Chapter 15
It was a good thing construction was one of those jobs that allowed a person to learn while he worked, because the more Bellamy worked, the more he realized he knew so little. He slammed a hammer down on his thumb while simply trying to pound a nail, and it hurt like a motherfucker and got all purple. Roan took it upon himself to show him how to properly hammer a nail.
"See, you wanna hold it closer to the nail head for better control," Roan explained as he demonstrated. "But don't hit it too hard or you'll smash your fingers again. Just gentle at first, and then pound it down."
"Like sex?" Bellamy equated.
"Yeah, exactly." Roan chuckled, then looked at something over Bellamy's shoulder. "Ooh, speaking of . . ." He pointed.
Bellamy turned around, surprised but also fucking delighted to see Clarke coming his way. She must have been either on her way to or from class, because she had her backpack on her shoulders and was moving quickly.
"Is that your girl?" Roan asked.
Used to be, he thought wistfully. But she sort of still was . . . wasn't she? At the very least, she wasn't anyone else's. "I'll be a minute," he said, taking off his work gloves and hard hat before he walked towards her. "Hey, you missed it," he said. He couldn't suppress a dumbass grin as he revealed, "I was just learning how to pound things."
She didn't seem to be in the mood for jokes, and her tone was almost an accusatory one as she asked, "Did you go and see Finn last night?"
Finn? She knew about that? "How'd you . . ." There were only two people who might have told her, so he went with the more likely guess. "Did Raven say something?
"Raven went with you?" she spat.
Oh, crap, she sounded upset, and now he'd just implicated her friend in the whole thing, too, which probably just upset her even more. "She just rode with me," he said. "I talked to him alone."
"Well, what exactly were you hoping to accomplish, huh?" she growled. "Because you only pissed him off even more."
"I-I told him it's not my kid and he needs to step up and take responsibility," he answered, feeling like . . . there was nothing wrong with that. He was just trying to look out for her. "'cause I don't want you to have to do it alone like my mom did," he mumbled, looking downward.
She sighed heavily, and everything about her just seemed so frustrated. "Bellamy . . . he's not gonna change his mind about this paternity test. I don't like it, either, but it is what it is. You just made things worse."
He frowned, kind of spun by all of this. When he'd seen her coming this way, he'd assumed that they might go grab lunch or something. But that didn't seem likely to happen.
"Now he knows we slept together again, and he probably thinks we're . . . more than we are," she fretted. "I mean, this whole thing's already complicated enough. I really don't need some soap operatic love triangle to deal with, too."
He hadn't been trying to make things harder on her. That hadn't been his intention at all. "I was just trying to help," he mumbled.
"I know." She looked him in the eye and shook her head sadly. "But you shouldn't have said anything."
I'm sorry, he thought, but he couldn't quite bring himself to say it. He was sorry he'd upset her, but it was hard to apologize for looking out for her. Maybe he hadn't gone about it the right way, but . . .
Feeling like he'd just been punched in the gut—they'd never really fought that much—he watched her walk away, a noticeable tenseness still in her shoulders and written on her face. Looking at it from her perspective, he could understand why she was upset. But he wanted her to understand where he was coming from, too. He cared about her, so much, and it killed him to see her dealing with this shit right now. And it was even worse to see her dealing with it on her own.
...
Perfect timing. Clarke was just approaching the large front door of her mother's house when it opened and her mom stepped out. She was in normal clothes, but she had her work badge pinned to her shirt, so she was probably on her way into the hospital.
"Clarke," she said, slowly pulling the door. "What're you doing here? Is everything okay?"
"Yeah. My class got cancelled this morning, and . . . well, I wanted to talk to you," Clarke said. "Do you have a minute?"
Her mom replied, "A few," and reached for the doorknob again. "Do you wanna go inside or just talk here?"
"Here's fine." She sat down on the porch steps, doing a quick check of her mid-section to see if her stomach was pooching. Not yet. At least she still didn't look pregnant.
Her mom sat down beside her and said, "I'm sorry we haven't, uh, spoken these past couple days. I've just been trying to process everything."
