Chapter 117

"Oh, I love a good beach day," Raven said contentedly as she stretched out on her beach towel. "How many more of these do you think we can squeeze in before it gets too cold out?"

"I don't know," Clarke said, laying another towel down next to her friend. "It doesn't usually stay warm out this long."

"Maybe we're in for a nice weather year," Raven speculated.

"How about just a nice year in general? I could handle that." Clarke lay down next to her, taking in everything that was currently going on out in what was technically her backyard. Monty and Harper were swimming in the ocean, splashing each other playfully, and Jasper, Octavia, and Lincoln were trying to get Avery to help build a sandcastle. The three amigos had a game of football going, but since Murphy wasn't very good, it looked like Bellamy and Miller were taunting him about it. As per usual.

"Yeah, I'm down for a good year," Raven agreed. "Although grad school, Clarke . . . it's kicking my ass. You had the right idea to stop after your bachelor's."

"Well, I wasted my bachelor's, if that's any consolation," Clarke pointed out. If she ever went back to college, it'd be for art or music, no doubt about that. And when Avery was old enough to decide if she wanted to go to college someday, Clarke wasn't going to put any pressure on her the way her own mom had. If Avery wanted to be a doctor, then she had Clarke's support, but if she wanted to be something else entirely, then she had Clarke's support with that, too. Although by that time, it was quite possible that everyone would just be a YouTuber like Murphy.

Clarke watched the boys a little, laughing when Murphy lunged to catch a pass and ended up with a face-full of sand instead. "Has Murphy been working out?" she asked Raven.

"He has," Raven confirmed. "Just a little bit here and there. He doesn't want anyone to know about it. But I think he really wants to go to the gym with Bellamy and Miller. He's just afraid to ask."

"I'll tell Bellamy to invite him," Clarke said.

"Thanks, that would really boost his ego."

Did Murphy's ego actually need boosting? Clarke doubted it, but she'd tell Bellamy to invite him anyway. And hey, a more fit Murphy meant more stamina for Raven in the bedroom.

Mmm, stamina, Clarke thought, her mind wandering off as she began to focus solely on her husband. Shirtless Bellamy was always a nice sight to behold, and little did their friends know, he hadn't had a shirt on all morning. After only a few hours of sleep, he'd woken up next to her naked as the day he was born. His swim trunks were actually the only clothing item he'd worn all day.

"What're you thinking about?" Raven asked her curiously.

"Nothing." She hadn't meant to zone in on him so much that she zoned out on her friend. "Just the game tonight. You know, Bellamy's definitely ready to coach again."

"Uh-uh." Raven sounded skeptical. "I know that look. You have dirty thoughts running through your brain. What, did you guys finally screw again?"

Clarke just smiled.

"You did, didn't you? When?"

"Last night." Almost all night, she added mentally. It'd definitely lasted longer than she'd anticipated it would, because parenthood usually caused them both to get so tired these days.

"And?" Raven prompted. "How was it?"

Clarke didn't exactly want to give details, but she did want to emphasize just how good it had been. "Raven," she said. "Let me just tell you, if sex was an Olympic sport, my husband would be a gold medalist. A repeat gold medalist. In multiple events. What's that one event where they do, like, ten different things?"

"The decathlon," Raven answered.

"Right. Picture that, but with sex stuff."

Raven's eyes got wide, and she laughed. "How are you even walking today?"

"I honestly don't even know," Clarke admitted. There wasn't one part of her body that had been ignored last night, but even though her whole body was feeling it today . . . it felt so damn good.

...

Some people just weren't cut out for sports, and Bellamy was coming to the conclusion that Murphy was one of them. He couldn't golf, and he couldn't catch a football to save his life. Even when Bellamy threw him the easiest, lightest pass imaginable, it somehow bounced off his hands and into the ocean. "I'll get it!" he volunteered, diving in and swimming after it before it floated away.

"He's hopeless," Miller said, shaking his head in astonishment. "We're good coaches, but we can't coach that."

"Yeah, he's pretty bad." Bellamy looked over at Clarke, who was lying down next to Raven now, rocking a bikini for the first time in a long time, and said, "Hey. Check out how hot my wife looks."

"She is pretty hot," Miller agreed. "I mean, if I was into chicks . . ."

"Don't even go there," Bellamy cut in.

Chuckling, Miller said, "So things are goin' good between you guys?"

