It’s a . . . dildo kit, I guess you could say. You can sculpt a replica of anyone’s penis and then use it however you want. Vibrator, double penetration . . . it works for everything.”

Clarke stared at him in astonishment, trying to wrap her mind around how that could even be a real thing, then looked up at Bellamy.

“What, you want one of those?” he teased.

“No.” One of Bellamy’s cocks was just about all she could handle. Although the thought of having a replica that could be a vibrator when he wasn’t around . . . now that was tempting.

“Next time you guys come in, I’ll give you a discount,” Roan promised. “Fifty percent off on whatever you want.”

“Oh, that’s . . .” Even Bellamy seemed a bit flustered. “Alright, then.”

“Enough talk,” Raven declared, grabbing hold of her boyfriend’s shirt collar. “Let’s dance.” She pulled Roan up out of the booth and led him out onto the dance floor, and Clarke watched as they started right in, both of them moving effortlessly, so in sync like it wasn’t difficult for either of them. It probably wasn’t.

“You want that kit, don’t you?” Bellamy said.

“No, not really,” she denied.

“Not really?”

“Just . . .” It was probably a weird process, molding the thing and waiting for it to dry. But if it was something they could do together . . . “It’d be nice to have it on hand when you’re not around.”

He chuckled, putting his arm around her. “I’m always around, though. Besides, you’ve got a 24/7 open invitation to this thing whenever you want it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Ooh.” So that meant, if she got seriously horny and he was insistent that he just had to finish up his video game with Murphy and Miller, she could remind him of that. “Alright, I don’t need the replica then.”

“Yeah, I don’t really think we need any of that stuff,” he agreed, leaning closer. “We do pretty good on our own.”

“Very good,” she agreed.

He glanced over her shoulder out onto the dance floor, then back at her. “Do me a favor,” he said, his voice lower than usual. “When we get out there, don’t overthink it. Pretend it’s just you and me, and we’re in my bed. Move like we do there.”

Her breath hitched as she gazed into his eyes, because something about the way he said that . . . it was so seductive, even if he hadn’t meant it to be. Who was she kidding, though? Of course he was trying to seduce her. He always was.

She tried to keep his words in mind when it was finally time to get out there onto that dance floor and give it a shot. They moved pretty far inward towards the center, which simultaneously relieved and terrified her. On the one hand, it was nice to be surrounded by so many people, because she could just sort of blend in and be invisible; but on the other hand, if she looked like a real idiot, then everyone could see her.

“Just you and me,” he reminded her as a new song began to play. He started to rock from side to side, completely at ease, completely comfortable, and motioned for her to do the same.

She tried to make her movements mirror his, but it was hard. He didn’t have hips and breasts getting in the way.

“Relax,” he said, putting his hands on her hips. He pushed gently from side to side, helping her at least get into a rhythm. “There you go. You got it.”

She was pretty sure she didn’t, but it was sweet of him to be complimentary.

“Keep doin’ that.” He slid one hand around to cup her ass and pressed the other right below her belly button, pushing her hips in such a way now that they were making circles. “Bend your knees,” he said.

She felt like a rejected belly dancer, but at least this . . . wasn’t horrible. She was dancing—not well, but it was passable.

“See?” he said, taking his hands away so she could keep moving all on her own. “That’s how you circle your hips when you’re on top of me.”

She felt a shiver race up her spine when he said those words.

“It’s not that different.”

No, it is, she thought, but to his credit, Bellamy was doing a good job of getting her to see the similarities. She took comfort in knowing that it was his hands, his body out here with her, his eyes watching her every move when there was probably nobody else watching her at all.

He came in close to her, matching his hips to hers, pressing them in to the point where she could feel the bulge in his pants in between her legs. “You like it?” he asked, slipping one of his legs in between hers. Beneath her skirt, his knee brushed against her panties.

She couldn’t help but smile, because hell yeah, she liked this. With him standing like that, she was basically able to grind her hips against his leg, and it was easy to forget about how humiliating dancing was when all she could think about was how good that friction felt. She was so glad she’d let him convince her to wear a skirt instead of pants. So fucking glad.

He lifted both her arms and placed them around his neck, telling her to hold onto him. And she soon realized why she had to. He started to roll his hips forward so much that nearly lost her balance. Every move he made was so deliberate, so suggestive, that her limbs shook with delight.

Just when she felt like she was really starting to get the hang of that, he surprised her by grabbing onto her waist and spinning her around. Suddenly, his denim-clad cock was pressing against her ass, and her skirt was hiking up against him. “Keep moving,” he urged, his breath a hot whisper against her ear.

Oh, she wanted to move. And she couldn’t believe she wanted to. Under normal circumstances, she probably would have just given in to the temptation to go stiff as board and let him do all the moving. That was what she’d done with both Finn and Lexa, both of whom were far better dancers than she was. But Bellamy felt so good behind her, his body so big and strong. Even though she couldn’t dance, she wanted to try to dance for him.

She resumed moving her hips from side to side, swirling and circling them from time to time, too, each time trying to brush her ass back against his cock. It was getting harder, to the point where she could feel it more and more prominently through his jeans, and it made her head spin to think that she was the one doing this to him. Her hips, her body . . . his hips, his body. Feeling that bulge in his pants gave her something to focus on, something to center her movements around.

His hands roamed down her body to the hem of her skirt, fingers grazing her skin as he inched the fabric upward; but even though he may have been tempted, he didn’t slip his hands in between her legs. He wouldn’t do that to her out on a crowded dance floor in the middle of all those people. Not even if she . . . kind of wanted him to.

She leaned her head back against his shoulder, gripping his arm with one hand, tangling the other in his hair. He was pressed in close behind her, she couldn’t even tell where he stopped and she began. His hips rolled forward into hers, hers pressed backward into his, and all she could think was that, if they didn’t have clothes on right now, if it was just her and him . . .

An hour later, it really was just the two of them, her legs shaking around his waist as she fell apart beneath him, his hips slamming into her a few more times as he found his own release. “Fuck,” he swore.

“Mmm.” Damn, that had been some good sex. Not that it was ever bad with Bellamy. But tonight, all the dancing had really worked her into a frenzy. Bellamy’s definition of teaching her to dance had pretty much been reduced to dry-humping on the dance floor, but whatever. It was foreplay, and it had worked wonders. By the time they’d left TonDC, she’d been so wet that she practically had a river between her legs. Bellamy had made sure he sampled that prior to getting on top of her, of course.

He rolled over onto his side of the bed, except it wasn’t his bed this time. They were in her bed, which was technically nicer but somehow not as comfortable. She missed his cotton sheets, his lumpy pillows, his squeaky mattress. Bellamy had insisted that they come here after TonDC, though, so she could work on her paper for art history class, but right now, that was the last thing she wanted to do. It was late, and she was tired, and she kind of just wanted to lie there next to him and fall asleep.

“I think you really were looser tonight,” he blurted suddenly.

She shot him a look. What the fuck did that mean?

“On the dance floor,” he clarified quickly. “Not . . .”

“I was gonna say . . .” She did Kegel exercises on a daily basis, just to keep things tight down there.

“I’m not sayin’ you’re Fred Astaire or anything,” he acknowledged, “but you went for it. You did good.” Kicking the covers aside, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up, and for a moment, she feared he might get dressed and leave. But she should have known better. Bellamy was very good about being present after sex. He rarely ever left her alone.

Buck naked, he strolled on over to her desk and unhooked her laptop computer, brought it over to her, and set it on her stomach. “Write your paper,” he reminded her.

She groaned. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s due tomorrow, right?” He wandered back over to her desk.

“Yeah. I should’ve done it earlier, but I was . . . distracted.” She tilted her head to the side, happily admiring the view of his ass.

He seemed a little distracted, too, peering down at her open sketchbook. She was working on a wintery drawing right now of an old, cozy house with snow-covered evergreens out front. “Can I look at this?” he asked.

“Sure.” She’d had that sketchbook for such a long time, she didn’t even know half of what was in there. Hopefully nothing too embarrassing.

He brought the book over to the bed and lay down, crawling back under the covers. She propped herself up with some pillows behind her back and reluctantly opened her computer, moving the mouse to get the blank sleep screen off. Her empty Word document nearly blinded her, taunting her with the one and only word she’d written of her introductory paragraph thus far today: The. She’d written the word The.

“Whoa,” Bellamy said, showing her a drawing she’d done of Lexa around this time last year. She was sitting in front of the fireplace wearing plaid flannel pajamas, hair in a messy ponytail, sipping cocoa and somehow managing to look beautiful even when she wasn’t trying to.

“Lexa,” she explained.

“Hmm. Hot.”

“You’re not her type.”

He chuckled, going onto the next drawing, which was another Lexa one. The one after that was of Clarke’s mother, sort of a throwback drawing to a simpler time in their relationship when she’d been small enough to push on the swing set.

“Your mom?” he guessed.

“Yep.” There were none of her dad in there, though. She’d tried to draw him before, but it never seemed to turn out just right. So eventually, she just gave up trying.

“These are really good,” he complimented, continuing through the book. She tried to get some words written while he looked at all her drawings of Raven, Wells, and Niylah, as well as some of the more recent drawings of her new friends. But the only thing her fingers accomplished was to delete the word The because she couldn’t think of anything to put after it. So then her blank word document was really blank.

“Damn, Clarke.”

“What?” She peeked over and saw that he’d found the sketch she was working on for Niylah. It was a steamy drawing of her and her girlfriend kissing, which she’d requested. “Oh, yeah, that’s a gift,” she told him. “I’m gonna color it up, and then Niylah’s gonna give it to Luna for Christmas.”

“That’s . . . a great gift,” he said, looking like he wanted a copy for himself. “Am I in here at all?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Maybe?” When he flipped to the next page, he got his answer. She’d drawn a picture of him just recently, no more than a week ago. She had a ton of ideas for Bellamy sketches, but the actual process of getting his image down on paper was a challenging one. It was so damn hard to capture that angular jaw and to replicate his skin tone. Seriously, a pencil just could not do justice to that skin tone. The finished product, though—a picture of him looking off the page while laughing—was a pretty decent likeness.

“There I am,” he said, smiling. “Hey, I look good.”

“You do,” she agreed.

“I don’t know if I have quite that many freckles, though.”

Oh, he totally did, but she found it adorable that he reached up to touch his cheeks, as though he could somehow check.

She eagerly anticipated his reaction to the next drawing, because it was one of the steamiest ones she’d ever done. And it involved him. “Well, well, well,” he said when he saw it. “Look what we have here.”

She blushed, a little bit embarrassed that she’d taken the time to draw the exact image she saw every time he went down on her. Yes, she had drawn Bellamy Blake with his head between her legs, eyes closed, cheek grazing her thigh the way it did right before he started to devour her again.

“That’s . . .” He seemed to be at a loss for words, but he gazed at her drawing in awe.

“I couldn’t get the image out of my head,” she confessed.

He smiled, almost as if he were proud—and honestly, he had every reason to be, because his oral skills were seriously the Bellamy Blake Method^TM—and said, “It looks good.”

“Yeah, I think so, too.” That was why she’d drawn it.

“Where’d you learn how to do this?” he asked, flipping more quickly through some of the still life sketches towards the back of her book.

“I don’t know. I just doodled a lot when I was young,” she answered. “And then I took a lot of art classes in junior high and high school. It all just sort of took off from there.”

“Well, you’re good, Clarke,” he praised.

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean you’re really good,” he emphasized. “You’re definitely studying the right thing.”

Clarke sighed, tapping her fingers on her keyboard without typing anything. “My mom doesn’t think so,” she said sadly. “She always wanted me to go to med school and become a doctor like her. But I didn’t.” She let out a shaky sigh, remembering how that conversation had gone when she’d revealed her plans and goals for her future, much to her mother’s bewilderment. “When I told her I wasn’t going to the University of Maryland and that I was going to art school here in Arkadia instead . . .” She shook her head. “It wasn’t pretty.”

Bellamy frowned, hesitating a moment before he said, “Seems like she kinda . . .”

“She loves me,” Clarke filled in, because she knew that was true. “But I think she had all these really high expectations of me, and in her mind, I just haven’t lived up to them.”

Bellamy’s frown intensified, and he shook his head. “That’s crap.”

“Well, that’s the way it is.” She’d learned to accept it, and on the bright side, things were gradually getting better. When she’d first revealed her decision to be an art major, her mother had been furious. Now, she begrudgingly accepted it. When she’d first revealed her bisexuality, her mother had been devastated. Now, she begrudgingly accepted that, too. It wasn’t hostile anymore; it was just . . . tense.

“On a lighter note,” she said, not wanting to bring down their night when it had been such a good one. “Can you draw?”

“Can I draw?” he echoed. “No, I suck at it.”

“Really?” She didn’t even believe that. “But you’re good at everything.”

“Not drawing. I have no artistic ability whatsoever,” he readily admitted.

“What?” It was almost shocking, actually. He could dance, he could cook, he could do acrobatic things with his tongue, but drawing was a challenge? Seriously? “Draw me,” she told him, wanting to see what he could come up with.

“Oh, shit, this is gonna be bad.” He opened her sketchbook to one of the blank pages in the back and asked, “Got a pencil?”

“Drawer.”

He reached over to her nightstand drawer and took one out, a crappy mechanical one. If he thought for one second that he could draw anything decent with that, then he was sorely mistaken.

“Alright, here we go,” he said, angling the sketchbook away from her so that she couldn’t see what he was doing. “Write your paper.”

She didn’t want to write her paper, though. It was so boring.

It only took him a minute, if that, to complete his sketch. “Alright, here,” he said, holding it up for her to see. “A masterpiece.”

It really was pathetic. Bellamy’s drawing of her was little more than a stick figure with a couple strands of hair. And two huge circles on her chest. Boobs? She huffed and clutched her chest.

“Well . . .” He shrugged. “They’re big, Clarke.”

“Oh my god. You’re right, though. You can’t draw.”

“I told you.”

“Wow.” This was rare, like finding a unicorn or a leprechaun or something. This was something that Bellamy Blake couldn’t do. “You made a mistake, though. You drew my right one bigger than my left one. But the left one’s bigger.”

“Uh, I think they’re the same size.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Left one’s bigger. I know my boobs, Bellamy.”

“Well, I know your boobs, too,” he claimed, reaching over to put his hand on her left one. He switched it over to her right, then switched it back, almost as if he were comparing the weight of each. He kept switching back and forth between the two rapidly, to the point where he was basically just rubbing both of them. “Oh, yeah, that’s good stuff.”

“Bellamy!” she squealed, swatting his hand away. “How am I supposed to write this paper if you’re doing that?”

“Ah, you don’t wanna write your paper anyway.” He took the computer off her lap and sat up, positioning his fingers on the keyboard. “How long does it have to be?”

“Three to four pages,” she droned, not sure if she could even crank out one page tonight.

“What’s the topic?”

“The impact of Renaissance art.” She made a face, not particularly inspired by that time period. It was important, certainly, but she was far more interested in some of modern history’s painters.

“That’s not bad,” he said. “I can do that. Just go to sleep.”

“What?”

“Just go to sleep,” he repeated. “I’ll write your paper for you.” He started typing, and before Clarke knew it, there was actually an entire sentence on that page, an introductory one.

“That’s my last assignment before my final exam,” she informed him.

“I know. That’s why I’ll do well on it.” His eyes were locked on the screen now, and more and more words were appearing.

“Bellamy, I can’t ask you to--”

“You didn’t ask,” he cut in. “I offered. Besides, I’m not really that tired yet. You’re tired. Go to bed.”

She yawned, unable to hide the truth of that. She’d been exhausted even prior to the dancing and the sex. If she let her eyes fall closed, she’d probably be asleep in no time. “You really wanna write my paper?” she said mid-yawn, feeling a bit guilty for even entertaining the idea.

“Yeah.” He had half a paragraph done already, which was surreal to her. It was like he didn’t even have to think about the words to type them.

Well, she thought, it is for art history. Bellamy may not have been the world’s greatest artist, but he definitely knew more than she did about the history aspect of it. And in a weird way, he actually seemed excited about the prospect of getting to do an essay. Maybe because he hadn’t done one since he’d been in high school?

“Alright,” she agreed, rolling over onto her side. “Don’t screw it up.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

“Goodnight, Bellamy.”

“Night.” He reached over and shut off the lamp so that only the computer screen was illuminating the room.

As predicted, a mere minute after her head hit the pillow and her eyes fell shut, she felt herself starting to drift off, the sound of a clicking keyboard lulling her to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Clarke awoke, Bellamy was already gone. He’d probably had to get an early start for work. It seemed like he’d had a lot of jobs lately, mostly car stuff. With winter making its presence known, lots of vehicles were having problems, and everyone in his part of town seemed to view him as the guy who could fix them.

The first thing she did when she got out of bed was to go over to her desk and see if he’d actually gotten that paper done. And indeed, he had. It was sitting atop her computer, three and half pages, stapled in the left-hand corner and double-spaced. She skimmed it, pleased to see that it did look well-written. Hopefully her professor didn’t know her well enough to recognize that she’d never have been able to write that. Art was her thing. Art history? Not so much.

It took five days for her professor to get all the essays graded, which, in college time, wasn’t actually that bad. Clarke got a little nervous when she saw the grades of some of the people sitting around her. C-minus. D-plus. An F? A legitimate F for the girl sitting beside her? The professor had scribbled a note on the front in red ink that said, ‘Plagiarism is a crime. See me.’

Oh my god, Clarke thought worriedly. What if he thought she had plagiarized, too? Had she, technically? If they were Bellamy’s words and not her own, was that a crime? Surely not when he’d volunteered to do it, right?

The worry became panic when everyone else seemed to have gotten their paper back, and Clarke had yet to see hers. The professor stood up in front of the lecture hall, clearing his throat, holding one paper in his hand. “I do have one essay I need to point out,” he announced.

Clarke clenched the arms of her chair. Good God, he was going to tell the whole class she’d cheated, wasn’t he? He was going to make an example out of her for the others so that, when the final exam rolled around, nobody would dare break any rules.

“This paper,” the professor boomed, “is an exemplary piece of work.”

Her eyes widened in astonishment. Wait, what?

He smiled at her. “Clarke Griffin.”

Everyone turned towards the back of the classroom to look at her, seemingly surprised. And no wonder. She sat in that class without ever raising her hand, barely saying a word. She was such a non-entity that, on the rare occasions the professor did address her, he called her Connie.

“Clarke, would you come on up here?” the professor invited, stepping aside from the podium.

Holy shit. She rose out of her seat slowly and slinked towards the front of the room, petrified of where this was going. She had a feeling she already knew.

“Step up to the podium,” her professor said.

She did as he instructed, trying to not look like a deer caught in the headlights, hoping the rest of her peers couldn’t see that she was shaking.

“I’d like you to read this to the class,” the professor said, setting her essay—‘her’ essay—down on the podium in front of her. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Oh. God. She tried to take a deep breath without actually looking like she was taking a deep breath, and stared down at the first page. Good God, there were words on there she didn’t even know how to pronounce. Had Bellamy gone nuts with thesaurus.com or something? He didn’t even talk like that in real life.

They’d arranged to meet up on campus after that class for lunch, so that worked out well. She was able to sit down with him at Sbarro and tell him all about the single most mortifying academic experience of her life. He was laughing so hard, he almost choked on his pizza. He did choke on his breadstick and had to drink half his soda to get everything to go down the right pipe. She’d seen Bellamy laugh before, plenty of times, but this was at another level. It was a literal knee-slapper for him. He kept rocking back and forth, tossing his head and cackling as she recounted the incident for him. A couple other customers even gave him curious looks, like they thought he was having a seizure or something.

“It’s not funny,” she argued.

“No, it’s hilarious.”

“I had to read it in front of everyone. I had to answer questions in front of everyone.”

“Questions?” he echoed. “Oh, god, what’d he ask?”

“Oh, you know, just how I’d done my research, how I narrowed down my topic, how I had generated such ‘unique and interesting ideas.’”

Bellamy laughed some more.

“It was horrible.” He hadn’t exactly referenced Da Vinci and Michelangelo, as she’d quickly discovered. No, he’d referenced the works of a ton of artists she’d never even heard of before, which, as the professor had told the entire class, added to the paper’s uniqueness.

“So what’d you say?” Bellamy asked eagerly.

“Uh, I channeled my stepdad and tried to do what politicians do: answer without really answering.”

“Did it work?”

“I think so, but it was terrifying.” She shuddered, happy to have made it throughout without fainting. Although maybe fainting would have been better, because then she could have sat down sooner. “Oh, and I stumbled over so many words. I mean, what exactly is a basilica?”

He laughed some more, looking on the verge of tears now. “This is awesome,” he said.

“Awesome for you, mortifying for me.”

“But you said you got an A, right?”

“A plus.”

“Well . . .” He shrugged. “I did my job.”

“You did.” She had to admit, as heart-pounding as this whole experience had been today, it was probably worth it. Her grade in that class had been average at best, but this would bump her up. It was the best grade she’d ever gotten on an art history essay, and this was the third art history class she’d ever taken.

“Man, I wonder what your professor would say if knew some low-life street urchin wrote that,” Bellamy pondered.

“Low-life street urchin?” she resounded.

“That’s probably what he’d think of me.”

“No.” She didn’t know what her professor would think of Bellamy, what any of her professors would think of him, but . . . well, truth be told, they probably wouldn’t expect that someone with only a high school diploma could write like that. “You’re very smart, Bellamy,” she told him.

“Not really,” he said modestly. “I just know history.”

He knew history? She was thinking it went a step beyond that. Miller had told her that he had once come home and found Bellamy reading an encyclopedia for fun. When she’d asked him about it, he’d vehemently denied it, of course, but more so and more so, the story was starting to sound legit.

“Well, I could write more for you, if you want,” he volunteered. “I didn’t mind.”

“No, I’d better do it on my own,” she said, not willing to risk another potential public humiliation like this one. Besides, it was technically cheating, and she wasn’t about to make a habit out of that. “I will let you proofread some stuff, though.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I’m an okay writer.”

“Oh, yeah, just okay.” She picked up what remained of her breadstick and chucked it at him, and that just made him laugh again.

It was kind of nice having Bellamy on campus. He didn’t have to be anywhere until 3:00—apparently that same Diana woman wanted him to do some sprinkler repair, but really, was she needing to use a sprinkler in December? He said he was able to hang out for a few hours, do whatever she wanted. And as much as she wanted to do him, the week before finals, a.k.a. “Dead Week,” was quickly approaching, and she wanted to get a jump-start on it more.

“So what am I helping you study?” he asked as they walked up the steps to the campus library.

“Art history. I have to do really well on that final now. My professor expects ‘exemplary work’ from me.”

He smirked, holding the door open for her.

Right inside the entrance of the library was a desk where students had to check in. Clarke took out her university ID, brought it up to the girl behind the counter, and held it out to be scanned. The scanner flashed a green light, made a beeping noise, and she was good to go. But when Bellamy tried to follow her, the girl said, “Oh, sir, I need to scan your card.”

He and Clarke both stopped, looking unsurely at each other. “Uh, I’m not a student here,” he admitted.

“Oh.” She cringed. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you go in then. The library’s for students only.”

Bellamy lowered his head, a look of disappointment on his face.

“He’s just helping me study,” Clarke said.

“I’m sorry.” Clearly the girl at the desk felt bad, but she was also trying to follow the rules.

Clarke met Bellamy’s eyes helplessly. No, this wasn’t fair. Did it really matter if he wasn’t a student? Was it really that big of a deal? She wanted him there with her. Even though he’d be a little bit of a distraction and she might not be able to focus . . . she wanted him there.

She was about to give up and just leave with him, but Bellamy wasn’t so easily dissuaded. He leaned over the desk, turned on the charm, and said, “Listen, I understand you’re just trying to do your job. But I’d really appreciate you bending the rules for me,” grinning flirtatiously as he said every word.

She shifted in her seat unsurely.

“Please?” he pleaded. “Just this once. It’ll be our little secret.”

Oh, Bellamy. Clarke had to hide her smile, because she knew exactly what he was doing. That charisma of his was a powerful thing, and he could easily weaponize it when he wanted to. Case in point . . .

“Okay,” the girl said, blushing. “Just this once.”

“Thank you.” He smiled at her, then fell into step beside Clarke as she brought him up to the second floor where the best study areas were at. “This is nice,” he remarked on his way up the stairs.

When they got up to the second floor, he just stood there for a second, staring at everything in awe. Arkadia was a small university, so its library was on the smaller end, too. But it must have looked huge to him. It dawned on Clarke that he had probably never seen a library quite like this before. There were shelves upon shelves of books, rows and rows of computers that were all in use. It was quiet and smelled a bit musty and probably seemed like heaven to Bellamy. His mouth was slightly agape as he took everything in, and there was a look of pure wonder in his eyes. “Wow,” he said quietly.

She smiled, loving that he was just letting his inner geek flag fly.

Clarke sat down at one of the biggest tables, setting up her study station. Computer, notes that she could barely read, textbook that she dreaded opening . . . she sprawled everything out in front of her, trying to figure out the best way to go about this. Maybe deciphering her notes was a good first step, or having Bellamy look through the book and quiz her on all the vocabulary words?

Bellamy was busy looking at everything, though. He sat down across from her, but his eyes danced all over the library, taking it all in. Clarke tried not to make it too obvious that she was watching him, but it was impossible not to watch him. He looked so energized, which nobody else in the library did. He looked excited to be there, perhaps because he wasn’t even supposed to be. When Clarke looked around that library, she saw . . . books. Just a lot of big old dusty books. But Bellamy . . . it was like he was seeing something else.

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head to refocus himself. “What do you want help with?”

“Um . . .” She had to break herself out of her own stupor, because she was so damn mesmerized by him. “I need a book,” she said, locating her wrinkled syllabus from the first day of the class. “A couple books, actually. There were some things I never read that I was supposed to read.”

“I’ll go get ‘em,” he volunteered eagerly, grabbing the syllabus from her.

“Thanks.”

He was already gone, disappearing into bookshelves with a happy smile on his face. He probably didn’t even know where these books were located, but he’d have a blast finding them.

Clarke tried to start studying, scribbling down some of the course-related vocabulary after taking a moment to Google what a basilica actually was. Much to her surprise, she managed to review a fair amount of material, which scared the crap out of her, because she realized how much she didn’t remember; but when she finally let herself check the time and saw that nearly thirty minutes had passed since she’d gotten there, she got up and went looking for Bellamy.

He wasn’t hard to find. At all. He’d planted himself in some hardcore history section with books about events from the past Clarke had never heard of before, and he sat on the floor, rifling through the pages of one book while three more lay around him, already opened. He was so absorbed in what he was reading, he didn’t even hear her walk up on him, and it took her sitting down next to him for him to glance up from the page and say, “Oh, hey.”

“Hey.” She peeked over at what he was reading, saw a photo of some ancient ruins, and knew instantly she’d have no interest in it. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, sorry, I . . . got lost,” he said.

Oh, he’d gotten lost alright. Not in the library, though. In the books. Bellamy Blake loved learning.

“There’s some cool stuff here,” he said, shutting the book he’d been looking at. “I wish I could check some of it out.” He sounded so genuinely wistful that Clarke felt her heart go out to him. Sure, he could go to the Arkadia public library if he wanted to, or he could get online and read anything about everything. But this must have just felt different for him. After all, if his life had gone differently, if he and Roma had just taken one different turn on the way to their destination or gotten in the car a minute or two earlier, then maybe he would have had ample opportunity to sit in library like this, lose himself in all the knowledge he so desperately craved.

She felt bad, guilty even. Because to her, being here right now and having to study for finals for a chore. For him, it would have been a privilege.

“I can check out some stuff for you,” she offered, more than willing to do that if he’d seen something he liked.

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “When would I have time to read any of it?”

He didn’t have time, but she was sure he’d make time, even if it meant using his phone to illuminate the pages during the middle of the night.

“You should go to college, Bellamy,” she blurted suddenly, without really thinking about it. He just . . . he looked so right here. “It’s not too late.”

He didn’t shut down her suggestion right away, but he still shook his head after giving it a moment of thought. “I don’t know . . .”

“I know it’s expensive, but you could take out loans. And you could still work. It’s not like you have to take five classes at a time,” she pointed out. “You’d be so good at it. You’d love it.”

“I would,” he admitted. “Well, you know, never say never.”

She smiled at him, happy to have gotten at least that much. It wasn’t an outright rejection of the mere possibility. Maybe if he had the time to think about it, he’d get serious and give it a shot.

“It’s just hard for me, you know?” he said. “I’ve been out of school for five years. It’s just not the easiest thing to try to go back.”

She supposed she could understand that, as much as possible. Her circumstances were clearly different, but if Bellamy still had a burning passion for knowledge . . . well, that was probably far more important than having money or a completely open schedule was.

“Just think about it,” she urged him. All she wanted him to do was keep the idea in mind.

He nodded mutely, but it was something. It was definitely something.

She didn’t want to put any undue pressure on him or stress him out about it at all, didn’t want to suggest that he might look into teaching because of how he’d tried to teach Octavia to read back when he was only six. For now, this was enough, the mere seed of an idea planted in that brilliant brain of his. Maybe the rest was another conversation for another time.

Chapter Text

Chapter 15

Murphy got a trampoline. Well, technically he convinced Bellamy to accompany him to Walmart, and they bought a trampoline together. When Clarke got off work and headed over to their place, they were putting it up in the backyard. Emori stood around and supervised. They claimed that they just wanted to have it all set up by the time Miller got home, but Clarke suspected they were both just eager as hell to jump on it.

It wasn’t a particularly safe-looking trampoline; there was no net boundary to keep people from bouncing off. But bouncing off would probably be part of the appeal for the boys. They climbed on up there once Bellamy proclaimed it safe and ready to go and started bouncing around like little kids. Soon enough, Emori gave in and got up there with them. Clarke was about to do the same when her phone rang. Her mom’s ringtone. Great. That didn’t exactly compel her to answer, but she did, only because she knew Abby would keep calling all night until she got a hold of her.

Her mom wanted to talk to her about Christmas plans. Or something. Clarke was only halfway listening, because watching her friends jump around like fifth graders was far more entertaining. Emori was getting bounced all over the place by the combined weight of the boys, and Bellamy kept saying he wanted to do a backflip. Murphy had no shame and went full on cheerleader, yelling, “Woo!” as he did the splits in the air.

“Clarke, are you listening?” her mother’s voice snapped.

“Huh?” She really wasn’t.

Her mother sighed impatiently. “I just wanna know if you’re gonna come spend the night here on Christmas Eve,” she said. “Like last year.”

Like every year, Clarke thought. She was still young enough that her childhood Christmas traditions were still her Christmas traditions. Except some things were different now. Like rather than eating a Christmas breakfast the way they used to when her father was alive, they got up and got dressed, showered, all fixed up for the day. Then they sat on the couch and took a family photo, one that would be used in next year’s Christmas card.

It just wasn’t the same.

“Clarke?”

“Um . . .” She didn’t want to commit to anything yet, not when she had this secret Santa thing to take part in, too. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

“Well, can you do that soon?” her mother entreated. “I’d like to get a plan in place.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know.”

“Clarke, come on!” Bellamy shouted.

“What was that?” her mother asked. “Who was that? Where are you at?”

“I’m just with some friends,” Clarke replied vaguely. “I gotta go, Mom. I’ll talk to you soon.” She ended the call, and tossed her phone down atop her purse.

“Get up here!” Bellamy hollered excitedly.

She took her shoes off and climbed up onto the trampoline, and he held out his hand to help pull her to her feet.

“Best purchase ever!” Murphy proudly proclaimed, kicking both legs up behind him as he bounced some more.

Clarke couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on a trampoline. It took her a moment to really find her footing, but when she did . . . it was blast. She bounced and jumped and squealed and giggled. They were probably exceeding the weight limit by about one whole person, but none of them really cared.

Murphy started trying to bounce Bellamy off, and Bellamy started trying to bounce Murphy off, and since Bellamy weighed more than any of the rest of them, he had more success. Murphy lost his footing and fell, landing against the padding on the side, but after a quick, “Fuck!” he got right back up, and started generating some momentum for his bounces again. “Help me out,” he told his girlfriend, grabbing her hand.

“You’re not gonna bounce me off,” Bellamy said confidently.

Clarke moved towards the edge of the trampoline, content to just let it play out.

“Come on!” Murphy said, bouncing higher than Emori. “You gotta bounce, babe!”

Fed up, she shoved his chest backwards, and this time, he did stumble over the side and fall onto the ground. Bellamy and Clarke both just laughed.

“What the hell, Emori?” Murphy yelled.

“Serves you right,” she said, sitting down on the side. “Are you okay, though?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered, unable to keep from smiling at her. “I’m freezin’ my balls off, though. I gotta go inside.”

“I’ll go with you,” Emori volunteered, sliding off the edge of the trampoline. “You guys comin’?”

“Nah, I’m good out here,” Bellamy said, shifting his weight from side to side.

“Me, too,” Clarke replied.

Once Murphy and Emori went inside and it was just the two of them on that trampoline, Bellamy grinned at Clarke mischievously.

“Bellamy, no,” she said warningly.

But he darted across the bouncy surface of that trampoline, trying to grab her anyway. She bounded out of the way, but it was no use. He flung one arm out and hooked it around her waist, pulling her back in. “Bellamy!” she yelped, half-laughing/half-screaming as he whirled her around in the air. He lost his balance shortly after, and they fell onto the middle of the trampoline together.

Fifteen minutes later, when the sun was almost all the way down, after a particularly spontaneous and rousing game of trampoline tag, she and Bellamy lay together on that trampoline. He was on his back, she was on her stomach, and both of them were too lazy to get up and go inside. It was actually pretty freaking cold outside, but Emori had brought out a couple blankets for them, so as long as they huddled underneath and cuddled up close to each other, it was bearable. And Clarke never took any issue with cuddling up to Bellamy.

“This was probably a dumb thing to buy,” Bellamy acknowledged, “especially with Christmas comin’ up.”

“It’s fun, though,” Clarke pointed out. She wished Polaris had one. Hell, she would have enjoyed a trampoline far more than a gym.

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “Oh, well. Gotta splurge once in a while.”

“Once in a while,” she agreed. “Hey, so speaking of Christmas, though, when do we actually do this secret Santa thing?”

He yawned and answered, “Christmas Eve. Then people go do stuff with their families on Christmas Day.”

She supposed that pretty much answered her mother’s question then. She’d just tell her she was spending Christmas Eve with Raven, though, because her mom probably wouldn’t take to well to finding out she was spending it with a boy she wasn’t even dating. Then she could drive home on Christmas morning, do all the gift-opening stuff with her mom and Marcus, do the whole family dinner if that was what they decided to do . . .

Ugh. She didn’t want to do another family dinner. One per year was enough. But if nothing else, that would give her an excuse to sext Bellamy again.

“You cold?” he asked, rubbing the back of her thigh.

“A little,” she admitted. They were outside in December in Maryland. Probably wasn’t wise.

“Maybe I should warm you up then,” he pondered, sneaking his hand in between her legs.

“Mmm, maybe.” She crawled on top of him, legs straddling his waist, chest pressed against his. Her hair fell forward when she kissed him, so he tucked it behind her ear for her.

“We should take our clothes off,” he proposed. “For body heat.”

“For body heat?” She wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea, especially since they had all these blankets to conceal them.

His hands smoothed all over her as they kissed, down her sides, around her waist. He rubbed the small of her back, snaking his hands underneath her sweatshirt to caress up and down her spine. They soon went lower, though, giving her backside a good squeeze through her leggings, pushing her hips down against his suggestively.

“Getting warmer?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm.” His body was like her own personal space heater.

“How about now?” he asked, slipping his hands underneath her leggings. She had chosen not to wear any underwear tonight, so his large, calloused hands squeezed and kneaded her naked flesh.

“Mmm,” she moaned, smiling contentedly. That felt so good. His hands were so hot on her skin.

Unfortunately, they were interrupted when Murphy peeked out the back door and complained, “Really? On my trampoline? We just got that thing. Can’t you wait to contaminate it?”

Bellamy ignored him completely and gave her another kiss.

“Never mind him,” Emori said, shoving her boyfriend aside. “Carry on. Just be careful not to break that thing.” She smirked and shut the door.

“We should probably go inside,” Bellamy murmured against her lips.

“Probably.” But that trampoline was definitely cool, very spacious. So someday, when it wasn’t so cold outside and nobody else was home, it might be a nice, bouncy place to . . . well, bounce on him.

So they left the blankets outside and headed inside where it was warmer. He chased her up the stairs and wasted no time getting her undressed once they were in the privacy of his bedroom. She did the same to him, all about that body heat from his hot, hot body.

“What do you wanna do?” she asked, sitting down on the bed once they were both completely unclothed.

“I don’t know,” he said, lightly stroking his own cock.

She watched him for a moment, wondering what it looked like when he jacked off. A perverted part of her wanted to ask him to do it for her right now, but another part of her thought she might as well do it for him. “Maybe something like this?” she suggested, replacing his hand with her own. She gently squeezed it around the base, twisting her hand back and forth a couple times before she started pumping him.

“That’s good,” he said, gazing down at her with lust in his eyes. “Or . . .”

Her eyebrows arched, intrigued. “Or what?”

He licked his lips and moved her hand away from his shaft. “Come here,” he said, motioning her over to the side of the bed.

She crawled over there, already prepared to lie back and spread her legs.

“No, put your head here,” he said, touching the side of the bed.

Oh. Well. This was new. “I have a feeling I know where this is going,” she said, swinging her legs around in the opposite direction. She lay down flat on her back, acquainting herself with a . . . a new view, so to speak.

“Is this alright?” he asked, pulling her back a bit further so that her head was dangling over the side.

“Uh-huh.” She’d never actually given a blowjob in this position before, but she was definitely willing to try it. For Bellamy.

“You ready?” he eagerly asked, moving closer so his erection was hovering just above her face.

All of a sudden, she started to get freaked out. Sure, she’d sucked Bellamy’s cock plenty of times, but usually she was on her knees or on top of him when she did it. When they sixty-nined, she was the one on top for that, too. This position was totally out of her control. She wouldn’t just be sucking him into her mouth; he’d be thrusting into it.

“Clarke?” he prompted.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel like it’s attacking me.”

He chuckled a bit, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Are you good?”

“I’m good.” She took a few even breaths to steady her nerves.

“We don’t have to do this,” he assured her.

“No, it’s fine.” This was Bellamy. She could do this. Licking her lips, she told him, “Go ahead,” and closed her eyes. Seeing it get closer would be like seeing a dinosaur about to maul her.

Bellamy was always considerate during sex. When he sensed that she was perhaps a bit anxious, like she was right now, he took things slowly and carefully. So he started out just by pressing the head of his cock against her lips. She instinctively opened her mouth and swirled her tongue around it, getting a taste. He tasted familiar, and that made her feel more at ease.

She opened her mouth wide, allowing him to push inside there, and she tried to keep her jaw and throat muscles as loose and relaxed as possible. He started to fuck her mouth, not too forcefully, not too insistently, but he didn’t just stand there, either. As the position required, he moved in and out rhythmically, seeming to go a little bit farther in with each thrust.

She wanted to be able to just lie there and take it for him, like the way more experienced porn stars did. But Bellamy’s length and girth were considerable, and in this position, where she was basically at his mercy, she sort of felt like she was choking on it. Feeling like she was about to gag, she pushed on his legs, wordlessly communicating her need for a break.

Since Bellamy always kept his attention on her, he understood what she was saying right away and pulled his cock from her mouth. “You okay?” he asked, his concern evident.

“Uh-huh.” She had to lift her head up a bit, some of her blood was rushing to it, making her feel a little bit woozy.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“No, it’s fine.” She didn’t want him thinking he’d hurt her when that wasn’t the case at all. It just wasn’t the world’s most comfortable position.

“Here,” he said, putting a pillow beneath her head. “Better?”

Oh, that made a world of difference, though. A world. “Much better,” she confirmed, thinking that she could probably try it again. She wet her lips, waiting for him to put it back in her mouth again, but when he didn’t, she grabbed hold of it, gently tugging forward. “Come on, Bellamy,” she coaxed.

He was definitely hesitant, but his cock was rock hard and dripping pre-cum, clearly ready to keep going. “You’re doing so good,” he told her, stroking her hair.

She shivered, because of course she loved hearing that. Of course.

He put his cock back in her mouth, but this time, he kept his thrusts very shallow. And this wasn’t uncomfortable at all. She was able to concentrate most of her attention on the head of it, which was the most sensitive part anyway, and he still got to quite literally fuck her mouth.

Blowjobs were strange things. Having something so big in her mouth, something that she could actually feel throbbing against her tongue and her cheeks . . . it was a whirlwind. This was different than sucking Finn’s dick, which she’d always just done out of obligation. This was way different than sucking on a rubber dildo with Lexa. This was Bellamy, his taste, his texture. And even though he was the one controlling the pace and depth of this right now, she was still the one who had the power, in a way, the power to give him pleasure, the power to hold his undivided attention.

It was a complete rush, one that made her rub her thighs together shamelessly and moan.

He stared to pant for air, and his hips began to move on their own accord, faster, farther. Her mouth really did feel more relaxed, though, and she was fine now. She could take it.

She hadn’t even realized she’d been touching herself until his hand came down between her legs, nudging hers aside. He leaned over her, rubbing her wet pussy, stroking his fingers up and down her slit before pressing one into her. Her hips bucked in response, because suddenly, this wasn’t just about giving him pleasure. She was getting it, too.

“You like that?” he asked, soon adding a second digit.

She moved wantonly against his hand, desperately enjoying the stimulation he was providing. This was how he was planning on getting her off, she figured, until he surprised the hell out of her by removing his hand, standing up, and pulling his cock out of her mouth. She lay there with her mouth still open, gasping for air, wiping away the saliva that now coated her lips and chin. “What’re you--”

Her question was cut short when he put his arms underneath her, hoisting her into the air. She gasped, not even sure what was happening at first. She felt her legs go upward, way upward, to the point where they were over his shoulders and flailing to the side. With determined strength, he lifted her up farther, to the point where her thighs were on his shoulders and her pussy was right in front of his face.

“Oh my god,” she managed breathlessly. This was . . . what even was this? Was this an actual position, or was he just inventing a new one? Even though she was upside down, clinging to him like a tree, her face was at the perfect level to suck his cock some more, so a standing sixty-nine was likely his goal here. Indeed, it seemed she was correct when his mouth came into contact with her pussy, zig-zagging up and down her folds before flicking rapidly over her clit.

Oh god, she thought as volts of pleasure started to zing through her. Oh god.

Bellamy was strong, but even he wouldn’t be able to hold her up like this for long. Recognizing the abbreviated window of opportunity for this position, she took him back into her mouth, sucking aggressively this time, wanting to match his level of oral prowess (even though that was impossible). Since she had to hold onto his waist to keep from sliding down, she couldn’t use her hands to help her this time. All she could do was attempt to bob her head the same way she did when she was on her knees in front of him or nestled in between his legs.

When she started to fall a bit, he hoisted her back up again, even though his legs were shaking with strain, even though his arms had to be killing him. She wasn’t afraid that he’d drop her, but she was still afraid she might fall. His entire body was becoming slippery with sweat because of the physical exertion this required of him. It was a crazy position, one that made her feel wild and daring as fuck, but it wasn’t conducive to anything long-term. She was starting to feel dizzy as the blood rushed to her head, and the last thing she wanted to do was pass out on him.

“Bellamy?” she breathed.

Somehow, that was all she had to say. He carefully laid her back down on the bed, making sure her head was once again on that pillow, but instead of going back to the blowjob position, he crawled up there with her, maneuvering so that he was lying down with his head between her legs.

It looked just like the picture she’d drawn.

“Please,” she begged.

His mouth was already on her, though, almost as if it’d never left. He ate her out greedily, with abandon, not concerned about being sloppy. His heated breath rasped against her as he licked her up and down like she was a popsicle, and he pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses to her inner thighs before gently sucking and nibbling on her clit. She watched him work on her, in awe of what he was doing, because a few minutes ago, she’d been nowhere close, and now, she felt like she could cum at any second.

“Oh . . .” How had this happened? She’d started out giving him a blowjob, and now, even though he hadn’t climaxed yet, he was going down on her?

He was in the zone, clearly. There was no stopping him. Not that she would have stopped him to save the world, because it felt so damn good and her thighs were quivering. Normally he looked up at her when he did this, monitored her reaction. But it was like he was operating an all-time confidence high this time, like he just knew he was giving her everything and there wasn’t anything she wanted more.

“Yes,” she gasped, clutching at the bed sheets. “Oh god, Bellamy!” She came hard and she came suddenly, pressing down hard against his face as her orgasm tore through her. He lapped at every big of fluid her body produced, everything he could get. And when she was done, he almost looked a bit disappointed that there hadn’t been more for him to taste. He gave her a few more lazy kisses, which felt tantalizing to her uber-sensitive flesh, and sat back, gazing down at her with that same lusty look he’d had in his eyes when they’d started. His hand was on his cock, and he was jerking himself off rapidly.

“Bellamy . . .” She felt like she was on another planet right now, but still, she could do that for him.

He shook his head stubbornly and walked forward on his knees, positing the head of his cock above her stomach. With a few more nearly violent pumps, he groaned and got off, shooting his cum onto her lower abdomen. It came out in spurts, white hot and sticky. There was . . . quite a lot of it, so she was pretty thoroughly coated.

The whole thing was incredibly arousing for Clarke. Bellamy had only cum on her body a few times before, but damn, it looked good. He must have thought so, too, because when he was done, he gazed down at her through half-hooded eyes and grunted, “Fuck.”

She smiled dazedly. Fuck indeed.

Afterward, he lay down and sprawled out, but she was in desperate need of a shower. She got cleaned up, ran a quick shampoo through her hair, towel-dried it to the point where she could sleep on it, and then rejoined Bellamy in the bedroom. “Bellamy, can I--” She stopped abruptly when she saw him lying there, though, eyes shut, mouth gently parted as he slept with the light still on. He looked . . . so freaking cute. How someone that cute could turn into such a sex god and become so smoldering was a mystery to her.

She was so distracted by his adorableness that she forgot what she was even going to ask him. Something about his clothes, maybe? Certain t-shirts of his were her favorite to sleep in, so chances were, it was something about that.

Careful not to wake him, she pulled open his top dresser drawer quietly, dug around for a minute, and finally found his black Led Zeppelin one. She threw it on, not bothering with bottoms, and tiptoed towards the bed. The mattress squeaked when she tried to lie down, and she cringed.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, eyes still shut. “I’m not all the way asleep.”

She settled in the rest of the way, getting comfy on her side, pulling the sheet up over her waist. “Well, you look, sleepy.”

“I am.” He rubbed his eyes, struggling to open them again. “That was good tonight,” he said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s good every night.” Wait a minute, she thought. What if he’d said that because it wasn’t as good for him every night as it was for her? “Isn’t it?” she asked warily.

He smiled tiredly. “Yeah, it’s good every night.”

She breathed an inward sigh of relief. She’d figured as much, what with him never really struggling to achieve an orgasm or anything; but it was still nice to have that verbal reassurance.

“I love gettin’ you off that way,” he murmured lowly.

She shuddered, because without a doubt, the sexiest thing about Bellamy’s oral technique was that he seemed to enjoy doing it so much. “I’ve noticed,” she said, wondering if her preferred that or blowjobs. Then she figured she’d might as well ask him, because otherwise, his eyes were going to close again, and he was just going to fall asleep. “What do you like more,” she inquired, “somebody going down on you or you going down on someone?”

His eyes snapped back open, as though this were something he was eager to talk about. “Oh, going down on someone,” he answered without delay. “No doubt.”

“Really?” That seemed weird to her, for some reason. She’d always assumed that guys valued blowjobs more than pretty much anything else. Finn had been nuts—no pun intended—about it, said it was his favorite thing.

“Yeah, I love it. It’s the best,” he raved. “Watchin’ a girl fall apart, all because of what you’ve done to her . . .” He smiled appreciatively. “There’s nothin’ like it.”

“Nothing like it?” she pressed. “So you like it better than actual sex?”

“Yeah,” he answered a bit too quickly. “No. Wait. I don’t know.”

Her eyes bulged. “You don’t know?”

“Well . . . okay, actual sex is the best,” he acknowledged. “But after that . . .”

“Wow.” She felt . . . selfish suddenly. Because, although she was more than willing to give blowjobs and found it very arousing in its own right, she definitely preferred getting head to giving it.

“I don’t know what it is,” he went on contemplatively. “But I’ve always loved it. Haven’t always been good at it, but I’ve always loved it. It’s just . . .” He sighed wistfully. “It’s amazing.”

“Better to give than to receive?” she surmised.

“Yeah, something like that.” He closed his eyes again, and she wasn’t sure whether he was tired or just fantasizing, but when he opened them again, she assumed it was the latter. “Well, it depends on who I’m with, too,” he added. “Because if she’s just some random chick I met at the bar . . .”

“As opposed to the classy girl you met at Walmart.”

“Right. Then I might not . . . I might not really care as much,” he confessed. “I mean, I’ll do it if she wants, but I’m a guy. Sometimes we just like to get in and get done. But like with you . . .” He lifted up the sheet, peeking underneath. “I love doing that to you. I can’t get enough.”

She inhaled shakily, trying not to get too turned on by that. He was tired, and she’d already showered. But that low, gravelly voice of his was so damn seductive.

Nope. Time for bed.

“That’s really interesting,” she said. “Surprising.”

He shook his head. “It’s not just me. Lots of guys like it.”

“Better than blowjobs?”

He nodded.

“Some don’t,” she said. “Finn didn’t.”

“Well, Finn sucks.”

“Lexa liked it, though.”

“Then Lexa’s awesome.”

She laughed.

“What about you?” he asked. “What do you like better?”

“Well . . .” She blushed, not able to lie. “I like it all, but . . . yeah, you’re really good at that, obviously, so I like it when you . . . do your thing.”

“Is it your favorite?” he asked excitedly.

“Probably tied with actual sex.”

He smirked, nodding proudly. “Awesome.”

“Not that I don’t like doing it to you,” she made sure to add. Yeah, sometimes her mouth muscles hurt afterward, and the taste of semen wasn’t exactly fine dining; but the same sense of pleasure that Bellamy felt in making her happy, she felt it from making him happy, too.

“No, I’m glad you prefer when I do it,” he said. “I like doing things for you, Clarke.”

Good, she thought, blushing. Then hopefully he’d keep on doing them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It wasn’t an easy thing to do, but Bellamy knew he had to do it. He swallowed his pride and stepped into the Trikru art gallery for the first time in his life. Octavia had been trying to get him there for the past two years, but he’d always found an excuse not to go. But not this time. There were no other art galleries in Arkadia. This was his one and only option to get . . . what he needed.

The first thing he noticed was how big the space was. It surprised him, because on the outside, it didn’t look that huge. On the inside, though, it seemed to extend forever, displays upon displays. It was very open, very white so as not to distract from the artwork itself. Not very crowded, though it was just the middle of the afternoon. Lincoln’s friend Nyko was chatting with a small group of people back at what looked like a wintertime exhibit. Meanwhile, Lincoln was admiring an abstract painting of lines with a young woman at one of the exhibits up front. I Was Vivacious, a plaque next to the painting read. Bellamy wasn’t sure whether or not that was the title of the painting or the whole exhibit itself.

“It’s a beautiful piece,” Lincoln was saying. “It’d look great in a very daring type of room. Or in a minimalistic space like this, to draw attention to it.”

So this was what the guy did. Huh. Bellamy hadn’t ever given it much thought, but this gallery was Lincoln’s livelihood. And by extension, it was Octavia’s. For now, at least. If they stayed together. This entrepreneurial effort was what had financed their vacation to Mexico and what would pave the way for India or Thailand or wherever the hell they’d said they were going next.

Bellamy wasn’t about to intrude, so he wandered a bit, somewhat drawn towards an exhibit called All Mixed Up. This one was all photography, and as far as he could tell at first glance, the whole theme seemed to be mixed race children. He could appreciate that since, even without knowing his father, he knew that was what he was. Some of the photos of just the kids looked like something out of National Geographic, but there were a few that had the parents in them, too. Those looked like perfect family portraits: a mom, a dad, a kid or two. All of them smiling.

“Bellamy?”

He spun around when Lincoln said his name. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Lincoln stared at him confusedly.

Great, Bellamy thought, awkward right from the start.

“What are you doing here?” Lincoln questioned, eyes suddenly growing wide with panic. “Is it Octavia? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine.” As much as Bellamy still questioned this guy, it was good to know that his sister sprung to his mind so quickly. “I just thought I’d . . . stop by.”

Lincoln frowned.

“I like art,” Bellamy claimed, strolling further through All Mixed Up. “This is cool,” he said, pointing to a photo of two parents fused together. One was white, one was black, and neither one of them cared.

“That’s a new exhibit,” Lincoln said. “Popular.”

“I’ll bet.” Bellamy tapped the sketchbook in his hand against his leg, trying to think of a segue into his real reason for being there. “You got a little bit of everything here, huh?” he noticed. “Sculptures, paintings, photos.”

“A variety,” Lincoln said tersely. The guy never really said a whole lot. He was very stoic. Which was fine, except that made it hard for Bellamy to carry on a conversation with him.

“Alright, look, I’m just gonna cut to the chase,” Bellamy finally decided. “I need a favor.”

Lincoln looked surprised. “From me?”

“Yeah.” Oh, the irony . . . it was not lost on him.

Lincoln frowned again, crossing his arms over his chest as if to say that he had no interest in doing favors for Bellamy.

He swallowed his pride again, trying to be nice without being a suck-up. It wasn’t an easy balance to strike. “I know I can be a jerk to you, so I probably have no right to ask,” he acknowledged. “But it’s not for me, really. It’s for Clarke.”

“Clarke?” Lincoln echoed.

“Yeah. I’m her . . . her secret Santa.” He rolled his eyes. “I wanna get her something good, something she’d never get herself, something she’d really appreciate; but when the budget’s fifteen dollars, that kinda limits the possibilities.”

“You wanna buy one of these paintings for her?” Lincoln assumed. “Or one of these photos?”

“No.” There were no price tags on them, but he had a feeling he couldn’t afford anything here, especially not after buying the trampoline.

“Then I’m not sure what I can--”

“Clarke’s an artist,” Bellamy reminded him, “as you know. And she’s—she’s good. She’s really good.”

Lincoln unfolded his arms, but he still looked tense.

“I know you guys do student exhibits,” Bellamy said, slowly walking towards the much larger man. “I was wondering if you could do one for her.”

Lincoln sighed heavily, contemplatively. “There’s a waiting list,” he said. “Every art student at the university wants to have an exhibit here.”

“Yeah, but Clarke’s not every student,” Bellamy pointed out. “She’s your friend.”

“She’s your friend,” Lincoln corrected.

“Yeah, but she likes you. She defends you to me.”

Lincoln subtly rolled his eyes. “Is that her sketchbook?” he asked, motioning to what Bellamy had in his hand.

“Yeah. Here, take a look.” Bellamy handed it over, hoping Clarke wouldn’t be too pissed at him for taking this. His plan for returning it, as of right now, was to smuggle it into her apartment under his jacket and put it back on her desk before she even noticed it was gone. And if she caught him . . . well, then he’d just say he took it so he could jack off to her sexy drawing. That seemed plausible.

Lincoln flipped through the pages, not taking as much time on each drawing as Bellamy would have liked. Lincoln was probably used to doing this, though, looking over artwork quickly, making a judgment on whether or not it had potential. Bellamy hoped he saw what was obvious, that Clarke’s work did have potential.

“She’s young,” Lincoln remarked, “inexperienced.”

Oh, no, Bellamy thought. That didn’t sound good.

“But . . .” Lincoln added, drawing it out. “You’re right. Her drawings are good.”

Damn right, they are. He took the book when Lincoln handed it back to him. “So you think you can help me out?” he asked.

“Let me get this straight,” Lincoln said, narrowing his eyes. “You want to arrange for Clarke to have an exhibit at Trikru. And you want me to make these arrangements by Christmas?”

“Yeah.” It couldn’t have taken that long, right? All he had to do was talk to his buddy and get him to agree to it, set a date or month or whatever they did, and tell Clarke to get some stuff ready.

“We’d need to have the space,” Lincoln pondered aloud. “She’d have to make these drawings into paintings. Drawings don’t sell well.”

“She can paint,” Bellamy promised.

“Have you seen her paint before?”

“No,” he admitted. “But she has a painting in her living room, one she did herself. She can do it.”

“Hmm.” To his credit, Lincoln wasn’t just shooting the idea down; he did actually seem to be thinking about it. “Has she shown anywhere before?” he inquired.

“I don’t think so. She told me she’s sold some stuff at art fairs on campus.”

“Then that means she has no experience putting together a collection.”

“She can do it,” Bellamy insisted, not willing to let this opportunity for her slip right through his grasp. “Please. She deserves this. She’s a good artist, and a good person, and . . .” He swallowed hard, looking down at her feet. “I just wanna give this to her.” He was tired of getting thrift store gifts for this secret Santa thing. Last year, he’d gotten Miller a pair of shoes. Shoes from the thrift store. Granted, that was what Miller had asked for, but still . . . it just seemed pointless to do that with Clarke. She had money, more of it than he did. If she ever ran out of her money, she had her parents’ money to fall back on. She could go out and buy herself nice things. But this? This was something she wouldn’t make an effort to go get. Because even though she probably wanted it, she was too nervous to ask about it, so she’d just second guess the entire thing.

“I’ll talk to Nyko,” Lincoln finally decided. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Bellamy smiled, excited. “Thank you.”

“I’m not making any guarantees,” Lincoln warned.

“I understand.” If worst came to worst and this didn’t work out, then he’d think of something else for a gift. Maybe he’d build her something. He was a handyman, after all. He had tools. “Thank you,” he said. Didn’t have to swallow his pride for that one. He was sincerely and genuinely grateful.

With Clarke’s sketchbook in hand, he started to leave, stopping at the front door, whirling around. “By the way,” he said, “I really am sorry for--”

“Bellamy,” Lincoln cut in sternly. “If you don’t mean it, don’t say it.”

He wanted to say it, just to end the conversation on a good note. But he didn’t really mean it. Not yet. Apologizing to Octavia was easy, because she was his little sister and he loved her unconditionally. Apologizing to Lincoln, however, was very much a work in progress, and it probably would be for a long time. He couldn’t help it. It had become so engrained in him to dislike the guy that doing anything else felt uncomfortable.

“Thanks,” he said again as he walked out the door.

God, he hoped this worked. If it did, if Lincoln came through for him . . . well, then he’d dislike the guy a lot less.

Chapter Text

Chapter 16

The entertainment options for the night were either beer pong or Never Have I Ever. Clarke wasn’t particularly good at beer pong, so her vote went for Never Have I Ever. She hadn’t played it since high school, back when she really never had done anything. Most high schoolers probably just lied and made stuff up to seem cool anyway. She sure had.

Bellamy opted for Never Have I Ever, too, but made sure to remind everyone that, as soon as Octavia got there, they had to quit playing, because he didn’t want to know about what she had and hadn’t done. There were a few dissenters in the group, notably Jasper, who was all in on beer pong, and Murphy, who threw out a third option altogether: “Trampoline.”

“Yeah, go have fun on your trampoline,” Miller urged sarcastically. “It’s, like, three degrees out there. I’m sure you’ll have a blast.”

Everyone grabbed a drink and settled themselves in the living room, in spots that were becoming familiar at this point: Bellamy and Clarke on the couch, Miller and Jackson cuddling up in the recliner, Murphy on his bean bag and Emori with her head in his lap. Monty had taken to pulling over one of the kitchen chairs, and Harper gladly sat in his lap. Jasper had to sit on the floor near the bathroom in case he drank or smoked too much and got sick, and Maya, dutiful girlfriend that she was, usually sat down there with him.

“I’m gonna end up drinking so much,” Bellamy warned Clarke. “I’ve done a lot.”

“Pace yourself,” she told him, although since she was the lightweight and he could actually hold his liquor, he’d probably still end up having to carry her upstairs tonight.

“Who wants to start?” Miller invited.

“Oh, me, me,” Jasper said eagerly, raising his hand as if he were in school. “Never have I ever . . . read a whole novel in one day.”

There was a lot of grunting and grumbling in response to that one, and no one took a drink. Except for Bellamy of course, who muttered, “I can’t believe that’s just me,” before he brought the rim of his glass to his lips.

“Your turn,” Jasper said.

“Alright, never have I ever . . .” He thought about it for a moment, shrugging. “I don’t know. Taken food out of the trash to eat it.”

“Ew,” Emori said, and Harper, too, made a face.

“Don’t judge,” Jasper told them. “You can find some good stuff in there.” Instead of drinking, he took a hit from his bong. Jasper played his own version of the game.

“Ooh, I’ve got one,” Harper chirped. “Never have I ever . . . had a crush on a friend’s parent.”

“Oh, here we go,” Bellamy growled.

“Dude! Your mom!” Murphy exclaimed, laughing. “Fuck yeah, am I right?”

“You’re right,” Monty agreed. “Sorry, Bellamy.”

“Just kill me now,” he groaned dramatically, pressing his face against Clarke’s shoulder.

“There, there,” she soothed, patting his head.