Clarke nodded, understanding that everyone was going to react to this differently. Some people were just going to be happy for her, and other people, like Finn and her mom, were going to feel blindsided. She was just going to have to try to be patient with everyone. "Thanks for sending me the info you did," she said. "I really wanna start doing all my doctor's appointments here. I wish I could do today's here."
"Today?" her mother echoed. "What's today?"
"Um . . ." It left a bitter taste in her mouth to even say it out loud, but she wanted to be honest with her mom about what was going on. "Paternity test."
Abby's eyes bulged. "But I thought you said you knew-"
"I do," she cut in. "I do know. But he just wants to know. For sure." She was really trying to be understanding of that, too but demanding this test of her still kind of felt like a slap in the face.
"Did you look into it thoroughly?" her mom asked. "Are you doing the non-invasive kind?"
"Yeah. I have to drive up to Baltimore this afternoon. Figured I'd stop in and see Dad."
Her mom's default reaction these days whenever someone mentioned Jake seemed to be to grunt and roll her eyes, which was exactly what she did here. "Are you gonna tell him?" she asked.
"I think so. We'll see." He was really the only notable person left in her life who had yet to find out, so she was really hoping the anxiety of keeping it a secret would fade completely once he knew.
"I just can't believe this is happening," her mom said, covering her face for a moment. She sniffled, shook her head, then removed her hands and blinked away tears.
"I know," Clarke said, wishing she was a few years older, settled down and in love with the person who'd fathered her child. "But think of it this way," she said, trying to remain as optimistic as possible. "I'm not a kid anymore. I'm twenty-two years old. I'm gonna graduate this year. I can do this."
"And what about med school?" her mom asked. Of course her mom would ask about med school.
She wasn't about to admit that that so wasn't even a priority in her life right now, so she just went with, "That might have to wait."
"And Finn? You think he'll help you?"
She inhaled shakily and said, "I hope so. Once we get these test results back, I think he'll come around." Finn had never been the world's greatest boyfriend, but he hadn't ever been a completely bad guy, either. Although she was worried about Atom's influence on him and the fact that he was basically living in a pot-house, she felt like being a father might get him to shape up and grow up. For real. "But I'm gonna need your help, too," she told her mom. "If you don't mind." It wasn't just the medical advice that she needed her mom for. It was all the other stuff, the guidance and support, the love and encouragement. Her mom, despite being a source of frustration for her at times, had always had her back. Always. She needed her to have her back now, probably more than ever.
"Oh, Clarke . . . of course I don't mind," her mom said as a few tears spilled over. She opened up her arms and said, "Come here."
Clarke leaned in towards her mom, hugging her, feeling a much-needed sense of comfort, the kind only mothers could provide.
"I will always be there for you," her mom promised, and Clarke, better than anyone else, knew just how true that was.
...
The DNA Diagnostics Center in Baltimore was a totally average-looking building. For some reason, Clarke had expected it to look more like a hospital, but it was right there on Franklin Street, a plain brick building that was actually really easy to miss, because there weren't any elaborate signs advertising it. Made sense, she supposed. Nobody wanted to walk into a DNA testing center with a big neon sign hanging over it. These kinds of tests were confidential and personal, probably very stigmatized.
Clarke walked in with her head held high, determined not to feel embarrassed about having this done. It wasn't necessary—she hadn't gone out and slept with multiple men in the same time period or anything—but it was just . . . helpful. It'd be helpful to Finn to see the truth rather than to simply hear it from her.
As she approached the front desk, she said, "Hi, I'm Clarke Griffin. I'm here for a . . ." Even though she didn't want to feel embarrassed, she still lowered her voice and mumbled, ". . . paternity test."
It wasn't a very long wait, thankfully. They called her in after only about five minutes, and it was a simple blood draw. Well, as simple as her blood draws could be. Medical people always said that they had problems finding her veins, which was a good thing, aesthetically speaking. Sometimes, however, that meant the less experienced nurses would hit a muscle. The one she had managed to locate a vein, though, and get it with just one little poke. Clarke looked the other way while the vial filled up and thought about . . . well, Bellamy, oddly enough. She wondered what he was doing today. Probably working again.
