Crap. She was late. Clarke had already been late for another appointment this week. Her boss was going to kill her. Her alarm hadn't gone off and she'd been out late with friends the night before, so her body hadn't woken her up either. All of that lead to her scrambling to run out the door, hopping back and forth as she tried to put her shoes on without stopping.
She drove like a madwoman down the street, trying to make up precious minutes, hoping and praying her boss would somehow, magically forget that Clarke had already been late once. Or at least hoping he would be busy when she arrived.
Unfortunately, luck wasn't on her side.
Marcus glared at her as she ran in, out of breath. "Twice this week, you've been late," he growled, pursing his lips. She could practically feel the annoyance rolling off of him in waves.
Clarke sighed. "I know, I know. I'm sorry, Marcus, it won't happen again. This week has been a shit show like you wouldn't believe. Are they here yet?" she questioned, glancing around but seeing and hearing no one but the two of them.
Marcus shook his head. "You're in luck, for once. They called and canceled. But Octavia called and she's coming in for another one, so you better get ready. She'll be here in ten," he told her, already waving her off. If there was one thing she loved about Marcus, it was that he easily forgave her for her shortcomings. She'd messed up countless times so far but he always gave her another chance. She didn't want there to come a day when she ran out of chances.
Moving quickly, Clarke went to work, pulling up the email she was sure Octavia had sent with pictures of the design she wanted. By the time her friend walked through the door, she'd set up her equipment and put on their favorite music in the background. Octavia swaggered in with her usual grace and confidence, flipping her long brown hair out of her face to show her bright smile. She immediately leaned up against the counter and started flipping through the pictures of Clarke's art, as per usual, humming with happiness.
"Clarke! You ready for my next tattoo? I've been tossing and turning with this idea for weeks, but after last night, it finally hit me, the exact wording, design, and placement of it," she squealed, setting aside the book and pulling Clarke's laptop towards her.
Clarke chuckled and stood next to her. "Yeah, it's great O, I love it. Let's get started, it's going to take a while," she replied. Her heart raced as she picked up her tools. Each tattoo she gave exhilarated her, giving her an adrenaline rush. Especially those with meaning and purpose. And Octavia never did anything without both.
Octavia and Clarke had been friends for a few years, ever since Clarke started working at Marcus' tattoo parlor. Octavia had been one of Clarke's first clients turned best friend. She just had the sort of personality that everyone loved, which Clarke wasn't used to. While in med school, everyone had been so high strung and stressed all the time, they'd hardly had time for making friends. Through Octavia, Clarke had been introduced to a whole new group of friends who eventually had become her pseudo family in place of her own absent one.
"How's everyone doing after last night?" Clarke asked as she got started. The tattoo wasn't large, but it had plenty of detail to it. It was similar to the other tattoos Octavia had gotten before and she knew exactly how to weave it into the other ones stretching across her back.
Octavia chuckled lightly. "Jasper has quite the hangover this morning, Harper and Monty were still sleeping, and Bellamy is acting like he has the world on his shoulders as per usual," she said. Clarke could almost hear her eyes rolling and she laughed in response.
"Sounds about right, they were certainly going hard last night," she replied. The night before was a blur, but she remembered dancing and drinking for hours, laughing more than she had in months, and a certain dark haired, brown-eyed boy filling her vision He'd been doing that more and more lately, but she knew she had to ignore it. Bellamy Blake wasn't a boy she needed to think about in a way other than one of her best friends and Octavia's brother. He couldn't and wouldn't be more than a friend for her. Even while she found herself having the urge to drunkenly text him the night before after she'd left.
Octavia was retelling her a story about Jasper doing karaoke, even though she'd been there, but it was always fun hearing how exciting she made it sound. She'd watched the whole scene, but in all honesty, she'd been talking so intently with Bellamy for the whole night, she'd hardly paid attention to the rest of them. The more alcohol he consumed, the more excited he got about some news story he had seen. He was talking her ear off about how they'd found some new roman ruins while digging for a new subway station. As boring as it was to her, she loved seeing his eyes brighten and shift when talking about it. Once they'd gotten enough alcohol in them, he'd pulled her to the dance floor, laughing like she only saw in rare moments he felt like he could let loose. Since she'd been spending so much time with him in the past few months, she'd begun to see that side more and more. So she'd let him pull her into the fray, jumping and spinning like they didn't have a care in the world. When they'd split ways, he'd walked her to her door, ever the protective big brother figure for them all.
Bringing herself back to the present, she chatted about trivial things with Octavia throughout her tattoo, and after about an hour and a half, it was finished. Clarke handed her a small mirror as her heart picked up in rhythm. Every finished tattoo made her nervous until her client told her their thoughts. Even though she'd done all of Octavia's tattoos, she was still nervous to hear her feedback.