"They're goin' great." Last night had ended up being beyond his wildest expectations. For the first time in months, he hadn't been thinking about the things he'd done wrong or could've done better. He'd just allowed himself to get lost in her for a couple hours. Two or three hours. Or six.

"She hasn't been wearing you out too much, has she?" Miller asked, leading Bellamy to suspect that he'd had quit the obvious grin on his face. "'cause we need you focused for this game."

"Ah, she did keep me up pretty late last night," he confessed proudly. "That's alright, though. I'm on a high from it. I'm not tired. I'll carry this energy into the game."

"You'd better," Miller said.

Octavia ran over suddenly, interrupting them. "Bellamy." She was holding Avery out in front of her with straight arms. "She pooped or something, and I am just not cut out for this."

He took the baby from her and didn't even have to take much of a whiff to know that she was right. "Does this mean you'll hold off on having kids?" he asked her as he started to head inside.

"Yes!" she hollered after him.

Perfect, he thought. Not that he didn't wanna be an uncle someday, but it could wait.

Diaper duty was a breeze for him at this point. He took Avery up to her nursery, put her down on the changing table, and went through the whole process almost on autopilot. He wondered how many hundreds of diapers he'd changed at this point. That first month alone, they'd been changing her about ten times a day. It was more like seven or eight now, and although he wasn't about to do the math on it, he knew that still added up.

"Avery, you know what? I'm happy you're a girl," he said as he secured her new diaper into place. "Not that I don't want a son someday, 'cause I do, but my mom told me some stories about when she was changing my diaper. And sometimes she'd get sprayed, 'cause . . . you know, that's just we boys do. We're gross. This isn't too bad, though. This is simple."

"Are you talking to yourself?" Clarke asked from the doorway.

"No, I'm talking to her," he said. "Didn't know you were there."

"I saw you come inside, got curious," she said, swaying into the nursery. She'd put on one of those beach cover-ups now, but it was kind of see-through like last night's lingerie had been, so it wasn't covering up much.

"She's been babbling a lot lately, have you noticed?" he asked her, lifting Avery up off the table.

"Yeah. I haven't heard any actual words yet, though."

"Only a matter of time." He shifted into his baby-talk voice—which was only marginally higher than his actual voice since, come on, he was baritone—and asked her, "Can you say Da-da? Or Ma-ma? Either one?"

Avery opened her mouth and let out a little squeak of laughter, but nothing else.

"Watch her first word be, like, doughnut or something," he said.

"Doughnut?"

"Yeah, I think that was one of O's first words." He laughed at the ridiculousness of that.

Clarke laughed, too, but when she stopped, she got serious again. "So how are you feeling about tonight?" she asked him. "Excited?"

"Yeah. Not as excited as I felt about last night, though." He reached down and gave her a gentle pat on the butt, causing her to jump a little bit. It would have been easy to flirt and joke his way out of really answering the question, but he decided not to. "No, to the tell you the truth, I'm kinda nervous, too," he admitted. "Not like anxiety/panic attack nervous, but . . . I don't know, there's a lot riding on this game. They win, they move onto the second round of the playoffs. But if they lose . . . then what if people just think I'm a loser?"

"Nobody would think that," Clarke told him quickly.

"You sure?" He knew exactly which moms had led the charge against him at the school board meeting, because they'd bombarded his email while he'd been in rehab with complaint after complaint. If he lost this game, he was fully expecting to get bombarded again, at least by those two women. Maybe even more.

"Well, I don't care what other people think," Clarke decided. "I care about what I know. And what I know is that you're a great coach, and an amazing husband and father. And that's all that matters, not whether you win or lose tonight."

"Yeah," he agreed. "I still wanna win, though." He couldn't help but be competitive. He'd been playing sports his whole life, so it was engrained in him.

"Okay, then, let's remember that you were always homecoming king," she pointed out, "and prom king, and . . ."

"Luau king," he filled in.

"Lu—luau?" she stuttered. "We had a luau?"

He nodded. It'd been his freshman year and such a failure that the school had never had one again.

"Okay, luau king," she said. "My point is, you've won more things than you've lost, so I'd say the odds are in your favor."

He smiled at her, happy to have his own personal cheerleader. "My luau queen," he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. She had him feeling more excited than nervous now.

...