As the nurse—or was it a sample collector? She wasn't sure—wrapped up the middle of her arm in a blue gauzy thing, Clarke inquired, "So will somebody call me with the results, or will they be online?"
"They'll be online, on your secure account."
"Do they get mailed?"
"You can request a letter. But that will take longer to arrive." The nurse—she was just going to think of her as a nurse, because that sounded a lot friendlier—looked at her sympathetically and said, "I know it's stressful having to wait, not knowing."
"Oh, I know," Clarke said. "The father just wants proof."
"Ah, I see."
Yeah, there was no uncertainty about it, at least not for her. So it wasn't something that stressed her out so much as it made her feel . . . impatient.
When she walked back out to the front, Finn was sitting on the couch, waiting, fiddling around with something on his phone. He glanced up when he saw her but didn't say anything.
"I did my part," she said, motioning to the wrap on her arm.
He made a face. "Do they have to take my blood, too?"
"No. Just a cheek swab." God, guys had it so easy sometimes. Losing their virginity didn't hurt, getting a paternity test was painless, and they didn't have to go through childbirth. So lucky.
She sat down beside him, figuring she had to take whatever chance they had to try to talk to him, maybe re-establish some positive lines of communication. However, before she could even try to say something to lighten the mood, he complained, "I don't understand why we had to come all the way up here. I could've just don't that myself and mailed a sample in."
"Because everything has to be done by the book for the results to be legally defensible in court," she explained. Yeah, she had done her research on this.
"Who said anything about court?" he huffed. "You think that's where we're gonna end up?"
"No, I meant . . . just in case."
"In case what?" he spat. "I'm a deadbeat dad?"
Oh, she hadn't meant for any of this to come out that way, but she'd be lying if she said she hadn't thought about the worst case scenario. If for some reason Finn did refuse to step up and do his part, she wasn't letting him off the hook. He'd have to pay child support. Or . . . maybe it was better if he didn't. Because then she could just make every baby-related decision on her own.
"I already told you I think you should put the baby up for adoption," he muttered.
"And I told you that's not happening." There was nothing wrong with adoption, when it all worked out the way it was supposed to. But she just couldn't do it. "Look, Finn . . . I know we didn't plan for this, and it caught both of us off guard," she acknowledged, trying to remind him that she was dealing with this new reality of theirs, too. "But I don't want things to be so strained between us. Especially not right now. Do you?"
He didn't have the chance to respond before the same nurse who had drawn her blood came out and said, "Finn?"
Groaning, he rose to his feet. "I just wanna get this over with."
Clarke sat there like a kicked puppy as he headed back to 'get it over with.' But it wasn't going to be over with just a cheek swab. She knew that; apparently he still didn't.
...
There were normal houses, and then there was Clarke's dad's house. She'd only ever stayed over there a couple of times, but it was so massive that she had yet to explore the whole thing. It made her mom's house look small in comparison. He had a four car garage—and yes, he actually had four cars in there—a perfect lawn maintained by a professional landscaper, and he lived in a gated community, so all the houses around his were large and beautiful, too. It wasn't like he hadn't worked for his life of luxury, though. He was a petroleum engineer and had a master's degree, and his many years of experience in the field had resulted in a pretty high annual salary. It was a demanding job, one that required him to travel all around the world and work some excessively long hours at times. He'd missed some of Clarke's music recitals growing up because he'd been off and away discovering or extracting oil and natural gas. He hadn't been there for her first night as a Rockets cheerleader, and he'd even almost had to miss her high school graduation. His taxing work schedule was one of the reasons her mom claimed to have divorced him, but Clarke knew better than to believe that had been the only reason.
"Hey, kiddo!" he exclaimed when she showed up there. "What a surprise."
"You buzzed me through the gate," she reminded him as she stepped inside.
"But that was still surprising." He gave her a hug and said, "Good to see you. Come on in. We were just getting ready to relax for the night."