"Clarke…" Octavia breathed. Silence followed, which only served to make her nerves worse.
"Well? What do you think?"
"It's…absolutely perfect! One of the best ones you've done so far! It's exactly what I imagined," she said, pulling her in for a hug. The quote had been one of her favorite to design around and she knew it meant a lot to Octavia. That was the only way she did things. With purpose.
All of me for all of us.
Clarke smiled shyly and went back to the front of the shop, Octavia in tow. To her surprise, the front wasn't empty as it usually was. Instead, she found a familiar face looking at her work book, smirking.
She stopped and raised an amused eyebrow. "What could possibly be so amusing in my art?"
Bellamy glanced up, but returned to flipping through the pages. "You just have such an obvious style. Granted, most of the work here is either from O or me, but you can tell a lot about you through this," he stated simply. He was right, of course. She had a style unique to her. And his body was painted with it. He was her canvas and she'd covered him in art. Her art. Her cheeks warmed as her gaze roamed his body and he smirked again.
He'd always been so confident in himself, but with her, he'd ranged from confident to annoyingly arrogant, which drove her insane. Scanning the room, Marcus was noticeably absent, but she wasn't surprised. Once Clarke had started working there and met Octavia, all of her friends had become regular customers there. It was like a regular hang out spot, as much as any bar or coffee shop.
"Well, don't want to change greatness, now do we," she retorted, barely controlling her snort. "And if you have such a problem with my style why'd you have me do all of my tattoos?"
Bellamy rolled his eyes but couldn't keep the smile from his face. "Well you just said, princess, don't want to mess with greatness," he replied, bowing sarcastically. She just couldn't shake that nickname in all the years of knowing her. Once he'd found out that her mother was one of the top surgeons in the nation and her father had been a famous author, he'd never let her forget that she had been privileged growing up. "Let's see it O. I only have a small break from classes."
As much as she'd been privileged, she'd given it all up and ended up in a small time career by choice, as a tattoo artist. Bellamy had worked from nothing to end up as a respected history professor at Ark University. He'd beaten the odds. Even though it'd only been a couple years of teaching for him, Clarke knew he loved every second. The siblings chatted while Clarke went about cleaning everything before her next appointment which would be there in an hour.
While she cleaned, Octavia sauntered back in and smiled at Clarke. "Why don't you two just get over yourselves and date?" she blurted.
Clarke barely kept herself from choking at Octavia's words. "I don't know what you're talking about," she replied quickly, keeping herself level throughout her words.
"Oh you do. You both do, but you're too chicken to do what your hearts want. But don't worry. I've got your back," Octavia said mysteriously before walking off towards her brother.
Octavia made her promise she'd come to their favorite coffee/book shop after work, where the others were planning on meeting if they ever got over their hangovers. The work day went fast, only having a couple of small appointments to fill up her day and a few phone calls about potential tattoos. It gave her plenty of time to draw and work on her other art. Best thing about Marcus was his willingness to let her keep up with her own art outside of the work he needed from her. He'd been like her second father now that her own father couldn't be there for her.
Soon enough, she waved a hand to Marcus as she headed to meet Octavia.
The coffee shop was buzzing with life when she arrived and found her friends had been lucky enough to snag a table by the windows. Octavia was there, sitting next to Lincoln and gazing at him with what Clarke would call googly eyes. Jasper had managed to make it and was chatting excitedly with Monty while Bellamy sat with a book in front of him. She slid into a chair next to Bellamy and closed his book, wagging her eyebrows at the glare he shot towards her.
"Come on, Bell, if you're going to be here, be here," she teased.
"You just got here, princess, so you can step down from your high horse. I was finishing up some work I needed to do," he explained. She thought for a moment he would open his book back up, but he just set it in his bag by his feet.
"I'm sure you have a ton of work to do, but how often do you get to hang out with all these amazing people? And by amazing, you know I just mean me," she joked, poking him in the ribs.
He grabbed her wrist lightly and poked her right back. "Only about every night. It's almost like I have a roommate these days. Pretty soon I'm going to start asking for rent and you're going to have to start paying for all the food you eat too," Bellamy replied, releasing her wrist, but not before her heart started to beat a little fast.
The sparks between them had been electric from the start, but it had transitioned from hatred to annoyance to a source of friendship and comfort. She'd never tell Octavia, but she got along better with Bellamy than even her. And more often than not, you could find Clarke spending the night on Bellamy's couch, drawing or reading while he graded papers. Becoming a professor had truly mellowed him out, transforming him from a guy who brought different girls home every night and visiting the bars so much they knew his signature drink to a guy who was serious about his work and helping out kids just like him.