“Even I gotta admit it,” Miller said, “and I’m gay. But she’s a MILF, man.” He, Murphy, and Monty all raised their glasses and took a drink, and Jasper just laughed, off his own happy place, dazedly agreeing, “Yeah . . .”

Monty was up next with “Never have I ever cheated on a test.”

Murphy snorted in response and muttered, “That’s the only way I could pass high school,” before he took a drink. Harper and Emori took one, too, and Bellamy looked at Clarke expectantly. “Go ahead,” he urged.

“What?” She’d never cheated on a test before.

“That paper.”

She rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t a test. That was an essay.”

“Same thing.” He beamed at his friends and said, “Clarke here recently turned in an essay that was ‘exemplary work.’ Am I right, Clarke?”

She glared at him, pretending to be angry, and conceded to taking a drink.

For her question, she didn’t really know what to say. There were a lot of things she’d never done that they were used to doing. Secret Santas and the Wop for starters. She threw out something random, though, declaring, “Never have I ever jumped off a roof.” She really didn’t expect anyone to drink to that, but for some reason, Bellamy and Murphy smiled at each other, and they both did.

Sweet little Maya . . . hers was innocent enough. She said she’d never been arrested, and Jasper just threw his hands up in the air and asked, “I gotta take a hit for every time?” Murphy drank to that one, too, and much to Clarke’s surprise . . . even Bellamy took a subtle sip.

“Really?” she said, trying to think what he could have possibly done to warrant an arrest. She wouldn’t have pictured that with him.

“It’s a long story,” he said. And that was all he said about it.

Murphy, of course, could always be counted upon to take any relatively innocent situation and push it down a more perverted path, so he was the first one to offer up anything sex-related when he said, “I’ve never slept with someone of the same gender.”

Miller and Jackson grinned at each other and exchanged a kiss before drinking, and of course Clarke did the same. Everyone started to freak out and when Harper brought her glass up to her mouths, though, too, and Monty stared at his girlfriend in astonishment.

“Oh, sex?” she said. “No, I was thinking just about kissing. Never mind.”

From there on out, everything was sexual. Maya said she’d never had a one-night stand, which nearly everyone else drank to. But not Clarke. She looked at Bellamy and said, “That’s almost what you were to me.”

“Good thing I wasn’t, huh?”

She smiled. Yeah, it was a very good thing.

Monty said he’d never done friends with benefits, staring pointedly at Bellamy and Clarke as he spoke the words. Bellamy held out his glass and said, “Bottoms up, Princess.” She toasted with him to that and took another swig, nearing the end of her beer. Bellamy was already done with his, so when Emori went into the kitchen to get more for Murphy, he asked her to bring him another can, too. He poured some in Clarke’s glass but kept the majority for himself, predicting that he’d need it.

Oh, and he did.

Harper’s claim was that she’d never taken nude photos of herself. Clarke tried to inconspicuously drink to that one, but Bellamy didn’t hide it at all, and neither did Miller and Jackson or Murphy and Emori. After that, though, Bellamy just sort of had to keep drinking.

“I’ve never gone streaking,” Jackson offered up.

Drink.

“I’ve never had sex with more than one person in 24 hours,” Miller claimed.

Drink.

Clarke’s eyes grew wider and wider with shock with every gulp of alcohol he took. When it was her turn, she said, “I’ve never had a threesome,” thinking that that one might be enough to give him a break, but . . . nope, he drank to that, too.

“Bellamy’s gonna get smashed,” Miller chuckled.

Oh my god, Clarke thought. He really is so much more experienced than me. Suddenly, she was picturing him with two women at once (because there was no way Bellamy would do a boy-girl-boy one). In a way, the thought of him doing that was arousing, but it was also intimidating as hell. He could handle two girls and she could barely handle him?

“Okay, I’ll give you a break, Bellamy,” Emori said. “Never have I ever . . . been rimmed.”

Murphy grunted. “Not yet.”

Clarke frowned, trying to think of what that even was while Miller and Jackson both unabashedly took a drink. “What’s that mean?” she asked Bellamy quietly.

“You’ve done it,” he told her. “You liked it.”

She had? How come she couldn’t remember it then? She shrugged and took a drink, figuring it was something he’d done to her without her even realizing it.

“Clarke!” Emori gasped, shocked.

“What?” Why was everyone looking at her like she’d just confessed to murder or something? Jasper’s eyes were wide as saucers, and Harper’s mouth was hanging open in disbelief.

When she looked over at Bellamy, he had his fist over his mouth and was trying not to laugh.

“Oh, what is it really, Bellamy?” she demanded. Clearly he’d walked her into this one.

“It’s an anal sex thing, Clarke,” Emori informed her bluntly.

“What? I haven’t done that!”

Beside her, Bellamy just laughed, and all his friends started to laugh along with him.

“Bellamy!” She grabbed the couch pillow and hit him over the head with it a good number of times. But eventually, he retaliated by tickling her sides, and soon, she was laughing, too.

Murphy was up next, and he’d also been taking plenty of drinks tonight, probably the most of anyone besides Bellamy; so it seemed a little hard for him to find something he hadn’t done. He finally settled on, “I’ve never done a strip tease.”

“Dammit,” Bellamy swore, taking yet another swig.

“Seriously?” Now she got to picture him doing that, too.

“I’m a good dancer,” he reminded her.

Well . . . that was very true. All of a sudden, she was picturing him like one of the Magic Mike guys, and that was one hot picture. That made her want to drag him upstairs and ask him to strip for her.

“Drink up, Clarke,” he said, nudging her side.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Harper said. “Clarke, you did a strip tease?”

“I tried,” she admitted, taking a drink.

“A+ for effort,” Bellamy awarded her.

Towards the end of that round, when they were all feeling very buzzed and perhaps a little tipsy, Jasper proclaimed that he’d never fucked a married person before. No one drank to that, but everyone looked at Bellamy as though they expected him, too. When it was his turn to finish it up, he said, “Alright, never have I ever been paid for sex before,” and that got a skeptical huff out of Murphy.

“Diana Sydney,” he said.

“No, she pays me for working shirtless,” Bellamy corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Later, once Monty and Jasper had taken their girlfriends home for the night, once Miller and Jackson had retired to Miller’s room and Murphy and Emori had done the same to Murphy’s, Clarke stood in Bellamy’s bathroom, brushing her teeth, thinking about tonight’s little game. Bellamy was lucky he wasn’t a lightweight, because he’d easily ended up drinking twice as much as everyone else. Clarke was pretty certain that if she’d said, “Never have I ever been electrocuted,” he would have had to drink to that one, too.

It was head-spinning, honestly. The guy was twenty-three years old, only two years older than her. But it seemed like he’d done so much more. Not just the sex things, either, but . . . everything. Maybe he hadn’t gone to college like he’d intended to, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done anything in his life.

When she padded out of the bathroom, she saw that he’d stripped down to a pair of boxers and was already unmaking the bed. “You tired?” he asked. “Or you wanna fool around?”

Normally, her answer would have been obvious, but tonight, she felt a little uncertain. “How are you even into me?” she blurted, feeling like the question had been lingering since for the majority of the night.

“What?”

“Clearly I’m not your only option. And Bellamy, you’ve done everything,” she pointed out.

“I haven’t done everything,” he denied.

“Oh, really? Because you drank to almost everything down there.”

“Yeah, so?” He shrugged flippantly. “I’ve had some wild nights. I live it up sometimes. But I haven’t done everything. Roan’s done everything.”

“Okay, but aside from that kinky BDSM shit, you’ve done everything,” she maintained.

“No, I’ve just had fun from time to time.”

“I know, but . . .” She wasn’t sure how to explain where the sudden insecurity was coming from. It wasn’t that she was judging him or anything. If anything, she respected his spontaneity, his lively spirit. It was just that, comparing her own life experiences to his, she felt like she wasn’t measuring up. “Bellamy, so many of those things you’ve done, I haven’t. Threesomes? Streaking? Rim-jobs?” She threw her hands up in the air. “What even . . .?”

He lowered his head, laughing a little.

“What’s so funny?” she snapped.

“You.” He walked around the bed, meandering towards her sultrily, eyes on hers the whole time. “You thinking that matters to me.”

“Doesn’t it, though?” If he’d done things like that before, with other women, then what if he got antsy to do them again? “I know I’m not a prude or anything,” she acknowledged, “obviously, but . . . compared to all the other things you’ve done, aren’t you bored with me?”

He frowned so deeply, almost as if he were offended she’d ask that. “Clarke.” He touched her cheek with his thumb, shaking his head. “I could never be bored with you. Think of everything we’ve done together.”

She did think of it—the semi-public sex, the standing sixty-nine, the strip-tease, and hell, even the TonDC dancing—and when she really took the time to take it all in . . . well, then yeah, maybe she’d been more adventurous than she thought.

“When I say you’re doing good,” he went on, holding the side of her neck, “I’m not just saying it to turn you on. You really are doing good, Clarke, and trust me . . . I’m more than satisfied.”

Well, that was definitely a bit of a thrill, knowing that she could satisfy a guy who had way more experience than she did. “Me, too,” she told him.

“Great, then why are we having this conversation?”

“I don’t know.” She ran one hand through her hair, shaking her head. “Sometimes it’s just—it’s just intimidating knowing that you have so many other women to compare me to.”

“And you don’t think it’s ever intimidating for me?” He snorted. “You’re bi, Clarke. I gotta think about you comparing me to men and women.”

“Okay, point taken.” She’d been freaking out about nothing. Still, it was nice to have that reassurance from him, though, that he really was enjoying all of this as much as she was, that it really was as satisfying to him as it was to her.

“Hmm,” he said, threading one through her hair. “Maybe this isn’t really about me. Maybe it’s about you.”

She tilted her head to the side curiously. “Huh?”

“You,” he repeated. “Maybe you just wanna try something new and you don’t know how to ask.”

Try something new? Her mind raced with possibilities, some she would consider, and some she wouldn’t? Threesome? No way. Streaking? Maybe if it was dark enough. Anal sex? She wasn’t ready for that yet, but perhaps someday.

“What do you wanna do?” he asked. “I’ll do it with you.”

“Bellamy, I have no idea.”

“Come on, think of something you’ve never done, and we’ll go do it.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes widened. God, she loved his passion. It inspired her. He’d definitely rubbed off on her over the past couple months, from that very first night at Dropship onward, so if he wanted to do something tonight, then she was totally down for doing it. But her problem was that, when given the opportunity, she couldn’t decide. Her mind produced plenty of ideas, but she second-guessed every single one of them or talked herself out of them.

“Why don’t you think of something?” she suggested. “Something you think I’ll like. Something you think I’ve never done before.”

He smirked, almost as if that were a challenge. “Okay,” he said. “I got an idea.”

“Already?”

“Yeah. But we gotta go over to your place.”

“My place?” What could they possibly do there that they couldn’t do here?

“Yeah, let’s get dressed,” he coaxed. “Let’s go.”

He already had his clothes on and was looking for his keys when she finally took off his oversized t-shirt and changed into one of her own. Whatever he had in mind, it was a mystery to her, and that really required her to trust him. But that wasn’t hard to do. Never had she ever doubted that he would take care of her.

When they got to her apartment complex, rather than jumping on the elevator and heading up to her floor, he took her hand and led her down the hall instead. They walked past the gym she’d never once ventured into and went to the indoor pool.

“Oh, this is nice,” he remarked.

It was nice. In the evenings like this, the lighting was soft and ambient, and it was usually uncrowded. Tonight, with it being as late as it was, no one else was down there. It was quiet, and the water was still.

“Swimming?” Clarke said. “I’ve been swimming before, you know.”

“Not swimming,” he said, walking over to the edge of the pool and looked down at the water. “Skinny-dipping.” He grinned at her and started to take off his shoes.

“What? Bellamy.” She immediately looked over her shoulder, worried that someone else would walk in. Just because there wasn’t anyone else in there right now, that didn’t mean it’d stay so vacant. “This is the pool for everyone who lives in this building,” she pointed out.

“Okay.” As he started to remove his jeans, he seemed completely undeterred.

“Anyone could come down here,” she fretted. Hell, there were two people in that gym just on the other side of the wall.

“Clarke, it’s 1:00 a.m. It’s December. Nobody’s gonna go swimming.”

Perhaps that were true, but still . . . “Anyone could find us.”

“Fine. They can watch.” He shucked his pants off, then stepped out of his boxers, too. Naked as the day he was born, he sat down on the side and lowered himself into that water, immediately sinking all the way up to his chest. “Oh, yeah. Water’s warm,” he said. “Get in here, Clarke.”

Again, she looked over at the door. The glass door. A door that people could look through even if they didn’t come inside. “What if we get caught?” she worried. People got arrested for this sort of thing. But then again, according to tonight’s little game, getting arrested was also something Bellamy had already done.

“What if we don’t?” he countered mischievously before he submerged himself completely. When he came back up, he had to shake his thick dark curls out of his eyes. And he looked so damn sexy. “Come on,” he coaxed, not letting up.

Her heart raced with anticipation, some of it the nervous kind, but some of it the excited kind, too. As risky as this was . . . it sounded fun. And chances were, even if they did get caught, whoever caught them would be way more embarrassed than they were. “Fine,” she agreed, toeing off her shoes. She grabbed the hem of her shirt and mumbled, “The things I do with you, Bellamy Blake . . .” as she pulled it up and over her head. She didn’t even attempt to make it sexy as she got out of her pants.

“There you go,” he encouraged, eyes dancing all over her body as it came into view.

Why she’d even put on panties when she’d known very well that she probably wouldn’t need them, she wasn’t sure. But she slipped those off last, dropping them on top of Bellamy’s boxers, then cast one more wary glance over her shoulder.

“Just get right in,” he told her.

She went over to the steps, holding onto the handrail as she stepped down into the water, quickly, eager to get underneath so that nobody could see much of anything even if they did walk in. When she was only knee-deep in the water, though, she realized that he hadn’t told her the truth about its temperature at all. “Shit, Bellamy,” she swore. “This is fucking cold!”

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll make you hot.”

Oh, of that she had no doubt. But that didn’t change the fact that this water was freezing.

“Get in,” he said again, moving deeper in the water so that it was up all the way to his shoulders. “It gets warmer, I promise.”

“God, I feel like I’m in the Arctic,” she grumbled, continuing down the steps. When her feet hit the bottom, she was only deep enough for it to come up to her stomach, so she had to wade deeper, shivering as she managed to get to the point where it was up past her chest. At the very least, now she was concealed. Partially. It wasn’t like the water was hiding much. If somebody walked in . . .

When Bellamy sank under the surface and came back up with wet, messy hair again, she found herself caring less about the possibility of someone walking in on them.

“Better?” he asked, moving towards her.

She nodded mutely, fixated on the beads of water clinging to his chest.

“Yeah?” He put one hand on her shoulder, comfortingly at first, until all of a sudden, he pushed down, dunking her completely.

“Bellamy!” she yelled when she came back up for air, smoothing her hair out of her face.

He laughed playfully.

“Seriously, Bellamy!” First he’d tricked her into claiming she’d been rimmed when she certainly never had before, and now this? “Are you trying to piss me off tonight or what?”

“Yeah,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“Because you’re cute when you’re pissed.”

As much as she was trying to actually be pissed . . . that was difficult to do when he said things like that. Turnabout was fair play, though. If he wanted to mess with her, she’d mess with him right back.

“Oh, I’ll show you how cute I can be,” she threatened, lunging at him. He didn’t really bother to move as she jumped on him, having to use all her body weight to force him under water. She couldn’t hold him there for long, though, and when he came back up, he wasted no time trying to grab her around the waist.

“You wanna play, huh?”

She squealed, managing to slip through his grasp and swim away. However, she made the mistake of swimming towards the deepest part of the water, six feet, where she could no longer touch the bottom, which meant all she could do was tread water as he came towards her. The water went up pretty far on him, too, but standing on his tip toes, he could still keep his head above the surface.

“What’re you gonna do now, huh?” he taunted.

She splashed him, because that was really all she could do.

“Oh, you wanna start that?” He splashed her back more forcefully.

She splashed him again, then unsuccessfully tried to swim towards the side; but he dove towards her, grabbing hold of first her legs, then her waist, pulling her back into his arms, preventing her from getting anywhere. Before she knew it, he was dunking her underwater again, but this time, he went under with her. Since she didn’t have her eyes open, she was surprised when she felt his mouth on hers.

When they both came up for air, she said, “Did you really just kiss me underwater?”

“Yeah.”

She laughed lightly, blinking the water out of her eyes. “I feel like the little mermaid.”

“Well, she was a princess.” He took her hands in his and pulled her back into the shallower depths of the pool, where her feet could once again touch the ground, even if the water still went up past her chest. They stood in front of each other, eyes locked, catching their breath. He had that look going on, the look where, even though he was having fun, his mind was running wild with the possibilities of what other fun they could have.

Hers was starting to the do the same.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. His eyes dropped to look at her chest, and she couldn’t help but do the same to him.

“You’re not too bad yourself.” Understatement. Sometimes she wanted to put her hands on his body so badly, it felt like her fingertips were burning. Like right now. So she splayed her hands against his chest, delighting in the way his pectoral muscle flinched beneath her touch. His hands moved down well below the surface to rub up and down her sides, and he pulled her entire body in closer. She didn’t even realize he was walking her backwards until she felt the side of the pool against her back and shoulders. His larger body enveloped hers as he pressed her up against it.

She grazed her fingertips against his arms, amazed by the way he was . . . shaking. His arm muscles shivered beneath her touch, and his breathing was starting to come out in the form of shudders. He is cold, she realized as he kissed her with quivering lips. But the strange thing was . . . she wasn’t anymore.

The way he held her there against the side of the pool, the way he moved in closer so that her legs could wrap around his waist . . . it warmed her to the core. She rubbed his arms, shoulders, and back as they kissed, trying to transfer some of that same heat back into his body—his gorgeous body, the one that had so much strength in it as it surrounded her and held her close. He definitely sort of had her trapped there; she couldn’t even try to swim away now. Not that she wanted to.

He stopped shivering as he made out with her some more, and gradually, his kisses started to become more and more insistent. He kissed his way down to her neck and alternated between sucking on her skin and just breathing hotly against it. It seemed like he was getting very aroused very quickly, and all of a sudden, he was reaching beneath the surface to cup and squeeze her backside, to hold her steady so he could rub his groin against hers.

She moaned when she felt how hard he was and gasped, “Are we still alone?”

“I don’t care,” he breathed out in response, lips against her cheek. He pressed the side of his face against hers for a moment, just holding her, and then rasped, “My jeans.”

It took her a moment to realize what he was getting at, but then it dawned on her. He had a condom in there. So she reached up onto the tiled surface, trying to find them. All she felt were his boxers, though. No condom in there.

“I can’t reach,” she said.

Well, that wasn’t a problem. He lifted her up higher in the water, the buoyancy making it easy on him, to the point where she could nearly lie on the tile. The shock of going from that cold water to open air made her breathe in sharply, but she managed to reach his jeans with one hand and start fumbling around.

He held her up with his hands under her ass, legs practically on his shoulders. Of course, since he was at the perfect angle for it, he bent his head and pressed a hot kiss to the juncture between her legs, teasing her with his tongue as she double checked all four of the pockets of his jeans, wondering if she’d missed something.

“You don’t have one,” she informed him.

“What?” Frowning, he frustratedly lowered her back into the water. “Fuck.”

She grazed her hand up and down his chest, sympathizing with his disappointment. Now that they were here, doing this, and they were both to the point where they were sufficiently turned on . . . she didn’t want to stop.

“You’ve got some upstairs, though, right?” he said. “I’ll just run up and get one.” He started to move aside, but she wrapped her legs around him again, squeezing to pull him back.

“No, Bellamy, just . . .” She found his hand and lifted it above the surface so that she had a better grip on it. She didn’t want him to go anywhere.

He immediately abandoned his plans to leave, settling right back in front of her again. Their fingers swirled around each other, intertwining and disentwining, and soon enough, he was just holding her hand, thumb stroking against her palm. They became very still for a moment, both of them gazing at each other, until he brought her arm up to rest on his shoulder. She did the same with her other arm, mimicking the hold her legs had on him as he positioned himself at her entrance.

He had to use one hand to guide himself into her, but once he was there, he reached right back around to caress the small of her back. He held her close and started to rock into her rhythmically, making the water around them splash a little bit.

She clung to him, reveling in the feel of his unsheathed cock. No latex, just his body and hers. He felt so good inside of her, and she loved how his slippery chest slid so easily against hers. The water lapped at their skin, growing evermore disturbed as his thrusts became harder, faster.

There was no need to tell him what he was doing well, to urge him to keep going, or to say anything at all, really. She felt so close to him, so connected in that moment, that it wasn’t even necessary. Besides, she was trying to stay quiet.

He pressed his forehead to hers, giving her a kiss every now and then as he continued to move. She curled her hand upward to tangle in his wet hair, massaging his scalp as her breath mingled with his. When he started to breathe faster, that’s how she knew he was close. She wasn’t exactly far away herself, but she needed a little more. Whether it was his hand or her hand on her clit, that usually seemed to do the trick.

As it turned out, there was no need, though. Somehow, he managed to angle his hips just right so that his pelvis created all the friction she needed. She spread her legs as wide as she could while keeping them coiled around him and rubbed against him desperately, chasing a release that was just within her reach. They bucked against each other lustfully, splashing water all over the place now, and when she cried out and came hard, he followed her shortly after.

He stood there with her afterward, still inside her, holding her up with what had to be tired arms. She brushed his hair off his forehead, not sure if it was wet with water or sweat or some combination of the two, and she smiled at him before remembering exactly where they were.

Oh. My god. She whipped her head over her shoulder to check the door and see if anyone else was there. But thankfully, they were still alone. Hopefully that meant no one had seen them or heard them. If they had . . . oh, well.

“Hey,” he said softly, touching her cheek to get her to look at him again. “Can I tell you something?”

She nodded.

“I’ve never skinny-dipped before, either.”

“What?” He’d made it seem like he did it all the time. Or maybe she’d just assumed. “Really?”

“Really.” He smiled happily, like a kid in a candy store. “That was a first for me, too.”

She inhaled shakily, as amazed by that as she was flattered. Doing anything for the first time with somebody was a really big deal, so she was really glad Bellamy had chosen to do this with her, especially when she was doing so many things for the first time with him.

The water had calmed and grown still around them again, and it was back to feeling cold. But she didn’t want to move. Not yet, at least. For now, she just wanted to enjoy being there with him, hands on his skin while he stroked her wet hair.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Octavia still intimidated Clarke—the girl just had a very in-your-face personality. But Clarke figured the best way to overcome that was to spend some time with her, get to know her better. So after finals were done and she was officially on Christmas break, she invited Octavia and Raven out for a girl’s night. Raven initially agreed to go, but then she had to cancel at last minute when some Wick drama arose. Something about him wanting to take the couch after they’d agreed that Raven could keep the couch? Clarke didn’t know the specifics of it; all she knew was that her wing-woman wouldn’t be there, so that left her alone with Octavia. Which was intimidating.

They first went to Dropship and had drinks, which Octavia wasn’t technically old enough to have. But they served her without question, probably because she looked older than she was. (Ironically, they carded Clarke, though, even though she actually was twenty-one.) After that, Octavia mentioned that she needed to find a couple more Christmas gifts for Lincoln, so Clarke offered to take her somewhere where she knew she could find something: Ice Nation.

“I don’t know, Clarke,” Octavia said skeptically as they walked into the shop. “This place looks kinda sketchy.”

“No, it’s fine,” Clarke insisted. “Your brother took me here.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did.” For as skeptical of it as she was, Octavia wasted no time heading straight to a dildo display. She picked up one particularly substantial, particularly rubbery one, and complained that it needed to be darker like Lincoln’s was.

Clarke glanced up to the counter, and Roan was there, of course, unashamed as he watched porn right out in the open. He did notice her, though, and waved. “Hey, Clarke, I’ve got one of those dick-molding kits left if you and Bellamy want it,” he said.

“Ew,” Octavia said, cringing as she put down the fake cock.

“Uh, no thanks, Roan,” Clarke declined politely.

“Are you sure?” he pressed. “Raven and I have really enjoyed ours.”

“Oh, I bet you have.” Clarke laughed, shaking her head at the wildness of her best friend’s current relationship. Sure, she and Bellamy were doing the standing sixty-nine and trying semi-public sex once in a while, but Raven and Roan were at a whole different level. It was quite the switch from Wick, who, by all accounts, had always been a good-looking and funny guy but was notably quite bland in the bedroom. No wonder Raven seemed to be enjoying her time with Roan so much.

She followed Octavia through the store, spotting that same blow-up doll that she and Bellamy had posed with when they’d visited this place, as well as some more of that edible underwear that Raven had purchased. Octavia didn’t really appear to be interested in much of anything. She walked with her hands stuffed in the pockets of her sweatshirt, barely glancing at the merchandise.

“So did you and Bellamy actually buy anything when you came here?” she asked. “Do I wanna know?”

“No, we didn’t buy anything,” Clarke replied, veering towards the lingerie. “Well, technically he bought a book.”

“A book?” Octavia snorted. “Typical Bellamy.”

“Yeah, there’s some pretty crazy stuff here. We were mostly just making fun of it.”

“Easy stuff to make fun of,” Octavia said, holding up, holding up a red and white Christmas corset and matching Santa hat. “Seriously?”

“What, you don’t think that’s cute?” Truth be told, that outfit had caught Clarke’s eye right from the start.

“Lincoln and I don’t bother with that roleplay crap,” Octavia informed her.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a roleplay. You could just put it on and entice him.”

“I can’t do anything with this,” Octavia said. “They make these things for women with breasts. Like you. So maybe you should get it.”

Maybe I will, Clarke thought, but it’d feel kind of weird to buy something with Octavia here when clearly the intention would be to wear it for Octavia’s brother. “I don’t know, it is a little over-the-top,” she admitted.

“You’d look good in it,” Octavia insisted. “Not me, though.”

Clarke shot her a look. “Whatever. You’re in, like, the best shape ever.”

Octavia shook her head. “Not really. Underneath this . . .” She tugged on her sweatshirt. “Too much vacationing, not enough exercising.”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Clarke didn’t believe that for a second. This girl, much like her brother, had some unfair genetics going for her. She looked like a supermodel without the height.

Octavia changed the subject as she wound her way through more racks of clothing, commenting, “Hey, so I heard you guys played Never Have I Ever the other night.”

“Yeah, we did,” Clarke said. “Where were you and Lincoln, by the way? I thought you guys would be there.”

“I got sick,” Octavia explained.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But what’d I miss? Anything interesting?”

“Oh, plenty.” Clarke put the sexy Christmas corset back, figuring she could return and get it tomorrow when Octavia wasn’t with her. “I didn’t know Bellamy and Murphy jumped off a roof before.”

Octavia rolled her eyes. “Idiots.”

“Or that Jasper’s eaten out of the trash can.”

“Figures.”

“Or . . .” She wasn’t sure whether or not it was a good idea to mention that other thing Bellamy had owned up to, the thing that had spawned many questions in her mind. “Or that Bellamy’s been arrested.”

Octavia spun around, a serious look in her eyes. “He told you about that?”

“Well, he drank for it,” Clarke said. “But he didn’t elaborate.” Try as she might, she couldn’t picture Bellamy getting arrested for anything. Sure, he may have grown up on the so-called wrong side of the tracks, but he was a good, hard-working guy. He’d been a great student in high school, and nowadays, people clearly respected him, as was evident by all the work he did in his neighborhood and beyond.

“He got in a bar fight,” Octavia explained vaguely. “But it wasn’t his fault.”

A bar fight? Clarke couldn’t wrap her mind around that. Yeah, she’d seen Bellamy wrestle with Miller, but that was different. That was all in good fun. She didn’t know what could have provoked Bellamy to fight someone for real, but she wanted to. “What happened?” she inquired.

Octavia’s mouth opened as though she wanted to say something, but then she just shrugged and said, “You know how guys are.” She turned back around and was all of a sudden completely absorbed in the lingerie, even though she hadn’t been before.

Clarke frowned, sensing there was more to the story, and for some reason, Octavia was just choosing to end it there. If there really was something to tell, she supposed she’d rather hear it from Bellamy himself anyway; but he hadn’t brought it up, and now that Clarke knew he’d been arrested for fighting with somebody, she didn’t exactly want to mention it to him, either. Maybe it was a sore subject.

It was a little frustrating, she had to admit. Even though she really had gotten to know Bellamy these past few months, knew him intimately, and even though she knew him well enough for him to open up about Roma . . . she felt like there was still something he wasn’t telling her.

Chapter Text

Chapter 17

The eggnog hadn’t been out that long when Harper gathered up the girls, brought them upstairs, and told them they needed to go get ready for ‘the surprise.’ All the other guys were intrigued and confused, and Bellamy pretended to be just as confused as they were. But he knew what was happening even before they came downstairs in those red leather—or was it latex?—dresses. Clarke said they’d been working on the outfits for the past week, and they had the Santa hats and knee-high black boots to go with it. Even though Bellamy had only seen the movie that inspired these costumes once, he had Youtubed the dance scene once he knew Clarke was learning it. And then he’d watched it a couple more times just because the actresses were hot. His friends all looked good, and thankfully, his sister hadn’t ended up participating. She was the DJ instead, a.k.a. the one who was going to play the music off the Internet.

“Holy shit,” Jasper swore, his eyes widening to the point where they were about to bulge out of his head. “I already love this.”

“I love it, too,” Monty confessed.

Murphy just cackled, gave his girlfriend a thumb’s up, and then made an overt sex gesture.

Bellamy smiled at Clarke, pretty damn turned on by her in this outfit. Clearly with her voluptuous figure, she filled it out the best out of the four girls.

She shook her head, a panic-stricken look on her face, and whimpered when Harper said, “Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation.” She didn’t even seem to know where she was supposed to stand, or perhaps she just mistakenly went to the wrong place, because Harper had to grab her and reposition her.

Once the music started . . . it was bad. Really bad. For Clarke, at least, not for the other girls. Bellamy quickly realized his dancing lesson had had no lasting effect, because Clarke faked her way through the whole routine with a grimace on her face. In contrast, Harper looked like one of the girls from the movie, and Emori had enough confidence to pull anything off. Maya just kept a smile on her face and powered through, never moving her hips or butt quite as much as Harper and Emori did. But poor Clarke . . . she was cute as hell but always a beat behind. Bellamy had no doubt she’d memorized the entire thing, but that all seemed to have gone out the window. Stage fright, maybe.

Even though she was easily the worst dancer of the bunch, Bellamy couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Watching her trip over her own feet made him smile, and seeing her accidentally knock her own Santa hat off her head made him laugh. Towards the end of, she was laughing, too, seeming to embrace her own awkwardness and just go with it.

When they hit their final pose, he and the rest of the guys and Octavia all cheered for them and gave them a round of applause. Harper gathered up the girls and made them pose for pictures like they were a girl band or something. Murphy took the most photos, claiming they were “high quality fap-material.” Bellamy took a few, too, one of the group of them, and a couple of just Clarke. The girl probably had no idea how damn hot she was.

“This is the greatest night of my life,” Jasper declared. “I don’t even wanna get too high tonight. I gotta remember this.”

“I filmed it,” Miller said. “I’ll send it to you.”

“You filmed it?” Clarke shrieked, burying her face in her hands. “Please don’t put it online.”

“I won’t,” he assured her.

Murphy smirked. “I will.”

Following the routine, Clarke, Harper, and Maya headed back upstairs to change, but Emori didn’t need to. Murphy grabbed his girlfriend’s hand and pulled her down the hall to his bedroom. Neither one of them even bothered to disguise what they were going to do, and hell, Bellamy had to applaud them for it. A couple minutes later, after some distinct headboard-hitting-the-wall sounds, they re-emerged, and Miller joked, “Well, that was quick.”

Murphy shrugged, not insulted. “What can I say? I believe in seizing the moment.”

When Clarke came back downstairs, Bellamy wasn’t particularly surprised to see her dressed in his shirt and boxers. That was kind of her go-to look these days. But she’d never just lounged around in his clothes in front of their friends before, so everyone else noticed it.

“Whoa, Clarke,” Emori said. “Didn’t know you were so into menswear.”

“One man’s wear,” Bellamy corrected, wrapping an arm around her when she sat down. “Do you ever wear your own clothes anymore?”

“Yeah,” she claimed. “But yours are comfier.”

Well, fuck, he wasn’t complaining. Seeing Clarke in his clothes was one of his biggest turn-ons.

Bellamy wasn’t even sure who suggested it, but someone mentioned that they should play Christmas charades, even though there was no way to possibly top the Jingle Bell Rock dance. As an incentive, they all agreed that whichever team won could drink the rest of the eggnog, and with that hefty motivation, everyone was all in. They decided it was easiest to just compete as couples, which Bellamy was fine with. He had a definitely competitive streak, so he wanted to win. And Clarke was a smart girl. He had no doubt they could make a formidable team.

And they did. They steamrolled past most of the others, amassing nearly twice as many points as Jasper and Maya, who never stood a chance what with Jasper having fried too many of his brain cells and all. Harper and Monty might have been pretty good if Harper didn’t keep getting disqualified for talking when it was her turn to act something out. Miller and Jackson were decent, as were Octavia and Lincoln, but Jackson was tired after a long shift at the hospital today, and Octavia was tired because of . . . well, Bellamy wasn’t sure why she was tired, but he just prayed Lincoln hadn’t ‘kept her up late.’

Murphy and Emori were the only real competition, it seemed. They did surprisingly well, getting all but one of theirs right. Clarke and Bellamy had the upper hand for the entire competition until the end, when Bellamy failed to guess Mommy kissing Santa Claus. Clarke’s clue was kind of misleading, to be fair. She put one of the Santa hats on Jackson, stuffed a pillow under her t-shirt, and kissed his cheek. So naturally, Bellamy’s guess was “Pregnant woman kissing gay Santa.” His miss evened out the score between them and Murphy and Emori; so Miller, who had taken to emceeing this great event just like he would soon do with their epic gift exchange, declared a final sudden death round between the two pairs.

“We got this,” Bellamy told Clarke, giving her a confident fist bump as he got up off the couch and walked over to Miller to choose his task. Huh, he thought. Mailing Christmas cards. Nobody in their twenties mailed cards anymore, but he figured he could make that work.

“Alright, here we go,” Miller said as Bellamy stood in the middle of the living room. “One minute, starting . . . now!”

He mimed his way through process of writing out a card, folding it up, and sticking it in an envelope, thinking that those moves alone might be enough to get Clarke to come up with the right guess. But she just sat there on the couch, looking bewildered, and said, “I don’t know.”

When he pretended to lick the envelope of the card, that was when she really got on the wrong track.

“Oral sex,” she blurted.

Everyone laughed.

Bellamy shook his head, trying to make it more obvious that he was licking an envelope. Nothing else.

“Going down,” she tried again. “Eating out.”

More laughter. Another demonstration.

“Bellamy Blake Method^TM. I don’t know!”

Bellamy switched tactics, pretending to drive to the post office, roll down the window, and drop his invisible card off in the invisible blue mailbox.

“That’s not helping,” she said. “Go back to what you were doing before.”

“Twenty seconds,” Miller warned.

Starting to panic, Bellamy redid all his moves, trying to make it more obvious this time: writing out the card, closing the card, shoving the card in an envelope, licking the envelope to seal it.

“Tongue. Orgasm,” she guessed. “Christmas orgasm. What? Your favorite thing to do! I don’t know! Bellamy!”

He threw his arms in the air, amazed that this was the one they were going to lose on. Mailing Christmas cards. Really? She’d fucking guessed ‘reindeer games’ earlier on, but not this?

Time ran out, and he sank to his knees dramatically, sensing that victory had just slipped through their grasp. “Mailing Christmas cards.”

“Oh my god!” she wailed, holding her head in her hands. “I was so close.”

“What the fuck?” he barked. “How the hell were you close?”

“Yeah, Clarke, what exactly is a Christmas orgasm?” Harper asked, tilting her head to the side.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I just saw his tongue, so I thought--”

“Please don’t finish,” Octavia cut in.

“Sorry,” she apologized. When Bellamy sat back down next to her, she said it again. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “They might screw up, too.”

Murphy was the one acting out the charade, and he looked confident when he saw what he’d be acting out. When Miller started the time for him, all he did was hit his chest twice, then point emphatically to his pride and joy, their Christmas tree.

“Decorating the tree!” Emori yelled.

“Yes!”

They screamed and squealed and jumped up and down, hugging for joy and celebrating as if they’d just won the lottery. But it was eggnog. They’d won what was left of the eggnog.

“I think that was a little easier than ‘mailing Christmas cards,’” Bellamy grumbled, sucking up the loss. “But whatever.”

They finally started the secret Santa exchange around 10:00. Octavia looked like she was going to sleep through it, as did Jackson, but everyone else was still pretty wired. All the gifts were piled under the tree, so everyone took turns getting up and getting theirs. Upon opening it, the idea was to guess who had given it to you. Get it wrong, then drink. Get it right . . . well, then drink to that, too.

With a fifteen dollar budget, the gifts had to be creative to be even somewhat interesting. Bellamy had seen some pretty weird stuff over the years, and this year was no different. The gifts ranged from a poop emoji pillow for Jasper, which he immediately cuddled up to and wouldn’t let go of, to a pink feather boa for Miller, who, even though he wasn’t the flamboyant type of gay, refused to take it off. Octavia got a blanket from Monty that said Keep Calm and Be a Badass, and she loved it so much that she didn’t waste any time curling up underneath it on the floor. With Lincoln, of course.

When it was Bellamy’s turn to open up his gift, he prayed it wasn’t another one of those ugly Christmas sweaters like Harper had gotten him last year. Really, he needed to take that damn thing to the thrift store so someone who needed it could wear it. Judging by the small size of the box he had to open, though, it couldn’t be that.

“Well, I wonder who could this could be from,” he said as he pulled out a white coffee mug that said World’s Okayest Brother on it.

“I know you don’t really drink coffee,” Octavia said, “but I thought of you the moment I saw it. Because, you know, you’re pretty okay.”

“Well, thank you, O,” he said. “I’m glad I’m okay.”

She smiled at him, the kind of smile that shone through all the teasing and made ‘Okayest’ into the biggest compliment in the world. His little sister loved him, no matter how annoying she found him; his little sister was grateful for him, even though he sometimes pissed her off. He didn’t need much of a gift when he had that.

When it was Murphy’s turn, he seemed delighted to receive the biggest present, the last one left under the tree. “Process of elimination,” he said as he opened the box, “this is either from Bellamy or Clarke. And since it’s not book-shaped, I’m gonna guess it’s not from Bellamy.”

“You’re right,” Clarke said. “It’s from me. I had no idea what to get you, so . . .”

What the hell’s in there? Bellamy wondered. He’d seen a list of ideas for Murphy on Clarke’s kitchen table, but not one of those ideas was big enough for this box. The box had Fragile written on it in Clarke’s handwriting, and when Murphy saw that, he read it as “Fra-gee-lay,” like the dad in A Christmas Story.

“That’s appropriate,” Clarke muttered.

When Murphy opened the box, his entire face lit up like the Fourth of July. “Clarke,” he gasped. “This is a thing of beauty.”

Everyone tried to peek into the box, but Murphy practically dove in, and when he took out the gift inside, everyone immediately understood why he loved it so much.

It was a leg lamp. A replica of the leg lamp from that movie. An iconic novelty gift if Bellamy had ever seen one. It was smaller than the one from the film had been, but still . . . it was a fucking leg lamp.

“Oh my god, Clarke,” Harper said as everyone laughed. “Perfect.”

“Yeah, he’s gonna love this a little too much,” Emori warned.

Clarke explained that she had just searched ‘weird gifts for weird people’ on Google, and that was what had come up. Murphy didn’t take offense to that, of course. He boastfully set the lamp on the kitchen table, plugged it in, and hyperventilated as it flickered to life. “We’re never turning this off,” he announced, thrilled. “Never.”

That left only Clarke to receive her gift, and obviously, with everyone else having already given their gifts, everyone knew it was from Bellamy. She didn’t say anything, but he saw her eyes flitter back to the tree, probably noting the distinct lack of any other presents underneath. Once Murphy’s excitement finally died down, no one seemed to really know how to segue into the next gift . . . because they didn’t know if there was one.

There was, though. There definitely was.

“Alright,” Miller said, “so I guess that leaves us with . . .” He trailed off, looking at Bellamy confusedly. “Did you forget or something?”

“No, I didn’t forget.” Bellamy put his arm around Clarke’s shoulders and assured her, “I got you something, but I’m gonna give it to you later.”

That, of course, was met with a chorus of suggestive Oohs from all his friends and even a bow-chicka-wow-wow from Murphy.

“It’s not that,” Bellamy told them, although he could see why that was where their minds would wander. “I just wanna give it to her when we’re alone.” Well, that didn’t sound any better, did it? “Fuck.”

“Let’s get it on,” Miller crooned, and that made everyone erupt in laughter. Even Octavia, and she had to be grossed out by the thought. Jackson jumped in next with, “Girl if it’s alright, let’s go somewhere and get it on tonight.” And after that, it was a lyrical free-for-all, with almost every single one of them taking turns singing something about sex in an effort to embarrass Bellamy. But hell, that shit didn’t embarrass him. He was proud of his lively sex life. Who wouldn’t be?

“I really did get you something,” he told Clarke. “Don’t listen to them.”

“Okay.” She snuggled into his side, and they just sat there and took the teasing in stride. It was fun for their friends to give them a hard time. They delighted in it, and there were plenty of bed-breaking jokes. Plenty.

An hour later, things were winding down. Octavia had fallen asleep, and since Lincoln was basically her pillow, he pretty much had to settle in right there on the floor, too. Jasper hadn’t stuck to his decision to abstain from getting high tonight, and Maya had to help him walk home because he was so out of it. Monty and Harper left shortly after, and Miller helped a tired Jackson upstairs to his bedroom. That left Bellamy and Clarke downstairs with Murphy and Emori, who seemed to be on a holiday high due to their charades victory. They suggested a Christmas-themed game of Would You Rather, but Bellamy said, “Nah, I think I’m gonna go give Clarke her gift now.”

“Oh, yeah?” Murphy said. “Gonna go ‘mail some Christmas cards,’ huh?”

“Shut up, Murphy.” Bellamy took Clarke’s hand and led her up the stairs, casting a quick glance at Lincoln as he went. Lincoln just nodded, because unlike everyone else who’d been there tonight, he knew all about Clarke’s Christmas present.

Clarke was adorably eager to find out what her gift was, but she said she had something for him, too. She ducked into the bathroom for a few minutes, and when she came back out, she was wearing the bathrobe that hung on the back of his door, the one he never actually wore. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she had probably put on something sexy underneath it, and he was intrigued.

“My gift first,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Alright, close your eyes,” he told her.

She did, but almost immediately she tried to peek.

“Clarke,” he scolded.

“Fine.” She squeezed her eyes shut and held both hands out expectantly.

He reached into his drawer and took out her gift. Well, technically, it was more of a hint as to what her gift really was: It was a paintbrush. He placed it flat in the palms of her hands and said, “Open your eyes.”

She did so with a confused, furrowed brow, and when she saw the paintbrush, her brow only furrowed further. “Oh.” Obviously she was trying to think of something nice to say and hide her disappointment. But she wouldn’t be disappointed for long.

“I think you should do some painting,” he suggested.

“Oh, well . . . okay.” She coiled her hand around he brush and waved it around like a magic wand a few times. “Noted. Thank you.”

He chuckled, amazed that she was actually thanking him for this. Like he really would’ve just gotten her a paint brush. She didn’t think this was it, did she?

“I’ll paint something really good,” she promised.

“You’re gonna have to paint a few things,” he informed her. “Can you do that?”

“Yeah.” She tilted her head to the side curiously. “Wait, what?’

He smiled sheepishly, looking down at his feet. “I did something.”

“What did you do?”

“I talked to Lincoln.” He tried to resist the urge to roll his eyes, but . . . he couldn’t.

“About what?”

“About you, your artwork,” he replied. “I showed it to him, and he liked it, so . . . if you want, he’s gonna let you have an exhibit at his gallery in March.”

Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “What?”

“Yeah. If you want.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.” He got a kick out of how surprised she was. “And listen, he didn’t just agree to it ‘cause he knows you or knows me or anything like that. He showed your stuff to his friend, the co-owner, and he liked it, too. So they both wanna give you your own exhibit, not just him.”

The only response from Clarke were a few incredulous laughs. She really couldn’t believe it. “You did this?”

“Well, I just got the ball rolling. It’s probably not much of a Christmas gift.”

“Are you kidding? Bellamy!” She threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly, and he smiled, pleased with himself for being able to do this for her. “This is so amazing,” she said, slowly pulling back. “This is, like, the sweetest, most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“So you’re gonna do it?” he asked hopefully.

“Yeah, of course I’m gonna do it. It’s a great opportunity,” she said. “I mean, I’ll be a little nervous, but . . . it’ll be good.”

“Yeah, it’ll be great.” If her paintings were even half as good as those drawings were, he was sure her exhibit would be very well-received.

“And I’ll have to thank Lincoln, too,” she said. “I can’t believe you actually went and talked to him.”

“I swallowed my pride,” he admitted. “For you.”

She beamed a smile and rose up on her tiptoes, giving him a quick kiss. “Oh, now I feel bad, though. I didn’t get you a very good gift.”

“What? You didn’t need to get me anything. You weren’t my secret Santa.”

“I know, but . . .” She shrugged, set the paintbrush down on the bed, and scurried over to the dresser, opening up the bottom drawer. That bottom drawer used to be his sweatshirt drawer, but nowadays it was mostly just a lot of her stuff in there. She’d hidden a gift at the bottom, one that was poorly wrapped and had a blue bow on the top that wouldn’t stay stuck. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “Better than nothing.”

He could tell just from the feel of it that it was a DVD. When he ripped open the paper and saw the first word of the title, he knew exactly what movie it was. It was a President Kennedy documentary he’d seen twice before on CNN.

“Wow, Clarke, thanks,” he said.

“I checked all your movies, didn’t see this one,” she said. “You don’t already have it, right?”

“No.” He’d removed it from his DVR a couple months ago.

“I’ll even watch it with you, if you want,” she offered. “You haven’t seen it before, have you?”

“Uh . . . I don’t think so,” he fibbed, looking at the back of the case. “Hmm.”

She narrowed her eyes skeptically, shaking her head. “Mmm, you’re lying. You’ve seen it.”

“Once or twice,” he confessed flippantly. “That’s okay, though. I’ll watch it again.”

“Well, is it at least a good one?”

“Yeah, it’s Kennedy. Kennedy’s always good.”

She sighed frustratedly, taking the DVD out of his hands. She stared at it dejectedly for a moment, then tossed it aside. “Okay, I figured this might happen,” she said as she began to untie the robe she had on. “That’s why I had a backup gift.” She opened the robe and lowered it from her shoulders, exposing herself in a very tight red corset in the process. It was a Christmas-y thing with white fluffy fur around the bottom and around the breast line. She looked like the sexiest Mrs. Claus he’d ever seen.

“That is a great present,” he said, practically salivating, “and I can’t to wait to unwrap it.” He gathered her up in his arms and fell down onto the bed with her, on top of that beautiful, curvaceous body of hers, one that somehow managed to look even more curvaceous in that corset.

“You wanna be my ho, ho, ho?” he joked. It was dumb humor, but it made her laugh.

“Sure,” she said, trailing her fingertips down his sides. “I’ll jingle your bells.”

“Whoa, Clarke.” The innuendo was rich with that one. He was so impressed.

He kissed her, ready to give her a truly merry Christmas now.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was Octavia who woke them up on Christmas morning.

“Bellamy!” she hissed.

Even though it wasn’t her name, the shrillness in Octavia’s voice was hard for Clarke to ignore, and she jerked awake at the same time Bellamy did.

“O, what the hell?” he snapped, pulling the covers up more fully over both himself and Clarke.

“You slept in,” she informed him. “Mom’s already here.”

“What?”

She shut the door rather than answering.

Mom? Clarke thought. As in Bellamy’s mom?

“Shit,” he swore, shoving the covers aside. He sprang from the bed and headed straight into the bathroom, shutting the door. Seconds later, Clarke heard the shower running.

She glanced at the bedside clock, having to rub her tired eyes before she could even read the numbers. 9:42? Crap, she’d intended to be out of here by now, but apparently neither she nor Bellamy had remembered to set an alarm last night. They’d been . . . too busy.

Clarke had only just gotten out of bed when Bellamy re-emerged from the bathroom after the quickest shower in the history of mankind. He had a towel around his waist and his toothbrush in his mouth.

“We should’ve gone to bed earlier,” she said, yawning and stretching.

“Mmm-hmm,” he agreed, brushing his teeth quickly. Holding his toothbrush meant he only had one free hand to open up his drawer and search through it for a suitable pair of jeans. Lots of Bellamy’s jeans were work jeans, but she knew he’d probably want to wear something nicer with his mother there.

He backtracked towards the bathroom to spit and rinse, set his toothbrush back in its holder, then came back out and said, “It’s all yours.”

Though she would have much rather preferred to get in that shower with him, she realized that wasn’t a possibility right now. Besides, it wasn’t just him who had family obligations today. She really should have been in more of a hurry to get going. In fact, she should have already been gone. This was Blake family time now, and . . . well, she had her own family, exhausting as they could be.

By the time she got out of the shower and got her own teeth brushed, Bellamy was no longer in the bedroom. The bed was littered with various sweaters, much nicer than the t-shirts he usually donned. She laughed a little, picturing him running back and forth from his closet to his mirror, trying on all sorts of outfits like a girl trying to find the perfect clothes for a date.

Luckily, Clarke didn’t have that same problem. She’d brought along a very specific leggings and sweater dress outfit, an outfit her mother had gifted her last Christmas and would undoubtedly love to see her wearing today. Her hair, of course, took longer to make presentable than his did, though. Bellamy’s hair was notoriously unpredictable and always a little bit of a mess, so all he had to do (whether it was wet or dry) was just shake it out and call it good to go. But Clarke had to comb through hers and then decide whether to put it up in a wet messy bun or blow-dry it instead. Because yes, Bellamy did own a blow-dryer. He’d used it on his hair as a joke a couple weeks ago, just to show her how much of an afro he could have if he wanted to.

Clarke ended up blow-drying her hair and putting on makeup, too, only because . . . if she was going to meet Bellamy’s mom, she wanted to look nice. Presentable. Maybe even pretty. It wasn’t like she was feeling the stress of trying to impress her as Bellamy’s girlfriend or anything. But still, she was the girl who was about to creep downstairs after spending the night with this woman’s son. There was no way she was going to go downstairs looking like a mess.

Before she left the bedroom, she checked her phone, noticing that she had a couple missed calls and three text messages from her mom. Each one asked if she was on her way yet, and the last one also asked if she was okay. Clarke felt bad for worrying her, so she texted back a quick Be there soon and dropped her phone into her purse.

When she got downstairs, it was oddly quiet. Lincoln sat alone on the living room couch, eyes closed as if he hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night. Or perhaps he just hadn’t slept comfortably on the floor. He looked over at her when she stepped off that bottom stair, though, and said, “Morning.”

“Good morning.” She had to take a deep inhale because . . . mmm, were those cookies? Something was baking in the oven, and it smelled good. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

“Uh, Miller and Jackson headed home early to spend the day with their families,” Lincoln replied. “I don’t know where Murphy and Emori went, but they’ll be out all day. And Octavia and Bellamy took Aurora into the backyard.”

Clarke peered through the kitchen window, and indeed, there was an impossibly beautiful woman, the same one from so many of Bellamy’s photos, bouncing on the trampoline. Both the Blake siblings were bouncing along with her, and all of them were laughing.

That would never happen in my family, Clarke thought enviously. What exactly would today have in store for her? More obnoxious stories from her cousins? More critiques from her grandmother?

“You’ll like Aurora,” Lincoln assured her. “She’s really nice.”

Oh, Clarke thought. So I guess I’m not leaving then. It wasn’t like she’d been planning to just cut out of there without saying goodbye or anything, but it was past 10:30 now. She probably couldn’t stay much longer.

“Hey, um . . .” Clarke sat down beside him, seizing the opportunity to express her gratitude for his role in her Christmas gift from Bellamy. “I wanted to thank you, by the way, for agreeing to let me have an exhibit at Trikru. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Oh, we’re happy to,” Lincoln said. “Your art’s good, Clarke. It deserves to be seen.”

She hoped that were true. She didn’t know what the theme would be, and she hadn’t actually painted anything for a couple of months. But this was a good chance to get back into that again. “I’ve never actually had an exhibit anywhere before,” she admitted, “so I’m really excited. And very appreciative.”

“Well, I was in your shoes not all that long ago,” Lincoln reminded her. “So if there’s ever anything I can do to help you out with your career . . .”

“Thank you,” she said again. Lincoln really was such a nice, good-hearted guy. “And if there’s ever anything I can do to help you out with Bellamy . . .”

Lincoln chuckled. “Well, we’ve had a few civilized conversations lately. It’s a start.”

“It is a start,” she agreed. “So do you go home for Christmas? Or are you spending the day here with them?”

“Oh, I’ll stay here,” he answered. “I don’t have much of a family, so . . . Octavia’s my family now.”

“Hmm.” That was sweet. Octavia was young, but she had a boyfriend who was completely devoted to her. Not many girls her age could say that.

Fueled on by the tempting aroma coming from the kitchen, Clarke got up and went to peek into the oven. Just as she’d suspected, there were dozens of sugar cookies baking in there. They were big and puffy and looked like they were almost done, which meant that Bellamy or his mother or whomever had put them in the oven would probably come back inside soon.

She looked out the kitchen window, watching as Bellamy’s mom lost her balance and fell on the middle of the trampoline laughingly. He helped her back up, and then both he and Octavia stepped over to the edge, giving her free reign to bounce. She hit a few poses in the air, including some that were so flexible and precise that Clarke was led to suspect she’d once been a cheerleader.

“Their mom looks young,” she remarked. She also looked a lot like Octavia, too, but not so much like Bellamy. So apparently his father’s genetics were the more prevalent ones.

“She is young,” Lincoln confirmed. “She got pregnant with Bellamy when she was seventeen, had him when she was eighteen, so . . .”

So she was a teen mom, Clarke thought. Not an easy or glamorous role to take on in life, despite what the MTV reality shows seemed to perpetuate. And if she’d had Bellamy at eighteen, that meant she’d had Octavia at only twenty-one. That was still a pretty young age, and from what she understood, neither Bellamy nor Octavia’s father had ever been part of the picture. She’d done a good job raising both of them by herself. Clarke had an immediate respect for her for that.

After about a minute of jumping, Aurora stopped and rubbed her arms as if she were cold, and Bellamy motioned towards the house. Indeed, Octavia was the only one of them really dressed for the outdoors right now, as she was wearing a Trikru gallery sweatshirt that looked huge on her. Probably belonged to Lincoln.

Clarke didn’t know where to stand or what to do as she prepared to meet Bellamy’s mother, so she just waited in the kitchen as casually as possible. The Blakes were a ruckus of laughter as they all piled back in, and she caught the tail end of their conversation. Bellamy was recounting the time Emori had pushed Murphy right off that trampoline, and his mother said, “Well, he deserves it.” She stopped abruptly when she saw Clarke standing there, though, and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Clarke returned, unsure of what else to say.

Bellamy jumped in to introduce them, of course, much to her relief. “Mom, this is Clarke,” he said. “Clarke, this is my mom, Aurora.”

“Nice to meet you,” Clarke said, extending her hand.

“You, too,” Aurora said, shaking it and smiling at her. “So you’re Bellamy’s . . . friend?”

She nodded nervously, not sure how much Aurora knew about their . . . friendship. Octavia had probably told her some things, and chances were that she knew her son well enough to know . . . everything. But it didn’t seem to be an issue. There was no judgment or condescension in her tone, only friendliness.

The cookies came out of the oven a few minutes later, smelling even more tantalizing than they had when they’d been in it. Apparently it was a Blake family tradition to decorate cookies together, a tradition Aurora insisted both Lincoln and Clarke take part in as well. Both of her children were all about it. They insulted each other’s decorating skills, purposefully broke off parts of each other’s cookies, and in general just acted like two big kids.

“What is that?” Octavia huffed as Bellamy spread green frosting over the body portion of a Santa cookie. “Is that a green suit? Is your Santa wearing a green suit?”

“It’s called an artistic liberty, O,” he proclaimed. “Thinking outside the box. You should try it sometime since yours are so boring.”

“Mine are classic,” she declared, throwing a handful of sprinkles at him. No one seemed to mind when they got all over the floor.

“Clarke, yours is really good,” Aurora complimented.

“Oh, thanks.” While everyone else had decorated about four cookies at this point, she was still working on her first one, a Christmas tree that she was determined to adorn with so much frosting and sprinkles that one would barely even be able to taste the actual cookie underneath.

“Clarke’s an artist,” Bellamy informed her. “Of course it’s good.”

“One thing I can do better than you,” she mumbled.

Aurora finished up her reindeer cookie, setting it on the ‘done tray.’ “He is good at a lot of things,” she said.

Clarke and Bellamy exchanged a quick glance, and he arched his eyebrows suggestively. Oh, yeah, Clarke thought. He’s very good.

The cookie decorating was fun, but it took over an hour. By the end of it, Clarke realized she’d totally dropped the ball on getting home at any sort of reasonable time whatsoever, and truth be told . . . she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave. Nobody seemed to have any intention of kicking her out. Sure, she was one more person to feed, but Aurora was in charge of the meal, and it looked like she’d brought enough food to feed a small army.

By noon, she knew she was going to have to make a decision. Her phone was littered with texts from her mother asking where she was, telling her the rest of the family was already there. If she left now, she could get there in time for their afternoon gift exchange and have ample opportunity to mingle before dinner that evening. Not that she wanted to mingle. Not that she gave a damn about the gift exchange. In her family, they pretty much all just got each other cash and gift cards anyway, because nobody knew what anyone else really wanted.

She thought about texting back another Be there soon promise, but her thumbs hovered over the letters rather than pressing them.

Bellamy was busy in the kitchen helping his mother—in fact, he and Lincoln were both helping, while Octavia stood around and “supervised”—so Clarke sidled up to him and said, “Hey, what’re you making?”

“Some kind of stew,” he replied, chopping the end off of sausage. “Want some?” he teased, waving the roll at her face like it was some huge dildo.

“Ew, stop it.”

“Come on, Clarke, I know you like sausage,” he teased.

“Shut up,” she whispered, whacking his shoulder. His mother appeared to be giving Lincoln instructions about how to season the ham right now, but she was still within earshot. She didn’t need to overhear any of their dirty humor.

“You wanna help?” he asked.

Did she want to help? In the kitchen? Not particularly; she’d probably end up blowing something up. But she did want to be there with them, even if it was just in a supervisory role like Octavia. Neither one of them could cook, but they could both eat, and they would both need to, as this was shaping up to be quite the Christmas dinner.

“It’s already almost 12:30,” she informed him. “I probably have to go.”

“Oh.” He frowned and kept cutting up the sausage into smaller chunks.

“Unless . . .” She didn’t want to impose, but she also didn’t really want to leave. “I mean, I could stay, if you guys don’t mind. But if you don’t want me to, then that’s fine, too. I can go.”

“No, you can stay,” he said. “Is your mom gonna be pissed, though?”

“Uh . . .” She squirmed unsurely, thinking that her best bet would be to make up a little white lie. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Yeah, well, you’re more than welcome here.”

Of course she was. Everyone was. There was a reason why this was the place to be on Saturday nights. It was just so . . . so inviting. There, Clarke didn’t feel the pressure to wear the right thing or say the right thing. She didn’t feel stressed or anxious or anything of the sort; she felt relaxed, because being with the Blakes and Lincoln . . . it was just fun.

“Clarke, would you like to help?” Aurora asked. “I’ve got some roast beef that can be seasoned.”

Bellamy snorted. “Do you wanna end up eating arsenic? She can’t cook, Mom.”

“Excuse me,” Clarke huffed, “I made macaroni and cheese the other night, and it was delectable.”

“It was out of the box,” Bellamy added.

“So?” That didn’t change how delectable it’d been.

“You know what? I was gonna make some macaroni and cheese,” Aurora said. “One of my grandmother’s old recipes. Come on, you can make it with me.”

“Oh, um, I will in just a minute,” Clarke said, figuring this was a good opportunity to learn at least a basic culinary skill. “I have to go call my mom really quick.”

“Oh, okay.” Aurora leaned over her son’s shoulder and said, “Cut those up smaller, Bellamy, will you?”

“Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”

Clarke took her phone and headed outside to the front porch so she could make her call in private. Her mom sounded relieved to finally hear from her, but the second the relief was over, the questions started in. “Why aren’t you here yet? What’s taking you so long? Are you on your way now?”

“Actually . . .” She couldn’t say she was at a friend’s. Her mom wouldn’t understand—and might even be slightly offended—that she was choosing friends over family this Christmas. So she lied. “I’m not really feeling that well.”

“What’s wrong?” her mom asked, immediately concerned. “Do you need me to come get you?”

“No, I don’t think I can come today,” Clarke said.

“What? Well, how sick are you? Do you need to go see a doctor?”

“No, I’m fine,” Clarke insisted, not wanting to worry her over some illness that didn’t even exist. “I think I’ve just got one of those twenty-four hour flu bugs. It’s been going around campus.”