"We?" she echoed curiously, following him through the foyer, which was this absolutely beautiful room with vaulted ceilings and a gorgeous staircase that wound up both sides to a balcony. Her dad had helped design this house after he'd inherited some family money after his uncle's passing. The plan had been to move here with her mom after Clarke had graduated, but of course plans had changed, and he'd ended up building his dream house and moving there alone.
But apparently he wasn't alone right now.
When they rounded the corner into what her dad liked to call the den, Clarke immediately spotted a head of shiny blonde hair sitting on the couch next to the indoor pool. (Yeah, her dad had a ridiculously nice indoor pool, but she'd never bothered to swim in it.)
"Clarke, this is Alyssa, my girlfriend," her dad introduced the two of them. "Alyssa, this is my daughter Clarke."
"Hi." Alyssa didn't bother to stand, but she did beam a smile up at Clarke and say, "So nice to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you."
"Hi," Clarke said, trying to disguise her gut reaction to all of this. She'd known her dad had a new girlfriend, but she'd just assumed that she'd be like the last girlfriends in that she'd be close in age to him. But this girl . . . she looked like she was in her twenties. People probably thought she was his daughter whenever they went out.
"I . . . didn't know you were here," Clarke said, feeling like she was intruding. "I'm sorry, I should've called first instead of just stopping by."
"It's fine," her father assured her. "We were just gonna sit by the pool a while, listen to some music, have some drinks." He went back behind the bar—because of course he'd had to design himself an in-home bar in addition to the indoor pool—and resumed putting some drinks together. He had all the things that a real bartender had, including that thing where they mixed and shook drinks around before pouring them in the glass.
"Yes, please join us," Alyssa invited. "I've been harping on your father for the past two months to invite you over. I wanna get to know you."
Clarke forced a smile and ventured over her dad's way. Sliding onto a barstool, she quietly said, "Two months?" She hadn't gotten one invite in all that time.
"I've been busy," he said, pouring his concoction into a champagne glass.
"Oh, I'll bet you have been." She glanced back at Alyssa, who, she had to note, was dressed in only a thin white slip. "She's, like, half your age, Dad," she hissed.
"She's thirty-three," he corrected.
Older than she'd thought then, but still young enough to be considered a gold-digger. "And you're fifty-one. Don't you think that's a little weird?"
"I really like her," he said as he poured another drink.
"Yeah, I can see why." Alyssa was obviously surgically-enhanced, and while there was nothing wrong with that, it all just seemed so transparent to Clarke. A beautiful young woman had romantic interest in a wealthy man who traveled a lot? Yeah, right. There so had to be an ulterior motive there.
"Stop," he said, almost scolding her. "When you started dating a girl, which of your parents was the most open-minded?"
Reluctantly, she admitted, "You." Her mom had nearly shit a gold brick.
"Then don't you think you should be open-minded about this?"
She couldn't help but feel like it was different, though. Her bisexuality wasn't a choice. His decision to date someone who was only eleven years older than his daughter was. Of course, looks sometimes were deceiving, so Clarke swallowed her resentment and got up so she could go sit by her dad's new girlfriend. "So, Alyssa," she said, sitting down on the adjoining couch, "where are you from?"
"Oh, the middle of nowhere Illinois," Alyssa replied. "I moved out here with a boyfriend when I was young, got to be a Ravens cheerleader for a couple years. I hear you were a cheerleader, too."
The Arkadia Rockets didn't exactly compare to the Baltimore Ravens, so she said, "Just for two years in high school. Freshman and sophomore."
"Why'd you quit?" Alyssa asked her.
She shrugged. "I just wanted to focus on other stuff."
Her dad came to the couches with not two but three drinks in his hands. "Clarke graduated salutatorian in her class," he boasted. "And she's had straight A's throughout college."
"Wow, I'm impressed," Alyssa said, taking a glass when he held it out for her. "I got straight B's in junior high, and my mom was thrilled. That's the best it ever got for me."
Clarke nodded, trying not to be suspicious, but . . . this girl seemingly didn't have any college education, and hell, maybe she didn't even have a high school diploma. Maybe she Anna Nicole Smith-ed her way through life by latching on to men like her dad who were too distracted by her breasts to see that she was just using him.