Leaning into the backseat to unhook Avery from her car seat, Clarke got a kick out of how entranced her daughter seemed with the little pom poms she'd gotten her. To be fair, they weren't even really poms. They were just little batons with green and white streamers attached to them. Paired with the little green skirt she'd gotten her, she did look super adorable. Plus, she was donning her Coach's Kid jersey, of course.

"You wanna bring these in? Are we bringing these in?" Clarke asked her in reference to the poms.

Avery put one of the batons into her mouth, because almost everything went in her mouth these days.

"No, they're not for chewing," Clarke told her, taking it away from her. "They're for waving. Like this, see?" She flung and shook it around a bit, wondering how long this would remain in Avery's hand before it fell through some crack in the bleachers. "Here, let me get a picture of you," she said, giving her the pom back. She whipped out her phone and took a quick photo, noting, "Auntie Raven will be so proud."

Once she had her baby in one arm and baby bag in the other, Clarke was ready to head down to the field and grab some concessions for an early dinner. Unfortunately, as she was walking through the parking lot, she heard two semi-familiar voices. Voices that sounded like they were gossiping. Voices that she'd heard at the one and only school board meeting she'd ever attended.

"Well, if they win, then we'll just keep our mouths shut. But if they lose . . ." one mother was saying.

Clarke slowed her pace.

"I don't think we should try to do anything at the next school board meeting," the other one said. "But maybe after the football season's done, we could try to make our case again. Especially if the boys lose in the first round."

Oh, hell, no, Clarke thought, turning around. She marched over in that direction and didn't hesitate to insert herself into their conversation. "Excuse me, don't mean to interrupt," she said, even though that was exactly what she meant to do, "but isn't this the first time the boys have even made it to playoffs since Coach Blake graduated? Oh, that's right, it is."

The same mother who'd had the audacity to actually say something to her at a game wrinkled up her nose at her and snottily remarked, "And didn't the assistant coach oversee half of our games this year? Since the head coach was in rehab, you know."

So many snappy comebacks came to mind, including one about how this woman would need to rehabilitate her face if she said one more bad word about Bellamy, but Clarke couldn't exactly get into a catfight with her daughter in her arms. And she didn't want to stoop to that level anyway. "Okay. Look," she said, forcing herself to exercise some self-restraint. "I don't wanna get into a bitching contest with the two of you. But you see this little girl right here? This is Bellamy's daughter. This is the person he's trying to provide for, so he needs his job."

Both of the mothers looked at Avery, but neither of their expressions changed in the slightest.

"If you guys could just . . . leave him alone?" Clarke pleaded as nicely as she could. "Please, that's all we're asking. He's in recovery right now, and he's doing really well. He's happy again, and he's getting his life back on track. If you try to take this team away from him, you'd just be bringing him back down. And not only is that unfair to him, but it's unfair to this little girl." In case that wasn't enough to tug at their heartstrings, she stared daggers at them and warned, "And you know I'd stop you," just to get her point across.

The mothers exchanged looks this time, and even though one rolled her eyes, the other at least nodded as if to resign from their smear campaign.

"Enjoy the game," Clarke told them tensely. "Go, Rockets." She felt quite proud of herself as she strode off towards the stadium again. No one was allowed to disparage her husband or try to take away his job. No one. And if anyone was stupid enough to try, they'd have to go through her. She was a lot more intimidating than she looked.

Once Octavia and Lincoln showed up, Clarke passed Avery off to them and went down to the sideline to check on how Bellamy was doing. "Hey, babe," she said, "look at your little cheerleader up there."

He turned around, took one look at Avery, and said, "Why is she so damn cute? I know I may be biased, but I've seen some other babies tonight, and not one of them's as cute as her."

"I know. She's the cutest," Clarke agreed. "Although you're looking pretty cute, too." She gave his arm muscles a squeeze and said, "Really wish I could . . ." But she had to stop herself before she said too much. "No, you know what? You need to keep your head in the game. I'm not gonna say it," she decided.

"Probably a good idea. I gotta stay focused. And you can be . . ." He grinned at her, his eyes roaming up and down her body. "Distracting."

"I'll distract you later," she promised.

"Sounds good," he said. "You think we'll win tonight?"

"Yep," she replied, trying to instill as much confidence in him as possible. "Some things are just meant to be."

...