“Oh, honey . . .”

“Yeah, and I don’t really wanna get everyone else sick, so I think I’m just gonna stay put,” she decided. “Sorry.”

Her mother was sad, understandably. In twenty-one years, this was the first Christmas they’d be spending apart. But she seemed to agree that it was for the best, and they made arrangements to meet up before Clarke’s Christmas break was over so they could exchange gifts. Clarke agreed to call her later, just to check in and let her know how she was feeling. And that was that. Phone call done. She felt sort of guilty, because it wasn’t that she wanted to lie to her mom. But then again, in this case, a lie would probably spare her feelings more than the truth would, because the truth was, she just didn’t want to be there.

When she went back inside, Bellamy and Octavia were faux-arguing about her lack of involvement in the meal. Octavia was vehemently reminding him, “You know I don’t cook, Bell. I never have.”

“Right, because I always did it for you,” he shot back.

“Why break tradition now?” She shrugged exaggeratedly.

“Screw tradition,” he said, chucking a piece of sausage at her.

“Oh, you wanna start that, huh?” she taunted, picking it up off the floor. “Remember last year’s food fight? Remember who won?” She held her arm up, ready to throw it, but her mother took it out of her hand.

“I remember,” Aurora said. “Half our food went to waste. Let’s not repeat that this year.”

“Yeah, O,” Bellamy grunted, still focused on his stew. “See, this is why I’m her favorite.”

“Oh, you are not her favorite,” Octavia growled.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Mom, who’s your favorite?”

Aurora, clearly accustomed to this type of bickering, avoided the question altogether and instead exclaimed, “Clarke!”

Bellamy made a face. “Clarke? Clarke’s your favorite?” When he saw her come back into the kitchen out of the corner of his eye, he warned, “Oh, here we go. Brace yourselves: The kitchen’s about to explode.”

“I am not that bad,” Clarke said. Only twice in her life had her microwave ever caught on fire.

“I’m sure you’re not,” Aurora agreed. “Macaroni and cheese?”

That sounded do-able, especially if she had a more experienced cook guiding her through it. “Macaroni and cheese.”

A couple hours later, after what was mostly a group effort—Octavia had warmed up the rolls in the microwave; that was her contribution—the meal was ready. There wasn’t enough room at the kitchen table, especially not with that eyesore of a leg lamp on it, so they arranged everything on the counter, buffet style, and everyone just walked through with a plate and got whatever food they wanted. Then they took it into the living room and ate on the couch, the recliner, or in Lincoln and Octavia’s case, Murphy’s beanbag.

It was a legitimate feast, with both roast beef and ham as the main features. Clarke loaded up more on the au gratin potatoes, though, which Bellamy informed her were his mother’s specialty, and they definitely didn’t disappoint. She devoured the mashed potatoes, too, along with a couple of rolls, a generous helping of Bellamy’s sausage stew, and some honey-roasted carrots. She didn’t have much room for the macaroni and cheese, but that didn’t stop her from dumping some of it on her plate. She even tried a small bowl of Aurora’s cauliflower soup, despite not being much of a cauliflower fan. And it was good. It was all good.

In a weird way, Clarke felt like she was a kid again, like her dad was there, a part of that dinner even though he’d never met any of these people. The food wasn’t exactly the same as what he’d made, but it all had that same home-cooked feel to it. And the way the conversation just flowed naturally and comfortably between the group of them while they ate . . . that reminded her of how things used to be, too. There was a warmth there that had been missing at her family’s Thanksgiving dinner and was probably missing at the Christmas one today.

Even Bellamy and Lincoln were getting along. Which was weird. But nice.

After eating, there was no big rush to do the dishes, only to open presents. Aurora apologized profusely for not bringing Clarke a gift. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” she said.

“Oh, neither did I,” Clarke said. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

There weren’t many gifts to exchange, because Lincoln and Octavia were doing presents for each other later. Lincoln did get Aurora a nice gold watch, which she immediately put on, even though it was too big for her wrist; but other than that, most of the gifts were from Aurora. She gave Lincoln his first, and it turned out to be a hand-knitted sweater she’d made. That must have been a lot of work, Clarke figured. Lincoln was a big guy, so that was a lot of knitting.

Octavia, too, got clothing from her mother, but hers wasn’t handmade. It was a nice new leather jacket, one that made Octavia’s mouth gape. “Oh my god, Mom,” she said, holding it up in astonishment. “It’s beautiful.”

“You like it?” Aurora asked.

“Yes. How much did it cost, though?”

“Oh . . .” Aurora waved the question off. “I wanted to get my daughter something nice.”

Cost, Clarke thought. No one in her family ever asked how much something had cost, because they all just assumed it was relatively expensive.

“Thank you.” Octavia got up and went over to the recliner to hug her mom. It was the sweetest thing Clarke had seen Octavia do . . . well, ever.

Bellamy’s gift was next, and his was way more practical: a new toolbox, complete with a new hammer, wrench, and various screwdrivers inside. “This is great,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I know it’s not exciting,” his mother said, “but Octavia told me that’s what I should get you.”

“No, she’s right. I needed it,” Bellamy said. “This stuff will really help me out at work. Thanks, Mom.” He leaned over the arm of the couch and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Ever the adoring children, Bellamy and Octavia of course kept their mother’s gift in suspense until the end. When they finally gave her present to her—a ticket for a fully-paid spa day—she was floored. “Oh my goodness, you guys,” she said, holding one hand to her chest. “This is too much.”

“Not enough,” Bellamy said. “You deserve a day off. So take one, go relax, get a massage.”

“I will,” she said, opening up both her arms to call them over for another hug.

Wow, Clarke thought, watching all three of them in amazement. They really were such a close-knit family. Despite how Octavia and Bellamy bickered mercilessly from time to time, they had this profound love for each other that just never wavered, and clearly they both thought the world of their mother, too.

As evening set in, pictures were a big activity. Some were silly, like the ones of Bellamy with reindeer antlers on his head. Others were more significant, like the ones of Aurora and both her children sitting together on the couch, arms around each other. Something told Clarke they weren’t taking these pictures to put on next year’s Christmas card; they were just taking them as a way of storing up memories. Memories of the day, of time spent together. Bellamy would probably put some of these photos in that box in his drawer.

Clarke ended up taking some pictures of the three of them with Lincoln. For the first few pictures, Bellamy was sort of glaring at him, but then he lightened up, pulled his mom in closer, and smiled. Aurora wanted Clarke to be in some of the pictures, too, even though Clarke herself wasn’t about to push for that. She was the unexpected guest today, nothing more.

“No, you need to be in some of these pictures,” Aurora insisted. “Come on, we’ll do one of those selfie things.”

“Selfie things?” Octavia echoed in amusement.

The five of them crowded onto the couch, and Lincoln, having the longest arms snapped the photos on Octavia’s phone.

“Send those to me, O,” Bellamy said. Then he lowered his mouth to Clarke’s ear and whispered, “I’m gonna crop Lincoln out.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, hitting his stomach lightly. He was probably just kidding about that. Probably.

Clarke offered to help Aurora with the dishes after dinner, simply because she figured it was the least she could do. Bellamy didn’t want his mother to bother with them at all, of course, but he got distracted when Octavia grabbed a pillow off the couch and hit him over the head with it. Suddenly, there was a spontaneous Christmas pillow fight going on in the living room, with Lincoln serving as the referee.

“Who do you think’s gonna win that?” Clarke asked.

Aurora smiled at her rowdy children, shaking her head. “Who knows?” she said. “Octavia, probably.”

“Yeah,” Clarke agreed as she dried off some of the silverware. Damn, her side of the sink was really filling up. Aurora was fast when it came to scrubbing everything clean, so she was going to have to pick up the pace on the drying. As privileged as it sounded, she wasn’t used to doing dishes this way. She’d always had a dishwasher.

“So how long have you known Bellamy?” Aurora asked her.

“Um, about three months now,” Clarke replied.

“How’d you meet?”

“Oh, it was—we were . . .” It was a lot cuter in her head, what with the runaway watermelon and all. But to everyone else, it probably just sounded lame. “Walmart,” she answered simply. “We met in the Walmart parking lot.”

Aurora laughed. “Well, you certainly seem to have gotten close,” she said.

Oh, you have no idea, Clarke thought. Or maybe she did. Lord only knew what Octavia had told her about their bed-breaking ways.

“That’s good,” Aurora went on. “It’s good for him to have someone . . . a friend.”

Clarke nodded, happy that she could be that for him. Bellamy had plenty of friends, but . . . well, she got to be a different type of friend. But despite all the sex they were having, that wasn’t what had made them grow close. It was all the moments in between the sex—the laughter, the smiles, the conversations—that had.

“He’s, um . . .” Aurora stopped scrubbing at the dishes suddenly, smiling shakily. “He’s a really special person,” she said. “He’s a good son.”

“Yeah,” Clarke agreed. “He loves you and Octavia so much.”

“Oh, we love him, too,” Aurora said. “He’s grown up to be . . . such a good man.” She swallowed hard, and when Clarke took a closer look at her face, she noticed . . . tears. Aurora was blinking back tears.

“Are you okay?” Clarke asked softly.

Aurora nodded, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. “I don’t want him to see me cry,” she said. “He’d worry about me. He always worries about me; he worries about his sister. But we worry about him, you know? He works so hard, and he’s always trying to take care of us, but nobody takes care of him, and . . .” She sniffled, wiping underneath her nose with the back of her hand. “He’s been through some things,” she said sadly.

Oh. That was all it took for Clarke to understand what Aurora was getting emotional about. Roma. She nodded slowly, keeping her voice low when she spoke so that Bellamy wouldn’t overhear her. “Yeah, he told me about what happened back then,” she said, “with Roma and the car accident.”

“He did?” Aurora both looked and sounded surprised to hear that.

“Yeah.” Only because I found out on my own, Clarke thought. But there was no need to bring that up.

“What else did he tell you?” Aurora asked quietly.

What else? Clarke thought. What else? What else was there to tell? “Um . . .”

A strangled, over-exaggerated cry interrupted them, and when Clarke looked over her shoulder, there was Bellamy, bent over with his head trapped in his sister’s arms. “Mom, help!” he yelled. “She’s choking me!”

“Oh, Octavia, we’ve been through this,” Aurora said, abandoning the dishes as she went to break it up. “Don’t choke your brother.”

Clarke stood at the sink, a half-dry dinner plate in her hand, trying not to read too much into Aurora’s question. But she’d had a nagging feeling for days now that there was still something Bellamy wasn’t telling her, and a question like that didn’t exactly make the feeling go away.

Chapter Text

Chapter 18

Christmas break didn’t exist for Bellamy, nor did it exist for the rest of his friends. Well, most of the rest of his friends, anyway. Miller, Monty, Emori, Harper, Maya, Jackson . . . they all got up on the 26th of December and got right back to work. Holiday was over. Jasper and Murphy, though they were constantly unemployed, both kept themselves busy with, in Jasper’s case, pot legalization rallies, and in Murphy’s case . . . his leg lamp. Lincoln wasn’t technically a friend, so he didn’t count, but since his income was basically Octavia’s income, he kind of did.

Clarke, of course, was a different story. Sure, she worked a job, but she worked at an on-campus museum that was closed until the new year. That meant she had a week of absolutely nothing on her plate. No work, no classes, just a whole bunch of free time on her hands. Bellamy would have loved to be able to fool around in bed with her all day, or go out and do something fun, but his schedule was the exact opposite: packed full. Things fell apart in the wintertime, and it seemed everyone in the neighborhood needed his help with something. Apparently people had been spreading the word that did good work, because eventually, even people outside of his neighborhood were calling him up, too. It was good for business, he supposed, to get some new customers, but . . . he wasn’t too thrilled about the new customers he was getting.

College students were calling him up like crazy over their Christmas break, probably because they all let things run down over the course of the semester. Then when it was either Christmas vacation or summer vacation, they got all motivated to get it fixed and usually got pissed if he was there even a minute after he’d said he would be. He’d done work for college kids before; it wasn’t like he had anything inherently against them or anything. Hell, Clarke, Raven, Niylah, Wells . . . they were all in college and they were awesome, down-to-earth. He himself would have been in college if . . . well, there was no point in dwelling on that now. Part of him envied all the opportunities these people had, and that was why it pissed him off so much to be laboring away in their houses or in their apartments while they bitched and complained about what their next semester was going to be like.

“I don’t even wanna go back,” one girl whined on the phone while he unclogged all the hair from her bathroom sink. “I wish I could just drop out now.”

That kind of stuff just made him roll his eyes. Some of these people didn’t even know how lucky they were.

Ungrateful people were one thing; straight-up jackasses were something else entirely. Only a few days into Christmas break, Bellamy had his first experience with the latter. Typical frat guys they were, except there were no fraternities on Arkadia’s campus, so they just lived in house with five other male roommates and probably deluded themselves into thinking it was a frat.

There were two guys in particular who called up Bellamy, and he quickly recognized the last name: Sydney. One of these kids, the blonde one who looked like a rejected Baywatch extra, was Diana’s son. He introduced himself politely enough at first, said his name was Trey and then introduced his friend, whose name Bellamy wasn’t inclined to learn. They thanked him for coming, but then things went south quickly. They asked him to clean their house. Bellamy could only stare at them in disbelief for a few seconds before informing them, “I’m not a maid.”

Trey snorted. “Wait, aren’t you supposed to fix whatever needs fixin’, though?”

“Right,” Bellamy confirmed. Right now, he was fixing to pull their heads out of their asses. “Cleaning, on the other hand . . . you guys can do that all on your own.” Business-sense would have dictated that he had less of a hostile tone with them, but fuck that. He didn’t care if he lost these two losers’ business.

Even though they were disappointed that—god forbid—they’d have to buckle down and clean their own house, they did have a garbage disposal that needed fixing. Bellamy took a look at it, determined it salvageable, and then negotiated the price with them. He could get a new dispenser for fifty bucks, get it installed quickly enough, and get the hell out of there. They agreed on a price of three-hundred for the entire job, so he headed out to Walmart to get the part.

When he got back, those two idiots had attempted to fix it themselves and only made the problem worse. He told them to back off, give him some space, and quickly got to work fixing the problem they had exacerbated. It was a shitty job. It was dirty, smelled awful, and the whole time he was working, those jackasses were saying things like, “Man, I’m glad I don’t do this for a living,” and “See, this is why college is gonna pay off.”

It took everything he had not to get up and leave halfway through the job. He wanted to lay into them—just verbally, not physically (well, kind of physically, too). They thought they were so great and so superior just because they might graduate and might put their degrees to use? They were dumb-asses, and they were driving him up the wall.

He couldn’t leave, though, not when he’d already purchased the disposal. The only way he’d get paid was if he finished the job.

He worked quickly and fixed the problem well, only to avoid having them call him back later and complain. When he was done, he had to interrupt their utterly important mid-afternoon game of beer pong to get his money. Which proved to be an issue. Even though they’d agreed upon three-hundred, Trey put only three fifty dollar bills in his hand.

“This is only half,” Bellamy said.

“Oh, is it?” Trey and his friend exchanged a laugh.

“We said three-hundred,” Bellamy reminded him. Shit, he’d kept the labor cost cheap just because the part itself was cheap. “I told you, it’s on-site payment only. I need the rest of it now.”

“Well, that’s all I got,” Trey said, shrugging, “so . . . take it or leave it.” He picked up the ping pong ball again, bounced it off the table, and then rejoiced when it landed in one of the cups.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bellamy roared. “You’re gonna stiff me a hundred and fifty bucks?”

“Fine, here,” Trey gave in, reaching into his pocket to take out another fifty. “Happy now?”

What the hell kind of question was that? Of course he wasn’t happy. This was still a hundred bucks less than what they’d agreed on.

“Why don’t you go fix some toilets or something?” the jackass friend suggested pompously.

“Yeah, my mom’s pipes probably need unclogged,” Trey mumbled. Both he and his friend got a laugh out of that one.

Screw this, Bellamy thought. He didn’t even want their money now. What he really wanted to do was march right back over to that brand new disposal and stick that money down into the center of it. Hell, maybe that’d even clog it up again, and this time, they could fucking fix it themselves, or at least try to.

Yeah. That was what he wanted to do.

The harsh reality of the situation, though, was that he quite literally couldn’t afford to do that. Even if it was a hundred dollars less than what he was supposed to be getting, it was still money in his hand, and he still needed it. And of course Trey and his friend knew that; that’s why they weren’t paying him the rest. They knew he’d have to settle.

There was definitely a way to make them pay, but it involved escalating things to the point of a fight; and he wasn’t about to do that, no matter how much he wanted to punch their smug, arrogant faces in. So he sucked it up, swallowed his pride, and left with two hundred dollars in his pocket. One-fifty, technically, due to the cost of the disposal. All that work for a lousy hundred and fifty bucks. That was about a week’s worth of groceries. Not a month, a week.

Pathetic.

That job put him in a bad mood for the rest of his jobs throughout the day. He worked as quickly as he could, but he didn’t finish up until nearly 8:00. His truck struggled on the way home, not because he wasn’t maintaining it but because it was so damn cold outside, and all he could think was, Great. I’ll probably have to use that one-fifty to buy a new engine part.

When he finally got home, his roommates were planted on the couch playing video games again. Murphy had on flannel pajama pants—probably hadn’t changed out of them all day—but Miller was still in his security uniform, so he must have had to work pretty late, too.

“Hey,” Miller said. “Long day, huh?”

“Endless.” Bellamy sat down on the arm of the couch, rubbing his forehead. He had a damn headache. His back hurt, his legs hurt, his shirt was covered in God only knew what crap . . .

“What the hell did you fix today?” Murphy asked. “You smell, man.”

Bellamy pulled his shirt collar up to his nose, embarrassed that Murphy was right. “This fucking garbage disposal,” he said. “You know, I might not have to do all that or work so late if you got a job.”

“I’ve told you before, we should go into business together,” Murphy said, eyes still locked on the screen as Miller kicked his ass at whatever game they were playing.

“And I’ve told you before, that’s not gonna happen,” Bellamy shot back. Murphy had no mechanical abilities whatsoever, and absolutely no potential for acquiring customer service skills. Bellamy loved the guy like a brother, but there was no fucking way he could go into business with him.

“Dropship’s hiring bartenders,” Miller suggested. “You could apply there.”

“Nah,” Murphy said. “I don’t wanna work there. I play there.”

“Do you wanna work anywhere?” Bellamy asked impatiently. “‘cause that’d be nice.”

Miller paused the game, casting a worried glance up at Bellamy. “You alright?” he asked. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

Bellamy sighed, trying to forget about his crappy day. Usually, to do that, he just reminded himself that he’d had worse. “Yeah, I’m just in a bad mood,” he said.

“Oh, well, here’s something that’ll put you in a better one,” Murphy said. “Clarke’s already upstairs.”

Clarke? That did make him feel better. She spent so many nights over there, so it wasn’t unusual by any means. But just the thought of being able to go up there and crawl into bed with her, even if all they did tonight was sleep . . . it was a good capper to an otherwise lousy day.

When he got upstairs, he found Clarke sitting up in his bed, sketching. She glanced up when she saw him and smiled. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Awesome, she was wearing his Redskins shirt. And probably nothing underneath. Yeah, getting to come home to a cute girl who had a penchant for wearing his clothes? Didn’t suck. Trey and his dumbass friend may have had money, but he was willing to bet they didn’t have this.

“You’re home late,” she remarked, setting her book down on her lap.

“Yeah, long day.” He tilted his head to the side to get a better view of her drawing. All he could make out right now were two sets of legs tangled up beneath some blankets. That had to be them, right? Who the hell else would it have been?

He smirked, loving that she was using their sex life as inspiration for her artwork. Hell, maybe that’d be the basis for her exhibit at Trikru. He didn’t mind.

“Keep drawing,” he told her, stopping to press a kiss to the top of her head before he peeled his shirt off and headed into the bathroom. “I’m gonna shower.”

“Want me to join you?” she offered.

“I’m just gonna take a quick one.” He smiled weakly and shut the door. With aching limbs, he got into that shower and stood there like a zombie, letting the water wash over him and soothe his tired body. Everything hurt. Any day he came home like this with sore muscles and dirty clothes, he was reminded of just how much of manual labor job he worked. Sometimes he got caught up networking with his customers and strategizing on how to get more business, and he let himself believe it was more than that. But at the end of the day . . . no, he was still just a handyman. That was manual labor.

Man, he was down on himself tonight, and he hated feeling that way. But once the regret and self-pity and general miserableness set in, sometimes it was hard to combat. He knew he would—he’d wake up tomorrow and it would be another day. But for tonight, he was just down in the dumps.

He collapsed on the bed with his towel around his waist. His mattress squeaked, of course, but damn, it felt good. He’d been going nonstop for twelve hours today. Even his lunch break had just been a sandwich on the drive from one location to the next. This bed felt good; it felt necessary.

Clarke set her sketchbook aside and scooted in close to him, propping her arm up underneath her head. Poor girl, she probably expected something tonight, sex of some kind. In contrast to how overworked he was feeling, Clarke was bored as hell. Having nothing to do on Christmas break meant that she really wanted to do him.

“How was your day?” he asked her.

“Good,” she said. “I hung out with Raven and Niylah.”

“I bet you guys talked about sex,” he speculated.

“Maybe just a little bit here and there once in a while,” she said. “What about you? You don’t look like you had a good day.”

“I didn’t,” he admitted. “Oh, well.”

“What happened?” she pressed.

He groaned, not even sure if he wanted to recount it. “Just . . .” Sometimes he felt weird venting his frustrations about college people to Clarke, being that she was one herself. “I was fixing this garbage disposal for these two morons,” he said, figuring it might do him some good to get it off his chest. “And you should’ve seen ‘em, Clarke. You should’ve seen the way they looked at me and talked to me. Like they thought they were so much better than me. Like I was just some blue collar trash not even worth their money.”

Clarke frowned, whimpering sympathetically, and leaned down to press a light kiss to his shoulder. “They sound like losers,” she said.

“Yeah, they were.” He knew he was a better guy than them, less of a jackass, but still . . . sometimes his job made him feel like a loser, too.

“Don’t go do any jobs for them again,” Clarke said.

“Oh, trust me, I won’t.” From now on, he’d stick to the people who actually paid the full amount of their bill.

“Just forget about them,” she said, rubbing her feet—damn cold feet—against his legs. “You’re here with me now.”

He sighed contentedly because, here with her? Yeah, it was a pretty nice place to be.

“Maybe,” she said, trickling her fingers down his chest and abdomen, “I can make you feel a lot better.” Her hand stopped at his towel, and she smiled at him suggestively.

Oh, he wanted to have sex with her, no doubt about that. But his body had other plans. “I’m exhausted,” he told her honestly.

“You can just lay here,” she told him. “I’ll do all the work.”

His eyebrows shot up with intrigue. Well, that definitely sounded like something worth pursuing. As much as he loved being a more dominant personality in the bedroom, there were times like this where the thought of letting her take over was so appealing.

What the hell? he figured. Even though he was tired, it wasn’t that late yet. And it definitely would put him in a better mood. If Clarke was offering, he sure as hell wasn’t about to turn it down.

“Alright,” he said.

“Alright.” She unhooked his towel and pushed it aside. He wasn’t hard yet, so she had some work to do, and she wasted no time getting to it. She wrapped her hand around his cock and started pumping him, finding her rhythm right away.

“Uh,” he groaned, closing his eyes so he could concentrate on the feel of that. She had soft little hands. They felt so different than his own.

“You’re not gonna fall asleep on me, are you?” she teased.

“No.” It didn’t matter how tired he was. There was no way he could sleep through this.

“Good,” she said. “Because I really want you.”

His eyes snapped open, and he gazed up at her gratefully. She really was so damn good to him, always knew what to do or what to say.

“You’re Bellamy Blake,” she said, as if solely to inflate his ego. She leaned forward, lips moving against his as she murmured, “And you are so, so sexy.” Her mouth was on his then, tongue delving in between his lips to brush against his. The combination of making out with her while her hand jerked him off was the perfect recipe for getting him hard. Or at least hard enough that he was good to go.

“Well, that was fast,” she said, removing her hand.

“I’m easy to please.”

She sat back on her knees and reached down to the grab the bottom of her shirt—technically his t-shirt—with crisscrossed arms. But she hesitated before pulling it over her head, asking, “Do you want me to leave this on?”

Did he want her to leave his t-shirt on while she got on top of him and fucked him? Hell, yeah, that sounded great. “Sure,” he said, trying to play it cool.

“Okay.” She let go of the t-shirt and stretched over his stomach to pull open his nightstand drawer. He smoothed the shirt up enough so that he could smack her ass while she looked for condoms. Nothing too forceful, just a light hit that elicited a little yelp from her.

His condom supply was nearing its end, but he still had a few left. She found one and sheathed him quickly, then took to touching herself for a moment to get everything . . . going down there. He could have laid there and watched her touch herself forever; it was so fucking sexy. But she seemed to be as easily turned on as he was, because after only a few seconds of that, she was getting on top of him and positioning her entrance above his cock. She teased just the tip of it before changing her mind and turning around instead.

“This is new,” he remarked, appreciating a brand new view. What was this position called? Reverse cowgirl or something? He wasn’t even sure if Clarke had ever done it before, but in typical Clarke fashion, she was willing to try.

There was a period of about two adorable minutes where she had no idea how to get the position to work comfortably. The t-shirt was part of the problem, as it was long enough to cover her hips. She ended up taking her ponytail holder out of her hair and using it to secure the shirt in a knot at her side. Then, on hands and knees, she moved forward, then backward, telling him to help her out and hold his cock steady so she could get on it and go to pound town.

“I thought you said you were gonna do all the work,” he taunted.

“I am, but--” Frustratedly, she changing things up all together, repositioning herself into a squat. “Does this look good?” she asked. “It feels really awkward.”

“It looks good,” he assured her. It was sort of like doggy style in that he had an incredible view of her ass. But she was the one who had the control here, and he couldn’t wait to see what she did with it.

She reached between her legs and took his cock in her hand, holding it still as she sank down on top of it. She went about halfway down at first, bounced a bit, and then tried to go even further. It was an amazing sight to see, her body stretching and making room for him. No matter how many times he got to bury himself inside her hot, hot heat like this, it always felt and looked so damn good.

“Oh, god, Bellamy,” she moaned, moving up and down at a steady pace. She had to press one hand to his thigh and the other to his chest to keep her balance as she bounced.

“Yeah,” he breathed out, splaying both his hands against her ass. He spread her cheeks open slightly, allowing himself a glimpse of that tight, untouched asshole of hers. God, he felt like such a pervert, but he wanted in there so bad someday. In fact, it took all his willpower to resist giving it a go with his finger right now. But she wasn’t expecting that, and he didn’t want to alarm her. When—if—they got to that point someday, he wanted it to be something he did with her, not to her.

“Okay, this is hurting my legs,” she decided after a couple minutes of that position. She got off of him, turned back around, and straddled him the regular way, sinking right back down onto him easily this time. She rode him at a faster, more experienced pace in this direction, and the way she threw her head back signaled to him that she was enjoying it more.

“Take this off,” he said, tugging at the shirt. As good as it looked on her, if she was facing him, he wanted to watch those beautiful tits bounce.

The shirt was gone in a matter of seconds, and then it was just her naked body and his, the way it was meant to be. She rolled her hips against his almost frenetically, riding him at a desperate pace as if she’d been thinking about this all day. She probably had been, he realized, because unlike him, she hadn’t had work to distract her.

“Fuck yeah, Princess,” he praised, smoothing one hand up her stomach so he could squeeze her breast.

“Uh!” she moaned loudly, and it must have been either the touching or the nickname that spurred her on to sink down onto him even further. He wasn’t exactly balls deep in her or anything, but it was pretty close. He could barely see where he ended and she began. “Oh god, Bellamy,” she gasped, reaching backward to press her hands against his thighs. She arched her back and started to grind against him furiously, clearly feeling something she liked. Bellamy suspected he knew what it was; he’d seen this type of impending orgasm a few times before, and when it hit, usually girls loved it.

“You got it,” he told her, sneaking his hand out to rub her clit. That stimulation combined with the way his cock was hitting her inside sent her flying over the edge in a matter of seconds. She completely surrendered to it, yelling out her pleasure, unconcerned about anyone else in that house hearing her. Her body shook and shuddered as the evidence of her orgasm gushed around his cock. Not quite a squirt, but she’d probably do that soon someday.

It was clearly an intense climax for her, and she must have been so sensitive and stimulated after the fact that she almost had to get off of him. She collapsed beside him, a boneless heap on her side, gasping for air, still basking in the pleasure as it rippled through her.

Hell, yes, he thought, grabbing his cock so he could work himself closer to his own completion.

“What was that?” she asked breathlessly.

He couldn’t be sure, but he had a pretty good idea. “I think we hit your g-spot,” he told her. “Did you ever cum like that before?”

“Uh-uh. That was . . .” She trailed off, a blissfully dazed smile on her face. “That was different.”

Different in a good way, he assumed, since she didn’t look like she could even move now.

“But . . .” She tried to reach over onto his lap, but he nudged her hand away. “I was supposed to make you feel better.”

“Don’t worry. You did,” he assured her, more than content to just rub one out and let her rest. She might not have known it, might not have even understood it, but giving her that much pleasure, being the guy who got to make her lose control even when she had all of it . . . to him, it was the best feeling in the world.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Raven’s visit made an otherwise boring day into a potentially fun one. “Here you go,” she said, holding up a green and white ruffled cheerleading skirt. “Bellagio’s been texting me about this for five days straight. My gift to him. Merry fucking Christmas.” She flicked the skirt at Clarke, smirking. “You guys are nymphos.”

Clarke held up the skirt, realizing immediately that it was way too small for her. “Oh, he’s gonna be so disappointed,” she said. “I’ll never fit into this.”

“Just try it,” Raven urged, gliding into Clarke’s apartment.

“Fine.” Clarke unbuttoned the back of the skirt and tried to step into it, but she only got it up to mid-thigh when it would go no further.

“Yeah, I had, like, no ass back when I wore that,” Raven recalled. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. He can use his imagination.” Clarke stepped out of the skirt and put it down on her counter. “So guess what happened?” she said, and without waiting for a response, added, “The worst thing ever.”

Raven’s eyes grew wide with alarm. “Oh my god, what?”

Clarke pouted. “I got my period.”

Raven scrunched up her face in confusion. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Well . . .” Clarke rolled her eyes. “Okay, yeah, obviously.” She would’ve much rather gotten it than not gotten it. It was just that the timing was inconvenient. “But New Year’s Eve’s tomorrow night, and Bellamy and I were gonna . . . you know.”

“Fuck in the new year?” Raven filled in bluntly.

“Pretty much.” That was all shot to hell now, though. Last month, Bellamy had dropped a few hints that he wasn’t entirely opposed to period sex, but she was, at least during these first few days when the flow was heavy. By about the fourth day, though, they could do it in the shower. And then after that, as long as they put a towel down on the bed, they’d be fine.

“Just give him a blow-job,” Raven suggested. “Or . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head. “No, you won’t do that.”

“What?” Clarke prompted.

“Nothing.”

“Anal?” Clarke guessed. She wasn’t some pure little virgin who’d never watched porn before; she knew what options were out there, even if she hadn’t yet explored them all like Raven and Roan probably had.

“That’s kinda painful the first time,” Raven informed her. “Probably not the way you wanna ring in 2018.”

Probably not, but that didn’t mean Clarke was ruling it out for all time. “I’ll do it someday,” she said.

“With Bellagio?”

“Probably.” Hell, he’d gotten her to try a whole lot of things for the first time. It seemed inevitable that someday they’d work their way up to that.

“Oh my god, Clarke!” Raven became faux-emotional and hugged her. “I love this guy. He’s making you into a dirty slut like the rest of us.”

Clarke laughed, taking the teasing in stride. But the truth was, no matter what she and Bellamy did together, ‘dirty slut’ was the last thing he’d ever call her.

She went over to his house after he got home from work and broke the news to him while he stirred some pasta for dinner. All she had to say was, “Bad news,” for him to spout off a litany of period euphemisms.

“Let me guess: It’s Shark Week? Communists are the in the fun house? Somebody’s poisoned the water hole?”

She had to laugh at how ridiculous those were. “Yeah, you could say that.”

He shrugged. “That’s alright.”

“No, it’s not,” she whined. “Not with New Year’s coming up. That’s such a sexy holiday.”

“Oh, come on, Clarke, you’re ovary-acting.” He made himself laugh with that one.

“Ha, ha,” she deadpanned. “Seriously, though, I’m pissed. Why couldn’t it just wait for a few days?”

“You mean you wanted your period to be late?”

“Well, not like that.”

“Clarke. It’s fine,” he said again. “There’s plenty of other stuff we can do to pass the time.”

“Stuff?” she echoed, wondering what exactly he had in mind. “What kind of stuff?”

“Well, we can watch the news,” he said, turning the heat down on the burner. “We can learn to knit.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Nah, there’s stuff,” he said. “Fun stuff.”

Huh, she thought, letting her mind run wild. If Raven had thought of anal sex, wasn’t it likely that Bellamy was thinking of the same thing? If he suggested it, she wasn’t sure what she would say. On the one hand, it kind of freaked her out to even think about doing it that way, but on the other hand, if it was with Bellamy . . . well, Bellamy always knew what he was doing in bed. And he always made her feel . . . safe.

Murphy and Miller came inside while Bellamy was draining the water from the pasta, and they were arguing about whether who had won trampoline basketball. How they were even managing to play trampoline basketball without a ball or a hoop was a mystery to Clarke, but whatever. Sometimes it was best to just let the boys do their own thing.

“Mmm, what’re you making?” Murphy asked. “Spaghetti? Do I get some?”

“Sure,” Bellamy replied, “if I made enough. It goes Clarke, me, Miller, you. If we eat everything, you starve.”

Murphy shrugged. “Ah, fair enough.” He wandered over to his leg lamp, ran his hand up the side of it, and said, “I stare at this thing every day, Clarke. It’s the best present anyone’s ever gotten me.”

“Well, I’m . . . glad you like it.” She was letting everyone believe she’d gotten it for ten dollars, but in reality, it had cost thirty-five. No one needed to know she’d gone over the budget, or that the budget wasn’t really much of a concern to her anyway.

“He’d sleep with it, if he could,” Miller said. “He’s obsessed, Clarke. You got him a new obsession.”

“Well, as long as he likes it.” She had to admit, she was sort of enjoying being the only person in that group who had ever gotten Murphy a present he enjoyed.

“Look,” Bellamy said quietly as he dumped an entire can of marina sauce into the pot of spaghetti. “This . . . this is what’s happening in between your legs right now.”

She swatted his arm. “Seriously, Bellamy?” A period joke? A period joke when she was PMS-ing? That was ill-advised.

He just laughed, apparently amused with himself.

Suddenly, a loud boom arose from across the street, startling Clarke until she realized it was just a firework. No one in her neighborhood really set off fireworks around New Year’s, but she knew a few people did. It didn’t seem to faze either Murphy or Miller, but Bellamy immediately grew agitated by it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he ground out, setting the spoon he was using to stir down. “Already?” He completely abandoned the spaghetti, marched across the living room, stepped into his shoes, and stormed out of the house, leaving the door flung wide open. “Hey!” he roared, stomping across the street. “What the hell are you doin’? It’s not even New Year’s Eve yet!”

What? was all Clarke could think as she made her way over to the door. One little firework was getting this big of a big reaction out of him.?

“Clarke, do you wanna stir?” Miller asked.

No, she didn’t want to. She wanted to stand in that doorway and watch Bellamy. He was yelling at his neighbor, a scruffy, cigarette-smoking guy with greasy bed-head and a substantial beer belly. That guy and a younger guy—maybe his brother?—had a whole line of fireworks set up on the sidewalk, ready to be set off.

“What the hell is this?” Bellamy demanded. “It’s not the Fourth of July!”

“Ah, shut the fuck up, Bellamy!” his neighbor yelled back at him.

Clarke frowned, not sure what she was even witnessing. She’d seen Bellamy get mad before, at Lincoln, even at her. But this . . . was different. Weird, even. It seemed like such a small, trivial thing to get upset about it. And Bellamy seemed genuinely upset.

“You realize those aren’t even legal?” Bellamy roared. “I could call the cops on your ass.”

“Yeah, then I call the cops on your little stoner friend.”

“Clarke, shut the door,” Miller said. “It’s cold outside.”

She frowned, reluctantly leaving the two men to their shouting match. She completely did not understand why this had set Bellamy off so much. Sure, fireworks were illegal in their state, but that didn’t stop people from shooting them off. And even though it was a lot more common on the Fourth of July than it was around New Year’s . . . was this really that big of a deal?

“What’s going on?” she asked the guys, rejoining them in the kitchen.

Miller and Murphy exchanged a quick look, and then Miller simply answered, “Bellamy doesn’t like fireworks.”

Well, yeah, she could see that. That didn’t exactly answer her question, though. “Why not?” she pressed.

The two men looked at each other again, but neither one answered this time. Instead, Miller shifted the conversation completely. “Should we make some garlic bread with this?” he asked. “I think we’ve got some in the freezer. You wanna check?”

Garlic bread? Clarke didn’t even care about food right now. She cared about the fact that she could still hear Bellamy’s low, booming voice outside, chewing into his neighbor for something that, to her at least, seemed pretty harmless.

“We should tell Bellamy to come in,” Murphy suggested quietly.

“I’ll go get him,” Clarke volunteered. She went back to the door and poked her head outside, only to find that Bellamy and his neighbor were standing within feet of each other now, close enough that either one of them could take a swing at the other if they felt like it.

“Bellamy!” she called. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Yeah, Bellamy, go eat,” his neighbor said tauntingly. “Go eat your fucking whore.”

She bristled, and Bellamy immediately grew defensive. “What’d you call her?” he bellowed.

“You heard me!”

“You think you can call her that?”

“Bellamy!” Clarke yelled, rushing outside without shoes on. Something told her that this was about to escalate to the point where it would come to blows, so she had to intervene.

“Clarke, stay inside,” he told her.

“No, you come inside,” she said, tugging on his arm. He wouldn’t budge. “Bellamy.”

His feet were planted there, eyes glaring daggers at his neighbor.

She was about to call for Miller, but luckily, he was already there, positioning himself in between Bellamy and the other man. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go inside.” He had to grab his shoulders, but he got him to move. Not much, at first, but eventually, Bellamy had turned his back on his neighbor and was walking back across the street, Miller on one side of him, Clarke on the other.

What just happened? she wondered, making the mistake of glancing back over her shoulder at the gross neighbor guy. He leered at her, licked his lips, and then grabbed his crotch. “Come back over here anytime, baby,” he called suggestively.

Bellamy stopped, jaw tightening, hands clenching into fists. For a second, Clarke thought he was going to turn back around and go deck the guy, but Miller still had him under control. “Come on,” he said. “Forget about him, man.” They got inside, and Bellamy stormed straight up the stairs without saying a word, completely forgetting about dinner. It was like he’d forgotten about everything except his own anger in that moment, and Clarke still didn’t know where it had come from.

Murphy stood in the kitchen, stirring the spaghetti slowly, eyes downcast at the pot in front of him. He didn’t say anything, and Miller didn’t say anything, either, as he kicked off his shoes and sighed.

Clarke wasn’t about to just not say anything, though, not when she had so many questions about what had just happened. “What was that about?” she asked. Since when did Bellamy, who she’d known to be pretty free-spirited at most things, get uptight about somebody setting off a firework?

“He’s fine,” Miller said. And that was all he said before he, too, went upstairs.

He’s not fine, Clarke thought. He’s upset. He’d been in a good mood, even after a long day of work today. He’d been cooking and joking with her, and everything had been normal. But it was like something had just happened, some switch had been flipped, and he’d gone from zero to sixty on the anger scale in a matter of seconds. It didn’t scare her or anything, because she knew Bellamy would never get angry like that with her; and hell, part of the reason he’d gotten so angry was because that guy had called her a whore. But it did confuse her. And what was even more confusing was that Miller and Murphy didn’t seem to want to talk about it any more than Bellamy did.

Chapter Text

Chapter 19

Since New Year’s Eve wasn’t exactly New Year’s Rockin’ Eve until the sun went down, Clarke had no problem getting together with her mother for lunch and for their gift exchange that day. They got some food, then went back to Clarke’s apartment to open up presents together. Her mother questioned why she hadn’t put up a tree this year, and she just nonchalantly replied she didn’t feel like putting one up. No need to tell her that she’d already had a tree (and a topless Mrs. Claus ornament) at Bellamy’s.

Bellamy. Her mind kept drifting back to him, making it hard to concentrate as her mother told her about Marcus’s new ‘campaign strategies.’ He’d been more than a little aloof last night, opting to go to bed early rather than spend much time with her or Miller or Murphy. He’d woken up early and gone to work, and as far as she knew, they still had plans with all their friends to ring in the new year at Dropship tonight. But she wasn’t sure whether he’d be normal Bellamy or angry-at-the-neighbor Bellamy.

When it was 3:00 in the afternoon, Clarke felt like it was time for her mother to leave. She still needed to shower and get ready for the evening, so she offered to help her mom carry gifts to the car. They thanked each other for the gifts, and Clarke reminded her to give Marcus his present—it wasn’t much. Just a couple of new ties, but what else were you supposed to get a politician?

“I know he wishes he could’ve been here today,” her mother said, “but he’s just exhausted with work right now. He needed to rest.”

“It’s okay. I understand,” Clarke said. “We just had a different kind of Christmas this year. It’s fine.”

“Yeah.” Her mother nodded, attempting to smile, but it was more of a sad smile.

“What’s wrong?” Clarke asked her.

“It’s just . . .” Her mother blinked back tears, shaking her head. “I missed you this year,” she said. “We’ve never spent Christmas apart. It wasn’t the same without you there.”

Oh god, Clarke thought, feeling a stab of guilt in her chest. She’d been so caught up in her own day with Bellamy, Octavia, Lincoln, and Aurora that she hadn’t really stopped to think about how the change in plans had made her mother feel.

“It’s okay, though,” Abby quickly assured her. “I’m not blaming you. You can’t help the fact that you got sick.”

That feeling of guilt intensified even more, to the point where Clarke couldn’t contain it any longer. She had to come clean. “Mom,” she said, “I lied.”

Her mother frowned. “What?”

God, this felt horrible, admitting this, owning up to it. But she didn’t want to perpetuate the lie any longer, risk making it worse than it was. “I wasn’t really sick,” she confessed, ashamed that she hadn’t just been honest right from the start. “I spent Christmas Day with some friends instead this year.”

Abby looked . . . devastated. Absolutely devastated and heartbroken, and Clarke felt the need to try to explain.

“It’s not because I didn’t wanna see you or even Marcus,” she added quickly. “It’s just . . . sometimes I don’t feel like I fit in with the rest of the family.”

“Oh, trust me, I know they can be a little . . . much,” her mother acknowledged. “But it was Christmas, Clarke.”

“I know.” She didn’t regret her decision to spend the day with different people, but she still did feel bad for lying about it. “I’m sorry.”

Obviously her mother was trying not to cry, but she was hurt, and it happened anyway. A few tears fell onto her cheeks, she quickly wiped them away. “I’m not mad,” she said. “I understand. But it just . . . it breaks my heart, Clarke.”

“I know. I’m sorry I lied,” she apologized.

“No, it breaks my heart that . . .” Her mother swallowed hard, clearly getting emotional about . . . something. Something more than this. “I know things haven’t been the same these past five years,” she acknowledged. “Ever since your dad . . . passed . . . it’s just been different.”

Clarke nodded sadly, because . . . yeah, it had been. There was no denying that.

“I know I haven’t been able to be the same kind of parent he was,” her mom went on. “I know you two were incredibly close, and these past couple years, you and I have drifted apart a lot. I know that, and I know I’m to blame for some of it.”

I probably am, too, Clarke thought. Three years ago, when her mother had told her she was getting married again, she’d been such a brat about it, because in her mind, no one could replace her father. Back then, she’d viewed Marcus as her mother’s version of a replacement.

“But I’m trying, Clarke,” her mother went on. “I’m trying so hard. And it’s not easy. Being a mother, being a parent . . .” She shook her head, blinking back more tears. “It’s not easy.”

Clarke felt her heart go out to her, but now that the truth was out, she didn’t feel as guilty anymore; now she mainly felt empathetic. So she hugged her mom, whispering that she loved her, because she did. Despite the woman’s discomfort with Clarke’s sexuality, her forced cheerfulness at campaign rallies, and her unwavering ability to try to please all their obnoxious family members, Clarke did love her mom. If anything, Christmas with Bellamy and his mom had strengthened her love for her own mother and made her feel like she should be more expressive about it. Bellamy was an unabashed mama’s boy. He loved his mother with every fiber of his being; it was so obvious. And the relationship they shared was so special and unique. Clarke didn’t have that same kind of closeness with her mom, and that was fine; but she still had a mother who loved her. And she loved her mother back.

Despite the emotional turn their goodbye had taken, Clarke and her mom did manage to part on good terms that day—honesty really was the best policy, it seemed. Clarke was in good spirits as she got ready for her night out; she even took the time to straighten her hair. She kept the clothing simple with leggings, boots, and a tunic top, and headed over to Bellamy’s around 6:30, eager to get her New Year’s Eve started.

Bellamy must have had to work late again, because he was still in the shower when she got there. She peeled back the shower curtain and exclaimed, “Boo!” startling him.

“Jesus, Clarke,” he swore.

God, he looked so good with his chest and abs all soapy like that. She wanted to get in there and help him get clean—or keep him dirty, whichever—but her hair and makeup were already done for the night. Besides . . . her damn period was going to limit the holiday fun.

“Are you gonna be ready to go by 7:00?” she asked. From what she understood, their whole group had dinner reservations at 7:30.

“Yeah, I’ll be ready,” he said, threading his hand through his wet hair. “Well, close the curtain, Clarke. It’s not a free show.”

Smiling, she left him to his shower and surveyed her reflection in the mirror. Oh, yeah, the tunic top was a good idea. That time of the month had her feeling (and probably looking) bloated as hell, but this top was loose enough that it was still flattering, and it was low-cut, so, if she bent over far enough, she’d show plenty of cleavage. Bellamy would appreciate that.

She hopped up on the sink counter and waited for him to get out of the shower. It only took him a few more minutes, and when he stepped out, he grinned at her as he bent down to pick up his towel. “Are you thirsty again, Clarke?”

She totally was, so the sight of his wet skin was literally making her salivate. “Maybe,” she admitted.

“Well, I told you, we’re gonna have fun tonight,” he reminded her as he dried off his arms and chest.

Good, she thought. Last night . . . hadn’t been so fun what with him getting all unusually upset and everything. “So you’re in a good mood then?” she assumed.

“Hell, yeah, I’m in a good mood.” He said it as though it were a given, but after seeing him get so angry with his neighbor . . . it wasn’t.

“You’re not mad anymore?” she asked.

“No, I’m fine.” He wrapped his towel around his waist, tucking it in on the side, and approached the sink, leaning towards the mirror to get a closer look at his face. “I need to shave,” he said, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

“No, you don’t. You look manly,” she said.

“No, I need to shave.” He splashed some more water on his face, then wasted no time lathering up some shaving cream and applying it over his top lip, around his mouth, along his jaw, and under his chin. Clarke just sat there and watched him, unable to suppress a laugh at how ridiculous he looked.

“What?” he said.

“You look like Santa Claus.”

“A hot Santa Claus, right?”

“Well . . .” She shrugged, not sure there was such a thing.

“Whatever, I’m hot,” he boasted. He began to shave quickly, and Clarke watched, somewhat mesmerized. She’d never actually seen anyone besides her dad shave his face before. Bellamy was a lot less precise than her father had been, a lot less meticulous, but he seemed to have his technique down-pat.

“I’m glad I don’t have to shave my face every day,” she remarked, thinking that would be a drag.

“Yeah, but you have to shave . . .” He glanced down at her legs. “. . . other things.”

“Not every day, though.” She held out her hand, feeling playful and determined to keep him in a good mood, and gestured to the razor. “Can I do it?”

He gave her a confused look. “You wanna shave my face?”

“Yeah.” It couldn’t be that much harder than shaving her legs.

“Alright,” he said, handing her the razor. “Don’t cut me.”

She had the wrong approach at first, apparently. He gave her a mini-lecture about how she had to shave with the grain instead of against it, but once she understood that, she pretty much had it down. She didn’t go as fast as he did, of course, because she didn’t want to risk nicking him and drawing blood. Besides, she wanted to give him a close and careful shave.

“So who taught you how to shave?” she asked as she gently dragged the razor along his jawline. “Since your dad wasn’t around.”

“My mom,” he answered. “And I was ten when I started getting facial hair, so she had to teach me early.”

“Mmm, see, I was a late bloomer,” she said. “I was, like, the last girl in my grade to get boobs.”

“Really?” He sounded surprised. His eyes flittered down to her chest, and he smiled appreciatively. “Well, once they came in, they came in well.”

She laughed. “I guess.” Her breasts were definitely her best physical asset; they’d gotten her a fair amount of attention over the years. But there were only three people’s whose attention had actually mattered to her, and out of those three people, Bellamy paid the best attention to them.

“So what else did your mom teach you?” she asked, pressing up on his chin so she could better shave what was underneath. “Cooking, I know.”

“Yeah, some cooking. Pretty much everything,” he said. “How to ride a bike, how to climb trees . . . she did it all. She had to. She was amazing.”

Hearing Bellamy talk about his mother was almost enough to make Clarke turn to mush. His love for her and devotion to her was one of the most heartwarming things about him. And she completely understood where it came from. Even after just one day with Aurora Blake, Clarke felt like she had an instant rapport with her. She was kind and genuine and easy to get to know. And there was so much of her in her son.

“I’m envious,” she confessed suddenly, stopping the task of shaving his face. “My mom and I . . . we kind of cleared the air about some things today, but still . . . it’s just not like that.”

“Well, I don’t wanna make it sound like it was easy,” he amended. “I was one of the free and reduced lunch kids growing up. And whenever she was between jobs, we were on food stamps. I got my first job when I was fifteen, and I’ve worked ever since. It sucked, Clarke.”

She lowered her head, feeling bad. Or rather . . . insensitive? She hadn’t meant to make it seem like he and his family had had it easy. “Sorry,” she said.

“No, I’m not mad or anything,” he said. “You can feel envious all you want. But just know, there’s some things about the way you grew up that I envy.”

“I know,” she said, regretting if she’d sounded like some ignorant, privileged girl. “I just wish . . .” She hung her head, mumbling, “I wish my mom and I were close like you and your mom are. Like my dad and I used to be.” She sighed, wishing he had been here to celebrate Christmas, to ring in the new year, to see her exhibit at Trikru come March. But he just wasn’t, and there was no way to change that. “I need to stop comparing her to my dad,” she recognized, because in her head, she did that all the time. And that wasn’t fair to her mom. Jake Griffin was an impossible standard for anyone to measure up to.

“That’s natural, though,” he said. “For a long time, I compared every girl I met to Roma.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And how do I compare? she thought. But that was a stupid thing to wonder about. Of course she didn’t compare. Bellamy’s relationship with Roma was completely different, and she knew it. And she was okay with it.

“Anyway . . . it’s natural,” he repeated. “Come on, though, are you gonna leave my face like this or what?” He motioned to his half-shaved jawline, tilting his head so she could get back to work. “Shave faster,” he said. “We have reservations.”

Reservations, as it turned out, was a generous word for what they had. They weren’t going out to eat at some fancy restaurant where you had to call three weeks in advance just to get a table—Arkadia didn’t even have one of those. They were going to a cheaply-priced Valentino’s buffet Clarke had never eaten at before, and the place didn’t take reservations. Miller had called yesterday just to give them the heads up that there would be a big group coming in at 7:30. And it was a big group. Raven, Roan, Niylah, and Luna joined the usual Saturday night crew from Bellamy’s house, so Clarke had her friends there with . . . well, with her other friends. Wells was the only one to opt out of coming, probably because the New Year’s nightlife wasn’t his thing.

Sixteen people would have been a lot for any restaurant to accommodate, so the buffet had probably been a good idea. They ransacked the pizza, the pasta, and the lasagna right from the start. Octavia and Lincoln were the only ones to begin on the salad bar. Jasper, ever a little bit backwards from everyone else, began with dessert, and Murphy kind of just mixed everything on his plate up into one giant concoction. It looked disgusting, like actual barf, but he savored it as he ate it, raving, “Mmm, shit, this is the best meal of my life.”

Clarke ate sparingly, not because she was one of those girls who was like, “Oh, two peas? I’m full,” but because her stomach already felt like a helium balloon. Sometimes overloading on food during her period exacerbated her cramps, and she didn’t want to have to deal with that tonight of all nights. Whatever food she didn’t have room for, she piled onto Bellamy’s plate. Or plates, rather. He had collected two heaping mountains of food from the buffet, and he managed to eat all of that plus everything she gave him. By the end of the meal, he looked like he was suffering a bit, and she wondered if he’d be okay to go out.

“Are you gonna make it?” she asked, rubbing his back.

“Yeah, I just need to let everything settle,” he said.

“Oh, so then you won’t make me try to dance tonight?”

“Oh, no, we’re gonna dance,” he assured her.

“At Dropship?” There wasn’t much camouflage there like there was at TonDC.

“It’s New Year’s Eve, Clarke. Everyone’s gonna be drunk dancing anyway. You’ll blend right in.”

She had her doubts about that until she actually got to Dropship and saw what chaos it was. This wasn’t like TonDC, where most everyone was young or young-ish. There were people their age, sure, but there were also people in their forties, maybe even fifties, perhaps. There were men who were balding or going grey; there were women who looked like this was the only time of year they went out and let loose, because their bras and underwear were literally falling off while they danced, and they were too drunk to care.

“TonDC gets too crowded on New Year’s,” Bellamy explained to her. “We like coming here.”

Raven ambled up next to him and said, “God, I haven’t been here in such a long time.”

“It’s probably as trashy as you remember,” Bellamy informed her.

“Definitely.” She nudged him, and Clarke overheard her say, “So, Bellagio, this is where you banged my best friend for the first time?”

“Uh, no,” he said, pointing towards the back. “That was in the parking lot.”

With sixteen people in their group, they were able to pretty much dominate Dropship in the hours leading up to midnight. The pool table quickly became their pool table, where Raven schooled all the boys on how to play. Miller collected spare change from everyone and basically monopolized the jukebox, and Roan knew the bartender, so he got them discounts on drinks. Niylah and Luna cozied up in one of the booths and spent the majority of the evening making out, which all the guys, except for Miller and Jackson, seemed enthralled by. And Lincoln, of course, because he was too busy dancing with Octavia most of the time. Octavia said she didn’t feel well around 10:00, though, wished her brother a happy new year, hugged him, and left early with her boyfriend.

“Fine by me,” Bellamy said, plastering a fake smile on his face as he waved goodbye to them. “Now I don’t have to watch them make out at midnight.”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be nicer,” Clarke reminded him.

“I am being nicer,” he insisted, “to his face. But I get to vent to you, don’t I?”

She rolled her eyes, figuring she could allow that. As much as she liked Lincoln, she was willing to be Bellamy’s soundboard for all his Lincoln-bashing, just so long as it kept things civil between them when they were around each other.

At 10:30, when Clarke was still only on her third beer for the night, the Wop came on, and though there was no table to crawl up onto, all the guys formed their familiar circle around the girls, and Clarke resigned to taking part in it this time. She tried to twerk like Harper, failed miserably, and just owned it. Because at this point, she figured she couldn’t possibly look any more embarrassing than those soccer moms whose tops were falling down.

“Am I getting better?” she asked Bellamy after the song was done.

“No,” he answered honestly. “You’re so cute, though, Princess. You’re so cute.”

She leaned into him, melting against his chest as his arms wrapped around her. He swayed with her in time to a slower hip hop beat, and in her mind, she pretended she was dancing. This was probably about as close as she would get.

The whole evening was just a blast for Clarke, one of the best New Year’s Eves she’d ever had. Hanging out with all her old friends and her new friends was the ultimate treat. And everyone just got along with each other so well. The girls gravitated towards Raven, of course, because Raven just had that magnetic personality. They wanted to know everything from what kind of shampoo she used to why the heck she’d ever decided to study mechanical engineering. Emori talked to her about doing a tattoo for her, maybe matching ones for her and Roan, and Clarke overheard Raven say, “Yeah, maybe, if we stay together long enough.”

Niylah, once she and Luna came up for air, was always a big hit with the boys, because even though she had a model figure and was beautiful, she could talk about sex like one of the guys. Jasper got comfortable enough with her that he even asked her for oral sex advice, and she didn’t hesitate to give it. Murphy, for as much as he would boast about his own supposed bedroom prowess, was all ears, soaking up every bit of that conversation. Probably because he needed to. He then told Niylah about his pride and joy in life, his leg lamp, and showed her a picture on his phone and everything.

It wasn’t just that Clarke’s friends were getting to know each other better that made the night so enjoyable; she got the chance to get to know some of their significant others better, too. She talked to Luna for the first time ever, ended up finding out that she was studying to become a marine biologist and was in the process or organizing an ‘aquatic awareness rally.’ Roan, of course, mainly wanted to talk about all the kinky shit he sold in his store, and he kept trying to push that dick-molding kit onto Clarke.

For the most part, though, she spent time with Bellamy. It wasn’t like they were joined at the hip or anything—he left her to own devices out on the dance floor with the rest of the girls while he joined Niylah for a sex tips seminar with the boys. But whether she moseyed on up to the bar to order another beer or slipped into the bathroom to—ugh—change her tampon, she always found her way back to him. And as the hour hand began to creep closer and closer to that 12 on the clock, she found herself more reluctant to leave his side at all. She didn’t want to risk the clock striking midnight and not being with him then. Because even though they weren’t the traditional couple like all these other couples were, they both knew they were doing the whole midnight kiss thing. In fact, they purposefully limited their kissing all night to build up the excitement for it.

Murphy had a couple of misfires and attempted to start the midnight countdown early, but the bartender had the TV on, showing the annual ball drop in Times Square. As it started to lower, everyone in the bar stood up and shouted out the countdown:

“Ten! Nine! Eight!”

Jasper got so excited, he accidentally dumped his drink on himself.

“Seven! Six! Five!”

Niylah and Luna started kissing early.

“Four! Three! Two! One!” Confetti rained in the air, noisemakers blew, and everyone shouted, “Happy New Year!”

Clarke cheered and threw her hands in the air, giving Bellamy the perfect opportunity to wrap his arms around her waist. He spun her around crushing his lips to hers, and she draped her arms over her shoulders as she kissed him back. It was the kind of kiss that made all the other people and all the other sounds around them just kind of fade away. All she could think about was Bellamy: Bellamy’s tongue brushing against her lower lip, Bellamy’s hand on her waist, the smell of Bellamy’s cologne, the bulge in Bellamy’s jeans.

Five minutes later, unable to even pretend that he wasn’t her sole fixation for the rest of the night, Clarke found herself locked away in the cramped bathroom with Bellamy, on her knees, sucking his cock. It wasn’t exactly the kind of sex either one of them had pictured ringing in the new year with, but it worked for her just fine. As much as Bellamy raved about how giving her pleasure gave him pleasure, too, the same was true for her. She loved hearing him and grunt and groan as she moved her mouth up and down his shaft, loved the way he tangled his hand in her hair and tried to keep his hips still, even though he probably wanted to let loose and just fuck her mouth with abandon.

He came, and she swallowed, and it was as she licked the salty taste of his cum off her lips that she realized one of the first things she’d done in 2018 was give him head. Good.

They managed to stay at Dropship until 12:30, but neither of them was particularly satiated yet. She could tell Bellamy was antsy from the way he was readjusting his jeans. It was so obvious that sex was the only thing on his mind, and trying to interact with anyone else was becoming a real struggle for him. Finally, he just gave Clarke a look, didn’t even have to say anything, and she knew what he was suggesting. He wanted to leave. Fine by her. As much as she’d loved spending New Year’s Eve with her friends, it was technically New Year’s Day now, and she just wanted to spend time with Bellamy.

It only took them ten minutes to get from the bar to his house, but it was ten minutes of torture. Clarke just wanted to get naked with him, have her first orgasm of the new year. She didn’t require full-on sex for that. Bellamy had gotten her off with just his hands plenty of times. Maybe if he played with her clit for a while, that’d be enough. He was good at that, and he liked doing it. Not as much as he liked going down on her, obviously, but Bellamy hardly liked anything as much as he liked going down on her.

They were clamoring up to his bedroom when a firework shot off across the street again. He growled angrily, but she just kept kissing him, kept her hands on either side of his face so as to keep his focus on her instead of looking out the window. Whatever it was about fireworks that irked him so much, she wasn’t going to let him dwell on it, not when he had his princess so eager and willing and wanting him.

“What’re we gonna do?” she asked, staggering into the bedroom with him.

“You’ll see.” He kicked his door shut, took his shirt off, and immediately got to work undoing his pants. “Take your top off,” he told her.

She lifted her shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor next to his.

“That, too,” he said, nodding at her bra as he stepped out of his jeans.

She reached around her back and unclasped her bra, shrugging it off and letting her breasts fall free.

“Go get the lube,” he instructed as he slid his underwear down.