"Here, you're old enough," her dad said as he handed her a glass.
Oh, crap, Clarke thought. Was this really how she was going to tell her dad, by awkwardly not drinking anything? Was she really going to tell him right here by his pool with this Alyssa chick here? Telling her dad was supposed to have been a private thing between the two of them. Three was a crowd.
"Should we toast?" Alyssa asked as Jake sat down close to her and kicked his feet up on the table in front of them.
"Sure," he said. "To the two most important girls in my life finally meeting each other." He held his glass up, and Alyssa tapped hers against it and took a sip.
Clarke set hers down and quickly got to her feet. "Actually, I can't stay," she said. "I still have to drive home, and it's already getting late."
"You can stay here tonight if you want," her dad offered. "We've got plenty of room."
That was the fucking understatement of year. He'd once told her he'd lost count of all his guest rooms. "I have a test early in the morning," she lied. "I really gotta go. But it was nice to meet you . . . Alyssa." The words sort of burned her throat as they came out.
"Yeah, you, too," she said.
"You want me to walk you out?" her dad offered.
"No, I got it. Bye, Dad." Leaving the drink she couldn't consume behind, she scurried up past the bar, around the corner, and back out into that massive foyer. That had been a bust.
...
With Halloween drawing closer, everything in town started to get more festive. Bellamy wasn't much of a holiday guy himself. He liked Thanksgiving, since it was all about food and family, but Christmas was commercial as fuck these days, Valentine's Day was even worse, and Easter . . . well, Easter was alright as long as he could do an adult egg hunt and bar crawl.
Even though he didn't particularly want to go to Arkadia's Frightfest & Pumpkin Patch, he sort of relented and agreed to go when Jasper begged him to come along. Jasper, as it turned out, had kept talking to and flirting with Maya, and now he had a date. But he was too nervous to go alone. Bellamy tried to get out of it by assuring Jasper that the nerves would fade, but Jasper didn't seem to believe him. Bellamy knew he was right, though. When two people really liked each other, it just felt natural.
...
When the door to the changing room swung open and Clarke stepped out in a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader costume, Bellamy almost passed out. She'd entertained him by trying on a lot of sexy costumes this afternoon—Britney spears schoolgirl get-up, Catwoman jumpsuit, and Playboy bunny just to name a few—but this look . . . this was the look right here. Her Rockets cheerleading uniform was hot as hell on her, but these white shorts were little more than underwear, and this long-sleeved blue midriff made her breasts look like they were just about ready to pop right out. And the boots . . . oh the white boots. They made her legs look longer than they actually were.
"Ta-da," she said, striking a few poses. "What do you think?"
He just sat there, mouth open, tongue practically hanging out, speechless.
"I take it you like it?" she deduced.
"I love it." Even though her parents would never let her out of the house dressed like that, he didn't see any harm in purchasing the costume anyway. Maybe if they needed to spice things up sometime, she'd wear it for him.
"I feel like my ass is hanging out," she admitted as she tried to tug down on the shorts.
"Here, let me help you out with that," he readily offered, standing up. He backed her into the dressing room and went right in with her, shutting the door and sliding the lock into place.
"Bellamy!" she squealed.
"Shh," he said, pressing his index finger to her soft lips. He sank down to his knees and grabbed the waistline of her shorts, pulling them down over the curve of her ass. With how small they were, she couldn't wear any underwear underneath, so he was immediately greeted with the sight of her pussy. He gave it a few strokes just to get her all wet and wanting, then lowered the shorts down over the boots so she could step out of them.
"We can't do this here," she whispered.
"Why not?" It was one of those doors that went all the way down to the ground, so unless someone had seen him duck in there, no one had to know.
She didn't have an answer to that question, but she did have a nervous look in her eye.
"Do you trust me?" he asked her quietly, grabbing her ankles to try to spread her legs open.
She allowed him to do that, looked down at him, and let out a shaky exhale. "I trust you," she said.
God, hearing her say that was a fucking rush. Girls like Bree talked dirty to him, which he didn't hate, but . . . hearing Clarke say she trusted him was somehow an even bigger turn-on.