Clarke felt like she'd just been hit by a wrecking ball. Just like the wrecking ball in that ridiculous Miley Cyrus music video. Except there was no half-naked girl riding on top of it. That would have been a lot better than this.

"Say something," Lexa told her.

Clarke stared at her girlfriend, who sat across the kitchen counter island with a sad—but definitely not devastated—look on her face. "I'm not . . ." The words, if they'd even been there to begin with, got stuck in her throat. What was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to react? "I'm kind of stunned, to be honest," she admitted. "Where is this coming from?"

Lexa sighed. "I've been thinking about it for a while."

"But we just celebrated our one year anniversary," Clarke reminded her. "We were talking about moving in together." She had this brand new apartment, and now apparently she had no one to live with. Harper was doing the dorms for one more year, and Raven was living with her new boyfriend, and Lexa was . . . fucking breaking up with her, by the sound of it.

"We can't move in together, Clarke," Lexa said sadly. "We're not ready to take that step, and we probably never will be."

Still feeling completely confused, Clarke wracked her mind for something that would make this make sense. "Does this have something to do with my parents?" she asked. "Because I really think they're starting to come around on all of this." When she'd decided to tell them about her bisexuality, she'd probably gone about it in the wrong way. Instead of talking to them about it alone, she'd just announced that she was bringing someone home for dinner and that she wanted both of them to be there. They'd assumed it would be a man until they'd laid eyes on Lexa, and that dinner had been awkward as fuck to say the least. "They like you, as a person," she said. "They just still have to adjust to me having a girlfriend."

"I think your dad actually feels relieved, in a way," Lexa said. "When we went and visited him, he said something like, 'Well, at least she can't get pregnant with another girl.'" She laughed, but Clarke knew the real reason why her dad had said that. Lexa still didn't. And if they were breaking up, then that meant she never would.

"Not that he's not taking it seriously," Lexa said. "I do think you're right and that they're gradually becoming more open-minded. But this has nothing to do with them. This is about you and me."

Clarke frowned, still befuddled. "Well, then I don't understand. Because if it's about us . . . we're working. This is working. We haven't had many problems, or even many fights. It's a good relationship."

"Yeah, it is," Lexa agreed.

"Then why end it?" It wasn't adding up, unless . . . unless Lexa had her attention on someone new. They were in college, after all. Beautiful girls everywhere. "Is it . . . is there someone else?" she asked fearfully.

"No. I would never cheat on you."

That was a relief, because at least she didn't have to deal with that heartbreak and all the insecurity that would accompany it. But it still didn't explain anything. "Then I still don't understand."

"It's hard for me to . . ." Lexa trailed off, squinting her eyes as if she was searching for the right words. "It's just that . . . I'm ready. I'm ready to be with someone. To really be with them. You know?"

"No," Clarke said. "I thought you wanted to be with me."

"I did. And it really has been great," Lexa said. "But I just . . ." Once again, she trailed off, and her shoulders slumped as she exhaled another heavy sigh. "I'm not trying to make it seem like this is your fault or like I'm blaming you, okay?" she said. "But I need to be honest."

Clarke bristled, trying to remember if she'd done something or said something that would make Lexa feel like she was ready to end this relationship. She really thought she'd been a pretty good girlfriend.

"You put up walls with me. You always have," Lexa said. "You've opened up to me, sure, but not completely. I still feel like there's a lot of who you are that I don't know. You keep parts of yourself hidden."

"No, I don't," Clarke said, but that sounded unconvincing even to herself.

"Yes, you do. You know you do."

Dammit, Clarke thought, close to crying. She really had tried hard this past year to not be that same moody teenager she'd been in high school. She'd tried to be the type of girl who went out and had fun and wasn't mopey or depressed. And she thought she'd done a pretty good job of it. But apparently not.

Reaching across the counter, Lexa put her hands on top of Clarke's. "I don't know who you're supposed to end up with," she said, "but I know it isn't me. I'm not the one for you."

No, you're not, Clarke thought sullenly. On some level, she'd known that this whole time. But she still liked Lexa a lot, maybe even loved her, on some level. It just wasn't the same as . . . Nothing could ever be the same as what she'd had.

"But whoever it is, whether it's a guy or a girl . . ." Lexa smiled at her sweetly. "That's one lucky person."

Clarke looked away, trying to conceal her tears. She wasn't sure if she was crying because the longest relationship she'd ever had was ending, or because she'd always known deep down that this was inevitable. "What if there isn't someone out there for me?" she wondered tearfully. "What if I just end up alone?"