The lube? she registered, a bit panicked. Did he want to try anal sex tonight? Because as much as she trusted him and loved trying new things with him, she wasn’t sure she was ready for that quite yet.

Even though she was nervous, she walked over to the nightstand and pulled open the drawer while he started stroking his own cock. Their lube was running about as low as their condoms were, and they didn’t even use it every single time.

“Here you go,” she said, handing it to him, curious to see what he was going to do with it.

“Thanks,” he said, squirting a small amount onto his hand. He rubbed it all over his cock, which did nothing to assuage her anal sex anxiety.

“Bellamy--” She hated to do this, but she had to put the brakes on.

“Get down on your knees,” he told her.

She frowned, perplexed. Hadn’t they just done this in the bathroom? And why would he lube himself up for a blowjob? Saliva pretty much did the trick there.

Even though she was confused, she lowered her knees to the floor and sat back on her feet, watching him stroke his cock a few more times. He was definitely hard again, definitely ready to do . . . something.

“Come here,” he said, motioning for her to sit up straighter.

She rose so that she was in the typical blowjob position, eye-level with his groin, but he didn’t make any move to put his cock in her mouth. Instead, he squirted more lube onto his hands, rubbed them together, and then pressed both his hands between her breasts, slickening them up.

“Oh my god,” she said, able to figure out where he was going with this now. He was definitely going to fuck a different part of her tonight. Just not her ass.

“You ever done this before?” he asked eagerly, that familiar glint of mischief in his eyes.

“No.”

“No?” He seemed pleased to hear that. He never really talked about it a whole lot, but she knew that Bellamy enjoyed getting to be her first for so many things.

Once he had her breasts all slippery and shiny, he told her exactly what to do. “Alright, press ‘em together.”

She tried to mimic what she’d seen the porn stars do, though she doubted she looked as sultry and seductive as they did. She squeezed both her breasts together tightly, trying not to laugh. This was definitely going to be different.

Bellamy had to bend his legs to get his cock at the right angle to slide up in between her breasts. The lube made it easier, but it also made it harder for her to keep them pressed together. As soon as he started rubbing himself against her, they started to slip from her grasp a bit, and she had to let them go. “Sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay.” He kept his cock pressed against her chest this time, and she pushed both her breasts inward to cover it, creating a whole different channel for him to thrust up into. Since he wasn’t actually inside her here, there was no need to take it slow. He thrust hard and jarringly right from the start, making her whole torso rock back and forth as he fucked her.

“Oh,” she gasped, taking in the sight of it. Bellamy’s huge cock in between her tits? Hell yes. Even though she wasn’t getting much out of it in the way of feeling, the visual aspect of it was crazily hot. And Bellamy seemed to be enjoying himself. She could only imagine how soft and warm it felt to him. And it was something new, too, something he’d probably been fantasizing about for a while now.

“Oh, baby, that feels so good,” rolling his head back, eyes closed.

Baby, she registered. When babe or baby came out of his mouth, that usually meant he was really feeling it.

“It looks good,” she said, wanting to convey to him that this was turning her on, too. Something like this definitely had the potential to make a girl feel used, but she didn’t feel like that with him. She felt like he was worshipping her body by fucking her in a new and different way. Watching him get off on it was a total rush.

“Fuck yes,” he growled, slowing his pace so he could increase the length of this thrusts. It was so hot to watch his hips move, to see the thin sheen of sweat breaking out on his abs. “God, Clarke.”

I’m not even doing anything, she thought. He was the one doing all the work; she was literally just sitting there pressing her boobs together. But it seemed to be working wonders for him. He kept swearing, “Fuck,” and alternating between closing his eyes and looking down to watch his cock sliding against her. She did the same, because seeing the arousal on his face was just as sexy as seeing the head of his cock emerge out of her breasts with every upward jolt of his hips.

“It feels good,” she told him, urging him on. It probably didn’t feel even half as good for her as it did for him, but it felt good to be able to give him this, to be able to just surrender her body to him and let him have at it how he saw fit.

“God, you look so hot,” he breathed, picking up the pace again. “You look so hot with my cock in between your tits.”

“Mmm.” She felt hot, especially when he said something like that. She felt sexy. She felt like the sexiest woman in the world, even though she wasn’t. Bellamy made her feel that way.

“I’m gonna cum,” he warned her. A few thrusts later, he pulled his cock out from its makeshift little hole, jerked it a few times, and then spattered his hot, sticky cum all over her chest. She gasped and took everything that came out of him. Since he’d already had an orgasm back at Dropship, there wasn’t as much of it here. But it was still enough to be . . . a load.

“Uh . . .” he groaned, his whole body slumping when he was done. Obviously exhausted, he bent forward, hands on his knees, panting for air. “Damn.”

She looked down at her chest, thinking she looked like a paint tray with just one color on it: white. The thought made her laugh.

“What?” he said, smiling at her.

She laughed some more. “Look at me.”

“Yeah, you look good,” he complimented.

“Oh my gosh.” She sat back on her feet, taking a moment to appreciate the fact that she could laugh right now. Above all else, sex with Bellamy was . . . fun. They laughed, they smiled, they teased each other, they praised each other. There was no need for it to be so serious like in the movies. They enjoyed sex beyond just the act of sex itself. It was a good time, not just because it felt good physically, but because they were good to each other.

“So that was a titty fuck,” she said.

“That was a titty fuck.” He smiled down at her, stroked her hair, and said, “Here, lay down. I’ll clean you up.”

She crawled up onto the bed, careful not to let her chest or torso come into contact with the blankets, and lay down flat on her back while he slipped into the bathroom and took a moment to once again appreciate the sight of his cum on her body, because it really was arousing as fuck. She literally had Bellamy’s semen on her boobs right now. It was nasty and filthy and disgusting, and she fucking loved it.

He came back out a few seconds later with a wet washcloth and lay down beside her. “Wow,” he said, admiring the view for a minute himself. “That looks awesome.”

“It’s very sticky,” she informed him.

“I know. That’s why I got you.” He brought the warm washcloth down onto her chest and started cleaning her up, wiping away all of the . . . him that was left there. Typical Bellamy, he could even make the cleanup feel sexy.

“So how long have you been wanting to do that?” she asked, rubbing her legs together. She was still wet, despite the presence of a tampon. That wasn’t doing anything to soak up her arousal.

“Since the day I met you,” he admitted.

“Was it everything you hoped it’d be?”

“Oh, everything and more.” He finished cleaning her up, headed back into the bathroom to rinse the washcloth off, and then came back out with a dry hand towel. “Here,” he said, tossing it to her.

“Thanks.” She dried off her chest, feeling decidedly cleaner and less sticky now. Well, less sticky on her chest, anyway. That wetness between her legs, on the other hand . . . still sticky.

“You’re so beautiful, Clarke,” he said suddenly, lying down beside her again, propping himself up on his side.

She knew he thought that about her—it was obvious in the way he kissed her, the way he touched her—but hearing him say it out loud made her shiver with delight. “You’re kinda hot, too,” she returned.

“Yeah, but . . .” He smoothed one hand over her chest, down her stomach, hovering at the top of her leggings. “Your body. It’s unreal.”

Well, that was flattering. Like any girl, she looked in the mirror and saw dozens of tiny imperfections. She was comfortable in her skin, and for the most part, she did like the way she looked. But the way Bellamy was talking . . . it was like he didn’t see any imperfections on her at all. And that was mind-blowing.

“You just like my boobs,” she teased.

“I do like them,” he acknowledged. “I love them. In fact . . .” He bent down, pressing a feather-light kiss to one before proposing, “Maybe I should show you how much I love them.”

“Ooh.” She definitely didn’t hate the sound of that.

He latched his mouth onto one nipple, sucking carefully but insistently while he palmed her other breast. “I bet I could make you cum just from doing this,” he wagered.

“Maybe.” Bellamy was certainly capable of anything he put his mind to, and she knew nipple-only orgasms did sometimes happen. Niylah claimed to have had a few, but to Clarke’s knowledge, they were very rare and very difficult to achieve. Oh, well. Whether he got her there or not, she’d certainly enjoy all his efforts.

For nearly twenty minutes, Bellamy really did try his hardest; he was so determined. He ravaged attention onto her breasts, kissing and sucking, licking and even biting down on her nipples gently. He alternated from one breast to the other, always keeping his hand on the ‘open’ one so that neither was ever neglected. He squeezed and rolled her flesh beneath his rough palms, occasionally pinched her nipples, and just generally did everything he could to get her off on it. It was definitely turning her on, for sure, and she knew an orgasm was within her reach. But she also knew her body well enough to know that this alone wasn’t going to get her there. She needed more.

“Bellamy.”

He didn’t stop. The guy was a man on a mission.

“Bellamy.” She tugged on his hair, getting him to raise his head. “It’s not working.”

He frowned disappointedly, and there wasn’t anything exaggerated about it. He was genuinely disappointed in himself for failing to get her off on that. “Sorry,” he said.

“Are you kidding? It feels great.” The only downside was that she was all sticky again, with his saliva this time instead of his semen. Oh, well. She could shower tomorrow morning. “I just need a little more,” she told him, lifting his hand off her breast. She brought it down lower in between her legs, and he, of course, tried to dip it underneath her leggings. “Uh-uh,” she said, moving it back out. She was totally down to have him touch her, but for the next few days, it was going to have to be over her clothing only. Once it was no longer “Shark Week” down there, or whatever he wanted to call it, then he had his 24/7 open access invitation reinstated.

“You’re so wet,” he noted as he began to rub her clit through her leggings.

“Oh . . .” she moaned, arching her hips against his hand. “I’m close, Bellamy.” All of their little sexual activities tonight—starting with that bar bathroom blowjob—had her feeling greedy to climax. Even with clothing in the way, he’d get her there.

“Cum for me,” he whispered, lowering his head to suck on her breast again. The combination of his hot mouth surrounding her nipple and his frenetic fingers working her clit sent her over the edge. She came hard, feeling a gush of liquid between her legs. Her underwear and her leggings were absolutely soaked, and she didn’t even care.

Slowly, he lifted his head, right at the same time as he removed his hand and set it on her stomach. Grinning at her lazily, he said, “Happy New Year.”

She smiled back at him, feeling sleepy and very satisfied. Happy New Year indeed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Boom.

Clarke awoke to the sound of another firework from the neighbor guy. It had to be, like, 3:00 a.m. at this point. A few fireworks around midnight were fine—she didn’t have the same disdain for them that Bellamy did—but this was just ridiculous.

Bellamy stirred, disentangling himself from her and rolling over onto his side. Hopefully he’d just keep sleeping, but Clarke had no doubt that, if there were more fireworks, he’d wake right up, and he’d be pissed about it.

She shut her eyes again, feeling like she could easily drift back off to sleep. She was warm and she was comfortable and . . .

Bellamy was shivering.

She looked over at his naked back, struggling to make out of his form in the darkness. She was lying close enough to him that she could feel him moving, feel the mattress nearly vibrating beneath her; but she didn’t understand why he was so cold.

Another firework boomed across the street, this one lighting up the sky.

And all of a sudden, Bellamy was shaking. Not just shivering, but shaking. His whole body.

“Bellamy.” She put her hand on his back, trying to wake him up.

He kept shaking.

“Bellamy!” She sat up and rubbed his shoulder and his arm.

He just shook harder.

“Bellamy, Bellamy!” She wrapped her arms around him, trying to get him to calm down, trying to get him to be still. “Bellamy! Stop! Stop, Bellamy, stop!”

His tremors were nearly violent ones at this point, almost like someone who was having a seizure. The breath was shuddering from his lungs, and he didn’t seem to hear her at all.

“Bellamy!” she cried. “Bellamy, please, wake up! Please, stop!” Scared, panicked, she yelled for help. “Miller!” But she didn’t even know if he was home yet. What was she supposed to do? She felt like if she got up, Bellamy would shake himself right off the bed, maybe even hurt himself.

His legs kicked, his arms started to swing, and his entire body thrashed wildly.

“Stop, stop, stop,” she pleaded, continuing to hold him tightly as his shaking gradually died down. “Bellamy, stop.” She kept her arms around him, not willing to let go, not even when, as suddenly as the whole thing had started, it just quit. As if it had never happened, he lay there, body still, breathing even, eyes still shut as he slept. The only difference was that he was sweating now, and she could feel his heart beating fast beneath her hand.

No, not just beating fast. Racing. His heart was racing.

Her own heart was pounding now, too, because . . . what was this?

She didn’t want to let go of him. For some reason, she felt like, if she continued to hold him, then she could hold him still, and he wouldn’t do that again. Whatever that had been.

Her mind careened with options. Should she try to wake him up? Go check and see if Miller or Murphy was home? Maybe even call 911? She didn’t know what to do, so she just lay there with him, practically on top of him, trying to cover his large body with her smaller one, almost as if she were a human blanket. He seemed calm now, somehow, and she wanted to keep him that way.

“Bellamy?” she whispered, completely baffled by what had just happened. It wasn’t normal. Whatever ‘it’ had been . . . it wasn’t normal for him or for anyone. He’d seemed completely and utterly terrified, and she’d never seen Bellamy Blake that way before.

That terrified her.

Chapter Text

Chapter 20

Clarke stayed awake all night. There was no chance she was going to go back to sleep after what happened with Bellamy, no chance in hell. Even if she hadn’t been scared shitless and worried sick about him, she would’ve been too confused to shut her mind off and go back to bed.

He hadn’t moved much the rest of the night. He remained on his side, and she remained on hers, one arm wrapped around his midsection, holding him in case he started to shake again. He never did, but she feared he might. So when she heard the front door open and heard Miller and Jackson come upstairs, she didn’t move a muscle, didn’t make any effort to get out of that bed. She felt like she couldn’t risk it. If Bellamy had another . . . panic attack or seizure or whatever the hell that had been . . . if it happened again while she wasn’t there, then she didn’t know if anyone would be able to calm him down this time.

For hours, she lay awake, watching the steady rise and fall of his shoulder blades as he slept calmly. Anytime he moved, even just the slightest movement, she tensed up, scared that one little movement would turn into a whole lot of movement. But he was fine.

Except he wasn’t fine, though. He couldn’t be. Something had to be wrong.

At 7:15, his alarm clock went off. It wasn’t much of an alarm, just loud static sounds from a radio station he wasn’t tuned into. His phone rang shrilly after that, doubling the noise, and he reached over onto the nightstand to shut both alarms off. Clarke had gotten used to hearing them, had gotten used to feeling him stir as they woke him up. Normally she kept dozing right through them, but . . . there was nothing normal about this morning.

What do I say? she wondered. What’s he gonna say?

She got the answer to her question when he turned over onto his back, looked over at her, smiled, and said, “Hey.”

That was it? No explanation or anything, just hey? She didn’t know what to say, so she repeated it back to him. “Hey.”

He stretched a bit, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and yawned. “Oh, I wish I didn’t have to work today.”

What was he doing? Just talking and acting like it was a regular morning, like nothing weird had happened last night? Was he hoping she wouldn’t say anything about it? Unless . . .

Unless he really didn’t remember it. But how could he not remember? It’d been so . . . intense.

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” she suggested, thinking he’d be better off going to see a doctor today than going to fix whatever new problems people were too lazy to fix themselves. “Just stay home.”

“No, I gotta work,” he said, reluctantly sitting up. He reached over and put his hand on her hip, rubbing gently. “It’s early. Why’re you awake?”

I didn’t go to sleep, she thought. Because I was worried about you. “Couldn’t sleep,” she replied vaguely.

He swung the covers off his legs and got out of bed. “You should go back to bed,” he suggested, making his way around to her side. “You’ve got the day off.” He bent down and kissed the top of her head, then strolled into the bathroom to go about his morning routine. The door shut, and she heard the shower kick on a minute later.

What was this? He was just gonna go about getting ready and heading out for the day like nothing was wrong?

Maybe nothing was wrong, though, at least not to him. If he really didn’t remember anything about last night, then he wouldn’t remember how scared she had been, how inconsolable and unresponsive he had been for at least thirty seconds there.

Having gotten less than two hours of sleep, she was exhausted, no doubt, but there was no way she could lie there and try to get any rest. Her mind was racing with worry, and no amount of telling herself it was nothing was going to make her stop thinking about it. So she got up and headed downstairs, unconcerned with the fact that she was only wearing one of Bellamy’s shirts. It went down far enough on her legs, covered everything worth covering. Miller and Murphy and Jackson and Emori . . . they’d all seen her don this attire plenty of times before.

When she got downstairs, she found both of Bellamy’s roommates in the kitchen, functioning at drastically different levels of competence. Miller was dressed in his work uniform and pouring himself a cup of coffee for the morning. Murphy was slumped over the counter, holding his head as though he had a pounding hangover. “Whoa, Clarke,” he said, squinting his eyes at her. “How bad did Bellamy wreck you last night? You look like hell.”

“Thanks, Murphy,” she said sarcastically. It wasn’t like he looked much better himself.

“You look fine,” Miller assured her. “A little tired, but hey, it was New Year’s.”

That’s not why I’m tired, she thought, joining them in the kitchen. She didn’t sit down, just leaned against the center island, not sure how to bring up what had happened last night. She wasn’t even sure she could accurately describe how terrifying it had been.

“You okay?” Miller asked as he sipped his beverage.

“No,” she admitted. “I wish you guys had gotten home earlier last night.”

“Yeah, it was like, 4:00,” Murphy said, laughing. “I regret nothing.”

“Yeah, it was a good time,” Miller agreed.

“Yeah, well, while you guys were out partying, Bellamy was . . .” She trailed off, dragging one hand through her tangled hair. “I don’t even know what he was doing.”

“What do you mean?” Miller asked. “Are you guys alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, “but last night . . .” She shifted uncomfortably, distressed even just by talking about it. “We were sleeping, and then all of a sudden a couple fireworks went off, and . . . he just lost it. He started shaking.”

Miller and Murphy exchanged a look, once again silently communicating something Clarke didn’t understand. “Yeah,” Murphy muttered, “he doesn’t like fireworks.”

“No, but he was shaking,” she repeated, more emphatically this time. “Like violently shaking, like rattling the whole bed. I practically had to wrap my entire body around him just to get him to stop.”

Miller sighed heavily, staring down at the remaining coffee in his cup, and Murphy just shook his head, mumbling, “Don’t know what to tell you. Sounds like a bad dream.”

“No, you don’t understand. He wouldn’t wake up.” Clarke was growing frustrated. It seemed like they weren’t as alarmed by this as she was, maybe because they hadn’t been there, because they hadn’t witnessed it for themselves. “Don’t you guys think that’s a little weird?”

“Yeah, it’s weird,” Miller agreed, “but he’s alright now, right?”

“Well, yeah, but--”

“He’s fine, Clarke,” Murphy cut in. And the way he said it . . . it was so final, like it was the end of the discussion.

No, Clarke thought stubbornly, he’s not fine. People who were fine didn’t experience that in the middle of the night. No matter how much Murphy and Miller tried to act like it was no big deal, her gut was telling her it was, and in that moment, she sort of hated these two guys for being so tight-lipped about it. “What are you guys not telling me?” she demanded, because at this point, it was obvious that there was a whole lot they just weren’t saying.

They glanced at each other again, neither one of them uttering a peep in response.

Clarke stood there and waited, for anything, even just one syllable. But there was only silence, and it quickly became apparent to her that neither one of them was going to be any help. “Fine, I’ll figure it out myself,” she grumbled, whirling around to head back upstairs.

She marched up to Bellamy’s room, and when she threw open the door, he was already out of the shower, getting dressed for the day. “You’re really not gonna sleep in?” he said as he zipped up his jeans. “I would if I were you. I’d sleep ‘til 10:00.”

“No, I can’t sleep,” she said, shutting the door quietly. “I need to talk to you about something, Bellamy.”

“Right now?” He glanced at his clock. “I gotta be somewhere at 7:45.”

“I know.” Wringing her fingers together nervously, she crept closer to him. “I need to talk to you now, though.”

“Okay.” He sat down in his old blue chair, tugging his shoes on. “What’s up?”

What’s up? she thought, almost annoyed by how casual he sounded. What’s up was that he’d scared her half to death last night, and nobody seemed to think it was as big of a deal as she did.

“Bellamy, something happened last night,” she started in. “Do you remember?”

He snorted, laughing lightly. “Yeah, I wasn’t that drunk, Clarke.”

“No, I mean . . . in the middle of the night,” she clarified.

He slowed down as he tied his shoes, confusion entering his eyes. “Not really,” he said. “I think I slept pretty soundly.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t.” She didn’t get the sense that he wasn’t just pretending not to know what she was talking about; he genuinely didn’t know. “You really don’t remember?” she questioned.

“No.” He finished tying his shoes and stood up, moving around her so that he could grab a t-shirt out of the drawer. “Why? What happened?”

“You . . .” She struggled to find the words to paint the picture of it in his mind. She needed him to understand that it was a big deal, that it wasn’t something to just dismiss the way Murphy and Miller had. “We were sleeping, and then all of a sudden you were shaking,” she informed him, her own voice quivering as she recounted it for him. “There were fireworks, and . . . you just started shaking, Bellamy.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, tugging on a shirt. “Doesn’t surprise me. I’m not a fan of fireworks.”

“No, it wasn’t just like you were startled or agitated or something,” she told him. “You were shaking uncontrollably. I couldn’t wake you up; I couldn’t get you to stop, at least not right away.”

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, immediately moving in close to her, touching her arms and cheek and looking at her concernedly as if he were checking for bruises. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m fine,” she assured him. Leave it to Bellamy to be worried about her when he was the one who’d practically had a seizure last night. “You’re the one I’m worried about.” She blinked back tears, putting both hands on his chest, feeling his heart beating calmly and evenly now. “It was so scary, Bellamy. You were sweating and your heart was pounding. I didn’t know what to do, so I just laid there and tried to hold you.”

“Well, it worked,” he said, smiling at her appreciatively. “I’m fine.”

He sounded like Murphy, and that bothered her. She wanted him to be concerned just like she was. Although, part of her did want to just accept what he was saying and trust that he knew his body well enough to make that kind of judgment. “Are you sure?” she asked, unable to quiet the nagging worry she felt inside.

“Yeah. I’m sorry I scared you,” he apologized. “But I’m good. I’m normal. I can still . . . touch you like normal.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her in close. “Kiss you like normal.” He dropped a soft kiss onto her cheek, then bent forward further to press a light one against the side of her neck.

“No, Bellamy.” She pushed him back slightly, unwilling to be as nonchalant about this as he was and allow him to use his charm as a distraction. “I’m serious. Has this ever happened before?”

He shrugged flippantly. “Maybe once or twice.”

“Once or twice?” Then perhaps that explained why he wasn’t as freaked out about it as she was. But knowing that it had happened before didn’t make her feel any less freaked out on his behalf.

“Yeah, I probably just had a bad dream or something,” he rationalized.

“People have bad dreams all the time. They don’t . . . do what you did,” she argued. “It was like you were somewhere else for a minute.”

“Well, I came back,” he said simply. “Don’t worry about it, Clarke.”

“I am worried, though.”

“Well, you don’t have to be.” He rubbed her shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “I had a nightmare, it’s over now, I slept soundly regardless . . .” He backed towards the door while he talked, swiping his keys off the dresser drawers. “It’s all good. It happens. Now I gotta go to work.”

She shook her head, unable to accept that this kind of thing just happened, that it was ‘all good,’ as he claimed.

“I’ll see you later, though,” he said, smiling at her as he slipped out the door.

Dammit, she thought, frustration swirling inside of her. Here she’d thought that just maybe Bellamy would be concerned like she was, or at the very least agree that the whole thing was a little weird. But amazingly enough, he seemed even more unworried than his roommates were. How was that even possible?

Unbelievable, she scoffed inwardly, having a hard time fathoming it.

She looked out the window, watching unhappily as he trundled out to his truck, got in, and drove off. Like nothing was wrong. Like finding out what she’d just told him was the equivalent of finding out he snored or something. She felt like she’d done something wrong, like she hadn’t described it well enough for him to sense the severity of the situation.

Or maybe . . . maybe it really wasn’t that severe. Maybe she was blowing it out of proportion. She entertained that thought as she got showered and dressed, as she made the drive home to her own apartment. It was possible, she supposed, and honestly, she would have liked nothing more than to be wrong. But she couldn’t push the incident out of her mind. When she lay down in bed, she could still feel his trembling torso beneath her. When she opened her sketchbook and started to draw, it was only his sleeping form that came to mind. No, there would be no rest or relaxation for her today, not until she got some answers.

Like any good college student, she turned to Google for her answers. She typed in some of Bellamy’s symptoms and read through all sorts of diagnoses that came up. Nocturnal seizures were definitely a thing, but that didn’t seem like the logical conclusion to jump to. She read that most people were diagnosed with epilepsy when they were younger, and she’d never heard Bellamy mention anything like that before, not once. Either that or they tended to be diagnosed in their fifties and beyond. It could develop at any time, but at Bellamy’s age, it wasn’t likely.

Night terrors, a sleep disorder basically caused by horrific nightmares, seemed like a much more plausible option. Either that or nocturnal panic attacks. The sudden sweat and racing heartbeat certainly seemed to fit in with that one. She’d only just begun to read about both of them when her phone rang. For once, it was a relief to hear her mother’s ringtone. Just the person she wanted to talk to.

“Hey, Mom,” she answered eagerly, eyes never leaving her computer screen. “I’m glad you called.”

“Yeah, I just wanted to see how your New Year’s Eve went,” Abby said. “And to let you know that Marcus loved his ties. He said he’ll get a lot of wear out of them, so it was a good present.”

“That’s great,” she said, scrolling further through the WebMD article up on her screen. There wasn’t much need for that when she had a real life doctor on the phone, though. “Mom, can I ask you about some stuff?” she inquired, setting her computer aside.

“Sure,” her mother said. “About what?”

She sighed, getting used to telling this story now that it was the third time she’d told it today. “Well, see, I have this friend . . .”

Clarke did her best to be as detailed as possible, to use the most descriptive word choice she could come up with in order to make sure her mother had a clear and vivid picture of the whole incident in her mind. She told her about what had happened last night and what Bellamy had said about it this morning, and to her credit, even though her mom had to be thrilled to know that Clarke had a new male friend in her life, she didn’t say anything to derail the conversation. She kept her doctor ears on and listened intently, and that was just what Clarke needed her to do.

“So?” she prompted once she was done telling her everything. “What do you think?”

“Hmm,” her mother said contemplatively. “Well, I’m a general practitioner, not a psychiatrist or sleep specialist.”

“I know, but do you think I’m on the right track with the whole panic attack thing?” Clarke asked. “Or what about the night terrors? It could be night terrors.”

“It could be,” her mother said. “I think you’re probably right that it’s not a seizure. It seems unlikely that he wouldn’t have some prior knowledge about an epileptic condition at his age.”

Since a seizure was pretty much the scariest option, that reassurance put a few of Clarke’s nerves at ease. “So what is it?” she asked, wishing there would be a clearly-cut, well-defined answer.

“I think it could be either one of the other things,” her mother replied. “Night terrors sometimes happen when somebody’s under extreme stress. So has your friend been stressed out lately?”

“Well . . .” She shrugged, recalling how frustrated he’d been after working for those college guys the other day. “He’s been busy with work. I don’t know if that’d be enough to cause it, though.”

“Sometimes it’s more likely to happen if somebody’s experienced a traumatic event,” her mother added. “Maybe there was some abuse when he was younger . . .”

“No, there was no abuse,” Clarke cut in quickly. “I mean, he didn’t have it easy growing up, but it was just him and his mom and his sister. And he loves them more than anything in the world.”

“Well, maybe there was something else.”

Clarke sighed heavily, thinking back to that obituary in the bottom of that metal box in his drawer. “There was,” she said, not willing to divulge that information.

“And the panic attacks . . . well, usually during the day, you can feel them coming on,” her mother continued. “You can try to stop them or calm yourself down. But if it’s the nocturnal kind, it can just hit without warning. Something may trigger it--”

“Like a sound?” Clarke cut in. Like fireworks?

“A sound, a smell, a feeling. A bad dream, even,” her mother answered. “Or it could just be a buildup of stress and anxiety. It could be related to a sleep disorder. It’s hard to say, Clarke.”

“But it’s not normal, right?” she summarized. “It’s not normal for someone to do that in their sleep and then not even remember it the next day.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly normal not to remember it,” Abby corrected her. “But no, I wouldn’t say it’s normal to do it in the first place, no.”

Clarke had to admit, she felt sort of vindicated hearing that. She knew she hadn’t been blowing it out of proportion. As Bellamy’s friend, she had every damn right to be concerned. And if Murphy and Miller and even Bellamy himself weren’t going worry about it, then she just had to worry enough for all of them. “So what should I do?” she asked, needing some advice on how to proceed.

“Well, I would convince your friend to go see a doctor,” her mother suggested.

Clarke’s shoulders slumped, for she sensed that might be impossible. “What if he won’t wanna go?”

“Well, try to convince him,” her mom advised. “Chances are he’s fine, but if it’s happened a couple times before, then it’s worth it to have a doctor check him out.”

Clarke grunted. Yeah, that all made perfect sense to her. But Bellamy would probably be a lot more stubborn about it, and she wasn’t sure she could convince him.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said, grateful for the information and the advice.

“Of course,” her mother said. “Anytime.”

Clarke sort of felt like she was at a loss once she got off the phone. Her research had led her in the right direction, it seemed, but what now? The chances of her convincing Bellamy—Mr. Fix It himself—to go see a doctor in hopes that someone could fix him . . . not likely. Bellamy hated asking people for help. Not to mention, a simple doctor’s visit these days could cost a lot of money, money he probably didn’t just have lying around. She could help him out with that, of course, but he’d be way too proud and way too stubborn to take any money from her.

Luckily, not five minutes after ending that call with her mother, she got a text from Octavia. Harper and I are going shopping, it read. Wanna come?

Clarke wasn’t much of a shopper, and she felt like a zombie after being awake almost all night. But clearly this was an opportunity. If she couldn’t convince Bellamy to go see a doctor herself, then surely Octavia could.

Shopping turned out to be nothing more than a visit to the thrift store, which Clarke had never been to before. The thrift store wasn’t even a store, really; it was an old house, and the people who kept it running were elderly retired women who used to work at the local hospital. They recognized Harper and Octavia right away, said hi to them and asked them what they’d been up to. (The employees at Walmart could definitely use some customer service lessons from these women.) The whole place was impossibly quaint and seemed to have a little bit of everything: furniture, clothing, toys, old electronics. Since everything was donated, everything was inexpensive.

Octavia didn’t seem to be looking for anything in particular, but Harper was definitely looking for some new clothes. “How about these?” she asked, holding up a pair of black pants. “Do these look professional? Would you hire me for a job?”

“Yes,” Octavia said. “But we’ve been through this. Just use your natural talents and become a stripper.”

“Oh, yeah, Monty would love that.” Harper took the black pants, as well as a pair of khakis, into one of the makeshift changing rooms. Back when this place had been a house, that changing room had probably just been a closet, but now it was a room.

“So what does Harper do for work?” Clarke asked. Even though she had spent a lot of time with these people lately, they didn’t really talk about their jobs very often.

“A little bit of everything,” Octavia replied, browsing through some tops that would be way too big on her. “Retail, waitressing, that sort of thing.”

Those kind of sounded like crappy jobs, but Clarke didn’t want to say anything that sounded judgmental.

As if she could read her mind, Octavia added, “We have jobs, Clarke, not careers.”

“Lincoln has a career,” she pointed out.

“Yeah.” She smiled warmly. “He’s amazing.”

Bellamy just has a job, though, Clarke thought sympathetically. He didn’t talk about it a whole lot, but it was obvious to anyone who knew him that he would have loved to get a degree in history, or maybe become an educator and teach history someday.

With her mind back on him once again, Clarke remembered why she had decided to tag along at all today. As much as she liked Harper and was gradually becoming less intimidated by Octavia, she definitely had an ulterior motive for accompanying them on this little shopping excursion. She needed to have a serious conversation with Bellamy’s sister.

“Hey, I need to talk to you about something for a minute,” she blurted.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“Um . . .” Clarke looked around, not sure this was the right spot to talk about the issue at hand. There were a few other people mulling about, and Harper would come back out at any minute now. “Let’s pop in here.” She grabbed Octavia’s wrist and pulled her into one of the smaller rooms. This one was full of donated toys, books, and games for kids. It was empty, so it would do. Clarke shut the door.

“Look at all this stuff,” Octavia said, her eyes wide as she took it all in.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Clarke said, not really taking the time to notice any of it. “Hey, listen, I need to ask you for a favor.”

“A favor, huh?” Octavia crossed her arms over her chest. “Go ahead.”

“It’s about your brother.”

Octavia made a face. “I think you’re providing him all the favors he needs.”

“No, I need your help,” Clarke insisted. “Something happened last night. We were sleeping, and then all of a sudden--”

“He was shaking uncontrollably?” Octavia cut in. “Yeah, I heard about that.”

“You did?” Clarke couldn’t disguise her surprise.

“Yeah, Miller texted me.”

“Oh.” Well, this was good then. No need to rehash the entire story for the fourth time that day. “Okay. Well . . . obviously it kind of freaked me out, but Bellamy’s acting like it’s no big deal. But I went home and looked up some stuff, and I talked to my mom--”

“Your mom?” Octavia cut in. “You talked to your mom about my brother?”

“Well, yeah, she’s a doctor.”

Octavia grunted. “Clarke. What exactly are you getting at here?”

Wasn’t it obvious? Did she even have to say it? Judging by look on Octavia’s face . . . yeah, she did. “I think he needs to go see a doctor,” she proposed. “My mom agreed with me. But if I tell him to do that, he won’t go, so I was kind of hoping you might . . .” She trailed off, sensing she wasn’t going to get any agreement as Octavia narrowed her eyes at her. “Come on, O, I need your help here.”

“Okay, first off, you can’t call me O,” Octavia informed her. “Only Bellamy calls me that. And second . . .” She sighed heavily, shaking her head. “I can’t help you, Clarke.”

“What?” she spat, her voice rising with agitation. “Why not? Octavia, this isn’t normal. There might be something wrong with him.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” Octavia growled. “This has happened before.”

“I know, that’s what he said, but--”

“But nothing,” Octavia snapped. “He went to a doctor already, the first time. And the second time, they even did one of those overnight sleep studies on him. He’s fine. He doesn’t have some condition; it’s not happening every night.”

“Then why is it happening at all?” Clarke demanded. Something wasn’t right about this. She wasn’t going to concede to anyone on this, not even his sister.

“Because he’s Bellamy,” Octavia answered shrilly. “He worries about everyone else constantly. He works too much, he puts so much pressure on himself, and all of that just starts to build up. But he’s fine. All the doctors said he’s fine. He’s just gonna have these nights once in a while. That’s how his body copes with all the stress.”

Clarke frowned, not exactly sure if she believed that. In all the reading she’d done today, she hadn’t read anything about shaking uncontrollably in the night being a way to cope with stress; it was a manifestation of it. “Octavia, I think it’s more than that,” she insisted, desperate to get this girl to agree with her. “Please. You have to convince him to go see someone.”

“No.” Octavia glared at her defiantly. “Do me a favor, Clarke—in fact, do him a favor: Stay out of this. Bellamy’s been through things, things you can’t understand. He has reasons for being the way he is and doing the things he does. Don’t try to slap some diagnosis on him just ‘cause you’re mom’s a doctor.”

“No, that’s not what I’m trying to do,” Clarke argued, taken aback by the sudden hostility. “I’m just trying to help.”

“He doesn’t need your help, Clarke. He’s fine.”

“He’s not fine!” Clarke yelled, unwilling to back down on this. Octavia was being even more obstinate about it than Miller and Murphy were, and it was starting to piss her the hell off. “And why do I get the sense that you and Miller and Murphy all know more than you’re letting on, that there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“Because it’s not our place to tell you, Clarke,” Octavia snarled, shaking her head angrily as she briskly left the room.

Clarke stood there alone, stunned, trying to take that in. Not their place to tell her? To tell her what? She’d had a feeling for a while now that there was something about Bellamy she still didn’t know, but she hadn’t pushed it, because she didn’t want to push him away. But how was she supposed to keep doing this, keep being his friend while he kept her in the dark? How was she supposed to lie next to him tonight without worrying that it would happen again? How was she supposed to act like he was fine when she had this guttural, instinctive feeling that he wasn’t? There was something bigger going on here, and everyone seemed to know more about it than she did. She realized they’d known him longer and all their allegiance was to him, but she couldn’t help but feel sort of betrayed that they were keeping something from her. At this point, she didn’t even need them to tell her everything; she just needed to know something.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The day was a long one. Obviously since she and Octavia had butted heads over what to do about Bellamy, the thrift store shopping excursion had been cut short, so that left Clarke with an entire afternoon of nothing. Raven was at work, Niylah was with Luna, Wells, was at home with his family for the remainder of Christmas break. And all her other friends had probably gotten the don’t-tell-Clarke-anything-about-Bellamy memo that seemed to have gone around.

She went back to her apartment and fell asleep for a few hours that afternoon due to pure exhaustion. Around 5:00, she woke up again, and the first thing she did was check her phone to see if Bellamy had called or texted. He hadn’t, so either he wasn’t home from work yet, or . . .

. . . or maybe he just wasn’t in any big hurry for her to get there. That wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it didn’t dissuade her from getting up and heading over anyway.

Bellamy wasn’t home yet by the time she arrived—a small relief. Miller wasn’t home yet, either, but Murphy and Emori were downstairs on the couch, sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching a movie. “Hey, Clarke,” Emori said. “Wanna watch The Goonies? We just started. It’s a classic.”

“Gonna have to pass,” Clarke said, noticing the way Murphy wouldn’t look at her. Why? she wondered. Maybe he felt guilty for keeping her in the dark about . . . something?

“Well, Bellamy’s not home yet,” Emori said. “You might as well hang out with us until he gets back.”

“Thanks,” Clarke said, but knowing them, they’d end up with their tongues in each other’s mouths fifteen minutes into the film. “I think I’m just gonna go wait for him upstairs, though.”

“Oh, alright,” Emori said. “Get it all ready to go for him, huh?”

Clarke laughed nervously, sensing that she and Bellamy weren’t going to do what Emori thought they were going to do tonight. She slinked upstairs and trudged into the familiar room, flopping down on the bed with heavy, weary limbs. That tired feeling just wasn’t going away, not even after an afternoon nap.

Just as she was about to nod off again, she heard the neighbors’ dogs start to bark, which was usually a clear indicator that somebody was home. The vehicle rumbling to a stop outside sounded a lot more like Bellamy’s truck than Miller’s car, so she wasn’t surprised when the bedroom door flung open a few minutes later, and there he was.

“Hey,” he said, smiling like he was happy to see her.

She sat up and tried to smile back, but it was probably more a grimace. “Hey.”

“Guess what?” he said, kicking off his shoes. “I’m in a good mood. I made some money today.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Got some good tips. So I was thinking . . .” He sat down beside her, his whole face lit up with excitement. “Maybe we could do something. A movie. Dinner. Whatever the hell you want.”

Oh god, she thought, wishing she could match his enthusiasm. Any other night, she would have. But she couldn’t go see a movie with him or go out to dinner or do anything when she was worried about him like this. It was like a big black cloud was hanging over everything right now, and she just wanted things to clear up again.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, brushing his thumb across her cheek. She hadn’t even realized a tear had spilled over until he wiped it away.

“I just . . .” She swallowed hard. “I had a tiring day.”

“Well, we don’t have to do anything then,” he said. “We don’t have to go anywhere. We can just hang out or sleep.”

She sniffled. Could they just sleep right now? Really?

“You’re not still upset about that thing last night, are you?” he asked.

She huffed. “Bellamy, that thing last night scared the hell out of me.”

“I know,” he said, putting his hand on top of hers, linking their fingers together. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t have to apologize for it. Just . . .” She tilted her head backward, blinking rapidly, trying to hold the rest of the tears inside. This wasn’t the time to be getting all worked up and emotional.

“I told you it was nothing, though,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, that’s what everyone’s saying. Miller and Murphy and Octavia—yes, I talked to Miller and Murphy and Octavia about it—they all said you were fine.”

“Well, they’re right. I am fine,” he reiterated.

She groaned, sick and tired of hearing that word today.

“What, would you rather there be something wrong with me?” His tone was a lighthearted, teasing one, so he probably meant for it to come across as a joke, but she wasn’t amused.

“I would rather you talk to me about it,” she said, slipping her hand out from under his, rising to her feet. “I feel like you just wanna pretend it never happened or pass it off as a nightmare, but I know there’s more to it than that. I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”

He stared at her wordlessly for a moment, then shook his head. “What do you want me to say?”

“You know, at this point, anything other than ‘I’m fine’ would suffice.”

He lowered his head, grumbling, “Come on, Clarke.”

“No, you come on, Bellamy!” she yelled. “God! Why are you being like this?”

“Like what?”

“So secretive.”

“Clarke . . .” He threw his hands up at his sides and stood up. “Fine, what do you wanna know?”

Oh, there were so many things. “Octavia told me it’s happened twice before. When?” she questioned.

“Last year on New Year’s, the Fourth of July, and last night. You see a pattern here?”

Of course she did. It couldn’t have been any more obvious. “Okay, so what is it about fireworks that sets you off then?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

That wasn’t true, though. She could tell it wasn’t true. “You’re lying,” she stated.

“How would you know?”

“I just know, Bellamy!”

“Fine!” he roared, stomping around to the other side of the bed. He yanked the curtains shut and spun back around to face her, anger etched onto his features. “They just bother me, okay? And I know why, but it’s stupid. It’s so stupid, Clarke, and I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Bellamy.” She walked around the bed so that she was standing beside him again, gazing up at him with pleading eyes. “It’s just me. You can tell me--”

“No, I don’t wanna talk!” he yelled. “Fuck, Clarke, you already forced me to tell you about Roma. Was that not good enough for you?”

She frowned, taking a step back. “That’s not what I’m trying to do,” she said, offended that he would throw that back in her face.

“Well, that’s what it feels like.”

“No.” This wasn’t the same as snooping into his private life had been. That had been a mistake; this was just concern. “I just want you to tell me what’s going on. I wanna help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

Oh, of course he would say that. Bellamy didn’t want help from anyone. Ever. Maybe he thought he was being brave or something, but it was frustrating as hell.

“Clarke, you gotta trust me,” he said. “I’ve done this before. I’ve had it checked out. I really am fine. I know what’s going on with me; I know what it’s about. And I know it’s not gonna happen again for six more months. And by then it might not happen at all.”

“Bellamy, would you listen to yourself?” she shrieked, at her wit’s end with his stubbornness right now.

“Listen to yourself,” he shot back. “You think there’s somethin’ wrong with me? Well, what’s wrong with you, Clarke? You’re bein’ a fuckin’ bitch right now.”

That silenced her. She could only stare at him in astonishment. Never had Bellamy called her that before. Not even when they were . . . together. It wasn’t a word he used in connection with any woman, let alone her.

“Well,” she said, voice barely above a whisper, “that’s a far cry from Princess.”

He shut his eyes, shaking his head regretfully. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“You can call me whatever you want right now,” she ground out. “That doesn’t make me care about you any less or quit worrying.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he said, reaching out to her, but she stepped out of his reach. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“And I’m trying to tell you to open up about whatever’s bothering you.”

He clenched his jaw, shaking his head determinedly. “No.”

“No? Just like that.”

“Just like that.”

She grunted in exasperation, turning her back to him.

“There are things I don’t wanna talk about,” he said evenly. “You don’t have to understand that; just respect it.”

Respect? she contemplated. It was a little hard to respect something she didn’t know anything about whatsoever. But she respected Bellamy Blake as a person, as a man, so . . . “I respect it,” she assured him, turning back around. “I don’t support it.”

He rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“You’re bottling things up, and your friends and your sister are letting you. But that’s not healthy, Bellamy,” she pressed. “And here I am willing to listen, and you won’t tell me anything. And I don’t know why, because I’ve told you so much about me and my mom, and about my dad.”

“Oh, so I owe you something then?” he surmised angrily. “Is that it?”

“No!” She hated that he was putting words in her mouth.

“Because I already told you about Roma, and I didn’t really want to. I didn’t wanna bring all that shit up again, but I did it for you.”

“Bellamy--”

“So if there’s other shit I wanna keep buried, then I’m gonna keep it buried, and I’m not gonna let you or anyone else guilt-trip me into letting it all out.”

“I’m not trying--”

“Yes, you are!” he yelled, fuming now. “See, this is your problem, Clarke: You still wanna control everything. Now you wanna control me.”

“I’m just trying to help,” she insisted, wishing he could understand where she was coming from, especially since he was asking her to understand him.

“No, If I wanna keep something to myself, I can keep it to myself!” he shouted, eyes ablaze with fury. “I don’t owe you anything. I don’t have to tell you anything. You don’t have to know every single thing about me; you’re not my girlfriend, Clarke.”

She opened her mouth to try to respond to that, but nothing came out. His anger . . . it floored her. This was making his Roma reaction seem tame in comparison.

“I know I’m not your girlfriend,” she finally said, pissed that he would even insinuate that she’d thought differently for one second. She wasn’t an idiot; she knew what they were, and nothing was distorting that. “But I am supposed to be your friend. And if we’re talking benefits . . .” She glared at him, disappointed. “I would think the biggest benefit of all would be having a friend who’s willing to listen. But apparently that doesn’t mean crap to you, so . . .” Holding back her tears, she left him standing with all his rage and instead focused on emptying out the bottom drawer of his dresser, where most of her clothes were stashed.

“What—what’re you doing?” he stammered. “Clarke.”

“Do you honestly think I wanna stay here tonight?” she grumbled, stacking all her clothes on top of the bed.

“Come on, just calm down,” he urged.

“Oh, I’m the one who needs to be calm?”

“Let’s just . . . let’s just take a deep breath and go downstairs.”

“You take deep breaths all you want. I’m going home,” she growled, shoving all her clothes into the backpack she kept stashed under the bed. It was there for all those mornings she woke up and went straight from here to class, and right now, it was coming in handy.

“You don’t have to go anywhere,” he said. “I’ll sleep out on the couch tonight if that’s what you want.”

“That’s not what I want.” She marched into the bathroom, fearing the thought of him sleeping alone tonight. But if he was going to shut her out, then she couldn’t very well be there for him. She couldn’t force him to let her in.

“Clarke . . .” He stood in the doorway to the bathroom, watching helplessly as she slid all her makeup and toiletries off the counter, into her bag. “Don’t go.”

“Sorry, I can’t stay with someone who doesn’t trust me enough to talk to me.” She shoved past him, zipping up her bag, and did one last sweep of the room, checking to see if she was forgetting anything important.

“I do trust you,” he insisted.

“No, I trust you,” she corrected. “Because I’ve told you things willingly. And I’ve let you do things to me that . . .” She trailed off as memories of all her firsts with Bellamy flashed through her mind. “No one has ever gotten to know me as quickly as you have,” she informed him. “No one.” She hoped he knew that included Lexa, Finn, even Raven. She didn’t let people in as easily as she’d let Bellamy Blake into her life. He had to know her well enough by now to know how rare that was. “And it’s just really frustrating,” she said, barely able to get the words out as the emotion bubbled up in the back of her throat, “that there are things about you that you don’t want me to know.” She wanted to be strong and stern as she walked out of that house, but it hurt. Fighting with Bellamy hurt. Her bottom lip trembled, and tears stung her eyes. She slung her heavy backpack over her shoulders, lowered her head, and trudged out of that bedroom, thinking he might try harder to get her to stay, might chase after her or something.

He didn’t.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

What the hell? Bellamy thought, stunned. He couldn’t move, could barely even think. He felt like he’d just been hit by a train. Had that really just happened?

He hadn’t expected to come home to this. In fact, when he’d opened his bedroom door and seen Clarke lying on his bed already, he’d been excited. Because even though he knew last night had really freaked her out, he’d assumed that, with his assurance and a day to get over it, she’d be fine.

She wasn’t.

Dammit, Clarke, he thought, pulling back the curtain just far enough that he could look outside and watch her spill across the front lawn to her car. She looked like she couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He couldn’t see the tears on her face, but he knew they were there, because she was frantically wiping them away.

He felt horribly guilty for making her cry. But when she put that pressure on him to get him to talk about things he didn’t want to . . . well, then he just felt horrible in general. She didn’t understand his past, didn’t know what was all there. But that wasn’t her fault. Nobody did.

For a split second, he thought about opening up his window and yelling out something, something to make her come back inside. Because he hadn’t meant for her to leave. But what was the point? When she was unhappy with him and he was unhappy with her, she couldn’t stay.

So he let her go, watched her drive off, back to her palace with its indoor pool and gym and tennis courts. Back to an apartment that was nicer than his whole house. Back to a bedroom that she’d barely slept in for months now. In the back of his mind was the terrifying knowledge that she’d taken her things with her this time, packed it all up as if to say that she wasn’t coming back.

No, was all he could think as he sullenly pulled his curtain shut, letting that possibility marinate in his mind. Please no.

Chapter Text

Chapter 21

Bellamy was miserable.

He slept like crap that night, got up the next day, and went through the motions at work. Fix the hole in someone’s chain-link fence. Repair someone else’s broken window. Kindly explain to Diana Sydney that there was nothing he could do about her Pekingese’s ingrown toenail. He was a handyman, not a vet.

Between every job, he sat in his truck and checked his phone to see if he’d heard from Clarke. Just a text, something. But there never was one. He thought about texting or calling her, but he didn’t know what to say. Besides, he’d kind of been an ass to her last night, and he figured it might be best to give her some space.

He managed to give her space for one day before he got impatient and drove over to Polaris during his lunch break. He sat out in his truck for a few minutes, debating his next move, but when he finally had the common sense to look around the parking lot, he saw that her car wasn’t even there. So that was a bust. He got back to work and went through the rest of his day.

That night, while his roommates dueled it out on the Xbox, Bellamy lay upstairs, feeling like he had too much space in his bed. Even without Clarke there, he stayed on the left side of that mattress. That was where he’d slept last night, and that was where he’d sleep tonight, too. He wasn’t sure whether that was pathetic or not, but he didn’t really care. If by some miracle she just strolled in there during the middle of the night and decided to cuddle up with him, he wanted her side to be open for her.

It didn’t have to be open, he knew. He could have gone out to Dropship or TonDC, either with or without his friends, and scoped out his options. He could’ve brought somebody home to just . . . fuck. But he wasn’t in the mood for some stupid one-night stand. Clarke may not have been his girlfriend, but for now, she was still the only girl he wanted to sleep with.

Sex wasn’t even a priority in his mind once he got to the third night without Clarke, though. Just contacting her was. He broke down and sent his first text to her since they’d fought, just a simple, Hey, how are you? and then he proceeded to lie in bed for the next hour, waiting for a response. He got none. That night, he fell asleep with his cell phone still in his hand, and the first thing he did when he woke up was check his messages.

Nothing. Nothing from Clarke, anyway. He did have one from Octavia offering herself up as ‘someone to talk to’ if he needed it. But he didn’t really wanna talk to anyone.

Word of his and Clarke’s argument had definitely gotten around, and by Saturday night, Miller and Murphy were even suggesting that they hang out at Jasper and Monty’s place instead. He didn’t want to be the grumpy old man of the group, didn’t want his downer mood to bring everyone else down, too, so he insisted that they do their normal Saturday thing at their place. When Miller asked if Clarke would be there, Bellamy hung his head and mumbled, “Probably not.”

He sent her another text just to remind her that she was welcome to come by. Once again, though, he got nothing back in response.

He hated this. He hated not knowing anything about how she was doing, anything she was up to. Was she at home tonight or out with Raven and the rest of her friends? Was she sad about the way they’d left things? Mad as hell? Was she just done with him completely? This was the second time he’d lashed out at her, and he knew he’d been a bigger ass about it this time. She hadn’t snooped through his personal effects; she hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t meant to get so angry with her just for being concerned. He hadn’t meant for it to come to this.

The mood on Saturday was a lot more mellow than usual. Nobody asked him what had happened between him and Clarke a few days ago or what would happen now, but everybody was wondering about it, clearly. Each one of his friends made a concerted effort to talk to him about something else, almost as if they were trying to keep his mind off of her. Harper talked to him about her new job. Monty talked to him about the upcoming Winter Olympics. Jasper talked to him about pot, and Maya talked to him about Jasper. Lincoln wisely kept his distance, while Octavia got him reminiscing about the time their mother had taken them to the Museum of National History in D.C. for his birthday.

Clarke’s absence was obvious, though. They all felt it regardless of not talking about it. At this point, Bellamy knew she wasn’t just his friend anymore; she was their friend, too, and they missed her. At one point, as he strolled back into the kitchen to get himself another beer, he overheard Emori tell Harper, “I wish Clarke was here,” but she immediately shut up about that when she saw him standing at the fridge and started talking about her sex life with Murphy instead.

He would have rather heard about Clarke than that, to be honest.

No one felt like dancing or wrestling or braving the cold temperature to go jump on the trampoline. So they popped in a movie instead. Pearl Harbor. They probably all assumed he’d do what he usually did and point out every inaccuracy in that god-awful three hours and four minutes of a film. But he wasn’t really invested in watching. He zoned out, unable to even appreciate how hot Kate Beckinsale looked as a 1940s nurse. She was that movie’s one saving grace, and he didn’t even care. Because he was sitting on that couch alone. That was his spot, his and Clarke’s spot . . . and she wasn’t there.

Around the time the Evelyn and Danny characters were starting to fall for each other in the film, Murphy got up off his beanbag, stretched, put on his jacket, and headed out into the back yard wordlessly, motioning for Bellamy to follow him. Bellamy wasn’t sure what this was about, but he got up, grabbed his coat, too, and headed out back with his friend.

They sat on the side of the trampoline, neither one of them saying much. Murphy didn’t even look like he wanted to bounce, which was weird, because if he’d been able to, he would have bounced on that damn trampoline twenty-four hours a day. Instead, he smoked a joint and just sat there with Bellamy, almost like he’d sensed how badly he’d needed to get up off that couch.

Murphy being empathetic? Considering someone’s feelings other than his own? It was cause for a damn parade.

“Is it over between you guys then?” Murphy finally asked. Bravely asked. No one else would even mention Clarke to him, like talking about her would send him into a depression or something.

“I don’t know,” Bellamy admitted, reluctant to say much more. Murphy wasn’t typically the best person to talk to about issues of any kind. Miller was much more suited for that role.

Murphy took another puff, blowing some smoke out into the frigid air. “I like Clarke,” he declared suddenly. “She got me that leg lamp. She’s pretty cool.”

Bellamy smiled fondly. Yeah, Clarke was very cool. She was the kind of girl he appreciated for a lot more than just sex. He loved hanging out with her, making her laugh, watching her attempt to dance. And now, he missed all of that more than he ever would have thought possible.

“I think she’s one of your best friends,” Murphy remarked. “You know?”

Oh, yeah. He knew. These past four days without her had made that blatantly obvious. He had his other friends, and they’d been with him through thick and thin. They were like his family. But Clarke, in three short months, had become a part of that family, and it just wasn’t the same without her.

“I think she’s been good for you,” Murphy told him, uncharacteristically serious in that moment. “Really good.”

So do I, Bellamy thought sadly. He didn’t remember anything about the other night, but he did know that Clarke had been the one lying there with him, holding him while he shook uncontrollably. And she probably hadn’t moved or slept for the rest of the night. As angry as he had allowed himself to become with her . . . it wasn’t really that he was upset at her; he was just upset because she made it hard to keep the upsetting things buried down where they belonged.

Later that night, when everyone had either gone home or fallen asleep downstairs, Bellamy sulked up to his bedroom, lay down on the left side of the bed, and took out his phone to send Clarke another text. He wasn’t sure what it would say. Maybe just Goodnight. Or Goodnight, Princess if he really wanted to lay on the charm. But all the charm in the world wasn’t going to make her text him back. She must have been so frustrated with him to completely cut off their communication like this.

Longing just to hear her voice, Bellamy ended up calling Clarke instead of texting her that night, hoping it might make a difference, that maybe she’d pick up if she saw his name on her caller ID. It rang, then rang again, then rang two more times. And finally her voicemail kicked on.

“Hey, it’s Clarke. You know what to do.”

A shrill beep signaled the start of his message, but he didn’t even know what to say. He didn’t know whether to just talk like he normally would, or apologize or . . . he just didn’t know.

“Clarke . . .” That was all that came out, all he could muster. He stayed on the phone, stupidly silent until another beep signaled the end of his message a minute later. And even though he hadn’t said anything . . . he hoped that said it all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Clarke was miserable.

Days had passed, and Bellamy wasn’t any less at the forefront of her mind than he’d been the night of that panic attack. And yes, that was her unofficial diagnosis. A nocturnal panic attack. She looked up more information about it, just because he wouldn’t, and she even printed it all just in case he wanted to read about it someday. Of course, that would require them to speak again, which was seeming like less and less of a possibility as the days wore on.

She got his texts. She got his nearly silent voicemail (and listened to it way too many times). It wasn’t that she wanted to have to ignore him, but texting him back or giving him a call would just give him the wrong idea. She wasn’t willing to pretend that their argument had never happened, nor was she willing to forget about his panic attack. And that was probably what he wanted, to just go back to the way things had been before.

She couldn’t do that.

Classes still were not back in session yet, but thankfully, the museum opened its doors again. She worked a couple hours each day, even volunteering to fill in for some of her fellow employees simply because she needed the distraction from how miserable she felt. But it was a crappy distraction, because campus was pretty much dead until classes started back up. There were maybe two people who visited the museum in the two days that she worked, and most of her time was spent sitting at the front desk, thinking about what she could have said to Bellamy to get him to open up to her. Or how she could have said it.

Raven and Niylah were sympathetic, of course, and quite bummed out themselves. They liked Bellamy, considered him a friend at this point. But they made her their priority and had one girls night after another. They watched Thelma and Louise, Bridesmaids, and Clueless while eating more cookie dough ice cream than should have been legally allowed, and thankfully, Clarke was able to put on her happy face while they were around. They put her in a good mood and managed to get her to smile, because they were the best friends she could have ever asked for. Clarke wouldn’t let them stay the night with her, though, even though they usually offered. Raven had Roan, and Niylah had Luna, and their lives didn’t revolve around her.

When they left and it was just her in that apartment, that was when the loneliness set in. She lay in bed every night, staring at whatever new text Bellamy had sent her that day, agonizing over whether or not she should send one back. It took a lot of willpower to resist. But unless he texted her that he was ready to talk or called and said he wanted to open up about whatever it was he was holding back . . . then no, she wasn’t going to respond to him.

It meant a lot that he wasn’t the only one texting her. Emori, Harper, Maya . . . they all reached out to make sure she was doing okay. She assured them that she was and thanked them for checking on her. Even Murphy texted her after five days, and that shocked the hell out of her: we all miss u clarke, his message read. bellamy does too.

She missed them, all of them, and she wanted to tell him that. But she settled for a simple thanks instead.

By the sixth day, Clarke was really down in the dumps. With no work to distract her that day, she stayed in bed in her rattiest pajamas, hair piled on top her head in a messy bun, and listened to “All By Myself” by Celine Dion on repeat. She drew while eating cookies and gummy snacks and whatever other junk food she had piled on her bed. She filled up pages and pages of her sketchbook with drawings, mostly of Bellamy. Bellamy’s flirtatious smile. Bellamy’s hands and mouth on her breasts. Bellamy asleep with his arms around her. Even Bellamy when he was angry and arguing with her.

The one good thing about misery, she supposed, was that it inspired creativity.

Clarke had the music playing so loudly, she didn’t even hear her front door open. “Oh my god,” Raven gasped in astonishment when she walked into that bedroom. “This is depressing.”

Clarke had no doubt she looked like an absolute mess, a pathetic mess, even. But sometimes wallowing in the misery felt better than trying to combat it.

“Okay, none of this,” Raven proclaimed, crossing the room to Clarke’s window. She tore back the curtains, letting the sun shine in, and Clarke squinted against it. Raven then turned off the music, pulled back the covers and instructed, “Go take a shower. You kinda stink.”

Clarke groaned, dragging herself out of bed. “But I wanna shower with Bellamy,” she whined as she trudged into the bathroom.

“You can’t shower with him. You can shower with me,” Raven volunteered cheerily.

Clarke managed a laugh. “Tempting, but no.”

Even when she was upset with him, apparently she was still thirsty for him, because she touched herself a little bit while she stood under the warm spray of that showerhead. It was barely even pleasurable, though, and sex wasn’t even the thing she missed most about him. So she left it alone, focused on shampooing her hair for the first time in days, and got dressed in some actual clothes afterwards.

Raven was a good friend. She put all the junk food away, made Clarke’s bed for her, and fixed her a turkey sandwich for lunch. Clarke sat at her counter, devouring it, and thanked her friend for stopping by. “All By Myself” had definitely been getting old.

“God, I haven’t seen you like this since you and Lexa broke up,” Raven recalled. “That was bad.”

“That was bad,” Clarke agreed. “And that was even mutual.”

“Was this not?” Raven asked, leaning against the counter.

“Well, this is different. Bellamy and I didn’t break up. We were never really together,” Clarke reminded her.

“Oh, you were together,” Raven asserted confidently. “It doesn’t matter if he wasn’t technically your boyfriend or if you guys were dating or not. You were together all the time.”