First he kissed her stomach, right below her bellybutton. Then he kissed his way down to her inner thigh, switching from one to the other as she pressed her hips outward from the wall. Once she'd really opened herself up to him, he moved in practically underneath her, kneeling right in between her legs, and sloshed his tongue up into her, trying to keep it as quiet as he could. But if anyone got in close to their door and heard the sounds this was making, or heard his heavy breathing, they'd know. Hell if he cared, though. He had a cheerleader to pleasure, and nothing was going to stop him.
...
Located on the edge of town, Frightfest was bustling when Bellamy and Jasper got there on Thursday night. It was the end of the quarter, so the high school students didn't have school the next day. And it wasn't like they had anything better to do, so they all went and hung out there. The pumpkin patch would remain open all year, but the haunted house set-up, a seasonal business, would only be open for a couple weeks. It was something different for the town, just like the carnival had been. It broke up the mundane routine. And Bellamy had to admit, his routine had gotten very mundane these past few nights. The night he'd gone over to Finn's had been the last night he'd even gone out. Last night, since his mom had gotten home from work earlier, they'd stayed up until midnight watching the Game Show Network together. The Game Show Network. He felt geriatric.
"So when's Maya gonna show up?" he asked Jasper as they waited by the fire pit, where some people had chosen to roast marshmallows. It wasn't a super cold night, but roasted s'mores were always good.
"Any minute now," his friend said. "She said her car's a piece of crap."
Welcome to the club, Bellamy thought. He'd had trouble getting his started this morning. "And this is your guys' first date?" he asked.
"It's not a date. We're just . . . hanging out," Jasper corrected.
"Then why am I here?" There was a Family Feud marathon on tonight. He and his mom liked to play along to that one.
"You know how, when a kid learns how to ride a bike, they use training wheels?" Jasper said.
Bellamy shook his head. "No, I never used training wheels."
"Oh, of course not. Well, I did," Jasper said. "I used training wheels for three years."
Had he ever even graduated to an actual bike with just two wheels then? Jasper had usually walked to school when it was warm out, so . . . probably not. "So Maya's the bike you wanna ride . . ." he said, figuring out the comparison, "and I'm you're training wheels?"
Jasper patted him on the back. "Exactly."
He made a face. "No, I'm gonna be the third wheel. I don't even know the girl."
"Relax," Jasper said. "I invited someone for you, too."
"Who?" If it was Bree, he gonna have to get a body guard. If it was Roma, he wasn't sure he could listen to her bitch and complain about her kid all night.
"Your favorite bike to ride," Jasper said, waving at somebody. "Clarke!"
Bellamy spun around and spotted Clarke picking her way through a particularly rambunctious group of middle school boys. Or at least they looked like middle schoolers. They'd all gotten some cotton candy from the concession stand and were chasing each other and sticking it in each other's hair.
"Hey, Jasper," she said as she sidled up to them. "Bellamy." She didn't smile when she saw him like she usually did. In fact, she seemed surprised to see him. "What're you doing here?"
He shrugged, still not completely sure of the answer himself. "Jasper wanted a wing-man."
"But I thought he might wanna hang out with you," Jasper added, "while I'm hanging out with Maya."
"Maya?" Clarke echoed.
"Yeah. She's a sophomore, nursing student, somehow not completely repulsed by me, and-"
"On her own way over here right now," Bellamy said when he noticed that dark-haired girl coming their way.
"What? Oh, shit." Jasper immediately started to panic, tried to smooth out the wrinkles in his shirt, and did a breath check. "How do I look?" he asked them. "Do I look okay?
"You look great, Jasper," Clarke told him.
"Just play it cool, man," Bellay advised.
"I don't know how to be cool," Jasper said, but he plastered on a smile when Maya got to them. "Hey, Maya!" he exclaimed.
"Hey," she said. "Sorry I'm late."
"That's okay. Maya, these are my friends Bellamy and Clarke," Jasper introduced them. "Guys, this is Maya."
"Hi," Clarke said.
"Hi," Maya echoed.
It took a nudge from Clarke for Bellamy to remember to say, "Nice to meet you."