From then on, Clarke had found herself drawn to him in a way she hadn't anticipated. Of course, she couldn't and wouldn't let herself ponder on that feeling. He was still Bellamy after all. Yet, every time she let her guard down, there he was, poking at her heart, pushing down her defenses. Last night, she'd almost slipped and told him as much while they'd been dancing. And then again when he walked her home. And then one more time while she was texting him. Lucky for her, Clarke had enough self-preservation to walk away and turn her phone off before anything to crazy got stuck in her inebriated mind.
"Clarke!"
She started, spilling her coffee onto the table. Apparently she'd zoned out because Bellamy was looking at her with amusement, mirroring the face of his sister. Monty, Jasper, and Lincoln had disappeared somewhere in the book part of the shop, leaving the table to just the siblings and Clarke.
"What?" she asked, confused.
Octavia chuckled. "I asking if you were free tonight to go down to the Festival of Lights," she repeated, glancing back at Bellamy. She had a look on her face Clarke couldn't decipher, which scared her more than anything.
Thinking for a moment, Clarke nodded. "I think so. I didn't know you wanted to go, O."
She ignored her and turned to Bellamy, her smile growing. "What about you? Are you busy tonight and could go?"
"I just have a ton of papers to grade tonight, so I was going to knock out some of those but I could spare a few hours," he told her, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Octavia was definitely the sneakier one out of the two siblings which lead to her causing lots of trouble in their lives. But usually her tricks didn't involve Clarke and Bellamy. She'd learned long ago that Clarke and Bellamy weren't ones who enjoyed any part of her games and often teamed up against her in retaliation.
Octavia clapped her hands and then picked up her empty coffee cup. "Great! I'm busy, but you guys are going to go! Have fun!" she said merrily, practically skipping away where Lincoln was waiting.
They sat there in stunned silence. Clarke had known something was up. Octavia had always teased her and Bellamy, just like the morning at the tattoo shop, but she'd never gone this far. She thought she'd made it clear that she didn't want to make things complicated between her and Bellamy. Glancing at Bellamy, she saw he was as speechless as she was. Rendering both of them without words wasn't something that usually happened.
"Did…" Clarke started, but couldn't find the words. Her thoughts were too fast latch onto and her emotions were even worse. Anger, embarrassment, shock. And somewhere, deep, deep down, hope.
"My sister just set us up?" Bellamy finished, still staring at the space she'd just vacated, avoiding looking at Clarke.
Clarke nodded, but couldn't reply. In her wildest dreams she'd never imagined this happening. She could never have predicted her friends going this far to set her and Bellamy up. Sure, they'd tried to push the two together, but she'd made it clear to back off. It wasn't worth ruining their friendship. With Bellamy's reputation and her luck with men, there's no way it was worth it.
"Listen, Bell, I don't want to make this awkward…." Clarke started again, ready to backtrack and ignore everything that had just happened. But she found that Octavia wasn't the only Blake that could totally surprise her today. Bellamy was smiling. A small smile, but a smile none the less. "What? What are you smiling about?"
"Well, Octavia is devious as always, but you have to admit, she's smarter than we give her credit for," he said, shaking his head. "Here I thought no one had any idea the way I felt about you. Can't sneak anything past her, I guess."
Clarke found herself speechless once again. Searching for words, she decided she had one question. "Are you, Bellamy Blake, asking me out on a date?"
Bellamy shrugged. "Technically, Octavia already asked if you're free and you said yes. But, yes, Clarke. I think we've been dancing around this for a while now and O just gave us the perfect excuse. So, I already know you're free tonight. Do you want to go?" his eyes gleamed with what she thought was hope and a little bit of mischief. She'd always loved how she could read him. At least she thought she'd been able to. Turns out that her own thoughts and feelings towards him had been returned, she'd just been blind to it. And apparently, everyone else wasn't. The question was….was it worth the risk?
Clarke took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.
"Bellamy Blake, I'd love to go to the Festival of Lights with you," she said, smiling brightly. In the background, she heard some whispered cheers, but she ignored them for the man in front of her taking her hand.
"Clarke Griffin, get ready for the night of your dreams. By the end of this, I'll be shocked if you aren't already in love with me," he replied, winking at her.
She shuddered lightly but managed to keep it contained. "Oh you're on, Blake. My bet is it's the other way around," Clarke responded, her voice gruff. Bellamy laughed in response, but his eyes darkened and she could read the desire in his eyes that either hadn't been there before or he'd kept hidden within himself.
"Let's go, Griffin," he replied, pulling her up with him and threading his hand through hers. With one sentence from crazy Octavia, she'd broken through the last barrier between them. And all her fears about things being ruined between her and Bellamy or weird washed away. It was like they'd always been a couple. And this was all before a date even happened. She couldn't wait to see what he had in store for tonight.