“I guess,” Clarke admitted. In these recent months, Bellamy had become one of her closest friends. No one would ever replace Raven, but really, she spent more time with him than she did with Raven, probably more than she spent with Raven, Niylah, and Wells combined. His house had become so familiar to her, almost to the point where it felt like . . . like a home.

“Why don’t you just call him?” Raven suggested. “You said he called you. And he’s been texting you, right?”

“Right.”

“So text him back.”

She sighed heavily, shaking her head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” It was hard to explain when she’d never really gotten an explanation for the whole thing herself. “He and I both know he’s holding something back; we both know there’s something he won’t tell me. And I can’t just go back to the way things were knowing that. I can’t just fall back into bed with him and forget about all this.”

“Well, maybe he wants to tell you now,” Raven speculated.

Clarke had thought about that, too, a lot, but in the end, she felt as if it were wishful thinking. “If he wanted to tell me, then he would find me and tell me,” she said. “Until then . . .”

“Until then . . . you’re just gonna sit around and mope?” Raven asked. She made a face. “Clarke . . .”

She knew it was pitiful and that Raven probably couldn’t understand—the girl had dated Wick for years and barely had a bad day since they’d broken up—but Clarke wasn’t quite that resilient. “No, I’m not gonna sit around and mope forever,” she promised. She had her own life to lead, and if Bellamy didn’t want to be a part of it anymore, then . . . well, he didn’t have to be. But if he did finally change his mind and decide to open up to her, then she’d listen. She’d listen to every word he had to say.

“But you are gonna feel sad,” Raven finished.

“Of course.” It was impossible not to.

Raven nodded sympathetically. “Makes sense,” she said. “Bellamy’s a pretty good guy.”

You have no idea, Clarke thought, surprised that her friend had actually used his real name this time. That meant she was being completely serious.

There was no girls night that night. With class starting back up the next day, she, Raven, and Niylah all needed to get to bed early. Clarke stayed awake, though, doing some more drawing. She drew Bellamy’s anguished face this time, the way he’d looked when he told her about Roma’s death. And as her pencil brought all the lines and edges of him into view, she wondered if that was what he would look like if he opened up to her some more, if that was the expression she’d see in his eyes if he told her why those fireworks set him off the way they did.

The drawing was almost finished when she heard a knock on her door. A slow, heavy knock that definitely didn’t belong to Raven, Niylah, or Wells. She thought at first that maybe it was her grumpy landlord, but what reason would he have to be knocking on her door at nearly midnight?

The knock sounded again, and she slowly got out of bed, tiptoeing towards the door. No way was she just going to answer, not without knowing who was on the other side, so she decided to look through the peephole when . . .

“Clarke?”

She froze, even stopped breathing for a few seconds, and backed away from the peephole. Bellamy.

“Clarke, it’s me,” he said, as if she didn’t already know.

Hand shaking, she reached for the doorknob, because her first instinct was to let him in. Her fingers itched with the desire to turn that knob, open the door, and see his gorgeous, freckly face for the first time in six days. Maybe this was it. Maybe he’d decided he was tired of keeping secrets, and he was going to tell her everything.

“Are you in there?” he asked patiently.

She stayed as quiet as a mouse, trying not to get her hopes up. Maybe this wasn’t it. Maybe he just missed her, but nothing had changed.

“Everyone came over last night,” he said, “like usual.” A muffled thump led her to believe he was leaning against her door, sliding down to the floor. “It wasn’t the same without you.”

Careful not to make a sound, she sat down on the floor, too, resting her head against the door, feeling like she was sitting back to back with him even though there was something in between them.

“We watched Pearl Harbor,” he went on. “I hate that movie.”

Oh, she knew that, and hearing him complain about it even now made her have to fight the urge to laugh. She’d had the privilege of watching that movie with Bellamy once before—hearing him grumble about how the movie used twenty-first century communications technology in a 1940s aircraft was an experience everyone deserved to have at least once in their lives.

“Apollo 13,” he went on. “Now there’s a good movie. Very historically accurate.”

She smiled, remembering watching that with him, too. He rewound and re-watched so many scenes, had some of the dialogue completely memorized.

“Or Gettysburg,” he added. “But you gotta have four and half hours on hand if you wanna watch that one.”

She didn’t want to, but she would. For him.

“We should watch a movie you’d like sometime,” he suggested. “Something about art, maybe. Like, uh . . . Frida.”

She made a face. Who or what the hell was Frida? She so hadn’t paid attention in her art history classes.

“I hear that one’s pretty good,” he said. “Or, you know, we don’t even have to watch anything about art. Raven said you like Thelma and Louise. I’d watch that with you.”

Clarke smiled warmly at the thought, but that movie was definitely a reserved tradition for girls night only.

He kept talking, rambling, actually, to the point where she wondered if some of her neighbors might hear him, poke their heads out into the hallway, and wonder why there was some crazy man sitting there talking to a closed door. She just sat on the other side and listened, though, while he told her about how his mom’s birthday was coming up and listed off all the ideas he had of things to get her. He said he couldn’t afford most of them, but it was nice to dream. She listened while he assured her that, yes, he was still trying to be nicer to Lincoln, even though it wasn’t easy for him. And she listened while he pleaded with her to open the door. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew she was in there.

It felt good to hear his voice. She’d really missed it.

Nearly an hour after he’d first knocked at that door, though, he let out a heavy, discouraged sigh, and she heard him get to his feet. “Well, alright,” he said dejectedly. “I guess you don’t wanna talk to me, huh?”

She winced, her stomach clenching. Because that wasn’t true at all.

“Goodnight, Clarke,” he said quietly, and then she heard him shuffle down the hall, probably feeling pretty defeated that this hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped. With no reason to remain sitting on her floor any longer, she got up and sulked back to her bedroom, hoping to finish up her drawing before she fell asleep. All by herself.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Clarke thought she would feel relieved when second semester classes began, because she would have something to focus on. But getting up at 7:30 was not her thing, especially after staying up late the night before, and getting to campus by 8:30 was more of a chore than anything else. Her earliest class also just happened to be her Capstone Art Experience class, which would be both time-consuming and intensive.

Judging by the bags underneath her classmates’ eyes and the plethora of yawns she noticed when she walked into the lecture hall, she wasn’t the only one feeling tired and unmotivated that first day back. She recognized a few people from prior classes, and waved pleasantly at them when they waved at her. But there was no one in this class who was a legitimate friend or anything. So she found a seat in the back row, figuring she’d best be able to blend in back there.

Just one more semester, Clarke reminded herself as she did the whole diligent student thing and took out her notebook, a pen, and a folder in case any important papers or other materials were distributed. You can do this. She had two more classes later, but she only had one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and her Fridays were completely free. It wasn’t a horrible schedule for her final semester. She’d have plenty of leeway in balancing school with work, and even though she had to take this Capstone class, at least her final project could probably just be her Trikru exhibit.

Her Trikru exhibit. The one Bellamy had persuaded Lincoln to give her.

Bellamy . . .

She tried not to think about him, but she found herself doodling his name on the top of her notebook paper anyway. Dammit.

It was really hard not to think about him when a muscled man sat down next to her and a familiar, gravelly voice said, “Hey.”

She jerked her head towards him, thinking she was seeing things. What was Bellamy doing in this classroom, in this seat, sitting right next to her smiling at her even though they hadn’t seen each other in a week now?

“What’re you doing here?” she asked, quickly flipping the page in her notebook so he wouldn’t see his name scribbled there.

“I wanted to see you,” he replied. “And Niylah told you’d be here, so . . .”

She rolled her eyes, cursing inwardly at herself for being so oblivious. “Well, that explains why she was so interested in my class schedule.”

“I didn’t know how else to see you,” he admitted. “I stopped by your place last night, but . . .”

“I was sleeping,” she lied quickly.

“Oh, you were sleeping, huh?” The way he said it made it clear he didn’t believe her. “You’ve been getting my texts, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you got my voicemail?”

She snorted. “Wasn’t much a voicemail. You said ‘Clarke’ and then nothing.”

“Well, I didn’t know what to say,” he confessed.

“Really?” That kind of pissed her off. There was a lot he could say, possibly starting with, ‘Hey, Clarke, you were right. I need to open up, so I’m gonna tell you everything.’ But even now, clearly those words were not going to cross his lips.

Up at the front of the classroom, the professor began to talk, getting the class started. He looked old and stodgy and not all that interesting, the kind of professor Clarke would have to force herself to pay attention to. She thought that the beginning of class would effectively put an end to her and Bellamy’s conversation, but he only sat there quietly for a few seconds before leaning over and whispering, “I don’t have many jobs lined up today. You could come over after class if you want.”

“I have to work,” she lied.

“Then you can come over later,” he suggested. “Or I could come to your place.”

“Bellamy . . .” This was exactly why she hadn’t opened that door last night, because he so clearly wanted to pretend like nothing had happened.

“I’m sorry, Clarke,” he apologized, completely oblivious to the way students seated in the next row were craning their heads around to get a look at who was talking. “I didn’t mean to get so mad. I didn’t mean to call you a bitch or throw the whole Roma thing back in your face.” He waited for a response, but when he got none, he twisted his whole body towards hers, blatantly ignoring the fact that he was talking over the professor and that people sitting around them could overhear. “I didn’t want you to leave, Clarke,” he said, sounding sort of desperate. “I hate this. I hate not being able to talk to you. I hate feeling like you hate me.”

She was just opening her mouth to assure him that she didn’t when the professor boomed, “Young man,” from the front of the room.

Bellamy didn’t even seem to realize that was him. Clarke had to swat his leg to get him to realize it was. He looked towards the front of the room, met eyes with the grumpy old man in the sweater vest, and said, “Yeah?”

The professor narrowed his eyes at him impatiently. “I’m curious to know,” he growled, “what could you possibly be talking about that’s more important than my introduction to the semester?”

Bellamy looked a bit caught off guard, like he wasn’t used to getting in trouble in a classroom setting. “Sorry,” he apologized. The heads of all the students in the room turned away from him, apparently anticipating that that would be the end of it, but the professor was relentless.

“Please, enlighten me,” he urged sarcastically. “You were so eager to speak. Why don’t you get up here and teach the class? Surely you have more knowledge than I do. Surely you have more wisdom to impart.”

Bellamy shifted in his seat, and Clarke could tell he was starting to get upset. “I said I’m sorry,” he apologized again.

“If you’re not here to learn, then you have no business being here at all,” the professor kept on, each word dripping with hostility. “This room is reserved for people with bright young minds who actually care about their education, and that clearly isn’t you.”

Oh my god, Clarke thought, her stomach knotting up. Bellamy probably had the brightest young mind out of everyone in there, and it made her uncomfortable to sit there and listen to this professor rip into him like this.

“Do you disagree?” the professor challenged.

Bellamy’s jaw was clenched, a clear sign that he was trying to bite his tongue. But that probably wouldn’t work much longer. He had a low tolerance for bullshit, and that was exactly what this was.

“You have two options,” the professor said. “You can either stay and attempt to salvage your semester. Or you can leave, go home and sleep off the hangover I’m sure you have.”

A few of the students snickered, and Clarke couldn’t believe it. They thought this was funny? This man was going out of his way to humiliate Bellamy, and they thought it was funny?

Bellamy gulped, eyes downcast, and then just nodded in resignation, getting up to leave.

“A wise choice,” the professor taunted as Bellamy walked out. “Please, do not come back.”

There was more laughter, louder now, and Clarke just sat there helplessly, feeling guilty that she hadn’t said something or done something to stick up for him. Bellamy hadn’t deserved that kind of treatment from an adult who was supposed to be a professional. He’d just wanted to talk to her.

She thought about gathering up her things and walking out after him as a sign of solidarity or support or something. But he’d be pissed off now, probably no longer in the mood to talk, and she couldn’t afford to make a bad impression in what would probably be the most important class in her college career. So she just sat there, trying to push him out of her mind while her ass hat of a professor droned on and on about the syllabus she no longer even cared about.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The only reason Bellamy stayed on campus was because the rec center had a couple punching bags, and that sounded like the perfect therapy right about now. Of course, since he wasn’t a student, he had to pay to get in there. Of course.

He put on some gloves and started swinging, releasing the anger he felt towards that jackass professor, towards his jackass neighbor with those fucking fireworks, towards his jackass self for pushing Clarke away. If it hadn’t cost him ten bucks to get in there, he would’ve come more often. Hitting that punching bag was a good way to let off some steam.

Octavia must have been teaching one of her classes today, or taking one, because she strolled on by in leggings and a workout jacket and spotted him. He kept swinging, not halting his rhythm even when she came to stand beside him.

“Haven’t seen you like this for a while,” she remarked.

“I’m pissed,” he mumbled, alternating between quick right/left punches.

“Really? I never would have guessed.” She took hold of the punching bag with both hands and steadied it. “What’s wrong?”

He took off the gloves, dumping them back on the supply shelf he’d gotten them from. “I saw Clarke today.”

“Ooh.” She winced. “That bad, huh?”

“I fucked things up,” he muttered, jabbing a smaller punching bag with his elbow. “She hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Octavia assured him confidently. “She probably hates me, though. I shut her down when she tried to get the truth out of me.”

The truth, he thought bitterly. Dammit, he hated the way that sounded. Because it wasn’t like he was trying to lie to Clarke or anything; he just wasn’t telling her everything. And it was easy to call that a lie by omission, but . . . he felt like this was different. Excusable.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, feeling like he’d said that a lot today. “I didn’t mean for you to end up arguing with her, too.”

“Bellamy, you’re my brother,” she said. “I’ve got your back no matter what.”

And he was grateful for that; he really was. But he knew his insistence on keeping the past buried put a lot of pressure on her and on his friends, too. And that wasn’t fair to them.

“What should I do?” he asked, needing some advice. It wasn’t typical for him to ask his little sister what to do, because usually he took it upon himself to try to tell her what to do, even if she wouldn’t listen. He was desperate, though, and Octavia knew him better than anybody. She wouldn’t steer him wrong.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” she answered. “Not about this. But Bellamy . . .” She sighed heavily, pausing for a long time as though she weren’t sure she wanted to say what she was about to. “If you do decide to tell her,” she finally said, “it’d probably be a step in the right direction.”

Yeah, he thought solemnly, it probably would be.

“But if you don’t,” she added, “then I understand. We all understand. But Clarke . . . probably won’t understand.”

No, she wouldn’t. Her standoffishness today had made that clear.

“I guess it just depends,” Octavia said.

“On what?”

She looked him right in the eye, completely serious. “On if you’re willing to risk losing her.”

He gulped, dreading the thought. No, he didn’t want to lose Clarke. He’d already lost too much.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Fucking Walmart, Clarke thought as she stood in the checkout aisle, watching the clerk load up at least ten different sacks for what surely couldn’t be more than thirty different food items. She detested this store more and more each time she went in it; by now, she was at the point where she didn’t even know why she bothered coming back.

“I don’t need so many . . . sacks,” she said weakly, sensing that her clerk either didn’t hear her or just didn’t care. He put the bananas in a sack all by themselves, and she obediently loaded it into her cart.

She didn’t even have to glance behind her to know that Bellamy was there. She heard him clear his throat and smelled his cologne as he approached. “If you hate this store so much,” he said, “why do you keep coming here?”

“Because they have more food options,” she replied, quickly condensing two sacks into one.

“You don’t cook,” he pointed out.

“I mean the microwavable stuff.” She chanced a quick glance at him and . . . big mistake. He looked hot. He was wearing the blue t-shirt. Damn, that blue t-shirt. Plus, he had a watermelon in his arms. And that was all he had. He could have gone through the speed checkout line or the self-checkout line if he’d wanted to. But of course, he’d just happened to wander into her line. Of course.

“Nice touch,” she said, gesturing to the round, green melon in his hand.

“What, am I not allowed to get this now?” he said.

“Get whatever you want.”

He set the melon down on the conveyor belt, and it moved forward a foot behind Clarke’s last grocery items. “I don’t even like watermelon that much,” he admitted. “I just get it for Miller.”

“Hmm.” She reached into her purse and took out her wallet, wishing the clerk would move a little quicker. It would be best to cut this conversation with Bellamy short. The longer they talked, the more tempting it was to go get in his truck and just . . .

She couldn’t do that.

“So how’d that class end up goin’ yesterday?” Bellamy asked her, setting a pack of gum down next to his watermelon.

“It sucked,” she mumbled in response.

“I didn’t get you in trouble, though, right?”

“No.” She thought it was kind of sweet that he’d even ask about that, especially considering how horribly that professor had treated him.

“$138.96,” the clerk told her once the last item was all sacked up.

God, I gotta get out of here, Clarke thought, too impatient to bother with her debit card—it was the chipped kind, and it literally took forever to scan. So she just pulled out a wad of cash instead, handing over seven twenty-dollar bills. “Just keep the change,” she said, catching Bellamy’s intent gaze out of the corner of her eye. He was watching her fork over that cash in amazement. He never walked around with that much money in his wallet. Even if his customers paid him with cash, it got spent right away, whether it was on groceries or bills or some other necessity.

“Thanks,” Clarke told the clerk, trying to quickly load the last few sacks into her cart.

“I’ll pay cash, too,” Bellamy said as the clerk scanned his melon. “Just give me a minute.” He took his wallet out of his back pocket, opened it up, and dug around inside, pulling out a couple dollar bills and some loose change.

“$6.57,” the clerk said in a monotone voice after scanning his gum.

Clarke couldn’t stand there and watch him scrounge around for money. It kind of broke her heart. Bellamy worked so hard, way harder than she did, honestly; and yet she was the one who still had at least fifty dollars in her wallet right now.

“I think I’m a dollar short,” he told the clerk.

“Here.” Clarke pulled a dollar out of her wallet and tried to hand it to him.

“No, it’s fine. I got it,” he said, starting to dig around his pockets.

“Bellamy, it’s just a dollar.”

“I don’t need your money, Clarke.”

She rolled her eyes, exasperated. Of course. Of course Bellamy wouldn’t even take one dollar from her. He never let anyone help him. With anything. “Fine, goodbye,” she said, wheeling her full cart away from the checkout counter.

“Wait, Clarke!” he called.

She didn’t wait, but she did hear him say, “Forget the gum,” as he hurriedly wrapped things up.

She scampered out into the parking lot as quickly as she could, trying to duck behind a couple minivans to conceal herself. But Bellamy wasn’t far behind her, and he kept her in his sight as he ran after her.

“Clarke!” he called. She heard a thump, which she assumed to be him dropping his watermelon haphazardly into the bed of his pickup truck. “Hold up!”

“I’m really busy right now,” she said, opening up the back door of her vehicle. She started throwing the sacks inside, not really caring if there was anything in there that would break or go splat. She just needed to be on her way, because this was two days of seeing Bellamy face to face now, and as much as she was enjoying the aesthetics of that, it was also really fucking with her emotions.

“This is kinda cool, huh,” he said, sidling up next to her, immediately being all gentlemanly and lifting some of the sacks out of the cart to help her unload. “This is where we first met.”

“Bellamy . . .” She spun around, snatching the bananas sack out of his hand. She tossed it into the backseat along with all her other crap and told him, “You can’t do this.”

“Do what?” he asked, as if he honestly had no idea.

“This. You can’t be all charming and flirtatious and expect that it’ll just magically fix everything.”

“I’m being flirtatious?” he asked.

“Yes, with the watermelon and, ‘Oh, this is where we first met.’” Even when she dropped her voice down to try to impersonate him, she couldn’t get it anywhere as low as his was.

“I’m not trying to be,” he assured her. “I’m just tryin’ to talk to you. I didn’t even know you’d be here.”

Well . . . she supposed that much was probably true. Niylah didn’t know her grocery shopping schedule, so she couldn’t give that to him. “You should just leave, Bellamy,” she said, continuing to load up her car. And then she felt bad, because that was what the awful professor had told him to do yesterday.

“Why are you so determined to be mad at me?” he flat-out asked, still lifting her sacks out of the cart to assist her.

“I’m not mad. I’m just . . .” She flapped her arms against her sides, finding it difficult to explain. “I mean, it’s not fun knowing that people are keeping something from you, that your friends are keeping something from you. And we both know you are. Your mother’s insinuated that much, your sister’s insinuated that much. And you even admitted to it. So now it’s like there’s this big, fat elephant in the room, and nobody wants to talk about it except for me. It’s so frustrating.”

He grunted. “Trust me, Clarke, if it was so easy for us to talk about, we would’ve talked about it already.”

“I know, which is why I’m not gonna force you to tell me anything.”

“No, you’re just gonna bribe me,” he corrected.

“What? Bribe you?” she shrieked.

“Yeah. If I don’t tell you, we’re not friends anymore, right?”

“No, Bellamy . . .” That definitely wasn’t what she was trying to do. But she understood why it may have come across that way. “If you decide you wanna talk to me, I’m here. But if not . . . then I can’t pretend it doesn’t bother me. That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes.” She really hoped he could understand that, because she didn’t want to make it seem like she was giving him an ultimatum or something.

He gazed at her, his eyes conveying all of his emotion like they always did, and all of a sudden, she noticed how sad he seemed. He had this look of sorrow and longing in his eyes. “I miss you, Princess,” he scraped out quietly.

Oh, god. She hadn’t realized how much she missed that silly nickname until right now. “I miss you, too,” she confessed, “but Bellamy--”

His lips crashed onto hers, preventing her from finishing her sentence. He kissed her pretty aggressively, hands immediately coming to rest at her sides, and for a second, she wanted to get lost in it. She wanted to forget about the frustration and the secret that he wouldn’t let her in on. For a second, she even wanted to forget how he’d lain in bed and shook that night. But when she touched his chest and remembered what it had felt like to feel his heart beating so rapidly, she came to her senses again.

“No, we can’t,” she said, pushing him away gently. He had too many people in his life enabling to keep his past buried; she couldn’t be one of them.

“Why not?” he challenged.

“Because I . . .” Her voice squeaked, alerting her to how close to tears she was. “I don’t wanna kiss you right now. I wanna talk to you.”

“We are talking,” he pointed out.

“No, about . . .” She didn’t even know what about, so she settled for, “The elephant.” Because she literally had no idea what else to call it at this point. “I wish you would just let me be your friend,” she said sadly, “and let me listen.”

He stared down with indecision in those gorgeous dark brown eyes of his now, and she wondered when he opened his mouth if he was actually going to tell her something. Something substantial. But when his mouth closed, that was basically a signal that he was still closed-off. And maybe that was for the best. They were in the freakin’ Walmart parking lot, after all.

“I have to go,” she said, shutting her back door. She gripped the handle of her cart, about to go put it back, when he said, “I got it,” and took it off her hands for her. He guided it across the parking lot to the cart corral, and she couldn’t help but notice the way his shoulders were slumped and how his head was lowered.

Clarke got into her car, took a deep breath, and twisted the key in the ignition. She backed out of the space and took a second to look at Bellamy in her rearview mirror. He was just standing by the carts, watching her leave. He looked as sad as she felt. So that was something.

Chapter Text

Chapter 22

Bellamy hadn’t slept particularly well ever since Clarke had packed up her stuff and left. He managed maybe four or five hours every night, but he tossed and turned the whole time, woke up frequently, and sometimes even just lay there thinking about things while he waited for his alarms to go off.

But kissing Clarke again today had made his head spin, and it was making it impossible to fall asleep for even a few hours. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the tears in hers, and he wanted to make them go away. He saw other stuff, too, memories: flashing blue and red lights, police tape, tears streaming down his sister’s cheeks.

His mind was awake with sounds, too, and even when pressed his pillow against his ears, they kept invading. He heard Clarke saying his name pleadingly, her voice cloaked in sadness; but he heard those fireworks again, too, even though New Year’s was over no one in the neighborhood was setting them off anymore. And mixed in with those things, he heard Octavia asking if he was willing to risk losing Clarke over all this. And he felt his reaction.

No. He wasn’t.

“Let me listen.” He kept hearing Clarke say that, too.

At 3:00 a.m., he had to get up and move, unable to lay in that bed and not sleep any longer. He paced around his room, rubbing his forehead, raking his hands through his hair, unable to shut his thoughts off. He tried something new altogether when he tore his sheets off his bed and curled up in his chair. That wasn’t comfortable, though, and even if it had been, there was no better likelihood of getting to sleep there. He tossed all his pillows on the floor and tried that, too, with no success.

By 5:00, he knew the night was a lost cause and just decided to hop in the shower and get an earlier start on his day. He stood under that water longer than he normally would have, thinking about what he wanted to do, what he was able to do if he decided on it.

He trusted Clarke. He knew he could tell her. And at this point, as much as he didn’t want to talk about it . . . he was willing to. Not because he couldn’t sleep, and not even because that was the first step on the road to getting her back in his life again. As much as he missed Clarke, it wasn’t about her. It was about him. She’d stirred the pot, awoken some demons he tried so hard to keep at bay. And ever since she’d confronted him about the secret he was keeping, his mind and his heart had been at war with each other. His mind told him to keep it buried, because it’d worked for him so far. But his heart was telling him something different, to just let it out. Because even though he’d gotten used to holding it all in . . . he was so tired of doing that.

Fuck, he thought, slamming his fists against the shower wall as he shook the wet hair out of his eyes. He’d never voluntarily told anyone before. Until now. Until Clarke Griffin.

He was going to tell her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Goddammit,” Clarke swore when she dropped her pen. She bent forward, reaching underneath her chair, unable to find it. That was her only pen, too. What was she supposed to take notes with, her finger?

She figured she could just ask someone to borrow a pen or pencil and therefore sat up, but somebody was holding her pen right next to her head. Not just somebody. Bellamy. He must have reached under her chair and gotten it for her. He leaned over the back of her chair now, broad shoulders surrounding her, head next to hers.

“Thanks,” she said, grabbing the pen from him, trying not to think about how he was so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “What are you doing here?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the front of the room where Professor Fuckface (that wasn’t his name, but that was what she was calling him) was getting ready to bore them with day two of the Capstone Art Experience. “If he sees you here, he’ll kick you out again,” she warned, hoping to spare him the humiliation this time around.

“I know,” he said, sounding unconcerned.

He smells so good, she thought, fighting the urge to turn around and see if he was wearing that tan shirt today. His arms looked great in that one. What was he even doing here, though? Was he just gonna stand close to her and try to entice her? Because if so . . . then it was definitely working.

She was just about to suggest that he leave before the professor spotted him when he murmured in her ear, “I dated another girl after Roma.” He swallowed hard, audibly, before adding, “She died, too.”

Clarke couldn’t move, but horror engulfed her. At first, she didn’t think she’d heard him right. Or maybe she just hoped she hadn’t.

Another girl? her mind registered. She died, too?

That was all Bellamy said. The professor looked back there and spotted him, but he backed away from Clarke, both hands up as if to demonstrate he wasn’t doing anything wrong. And then he walked along that back row towards the door, wordlessly slipping out as if he’d never even been there in the first place.

She may not have known the full story, but Clarke’s heart instantly broke for him. Her professor started in on the day’s lecture, and she couldn’t pay attention to one word of it. All she could do was think of Bellamy, picturing the tears he’d shed when he’d told her about Roma’s death. And now it turned out there was another girl, another girl who had died? That was the secret he’d been keeping?

Oh god. Her stomach churned. Even without knowing the specifics, she felt sick.

There was no way she could just sit there and pretend to pay attention, not after Bellamy had just dropped this bombshell on her. It had been nine days since their argument, so clearly it hadn’t been easy for him to say this. But finally, he’d worked up the courage to do so, and there was no way she was going to leave him alone in the wake of it. No.

She had to be with him.

Quietly, she gathered up her supplies, put them in her backpack, and got up to leave. That professor, old as he may have been, was eagle-eyed, though, and noticed. He didn’t say anything, but he did sort of give her the same disapproving glare he’d given Bellamy, like he couldn’t believe she would dare walk out at the start of his lecture.

Screw his lecture. Screw the whole class. She didn’t even care. Right now, the only thing on her mind was Bellamy Blake.

Of course, Bellamy walked a lot faster than she did, and he had a head start on top of that. She had campus familiarity on her side, though, and managed to catch up to him in the visitor’s parking lot. “Bellamy!” she called right as he was nearing his truck.

He slowed to a stop, hesitating before turning around to look at her. There was such a sadness in his eyes, rivaled only by the one she’d seen when he’d talked about how Roma had died. He wasn’t just a boy gazing at her in that moment; he was a man who, despite how young he was, had already gone through so much in his life, more than anyone should have had to.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “It’s really hard for me to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she apologized, hesitantly stepping towards him. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had to--”

“No, I wanna talk about it,” he said. “I wanna be able to talk about it. But . . .” He looked up at the sky when thunder rumbled and suggested, “Let’s get in the truck.”

She was already feeling a few raindrops, so that was probably a good idea.

She’d just sat down in the passenger’s seat and set her backpack on the floor when the rain started to come down. Not a complete downpour, but it was definitely steady. It trickled down Bellamy’s windshield, and he just sat there watching it, lost in thought.

What do I say? she wondered. The curiosity was killing her, naturally. She wanted to know more, but if this was all he wanted to tell her . . . well, it seemed like even getting this much of the story out was a huge deal for him.

The whole thing was eerily similar to when he’d sat on her couch and told her about Roma. All the words seemed like they were right there, simmering under the surface, but it took him a minute to feel brave enough to say them. When he started in, he didn’t start by telling her how the girl had died. He started by telling her about . . . about the girl.

“Her name was Gina,” he revealed. “I met her when I was twenty, two years after Roma died.”

Two years, Clarke thought. It’d probably taken him that long to feel like he was ready to move on. And twenty was an exciting year to be in love. She looked back on it with fondness, because that was year she and Lexa had decided to get serious.

“I wasn’t even really looking for a girlfriend,” he said, turning the car on so they could get some heat going in there. “I was just . . . goin’ from one girl to the next, basically. Not even friends with benefits; just one night stands.”

“Oh.” That . . . sounded sort of miserable to her, but she supposed it had made sense for him at the time. After losing Roma, he probably hadn’t wanted to risk having his heart broken again. But apparently, that had happened anyway.

“Murphy and I were out at Dropship, just out for a drink even though we weren’t old enough, you know?” he said, smiling wryly. “And, uh . . . she was the bartender that night. New bartender. She wasn’t even the one serving us, but she was serving these guys sitting at the table behind us. And they were being horrible to her.” He turned on the windshield wipers, shaking his head in disgust. “They kept callin’ her names and just . . . just saying all this stuff to her that probably made her feel like shit. So I kept tellin’ ‘em to stop, but they didn’t stop. Assholes, you know?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t really know, though. Finn was probably the douchiest guy she’d ever known, but he’d never been outright rude to her.

“It was awful,” her recalled. “I felt like I was on one of those hidden camera shows or something, ‘cause they just wouldn’t quit. And I’ve heard men talk to women like that before—I mean, my mom dated a couple losers back in the day—but I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Because you’re a good man,” Clarke said.

“Well, the one guy slapped her ass after she brought them their bill, and the other guy pulled her down on his lap.” His hands were clenching into fists now, like all the anger was resurfacing as he forced himself to think back to it. “She was scared. And I mean, why wouldn’t she be? That’s sexual assault. So I got her away from them and told her to go get her manager, but her manager wasn’t there, of course, so . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Anyway, the whole thing escalated, and I ended up gettin’ into his bar fight with these two jackasses.”

“Bar fight,” Clarke echoed, remembering what Octavia had told her. So that hadn’t been a lie.

“I broke one guy’s nose. He busted my lip. Murphy actually got knocked out ‘cause he tried to get involved. And anyway, the whole thing ended when the cops showed up. That’s how I got arrested, by the way.”

She nodded, figuring as much.

“I spent a couple hours in jail, but they didn’t end up charging me with anything ‘cause I didn’t throw the first punch. Plus, Gina told the cops I was just defending her, so . . .” He shrugged. “I got arrested. I don’t care. I’d do it all again.”

She smiled softly, because as far as reasons for going to jail went, this was a pretty damn admirable one.

“Anyway, I went back to Dropship the next night,” he went on, “and she was there, working again. She thanked me for helping her, I thanked her for helping me, and I sat at the bar all night, ‘til closing. And we just started talking, hit it off right away.”

“Yeah?” He seemed to enjoy retelling this part of the story, so she wanted to hear more about it. “What’d you talk about?”

“A little bit of everything,” he replied. “I kind of let it slip that I wasn’t twenty-one yet, but she served me anyway.”

Clarke laughed a little. “She sounds cool.”

“She was,” Bellamy said fondly. “And she was new in town, so she really didn’t know anybody. I told her she could hang out with me and my friends, and . . . soon enough, things just progressed, you know. We started dating, and for the second time in my life, I had a girlfriend.”

It was a bit head-spinning to even think about the fact that Bellamy had had so few real relationships in his life. His sexual experience levels were obviously through the roof, but that wasn’t the result of having a lot of girlfriends; that was the result of being incredibly good-looking and having a lot of girls who were interested in getting with him. When it came to relationships, he seemed picky. “Did you love her?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. It was obvious just in the way he talked about her.

“Yeah,” he answered without hesitation. “Of course. There wasn’t anything not to love. She was kind and sweet and smart and . . . I mean, I probably didn’t even deserve her.”

But you’re kind and sweet and smart, too, she thought. Of course he deserved that.

“It wasn’t like it was with Roma,” he admitted. “It was more . . . gradual. Like I felt myself falling in love with her over time, but I had to let parts of Roma go in order to do that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So that wasn’t easy. But . . .” He shrugged. “Roma was my first love, and you never forget that, but I definitely loved Gina, too. And so did everyone else. All my friends loved her. She fit right in. Octavia got really close to her, actually, kind of thought of her like a big sister.”

Clarke thought about how Octavia had totally shut her down when she’d tried to ask her about all this. Maybe it wasn’t just that she’d been keeping Bellamy’s secret. Maybe it was hard for her to talk about Gina, too. If Clarke had had any inkling that this was the secret they were keeping, she might not have pushed it so hard, or maybe she would’ve only asked Miller and Murphy about it and not Octavia.

“O wanted me to marry her,” he added. “She thought I was going to.”

Clarke tilted her head to the side, hesitantly asking, “Were you?” It wouldn’t have surprised her. Bellamy was kind of an old-fashioned romantic deep down, so he probably would have been the type of guy to think about marriage at a young age.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. Probably, yeah. That’s probably the direction it was heading.”

Wow, Clarke thought. She was only two years younger than Bellamy, but marriage had never even once been on her radar. Maybe that meant she had yet to experience the type of love he had experienced. Maybe she didn’t know what it was like to feel the way he’d felt.

“We were together for two years,” he recapped, “so yeah, if she was still alive . . . I might be married to her right now.”

And there it was, the dark turn of this story he was telling. If she was still alive.

Clarke ran through the most realistic possibilities in her mind. Another car crash, perhaps? Some incurable illness like her father had developed? Hopefully it wasn’t something like suicide, but that would have explained why it was so hard for Bellamy to discuss.

She wasn’t even sure if she should guide him in the direction of talking about this woman’s death, or if she should just sit back and let him get there on his own. But he’d fallen silent, and with silence came the risk that he wouldn’t say anything else. And now that he’d started, she felt that it was important for him to keep going, to really open up about it so it wasn’t a burden on him anymore.

“What happened to her?” she asked quietly.

His jaw immediately tightened, and both his hands came up to the steering wheel, fingers coiling around it and gripping hard. “Something she didn’t deserve,” he mumbled tersely.

That didn’t do much to narrow down the possibilities, but in Clarke’s mind, that didn’t sound like suicide, at least. Besides, Bellamy made it seem like they had been really happy together. So her death . . . it was probably something she hadn’t had any control over. An accident.

“I can’t . . . I can’t talk about this here,” he said, shifting uncomfortably suddenly while the rain began to fall harder.

“Well, we could go to your place,” she suggested, worried that he was going to shut down and quit talking if she didn’t stay with him right now.

“You’ve got class, though,” he pointed out. “You should be there right now.”

“I can miss it,” she assured him. Chances were, she wasn’t missing much of anything.

“No, I—I don’t wanna ask you to do that.”

“Bellamy.” She stared at him determinedly, not willing to get out of that car. “You’re not asking. I’m offering.” She’d promised that she would be there to listen, and now that he was finally talking, there was no way she was backing out on that promise. Class could wait. In the grand scheme of things, being there was nowhere near as important as being with him right here, right now.

“Okay,” he reluctantly agreed. “My place?”

She nodded, hoping he’d feel more comfortable talking about the hard stuff there. Plus . . . she missed his place.

On the drive to his house, he told her a few more things about Gina. Trivial things, mostly, but they mattered to her because they mattered to him. She found out that Gina’s favorite color had been pink, but she always told everyone it was green because she didn’t want to seem too girly. She’d been extremely proud of her naturally curly hair, and Bellamy had never once seen her straighten it. Her favorite movie was Sixteen Candles, and he could now quote entire scenes of dialogue because he’d watched it with her so many times. And apparently she had always wanted him to go to college. That one wasn’t so trivial.

It was raining pretty hard by the time they got to his house, so they had to run for the door. He fumbled with the keys and dropped them, though, so once they finally got inside, she realized her hoodless jacket had done her no good. She was soaked.

“Take that off,” he told her as he stepped out of his shoes. “I’ll go get you a towel.”

“Thanks.” She put her jacket on the coat rack and kicked off her shoes, too. The bottom of her jeans were very wet and cold, so she had to stand on her tiptoes to try to keep them off her feet.

He came back out of the downstairs bathroom with a big white towel in his hand a moment later. “Here you go,” he said. “You alright?”

“What?” He’d been the one talking about his second dead girlfriend, and now he was asking her if she was alright?

“You’re shivering,” he said, wrapping the towel around her shoulders.

“Oh.” She hadn’t even realized that. “I’m okay.”

“Sit down. Get under a blanket,” he told her. “I’ll go get you some clothes.”

“Oh . . . okay.” He didn’t really leave any room for debate as he scurried up the steps, taking them two at a time. Do I really look that cold? she wondered. It was rain, not snow. Maybe he just felt like taking care of her.

She dried herself off a bit and sat down on the couch, huddling up under his Redskins blanket. It felt good to be back here, sitting on this couch again. She’d always felt so comfortable in this house. In fact, the only room where she felt more comfortable than this living room was . . . well, his bedroom, obviously.

“Sorry it’s not very warm in here,” he apologized as he came trundling back down the stairs. “Heater’s been acting up. I gotta fix it.”

“No, it feels fine,” she assured him. There was always a sense of warmth in this place. Always.

“Here,” he said, handing her a plain black sweatshirt and a pair of grey sweatpants he sometimes wore to bed.

Clothes, she thought, hesitantly reaching out to take them. Bellamy’s clothes. God, she loved wearing Bellamy’s clothes, but wearing them was kind of . . . intimate.

“I would’ve gotten your clothes,” he said, “but they’re not here anymore, so . . .”

Right, she remembered. She was back in this house, but it wasn’t exactly the same. Her clothes were not up in that bottom dresser drawer, and her hair products and cosmetics were not scattered all over his bathroom. For right now, she was a visitor.

Bellamy seemed unsure of what to do with himself for a moment, but finally, he turned his back to her, as if to signal that she should change. “Do you want anything to eat?” he asked.

“No, thanks. I’m good,” she replied, peeling off her damp shirt. Her bra was still pretty much dry, so she left that on as she pulled his sweatshirt over her head. It was huge on her, but it felt so much better and warmer than her shirt had.

“I could make you something,” he offered, diligently keeping his eyes focused on the wall instead of peeking back at her. “I don’t have to work today. I cleared my schedule.”

“I’m fine,” she told him again, slithering out of her damp jeans. The minute she put his sweats on, she felt so much better. Wet jeans were just about as bad as a wet swimsuit.

“Thanks for the clothes,” she said, setting her wet garments down on top of the towel. She draped the blanket over the back of the couch against and stood up, suggesting, “You should probably change, too.”

“Nah, I’m alright,” he said. “Can I . . .” He trailed off, gesturing over his shoulder.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “you can . . . turn around now.” It wouldn’t have really mattered to her if he’d seen her change. Nothing he hadn’t seen before, after all.

When he took a look at her, he looked kind of . . . stupefied? Like seeing her in his clothes was something he thought he would never see again.

“Um . . . I don’t know have class the rest of the day, either,” she lied, “so I can . . . I can stay for a while, if you want.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You should stay. It’s gettin’ bad out there.”

As if to prove his point, thunder rumbled. She laughed a little.

“Miller’s at work,” he said, “and Murphy’s out, so . . .”

So it’s just us? she thought. Perfect. They had a conversation to finish up, and it’d be better if they did that alone.

“You sure you don’t want anything to eat?” he asked, venturing into the kitchen.

“I’m sure.” She wondered if he was trying to feed her because she ate such crappy food when left on her own. Lots of Hot Pockets and other microwavable dinners.

He opened his refrigerator, looked around inside for a moment, and then shut it again. He’s stalling, she realized. He was trying to think of things to do that would put off the rest of their conversation.

“Bellamy, if—if you don’t wanna tell me the rest, you don’t have to,” she said. Because as much as she wanted to know and as much as she believed it was in his best interest to get some things off his chest, it was ultimately up to him. If he told her something, she wanted it to be because he wanted to tell her, not because he felt like he had to.

“It’s just . . . it’s hard for me to talk about how she died,” he admitted. But what he added next surprised her. “Because it’s my fault.”

She frowned, not sure what to make of that. His fault? How?

He dragged one hand through his hair, paced back across the living room, and ended up sitting down on the second to bottom step of the staircase. She took a seat beside him, not sure why he was choosing to sit there when they had the whole couch, or hell, even Murphy’s beanbag at their disposal. When he started talking again, though, she quickly understood the reasoning.

“This is where I told her I loved her, for the first time,” he reminisced. “That was a big deal for me. I’d only ever said it to three people.”

She nodded knowingly. “Your mom, your sister, Roma.”

“Yep. And Gina . . . she said it to me about five months into the relationship. But it took me almost a year. She didn’t rush me; she was patient.”

Patient, indeed. Clarke didn’t know if she would’ve been able to be so patient with something that momentous. “Why did you say it here?” she asked, leaning back against the railing.

“I don’t know. She was just sitting here, tying her shoes so we could go run some errands. And I was just watching her and . . . I just said it.” He smiled, his face taking on that same expression it did when he lost himself in memories of Roma. “She was so happy.”

Of course, Clarke thought. Whether a woman was a girly-girl or a tomboy, there was nothing like getting an ‘I love you’ out of a significant other. When Finn had first said those words to her, she’d been on cloud nine. And then when Lexa had said them, she’d been on, like, cloud ten or something. “I’m sure you made her really happy, Bellamy,” she said, “every single day.”

“I tried,” he said, his smile slowly dissolving. “I really tried.”

Brows furrowed, she leaned forward, trying to predict where this was heading. But she had no idea. A car accident still seemed like the most logical conclusion, maybe another one where Bellamy had been driving, but if that was the case . . . wouldn’t he be almost petrified of getting behind the wheel these days?

“I surprised her for her birthday,” he went on. “I saved up all this money to be able to take her down to Ocean City for a couple days. You know where that is?”

She nodded, having her own memories of some great family weekends with her mom and dad in that place.

“I mean, there’s the beach, the boardwalk, an amusement park . . . it was gonna be so much fun,” he said. “And I got everyone else to come along, too, so it was this vacation for all of us. And Gina was . . . god, she was so happy. She couldn’t believe we were all goin’ out there for her. She said she’d never had friends like that before.”

Clarke understood the feeling well. Bellamy’s friends were so welcoming, and they were practically their own little family. They definitely had their own vibe, and it was a good one.

He looked away from her, lowered his head, and gulped as the story became increasingly difficult for him to tell. “It didn’t . . . it didn’t quite work out the way I planned.”

Her stomach started to knot up. God, if it was this hard to listen to the story, she couldn’t even imagine how hard it was to tell it.

“Everyone else was down on the boardwalk,” he recalled, “but Gina and I were up in our hotel room. She said she just wanted to spend time with me.” His voice shook, and he started having to blink back tears. “We were just laying there and we were just talking, and then I said . . .” His voice caught for a moment, and he had to swallow the lump in his throat again. “I said, ‘I’m hungry.’” He snorted, almost as if he were angry with himself. “Almost midnight, and I was hungry. So she said she’d go across the street to get me something at the gas station.”

Oh no, Clarke thought. It was playing out like a tragic movie in her mind. Even though she didn’t know what Gina looked like, she saw it happening in her head, playing out like it would have on a screen. And she wanted to push the pause button, to keep her in that room with Bellamy and prevent her from ever going anywhere.

“I’d been working all day,” he said, “and right after work, we all drove there, so I was tired. So I . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head as he started to cry. “I let her go. And it was the biggest mistake of my life.”

Clarke clasped her hands over her mouth, trying to keep her own emotions in check. Seeing him so anguished made her feel the same.

“She left,” he said, “and I was still just laying there, and I . . . I was almost asleep when I heard this . . .”

Don’t say it, Clarke thought, desperately hitting that mental pause button. Don’t say it.

“It was just this loud noise,” he choked out, “and I—I didn’t even know for sure what it was at first. But I knew it wasn’t good. So I got outta bed, and I went downstairs, and . . . and I remember getting this really bad gut feeling, ‘cause I knew it came from across the street, and I knew . . .” He voice shook uncontrollably, just like his body had the other night. “I knew that’s where she was. And I knew . . .” He started to cry so hard, she could barely even hear him say the next part. “I knew it was a gunshot.”

Clarke couldn’t contain her own tears. She started to cry right along with him.

“So I ran across the street,” he said, “and . . . and I knew I was too late, but I ran in there anyway and . . .” Tears poured from his eyes. There was no holding them back. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Oh my god,” Clarke whispered, her voice muffled by her hands. This wasn’t an accident or an illness. This was . . . murder.

“I saw her. I saw her lying there . . .” he choked out, “. . . in a pool of blood.” That particular memory seemed to break him, understandably, and he just started sobbing bending forward to bury his head in his hands.

Clarke felt sick to her stomach. This was the kind of thing that happened in TV shows, not in real life. Not to anyone she knew.

“God,” he cried. “I see that every day. I can’t . . . I can’t forget it.”

“Bellamy . . .”

“And I tried to go to her to see if there was anything I could do,” he went on, “but the cops were already there at that point, too, and they brought me outside. So I just sat there and waited while the paramedics got there, and then they finally brought her out, but . . . but I couldn’t see her anymore because she was . . .” He trailed off, unable to say it, but he kept making this zipper motion with his hands, and she understood what he was saying. When they brought her out, she was in a body bag.

“They took her away,” he said, “and I had to . . . I had to tell everyone. Because everyone was there, on vacation.”

She winced. This whole thing just got worse and worse.

“Octavia just . . . broke down,” he said, more tears overflowing the moment he mentioned his sister. “I wanted to be strong for her, but I broke down, too. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t handle it.”

“Of course not,” she said tearfully. “God, Bellamy . . . I’m so sorry.”

“No, I don’t deserve that,” he said quickly. “She was there because of me. I was hungry, remember?”

“That doesn’t make it your fault, though.”

“No, it is,” he insisted. “It is my fault. I mean, at the very least, I could’ve gone with her. Maybe I could’ve . . . I don’t know, I think about that all the time. I protected her once; maybe I could’ve protected her again.”

“Bellamy . . .” She scooted closer to him.

“What kind of boyfriend was I, huh? I mean, I got my girlfriend killed.”

“You did not do that.” She understood why he felt that way, but it was just like he’d said earlier . . . wrong place at the wrong time. He was no more to blame for it than Gina herself was. “Bellamy, there is no one else to blame here besides the person who pulled that trigger.”

“Yeah, sixteen year old kid high on cocaine. Thought it’d be a good idea to rob a gas station,” Bellamy said bitterly. “They caught him. He’s in jail now. Not that it matters. It doesn’t bring her back.”

, Clarke thought sadly. There was no justice for something like this. There never would be. The murderer had to live with it, Bellamy and his friends had to live with it, and . . . Gina didn’t get to live with anything. At all.

“Do you get why I can’t handle fireworks, though, Clarke?” he said suddenly. “I know it’s stupid—I know it’s so stupid—but I hear that sound, and it just—it reminds me of that gunshot. I hear it, and I’m right back there. I can’t . . . I can’t talk myself down from it or convince myself it’s harmless. I hear it, and all I can do is remember . . . what I did.”

“What you saw,” she corrected. “You didn’t do that.”

“And when that thing happens to me in the middle of the night . . . it just happens, Clarke. I hear that sound, and it’s like I get trapped back there in that memory, and my body shakes like that ‘cause I’m trying to get out. But I don’t feel it happening, and it’s not even like I’m dreaming about it; it’s just that, somewhere in the back of mind, I’m there. Subconsciously, I’m there. But I don’t mean to do it, and I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh, Bellamy . . .” Sniffling, trying to collect herself, she reached over and put her hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“It happened a year and a half ago,” he said. “I’m still trying to deal with things, that’s all.”

“You’re doing fine,” she assured him. Just the fact that he could even wake up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other, after everything that had happened in his life, everything he’d seen . . .

She couldn’t imagine seeing someone she cared about so deeply lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Her mom, Raven, Lexa . . . him. It would have crushed her.

“I really am trying,” he said. “I’m trying to move on. And I think most days I do okay, but I keep it all bottle up inside ‘cause I . . . shit, I hate getting like this, Clarke. I don’t wanna be weak, and I don’t want people feeling sorry for me.”

“But Bellamy . . .” She was about to point out that everyone with a heart would feel sorry for him, and that there was nothing weak about him. But he shot to his feet and rushed upstairs before she could get any of that out. She heard him open and then slam the door to his bedroom shut, and then she heard him crying some more.

Bellamy Blake, she realized, felt the need to have control over his life, just like she did with hers. And right now, he was out of control; his emotions were out of control. It couldn’t have been a good feeling, but she hoped it would end up being cathartic for him somehow, that he’d be able to look back on this tomorrow and feel relieved rather than regretful that he’d finally talked about it. In the meantime, though . . . she wasn’t going anywhere.

She practically ran upstairs after him, letting herself into his room, heartbroken to find him just standing there by his bed, holding his head with both hands while his tears continued to fall.

She’d never seen Bellamy look like this before. Ever.

“You know, all the doctors and the counselors and the experts . . . they all say the same thing,” he grumbled sorrowfully. “Everyone says eventually, with time, it’ll get easier. Eventually. But it doesn’t get easier; it never does. I think about them every day. I think about how I tried to take my first girlfriend on a drive, and she died, and how I tried to take my second girlfriend on vacation, and she died, too. And I don’t know why they’re gone but I’m still here.”

She narrowed her eyes at him worriedly, hoping he wasn’t insinuating anything by that. She made her way towards him, took both his hands in hers, and gazed up at him concernedly.

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt myself or anything,” he said, as if he were reading her mind. “I’m trying to live my life for them, because I know that’s what they’d want. But Clarke . . .” His bottom lip trembled as he stared at her. “I’m twenty-three years old. And both of the people I fell in love with died.”

Bellamy, was all she could think as she rubbed and squeezed his hands in her own. Oh god, Bellamy.

His whole body started to crumple in on itself, and he sank to the bed. She sank along with him, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him in close so that his head could rest on her shoulder. He cried openly, willingly, freely, and vulnerably, and she cried quietly right along with him. Just like it had nine nights ago, his body shook, but not uncontrollably this time. And again, just like nine nights ago, she held him tightly, unwilling to let go.

Chapter Text

Chapter 23

It was still raining when Clarke went downstairs that evening. Bellamy had been resting for hours, and she’d even been able to lie down with him and doze off or a while. She was getting hungry, though, and needed something to drink, too.

Emori had come over and was sitting on the couch with Murphy, watching TV. Miller was in the kitchen, bent over as he dug around the refrigerator, but when he saw Clarke, he stood up straight and asked, “How’s he doin’?”

“Okay,” Clarke replied. It had been a long day for him, a tiring day. “He’s asleep now.”

“Good,” Murphy said.

“Yeah, he needs it,” Miller agreed. He took two water bottles out of the refrigerator and tossed one to Clarke. She managed to catch it, even though catching wasn’t her thing.

“Thanks,” she said appreciatively, unscrewing the lid. She took a drink, savoring the cold taste. She hadn’t eaten or drank much of anything all day. Bellamy was going to need some dinner, too, but . . . what could she even cook for him?

“Do you guys have any leftovers or anything?” she asked.

Miller sat down on the other side of Emori and said, “I’ll make something. I’ll bring you both up a plate.”

“Thank you so much.” If dinner was left up to her, it was quite possible she and Bellamy might both starve.

“You think he’s very hungry?” Miller asked.

She shook her head. “Probably not.” He’d actually made himself sick earlier just by talking about everything, remembering.

“Well, I’ll make him something,” Miller said. “Pasta, maybe, or a sandwich.”

“Yeah, sandwich would be good,” Murphy mumbled. He looked up at Clarke and questioned, “So what did he tell you?”

Her mind conjured up images of what she imagined Gina to be like, to look like and to act like, as well as some horrible visions of what it must have been like for Bellamy to see her bleeding out in a gas station. “Everything,” she answered, still kind of overwhelmed by it all. She perched herself on the arm of the couch, murmuring, “I can barely believe it.”

“Yeah, sounds like something out of a movie, huh?” Murphy said. “But it all happened.”

“It was awful,” Emori recalled, staring down at her lap sadly.

It was in that moment that Clarke realized she hadn’t just stirred all of this up for Bellamy again; his friends had lost someone they loved in Gina, too, so if he was remembering it, then they were all remembering it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you guys were close to her, too.”

“Yep,” Murphy said, nodding solemnly. “Part of the family.”

The family, Clarke thought. Yeah. That really was what they were to each other.

“I hope you understand that we weren’t trying to keep anything from you,” Miller said. “You’re part of the family now, too. We wanted to tell you.”

“We did,” Emori agreed emphatically.

“But . . .” Miller winced. “Sometimes it’s hard for any of us to talk about, not just Bellamy.”

Clarke nodded, remembering how difficult it had been for her to talk to anyone—besides Finn—about her dad’s death for the entire year after it happened. “I understand,” she assured them.

“And he made it clear he didn’t wanna talk about it, didn’t ever wanna bring it up,” Miller went on. “I mean, you gotta understand, Clarke, the guy doesn’t even look at pictures of her anymore because it’s too painful for him.”

“Really?” That explained one of her lingering questions then. She’d wondered why she hadn’t seen anything Gina-related in that memory box of his.

“Yeah, it was really rough for a while there,” Miller said. “And it got to the point where he would just shut down any conversation anyone tried to have with him about her. So we respected that. We stopped talking about it because that’s what he wanted. We’re his friends, you know?”

“I know.” She didn’t blame them for their allegiance to him, not in the slightest.

“He hardly ever talks about it even now,” Emori said. “When was the last time?” She asked the question to Miller, but it was Murphy who responded.

“Couple months ago,” he said. “Fourth of July.”

Miller sighed. “Yeah, those fireworks trigger it for him. Other than that, I think he’s been doing pretty good, though.”

“Yeah,” Emori agreed. “He’s made a lot of progress.”

“A lot of progress,” Murphy emphasized. “Do you remember her funeral?”

“That was bad,” Miller said.

“What happened at her funeral?” Clarke cut in.

Miller shrugged. “He couldn’t even go up to her casket. He could barely even stand.”

“And you and I were pallbearers,” Murphy said.

“Octavia got up and read that whole thing about her,” Emori recalled. “God, that was heart-wrenching.”

“Worst day of my life,” Miller said, “so I can only imagine what it was like for Bellamy.”

Clarke glanced upstairs, suddenly eager to get back up there to him. If he woke up, she wanted to be there.

“I think I’m probably just gonna stay here tonight,” she said, even though she hadn’t exactly brought a change of clothes or her toothbrush or anything with her. “Do you guys think that’s a good idea?”

“Oh, yeah,” Emori replied right away.

“Definitely,” Murphy agreed.

“Yeah, that’s probably exactly what he needs right now,” Miller said. “You should go be with him.”

“Yeah, we’re fine down here,” Murphy said, even though they were all much more melancholy than usual. “Go be with Bellamy.”

She nodded, got to her feet, and headed back upstairs. Right now, being with Bellamy was all she really wanted to do.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy didn’t exactly jolt awake. Jolting was the kind of thing you did when you were having a nightmare, and surprisingly, he hadn’t been having one. He hadn’t really been dreaming at all, actually. Going days without a decent night’s sleep had definitely taken its toll on him, and talking about Gina today . . . well, that was pretty emotionally taxing. He’d been so exhausted, he couldn’t even remember lying down in that bed. But that was where he woke up, and he woke up slowly.

It was dark in the room, the moon outside serving as the only light. Rain still trickled steadily down his window, and in the distance, thunder rumbled. Next to him, Clarke stirred.

Clarke. Next to him. His mind had to take a moment to register that fact. Her side of the bed wasn’t empty. For the first night in over a week, she was there, curled up on her side, wearing one of his t-shirts now instead of his sweatshirt. She must have been tired, too. He’d told her about a lot of things today. It was a lot for anyone to process.

She hadn’t left, though. She’d been there with him all day.

He glanced over at his clock and saw that it was barely after midnight. He felt like he’d been asleep for hours, though. Probably had been. There was a plate of food next to his clock, along with a full glass of water, so he sat up and took a drink. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, so he was hungry, too. He just prayed to God Clarke hadn’t been the one to cook.

He grabbed the plate, willing to eat that pasta even if it was completely cold, but when he picked up his fork, he noticed that his hand was shaking. He couldn’t even hold it steady.

What the hell? he thought. But it really wasn’t all that confusing. He’d gotten pretty worked up today, understandably. But if he was still shaking . . . then that meant he wasn’t done.

Dammit. He put the plate aside again and got out of bed, shuffling towards his window. He looked down at the street, which seemed to be a little river right now. Nobody was out driving in this. Nobody would be. It was dead out there. It was very . . . very dead.

The sound of the rain pitter-pattering on the window lulled him back into his memories, and he remembered another rainy night, one curled up with Gina, hands wrapped around her stomach while he spooned her from behind. He remembered the smell of her shampoo when he nuzzled his face against the back of her neck. He remembered it all, but not as well as he used to.

“Bellamy?”

He kept his eyes focused out the window, even when Clarke said his name. He heard her sitting up, and he felt bad that he may have woken her.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He didn’t even bother trying to answer. The lump in the back of his throat wouldn’t let him say anything.

The mattress squeaked as she got off of it, and she came to stand behind him, gently touching his shoulder.

Finally, he found his words. “There’s something I didn’t tell you,” he confessed, staring out the window at nothing in particular. “I’ve never told anyone before. Not my mom, not Miller, not Murphy. Not even Octavia.”

She moved around to his side, taking her hand off of him, staring at him intently. He could see the confusion on her face out of the corner of his eye.

His heart beat out of control in his chest. The words fought in his throat, but he pushed them up and out. “Gina was pregnant.”

Clarke completely froze, saying nothing.

He pictured his hands on his girlfriend’s stomach, lying in bed with her the night after she’d told him the good news. She’d said something about the rain being the baby’s lullaby, and then she’d fallen asleep, too.

He hadn’t been able to sleep that night. He’d been too excited.

“She was about six weeks along,” he revealed, trying to picture that small, barely-there bump, the one his hands had fit over so easily. No one else had even noticed it, and if she hadn’t told him, he might not have noticed it, either. “We just found out a couple days before we went on that vacation,” he said. “We were gonna wait and tell everyone the next night. Because that was her actual birthday.” He smiled wistfully, wishing they’d gotten that chance. “We were gonna surprise them, let ‘em know we were having a baby.”

Clarke finally moved, but only enough to take in a deep, shaky breath. Her body language alone said it all: She was horrified.

“It wasn’t planned, obviously,” he admitted. “She was twenty-four, I was twenty-two.” He remembered feeling nervous for a minute until the elation had set in, and then he’d just dropped to his knees, hugged her, and kissed her stomach. “But I was happy,” he added. “I was ready to be a dad.” He hadn’t gotten to experience the thrill of it for long, but while he had . . . it’d been the best feeling in the world. And now all he could do was remember.

****

“Ta-da!” Gina waddled into the bedroom with a pillow stuffed underneath her t-shirt. “What do you think?”

Bellamy sprawled out on the hotel bed, taking in the sight. “Damn, that happened fast.”

“Not yet.” She took the pillow out and tossed it onto the bed.

“Ah, give it a couple more months, though.”

“I know. I’m dreading it.” She crawled in beside him, curly brown hair sprawled out on the pillowcase. “Aren’t you?”

“Dreading it?” He shook his head. “No way. It’s gonna be awesome.”

“You want me to look like a hot air balloon?”

“Yeah, I can’t wait.” He lifted up her shirt and smoothed his hand against her stomach, eager to see it expand and get rounder as the baby grew.

“Is this a primal man thing?” she asked.

“I think it’s a primal man thing, yeah.” He kissed her, still rubbing her belly.

“Mmm, I love you,” she purred against his lips.

“I love you, too.” He was glad they hadn’t gone out with their friends tonight. He was tired, and he just wanted to stay at the hotel with her. “And I love you, whoever you are,” he added, sliding down on the bed so that he could press a kiss to her stomach. He stared at it in awe, amazed that they actually had a baby in there, and asked her, “Do you think it can hear me?”