"Thanks," she said. An awkward silence descended upon the four of them until she motioned to the haunted house and said, "Should we go in there?"
"Yeah, yeah," Jasper said, "that sounds good."
"We'll be right behind you," Clarke said. "You two go ahead."
Jasper shot Bellamy a semi-scared look, but Bellamy just nodded. The kid had to realize that he didn't need a wing-man. He could hang out with Maya tonight and be just fine. It could be an actual date, just the two of them. Maybe she was already hoping that was what it was.
When Jasper and Maya had gotten in line for the haunted house (annoyingly dubbed the Mystery Manor), Clarke turned to Bellamy and said, "I didn't know he invited you."
"I didn't know he invited you," he said, just to make it clear that he hadn't been a part of this.
"Do you think he's trying to set us up?" she asked.
"Like on a date?" He grunted. "Who knows? He says this isn't even a date with Maya." Raven or Miller was probably a lot more likely to lure them into a double-date scenario than Jasper was, but Jasper wasn't stupid. He may have had a plan in mind here, too.
Clarke looked so gorgeous tonight. She had on ripped jeans and a loose, long-sleeved white top. On anyone else, it may have looked plain, but on her, it just looked phenomenal. There was barely enough of her short hair to put up in a half ponytail, but she managed it. He used to love her long hair, so he'd hoped she would never cut it, but now that she had, he really dug this look, too.
"I'm kinda surprised you came," he said, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that he was ogling her.
"Why?" she said.
"Just . . . pregnant girl, haunted house . . ." He wasn't really sure where he was going with that.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped.
"Nothing, just-"
"What am I supposed to do, just sit home and watch game shows?" She huffed. "No, come on, let's do this haunted house. I'm not scared." She marched off towards the back of the line, and he followed her, wondering if she was still pissed at him about going to see Finn or if the wild pregnancy hormones were kicking in. She seemed snippier than usual, maybe a little on edge. He wasn't about to accuse her of having mood swings or anything, but . . . it seemed likely.
Frightfest was split into three separate 'haunted areas.' Mystery Manor was the biggest, but there was also the so-called Spooky Shack behind it, as well as the Whispering Woods. Bellamy hadn't come here for years, and although not much had changed, he still got startled when people jumped out at him. He tried not to be a wimp about it, though, especially since Clarke moved through the house in front of him completely unfazed. A guy dressed up like a vampire started to walk alongside her, but she just flat-out told him, "That's annoying. Stop following me."
Next, they went through the Spooky Shack, which Bellamy found to be ten times creepier because it was almost pitch black in there. When someone in monster mask jumped out at them, he yelped a little bit, but Clarke just said, "Ooh, so scary," sarcastically and continued on. He gladly stayed behind her, happy to let her take the lead.
He would have been fine—more than fine—with just doing those two, but she mumbled that they might as well do the Whispering Woods trail while they were out there, and he gulped as he followed along behind her. He remembered this trail. People with fake chainsaws chased you. They were literally getting paid to try to scare you, and even though those chainsaws weren't real, they sounded really, and it made him flash back to every scary movie his mom had forbade him from watching but he'd watched anyway. Texas Chainsaw Massacre among them.
When he heard the chainsaws, Bellamy just wanted to run, but Clarke maintained the same pace, walking leisurely as people scrambled around them. He kept looking back over his shoulder, afraid that somebody would come at him from behind, and he was so busy doing that that he didn't even notice somebody jump out of the trees right in front of them. Clarke did, though, and she kicked him right in the nuts.
"Ah!" he cried, dropping his chainsaw as he doubled over in pain. "Jesus Christ, lady! What'd you do that for?"
"Well, that's what you get for jumping out at people," she said. "Come on, Bellamy." She kept right on walking, and Bellamy felt like he had no choice but to follow her.
"Sorry, bro," he said on his way past. No time to stop. The end of this trail was within his sights now, and he couldn't wait to get off of it.
Clarke was hungry after that, so they headed over to the concession stand to get some food. He wasn't sure where Jasper and Maya had wandered off to, but he hoped they were somewhere either making out or fucking.