"You won't," Lexa assured her. "Trust me, things will work out the way they're meant to."

...

Bellamy put his arm around Clarke, and she stood with him for a few minutes while he watched the team warm up. As the game timer started to get closer to the start, though, she figured she'd imbued all the confidence in him that she could and headed back up to the bleachers.

Once the game started, she felt like all of Bellamy's nerves had magically been transferred into her, because her stomach was in literal knots all throughout the first half. They fell behind pretty far, and Clarke could just hear the disappointment all through the crowd. They were complaining that their boys were playing like crap, but Lincoln assured Clarke that they were playing like they normally did, it was just that the other team was really good and apparently had made it to the semifinal game last year.

At halftime, the cheerleaders got out on the field and showcased a truly lackluster performance that would have made Raven's heart sink, and it did nothing to inspire pep or enthusiasm in the crowd. Luckily, when the team trotted back out of the locker room, though, they looked energized. Bellamy must have delivered one heck of a motivational speech.

The third quarter . . . left everyone's jaws on the floor. It was an almost miraculous turnaround. The players all kicked it up a notch or two or twenty and just started playing at a different level. Even Clarke didn't know much about formations or fouls or anything like that, she could just sense that things were taking a swing, even before they scored their first touchdown of the half. Then they forced a fumble, scooped it up, and ran it in for another score. Then Bellamy called a crazy play that Clarke was pretty certain she'd never seen before. She didn't even know what to call it, and Lincoln had to explain to her that it was an onside kick, and that usually they weren't even successful in college. But this one had been.

By the fourth quarter, every fan, regardless of which side they were cheering for, was up on their feet, because the score was tied. And it remained tied until it was down to the wire. Three seconds left on the clock. The Rockets had the ball, but everyone around Clarke was saying they were out of field goal range and had to go for it, otherwise the game was extending into overtime.

"Oh my god, I can barely even watch," she said, covering her face with her hand, peeking out between her fingers. "Lincoln, what kind of play are they doing?"

"Looks like a pass play," he said.

"Oh my god." All she could think about was the end of the state championship game, when Bellamy had thrown a pass that, nine times out of ten, would have been caught. She remembered the look of utter devastation on his face when someone on the other team had intercepted it, and she really hoped this wasn't going to be déjà vu. She started to pray, even though she was pretty sure God had bigger things on his mind than sports.

When they snapped the ball, it was sort of a wobbly snap, barely looked like the quarterback was able to hold onto it. So Clarke didn't have high hopes for the pass. Somehow, though, no one sacked him, he had plenty of time to throw, and when he did . . . there was a receiver wide open. The ball sailed through the air beautifully, and the receiver caught it and ran it into the end zone. Six points, clock down to zero. The home crowd erupted, all of them screaming and jumping up and down and hugging each other. Even the cheerless cheerleaders were celebrating.

"Touchdown, Rockets!" the announcer blared. "And that'll do it! The Rockets win the game, thirty-seven to thirty-one, and advance to the second round of playoffs!"

Clarke had to be careful about doing too much celebrating, because she was holding Avery, but she watched as, down on the sideline, Bellamy's whole team just swarmed him. They were so thrilled, and he looked overjoyed. Everyone looked a little bit in shock. It'd been a long time since the Rockets had ever even played in this level of a game, let alone won one in such nail-biting fashion.

That night, Bellamy got home after Clarke did, because he had to wait around to make sure all the players had left before he did. They didn't waste a moment, though. Clarke already had Avery down for the night, so she dragged her sexy, victorious husband upstairs into the bathroom, stripped both their clothes off, and climbed into the shower with him. It didn't take him long to get her pinned up against the corner, but both of them groaned frustratedly when they realized they hadn't grabbed a condom first. So poor Bellamy had to get out of the shower, dripping wet, run into the bedroom, and grab a condom from the nightstand drawer. When he came back, he already had it on and dropped a few extras on the sink.

"Are we gonna celebrate like this every time I win?" he asked as he lifted her leg up and pushed his cock inside her.

"Would that motivate you?" she teased.

"Oh, yeah," he panted as his hips started to rock against hers.

"Then yes." Bellamy had done a damn good job coaching that team tonight, and she was more than happy to be his reward.