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Hmm.” That wasn’t going to stop him from talking, though. He pressed his mouth against her stomach and whispered, “Hey, kiddo. It’s your dad. I love you, you hear that?” He knew it didn’t, but by the time this kid came out, he was going to have talked to it for hours. “I wanna feel it kick,” he said, pressing the side of his head to her stomach.

“It’s not gonna do that for a long time.”

“You never know.” Last night, he’d gotten online and done some research. Some mothers could feel their babies kick at sixteen weeks. The sooner the better as far as he was concerned.

“Oh, you are gonna be such a good father,” she said, stroking his hair.

He tilted his head back to look at her. “You think so?”

“Yes.” She smiled sweetly. “If it’s a little girl, she’s gonna be such a Daddy’s girl. The apple of your eye. Just like Octavia was.”

He smiled, too, picturing that. God, he’d love a daughter, especially if she was just like her mother. “I know how to braid hair,” he offered, just so she knew he wouldn’t be totally useless with a girl.

“And if it’s a boy,” she went on, “I bet you’re gonna be one of those football dads who never misses a game.”

Football, wrestling, the freakin’ chess tournament . . . hell, he’d be there for all of it.

“And you’ll make sure he grows up to be a good man,” she predicted, “just like you.”

He lifted his head off her stomach, gazing down at it again, still mesmerized that there was a part of him in there. It was a huge responsibility, but he wasn’t scared. “I wanna be a really good dad,” he said, determined to do all the things with his child that his father had never done with him. He’d be there to chaperone every dance, to give driving lessons. He’d pack up school lunches every morning and cook dinner every single night. He wanted to do it all. He couldn’t wait. “I kinda wanna be the best dad ever.”

“You will be,” she said, and she sounded so sure. “Our baby’s so lucky to have you.”

No, I’m the lucky one, he thought, but it was good to know that there was some truth to what she was saying. He wouldn’t be perfect, because no father ever was, but he wasn’t going to be some deadbeat dad, either. He wasn’t a loser. He wasn’t any of the things of his own absentee father was. Not only could he do this, but he wanted to.

“Are you nervous?” he asked her. Because she hadn’t had it easy growing up, either. This was just as important to her as it was to him.

“No,” she answered without hesitation. “Because I have you. And I know you’ll take care of me.” She put her hand on top of his, stroking her thumb over the back of his knuckles. “Of both of us.”

I will, he thought. I will take care of you. He’d start by getting her a ring, putting it on her finger where it belonged.

He moved back up to the top of the bed, lying down next to her again, and gave his girlfriend another quick kiss. Even though it was late, his stomach rumbled, and he murmured, “I’m hungry.”

****

Bellamy was surprised he wasn’t crying. Memories assaulted his mind, some of them good, some of them horrible. He must have already cried too much today, because his eyes felt dry.

“Gina was shot in the stomach,” he told Clarke, his insides churning as he thought about what that had meant for their child. “It hit a major organ. She died . . .” No, that wasn’t right. But he wasn’t used to telling this part of the story, so he had to correct himself. “They died . . . almost instantly.” There was no comfort to be found in that, though, and that was what all the doctors and examiners and even paramedics on the scene had told him. Not instantly, but almost instantly. She’d died almost instantly. That meant she’d probably been in pain, probably been so afraid. And he hadn’t even been there with her.

Beside him, Clarke seemed to have been rendered speechless. She just stood there, eyes wide, mouth opening and closing but never saying anything.

“I had a child,” he stated, and it felt so strange to say it out loud. “And then it was just gone.” It was gone just like how Gina was gone, and how Roma was gone. Suddenly, unexpectedly, unfairly. Except this was different, because that child hadn’t ever gotten to live in the first place. “I would be a dad right now if . . .” He trailed off, swallowing hard. He thought about it all the time, how different his life would be if Gina hadn’t gone across the street, or if he hadn’t taken her there in the first place. But none of his friends knew about any of those thoughts, and it was better for them if they didn’t. “Please don’t tell anyone,” he begged, shocked that he’d even told her. “I don’t want anyone to know.”

Clarke looked startled by the whole thing, but she quickly promised, “I won’t say anything.”

“It’s just . . . it was hard enough for them anyway,” he said. “And they all felt bad for me. I don’t wanna put them through any more of it.”

“I won’t tell them,” she said again.

Good, he thought, breathing an inward sigh of relief. Good.

“You didn’t . . . you didn’t have to tell me, though,” she stammered.

“I wanted to.” At this point, he was tired of holding it in. He needed to tell someone, and she was willing to listen, just like she’d promised she would be. “The only other person who knew . . .” He gulped sorrowfully. “. . . is gone.”

Clarke just kept looking at him, not moving much for a few seconds, until . . . all of a sudden, her whole body just crumpled forward, and she started to cry, holding one hand over her face.

“Clarke?” He put one hand on her back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face. “I’m supposed to be the one comforting you, not the other way around.”

“You’re fine.” He was okay. In some ways, having it all out in the open now . . . it felt better than he’d thought it would, like a huge weight had just been lifted off his chest and now he could breathe again. But she was hearing it all for the first time, and that was probably very overwhelming. “It’s a lot to take in in one day,” he empathized, “I know.”

“Bellamy . . .” She looked into his eyes, blinking back more tears, and shook her head in astonishment. “You are the strongest person I know.”

He shook his head, protesting, “I’m not strong. I keep all this stuff buried because I can’t deal with it.”

“But you’re dealing with it now,” she was quick to point out. “You deal with it every day.”

“Some days better than others.”

“I don’t know how . . .” She stopped mid-sentence, lowering her head as more tears fell. “God, I had no idea. And here I thought losing my dad was hard.”

“That was hard.” He wiped the tears off her cheeks and assured her, “You’re strong, too, Clarke.”

“Yeah, but you . . .” She put her hands on his shoulders, staring at his chest as though she couldn’t look him in the eye. “You lost Roma and Gina and . . .” Shudderingly, she exhaled. “You had a child, Bellamy.”

A child. That knowledge still made him feel dizzy to this day. “Yeah, I did.” He didn’t have anything to remember it by, though, not one single thing. “I just wish I knew what he—or she—would’ve looked like,” he said. “I don’t have anything to picture in my mind.” Boy or girl, it would’ve had his skin tone, he assumed, maybe his dark hair. That stuff seemed pretty hereditary. But it definitely would have had Gina’s eyes. And her smile. And hopefully the same kind of personality and a whole bunch of her other good traits. “We never even got a sonogram,” he said regretfully. Even though it would have looked like a blob, he would have loved to at least have that. “All I know is it was the size of a sweet pea. That’s what I read.”

She balled up his shirt, clutching it tightly in her hands.

“I never did get to feel it kick, though,” he lamented. That was supposed to feel like popcorn popping, for the mom at least. (He’d read that online, too.) He wasn’t sure what it was supposed to feel like to the dad.

“I was supposed to take care of them,” he said, wishing he’d been able to. “That’s what fathers do. That’s not what my father did, but that’s what I was gonna do.”

“Bellamy, you can’t take care of everyone,” she whispered.

“No, but I should’ve taken care of them.” If there was anyone in his life he’d owed that to, it was the son or daughter he’d never gotten to know. But he’d failed. And he had to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life. “Anyway.” He flapped his arms against his sides and took a step back from her. “That’s it.” There it was, the whole story. There were no other demons in his past or tragic skeletons in his closet. He’d told her all there was to tell, and in a way . . . it felt freeing.

He lifted up his hand, the one he’d used to hold his fork. It wasn’t shaking anymore. He wasn’t shaking. And it finally seemed like the rain was letting up outside. Finally.

“Why did you tell me this?” Clarke asked, sounding genuinely shocked that he had.

It wasn’t just convenience; he was sure about that. It was something more, something he didn’t even have to think twice about. “Because I think you’re my best friend,” he answered finally, not even embarrassed to admit it. It was what it was, and he knew it. Four months ago, he’d met this girl in a Walmart parking lot. And now, somehow, some way . . . she knew something about him that no one else did. So that could only mean one thing.

Clarke Griffin was his best friend.

Fresh tears sprung to her eyes, but not the sad kind this time. Now she just looked . . . touched. When her arms wrapped around his neck, his encircled her waist, and he pulled her in close, comforted by the feel of her. Bending his head, he buried his face against her neck and just hugged her, grateful to have her there. It was everything he wanted from her in that moment, and exactly what he needed.

Chapter Text

Chapter 24

“Clarke, wake up.”

“Hmm?” Clarke blinked her eyes open when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake. Bellamy stood over her, dressed in different clothes than he’d fallen asleep in. “Are you okay?” she asked, immediately propping herself up.

“Yeah,” he said. “I gotta go to work.”

She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “You’re working today?” Yesterday had been such an emotional drain on him; she’d assumed he would take another day off.

“Well, yeah, I have to,” he said. Typical Bellamy, right back at his responsibilities. “Do you need me to drive you back to campus so you can get your car?”

Oh, yeah, that was still sitting there in the commuter parking lot, wasn’t it? She’d totally forgotten. “Probably,” she said. “Or maybe Miller could just take me.”

“He already left for work,” Bellamy informed her. “So you either go with me or Murphy.”

Him or Murphy? No decision to be made there. “I’m coming,” she said, tossing the covers off as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

The drive back to campus was . . . kind of a quiet one for them. But not the awkward kind of quiet. It actually felt sort of comfortable. He made a few comments about how wet it was outside and about how she had to be careful driving home in case any streets were flooded. He even offered to follow her.

As they got closer to campus, he cleared his throat and said, “Hey, can you promise me something?”

She already knew what he was going to say, and she’d already promised it. “I won’t tell anyone, Bellamy, I swear.”

“No, something else.”

She frowned. What else was there?

“Promise me everything I told you yesterday won’t change the way you think of me,” he implored.

She studied him closely, seeing something new in the lines of his face now, in his eyes. She’d known Bellamy Blake had been through a lot in his life, but she’d had no idea just how much had happened to him. “I can’t promise that,” she said, looking out the window.

“Why not?”

“Because it did change the way I think of you.” He couldn’t just expect her to forget that he’d been a father once, that he’d had a child and lost a child in the blink of an eye. “Knowing everything you’ve been through . . .” She smiled at him softly. “Now I respect you even more.”

He cast a quick glance at her and then turned into the parking lot, seemingly unwilling to take any credit for enduring all that he had. As far as she was concerned, though, he was one of the bravest people she knew. In fact, the only person she could think of who’d been so brave in the face of such an overwhelming obstacle in life . . . had been her dad.

He parked close to her car, and they both got out of the truck. He came around to her side, mumbling, “Thank you. For listening,” as he kicked at the ground.

It’d been one of the saddest stories she’d ever listened to in her life, but she didn’t regret offering herself up to be that soundboard for him. “I’m glad you told me,” she said. “I just wish . . .” She swallowed the emotion that picturing the shooting conjured up in her mind. “I wish none of that had happened. I can’t even imagine . . .”

“Don’t imagine,” he cut in, shaking his head. “You don’t want to.”

He was right, she didn’t want to. But imagining kind of went hand-in-hand with feeling as sympathetic as she did. Bellamy hadn’t just lost another girlfriend, not that that would have been easy on him. He’d lost his own flesh and blood, or at least something that would have become his flesh and blood over time. It wasn’t hard to picture Bellamy as a father. He had such a big heart, and his family was everything to him. Any child of his would have been the most loved child in the world. She couldn’t help but imagine how elated he’d been to find out the big news. He’d probably started looking up baby names that very same night.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said, in awe of his resilience. He’d lost a literal part of himself that night in Ocean City, and he’d never get it back.

“Do what?” he asked.

“Everything.” He’d been in love twice and buried the girls he loved twice, along with some other little person, or at least the beginning of a little person. And nobody else even knew that person existed. “You’ve lost so much,” she said empathetically, “and yet you’re still this charming, charismatic guy everyone wants to be around.”

He shook his head modestly. “I don’t know about that.”

“Yes, you are. You’re like the leader. You have this magnetic personality. You work your ass off every day and take care of everyone else.” Sometimes he took care of her, even when he didn’t have to. It was like it was second nature for him. “You laugh, and you smile, and you haven’t let your past destroy you. But it could’ve.”

“Yeah, well, it’s left me with some issues,” he acknowledged.

“Hey. We’ve all got issues.” His issues were traumatic in nature, though. A weaker man would have been done in by them.

“Yeah, at least I don’t have dancing issues like you,” he managed to joke. “Or cooking issues.”

She laughed little. It felt good to laugh after how heavy yesterday had been.

“For real, though, it’s . . . it’s hard,” he admitted. “It affects me.”

“Well, of course.” How could it not?

“I mean, I know a big part of the reason why I’m so protective of Octavia is because I’m scared to death I’m gonna lose her, too,” he muttered. “So backing off and letting Lincoln be the one to take care of her . . . I hate that. I wanna take care of her.”

She touched his cheek, because that ambition was as sweet as it was naïve. “I’m pretty sure Octavia could take care of herself,” she pointed out.

“No, not financially. But . . .” He sighed resignedly. “It’s okay. I gotta let up on her, I know that.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Knowing what she knew now, she could totally understand where he was coming from when he went into overprotective big brother mode. He’d probably always been like that, to a degree, but suffering loss brought it out in him even more. “You’re doing your best.”

“I’m doing my best,” he agreed, shrugging.

She narrowed her eyes at him, staring at him closely, still trying to figure him out. She knew so much now, more than even his own sister did, but there were still some parts of him that had her curious. “Is it . . .” She had a feeling this had affected his other relationships, too, and she wanted to ask about it, but she wasn’t sure if she even should.

“What?” he prompted.

Well, too late to back out now. She decided to ask, hoping she wasn’t overstepping her bounds. “Is losing Roma and losing Gina and losing that baby . . . is that what made you decide you don’t ever wanna be a in a real relationship again?”

He pressed his lips together tightly, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Define real.”

“A romantic relationship.”

“Honestly?” He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. After I lost Gina, I decided I wasn’t gonna risk that again. I can’t . . .” He jaw tightened as he shook his head. “I can’t go through that with anyone else. You understand that, right?”

“Yeah. I understand.” She hadn’t questioned it before, and she definitely wasn’t about to question it now. Learning all that she had about him yesterday . . . it shed a lot of light on why Bellamy was the way he was. She felt like she knew him so much better now. “Alright, well . . .” She could have stayed there and kept talking to him all day, but she knew she was preventing him from going about his routine. “I better let you get to work, I guess.”

“Yeah.” He picked up her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thanks for staying with me yesterday.”

“No problem.” Even though she had class, she wouldn’t have minded staying with him today, too, just in case he needed it. He looked like he was gonna be fine, but just in case he wasn’t . . . she would have loved to have been with him today.

She walked a couple parking spaces down to where her car was at, reaching into her purse to grasp her keys. She fumbled them around in her hand, not sure if it was even worth it to try to sit through class today. And work . . . she could call in sick. Dante would understand.

“I could stay with you today, too,” she offered, whirling around. “If you want.” But if he wanted space, she could give that to him. Whatever he needed.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah. I just need to go home and change first.” She plucked at the t-shirt—his t-shirt—she currently had on. That was definitely the kind of thing she could wear around the house, but maybe not out in public.

“Okay,” he said. Since he didn’t even try to convince her to go to class, she figured that meant he hadn’t been very eager to part ways with her today, either. “I hope you don’t mind watching me fix toilets and stuff.”

She would have rather watched him walk around the campus library and get lost in the history section. But watching him work was fine, too. “I don’t mind,” she said, smiling at him.

And even though yesterday he’d cried harder than she’d ever seen him cry before, today, he managed to smile back.

Bellamy followed her back to her place and waited out in her living room while she went into her bedroom and changed. They hustled out to his truck after that and headed back to his neighborhood, where a woman down the street needed a doorbell installed. How Bellamy knew how to install doorbells, Clarke wasn’t sure—probably one of those things he’d taught himself over the years. So she just hung back and watched him work, trying not to get in his way.

After that, they visited the home of an elderly couple whose sink was clogged. He seemed to do a lot of jobs for them, because the woman got up when he came in, rolled her walker towards him, and gave him a kiss on the cheek like a grandma would. When he offered to unclog their sink free of charge, she said, “Oh, bless you, Bellamy. You don’t have to do that for us.”

“It’s not a problem,” he assured her.

“Oh, thank you.” She hugged him, and Clarke felt herself melt a little bit inside.

The old man in the living room recliner mumbled something that sounded like a thank you, then told his wife to come back in there because their “program” was almost on.

His wife was still busy talking to Bellamy, though. “And who’s this?” she asked, motioning to Clarke. “A new girlfriend, perhaps?”

Clarke laughed nervously. “Hi, I’m Clarke,” she introduced herself. “I’m his friend.”

“She’s gonna help me unclog your sink,” Bellamy said, handing her a wrench. “She wants to learn the business.”

“I do?” Clarke looked at the tool in her hand, no idea what to do with it.

“Yeah, I’m gonna teach you,” he said. “I’m good a teacher.”

They tried to keep it down in the kitchen, because the adorable couple seemed to like playing The Price Is Right in the living room together; but at one point, when water started to squirt out of the drain, Bellamy boomed, “What the hell did you do?” and had to take the wrench from her. “Back away! Back away!” He thankfully managed to fix her mistake, the couple was too absorbed in their show to notice, and they laughed about it on their way out. If the art career failed, Clarke decided she’d have to rule out a career in plumbing. She didn’t have the skills for it.

Bellamy got a phone call after that from someone named Zoe who seemed to be a regular customer, and he whipped a U-turn on the street, telling her he could squeeze her in today. Clarke heard her professing her thanks over the phone, and when he ended the call, she eagerly asked, “What’s next?” This job, as much as it went over her head, was not boring. He did so many different things, so there was a definite spontaneity to it.

“Clogged toilet,” he replied.

“Ugh.” She made a face of disgust. “I’m not helping you with that one.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be gross,” he predicted. “Zoe’s cool, though. I went to high school with her. You’ll like her.”

When they got to Zoe’s house, Clarke was struck by how small it was. Bellamy’s house was old, sure, but it was pretty big. This was a one-story box, pretty much, and when Clarke walked inside, she couldn’t believe how cramped it was.

At first, Clarke thought the girl walking around the living room might be the daughter of the mother living here. But she quickly realized that, no, she was an adult. Zoe was young, but she had a crying baby on her hip.

Clarke nearly froze. A crying baby.

“Hey, have you met Lukas yet?” she asked Bellamy.

“No, I heard about him, though. Congratulations,” Bellamy said, smiling and waving at the kid.

“Here, you can hold him if you want,” she offered.

Oh god, Clarke thought. In light of everything he’d revealed last night, was that such a good idea?

Bellamy was completely calm about it, though. He held that baby and laughed when his tiny hand wrapped around his thumb. “Wow, he’s amazing,” he said. “I bet Sterling’s happy.”

“Sterling’s . . . overwhelmed,” Zoe admitted. “But we’ll make it.”

“Yeah, you will,” Bellamy agreed, making a face at the baby boy. The baby giggled, and Bellamy handed him back to his mother, congratulating her again.

Clarke breathed a small sigh of relief. He’d done it. He’d been fine.

Since the toilet job was disgusting, she stayed out in the living room while Bellamy got to work. She was allowed to hold the baby, too, which was less natural for her than it was for Bellamy. She wasn’t good with kids. When little Lukas started to cry, she sent his mother a look of panic, and she took him into the bedroom and settled him down. When she came back out, she mumbled, “I swear, he’s gonna make me grey before I’m thirty.”

“Yeah, I bet he’s a lot of work,” Clarke empathized.

“Ah, he’s worth it.” Zoe sat down beside her after Bellamy yelled something from the bathroom—it sounded like he was actually yelling at the toilet—and then grumbled, “Son of a bitch.”

“You think he’s gonna be able to fix that?” Clarke asked. It seemed to be taking a while.

“Oh, yeah,” Zoe replied confidently. “He fixes everything.”

Almost everything, Clarke thought, looking down at her lap. There were some things even Bellamy couldn’t fix.

He finally did win the battle with the toilet, emerging from the bathroom with a small block in his hand, the kind a child would play with. “Maybe don’t let Lukas near the toilet,” he suggested, handing it to Zoe.

“That kid . . .” She shook her head in dismay and turned to Clarke. “Grey before I’m thirty, right?”

Clarke laughed.

Money was definitely tight for Zoe and her family, and Bellamy must have known that, because when she asked how much she owed him, he just said, “Whatever you can manage.” She opened up her wallet and took out a twenty. Clarke wasn’t a plumbing expert by any means, but she knew that wasn’t enough. Bellamy didn’t make it an issue, though. He pocketed the twenty, reminded Zoe to call him whenever she needed his help, and he and Clarke left.

“Nice to meet you, Clarke!” Zoe called on the way out.

“Yeah, you, too.” Clarke smiled at her and waved goodbye.

When they got out to the truck, she asked Bellamy, “Okay, so how much did she really owe you?”

He shrugged, twisting the key in the ignition . “A clog like that? Probably at least one-thirty.”

Clarke’s eyebrows shot up. “And you took twenty?”

“Well, you saw her house. She’s struggling, you know? They got a kid. What am I gonna do, break their bank?”

“No.” It was just extremely generous of him, that was all. He’d worked three jobs so far today and barely had any money to show for it, because that first customer was the only one who’d actually paid him what was owed. Not many people would be willing to be as understanding as Bellamy was being.

“It’s okay, though,” he said. “Diana’s got me workin’ on remodeling her whole kitchen now. I’m gonna make a lot for that.”

Since they had about an hour until they needed to be at Diana’s, Bellamy took her out for lunch. Nothing fancy, just Subway. He must have gone there for lunch a lot, because all they asked was, “The usual?” when he walked in, and he gave them a nod. “What do you want?” he asked Clarke.

“Oh, um . . .” She surveyed the menu, unfamiliar with the options. “I don’t know.”

“Go for the meatball sub,” he suggested. “I know how you like meaty balls.”

She rolled her eyes, happy to be the target for his teasing again. It meant he was in a good mood. When it was her turn to order, she did indeed go with his suggestion.

Of course Bellamy paid for her meal, too, even though she was plenty capable of paying for herself. She took out her wallet and everything, but before she could even pull out any cash, he gestured to both their sandwiches and told the cashier, “I’m payin’ for both of these,” and Clarke knew better than to even try to argue with him. He got her a chocolate chip cookie, too, so within a minute, that twenty dollars he’d just gotten for unclogging the toilet was nearly cut in half.

They sat down at one of the tables and ate, and even though she didn’t know what was even all on his sandwich, he seemed to be enjoying it. He was already halfway done when she still had yet to chomp down on her first meatball.

“So what do think has been the most riveting job of the day?” he asked.

She finished chewing what was in her mouth and replied, “Well, the doorbell was kinda cool. ‘cause it actually rang and everything.”

“That was the goal.”

“But I like the old couple. They were sweet.”

“Yeah, grandmas love me,” he bragged.

“And then the last one . . .” She trailed off, not sure if she should even talk about the last one. But how ironic was it that he’d held a baby not even twelve hours after confessing he’d almost had one of his own?

“You can say it,” he urged her.

With that permission, she found her words. “Okay, I promise I’m not gonna bring this up every time we hang out together,” she assured him, “but . . . what’s that like for you? Seeing a baby, holding a baby . . .”

He took a drink, nodding, but said nothing.

“Is that weird?” she asked. “Or hard?”

He shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I think about it, yeah, but . . . people have babies. I gotta deal with it.”

“Just like that?” He made it sound simple.

“What choice do I have?” He set the rest of his sandwich down and leaned back in his chair. “It’s like when Murphy and Emori have their anniversary here next month. Two years. What am I gonna do, sit there and be jealous ‘cause I never got two years with Gina?” He shook his head. “I can’t do that. That’s debilitating.”

“It’d be understandable, though,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but it’d be miserable.” He linked his hands behind his head, locking eyes with her. “You don’t have to worry about me, Clarke.”

“I know. But you said you think about this stuff every day.”

“I do,” he confirmed. “This whole time that I’ve known you, I’ve thought about it every day. And I’ve been fine, haven’t I?”

“Yeah.” With the exception of those firework nights, he’d been fine.

“See? I can think about it without dwelling on it,” he stated confidently. “It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it’s what I have to do.”

“I guess,” she said, looking down at her sandwich. She wasn’t quite as hungry as he was, so hopefully he’d finish hers off. “If you ever do wanna dwell, though . . .” she said, lifting her eyes to meet his again.

“Then you’re here for me,” he finished. “I know.”

She smiled, glad he knew. Yes, she was here for him. And she wasn’t going anywhere.

That afternoon, they went to that god-awful Diana woman’s house. Since this wasn’t a quick job, Clarke couldn’t very well sit and wait in the car, but she didn’t get a particularly welcoming feeling from Diana. The woman did not seem to like her, if only because she was a girl who had shown up with Bellamy. She even brazenly asked Bellamy at one point, “Why is she here? She doesn’t need to be here,” to which he replied, “She’s my apprentice,” and brought her into the kitchen with him. He had to pretend to be teaching her things for the rest of the day, and she had to say things like, “Hmm,” and “I see,” and pretend to be interested in learning them. But good god, it was all just going over her head.

Diana didn’t like her, but she definitely liked Bellamy. And he played that up to his full advantage, of course, taking his shirt off while he worked. Diana practically stood around and salivated over him. Clarke wasn’t jealous or anything. That woman could look all she wanted to, but at the end of the day, Clarke was the one who got to actually feel that beautiful body of his.

Or . . . maybe not. She wondered about that while he worked on installing new cabinets and she pretended to help. Sure, she’d been hanging out with Bellamy all day, but he hadn’t kissed her yet. It was possible that that kind of intimacy was something they’d have to . . . get back.

She hoped it wouldn’t take too long.

By the time they left, it was 5:00 in the afternoon, already getting dark outside, and Clarke felt exhausted, even though she hadn’t really done much of anything today. Bellamy drove her back to her apartment, which was kind of disappointing. She would have much rather gone back with him to his place. But he walked her upstairs and said, “Thanks for hanging out with me today,” as she pushed open the door to her apartment.

“Yeah, it was fun.” She set her keys down on her counter and spun around, wondering if there was some possibility that he might want to stay here tonight. He did that once in a while, even had a toothbrush in her bathroom.

“Alright, well . . .” An unusual awkwardness began to encompass them, like neither one of them knew quite how to say goodbye for the night. “I guess I should go,” he said.

Should you? she wanted to say. But “Okay,” was all that came out.

“Okay.” He just stood there for a few seconds, not moving, until finally, he looked down at his feet, repeated, “Okay,” and said, “Bye,” on his way out the door.

“Bye.” She wrinkled her forehead in confusion once that door was shut and she was alone in there. What a letdown. They’d had a good day together, a surprisingly lighthearted one in the aftermath of a very intense night. Why did it have to just end so quickly?

She threw her purse down on her couch and sulked into her bedroom, grabbing her sketchbook off her desk. She was already in the middle of one Bellamy sketch, but she had to draw him crying now, too. It wasn’t pleasant, but seeing him so vulnerable like that had really been a beautiful thing.

She’d already resigned herself to another night alone with her drawings when she heard her phone ring. And it was Bellamy’s ringtone, which, yes, was “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate. She bolted out into the living room, grabbed her phone out her purse, and answered, “Hey.”

“Hey.” There was a long pause, though nowhere near as long as his silent voicemail had been. Finally, he asked, “You wanna stay with me tonight?”

She breathed out a heavy exhale of relief. Did she want to? Now what kind of question was that?

Murphy and Miller were both home when they got there, planted on the couch in the midst of yet another video game. “Hey, man,” Murphy said, eyes barely leaving the screen.

Miller, however, noticed Clarke walk in behind Bellamy, and nudged his friend.

Murphy actually stopped playing when he saw her, a rare feat for him, and said, “Oh, hey, Clarke,” a hint of a surprise in his voice.

“Hey.”

“She’s got a bag,” Miller noticed.

Clarke readjusted her backpack on her shoulders.

“That means she’s staying,” Murphy proclaimed. “Pause the game. Let’s go shout it from the rooftop: Clarke Griffin is in the house tonight.”

“I was in the house last night, too,” she pointed out. Last night had been an extreme circumstance, though. This was . . . kind of back to normal.

“I’m gonna kick their asses for a minute,” Bellamy said, snatching the video game controller out of Murphy’s hand.

“Okay. I’ll be upstairs.” She left the boys to their toys and walked up to his bedroom, happy to be back under that roof under a more familiar circumstance. Sure, they probably weren’t going to sleep together tonight, not in the sexual way. But she could still fall asleep next to him and wake up next to him without worrying that he was going to start convulsing in the middle of the night. Today had reassured her that he really was the same old Bellamy. The only difference now was that she knew him better.

She didn’t bother unpacking her clothes, because that was probably a bit presumptuous. She did put her toothbrush back in its holder on the sink, though, and wasted no time stripping down and getting into the shower. She hadn’t showered since yesterday morning, so she was definitely feeling a little gross.

The water was warm on her skin, and she felt so relaxed that she didn’t even feel like shampooing her hair. She just stood there, letting the water rain down on her, rolling her neck from side to side, working out the kinks in her muscles. This shower, in all reality, was nowhere near as nice as hers was. Hers had a sliding door, the temperature didn’t fluctuate as much, and it was bigger. But she was so glad to be back here tonight that she didn’t care how small it was, or that she constantly had to readjust the temperature of the water so it didn’t get either too warm or too hot.

She’d just turned the knob slightly towards the left to warm it up a bit when Bellamy pulled back the curtain, startling her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just heard you in here, and I thought . . .” His eyes dropped down to take in her naked body without shame. He didn’t even try to disguise it. “Can I join you?” he asked.

She was pretty sure her heartrate must have doubled in that moment, because being naked around Bellamy was one thing, but being naked while he was naked . . . another thing entirely.

“Sure,” she said, trying to play it cool even though she was freaking out inside.

He put the curtain back in place, giving her a chance to mouth, ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,’ silently while he took his clothes off. She could hear him unzipping his jeans, pushing them down to the floor. She heard the waistband of his underwear snap before they came sliding down, too. She’d let herself imagine this while Bellamy had worked shirtless in Diana’s kitchen today, but she hadn’t allowed herself to get her hopes up.

Shit, she thought, looking down at legs. She hadn’t shaved her them in nearly six days, so the early stages of a fur coat were happening down there. But at least . . . other parts of her were shaved.

When he pulled back the curtain again, she couldn’t even really look at him, because she had that weak in the knees feeling going on, the same feeling she’d felt when she first met him. She moved around to make room for him, and eventually, she did get a glimpse of that gorgeous body of his. First it was his broad shoulder blades and sculpted backside, but then he turned around, and . . . well, there was his cock, not exactly hard right now, but still impressive in size and impossible not to stare at.

Was it wrong for her thirst to be back already? Because it totally was.

He wet his hair quickly, then re-maneuvered them so that she was the one standing under most of the water. He stayed pretty close, though, hands on her waist, eyes roaming all over her unabashedly.

Touch me, she wanted to say. His hands made a warm shower feel even warmer, and it’d been so long since she’d really gotten to feel them on her body. She craved it.

There was lingering doubt in the back of her mind, though, even as he smoothed his hands around her back. Maybe it was wrong to be thinking about things like this, fantasizing, even, the night after he’d told her about Gina. Maybe he needed some time.

He moved in closer, rubbing her spine while he held her close. She felt like an idiot, unsure of what to do with her own hands, so she just put them on his hips and tried to keep her breathing even. Not an easy thing to do when there were lines of water trickling down his chest.

She started to get the sense that this was going to be a different kind of shower for them, though, when he squirted some shower gel onto his hands and then began to rub it all over her body. Arms, stomach, sides . . . when he even rubbed her breasts, she took in a shuddering breath. It didn’t seem like it was any kind of foreplay, though. It was sensual, no doubt, but it was . . . a real shower. It was about getting clean.

He had to use more shower gel to lather up her back. He began up at her shoulders, then glided his hands downward, resting only momentarily in the small of her back before following the curve of her ass.

Oh god, it felt so good.

She wanted to do the same and tried smoothing her hands up his chest, but he grabbed her arms and turned her around instead. Out of habit, she almost bent over, because that was typically what she did when he turned her around: She bent over and he fucked her. But his arms encircled her before she embarrassed herself by doing that. One of them wound around her stomach, the other around her chest, still massaging her skin while the water rinsed the soapy shower gel away.

She readjusted the temperature again, making the water just slightly colder this time. With him in there, it was easy to get too hot.

He reached for the shampoo next, squirting a generous amount into the palm of his hand. Even though it was his shampoo and not hers, it would work. Her hair wouldn’t have its usual floral scent, but that was fine. She was more than willing to sacrifice that to let him do this for her. Sure, she was more than capable of doing her own shampoo, but Bellamy was all about taking care of people. And since he hadn’t been able to do that with Gina and he’d just relived all of that for the first time in months, he probably needed someone to take care of tonight.

She closed her eyes as he massaged her scalp and worked the shampoo through her tresses. He kind of had a thing for her hair, she’d noticed. Not to the same extent that he did with her breasts, but still . . . he liked it, so sometimes he’d brush it out of her face when it wasn’t even in her face to begin with, and if they were going at it pretty hard, it wasn’t uncommon for him to pull on it.

When she felt like he’d worked in all the shampoo pretty well, she turned around again, tilting her head backward so that the water could wash it all out. He threaded his hands through her hair, twisting the ends around his fingers, and smiled at her adoringly.

After she was all good and clean, it was his turn. She grabbed the bar of soap off the shower ledge and rubbed it over his arms and chest, taking the time to trace every line and every muscle she could get her hands on. His biceps, his pectorals, and that fascinating V thing that all toned men seemed to have on their abs. What even was that? She didn’t know, but she loved it.

He turned around so she could wash his back and shoulders for him, and she was struck by just how much more of him there was than her. She loved his broad shoulders and loved it when they made a cocoon around her. And she loved everything about being able to have her hands all over them right now. She just felt so happy to be there with him. Sex wasn’t even necessary. This just felt like . . . everything. Everything she’d dreamed about for nine days.

She set the soap back down and snaked her arms around his waist, linking her fingers together atop his abdomen. She moved in close behind him, pressing her chest to his back, and rested her cheek on his shoulders so she could breathe in the fresh, clean smell of him. God, she felt so close to him right now. Not just physically, but emotionally, too. She felt . . . connected.

They stood like that for a few minutes before Bellamy turned back around, keeping himself close to her. Both of them wrapped their arms around each other, and finally, he bent down and kissed her. Just a soft kiss. Simple. Sweet. But nonetheless, it made her heart flutter in her chest, because sometimes, the simplest kiss was the best kiss.

He cupped her face with both hands then, and pressed a feather light kiss to her forehead, lips barely grazing her skin. She couldn’t remember him—or anyone, really—ever being so unbelievably tender with her. It made her feel beautiful, because it felt so nice.

It felt nice enough that she was in no hurry to get out of that shower, not even when her fingertips were starting to shrivel up. There was a definite intimacy to this quiet moment they were having, one that she wanted to prolong and wasn’t willing to give it up for the entire world.

Chapter Text

Chapter 25

“Oh, shit,” Clarke swore when she opened the door to find Octavia standing on the other side. “I mean, hi.”

“Hi.” Octavia surveyed what she was wearing and asked, “Seriously, Clarke, do you even own your own clothes anymore?”

She tugged down on Bellamy’s t-shirt, shrugging innocently.

Octavia slipped into the bedroom, took one look at the clearly slept-in bed, and remarked, “So I take it you guys are back together again.”

“Well, we just slept last night,” Clarke said, quickly tugging on a pair of her jeans. “Not together. Well, I mean, we slept together, but we didn’t sleep together.”

Octavia gave her a curious, confused look. “Okay, I don’t really care whether you guys had sex or not.”

“No, there was no sex,” Clarke clarified. “We just spent the day together. And the night.” That still sounded a lot more R-rated than it had actually been. They’d laid in bed together and played some trivia games on her iPad—it was really embarrassing how badly Bellamy had kicked her ass. And after he’d fallen asleep, she’d stayed awake to catch up on some reading from the class she’d missed yesterday. Especially by their standards, it had all been pretty tame.

Octavia straightened out the bedspread and sat down. “So did he tell you everything?” she asked.

Clarke nodded slowly. “Yeah, he told me . . . everything.” It blew her mind, in a way, to think that she knew something even Bellamy’s sister didn’t know. But she’d meant what she said about keeping it a secret for him. If he didn’t want anyone else to know, there was no way she was telling them.

Octavia stared down at her lap for a moment, then looked up at Clarke. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you,” she said. “And I’m sorry if I was a bitch about not telling you.”

“It’s okay,” Clarke assured her, “I understand.”

Still, Octavia seemed to want to explain herself. “It’s just not the most pleasant topic of conversation for me, either. I mean, that night in Ocean City was easily the worst night of my life.” Her eyes glazed over for a moment, as if she were remembering, but she literally shook herself out of it. “And I promised Bellamy I would never tell anyone about it without his permission. He’s my brother. I can’t go against what he wants like that.”

“It’s fine,” Clarke reiterated. “I really do get it, Octavia. You don’t have to explain.”

“I wasn’t trying to . . .” Octavia paused for a moment, as if apologizing were maybe difficult for her. “I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings,” she said. “Actually, I’m really glad you cared about him enough to push him to open up like that. He’s needed to do that for a while. I think this is good for him.”

I hope so, Clarke thought. That had been the goal.

“Anyway . . .” Octavia patted the empty space beside her and said, “Sit down. I wanna show you something.”

Clarke sat down, unsure of what Bellamy’s sister could possibly want to show her until she whipped out her cell phone. Pictures, she realized as Octavia quickly navigated towards a specific photo album. She brought up the first picture and handed her phone over to Clarke for her to get a better look.

Clarke recognized Octavia, Emori, Harper, and Maya in the photo right away, even though they were all in costume and it must have been taken on Halloween—they’d all dressed up as the Spice Girls, by the looks of it. But there was a fifth girl in the photo, wearing a red wig so she could pull off the Ginger Spice look. “Is that Gina?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Octavia smiled affectionately. “She wanted to be Scary Spice, but Emori wouldn’t let her.”

Clarke chuckled, swiping to the next photo. It was just Octavia and Gina this time, standing on the front lawn outside a house Clarke didn’t recognize. They were hugging each other and grinning from ear to ear. “Wow,” she said, finally able to put a face with the name. Gina had curly light brown hair and big doe eyes. She was pretty and very natural, the kind of girl who probably didn’t even wear makeup because she looked fine without it. “She looks nice,” Clarke commented.

“She was.” Octavia’s smile gradually faded from her face.

“I know Bellamy said you were close to her, too.”

Octavia nodded and urged, “Look at the next one. It’s funny.”

Clarke swiped to the next photo and had to laugh, because it was the same location, except Bellamy was standing in between them now. They were both up on their tiptoes, giving him a kiss on the cheek, and he was making a face as though he hated it. But he probably didn’t.

“That was on Thanksgiving,” Octavia explained. “Gina didn’t have any family in the area, so she came to our place. I think that was the first time she met our mom, actually.”

“Looks fun,” Clarke remarked. There were more pictures outside the house that she now figured to be Aurora’s, more of the three of them and a few of Bellamy and Gina by themselves. He’d lifted her up bridal style for one of them, and she’d hopped onto his back for another. They looked so jovial and playful and . . . just genuinely happy.

“There’s a lot more,” Octavia said, standing up. “You don’t have to look through all of them.” She strolled over to Bellamy’s dresser to look at the pictures he had there of himself with her and their mother.

Clarke looked through a few more of the photos on Octavia’s phone, struck in particular by the one of Bellamy and Gina asleep together on that couch downstairs. That’s where I sit now, she thought, wondering if that used to be his and Gina’s spot on Saturday nights. When she took a closer look at Gina’s shirt, she saw that it said Future sister-in-law. So clearly that had been a gift—and a gigantic hint—from Octavia.

“Tell me you have all these backed up somewhere,” Clarke said, swiping through the photos faster. There were probably hundreds. She couldn’t look at them all.

“Oh, of course,” Octavia said. “Actually, someday I wanna print ‘em all out and make a scrapbook for Bellamy. Even if he’ll never look at it.”

Clarke set Octavia’s phone down, frowning. “He didn’t keep any pictures of her?”

“Nope.” Octavia ran her hands through her long, dark, hair and shook her head. “Too painful.”

Clarke couldn’t imagine that, just getting rid of all of those memories. But people did strange things when they were grieving, and she wasn’t about to judge Bellamy’s response to grief.

“Clarke . . .” Octavia sat back down again, looking her right in the eye with a serious expression on her face. “My brother’s lucky to have you.”

Clarke’s eyebrows shot upward in surprise; there was no disguising it. For Octavia Blake of all people to say this felt like a really big deal, because it wasn’t just that Bellamy was protective of her; she was protective of him, too. Hearing her say that felt like getting an official sisterly stamp of approval.

“I’m lucky to have him, too,” she said. Maybe she hadn’t had all sorts of traumatic events in her past to get off her chest, but Bellamy had really been there for her these past few months. He’d listened to her talk about her dad and the issues she felt with her family, he’d arranged for her to have an exhibit at Trikru, and in terms of her sexuality . . . well, he’d really opened up some doors for her there. More than that, though, he’d been her friend. And it was definitely the most unique friendship she’d ever had, which made it feel all the more meaningful.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy wanted to be around Clarke. Simple as that. Nine days without her had been torturous, and now that he had her back, he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. So he did.

That Saturday night was her first night “back” with the group. The girls especially were happy to see her. Harper played with her hair, Emori drew fake tattoos on her arms, and Maya picked her brain about college. Monty was pretty chill about the whole thing, though he did say it was good to have her back. Jasper was unsurprisingly more spastic. He squeezed onto the couch with them, curled up next to her, and fell asleep with his head on her shoulder. Clarke must have thought it was a little weird, but since Maya assured her it was okay, she just let him sleep there until he started to drool on her.

Bellamy was more than happy to share his time with Clarke. His friends were her friends now; they adored her and wanted to spend time with her, too. So when it started to snow and Monty suggested they all go outside and try to have a snowball fight, he didn’t object. But when it was just the two of them curled up together for the night, that was still his favorite time with her. Because it was just the two of them.

They weren’t having sex again yet. And he was weirdly fine with that. They could ease back into that kind of intimacy.

For the entire week, they spent so much time together. They got a little drunk at Dropship and came home and made out after. It was awesome. The next night, they stayed in and monopolized the Xbox. Clarke wasn’t very good at video games, but she seemed willing to learn. Later that week, they went out to TonDC, and he got to see how much her Wop had improved. On Friday night, he crashed her girls night with Raven and Niylah and ended up falling asleep on her couch during the middle of the horribly overrated Pretty Woman. He woke up as the credits were rolling with makeup on, which he figured had been Raven’s doing since Bellagio was written on his arm in lipstick.

He knew very well that he was a major distraction for Clarke, so he made sure to set aside time at night to help her study. Sometimes it was quizzing her over the notes she’d scribbled down in class that day, other times it was actually reading the chapters out of her textbook with her. He found most of the information pretty damn interesting, if he was being honest, and he liked studying with her. It made him feel like he was in college, too.

Of course, work occupied the majority of his time during the day, and as much as he would have liked to drag her along with him for all his jobs, he couldn’t very well do that. He got more done when it was just him, so even though it wasn’t as fun without her there, he had to suck it up. It was worth it when he finished the remodeling job on Diana Sydney’s kitchen faster than he’d anticipated. He could practically already see the wheels of her mind spinning with the next job she would have him do—probably a full-on bathroom remodel, if his suspicions were correct. Hell if he cared, though. Her kitchen looked good, and he gladly accepted the check she wrote out for him. It was the heftiest sum he’d ever gotten at once, enough to pay the bills for the next couple of months, buy his mom a nice birthday present, and take Clarke out to dinner.

On Saturday, it worked out that she had no plans for the day, and neither did he. So he suggested an impromptu visit with his mother. She was down for it, so they got in the truck and took off.

“Where does she live?” Clarke asked as she fiddled with the radio.

“Edge of town.” It wasn’t the best neighborhood, lower-income than his was, even. He hated the thought of her living there alone, especially since there had been some robberies nearby lately. But that was part of why he wanted to drop by today. He’d picked up some home security products for her with some of the money Diana had paid him, and he wanted to install them for her, hopefully make her home safer.

When they pulled up out front of the small blue house, she asked, “So is this where you lived growing up then?” as she got out of the truck.

He shut his door and shuffled around her to her side. “Not really. We lived in a trailer for a while. Then we rented a house. This is the first house she’s ever owned. We only moved here my senior year.”

“So you have a bedroom then?”

“Clarke . . .” He gave her a mock scolding look. “Not in my mom’s house, come on.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, I just wanna see it, that’s all.”

“Well, you can.” He took her hand and led her up the snow-covered sidewalk to the front door. “I don’t even know if she’s home right now, though.” Knowing his mom, she was working overtime. She claimed she didn’t do that as much anymore, but he knew better than to believe her.

He tried the doorbell, but that didn’t seem to be working—he could fix that quickly while he was here—so he knocked instead. No one came to the door, so he used his key to get inside.

“Mom?” he called. No response. “No, she’s not home.”

“That’s too bad,” Clarke said. “I’d love to see her again. She was really nice.”

“She’ll probably be back later.” He kicked off his shoes and said, “Go ahead, make yourself at home.”

Clarke was polite, of course, calling the house cute and cozy when, in reality, they both knew it was arguably smaller than her apartment was. His mom was proud of it, though, and she took good care of it. Owning a home was a big deal to her, just like it was to him.

“Let’s see this bedroom,” she suggested excitedly.

He led the way upstairs, pointedly reminding her, “I was eighteen years old. I was a senior in high school. I was horny all the time.”

“Has that last one even changed?”

“Well, no, but . . .” He took a deep breath and pushed open his bedroom door.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, immediately breaking into laughter when she saw the huge collage of Playboy posters on the wall above his bed. “You really weren’t kidding about the horny thing.”

“I told you.”

“Your mom let you put that up? Roma let you put that up?”

He shrugged. “It’s not like they could stop me. Look at this, though.” He shut his door to show her all the historical posters taped to the back of it. There was an Uncle Sam poster, back from when he’d been considering joining the army, a Rosy the Riveter poster that he’d gotten for Octavia but kept for himself when she showed no interest in it, and a Barack Obama Hope poster that he actually kind of wanted to put up in his current bedroom, just because he refused to accept that that man was no longer president of the United States.

“Oh, okay, so you had layers,” she said, still more fixated on the Playboy posters. They were probably turning her on just as much as they’d turned him on back in the day.

“Which one do you like?” he asked her.

“Hmm . . .” She surveyed them all for a few seconds, then pointed to a buxom redhead.

“Miss January,” he informed her. Yeah, she was a good one. He’d always been partial to the blondes, though, hence the reason why Miss July was at the center of his collage. Plus, her poster had the American flag in the background, so that was a bonus.

Clarke was very snoopy when it came to his bedroom—big shocker. He didn’t mind, though. He’d removed all the Roma reminders years ago, and even if there was something leftover . . . whatever. She knew about that now. Hell, she knew about everything.

It didn’t take her long to find the dirty magazine stash under his bed, nor did it take her much time at all to locate the neon green glow-in-the-dark condoms in his bedroom drawer. Yes, he’d worn glow-in-the-dark condoms back in the day, thinking it was cool. (It wasn’t.)

“Do you think these are still good?” she asked, eyeing the box for an expiration date.

“No, probably not.” Plus, if he recalled, they’d been a little snug.

Somehow, they ended up lying down on his bed, him on top of her, full-on making out the way he used to make out with Roma right in that very room. It felt a little weird to be in that bed with anyone other than Roma, but good, too. He and Clarke had never gone this long without having sex, and he was starting to feel the effects of it. He’d had some interesting dreams last night, ones that had prompted him to jack off in the shower this morning. If he was feeling it, Clarke probably was, too.

We could do it right here, he fantasized, thinking she might kind of get a rush out of the location. Hell, he might, too.

“Bellamy,” she whispered against his lips.

“Mmm-hmm,” was all he could muster in response. Fuck yes, he wanted to do this. Waiting a little bit had been a good idea, one they’d both seemed to mutually agree on without even talking about it. It’d given them a chance to reconnect on a more emotional level first, and he’d needed that time to deal with all the Gina memories that had resurfaced. But he was ready for things to get back to normal now.

“Bellamy,” she said again, but it wasn’t the breathy, lustful sound he was used to hearing when he turned her on.

“Do you want to?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, rubbing the back of his neck as he kissed his way down to hers, “but I think . . . your mom’s home.”

“What?” His head shot up, and he listened as the front door closed. The TV came on a few seconds later, so she was right. “Crap,” he swore, glancing down at his crotch. He’d already started getting hard. But this was a major boner killer. He could wait until later.

So as not to startle his mother, he called, “Mom!” as he headed downstairs.

“Oh, Bellamy.” She rushed towards him and hugged him. “Oh, what a surprise! What are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “Had some free time today. Figured I’d stop by. I, uh . . .” He motioned towards the stairs when he heard Clarke coming down. “I brought Clarke with me.”

“Oh, hi, Clarke.” His mother met her at the bottom of the stairs and hugged her, too. “Good to see you again.”

“Yeah, you, too,” Clarke replied. “I loved seeing Bellamy’s old bedroom, by the way. Please, don’t ever change anything about it. It’s hilarious.”

His mother shook her head. “Typical boy, am I right?”

“You didn’t tell me to take any of it down, so . . .” Bellamy trailed off, shrugging. “Anyway, please tell me you weren’t at work, Mom. It’s Saturday.”

“I wasn’t at work,” she assured him.

He narrowed his eyes skeptically.

“I wasn’t,” she insisted. “If you must know, I was out on a lunch date. With a man.”

“Oh, okay.” That was really all he cared to hear about that then. His mom was still young, and men tended to find her beautiful. She could do her thing, but he didn’t want to think about it.

“I’m betting you two need some lunch, though,” she said. “Want me to make you anything?”

“I’m good,” Clarke said.

“I’ll take something,” Bellamy requested. Hell, he wasn’t about to turn down his mom’s cooking. “I’m gonna fix your doorbell, though, and install some home security stuff.”

His mother knew better than to tell him he didn’t need to do that, or to offer to pay him. Whenever he came by, he found something that needed fixing.

While he worked on the doorbell, his mom fixed him a roast beef sandwich. Clarke sat at the kitchen table, occupied by one the old family photo albums his mother had gotten out for her. It had to be one of the ones from his elementary school days, because she kept saying, “Oh my god, he looks so young,” and, “Look at how cute he and Octavia were.”

At one point, he cleared his throat and said, “Excuse me, Clarke, but I’m still cute.”

She smiled and rolled her eyes.

The security products he’d picked up proved to be a little harder to install than he’d thought. As much as he hated to do it, he had to take a look at the instructions to figure it all out. He ate his sandwich while he worked and while Clarke and his mom sat on the couch together, looking through another album, one from high school. He overheard his mom saying things like, “I got so nervous during those wrestling matches, but he loved it,” and “I think this was at the National Honor Society induction.”

“Such an athletic nerd,” Clarke teased.

He shrugged. Athleticism and smarts. He could’ve done worse.

Once he’d finally finished installing all the new products and testing them to make sure they worked, his mother and Clarke had moved on to the old home videos. He leaned over the back of the couch and watched in mortification as a six year old version of himself and a three year old version of his sister came up on the screen. They were in the park at an Easter egg hunt, both of them standing by the Easter bunny, but he was crying. “Oh god, could we not?” he begged. This was one of the most embarrassing videos his mom owned of him.

“What happened?” Clarke asked.

“Just . . .” He motioned to the screen. If she watched, she would know.

When the Easter bunny went away, his mother, who had been the one filming, asked his adorable little six year old self, “What’s wrong, Bellamy?”

In the midst of his wailing, he managed an answer: “Octavia stole all my eggs!”

“Aw!” Clarke cooed, holding one hand to her chest. “That’s so cute.”

In the video, his mother zoomed in Octavia and her very full basket of eggs and suggested, “Octavia, why don’t you give some of those eggs back to your brother?”

Toddler Octavia pouted stubbornly and yelled, “No!” before running away from the camera. And six year old Bellamy kept crying like a little wimp.

“That still pisses me off to this day!” Bellamy roared. “I had a good strategy. I ran to the back of the course and got all the eggs back there while everyone else was up at the front. And then O was all mad ‘cause she only got, like, three, so she took all of mine.”

“And she never did give them back,” his mother recalled.

“No, she never did.”

“Well, maybe this Easter she will, honey,” his mother said, reaching up to give his arm a squeeze.

“Yeah, maybe this is the year.” He shook his head doubtfully, then groaned as the video changed to a new event: a school talent show. Not his, thankfully, but Octavia’s. “This is bad,” he said. “We almost sent this in to America’s Funniest Home Videos.” He watched as a preteen Octavia came up on the stage in her karate outfit—karate had been a good outlet for her rage—and he came up onstage along with her, basically as a prop master. He set up her punching board while she said some things to the audience, and then he stood back, holding one of the wooden planks she was going to attempt to break. She was supposed to kick her leg high enough to make contact with the board and break it, but she kicked too low instead, drilling him right in the nuts, causing him to fall to his knees, yelling in pain.

“Oh my god!” Clarke exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hands. “Oh my god.”

He cupped his package and winced, remembering how badly that had hurt. “I still think she did that on purpose.” His sister had always been brutal with him. In fact, the first wrestling matches of his life had been with her.

“Listen to the crowd,” his mother said. “Listen.”

He rolled his eyes as the audience actually started to laugh at his misfortune while he crawled off the stage in agony. “Yeah, they thought it was all part of the show.”

“That’s awful,” Clarke said. “Hilarious, but awful.’

“Luckily I didn’t sustain any permanent damage,” he said, giving her a pointed look. Luckily. His equipment was in fine working order, and they both benefited from that.

“So is this where you get it?” she asked. “The tendency to keep all the old pictures and articles and stuff? Do you get it from your mom?”

“Probably,” he admitted. “You gotta keep all the memories, right?”

“That’s right,” his mother agreed, fast-forwarding to another video. “I didn’t even have a smart phone until a few years ago, so that old video camera served us well.”

“It did,” Bellamy agreed. There was something cool about having all these old VHS tapes and photo albums, too, rather than just having everything stored online.

Later that afternoon, he had a moment alone with his mom while Clarke watched more old home movies. Once she got past the one of him singing in his sixth grade school play, he felt relieved because nothing could really be any more embarrassing than that. He left Clarke on the couch to listen to his graduation speech—better than that dumbass valedictorian’s speech—and took a couple minutes to explain to his mom how her brand new home security system worked. Well, it wasn’t technically a whole system yet, just an alarm and a camera she could access through her phone, and it was the cheapest stuff he could find. But once he remodeled Diana’s bathroom, he’d get some more money, and he could buy her some more products, like these automatic outdoor lights he’d heard about. Those really deterred the burglaries.

His mom seemed more interested in him than she did in his explanation of how to reset the alarm, though. She smiled at him, smoothed down his hair, and noted, “You seem happy, Bellamy.”

He paused his explanation long enough to admit, “Yeah, I am,” before resuming with the alarm. “Okay, so you have to hit this button first, otherwise it won’t reset. You see?”

She wasn’t even looking at the alarm, though; she was still just looking at him. “Clarke’s a good friend to you, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.” One thing he appreciated about his mother was that, even though she probably wanted Clarke to officially be his girlfriend, she wouldn’t be pushy about it. “She’s, uh . . .” He glanced over at the couch, where Clarke was getting a kick out of one of the jokes he’d put in his speech—“Shout out to sidewalks, for keeping me off the streets.” Yeah, that was funny, and all his classmates had laughed. It made Clarke giggle, too.

He’d meant what he told her the other night, about how she was his best friend. It was crazy, in a way, because he’d known Miller and Murphy way longer. But Clarke was the one who knew about the baby, because there was just something special about her, something that made him feel like he could tell her anything now. If that wasn’t the mark of a best friend, then he didn’t know what was.

“I told her about Gina,” he informed his mom, because he knew she’d be happy to hear that.

“You did?” Her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, Bellamy . . . that’s a big deal.”

“Yeah.” This past week, he’d felt so much better about things, too. Clarke was the first person in his life he’d ever voluntarily had that conversation with. All his other friends and his family . . . they’d already known.

“That’s a really big deal,” his mother said. “I’m proud of you.” She gave him a hug, the kind that went on a while, because any mention of Gina got her a little emotional, too.

Maybe someday he’d tell her and Octavia the rest of the story. Maybe someday he’d tell them about the son or daughter he’d almost had. But for now, he knew about it, and Clarke knew about it. For now, that was enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

For some reason, Bellamy seemed to think that seeing all those home videos was going to turn Clarke off to the idea of having sex with him. She kept insisting, “You were cute,” and “I thought they were sweet,” but he just shook his head and claimed, “Those should be banned. No girl I’m sleeping with should ever be allowed to see those.” It was, of course, a moot point, since she’d already seen them and it wasn’t making her want him any less.

Sex with Bellamy had been on her mind since she’d woken up that morning. This past week had been amazing, getting to spend so much time with him and be back in each other’s orbits again. But it was only a matter of time until they started having sex again, and she wondered if tonight was that night. Especially since today’s little make-out session in his old bedroom had left her wanting more.

“Where is everyone?” she asked when they walked in the front door. Usually on Saturday nights, people were starting to show up by now, Jackson and Emori at the very least.

“They’re gone,” Bellamy said. “Whoa.”

She gave him a knowing look. “You planned something, didn’t you?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Not a plan, really. I just requested that we have the whole house to ourselves tonight.”

“The whole house?” An excited tingle zipped through her body, because that could only mean one thing: Tonight was definitely the night.

“I wanted to spend some time alone with you,” he said, stroking her hair. “Is that okay?”

“That’s . . . more than okay.” As much as she liked hanging out with the whole group, this was what she’d been craving for two weeks now. This was what she wanted.

She’d sensed that tonight might be a big one for them, so she’d brought a special outfit along for the occasion. It was upstairs, though, hidden away in the bottom of the dresser drawer that she’d reclaimed since she’d been back. She had to go put it on, because she’d bought it just for him.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said, “but you have to wait down here.”

“Ooh.”

“Yeah. It’s gonna be good,” she promised, heading up the stairs. “Wait down here.”

“Alright.”

She scampered into the bedroom, her whole body alive with anticipation. Visions of Bellamy’s naked frame danced through her head, and she changed quickly from her clothes to the lingerie Raven had helped her pick out at Ice Nation the other day. No, it wasn’t the edible kind, which Roan had tried to promote. It was just a silky white corset top with matching ruffled boy-short panties. Bellamy would love it, though, because, being a corset, it really pushed her boobs up and drew attention to them. It’d come with these white lace stockings, too, that went up to mid-thigh. She wasn’t sure if that would look over-the-top or not, but she figured she might as well go for it. So she put them on, along with a pair of white high heels to give herself a little added height.

Once she was dressed, she went into the bathroom to touch up her makeup, keeping it very soft and simple-looking. She put her hair up in a loose bun and pulled down a few tendrils to try to frame her face. She was definitely going for the innocent, angelic look tonight, even though the fantasies running through her mind were far from innocent.

“Clarke, are you coming?” she heard Bellamy yell from downstairs.

That’s the plan, she thought, readjusting her top. It’d been a while since she’d had an orgasm, and she was really hoping Bellamy’s hands, mouth, and other body parts would work some wonders tonight.

When she was at the top of the stairs, she already knew he had a surprise of his own in store. There was some romantic music playing in the living room, and it looked like he’d dimmed the lights. When she crept down the stairs, she saw that the whole living room and kitchen were aglow with candlelight. It looked warm and beautiful in there, and it was impossible to miss the fact that he seemed to be making some kind of bed in the middle of the floor.

“Okay, don’t laugh,” she said, as she stepped off the bottom stair.

His back was to her as he laid out some pillows and blankets, but when he spun around and saw her, his mouth dropped open.

Good reaction, she thought, glad that the lighting was too dim for him to notice her blush under his gaze.

“Wow,” he said, smiling slowly in amazement. “Is that for me?”

“Yeah.” She certainly hadn’t bought this outfit to wear as pajamas, now had she? “Is this for me?” motioning around to the ambiance he had created.

“Oh, it’s all for you, baby.” He draped a blanket over the bed of pillows he had set out, grinning.

Swaying towards him, she surveyed the makeshift bed, very interested in what he had in mind for her. “Looks comfy,” she remarked.

“Looks good,” he said, his eyes sweeping over her as his arms wrapped around her waist. “Damn, Clarke.”

“You like it, huh?”

“I love it.” He traced his hands up and down her sides, seeming to appreciate the way the corset emphasized her figure and made her look even more hourglass in shape. “You look so sexy.”

“I feel sexy,” she admitted breathily, draping her arms around his neck. “The way you touch me . . .”

“You like the way I touch you?”

“Yes.”

In response, he slid his hands around further to cup and squeeze her backside. “How do you want me to touch you?” he asked, his voice low and seductive.

They’d barely started, and already, she felt dizzy with pleasure. “However you want,” she invited. More so than ever, she was willing to put herself in Bellamy’s hands tonight. So to speak.