With her arms crossed over her chest, Clarke waited in line with him, not saying much.
"You don't seem like you're having fun," he noted.
"Raven dragged me here last year," she said. "Wasn't scary then, isn't scary now."
Wasn't scary? He'd almost pissed his pants in the shack. "Well, I bet Jasper and Maya are having fun," he predicted.
"They don't even need us here," she said. "It was totally a set-up. Jasper and Raven and all our friends from high school . . . you know they're gonna expect us to get back together."
Yeah, he knew, but . . . something about the way she said that made him frown. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Well, Jasper doesn't even know I'm pregnant," she pointed out. "He doesn't know why we . . . can't."
Can't? What the hell kind of word was that? They could if they wanted to. It just wasn't gonna be as easy as it may have once been. "Why can't we?" he challenged, staying still as the line inched forward.
She stared at him incredulously for a moment, then groaned, "Oh, come on, Bellamy," and walked out of line.
"What?" Once again, he followed her, just like he'd been doing all night. "Why are you so pissed at me?"
She stopped at the fire pit, where the flames were truly roaring now. It almost looked like more of a bonfire. "I'm not pissed," she claimed.
"Yes, you are." Maybe there were pregnancy hormones involved, but he couldn't chalk it all up to that. They hadn't called each other, seen each other, or even texted each other for a couple days now, and that had all started because of one thing. "Is this still about me talking to Finn?"
"Well, I'm still not thrilled about that," she admitted. "Look, Bellamy, I'm so on edge right now. It literally takes nothing to set me off."
I noticed, he thought. So had the chainsaw guy.
"I've had a stressful week, and trying to figure things out with you isn't making things any less stressful," she ranted. "I mean, I thought we were on the same page about all of this. Just friends. Right?"
Maybe he'd agreed to that, but . . . "I don't know."
"What?" she shrieked. "What do you mean you don't know? Bellamy, we said-"
"I know what we said!" he yelled back, realizing that they were starting to garner some stares from other people around the fire now. "But I don't know how to just be friends with you, Clarke. I don't know how."
"You just have to figure it out," she said, like it was that simple.
"Like you have?" he countered. "You got it all figured out? When you look at me, do you only see a friend now?"
She looked right at him, and her bottom lip quivered.
"Didn't think so," he said.
"Bellamy, we have to try," she insisted vehemently.
"I've been trying! But I don't know what to do." He'd limited it to a cheek kiss at the carnival, and he'd made her mac-and-cheese, and he'd gone to lunch with her and just talked, and the talking was great and all, but he wanted so much more. "I don't know if I'm allowed to flirt with you, or if I'm allowed to touch you, or if I'm touching you too much," he carried on. "I don't—I don't know what I'm supposed to do, Clarke. But I know what I wanna do and . . ." He trailed off as thoughts of his wants clouded his mind. "Dammit." She looked so pretty right now, and this firelight just illuminated her whole face in this warm glow.
"What?" she pressed, throwing her hands up in the air. "What do you wanna do?"
His fingers felt like they were burning, even though they weren't close to the flames. "This," he said, cupping her face as he kissed her without any second-guessing or regard for the consequences. It just felt so fucking right, her lips latched with his, fitting together perfectly. She must have been caught off-guard, but she still kissed him back, and she didn't make any effort to push him away. Not even in the slightest.
The fire roared behind them, and Bellamy felt like he wasn't gonna be able to stop at kissing. At least not tonight.
They barely made it back to her place before tearing each other's clothes off. Their mouths continued to mate together as he thrust into her at a steady pace. It felt good to feel her lips beneath his, pressed into an giddy, lustful smile as he made love to her. Felt good to feel her breasts sticking to his chest because of how sweaty the both were. And her hands on his arms and back, her legs coiled around him to pull him in deeper . . . that was amazing. Being inside her was like nothing else he'd ever experienced. With anyone. Anywhere.
He grinned against her mouth and cheek as he continued to kiss her. Being with her right now, on top of her, writhing with her . . . it made him feel so damn lucky. And happy, too. God, he felt so fucking happy.