“However I want?” His eyes gleamed with mischief as he bent down to massage the backs of her thighs. At eye level with her breasts then, he pressed a few hot kisses to her cleavage before standing up straight again and winding his hands around her back. His fingers got tangled in the crisscrossed strings that held the corset together, and he immediately started fumbling with them, trying to get them untied. “How the hell am I supposed to get this off, Clarke?” he questioned.

“It’s a little complex.” He had nimble fingers, though, so she had no doubt he’d figure it out.

His lips occupied hers with slow, lazy kisses while his hands got to work, moving swiftly and determinedly through the ties. “Not that this doesn’t look great on you,” he murmured against her lips, “but it’d look even better on the floor.”

“Fine by me.” It was tight and wasn’t the most comfortable thing to wear anyway.

“Turn around,” he whispered, pushing gently on her hips.

She did as he instructed, giving him better access to this corset contraption. Now that he could see the strings, he could untie them better. He had to start at the top and work his way to the bottom. “You’re so pretty, Clarke,” he said as the corset began to open and her back came into view.

Oh god, she’d missed this. Not just the feel of his hands all over her flesh, but . . . the praise. She’d been reluctant to even admit to herself how much she wanted that—no, needed it—in bed, but when compliments like that came spilling across his lips, she just turned into Jello.

Finally, he had the whole corset untied, and it fell off her shoulders. She shrugged it to the floor, letting her breasts spring free, and in an instant, his arms were around her, hands on them. He massaged and squeezed gently, rolling her nipples between his fingertips, and she leaned back against him, arching her chest against his brazen hands.

He pressed the side of his face against hers, a day’s worth of stubble scratching against her cheek. “What do you want, Clarke?” he asked her. “What do you want me to do?”

She moaned, rubbing her legs together, trying to create some friction down there to accompany the way he was fondling her breasts.

“Tell me,” he urged.

God, he sounded so dominating tonight. Which was fine. She had absolutely no qualms about surrendering control to Bellamy, not when it came to sex. “I want you . . .” Normally she would have just begged him to fuck her, but somehow, in the midst of all these flickering candles with the romantic music playing in the background, that just didn’t sound right. “. . . to make love to me,” she finally finished, worrying the minute the words left her mouth. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. What if that was only something he’d done with Gina and with Roma? Maybe it wasn’t her place to ask for such a thing.

Thankfully, he didn’t seem freaked out, though. He pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her cheek, then to the side of her neck, before raining kisses across her shoulder and down her arm. He sank to his knees behind her, hands stroking down her body, and Clarke started to turn around. But he put his hands on her hips, keeping her still instead.

She felt self-conscious, because her ass was basically in Bellamy’s face; but as usual, one touch from him could make her nerves fall by the wayside. When he skimmed his fingers across the round flesh of her backside, she felt adored.

“Beautiful,” he said, hooking his fingers into the side of her panties. He dragged them down over her ass, stopping at mid-thigh, and she gasped when she felt his lips on her backside, pressing a soft, affectionate kiss to each cheek. Bellamy had never really ventured down there with anything except his hands before, but damn, that felt nice.

Her knees shook, and her underwear fell to the floor. She kicked her heels off and then stepped out of her panties, clad in only the thigh-high stockings now. She thought he might lower those for her, too, but instead, he stood up, picking her up in his arms.

“Bellamy!” she squealed as he swung her around. He lay her down on top of the pile of pillows on the floor, crawling on top of her so he could kiss her some more. She grazed her hands up and down his sides, inching his t-shirt up so that she could feel his warm skin. Here she was, nearly naked, and he still had all his clothes on. That hardly seemed fair.

It seemed like he could have spent a long time kissing her, but he eventually sat back on his knees and pulled his shirt over his head. His body was a beautiful landscape of tan skin, tight abs, and adorable freckles. She felt privileged to be the one who got to see it, and in this candlelight, he looked even more like the cover of a romance novel than he usually did.

Since she couldn’t reach him with her hands, she brought her feet up to rub against the lean muscles of his stomach, but he seized her ankles, holding her legs steady. She felt like she was lost in the narcotic power of his eyes as he grabbed the top of the lacy stocking on her left leg and pulled it down. He was devilishly slow with his movements, removing that stocking an inch at a time. He grinned when he finally got it down to her foot and pulled it off all the way. Then he did the same with the other leg, taking his time, seemingly delighted by this sweet form of torture.

At long last, she was completely naked, and it felt so good. She wanted Bellamy to take all his clothes off, too, but sometimes he got so eager to taste her that he left his pants on longer than he needed to. So as not to distract him, she closed her legs, twisting to the side, and said, “Your turn.”

He grinned, hands going to his pants. His eyes remained locked onto hers, handsome, hypnotic, and powerful as he unfastened his jeans and pushed them down over his hips. He had to sit down on the pillows so he could kick them off, but he didn’t bother to remove his boxer briefs along with them. Instead, he spread her legs apart again and settled in between them so he could get back to kissing her.

She moaned into his mouth when she felt the bulge in his underwear press against her. God, she couldn’t wait to feel him inside her again. It’d been so long, too long.

His hand slithered down in between them, stopping at her breasts for only a moment before traveling further south and slipping between her legs. The moment she felt his long, rough fingers stroking her, she tore her mouth away from his to gasp, “Oh . . . oh, yeah.” She wanted him to touch her there, right there when he rubbed her clit.

“I’m gonna make you fall apart,” he promised, capturing her mouth in his again. His tongue mimicked his fingers. When his index finger traced up and down her slit, his tongue brushed against her lips. When he gave her clit a little pinch, he gave her lips a puckered kiss. When he pushed two fingers inside her, he dipped his tongue into her mouth.

Her thighs clenched around his hand, because holy fuck, that felt so good. She could cum just because of his fingers, no doubt that that. It wouldn’t have been the first time, wouldn’t be the last.

As he moved his fingers in and out of her, his tongue swirled around with hers. That combined with the way his muscled chest was sliding against hers . . . it was a lot of different sensations to take in at once, and it all felt so incredible. She didn’t want him to stop, and he didn’t, not for a few minutes. Gradually, though, he slowed down with his fingers before withdrawing them from her completely and sitting up again.

She wasn’t sure what he was doing until she saw him grip his package. He was straining hard in his underwear, and the sight of his leaking erection springing free when he pushed them down filled her with pride. She did that to him. Even though she hadn’t touched him there yet, just giving her pleasure worked him up so much.

With Bellamy now as naked as she was, she thought they might cut to the chase. But she should have known better. He was a master when it came to foreplay, after all, and going down on her was his favorite thing to do. He wasn’t going to just skip over that part after two weeks without it.

“You know what I’m gonna do?” he teased, as if he were reading her mind. He loomed over her, gazing down at her alluringly. “You know what I’m gonna do to you?”

“I know what I’m hoping for,” she said.

Grinning, he planted one more kiss on her lips before he kissed his way down the slender column of her throat. He lingered on her breasts, of course, lips grazing her pebbled nipples before he tried to engulf them, sucking greedily. He alternated from one to the next, going back and forth a couple times before he continued his pursuit, trailing kisses down her stomach to the juncture of heat between her legs.

Her thighs were already damp and quivering because of the work his hand had done. If he put his mouth on her, she might cum right that instant.

“You gonna hold out for me?” he teased, gravelly words uttered against her flesh. “Make me work for it?” The minute his mouth closed in on her, she hauled in a breath and tensed. Startled by his intimate kiss, even though she’d known it was coming, she clutched at the blanket beneath her and dug her head back into the pillow. God, this felt amazing, and she’d missed it so much.

With consummate skill, for what felt like at least ten minutes, his tongue teased her, zig-zagging up and down her folds in between the hot, wet, slurping kisses he kept delivering. Every once in a while, he’d press it flat against her and lick her like she was popsicle, and then he’d lift his head for a minute, lick his lips, and swallow, as if he were savoring the taste. His mouth never let up on its tender assault for long, though. Boldly, his tongue caressed her, his mouth sucked on her, and his teeth nibbled gently on her clit. He knew exactly how to coax her to abandon without saying a thing, but when he did speak up and murmured, “I want it, Princess,” she almost lost it.

Her breath hitched, because she wanted to give it to him, but she’d been trying to ‘make him work for it,’ as he’d put it.

“Give it to me,” he coaxed.

She was so close. She could feel orgasm swirling inside, ready to explode. Since it always worked her up to watch him, she opened her eyes and took a good look at the sight of him down there, his head nestled between her legs as he poured every ounce of his energy and concentration into eating her out. He was just so into it. Fireworks could have gone off outside right now, and she doubted he even would have heard them. It was like this—her, her body—was his whole world right now, and he wanted to devour everything he could get.

There was no need to grind herself down onto his face, not when she was only a few more licks, nips, and kisses away. She just lay back, letting him work his magic, and then cried out as her climax consumed her. She felt like she was floating. Tingles ricocheted throughout her entire body, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Her pussy clamped and clenched as the evidence of her orgasm dripped out, and Bellamy lapped it all up hungrily.

Coming down from an orgasm always felt little bit like falling onto a cloud and drifting back down to earth. She felt dazed and mellowed afterward, and it was hard for her to even open her eyes. She liked to see Bellamy, though, to see if he was looking at her or looking at her pussy like he wanted more. His eyes were on her face this time, smiling at her appreciatively. With a heart-stopping tenderness, he kissed her clit, which was so sensitive at the moment, it made her entire body squirm.

“Did you like that?” he asked, moving back up so that he was eye-level with her.

Wasn’t her orgasm an obvious answer to that question? She nodded dizzily, trying to pull the pieces of herself back together, because he had made her fall apart, as promised. Bellamy had yet to get off, though, and she wanted him to.

“Do you need a minute?” he asked considerately, even though his cock was poised at her entrance, the tip of it pressing against her wet folds.

She probably did, but she shook her head, too eager to feel him inside of her to wait.

“No?” he asked, stroking her cheek sweetly. “You sure?”

She nodded again.

“Did you lose the ability to speak?” he teased.

That got a giggle out of her. Even in the most sensual of situations, Bellamy could always make her laugh. She quickly got serious again, though, and told him, “I want you,” and then, just to ramp up the dirty talk a bit, she added, “I want you inside me.”

That seemed to do the trick. His eyes seemed to go a shade darker, and at the gentle persuasion of his knees, she spread her legs farther. The muscles in his back and legs flexed as he slowly pushed into her, groaning as his cock disappeared into her body. The sensation was so familiar, but at the same time, it felt almost new. His cock was so much bigger and fuller than her fingers or her vibrator. There was nothing that felt quite the same as him, as Bellamy, sliding into her, filling her up, deliberately stretching her beyond what she thought was possible.

It was good that he didn’t start thrusting right away, because she needed a moment to adjust, to reacquaint herself with the feel of him. He hovered over her, waiting patiently, and she just lay beneath him, breathing deeply already. Her head fell to the side, but he cupped her cheek, turning her to look at him again. He had this questioning expression on his face, as if to ask her if she was ready, and she just nodded wordlessly to communicate that she was.

His thrusts began slowly and shallowly enough, the kind that barely jostled her body. He peered down between them to watch, a delighted smile on his face as he saw his cock sliding in and out of her. She wished she had a better view of it herself, but all she really needed was the feel of it. Being penetrated by Bellamy’s thick, hard dick was the most exhilarating experience of her life.

Gradually, he increased both the pace and the force of his thrusts, driving into her harder and further, making her body rock back and forth more. Her knees clamped his naked hips as she tried to match his rhythm, tried to lift her hips up off their makeshift bed to meet his. But he was pretty dominant in this positions, his movements overpowering hers. Eventually, he was grinding her down into the pillows, relentlessly rolling his hips against hers as he sought out his release. She didn’t even care if she got off again. This was all about him right now as far as she was concerned. He was the one who needed to cum.

“Bellamy,” she gasped, not even sure if she wanted to tell him something or just wanted to say his name.

“What is it?” he asked, his hips slowing but not stopping.

“I can—I can feel it,” she stammered.

“Feel what?” He kissed her sloppily.

“Your cock,” she answered, “inside of me.”

He groaned low in his throat, and that spurred him on into a frenetic pace again. He was in deep, not deep enough to bottom out or give her one of those g-spot orgasms, but she could tell a regular one was fast approaching. So she just lay there and let him pound into her furiously until suddenly, she came again, without warning. She clamped down on his cock and dug her fingernails into his arm, riding out another molten wave of pleasure. This one was quicker than the last, and as she came down from it, he slammed into her a few more times, finding his own release. His hips jerked into her spastically as he came, his body molded intimately against hers. She could feel his cock throbbing inside as he unloaded himself. God, she loved it when he didn’t wear a condom. It was like she could feel everything.

He collapsed on top of her afterwards, his body heavy and sweaty as he panted raggedly for air. She lay underneath him, feeling boneless and lethargic with spent passion, but also completely unwilling to move.

“Fuck,” he swore as they radiated each other’s heat. “I missed that.”

“I know.” She’d missed it, too, but it’d been good to wait. They’d needed a few days to reconnect on other levels before reconnecting on this one.

Finally, he rolled off of her, onto his back, and pulled a blanket up over both of them. “Should we just sleep down here?” he asked.

“Sure.” Miller or Murphy would probably walk in on them tomorrow morning, but hell if she cared anymore. Besides, if they went upstairs right now, they’d probably break the bed.

“Do you care if my tongue’s between your legs when you wake up in the morning?” he asked suddenly.

She laughed, because it was both a ridiculous question and tempting thought. “No.”

“Good,” he said, “because that’s where it’s gonna be.” He opened up his arms and said, “Come here,” urging her to snuggle close. She curled up against his side, draping one leg over his, holding onto his chest. This felt good. This felt better than good. Even though she’d spent the last couple of nights in that house, tonight, being in Bellamy’s arms like this . . . tonight, she felt like she was home.

Chapter Text

Chapter 26

Clarke knew she’d been distracted ever since she and Bellamy had . . . reconnected. Sex with him was pretty much a top priority, but she had other priorities, too. School, her Trikru exhibit, her job, her friends. Not necessarily in that order, as friends were a way bigger priority to her than work was. When Raven, Niylah, and Wells stopped by the art museum, she was half-tempted to fake an illness just so she could leave and hang out with them.

Wells wanted to know about all the artwork, but Raven and Niylah just wanted to know how things were going with Bellamy. “Is his technique as good as you remember?” Niylah questioned, but Clarke didn’t even get the chance to answer before Raven asked, “What’s the wildest thing you guys have tried so far?”

“I need to get out of this conversation,” Wells mumbled, walking around the information desk. He veered off into the Renaissance art room and must have been happy to avoid the sex talk.

“Spill, spill,” Niylah urged. “We feel like we haven’t seen you forever.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke apologized.

Raven made a face. “You’re getting laid, Clarke. What’s there to apologize for?”

“Well, I don’t wanna be one of those girls who spends all her time with a guy.”

“Oh, please,” Niylah scoffed. “You already are. But that’s okay, because he’s a good guy, and we approve of him.”

“And you went, like, a week without sleeping with him,” Raven added.

“Two weeks, actually,” Clarke corrected.

“See? You’re making up for lost time. Nothing to feel guilty about,” Raven reassured her. “We do wanna hang out with you sometime this week, though. We have stories of our own.”

“Major stories,” Niylah emphasized. “I tried a strapon for the first time.”

Clarke gasped. “Oh my god, are you serious?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Wow.” That was a big deal then. Niylah had always been more of a trib type of girl. “Who wore it, you or Luna?”

“Me.”

Clarke’s eyes bulged. That was something she’d never felt comfortable with, which was why, on the rare occasions that she and Lexa had used one, Lexa had always been the wearer.

“Not gonna lie . . . I may have gotten a little advice from your man,” Niylah admitted.

“What? Bellamy doesn’t know anything about strapons.”

“No, but he works the real deal, so I figured what’s good for the goose . . .” She trailed off, smirking.

Clarke leaned forward on the counter, enjoying the girl talk. As usual, it was sex-infused, and it was the perfect distraction from an otherwise boring, monotonous day of work. “So did you like it?” she asked.

Niylah shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d do it every night or anything, but it did make me feel kind of powerful.”

“Speaking of power,” Raven cut in, shifting the subject. “Roan wants me to tie him up.”

Clarke laughed. “Of course he does.” That guy was so off the grid when it came to his sexual interests; Raven would probably soon be wearing a strapon of her own.

“I think I’m gonna do it,” Raven said. “Why not, right? Get him all sprawled out, completely at my mercy . . .” She licked her lips excitedly. “I like it.”

“Well, you guys have fun with that,” Clarke told them. “Bellamy and I are gonna stick to what’s working.”

“Which is . . .?” Niylah prompted. “Come on, Clarke, we didn’t hold out on you, don’t hold out on us.”

Before she could answer, Wells, popped back out of the Renaissance room, asking, “Are you guys still talking about sex?”

“Yes,” they all answered in unison.

“Okay.” He quickly disappeared back into the room.

Poor Wells, Clarke thought, laughing lightly. He had a girlfriend now, but as far as she knew, they were still waiting. The sex talk would either make him uncomfortable or too turned on.

“So . . .” Niylah was clearly not about to let Clarke off the hook. “Give us the details.”

“Fine,” Clarke relented, though she wasn’t going to say too much. “We started up again a couple days ago. It’s been great.”

Niylah frowned. “Those aren’t details, Clarke. That’s a summary.”

“Okay, well, last night, I got up ‘cause I was hungry, so I went down to the kitchen to get something to eat. And he snuck down there with me and just . . .” She clasped her hands together. “Right there in the kitchen, ladies.”

“Nice,” Raven said. “Bent over the counter? I love being bent over.”

“Yeah, but then Emori came out of Murphy’s room, so we had to try to disguise what we’d been doing. I think she knew, though. But she got a glass of water and went back in the bedroom, and then we just . . .” She trailed off, figuring they could determine the rest.

“Finished up?” Niylah guessed. “Good for you, Clarke. I’m glad you’re being more adventurous.”

“Oh, I definitely am.” It’d all started with the truck. Then there was Dropship and the dressing room and the pool. Not to mention the standing sixty-nine and the titty fuck, both of which had been completely new experiences for her.

“Well, let’s make a pact,” Raven declared suddenly. “As good as our sex lives are, we need to set that aside at least once a week and have friend time. Even if our significant others are there with us.”

“Why not tonight?” Clarke suggested. “Murphy wanted to drag us all out to some lame movie. You guys should come along, bring Roan and Luna.”

“If it’s not porn, Roan won’t be interested in it,” Raven anticipated, “but I can probably convince him to come.”

“Yeah, that sounds fun,” Niylah agreed. “I can thank Bellamy for the penis advice in person.”

Niylah did thank Bellamy for the advice; in fact, the first thing she said to him when they all met up at the movie theater that night was, “Thanks for telling me how to work a dick.” Once they’d all gotten their popcorn, drinks, and other movie snacks, they piled into the theater to see . . . Clarke couldn’t even remember what it was called. Saving Dennis? Sailing with Danny? Something that didn’t sound even remotely interesting, but Murphy had wanted to see it for weeks now and had somehow convinced everyone but Octavia and Lincoln to tag along.

“This is gonna suck,” Bellamy predicted as he led Clarke past their friends and up towards the back row of the theater.

“Why are we sitting all the way back here?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” he replied, grinning.

“What the hell?” Murphy spat from a few rows down. “Why are you guys up there, huh?”

“It’s fine,” Emori said. “Now we don’t have to listen to him nitpick the entire movie.”

“You guys are gonna have sex back there, aren’t you?” Jasper said a little too loudly. Monty and Maya both immediately hushed him, but it was too late. He’d drawn the attention of a couple of teenagers up towards the front.

Clarke settled into her seat next to Bellamy, trying to hide by sitting low until the teenagers turned around.

“It’s just a better vantage point up here,” Bellamy claimed, “better view.”

Their friends knew better than to believe him, though. They all rolled their eyes and said, “Whatever,” and Clarke even heard Raven say, “They’re totally gonna get it on.”

“Don’t worry,” Bellamy leaned over and assured her quietly, “we’re not gonna have sex here.”

“Then why don’t we go sit down by them then?”

“Just wait,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Oh, he definitely had something up his sleeve, but if it wasn’t sex, she was clueless. So she waited. She waited through the trailers, through the first long, drawn-out scene of the movie, and eventually through the entire first half. She and Bellamy were sharing popcorn and drinks, which was a mistake, because they finished those early on. Bellamy was so disinterested in the movie—which was typical Ben Stiller trash—that he got up, went back out to the concession stands, and bought some candy and more pop for the both of them.

The more the movie wore on, the more bored by it she became. Murphy was howling with laughter, as though it were the most hilarious thing in the world, and it probably would have been his favorite movie ever if only a leg lamp had been involved.

“This is awful,” she groaned, finishing off her Skittles.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” he agreed, holding out his cola. “Thirsty?”

She gave him a look, knowing very well that he was making fun of her sexual appetite rather than offering to quench her actual thirst. She took the drink from him anyway and slurped what was left it through the straw. “This is a horrible movie,” she said. “Like one of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

“I know,” he said, putting his hand on her lap. “I don’t even care how it ends.”

“Neither do I.”

He rubbed her leg, slowly sliding his hand up her thigh, and Clarke had a feeling she knew what he’d been making her wait for.

“What are you doing?” she asked anyway.

His response was to plunge his hand in between her legs, rubbing her through her leggings.

“Oh . . .” she breathed out.

“Shh,” he whispered. “Watch the movie.”

Screw the movie, she thought. She hadn’t been focused on it before, so she definitely wasn’t focused now. She understood what he was telling her to do, though. She had to keep her eyes up there on that screen and keep herself quiet, otherwise anyone in that theater could turn around and possibly see what they were up to. It wasn’t just their friends who could spot them. Over to the left, just two rows below them, was another young couple, and of course there were those teenagers down in the front who probably didn’t need to become any more corrupted than they already were.

Bellamy kept his eyes on the screen, too, but his attention was definitely all on her as he touched the most sensitive area on her body. “You’re getting wet,” he noted quietly as he circled his fingers.

She had to stifle a moan. “I thought you said we weren’t gonna have sex in here.”

“We’re not having sex,” he pointed out as he slipped his hand under the waistband of her leggings. “I’m fingering you.” When he started rubbing her again, there was no fabric in the way, just his middle finger in between her slick folds, stroking more insistently, making her wetter.

It was torture not to say anything, to try to sit there without making a sound or even making a move. She wanted to grind herself down onto his hand, but if she did that, then she’d likely get noisy, and the movie theater incident would join the bed-breaking incident as something their friends could always taunt them about. Besides, there was something so thrilling about doing this right underneath their noses, getting away with it. Bellamy’s public sex kink was definitely rubbing off on her, and she wasn’t even ashamed of it.

When he curved his finger and pushed it into her, she squeezed her eyes shut, and her pussy clamped involuntarily. “Stay relaxed,” he urged as he also inserted his index finger. He pumped them in and out of her almost casually, like it was no big deal to be sitting in a public place with his fingers inside her pussy. His relaxed demeanor only further fueled her arousal, and soon enough, despite trying to stay still, she was squirming on his hand, desperate to get off.

It must have been his plan to finger her through the end of the flick, because he didn’t seem to be in any big rush. But when the movie all of a sudden did one of those flash-forward things and said 3 years later on the screen, Clarke got the sense that it would be coming to an abrupt end. “Bellamy, hurry,” she said.

He picked up the pace with his fingers, but it was when his thumb pressed down on her clit that she really felt herself getting close. She breathed in sharply, still biting her tongue to keep from saying anything, and reveled in the external stimulation. He rubbed his thumb in circles over that little bundle of nerves so quickly and so expertly that she felt herself rapidly ascending towards an orgasm. It hit right as the movie came to an end and the credits started rolling. When the lights came back on, he quickly removed his hand and used his napkin to wipe it off. But she was helpless when it came to getting clean. Her orgasm had left her pussy and inner thighs damp, and even though she was wearing black leggings, if someone looked close enough, they could probably tell what had just happened.

“Best movie ever,” Murphy declared, stretching as he stood up. “I picked a classic.”

“Complete waste of time,” Miller declared.

“Yeah,” Harper agreed, “I can’t believe we all spent money on that.”

Money well spent, Clarke thought. Her legs were shaky.

“Here,” Bellamy said, helping her to her feet.

“I’m all sticky now,” she told him, hoping the theater was good about cleaning.

“You can change when we get home,” he said, walking close behind her as they shuffled back through the row of seats, “change into my clothes.”

“Mmm.” That was definitely another one of his kinks, her wearing his stuff. Although that was probably a pretty common one.

Bellamy’s sexual appetite was just as strong in the days to follow the movie theater escapade. He seemed to want to seize every opportunity he could to put his hands on her, whether they were alone or not. On Saturday, Raven, Niylah, Roan, and Luna all joined up with the usual crew at his place, which meant that the living room was even more crowded than usual and they had to share the couch. Well, Bellamy didn’t mind. He pulled her down onto his lap and moved her hips in circles over his groin, groaning, “Oh, yeah, that’s good stuff right there.”

Octavia, of course, was grossed out, and shielded her eyes, mumbling something about going to her ‘happy place’ so she didn’t have to see this.

Roan, who was sitting next to them with Raven similarly perched on his lap, suggested, “I think you guys should just do it right here and let us watch.”

“Ew, no!” Octavia squealed, plugging her ears. “Happy place, happy place . . .”

“You should let us film it,” Raven added, “for science.”

“Oh, I’d film it,” Bellamy said, hooking his arms around her waist. “She won’t.”

Yeah, a sex tape was definitely something she wouldn’t be willing to try. “That’s because I don’t wanna end up like Kim Kardashian.”

“Uh, first of all, our sex tape would be way hotter than Kim Kardashian’s,” he boasted confidently.

“Can we talk about something else?” Octavia yelled pleadingly.

“Second,” he went on, “I would never release it. I’m not like Kanye.”

“She was with Ray J in the sex tape, FYI,” Murphy piped up. “Trust me, I’ve seen it.”

“I . . . don’t doubt that, Murphy,” Bellamy said. He kissed Clarke’s cheek and whispered, “I don’t really wanna make a sex tape.”

“Good.” She wasn’t going to.

That night of course resulted in more sex once they were upstairs in his room, two orgasms for Bellamy and three for Clarke. He was just insatiable. Maybe it was because they’d gone those two weeks without it—three in a way, because the week before that, she’d had her fucking period—and now he was trying to make up for what they’d missed out on. Physically, it was quite the workout, and Clarke ended up falling asleep most nights within minutes of wrapping up. But as long as the sex was good, which it always was, and she and Bellamy were enjoying themselves, which they always did, she didn’t see any reason to let up.

It got to the point where they were even squeezing in sex before going out for the evening. Tuesday, she and Bellamy were supposed to go with Murphy and Emori to TonDC to see some local band Emori was a fan of. But just as they were about to leave, Bellamy threw her down on the bed, undressed them both in record timing, and crawled under the covers with her to fuck her hard. And yes, it was straight up fucking this time. No foreplay, not even a whole lot of kissing, definitely no taking his time or going slow. Bellamy was really good about making sure they had variety in their sex lives, and a rough-and-tumble like this definitely switched it up.

“I’m gonna cum pretty fast,” he warned as his hips bumped against hers.

“Do it.” Even if she didn’t get off, it was still enjoyable. And hey, she had no complaints since he managed to get her there most of the time.

Unfortunately, Murphy opened the bedroom door right as they were going at it and demanded, “Are you guys almost done or what?”

Bellamy stilled on top of her, but neither one of them had to move since they were covered by blankets. “I’m not finished!” he barked when his roommate just kept standing there.

“Fine, hurry up,” Murphy mumbled, shutting the door again.

Bellamy rolled his eyes, and Clarke laughed. True to his prediction, he did come fast when he resumed thrusting again.

That night ended up being an interesting one, because when they got to TonDC, they found that it had been closed for an entire week due to a cockroach infestation. In a town like Arkadia where there weren’t many options for nightlife anyway, that definitely changed their plans. Clarke assumed they would go to Dropship instead, but Murphy was actually the one to suggest Mount Weather. “Let’s go show those college freaks a real party,” he suggested, adding, “No offense” for Clarke’s benefit.

She had no problem going to Mount Weather. Whereas they knew everyone there was to know at TonDC, this was her crowd. She saw people from her classes, and a lot of them waved or said hi to her, which made her look a lot more popular than she really was. Wells and his girlfriend, Sasha, were there, so they sat at their table and sort of made it a triple date.

Bellamy had never seemed particularly impressed with this club, so she had a feeling he was already thinking about how to get out of there. She could practically see the wheels of his mind turning as he stared out onto that dance floor, lost in thought.

“Hey,” she said, leaning over to squeeze his knee. “We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine,” he said, brow furrowing almost . . . contemplatively. “Are they gonna turn on that fog machine or what?”

“Uh, yeah, probably pretty soon.” She didn’t understand why he’d even ask about it, though; he’d made it clear that he thought it was lame.

“How thick is it?” he asked.

“What, the fog?”

“Yeah, can you see through it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, not really. At least not the red fog.”

“Huh.” He looked down at his lap, nodding slowly as if an idea had occurred to him.

“What?” she asked, wanting to be clued in to this thoughts.

His eyes met hers, and he smirked. It was the kind of facial expression that led her to believe he was about to behave badly, and he wanted her to behave badly with him.

Somehow he convinced her to get out on the dance floor and move around a little bit even before the fog kicked on. But once it did, it was the red kind, and just as she’d told him, it was pretty thick. In just about the riskiest move he’d ever pulled with her, he unzipped his pants, hiked her dress up, and pushed her panties aside, penetrating her from behind right out there in the middle of that dance floor. It was so hot and so public that she almost came right away. As long as that fog kept swirling around them, they were pretty well concealed, but if it dispersed, then their naughty behavior would be on full display for everyone.

“Oh, fuck me,” she begged, leaning back against him, trying to stay upright. The truth was, Bellamy wasn’t the only insatiable one lately.

“I’m fucking you,” he rasped in her ear, pressing his hips forward in time with the music.

“Don’t ever stop,” she moaned lustfully. God, what did this guy have her saying? She felt like a porn star. “Oh, please, don’t ever stop fucking me.”

“I won’t,” he breathed out hotly, molding his body against hers. “I promise.”

The whole thing was sexy and filthy as hell, and she came right out there on the dance floor. The fog cleared before he was able to find the same release, but she followed him into the bathroom, got down on her knees, and took care of that for him before their friends even noticed they were gone.

Since Miller and Jackson were having their own night alone at the house, Murphy headed back to Emori’s place when they left, and Bellamy and Clarke drove to Polaris for the night. Clarke couldn’t even find her key at first—it’d been days since she’d even been there at all, which meant her key was buried at the bottom of her purse. She said, “Aha!” when she pulled it out and they stepped off the elevator.

“Good, now we don’t have to sleep in the hall,” he said.

“I’d sleep in the hall with you.”

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “And by sleep you mean . . .”

She shoved his shoulder playfully. “Stop it, I won’t have sex with you everywhere.”

“Well, we did it out on the dance floor tonight,” he pointed out. “Take a minute to wrap your mind around that, Clarke. We fucking did it on the dance floor.”

“I know.” It was definitely one of the most daring things she’d ever done, but she didn’t regret it one bit.

“You’re so good, you know that?” he said, putting his arm around her. “I’m not even just saying this, but sex with you . . . it’s like I’m on acid. Not that I’ve ever been on acid, but that’s how I imagine it would feel like.”

She laughed. “Okay.” That was a compliment, right?

“It’s the best sex I’ve ever had in my life, Clarke.”

Okay, clearly a compliment. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Well, that was a relief, since sex with him blew everything else out of the water. He obviously had a lot more people to compare her against, though, more than she had, so for him to say she was the best . . . she definitely recognized it as huge praise.

“You always take everything I give you,” he said, tickling her side as she inserted her key into the lock.

“Well, you always give it to me good.” She pushed open the door, tumbling inside with him as he continued to tickle her. “Stop, stop, stop,” she squealed, squirming away from him. “I don’t wanna wake the neighbors.”

“Oh, we’re gonna wake the neighbors,” he boasted.

“We’ll see.” She was so tired, but if they got into bed and he started touching her . . . well, she’d probably wake right up.

He plopped down on the couch, kicking off his shoes, and lay with his hands behind his head. “So where do you wanna have sex that we haven’t done it yet?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She took off her jacket and put it away in the closet, thinking about it. “I kind of just follow your lead with that.”

“Any ideas, though?” he asked.

“Well . . .” She took off her shoes and swayed over to the couch. “Okay, we’d have to be really quiet, though.”

“Where?”

She blushed. “The library.”

“Oh, hell, yeah.” His whole face lit up. “My two favorite things in the world: sex and books.”

“Yeah, so . . .” She shrugged, sitting down on the arm of the couch. “That’d be my idea. What’s yours?”

He grinned eagerly motioning behind his head to her sliding door.

“What?” she said. “My balcony?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You wanna have sex out on my balcony?”

“In broad daylight.”

“Bellamy!” she yelped. “We would get arrested for that!”

“Then we can have sex in jail. Wait . . .” He made a face, shaking his head when he must have realized how wrong that sounded. The sex men had in jail was probably not the kind of he wanted to have. “No, never mind. Scratch that. Nighttime it is.”

“I’d do it out there at nighttime,” she offered. “Not tonight, though. I’m spent.”

“Yeah, I’m kinda . . . tired, too,” he said, yawning. He motioned for her to move closer and said, “Come here.”

She carefully lay down on top of him, loving that he was like a comfy human pillow and a warm blanket all rolled into one. “Mmm,” she purred contentedly, “this is nice.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, tangling his hand in her hair, massaging her scalp. “I bet we could just fall asleep right here.”

“I bet we could.” She lifted her head, resting her chin on his chest. “But I should do some drawing before I go to bed tonight.”

“Yeah? How’s your exhibit stuff going?”

“Pretty well,” she said.

“And what is your exhibit exactly?”

“Well . . .” She wasn’t one-hundred percent decided yet, but she definitely had one major idea in mind. “I’ve been drawing a lot of you lately.”

“Of me?” He sounded . . . somewhat surprised, actually. “Am I gonna be your exhibit?”

“Well, I was thinking you could be. I could call it ‘A Handsome Friend.’ Because that’s what your name means.”

“That is what my name means.” He chuckled. “It’s fitting.”

“Very fitting.” When she’d first looked it up, she’d honestly thought it was a joke or something. Because . . . honestly. And here her name just meant clerk. “Is that okay, though,” she asked, “if I do that?”

“Yeah, sure,” he answered quickly. “I’m happy to inspire art.”

“But it’s not all, like, sexy stuff or lighthearted stuff,” she confessed. “I mean, I’ve done drawings of you crying and . . . looking the way you looked when you told me about Gina and when you told me about . . .” She trailed off, because even though he’d told her about the baby, she tried not to say the word a whole lot. “I know that’s all really personal for you, so if you don’t want me to use those . . .”

“No, go ahead,” he urged quickly.

“Are you sure? Because I can do other stuff.”

“Clarke.” He stroked his thumb against her cheek softly, looking her right in the eye. “I trust you.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, happy to hear that even though she’d already known it. To be granted that permission was a really big deal, because these past few months, she’d entrusted him with so many physical things; it was nice to know that he in turn trusted her with something so emotional.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Clarke’s car wouldn’t start, Bellamy had to drive her to class. She seemed to feel bad about having to catch a ride, but it wasn’t any hassle to him at all. Hell, had she been going to a class without an ass-hat professor, he would have been tempted to go sit in there with her. But that probably just would have distracted her, and he had things to do today anyway. A couple of jobs, but mostly running errands. The Walmart grocery store was one destination calling his name.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said as she unhooked her seatbelt.

“I’ll give you a better ride later,” he promised.

“Ha, ha.” She leaned across the gearshift and kissed him.

“Oh, keys,” he said.

“Oh, yeah.” She dug around in her purse and pulled out her full set of keys, not bothering to separate the car key from the rest of the massive clump. “If you aren’t able to fix it today, don’t worry about it.”

“Nah, I’ll get around to it,” he said. “Kind of an open day, so . . .”

“Okay. Thank you.” She gave him another quick kiss and got out of the truck. “See you later.”

“See ya.” He watched as she scurried up the steps and into the building where one of her many art classes was being held. He wasn’t sure which class it was, just that her professor hated him and he wouldn’t be welcome in there.

Alright, Walmart, here I come, he thought as he began to pull away from the curb. He hadn’t driven far, though, only about a block, when he had to stop at a red light. And as he sat there, waiting for it to turn green, something caught his eye.

The sign outside one of the bigger buildings on that campus read Washington Hall. An apt name since below it was written Department of History.

He couldn’t help but feel curious and wonder what kinds of classes were going on in that building right now. Maybe something he’d be good at? Probably something he’d be interested in. Whether it was American history or world history or even just geography or civics, he loved that stuff, and it’d been so long since he’d actually gotten to sit in a classroom and learn anything in a formal setting. High school seemed like a long time ago, and he wondered if he’d be lagging behind if he set foot in a college classroom these days.

The light turned green, and he should have gone straight. But instead, he turned right, not quite sure what he was doing. Groceries. Work. Clarke’s car. He had things to do today and didn’t have time to indulge himself in any of this. It was a waste of time, and he shouldn’t have been there.

Even though he kept telling himself that, he got out of the car anyway and followed a small herd of students into Washington Hall. Unlike them, he had no idea where he was going, and also unlike them, he didn’t have a backpack on his shoulders. He felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb, so he tried to just blend in and act like he knew where he was going. He wound through the halls and up a flight of stairs until he found a lecture hall. Since students were still walking in, he figured the class hadn’t started yet. And it was a big enough space that there was no way the professor knew all the students by name. He’d be just another face in the crowd.

There was plenty of conversation, and Bellamy heard bits and pieces of it as he slinked through the back row to try to find a good seat. Some of it was asinine, like the douchebags who were openly arguing who had gotten the drunkest and puked the most at a party over the weekend. But some of it was more substantial, too. He heard people talking about politics, about current events, and even about local news. He really wanted to sit down and join one of those conversations, but since he couldn’t draw attention to himself, he kind of just had to be invisible.

He sat down next to a girl with oversized headphones covering her ears. She had her eyes closed and was moving her head in time to whatever song she was listening to; she looked like she would have rather been anywhere else. He caught sight of her notebook, though, which had HIST 327 drawn on the front in graffiti lettering. So he’d walked into one of the upper-level courses. That meant he’d really be out of his league.

“Excuse me,” he said, reaching over to tap her shoulder. “What class is this?”

She gave him a confused look, which . . . yeah, he understood. What kind of idiot would walk into a class without knowing what it was? “Twentieth Century Europe,” he replied. “Are you ghosting?”

“Am I . . .” He wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but since he was trying not to be noticed, he assumed that was what he was doing. “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone.”

She snorted. “I wish I liked this class enough to voluntarily sit through it.” Then she closed her eyes again and turned up the volume on her music loud enough that even Bellamy could hear the song she was listening to—Nirvana, nice choice.

He looked around the lecture hall as more students piled in. How many of the rest of them were just like this headphones girl and didn’t really want to be there? How many of them viewed it as a chore to have to show up? Did they even know how lucky they were, how much of a privilege it was that they could actually pursue an education? He doubted it.

About two-thirds of the seats were filled by the time the professor showed up and started teaching. Bellamy thought all the information might go over his head, or that he might be rusty, but surprisingly, he felt like he was keeping up fine. The class was in the middle of talking about World War I and how the Germans had sunk the Lusitania, and even though World War I wasn’t his biggest area of expertise, he remembered learning about that briefly back in the day. This professor went a lot more in depth than his high school teachers had, though. He hadn’t realized that only six of the forty-eight lifeboats had launched, or that it only took eighteen minutes for the ship to sink. All the little details of the event fascinated him and sparked his interest even more, even though it seemed to bore most of the other students.

The lecture lasted the entire fifty minutes, and after that, the class was done. The professor reminded them to do some reading over the weekend, which elicited a groan out of the girl sitting next to Bellamy. But hell, he would’ve read it. He wanted to be able to go home and do the reading. But he didn’t have the book, nor did he have the time.

Truth be told, he would have sat through another fifty minutes of that class if he could have, and he was halfway tempted to go find another one and sit in on it, too. But when he got in his truck, he forced himself to drive off campus and get on with his day. He couldn’t afford to waste any more time. He quite literally couldn’t afford it. So he went about the rest of his day, fixed a broken showerhead and a broken garage door—real dire shit like that—then ran his errands, stopped back at home to put all those groceries away, and swung by Polaris to work on Clarke’s car. It wasn’t much of an issue; it just needed a jump-start.

Because her car needed to be driven around a while, he hopped in and drove it back to campus that afternoon instead of his truck, meeting her at the art museum at the time she’d told him she’d be off work. When she saw her car, she climbed in and exclaimed, “Yay, you got it to start again!”

“Your battery was dead,” he informed her. “You gotta drive your car more.”

“Ugh, I hate wintertime,” she groaned, slinging her backpack into the backseat. “Thank you for fixing it, though.”

“Yeah, no problem.” He backed out of the parking space, put the car into drive, and pulled out onto the street. “So guess what I did today?” he said.

“Fixed something for Diana what’s-her-face?”

“Good guess,” he said, chuckling, “but no. I, uh . . .” He cast a glance at Washington Hall as he drove by and shook his head. “It was stupid,” he said. “I went and sat in on a class today.”

“A class?” she echoed.

“Yeah, a history one.”

“You just . . . walked in and sat down?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He nodded. “Apparently it’s called ghosting.”

“Huh.” She studied him closely for a moment, then asked, “What made you decide to do that?”

“I don’t know.” He turned onto the street that would lead them off of campus, feeling now like it had been a dumb idea. All it did was make him realize what he was missing out on, which kind of sucked. “Steve Jobs dropped out of college and lurked in all sorts of classes, you know that?” he said. “That’s how he learned. But I’m not gonna make a habit out of it or anything.”

“Well, why not?” she challenged.

“Because, I’ll probably get caught.”

“Bellamy.” She gave him a look. “We have had sex in a dressing room, a pool, and out on a dance floor. You never once cared about getting caught in any of those places.”

Well, she had him there. “Yeah, I just need to suck it up and remember I’m not in college, though,” he mumbled.

“But you could be.”

He shook his head, unwilling to entertain that faraway dream. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I work. I have bills to pay. I don’t have enough money lying around to just enroll in classes.”

“No, they have scholarships for adult students, too,” she persisted. “They’re called, um . . . non-traditional student scholarships. I looked it up.”

“You looked it up?”

“Yes. They’re harder to get but not impossible.”

“Clarke--”

“And I think you’d be the ideal candidate. You were a great student in high school, I’m sure you could get people to write glowing letters of recommendation for you--”

“Clarke, just . . .” It was sweet, he supposed, that she’d even bothered looking up anything for him, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up. And if she kept talking, that was exactly what was going to happen. “I’m not goin’ to college,” he said. “It’s fine. I made peace with that a long time ago.”

“But you’d love college,” she kept on. “And you’d be so good at it. That paper you wrote was ‘exemplary work,’ remember?”

“That was one paper.”

“I mean, if money’s the issue . . .” She hesitated a moment, biting her lower lip nervously before offering, “I could help.”

He shut that idea down immediately. “No.”

“Bellamy, I have some scholarships. And I’m lucky enough that my parents pay for the rest. I’m not gonna graduate and have tons of debt. I could help.”

“You’re gonna be done with college soon,” he reminded her. “You’ve got your own future to think about, your own career.”

“I have money in savings I’ve never even touched.”

“Clarke.” His tone was stern and serious as he gripped the steering wheel tightly. He adored this girl, and he knew she was just saying all of this because she cared about him, but sometimes she pushed things a little too hard. He needed her to let up on this, because there was no way he would ever take her money. And she knew him well enough to know he’d never consider it.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll back off. But if you change your mind . . .”

He sent her a sharp look. No, he wasn’t changing his mind. He wasn’t. No matter how much he’d enjoyed that class today.

“Okay,” she said again.

Okay, he thought, nodding. There. Done. College wasn’t feasible. It just . . . wasn’t feasible. Not for him.

Not anymore.

Chapter Text

Chapter 27

Clarke released the last section of her hair from the curling iron and threaded her fingers through it to loosen it up a bit. The curling iron made her natural curls bigger, rounder, more structured. She felt a bit Miss America when she took a look at herself in the mirror, but that was kind of what she was going for. “I’m gonna look pretty for you tonight, Bellamy,” she called out into the bedroom.

“You always look pretty,” was his swift response. He sounded like he was over at his closet, probably trying to find something to wear. “Now what’s this thing called again?”

“The Arkadia Art Department Professional Dinner,” she replied, using the exact wording that had been on the invitation she’d received in the mail.

“And you have to go?”

“Yeah, it’s technically part of my capstone class.” She used a small clip to secure her hair in a half ponytail, pulling down a few tendrils to frame her face.

“And what happens there?”

“You go, eat, mingle with your fellow students and with the professors.” She rolled her eyes, hoping she could avoid Professor Fuckface the entire night. “They critique your capstone collection, or the idea for your collection if you haven’t started on it.”

“What if it’s not a good critique?” he asked.

“Well, then you just stand there and smile and act like it doesn’t crush your dreams.” She put in her medium-sized hoop earrings, hating the feel of them. Normally she didn’t wear anything more than just small earrings, but this was a fancy event. She had to look fancy. “Thanks for agreeing to go with me,” she told him. When she’d casually mentioned it and hinted that she could get one guest in free with her, she hadn’t been expecting him to volunteer to come along. Although she’d certainly been hoping for it.

“Hey, when you said there’d be food, I was automatically in.”

“Well, it’s not, like, good food,” she warned him leaning towards the mirror so she could touch up her makeup. “I think they serve caviar.”

“And snails?” he guessed. “And squab?”

She made a face. “What’s squab?”

“I think it’s pigeon.”

“Ew.” That sounded horrible, but she wouldn’t put it past the art department to serve that. “Who knows? We’ll have to stop for burgers on the way back.” She grabbed her silver clutch, turned off the bathroom light, and took two steps into the bedroom when . . . she had to stop. Bellamy was at the closet, his back to her as he straightened out his suit jacket. But she could tell he looked good. When he whirled around, she was able to see just how good he looked. The word that came out of her mouth was the one that often came out of his when he saw her wearing something nice: “Wow.”

He smiled at her. “I could say the same thing.”

She swayed towards him, so unused to seeing him all dressed up in a suit like this. He looked so manly and so mature, but still very much like Bellamy. He wore form-fitting dark jeans for pants, and he kept his black suit jacket open to show his white button-down underneath. No tie, which was fine by her. Ties made people look too arrogant and stuffy.

“You look so good,” she said, hooking her fingers into his belt loops.

He let her pull him close and placed his hands on her hips. “So do you,” he said. “I like this dress.”

“Thanks.” It was a form-fitting white halter that showed plenty of back and had a horizontal slit in the midriff section. She’d been worried that it was a little too sultry for a professional dinner, but hell, it went almost all the way down to her knees. She could look sexy and still look professional at the same time. It definitely hadn’t cost a thrift store price, though. Nor a Walmart one.

He growled low in his throat and said, “We have to go right now, otherwise I’m gonna rip this thing off you and throw you down on the bed.”

She tossed her head back and laughed, wishing he would. She wouldn’t have minded being late to this stupid dinner.

Bellamy drove and got her to campus on time—well, fifteen minutes late, but no one wanted to be the first one at a dinner party, especially not this dinner party. They had to park blocks away in the commuter parking lot, because they’d taken his truck, and he didn’t have a parking permit dangling from his rearview mirror. She didn’t mind walking with him, because he was really sweet and held her hand; but since she was in heels, it wasn’t exactly easy on her feet. She didn’t want to go barefoot, so he told her to hop up onto his back, and then he carried her piggyback style down the sidewalk.

“Bellamy!” she squealed as her dress hiked up. “I think my ass is hanging out.”

“Good thing it’s a nice ass then.”

“Ooh, Bellamy!” He was definitely feeling super horny tonight, and she liked that. If he kept saying stuff like this to her, then it’d help her make it through the dinner. “Keep talking dirty to me even when we get in there,” she told him. “Okay?”

“Alright. You might get wet, though,” he cautioned.

“Mmm.” That was the idea. She wasn’t wearing any underwear, in case they decided to slip away for a minute and just . . .

The art department building was already bustling by the time they showed up, because they’d definitely made it a leisurely stroll across campus. Bellamy put her down on her feet while they were still outside on the sidewalk, but for some reason, a couple of other people who were walking inside at that same time gave them these disapproving glares. Like how dare anybody show up to this thing and attempt to have actual fun. God, some of these people who sat next to her in class every single day were so pretentious and pompous, and they thought the world revolved around them and their art. There was a reason why she wasn’t good friends with any of them.

The actual dinner party was being held in one of the largest classrooms. Clarke led Bellamy there, and his eyes got wide when he walked in. “Whoa,” he said. “This is fancy.”

“No, not really,” she said. “They just decorated everything to look fancy.” Underneath those lacey tablecloths were still the same old tables students sat in every day. And if none of these people mulling about were dressed up, they’d look like every other college student who rolled into class in their pajamas.

“Oh, look who it is,” he said, averting his eyes as their least favorite professor cast a glare over at them. “My biggest fan.”

“Ugh, miserable old man,” she growled, wrapping her hands around his arm. “Let’s try to avoid him tonight.”

“Good idea.” He rubbed his hands against the legs of his pants, trying to be inconspicuous about it, but she wondered if he had sweaty palms or something. This definitely wasn’t his usual crowd, and it was possible he felt out of place. “So who do you wanna sit with?” he asked.

She looked around, seeing a few faces she recognized and many she didn’t. She shrugged.

He gave her a look. “Really?”

“I don’t like these people. I don’t know them very well.”

“Hmm.” He motioned to an empty table off to the side and said, “Should we go be loners over there then?”

“Yes, let’s go be loners.”

“Alright.” He grabbed her hand and led her in that direction.

The first thing Bellamy said when they sat down at their own little table was, “I wish I could go down on you right now.”

A heated blush swept over her cheeks.

“What?” he said innocently. “You told me to talk dirty to you.”

“Yeah, but . . .” When he said stuff like that, she had to fight the urge to jump his bones right then and there.

He put his arm around the back of her chair and rubbed her shoulder. “I used to sit alone at my own lunch table like this,” he revealed.

She frowned, confused. “But I thought you were popular.”

“I was, when I was older, but not when I was younger. Nobody wanted to sit with me. I was that nerdy kid with glasses. Darker skin, poor.” He shook his head. “No, not popular.”

“Aww.” She pouted. “That’s so sad. I would’ve sat with you.”

He laughed. “No, you wouldn’t. I was scrawny back then, too.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve seen the home movies.” He’d definitely changed a lot since then; it was astounding. “Who would’ve known you’d grow up to be such a sex god, huh?”

“A sex god?” he echoed laughingly. “I like that.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She liked it, too. Very much. She liked the way his fingers were stroking her arm right now, and she wished they’d venture down south to do some real good, like they had in the movie theater the other night. “Tell me,” she said, “what would you do to me right now if you could? Besides go down on me.”

“Besides that?” He eyed her up and down, smirking obscenely. “I’d bend you over, lift your pretty little dress up, smack your ass, and shove my cock in you. Fuck you hard.”

The mental visual alone made her shiver with delight. “Just like that, huh?”

“Well . . . something tells me you’re already wet enough.”

Just hearing him say that made her feel even wetter. “Maybe you should check and make sure,” she suggested, spreading her legs just slightly.

His eyes bore into hers, and he licked his lips anticipatorily. He turned his body toward hers and was just about to slip his hand up under her dress when a couple of people approached their table.

“Maybe not,” she said, crossing her ankles and pushing his shoulder to keep him away. “Hi,” she greeted politely.

A young girl and two older people—her parents, presumably?—smiled and said hello back. “Can we sit here?” the father asked while his daughter was already taking her seat.

“Sure,” Clarke said, although she was kind of bummed. She liked being a loner with Bellamy, and it was so much easier to talk dirty when no one else was around.

“Looks like we got popular,” Bellamy remarked quietly as two more people approached their table: the girl was someone Clarke recognized from a lot of her classes, and the guy must have been her boyfriend, because she didn’t recognize him at all.

Since it was harder to be perverted or canoodle or even flirt now, Clarke and Bellamy both got up and made their way through the food line, both of them wrinkling their noses at the options. There was some kind of meat, but it definitely didn’t look like anything normal people would eat. “Squab,” Bellamy proclaimed. “See?”

She put some on her plate, just to be polite, really hoping it wasn’t pigeon. She took small helpings of everything else, but she didn’t intend to really eat any of it. She’d just do like the little kids did and move things around her plate, making it look like she’d eaten a lot when she really hadn’t eaten anything at all.

Bellamy, to his credit, was very daring and adventurous. He got a little bit of everything and tried a little bit of everything from salmon jerky to truffles. He usually didn’t take more than a couple of bites of any one food item, but that worked out fine, because he’d gotten small portions of everything. “I’m still tryin’ to figure out what this meat is,” he said, picking it apart with both his fingers and his fork. “I don’t know whether it’s duck or lamb.”

The father at the table cleared his throat and informed him, “I think it’s stuffed rabbit, actually.”

Bellamy froze in mid-chew, eyes growing wide in alarm. “I’m eating rabbit?”

The man nodded.

Bellamy just sat there for a few seconds, then bolted from the table, running out into the hallway. Clarke could hear him spit up what was currently in his mouth, and she wouldn’t be surprised if the rest came up later. Seriously, what kind of people served rabbit? Maybe it was a delicacy in some circles, but all she could picture when she thought of rabbits were adorable, fluffy bunnies, and Bellamy probably pictured the same.

He came back a minute later, declared himself done with the meal, and then ventured up to the dessert table instead. He came back with a bowl of unusually green ice cream, but he seemed excited about it. “Thank God,” he said, digging right in. “Normal food.” The minute the ice cream entered his mouth, though, he made a face and shook his head. “Nope, not normal. What the fuck is that?”

“I don’t know.” She wasn’t about to try it.

“I thought it’d be mint,” he said. “I think this is . . .” He took another bite as a taste test. “Avocado.”

“Yuck.” Avocado ice cream? Who even thought of that? Why would anyone attempt to destroy one of the greatest foods ever invented?

“Here, try some,” he said, holding out a small spoonful.

“No, I’ll take your word for it.”

“Come on, just try it. I ate rabbit.”

Well . . . he really had. And she’d played it safe this whole time with the gourmet cheeses. “Fine, one bite,” she said, letting him feed it to her. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head as she swallowed quickly. “Nope, I don’t like that.”

“Man, we are stoppin’ for burgers and pizza on the way back,” he proclaimed. “Screw this shit.”

“Yeah, really,” she agreed emphatically, remembering a bit too late that there were other people at that table, people who were perhaps more accustomed to this type of food, as they were all eating it without problem or complaint. She and Bellamy met their eyes a bit awkwardly and attempted to smile.

There was very little conversation, and what little conversation did bubble up was . . . stilted. The girl with her parents didn’t seem to like social situations very much, because she sat all hunched over, like she was purposefully trying to be as small as possible. Clarke did catch her sneaking a few glances at Bellamy, though, at various parts of Bellamy, so . . . well, she liked him.

The other young couple was—in fancy vocabulary—atrocious. The guy openly bragged about how much money he had and how he was going to use it to help his girlfriend there launch her career after she graduated. “Yeah, she won’t even really have to do any of the work,” he said. “I got it all handled for her. We’ll open her own gallery up in D.C. All she’s gotta do is paint.”

“And leave the business stuff to you,” she added.

“That’s right. I take care of my girl.”

She smiled at him, and they exchanged what had to be the least affectionate peck on the lips Clarke had ever seen.

They of course asked Clarke what her plans were, and she shrugged and answered honestly. “Don’t really know yet. I’ve gotta figure some things out.”

They nodded pleasantly enough but seemed unimpressed.

When they got up to go get some of that avocado ice cream, Bellamy snorted and muttered sarcastically, “Sorry I can’t buy you a whole gallery, babe. Or build up a whole business for you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She leaned in close, whispering in his ear, “I bet he doesn’t even make her orgasm.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But that’s what I’m gonna make you do tonight. I’m gonna make you cum so hard.”

“Shh!” she hushed him, but it was too late. He’d spoken a little too loudly, and that poor family had overheard. They all stared down at their plates with round, mortified eyes, like they weren’t in any way used to hearing this kind of conversation over dinner.

“Mmm.” Bellamy pressed his lips together tightly. “Crap.”

“You know what? Let’s go look at my artwork,” she suggested, hastily getting up from the table.

“Your artwork, yes,” he agreed. Of course, on the way out the door, he gave her ass a little smack, and hell, she couldn’t even pretend to be mad about it.

They laughed as they tumbled together down the hallway and up the stairs to what was basically deemed the ‘work room,’ where every enrolled art major had the space and supplies to work on their creations. “God, we so don’t belong here,” she said, pulling him into the corner of the stairwell so they could kiss a little bit before going up the next flight.

“Well, you belong,” he murmured against her lips. “I don’t.”

She frowned, not because he said he didn’t belong, but because . . . “You really think I belong with these people? They like avocado ice cream, Bellamy. They eat rabbit.”

“Well, you don’t belong,” he corrected, sliding a knee in between her legs. “But you can fit in if you have to. I . . . can’t.”

Her fingers toyed with the buttons on her shirt, and she pouted. “I thought you fit in just fine.”

“I was the only guy without a tie, Clarke.”

“So?” It was a tie. What did it even matter? “You know what, Bellamy, honestly, I’ve always felt way more comfortable around you and all your friends than I do around any of these people. Or any of the people my parents know, or my neighbors.”

“Clarke, my neighbors, the ones across the street . . . both got arrested last year for a ‘domestic dispute,’” he said, using air quotes. “The guy down the street sells crack. There’s a teenage couple moving in on the corner who decided it’d be a good idea to have two kids before they graduated, and hell, even Jasper’s a pothead. I mean . . . is that really where you wanna belong?”

Her frown deepened, because she wasn’t sure what point he was trying to make. “Bellamy, I don’t care about your neighborhood. I care about you and your place and your friends.”

“Yeah, well, we’re all in that neighborhood,” he pointed out, “and trust me when I say that isn’t where you wanna belong. This, all this . . .” He motioned around them to the building they were. “This is what’s gonna take you someplace better.”

She stared at him curiously, wishing he wouldn’t have phrased it like that. Because he made it sound like, wherever she was going in life, he didn’t think he’d end up there with her. And right now, when she thought of the future . . . all she thought of was Bellamy.

“Let’s go,” he said, taking her hand, starting up the remainder of the stairs. “Show me this artwork.”

She managed a smile, pushing the momentary worry out of her mind. He was just being his usual self, wanting the best for someone else and thinking he deserved nothing for himself. That was all.

The work room was bustling by the time they got up there. Clarke brought Bellamy over to the corner, where her in-progress paintings were currently occupying two easels. She still had a lot of work to do, because so far, all she’d worked on was a portrait of him smiling, along with the close-up picture of his mouth at her breast. He said he liked the smiling one and that she’d made him look good, but he was partial to the sexy one. “Are you gonna do any others like that?” he asked. “Like maybe . . . my head between your legs?”

“It’s in the works,” she assured him. No way was she going to forget to paint his favorite thing.

Even though it was supposed to be the professors who were mulling about offering their professional opinion even when the students didn’t ask for it, most of them were still downstairs enjoying the dinner. In the meantime, there were, of course, a few students who were arrogant enough to think they were professors. One guy in a fedora strolled by, took a close look at her paintings, and declared, “Pretty good. Don’t let your brushstroke get sloppy, though.” And then he was on his way. But a minute later, a girl in a pantsuit made her presence known when she tapped Clarke on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me? I just wanted to say, this . . .” She pointed to the sexy painting. “It’s good and all, but I’m not really getting a sense of any real passion.”

“Oh, there was passion,” Clarke assured her. “Believe me, there was passion.”

“Well . . .” The girl rolled her eyes and mumbled, “Whatever,” as she went on her way.

“Damn,” Bellamy said, laughing in disbelief. “What the hell’s with these people? I thought art majors were supposed to be free-spirited hippies or something.”

“Oh, if only.” She sighed, covering up the sexy painting, because as more and more people filtered into the work room, she grew a little self-conscious about having her breast technically on display. “It happens all the time. They come into the program with all these great, creative ideas, and then they get so caught up in the technical side of it that they just lose all their originality.”

“Not you, though,” he said, taking a step back to survey his portrait. “This is good.”

“Well, it’s a work-in-progress,” she admitted, “and I know I’m not, like, the best artist here. But seriously, there’s one girl in my class who’s painting vases for her final project. Vases, Bellamy. And do you know why? Because she thinks it’ll score well on the rubric.”

He snorted. “Screw the rubric.”

“My thoughts exactly.” If this was going to be her final project and her Trikru exhibit all rolled into one, it was sure as hell going to be something she felt passionately about. And she most definitely felt passionate about Bellamy.

When the professors began to enter, every student pretty much took their place beside their work and waited obediently as they made their rounds. Bellamy got interested in a couple of particularly fancy piñatas hanging from the ceiling and left her on her own a bit, but he stayed within earshot, as though he wanted to hear what all these experts had to say about his face. Most of them were quite complimentary over both paintings and offered her some helpful suggestions for finishing them out. She had to explain the vision behind her collection, of course, which she herself still wasn’t entirely sure of. She described it as a character study of one man, except instead of being a character study in the traditional literature format, it was all visual. She told them about her upcoming exhibit at Trikru, and they were very congratulatory about that. One of the oldest professors even made Clarke laugh when she said, “And you say it’s called ‘A Handsome Friend,’ right?” She wriggled her eyebrows, pointing to the painting of Bellamy’s face, and said, “I can see why,” before going on to the next person.

Bellamy overheard that of course, looked over his shoulder, and did a celebratory fist pump at his side. Then he returned his attention to the piñatas and a whole bunch of other artwork lying around that seemed to have been abandoned so far this semester, but he was definitely still listening intently to every critique Clarke got.

Of course, just when Clarke thought he’d forgotten about her, good old Fuckface had to saunter her way, arms crossed over his chest, face scrunched up in . . . discontent wasn’t even a strong enough word for it. Disdain, perhaps? Complete and utter contempt?

“This is what you’ve done with your in-class work time?” he snarled.

“Yes.” There were plenty of other students there who hadn’t even started putting together the finished product yet, and were only able to have the professors critique their ideas so far.

“Hmm.” He scratched at the disgusting grey beard on his chin and shook his head. “No, I don’t really like it,” he said bluntly. “I think you could choose a better subject.”

Clarke bristled, not about to roll over and play dead here just because he was the one assigning her grade. Of course he didn’t like her subject. He didn’t like Bellamy and probably recognized him. But that was a good thing. She wanted it to be realistic. “I think I have a great subject,” she stated confidently. “These are only two of the ten paintings. There’s gonna be a variety.”

“Oh, is there?” he challenged.

“Yes.” She’d left her sketchbook there the other day, right behind one of the easels, so she swiped it up and quickly flipped to the pages where all her drawings of Bellamy were. “It’s like a character study,” she said, “see?”

“Some of these are a bit graphic, don’t you think?”

She shrugged. “You never said it had to be PG.”

“Hmm, I suppose I didn’t.” He flipped to one of the last drawings she’d done, and also one of the ones that was closest to her heart: an agonized Bellamy crying as he recounted all the gruesome details of Gina’s death for her.

“See, whatever he’s going through, I want people to feel like they’re going through it with him,” she explained. “I think that’s gonna come across.”

“And what’s he going through here?” the professor asked. “The message doesn’t convey.”

She cast a quick glance at Bellamy, who was inconspicuously moseying closer to her now, his back still towards them, almost like he was trying to disguise himself from this jackass. He was pretending to be all interested in some abandoned bowl that someone had attempted to make but left behind.

There was no way she was going to stand here and tell anyone what he’d been crying about that night, let alone this complete asshole of a man, so she simply said, “It’s open to interpretation,” hoping he’d leave it at that.

But of course, he didn’t. “I’m not arriving at any solid interpretation. I’d like you to explain it to me.”

She sighed frustratedly, not about to do that.

“Oh, for Christ’s sakes,” Bellamy muttered, finally making his presence known. He stomped up to them, grabbed the sketchbook right out of the professor’s hands, and said, “Oh, yeah, that one? That’d be when I told her about my dead ex-girlfriend. Any other questions?”

The professor was, for once, speechless. He had no sanctimonious parting shots as he told Clarke, “Carry on with it,” she shuffled over to the next person.

Bellamy slammed her book shut and handed it back to her. “I really hate that guy,” he muttered.

“Yeah.” She looked at him sadly, hoping he hadn’t done that just for her. “I’m surprised you just blurted that out, though.”

“Well, I’m not gonna let him dock your grade just ‘cause he doesn’t get it.”

“He doesn’t have to get it.” She didn’t care what he thought or what she ended up getting on this assignment. She’d pass the class, even if it was just a C. She was a good enough student to get by even when her professor hated her subject and, by extension, probably hated her.

“It’s fine,” Bellamy insisted. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get outta here, though.”

Oh, she was more than ready. She’d been ready ever since they’d walked in. “Let’s go home?” she suggested hopefully.

He wound one arm around her waist, echoing her words. “Let’s go home.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy was such a good guy. Clarke didn’t even have to complain about how her feet were still hurting her for him to swoop her up in his arms and carry her into the house. “How romantic,” she teased, because he was carrying her the bridal style way, but it became less romantic when her head hit the doorframe.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, and they both started laughing until they caught sight of . . . the living room. The very full living room. It wasn’t just Murphy and Miller hanging out, or even just the two of them with Emori and Jackson. It was everyone. Jasper, Monty, Harper, Maya, Lincoln, and Octavia. Everyone fell silent when Bellamy and Clarke came in.

“Hey, guys,” Bellamy said, setting Clarke down on her own two feet. “What—why’s everyone here?”

“We were waiting for you two,” Miller said. “What took you so long?”

Bellamy still looked confused, but he answered anyway. “We had to stop and get something to eat.”

Murphy snorted and mumbled to Emori, “I bet they ate out, if you know what I mean.”

“What’re you guys doin’ here?” Bellamy asked again. “Not that I mind or anything, but . . .”

“Octavia told us all to come here,” Harper jumped in. “We don’t know why.”

Clarke was beginning to feel as puzzled as Bellamy was. They were a close-knit group, for sure, but usually the only time they all got together was on their Saturday nights or when they all decided to head out to TonDC. Something felt . . . kind of off.

“Sorry,” Octavia apologized, “it’s just that your place is bigger than mine and . . . well, it only seemed natural to do this here.”

“Do . . . what?” Bellamy asked skeptically.

Octavia took a deep breath, looked at Lincoln, got an encouraging nod from him, and then faced the group of them again. “Okay, well, we wanted to tell you guys all at once . . .”

Oh god, Clarke though, immediately checking for a ring on the girl’s left hand.

Octavia’s whole face lit up, and she exclaimed, “I’m pregnant!”

Every single person in that room—including Clarke—gasped in disbelief. Except for Bellamy. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

“Oh. My. God!” Harper exclaimed, shooting to her feet. “Are you serious?”

“You’re not pregnant,” Murphy said doubtfully.

“No, I am,” she insisted.

“You don’t look pregnant.”

To prove him wrong, she lifted up her sweatshirt, indeed revealing a very small baby bump underneath. Everyone gasped again.

“I’ve been wearing sweatshirts and jackets to try to keep it hidden,” she explained, “and so much of the reason why Lincoln and I haven’t made it to every single night out and every single night here is because . . . well, I’ve kind of been nauseous.”

Harper let out a high-pitched squeal of delight, running at Octavia gleefully. “Let me see!” she yelped, putting her hands on her best friend’s stomach. “Oh my god, that is a bump!”

Everyone else started crowding in on Octavia, swarming her like bees to a honey jar. Even the guys wanted to get a good look at the baby bump, but the girls were definitely the ones interested in feeling it. There were a lot of congrats being thrown around to both her and Lincoln, and Lincoln was very gracious about it while Octavia finally snapped, “Okay, stop touching me!”

Clarke cast a glance up at Bellamy, who still hadn’t really moved. He just stood there, eyes wide, mouth halfway open, staring at his sister in . . . amazement? Horror? She couldn’t really tell, but he definitely looked stunned.

Obviously Octavia cared about his reaction the most of all. She ignored all the questions about how far along she was and how long they’d known and instead smiled shakily at Bellamy, obviously hoping to get some kind of positive response out of him. Clarke could see it in her eyes. She was pleading with him to just be happy for her and not to be mad.

“Go,” she urged, pushing gently against his back.

He slowly shuffled forward, and his friends made room for him so he could give his little sister a hug. “Congratulations,” he said quietly.

“Thank you.” Octavia wasn’t one for crying, so maybe it was the hormones or maybe she was just super relieved when she blinked back tears.

Oh my god, Clarke thought, sidling up behind Bellamy. This was . . . a bomb. Octavia had literally just dropped a bomb on the rest of them. Especially her brother. None of them had seen this coming, but really . . . they probably should have. Octavia hadn’t had one drink at TonDC for months. She hadn’t worn any tight clothing. She’d been “feeling sick” on more than one occasion. Now that she thought about it, it just seemed so obvious.

When it was her turn to congratulate Octavia, she settled for just a hug rather than trying to touch her stomach; she could only imagine how much pregnant women hated that, and Octavia didn’t even appear to be that far along yet. There would be plenty of stomach touching to come.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Bellamy and Lincoln shook hands, but it was one tense handshake. Not on Lincoln’s end, of course, but Bellamy . . . oh god, Bellamy couldn’t even look him in the eye. The hand that wasn’t shaking Lincoln’s was balled up into a fist at his side.

“We’re excited,” Octavia said. “We wanted to tell you guys sooner, but we also wanted to get a little further along first.”

“How far along are you?” Maya asked. “Four months?”

“Four months?” Octavia shrieked, shooting her a warning glare. “No, just a little over three.”

Miller traced his finger in the air, as if he were doing the mental math. “So that means you got pregnant during . . .”

“Vacation, yes,” she confirmed.

“Wait a minute,” Murphy interjected, “does that mean the baby’s Mexican then?”

“Shut up, Murphy,” Octavia snapped.

“Well, it was conceived in Mexico.”

That got a laugh out of everyone . . . or almost everyone. Not Bellamy. He looked shell-shocked, almost catatonically lost in his own thoughts while everything just swirled around him. And he stayed like that the rest of the time Octavia was there. She and Lincoln talked about whether they thought it was a boy or a girl, whether or not they wanted to find out, and Lincoln mentioned that they were probably going to start looking at houses so they could move out of his apartment and design a nursery. Bellamy breathed a sigh of relief when they assured them that they’d stay in Arkadia, though. His sister wasn’t going anywhere.

Harper and Emori both made their sales-pitches to be the godmother, and Murphy threw his hat in the ring for that for some reason, too. “What?” he said. “I gotta be in the running for something. Everyone knows Bellamy’s gonna be the godfather.”

Bellamy tensed, but no one else seemed to notice. Clarke found his hand and gave it a good squeeze, not even sure what was going on in his mind right now. He was going to be an uncle. His little sister was having a baby. Was he happy? Was he pissed? Was he something else entirely that Clarke didn’t even have the vocabulary for? She had no idea, and more so than ever, she wished she knew what was going on in his head.

A lot of them had to work tomorrow, including Lincoln, so no one stayed over too late. Octavia and Lincoln were the first to go, and Octavia made sure to get another hug from her brother before she left. “We can talk more about it whenever you’re ready,” she said, and he just nodded in response. Monty, Jasper, Harper, and Maya all left shortly after that, but Jackson and Emori decided to just stay over.

“Come on, John,” Emori said, grabbing her boyfriend’s hand, leading him down the hall. “Let’s go make our own baby.”

“Uh, let’s not,” he said emphatically as they shut the bedroom door.

“Let’s go adopt a Vietnamese orphan,” Jackson joked as he and Miller headed upstairs.

Miller played along. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

When it was just her and Bellamy left down there in that living room, Clarke bravely asked, “Are you okay?” knowing that was a complex question for him to answer right now.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, getting to his feet. He walked straight into that kitchen, pulled a six-pack of beer bottles out of the refrigerator, and marched right out into the back yard, like he was on a mission or something.

Oh, no, Clarke thought. Beer and standoffishness. Not a good combo.

She went to the kitchen window and watched as Bellamy unscrewed one beer, chugged half of it, and then threw what was left at a tree trunk. It shattered, and he yelled, “Fuck!” at the top of his lungs before grabbing himself another beer.

Murphy meandered out of his bedroom wearing nothing but his underwear around the time the second beer bottle hit the tree. “Well, this doesn’t look good,” he remarked.

It definitely didn’t. But Clarke thought it might be good to give him some space. Once he smashed a couple more beer bottles, maybe he’d feel better.

Miller joined them downstairs at that kitchen window by the time Bellamy was onto his third bottle. He had taken to chugging the entire thing now, so he was probably making himself sick.

“He’s gonna feel this later,” Miller warned. “One of us should go stop him.”

“Good idea,” Murphy said. “Clarke.”

She glanced back and forth between the two of them. Both guys were looking at her like they expected her to be the Bellamy whisperer. “Me?” she said. “Why me?”

“Well, you’re sleeping with him, so . . .” Murphy shrugged. “It’s like your spousal duty.”

“But I’m not his spouse,” she protested. Hell, they were his roommates, and they’d known him longer.

“Close enough,” Miller said, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Good luck, Clarke.” He steered her in the direction of the door and gave her a gentle shove out onto the back steps.

Crap, she thought, worried that she would say something wrong and upset him even more. How did one talk to the world’s most protective big brother about his newly pregnant little sister? She had no idea where to even start.

“Hey,” she said softly, rubbing her arms. It was chilly out there, and she hadn’t put on a coat. Her dress was definitely not meant for this winter weather.

“I don’t wanna talk right now, Clarke,” he warned. “You know how every time I say I don’t wanna talk, you try to get me to talk?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, don’t do that right now.”

She sighed, wrapping her arms around herself tightly. “Okay.” Maybe if she just stood here and waited, then he’d decide to open up on his own.

He threw that third beer bottle at the tree, but he missed this time, and that seemed to piss him off even more. Growling, he reached down into the six-pack for the fourth one and started drinking.

I’m gonna freeze to death out here, she thought, shivering. But if she went inside, then Bellamy might stay out here the whole night, and that wouldn’t help anything.

“You know what?” he said, keeping his back to her. “I’m not mad.”

“You’re not?” How did he explain all these broken beer bottles then?

“No. I mean, not at her. It’s . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It’s complicated. ‘cause I am mad, but . . . maybe I’m just mad at Lincoln.”

Good, he was already talking. This was good. “Why?” she asked. “Just because he got her pregnant?”

“No, because he--” Bellamy spun around and stopped short when he saw how cold she looked. “Shit, Clarke,” he swore, immediately taking off his jacket. He draped it over her shoulders and rubbed her back and arms for her. “You should go inside,” he told her.

She shook her head stubbornly. “No, I wanna stay out here with you.” She wasn’t going inside unless he did.

“Clarke . . .” He turned back around and took another drink, warning her, “I could be out her a while.”

“That’s fine.” She slipped her arms into the sleeves of his jacket and pulled it closed around her chest, already feeling warmer.

“It’s just . . .” He tossed his whole head back, downing a significant portion of the booze inside that bottle, and swirled what was left around at the bottom, and then threw that bottle at the tree. He connected this time, and it shattered into tiny pieces. “Dammit,” he swore, dropping into a squat. He raked his hands through his hair, then clasped his hands over his mouth in a prayer position. “My sister’s pregnant,” he said, and then he said it again as if to convince himself it were true. “My sister’s pregnant—my little sister. She’s twenty years old. He’s twenty-six, you know that? And now he did this to her. He changed her whole life forever.”

Clarke hesitantly squatted down beside him, a little awkward in her dress. “It does take two, you know,” she pointed out.

“I know. And I know she hasn’t been a virgin since she was eighteen. I knew they . . . did that. But now there’s . . . there’s this baby. There’s proof. And now . . . she’s never gonna go to college now,” he lamented. “She’s gonna have the kid and settle down with Lincoln and . . . that’s that. For the rest of her life, she’s gonna be connected . . . to him.”

Clarke stood up when Bellamy did, quietly reminding him, “Lincoln loves her. She loves Lincoln.” There were definitely worse people for Octavia to be forever connected to.

“Yeah, but it just feels so official . . .” He exhaled heavily, shaking his head in defeat. “It’s over,” he said. “I’m not the one who gets to take care of her anymore.”

Just the way he phrased that . . . in his mind, it wasn’t that he was no longer ‘the one who had to take care of her anymore,’ but rather ‘the one who got to.’ The sense of responsibility he felt towards his sister was a privilege for him. And it broke her heart to hear him say that, because she knew where he was coming from with all of this. On some level, he was incredibly happy for her, and once he had time to digest this and realize that he was actually going to be an uncle, he’d probably start to get really excited about it. But Bellamy was the guy who was willing to devote his whole life to taking care of the people he loved, and he viewed his past experiences with Roma, Gina, and his own unborn child as a failure to do so. He wanted to be the one to take care of Octavia, but now he had to let her go. At least some of her.

“You’re her brother,” she reminded him. “She’ll always need you. You’ll always help take care of her.”

“Yeah, but it’s Lincoln’s job now.” He grabbed another beer, opened it, and took only a small sip this time before sulking over to the trampoline. She followed and sat down on the side next to him, tucking her bare legs up underneath herself to try to keep them warm.

“Bellamy, I don’t think anyone can ever take your place in her life,” she assured him.

“I know,” he said. “Deep down, Clarke, I know everything your saying is true. It’s just, right now . . .” His sentence faded into another heavy sigh.

“You’re processing it,” she said. “It’s a big change. It’s okay, Bellamy. You don’t have to be bouncing off the walls over this.”

“But I am happy for her,” he insisted. “I probably didn’t act happy, though. Fuck, I’m such a jerk sometimes.”

Clarke rubbed his back, feeling the tenseness of the muscles there. “She understands.”

“Does she? I don’t even know if I understand myself half the time.” He dragged his hands through his hair again, frustrated now. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I can’t just be happy for her and leave it at that.”

“Bellamy, you told me yourself, you’re so protective of her because you feel like you couldn’t protect . . .” She paused before saying their names. “Roma and Gina.”

“Yeah.” He nodded sadly. “Couldn’t protect them.”

“And even when there’s nothing to protect Octavia from, like right now, you still feel like you need to protect her. And maybe . . .” She hesitated, not sure if it was a wise idea to even bring up the other person he’d lost. But he was actually being pretty open and conversational about all of this without putting up much of a fight, so she figured she had to strike while the iron was hot. “Okay, don’t get mad at me for saying this,” she prefaced, “but do you think part of the reason why you’re having such a strong reaction to this is because . . .” She winced, hating to even bring it up. “Because if things had worked out, you would already be a parent yourself right now?”

He rubbed his forehead, taking a moment before admitting, “Maybe. I don’t know.” Then he changed his tune, though, and said, “No. No, I’m not jealous or anything.”

“Because it’d be okay if you were.”

“I’m not,” he insisted. “I mean, yeah, finding out O’s gonna have a baby . . . it makes me think of Gina, it makes me think of . . .” He trailed off, shivering himself now. “But I think of that every day, so this is nothing new.”

“It is new, though,” she said. Thinking about Gina and the baby he’d never gotten to know was one thing; but seeing his sister’s baby bump and knowing that she and Lincoln were going to have what he’d lost . . . that had to be a lot to deal with.

“I think I’m just . . . I’m adjusting,” he decided. “I gotta adjust.”

“And you will,” she assured him, squeezing his shoulder supportively. “Do me a favor, though? If you have to vent, vent to me. Don’t vent to Octavia.” She was an expectant mother now; she didn’t need that stress.

He nodded in agreement. “Deal.” Then he raised his bottle to his lips as though he were about to take another drink, but he never did. He lowered it back to his lap, grimacing.

“What?” she asked.

“Oh, I feel like I’m gonna be sick,” he cautioned, holding one hand to his stomach.

“Is it the beer or the rabbit?” she asked.

“Both.” He leaned forward and launched the contents of his stomach onto the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut and twisted away, but still, she stayed right there next to him. He’d probably go inside soon now, and either go to bed or proceed to throw up some more, but as long as he was sitting out there, she was sitting out there with him. Simple as that.

Chapter Text

Chapter 28

Almost all night, Bellamy lay awake, thinking about how he was going to be an uncle in a few months. It was surreal. Even though he’d always known it would happen someday, he’d always figured it would be a couple years down the line. He hadn’t expected it so soon. Octavia wasn’t even old enough to legally drink yet, but now she was having a baby.

It kind of made his head spin.

He rearranged his work schedule the next day so that he could pay a visit to his sister. Talking with Clarke last night had him feeling calmer today, and he wanted to make sure she understood that he was actually happy for her. Because something told him he hadn’t made that clear enough last night.

When she opened the door to her apartment and saw him standing there, her whole face lit up with surprise. “Hey,” she said. “What’re you doing here?”

“Just thought I’d stop by,” he said. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” She stepped aside and held the door open for him.

Stepping foot into her living room was almost . . . disorienting. It didn’t look like he remembered it at all. Clearly she and Lincoln had rearranged some things, and . . . “Did you get new furniture?” he asked.

“No. You just don’t recognize it because you never come over here.” She smirked.

He scratched his eyebrow, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry.” He didn’t really feel the most comfortable here. Technically, it was Lincoln’s apartment and she’d just moved in with him a couple years ago. Lincoln paid the rent, and Lincoln had been the one to buy all that furniture he didn’t recognize.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, shoving her hands in her back pockets. She was wearing a black t-shirt, no longer hiding her body under oversized sweatshirts and jackets. It was so glaringly obvious now that she was knocked up. How the hell had he not noticed that before? He felt guilty for being so oblivious to it.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, concerned.

“Good,” she said. “No nausea this morning.”

“Good. That’s . . . good.” He thought of his own nausea last night, and he felt bad that she was going to have to deal with it potentially on an everyday basis. It sounded like she’d already dealt with her fair share, so hopefully it let up as the pregnancy wore on. “I could go get you some ginger ale or something,” he offered. “Doesn’t that help?”

“It does,” she said, “but don’t worry, Lincoln’s already gotten me some.”

“Oh. Alright.” Good old Lincoln. As much as it stung to entrust his sister’s well-being to that guy . . . he had to do it, especially right now. And at least it sounded like Lincoln was taking good care of her. He’d mentioned something last night about reading books for expectant fathers and how excited he was to go to Lamaze class with Octavia.

“Listen, O,” he said, trying to cut to the chase in case she had things to do today. “I just wanted to let you know I am happy for you. And I probably did a really crappy job of showing it last night.”

“It’s okay, Bellamy,” she assured him. “I know how you are.”

“But I shouldn’t be like that,” he acknowledged. “I am happy for you, really. I mean, it threw me for a loop, yeah; I didn’t see it coming. But I’m still happy.”

“Me, too,” she said. “And just so you know, I didn’t see it coming, either. It’s not like it was planned or anything.”

Good, he thought. He’d been wondering about that, and he’d hoped that Octavia wouldn’t have purposefully tried to have a baby at the ripe old age of twenty.

“One too many tequilas in Mexico,” she said. “But I won’t go into detail.”

“Yeah, please don’t.” It didn’t matter how open-minded he was trying to be about this whole thing; he still didn’t need to hear all that. “How long have you known then?”

“For about two months.”

“Wow.” The only other secret his sister had kept from him for two months was . . . well, Lincoln.

“I wanted to tell you,” she said, “but anything can happen in the first few months, so we wanted to get past those risks before we said anything.”

“Makes sense.” Part of him wished he would have known, but another part was grateful he hadn’t. Dealing with everything he had around New Year’s had been enough on its own. He couldn’t imagine piling this on top of all that.

“I’m due at the start of June,” she informed him. “Crazy, huh?”

“Yeah.” That didn’t really seem all that far away. “Holy shit, O, you’re gonna be a mom.”

“I know.”

“Mom’s gonna be a grandmother.”

“Yeah, I haven’t told her yet.” She cringed. “I was kinda hoping you’d help me with that?”

“Yeah, sure.” They could go visit her on Sunday. Octavia could do all the talking, but he’d be there for moral support. “She’ll be excited for you,” he predicted.

“You think?”

“Yeah. She was seventeen when she got pregnant with me, so . . . at twenty, you’re like an old woman compared to that.”

She laughed nervously. “Yeah, well, I know you guys both wanted other things for me. College and . . . college, mostly.”

“Octavia . . .” Yeah, he’d wanted that for her, in large part because he’d missed out on it himself. But clearly life was taking her in a different direction, and as long as she loved what she had . . . then that was all that mattered, he supposed. “You’re happy, right?”

“Yeah,” she answered without hesitation. “I’m really happy. Nervous, but . . .”

“No, don’t be nervous,” he cut in. “You’ll do fine. You’ll be a great mom.”

“And you’ll be . . . the world’s okayest uncle,” she joked.

“An uncle.” Even though he still had some lingering concerns for her, he couldn’t deny that the thought of having a niece or nephew excited him. “Wow.”

“Come here, Bellamy,” she said, walking towards him with open arms.

He opened up his arms, too, and hugged her back tightly, more tightly than he had in a long time. In a couple months, she might be too big to hug for all he knew. But even then, she’d still be his little sister. She’d always be that to him. “I love you so much,” he told her. Even though he did a lot of things to show that, he didn’t outright tell her very often.

An even rarer thing, though, was for her to tell him. But today, she did: “I love you, too, big brother.”

As long as that was always true . . . then he was fine.

He didn’t leave Octavia’s place emptyhanded that day. He left with a photo, a very special photo he looked at for ten minutes straight over his lunch break: an ultrasound. She’d gotten him a copy of her most recent ultrasound. It was a little weird to be looking at a picture of something his little sister had actually conceived, but it was cool, too. At three and a half months, the baby was looking like an actual baby. He could make out the head and the body, and the image would only get clearer over time. Octavia claimed she could make out a penis, too, so she was convinced it was a boy, but she said Lincoln wasn’t giving up hope for a girl yet.

That night, he sat on the bed with Clarke and showed her the ultrasound picture. She’d never seen one before, so she was mesmerized. “This is so surreal,” she said. “I can’t believe that’s actually . . . in her right now.”

“I know.” It had to still be pretty small, because her stomach was pretty small. Octavia was a thin girl, so she probably wouldn’t put on a whole lot of weight all over. She’d look like she was walking around with a basketball underneath her clothes soon enough, though. That was when it would become more real than surreal.

“So are you still doing okay with it?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” He sighed as he looked down at that sonogram in his hand, wishing he could quell the feeling of . . . envy. There was envy eating away at him right now, and there had been all day. It felt ridiculous to be envious of a pregnancy his sister had managed to accomplish after “one too many tequilas.” But he was.

“I never got one of these,” he lamented, wishing he had just that much. Sure, his kid wouldn’t have looked like much more than a speck, but . . . it would have been something. Something to hold onto. “Maybe I am a little jealous,” he reluctantly admitted.

She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder, giving him that silent support he needed. She didn’t seem surprised to hear him admit that. Hell, she’d probably known before he did.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bellamy Blake was not an easy man to buy presents for. He liked some rather peculiar things, what with his interests in history and Greek mythology and all that. But he already had so much history stuff that Clarke wasn’t sure whether she’d be getting him something he already had or not. Besides, maybe he got tired of receiving history-themed gifts all the time.

When Raven stopped by in the afternoon, Clarke was in full-on Amazon Prime mode, browsing the search results for “cool gifts for guys” on her laptop. And she was having no luck whatsoever. There were lots of novelty gifts, stupidly funny t-shirts and mugs, tools, and even toys. Nothing that Bellamy would really want or need, though.

“What’re you doing?” Raven chirped, plopping down next to her on the couch.

“Trying to find a gift for Bellamy’s birthday,” she answered.

“Oh, yeah? When’s that?”

“A week after Valentine’s Day.”

“Well, think about Valentine’s Day first,” Raven suggested. ‘What’re you getting him for that?”

“I don’t know, I figured I’d just stop by Ice Nation and pick up some more slutty lingerie. He seems to like that.”

“Well, of course he does; he’s a guy,” Raven said. “You know what you should get him, though?”

“Raven, if you try to persuade me to get that dick-molding kit again . . .”

“It’s really awesome, though,” Raven insisted. “Easy to use, and since it technically sculpts around the outside of his dick, you end up with something even bigger than he actually is.”

“I can’t handle anything bigger,” Clarke confessed. “Do you know what it’s like taking Bellamy’s cock in your vagina? It’s like trying to put a Summer sausage in a doughnut hole.”

“Okay, interesting visual.” Raven laughed, then peered over at Clarke’s computer screen. “What’re you finding?”

“Not much,” Clarke muttered. “Donald Trump toilet paper. That’s kind of the top option right now.”

“You cannot get your man toilet paper for his birthday. Let me see that.” Raven seized the computer for her and started typing rapidly, navigating off of Amazon altogether. “I’m sure there’s plenty of other interesting stuff out there.”

“He’s hard to buy for,” Clarke complained. “And after he got me an entire art exhibit for Christmas . . . I feel like I kinda have to get him something good.”

“You do,” Raven said. “You will.” She tilted the computer towards Clarke to show her a really nice watch, but Clarke shook her head. She’d never even seen Bellamy wear a watch before.

“So where is old Bellagio today?” Raven asked as she kept looking. “Asleep in your bedroom?”

“No, he and Octavia are visiting his mom. Breaking the news.”

“What news?” Raven questioned.

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you. Guess what? Octavia’s pregnant.”

Raven’s eyebrows shot upward. “What?”

“Yeah. Big shocker. But she’s got the bump and everything to prove it.”

“That’s crazy,” Raven said. “Isn’t she still pretty young?”

“Twenty.”

“And she and Lincoln are having a baby. Wow,” Raven said, astonished. “I can’t even picture that for myself right now.”

“Oh, I know, me neither. But she seems excited, so . . .” Clarke trailed off and shrugged. “Bellamy wasn’t too thrilled about it at first, but he calmed down.”

“Yeah?” Raven found another gift, an NFL history book, and Clarke wrinkled her nose and shook her head. Bellamy watched some NFL games when nothing else was on, or if the Redskins were playing. But other than that, he didn’t seem to have a major interest in it.

“Why don’t you get him something uncle-ish then?” Raven suggested.

“I think I’ll leave that to Octavia.”

“Then take him somewhere.”

“Ha!” Clarke laughed. “Yeah, right. He won’t let me pay for anything. Food, movies . . . if we ever go anywhere, he wants to pay for it all.”

“Just take him to Ocean City for the weekend or something.”

Clarke tensed at the mention of that place. “No, I can’t take him there.”

“Why not? Just pay for the hotel in advance and let him know the room’s gonna go to waste if he doesn’t go with you.”

“No, Ocean City is not . . . it’s not an option,” she said definitively. She didn’t blame Raven for suggesting it, though. Raven didn’t know that was where Gina had died. Raven didn’t know about Gina at all.

“Well, just take him anywhere you want,” her friend said. “Hotel rooms are fun. You get to check in, fuck, and check out without cleaning up.”

“Yeah, but I still wanna get him a real gift, though.” Sex was great, of course, and they’d certainly have a lot of it on his birthday; but he could have sex with her anytime. She wanted to give him something tangible, too. “Maybe I’ll run some ideas by Octavia,” she said, figuring his sister would know him better than Raven did. “I’m sure we can come up with something.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

All Bellamy wanted to do when he got home from work was take a shower, get something to eat, and maybe play some video games for a while. Miller’s company had him working an event tonight, and Murphy was out with Emori, so he had to play alone, but he didn’t care. Clarke would come by later, and he could teach her some things about how to play DOOM. She had decent hand-eye coordination, so if she played a little more, she’d be better than Murphy.

Or they could just go upstairs and have sex. He was fine with either option.

He’d only been playing for about five minutes when there was a knock on the door. Weird, he thought. Most of his friends just walked right in.

He paused the game, set the controller aside, and got up to answer the door. But when he saw who was standing on the other side, he wished he’d left it shut. “Lincoln.”

Octavia’s boyfriend smiled at him. “Hi, Bellamy. Can I come in?”

Do you have to? he wondered. But this was his niece or nephew’s father now. He had to play nice. So he stepped aside and let the man in.

“Thanks,” Lincoln said. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

Oh, he had plenty of minutes, but he didn’t want to spend any more of them talking to Lincoln than he had to. “Sure,” he answered tersely.

“Great.” Lincoln took a heavy breath, looking . . . uncharacteristically nervous. Maybe he thought Bellamy was going to pummel him or something. But Bellamy wasn’t an idiot. He knew Lincoln was large enough to crush him.

“So you’ve had a couple days to . . . take in the news,” Lincoln said. “How are you feeling about it?”

“Honestly?” He felt better than he had the night they’d told him, but he was still a little worried. “I’m happy for you guys. I’m excited to be an uncle. But you gotta promise me you’re gonna take care of her.”

“I will,” Lincoln vowed. “That’s why I’m here, Bellamy. I want to take care of her. Forever.”

Bellamy tensed. Forever? Oh, crap. He knew where this was going before Lincoln blurted out his reason for being there.

“I’d like to ask Octavia to marry me.”

And there it was. He really didn’t know what to say or how to react, because, even though he’d always told himself this was probably inevitable, he hadn’t expected it so soon. Much like Octavia’s pregnancy.

It was all just happening so fast.

“You would like to ask? Or you’re going to?” he challenged. It sounded like Lincoln was asking him for his permission, the way one typically asked the girl’s father. But even if he didn’t get some kind of blessing out of Bellamy, he’d probably just do it anyway.

“I already spoke with your mother about it,” Lincoln informed him. “She supports it. But I was hoping . . . I was hoping you would, too, because I know how much you mean to her and how much she means to you.”

Bellamy told himself to remain calm. His little sister wasn’t so little anymore. She was going to have a baby, and in a way, he was damn grateful the baby’s father wanted to marry her. It was still head-spinning, though, and a lot to take in.

“You love her?” he asked.

“You know I do.”

“You’ll always love her?”

“I will.”

Bellamy sighed shakily, swallowing his pride and whatever was left of his resistance, and he did what needed to be done. He nodded, looked Lincoln in the eye, and said, “I think you should ask her then.”

Lincoln blinked rapidly, as if he were surprised. “You do?”

“Yeah. In fact . . . I think it’d be good if you married her before the baby’s born.”

“That’s what I’d like, too,” Lincoln said. “I think it’s . . . right.”

Bellamy nodded in agreement. If Gina had lived, he would have married her, too. Because it was the right thing to do, especially when you loved the person. It was old-fashioned and traditional as hell of him, but he didn’t like the thought of his sister having a child out of wedlock. So if she and Lincoln tied the knot before then . . . well, it would just make him feel a lot better about things.

She’d have a different last name, though. They wouldn’t both be Blakes anymore.

“Thank you,” Lincoln said. “I know you still have your doubts about me, but . . .”

“No, it’s not even that,” Bellamy cut in. This guy loved Octavia. He’d known that for a long time now. And he wasn’t a bad guy, so that was a comfort, knowing he’d never treat her badly. “It’s just strange for me to be letting go,” he attempted to explain. Because as close as he and his sister would always be, there was no denying that that was what he was having to do here: let go of her. At least a little bit of her. And that didn’t come naturally to him.

“She’ll have both of us to take care of her,” Lincoln said confidently, “and so will . . . our son.”

Bellamy’s eyes widened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Lincoln grinned sheepishly. “We decided to find out. It’s a little early still, but the doctors think it’s a boy.”

A son, Bellamy thought. They’re having a son. He was going to be an uncle to a nephew, maybe a nephew that might even look the slightest bit like him.

Wow.

“Congratulations,” he said, and he really did mean it this time. He held out his hand and did something he’d never really done with Lincoln: He initiated a handshake.

“Thank you, Bellamy,” Lincoln said again. “It means a lot.” And then he did something that surprised Bellamy. He pulled him in and hugged him. Bellamy barely even hugged Miller or Murphy, let alone this guy, but . . . well, he just went with it. Might as well, he supposed. ‘This guy,’ after all, wasn’t just Lincoln anymore, wasn’t just his sister’s boyfriend or even her baby’s father; as soon as Octavia said yes to his proposal, then he was his future brother-in-law.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

God, it felt good to get fucked by Bellamy.

Every thrust of his hips pushed Clarke’s body forward, to the point where he had to grab hold of her sides and pull her ass back again, keeping her bent over the railing of her balcony. He slammed into her repeatedly, never breaking his rhythm, and she groaned, “Oh, fuck,” as his skin slapped against hers. Screw trying to be quiet or subtle. Anyone could look out their window or pull into that parking lot and see exactly what they were doing, and she didn’t even care. She just wanted him to make her cum.

Bellamy was starting to make these growling sounds low in his throat—so primal, so animalistic. Obviously he was getting close, so he reached one hand around her hips to play with her clit. “Oh . . .” she moaned. That felt good, but she didn’t want him to stop the pounding, either. “Keep fucking me,” she begged, and his hips started to drive into her again. “Oh god, I wanna cum.”

“I’ll make you cum,” he promised, bending forward to whisper the words in her ear. “I’m gonna make you cum, baby.”

“Uh . . .” A strangled moan found its way past her lips, and she felt like her orgasm was within reach. The combination of his cock inside her and his fingers on her clit was an unbeatable one, worked every time. Even if he got off first, that’d be fine. Feeling his hot, sticky cum spurt inside of her would definitely be enough to get her off, too.

This was all so fucking filthy, and she was loving it.

Unfortunately, a small black car pulled into the parking lot, and she thought it looked familiar. It distracted her from her pleasure, even though he didn’t let up on her, but when she recognized the dark-haired girl who climbed out, she said, “Bellamy, stop,” and tried to move away.

“What?” he asked, still fucking her.

“Stop,” she said again, but it was too late. Down below them, Octavia glanced up while he was still inside her.

“Oh, shit,” he swore, pulling out quickly and yanking his pants up. She did the same.

“Ew!” Octavia yelled. “Were you guys doing it?”

Luckily it was so dark that she probably hadn’t seen much. But neither one of them bothered to deny the obvious.

“That’s disgusting!” Octavia lambasted, shielding her eyes. “Ugh!”

“You’re the one who’s pregnant!” Bellamy yelled back.

“Yeah, but I didn’t get pregnant out on a balcony!” She shuddered exaggeratedly and announced, “I’m coming up!”

Clarke glanced around at the neighboring apartments. A few people were pulling their curtains back and looking out now, apparently curious to know what the commotion was all about. Her and Bellamy’s sex sounds hadn’t been enough to interrupt their evening, but the Blakes’ yelling was.

“What’s she doing here?” Bellamy wondered as they headed back inside through the sliding glass door.

“I don’t know,” Clarke replied, “but that was horrible timing.” She buzzed Octavia in, reluctantly accepting that her orgasm would have to wait.

“I gotta finish up,” Bellamy announced as he made a move to duck into the bathroom.

“Wait, what?” He was going to finish without her? That wasn’t fair.

“Clarke, look,” he said, pointing to the massive bulge in his jeans. “I have a hard-on the size of Texas. Do you have any idea how uncomfortable this is?”

“Fine,” she groaned, rubbing her legs together, trying to create some friction. It was no match for what Bellamy had been doing to her, though. Her climax would have to wait. Even though she’d been left hanging, it wasn’t painful for her to have her pants up like it was for him.

While Bellamy was in the bathroom jacking off, Octavia knocked on the door. When Clarke answered, she had one hand over her eyes and was grimacing. “Are you guys decent?”

“Rarely, if ever,” Clarke joked. “Come in.”

Octavia slowly, warily lowered her hand and smiled at Clarke. “You guys are crazy, I swear,” she said, gliding inside. “Where’s my brother?”

“Oh, he’s, um . . .”

Before Clarke could answer, Bellamy came out of the bathroom, proclaiming, “Oh, babe, your pussy feels so much better than my hand.”

“Bellamy!” Clarke hissed.

Too late, he noticed Octavia in the kitchen and muttered, “Crap.”

“I’m so grossed out right now, I can’t even function,” Octavia said dramatically.

“What’re you doin’ here?” he asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Miller told me you guys were over here tonight. Just thought I’d swing by,” Octavia answered. “I’ve never actually seen the inside of this place before. It’s really nice. Nice pool, nice gym. Although . . .” She gave Clarke a look. “I suppose my brother makes sure you get your cardio.”

“Well, not everyone’s a workout fanatic like you are, O,” he said, sauntering into the kitchen. “You want something to eat? Clarke has . . .” He pulled open the refrigerator, a look of disappointment sweeping across his face. “Yogurt.”

“Well, I spend so much time at your place,” she said. “I haven’t needed to get groceries.”

“Oh, I don’t need anything. I’m not really gonna stay,” Octavia interjected. “I just wanted to . . . come and see you guys.”

“Well, you saw us,” Bellamy muttered, taking the yogurt container out of the fridge. He grabbed a spoon out of the silverware draw and dug in.

When Octavia ran her left hand through her hair and then rather obviously let it linger at her shoulder, Clarke noticed the big honking ring on her finger. A large round diamond. She felt like an idiot for not noticing it before. “Uh, Bellamy?” she said, trying to get his attention away from what he was eating.

“Hmm?”

She motioned sharply towards Octavia, who was wriggling her fingers now with a big, excited smile on her face.

Bellamy froze with his spoon in his mouth for a few seconds, then put it down and nodded. “I heard about that. Congratulations.”

“You heard about it?” Octavia frowned. “How? You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Lincoln came and talked to me yesterday,” he explained. “Asked for my permission, I guess.”

“He did?” Octavia sighed wistfully, but then her eyes bulged incredulously. “And you said yes?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “You guys are gonna be parents. You should get married.”

“So you’re okay with this?” Octavia breathed a sigh of relief and walked over to him, hugging him tightly. “Thank you so much.”

“For what?”

“Just being supportive and not freaking out. It really means a lot.” She pulled back from the hug and looked to Clarke. “Is this your influence?” she asked. “Are you making him more open-minded?”

Clarke shrugged cluelessly. “I have no idea.” They had talked about this, though, among other things. So hopefully that did help.

“Well, I’m very relieved,” Octavia said. “And excited. I’m engaged, Bellamy.”

“You’re . . .” He scratched his eyebrow, smiling nervously. “That’s crazy.”

“I’m gonna get married. I’m gonna have a husband. And a son.”

“Octavia, I’m really happy for you,” Clarke said, moving closer to the siblings.

“Thank you, Clarke.” Octavia enveloped her in a hug, too, the first Clarke could recall ever getting from her. Finally, at long last, this girl didn’t seem so intimidating anymore.

She cast a look at Bellamy over Octavia’s shoulder as she hugged her, gauging his reaction. He wasn’t freaking out, but he still looked a little tense. This was a huge moment for him and his sister, but it was also a huge adjustment.

Later, when Octavia left, she wanted to make sure he was okay. No longer feeling the aching need to get off, she instead lay down in bed with him and cuddled a bit. Cuddling soon turned into massaging, though, and soon enough she was perched on top of his backside, straddling him, rubbing the tense muscles in his back and shoulders.

“Are you really doing okay?” she asked, assuming he’d be honest with her. “Or are you flipping out on the inside?”

“No, I’m really okay,” he said. His face was pillowed on his arms, and he looked pretty relaxed, all things considered.

“Really?” she pressed. “Because you can tell me if you aren’t.”

“I know. But I’m fine,” he insisted. “I mean . . . it’s a lot, yeah, but she seems excited. She seems happy. So I’m gonna be happy for her.”

“Good.” She circled her thumbs in between his shoulder blades, trying to work out one of the knots she’d found. “I think she really appreciated the way you reacted,” she told him.

“Yeah, she wasn’t expecting it.”

“No. I wasn’t expecting it, either.” She felt proud of him for being as calm as he had been about it. He could have very easily been standoffish or, worse, disapproving. But he’d been congratulatory instead, and that was exactly what Octavia deserved.

“I think it helps that Lincoln talked to me about it in advance,” he said. “Not that he really needed my permission or anything—I mean, I’m not her father, and even if I was, what guys really needs permission anymore?—but you know.”

“Well, you’re still fatherly, though,” she pointed out. “And I know the whole asking for permission thing is outdated, but it’s tradition. Guys still like to do it. I mean, you would’ve asked Gina’s parents for permission, wouldn’t you?”

He snorted. “Gina didn’t get along real well with her parents. So probably not.”

“Oh.”

“But Roma . . . yeah, I guess I probably would’ve asked her mom. Not her dad, though. Her dad was a stupid drunk.”

Clarke smoothed her hands up and down Bellamy’s back, frowning as a thought occurred to her. “Wait, who’s gonna walk Octavia down the aisle then? You said she doesn’t even know her dad very well, right?”

“Right.” He thought about it a moment, then said, “I don’t know. I could. I would. Maybe my mom might? I don’t know. Maybe she’ll just wanna walk herself.”

“I think it’d be cute if you walked her,” Clarke said, picturing it in her mind. That would be so fitting, Hopefully Octavia considered it.

“Well, we’ll see what she wants,” he said. “I won’t be a groomsman, so it’d give me something to do on the big day.”

“Maybe if you’re nice to Lincoln, you will be a groomsman,” she said.

“And maybe you’ll be a bridesmaid.”

“Oh, no, I’m sure Harper and Emori and Maya have that covered.” She would have liked to do that, sure, because she’d never been a part of anyone’s wedding before. But it probably wouldn’t happen, and that was okay. She wasn’t expecting anything.

“You might be one. Octavia likes you,” Bellamy said.

“Really?’

He chuckled. “What? You didn’t know that?”

“Well, she’s hard to get to know. I can’t tell with her sometimes.”

“No, she likes you,” he said. “She says you’re good for me.”

“Oh, well, she is right about that.” Clarke bent down and pressed a soft kiss to Bellamy’s shoulder, letting her hands linger on his lower back as she whispered in his ear, “You’ve been pretty good for me, too.”

He smiled, looking more relaxed and content than she had ever imagined he could be after seeing an engagement ring on his sister’s hand for the first time. “It helps,” he said, “having you to talk to.”

“Mmm.” She rested her chin on his shoulder, glad that she could be more for him than just an orgasm buddy. Their relationship, after all, was friends with benefits. Being someone who could listen to him, advise him, encourage him, and even console him . . . it was more important to her than the sex was, in all honesty. And she hoped he knew that.

Chapter Text

Chapter 29

Valentine’s Day was far from Bellamy’s favorite holiday. In fact, in some respects, he hated it. In his mind, it was little more than a commercially manufactured money trap to try to get couples to buy things for each other they could buy at any time of the year. Martin Luther King Day, Columbus Day, on the other hand . . . those were real holidays.

The one nice thing about Valentine’s Day, he supposed, was that it was an obviously sexual holiday. Hell, he’d lost his virginity back on Valentine’s Day of his freshman year of his high school. (The plan had been to wait for Roma to finally notice him so he could lose his virginity to her, but that had taken a couple more months, so he’d gotten a practice round in first.) A couple years ago, he and Gina had spent the entire day in bed. The entire day. And it’d been one of the greatest days of his life.

This Valentine’s Day was different. Busier, for one, because Diana’s bathroom remodel took up most of his day. But it was different because he had Clarke this year, too. Unlike last year, there was no need to go pick up some random chick at Dropship or TonDC. But Clarke wasn’t his girlfriend, so that made getting her a gift difficult. He didn’t want to just do chocolates or roses or something generic like that, but he couldn’t do something overly-sentimental like a promise ring, either.

In the end, he ended up purchasing her about a half a dozen Harlequin Romance novels at the thrift store—not because they were cheap, but because she’d mentioned once that one of her guilty pleasures was reading sappy, poorly-written erotica. He’d even found a couple books at home in her desk drawer once, one called A Taste of Paradise and the other called Scoundrel’s Captive. Of course, most of the books he found at the thrift store were older and outdated, so there weren’t any progressive female/female ones in the bunch. That left him with no choice but to get online and purchase one called The Fling, which looked halfway decent. He read it, too, in his truck over his lunch breaks. The storyline was crap, but the sex scenes weren’t half bad.

He didn’t wrap presents unless he absolutely had to, so he came home from work with all the books in a plastic bag, hoping she wouldn’t mind. “Clarke, I got you something,” he announced as he pushed open the door to his bedroom. But Clarke wasn’t there. The bathroom door was peeking open, though, light coming from inside, so he set his bag down on the bed and slipped in.

“Hey,” he said, marveling at how beautiful his girl looked lounging in his bathtub.

She turned her head to the side and smiled at him. “Hey.” When he came closer, she picked up some of the bubbles on the water’s surface and blew them at him adorably.

“You look comfy,” he said, not used to seeing her take a bath. Usually he left for work earlier than she left for class, so he didn’t even get to shower with her all that much. But he knew she had a problem waking up when her alarm went off, so chances were, she never had time to lie in the tub for a good soak like this anyway.

“I needed to get clean,” she said. “I’ve been so dirty lately.”

He grinned, catching her double meaning. “Nah, just . . . dance floor sex, balcony sex. What’s dirty about that?”

“Everything.” She skimmed her hand across the surface of the water, spreading some of the soapy bubbles around. Her body was still concealed from his view, though. She was low enough in the water that it went all the way up to her shoulders.

“Smells good in here,” he remarked. “Smells girly.”

“Sweet pea bubble bath,” she explained. “I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t really get you a gift. Me in the bathtub is kind of supposed to be your gift.”

“Fine by me.” He toed off his shoes, ready to get undressed and get in with her. “Got room in there for me?”

“Of course,” she said. “But I kinda wanna . . .” Trailing off, she glanced at his groin for a second, then lifted her eyes to his.

“You wanna what?” he prompted.

She blushed, and goddammit, if that wasn’t the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. It was so hot knowing that Clarke had all sorts of dirty thoughts and ideas in her head, but it was so cute when she was embarrassed to verbalize them.

“Maybe I should get naked, too?” he suggested, reaching for the hem of his shirt.

“No,” she said quickly. “Just . . . pull your pants down.”

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, not really sure where she was going with this until she moved around, getting up onto her knees. She pushed the suds away, and he was able to watch the water trickle down her torso to her inner thighs. The sight of it dripping from her pussy made him salivate.

“Go on,” she urged, gripping the side of the tub.

Stupefied, he shook himself out his daze and did as she requested, unfastening his jeans. He stood up and pushed them down to his knees, motioning to his boxer-briefs questioningly. “These, too?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

She’s gonna blow me, he thought, pushing his underwear down to his jeans. His cock sprang free, already semi-hard, and she reached for it immediately.

“Come here,” she said.

He inched closer, legs hitting the side of the tub, and watched her small hand stroke his length several times before she pressed a kiss to the tip of it. She kept stroking him for a minute or so after that, getting him fully erect and aroused, and he expected her to open her mouth at any minute, take him all in, or at least as much of him as she could. But she surprised the hell out of him when, instead of doing that, she told him, “Bend down a little bit.”

He frowned, confused until he realized what part of her body was lower than her mouth. “Really?” he said, surprised.

“Yeah.” With his cock now at the right level, she placed it in between her breasts and smothered them around it, pressing them tightly together with both hands as she smiled at him excitedly. “Is this okay?”

“Uh-huh.” This was so far above and beyond okay. He knew titty-fucking was something girls pretty much just did for guys; it wasn’t like they got the same thrill out of it or anything. But he didn’t doubt that she at least enjoyed it, though, because she liked giving him pleasure much in the same way he liked giving pleasure to her.

“Okay, I wanna be the one to do it,” she told him, readjusting her breasts around his cock. “Okay?”

“Okay.” He loved watching her go to work on him, whether it was with her mouth or her hand, so he was sure he’d love watching her work her breasts all over him, too.

It was a bit of an unusual motion for her to get into, one she wasn’t used to and had never tried before. The only and only other time he’d done this, he’d taken care of the thrusting. With him just standing there, it wasn’t as natural and fluid for her as jerking him off or sucking him off was. She didn’t get frustrated, though; she stuck with it until she had a nice rhythm going. She slid her breasts up and down on his cock, watching intently, making sure it always stayed nice and snug for him. If she ever lost hold of her breasts, she stopped, gathered them up again, and wrapped them around his stiff manhood tightly before she got into her rhythm once again. Eventually, when she felt comfortable enough with what she was doing, she started to look up at him, almost questioningly, like she wanted to know how she was doing.

“Good job, Princess,” he praised, loving the feel of this. Her boobs were so big, so soft, so fleshy. Fucking her here felt a lot different than being inside her, but it still felt so damn good. Plus, the lower she moved her tits, the more the head of his cock poked up through the top of them, nearly hitting her chin, and that was a pretty arousing sight.

Damn, he’d always been fascinated by the female body, especially the parts of it that were so different than his own, but Clarke’s body was on another level. Her curves . . . he practically had them memorized at this point, but they never got old. He loved seeing and feeling her breasts on him, and he loved catching a glimpse of that round, gorgeous ass of hers, covered in suds right now. He loved the way her damp hair clung to her back and shoulders, and he wanted to run his fingers through it. God, he wished he could touch every inch of her at once, because every inch of her deserved to feel adored.

The still water around her grew a little less still when she started moving more insistently, more determinedly. She frowned, as if she were disappointed he hadn’t cum yet, and groaned, “Come on, Bellamy.”

“What?”

“Just . . . do it.”

“Do what?” he teased.

She growled frustratedly, really starting to titfuck him at a rapid pace now. “Cum.”

Oh, it was hot as hell hearing her be all demanding like that, almost enough to make him shoot his load, but he held back, shaking his head. “No.”

“No?” She didn’t stop moving. “Why not?”

“Because, I wanna cum in you, not on you.”

“Oh, I see.” Slowing her movements, she let go of her breasts, letting them fall away from his cock, and sat back on her feet. “Ow,” she said, “my knees hurt.”

“Get comfortable,” he told her, pushing his jeans and underwear down to the floor. He stepped out of them, then stripped out of his shirt, licking his lips excitedly as she lay back in the tub, spreading her legs. He couldn’t be certain, but it looked like she was touching herself beneath all those suds.

“What?” she asked innocently. “You said to get comfortable.”

Oh, she was a frisky little vixen tonight, wasn’t she? He was digging it. He watched her for a moment, watched the tiny waves her hand was causing beneath the surface, and stroked his cock in response. She noticed what he was doing and moaned impatiently. “Bellamy, please,” she whimpered.

“Please what?”

“Get in here with me.” She started to squirm wantonly, and he wondered just how hard she was fucking her own little hand right now.

“Sit up,” he instructed, and when she did, he stepped into the tub, sitting down behind her, legs on either side of her. She reclined against him, the crack of her ass and small of her back sliding against his dick. It felt so good, and again, he had to fight the urge to cum. All he could do to keep from spilling his seed was to think, Her first, her first, over and over again in his head.

“Do you touch yourself a lot when I’m not around?” he asked her, rubbing his hands on her arms and shoulders.

“Yes,” she admitted without hesitation, still fingering herself underneath the water. “It’s never as good, though.”

“Well, I’m here now,” he said, reached around her stomach to lift her arm out of the way. “I got you.” He snaked his hand between her legs and wasted no time inserting his middle finger into her. He pumped it in and out steadily, purposefully rubbing the base of his hand against her clit as he did so.

“Oh, yes,” she moaned, tossing her head back onto his shoulder as she writhed against him. “Bellamy . . .”

He loved the sound of his name on her lips, especially when it sounded like such a whispered, pleasured prayer. “You want another one?” he asked, not even waiting for a response as he plunged his index finger inside her, too. Oh, she wanted another one. He already knew.

“Oh god,” she gasped, breathing heavily now. “I’m so close.”

He couldn’t decide if he wanted to make her cum on his hand and then try to make her cum again when he was inside her or just cut to the chase here and get her groin up onto his lap. He loved giving Clarke multiple orgasms, but that titty-fuck she’d given him still had his cock straining, and if she came, chances were, that’d be enough to make him cum, too.

Making a quick decision, he withdrew his hand, eliciting a groan of protest from Clarke. “Get on up here,” he said, grabbing her hips. He lifted her up into his lap, angling his hips so that his cock was pressing against her entrance.

“Mmm,” she purred, sinking down onto him without hesitation. She ground her hips against his, riding him with desperate need. She had to hold onto the sides of the tub to get the leverage she needed, and god, she looked hot, just using his body to her satisfaction.

“Yeah, fuck it,” he encouraged, leaning his head back against the tile wall, closing his eyes as he just reveled in the sensation of it. Having his cock sandwiched between Clarke’s breasts felt great, but nothing compared to having it here. Being inside her was intoxicating, and he was so addicted to how good it felt.

“Bellamy, I can’t—I can’t--” she panted raggedly, circling her hips deliberately to get the friction she needed. “Uh!” she cried out, her entire body stilling as she came. Her pussy clamped down on his cock like a vice, and it felt insanely good. So close to his own climax, he grabbed her hips and held her steady, thrusting up into her a few times before he shot off inside of her. Fuck, that felt good, especially since he’d been holding it in for a while now.

“Oh my god,” she moaned, going a bit boneless. She slid off his cock and sat back down in the tub again, between his legs, leaning forward.

“So good,” he said, rubbing her back. He smoothed some water over her skin, threaded his hands through her hair, and then bent forward to press a soft kiss to her shoulder blade. “You’re so good to me.”

She laughed lightly. “I try my best.” Completely spent, she leaned back against him, nearly lying down in that bathtub, using him as a recliner and a pillow. He rested with her, rubbing her stomach and her breasts, breathing in the scent of her floral shampoo mixed with the scent of them.

When they were both sufficiently shriveled, they got out of the bath, dried each other off, made out for a little bit against the sink, and then meandered back out to the bedroom. She unwrapped her towel, dropped it onto the floor at the foot of the bed, and flopped down on the mattress naked, lying on her stomach. “Mmm,” she murmured, “I feel refreshed.”

“Yeah?” He dropped his towel to the floor as well and grabbed the sack with her gifts in it. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said, lying down next to her. “Sorry I’m too lazy to wrap.”

“Ooh, a present?” she squealed, rolling over onto her side. She pulled out the first of six books, and her face lit up. “Oh my god, I love these!” she exclaimed. “They’re so awful!”

“I know, I read one.”

“You read one?”

“Well . . . only the lesbian one.”

“You found a lesbian one?” She hurriedly looked through the covers and laughed delightedly when she saw The Fling. “Oh my god, I can’t wait to read these!” She opened one of them to a random page and said, “Oh, okay, listen. Listen to this.” She cleared her throat and used an overtly sophisticated, stuffy tone to read one of what had to be many ridiculous lines. “‘With each breath, her chest heaved like a bulimic after Thanksgiving dinner.’”

“Ugh.” He made a face, shaking his head. “Who the fuck writes that?” In no way did a reference to an eating disorder turn him on. He picked up one of the books, flipped it open to the middle, skimmed the scene, and found a ridiculous line of his own. “‘Her embrace made his manhood swell like . . . week-old roadkill on hot asphalt?’”

Clarke wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That’s sick! Why would anyone compare a penis to roadkill? That’s not sexy.”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I already see another line comparing it to the vice president.”

“What even?” She flipped a few more pages through the book in her hand and said, “Oh, here’s another classic. Brace yourself.” She cleared her throat again and read, “‘Her sun-glazed back formed a golden arch as he moved his face toward her happy meal.’” She clasped one hand over her mouth, trying unsuccessfully to stifle her giggles. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Oh, great, now we’re comparing vaginas to fast food, huh?” He shook his head in outrage. “That’s sacrilegious. That’s a gourmet meal right there.”

“Oh, these are fun,” she said, closing the book, putting it back in the sack. “Thank you. That’ll give me something to read when I’m not paying attention in my capstone class.”

“Good.” He lay flat on his back, one arm behind his head, enjoying the relaxation of this. It was still early evening. He and Clarke could do whatever the hell they wanted for the rest of the night. They could go downstairs and watch TV, fix something to eat, or just lay up here and cuddle and maybe fuck again. It was nice to come home to this kind of companionship, for sure.

“This is a good Valentine’s Day,” he said, yawning. “And I hate Valentine’s Day.”

“I’m usually kind of indifferent about it,” she said, pillowing her head on her arms again, “but this has been good. And next week’s gonna be even better.”

“My birthday?” He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it, especially since his birthday fell on a Friday this year. But he wasn’t expecting some huge party or anything. “You know you don’t have to get me a gift, right?” he told her. “Just . . . hang out with me, have sex with me. That’ll do.”

“Oh, I’m getting you something,” she said. “It’s already in the works.”

“Clarke--” He didn’t want her spending money on him.

“But I’m still gonna sex with you, of course. In fact . . .” She smiled at him cutely, asking, “Is there any certain type of sex you want for your birthday?”

“Hmm.” That was hard to narrow down, but he was a guy, so one idea came to mind before the others. “Lots of doggy style, preferably.”

“No, not just a position, a . . . type of sex,” she reiterated. “You know, like . . .” She pressed her face against the pillow for a moment, mumbling, “The regular kind or oral or . . .” She trailed off, just barely peeking at him as though she were embarrassed.

The only other sex that came to mind for Bellamy was . . . “Oh.” He was pretty sure he understood where she was going with that, because . . . where else was there to go? “Oh.”

“Oh my god.” She hid her face against the pillow again.

“Wait, let me get this straight: You’re asking if I want . . .” He, too, trailed off, not because he was embarrassed to say it, but because he didn’t want to be the one to bring it up, just in case she was thinking of something else.

She lifted her head and finished his sentence for him. “Do you wanna have anal sex?” she asked quietly, her face and entire body blushing red.

“Uh . . . yeah,” he answered honestly. Most guys were down for it, and he’d done it before and enjoyed it. Once with Roma. Multiple times with Gina. “Yeah, I want to,” he admitted. “Someday.”

“Your birthday,” she suggested.

Oh, it was tempting, especially since he’d been dreaming about having anal sex with Clarke for a long time now. But his birthday was only seven days away, and what he had in mind for Clarke would take longer than seven days.

He grazed his fingers over the curve of her ass, loving the way it looked as she lay there, two perfect round hills waiting for him to . . . god, now he was the one sounding like a cheesy romance novel. He wondered how good it felt. He did. And here she was, giving him the perfect opportunity to find out, all in the name of him turning twenty-four. Maybe some other guys would think he was crazy to turn it down, but that was what he had to do. For now, at least.

“Not on my birthday,” he told her.