Chapter 79

It didn't matter that Bellamy had work to do. Not after last night. He felt like the better use of his time was getting online and finding out as much information as he could about adoption procedures and rules and regulations and all that crap. He could diagram football plays in his sleep, and Miller was plenty capable of running practice himself. Bellamy opted to stay in his office and do a deep dive online, one that, after his encounter with Finn, felt very necessary.

Anytime he found a site that looked even remotely helpful, he didn't hesitate to print it out. Unfortunately, the only place he could get shit to print was in the main office, so he kept having to make multiple treks over there to pick up what he needed. Once in a while, he ended up printing something twice by mistake, so he ended up with a whole mess of papers. While he stood there trying to sort out what was what and get it organized in some possible way, Principal Sydney came out of her office to rummage around the supply cabinets.

"You're printing out a lot today," she remarked. "What do you all have there?"

He wasn't about to tell her what was going on—and hell, he probably wasn't supposed to be using the school's ink and paper for personal use anyway—so he lied and answered, "Oh, you know, just football stuff." He shoved all the papers in a manila envelope he'd swiped out of the very same supply cabinet she was now looking through, and said, "Have a good weekend," as he left.

"You, too," she said.

I'll try to, he thought. But undoubtedly, Finn had put a damper on it.

When he got home, the house was strangely quiet. So either Clarke and Avery were both napping, or they'd gone somewhere.

"Clarke?" he called out. No response. "Honey, you home?" He shut the door, starting to feel an unreasonable panic as he looked around the empty living room and kitchen. And he knew it was unreasonable, because it wasn't like she had to be there. It was a nice day, and she'd probably just taken Avery out to the park. It was walking distance, which would explain why her car was still there. But still, after last night, he just felt this urge to have them there, so he once again said, "Clarke?" as he headed upstairs. He checked the nursery first, finding it to be empty. Same with their bedroom.

His breathing started to come faster, and his gut knotted up with worry. He knew nothing was wrong or out of the ordinary, but for some reason, all he could picture in his mind was his fiancée and his daughter out and about, and Finn approaching them, wanting to spend time with them. Clarke wouldn't want that, of course, but maybe she'd feel obligated.

A wave of relief came over him when he heard the front door open. He hustled downstairs just in time to see Clarke struggling to maneuver Avery's very large stroller into the house.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "You're home early. I thought you were going out with the guys."

"No, I'd rather be with you," he said, helping her with the stroller. "Both of you."

"Aww, so sweet," she said, shutting the door. She kicked off her shoes while he lifted Avery out of her stroller, then gave him a curious look and asked, "You okay? You look so tired."

"I am," he said, holding his baby girl up against his shoulder. "I didn't sleep much last night."

She bit her bottom lip, nodding slowly. "Last night," she echoed. "Can we talk about last night?"

He frowned and sat down on the couch. "What do you mean?" He'd purposefully kept the details of last night hidden from her, so that she wouldn't worry the same way he was.

"Well, we . . ." She trailed off, wringing her hands together, then mumbled, "Never mind."

"No, what?" Avery started to make a few noises, but he whispered, "Shh," because he needed to know what was on her mom's mind.

"It's just . . ." Once again, she was unable to complete her sentence. She came and sat down beside him, looking down at her lap as if she were . . . ashamed or embarrassed. She only looked up at him to ask, "Did I do something wrong?"

"What?" He had no idea what she was even talking about. "Of course not."

"But you didn't . . ." Her voice got really quiet when she finally started to elaborate. "I mean, it seemed like it was really good for me and not so good for you."

His confusion started to clear up when she said that, because he knew now what she was talking about. The sex. The sex that they'd been so excited to have and that would have been completely normal if there hadn't been an unexpected visitor at their door beforehand. "No, it was great," he assured her. And it wasn't like he was lying. Anytime he got to be with Clarke in that way, he felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

"But you didn't . . . you didn't even get off on it, Bellamy," she protested. "God, I sound so stupid. I just can't remember us ever having sex and you not cumming. That's all."

Yeah, it was true. He'd pulled out without actually getting all the way there, kissed her a little more, and then rolled over to try to go to sleep. "Well, you came," he pointed out. That was the most important thing.

"Yeah, I know. But you still didn't," she said. Her arms wrapped around her mid-section self-consciously, and she said, "Look, I know I'm probably still not looking my most desirable right now . . ."

"No, Clarke, don't . . . please don't think that." God-dammit, he felt horrible for adding to her insecurities like that. He'd just had too much on his mind last night. "You're so beautiful, okay? I love you so much."

"Then what happened?" she asked. "Last night wasn't normal, and I tried to brush it off like it was no big deal, but it's been on my mind all day."

Shit, he didn't want to have to tell her. He didn't want what Finn had said weighing on her mind as heavily as it was weighing on his. "I was just feeling stressed," he said, trying to be vague.

"About what?"

About your ex, he thought bitterly. About Avery's biological father.

"Bellamy, just talk to me," she said, scooting closer, putting her hand on his leg. "You weren't the same after Miller came by. What happened?"

He winced, wishing he hadn't lied to her. That was shady, not the kind of thing a good soon-to-be husband did.

His silence must have said it all, because the realization set in for her, and she said, "It wasn't Miller, was it?"

It would have been nice if it had been. Miller or Murphy, or hell, even one of his annoying exes like Bree. But of course it'd had to be the one person he dreaded seeing the most. "No," he admitted, assuming she could figure it out for herself from there.

She must have already known, because very quickly, she guessed, "Finn?"

He nodded solemnly.

"God," she groaned. "Why was he here?"

"To congratulate us." He snorted, shaking his head angrily.

"What did he say?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's nothing," he muttered. But there was a bulging envelope on the bed upstairs just in case it was something, an envelope full of all the information he'd printed out today. He had some serious reading to do. "He was talking about Avery, about how I wanna adopt Avery," he revealed to her. "Surprise, surprise, he doesn't like it. Or he doesn't like that we didn't include him in the decision or something. To be honest, I've been tryin' not to think about it." He looked down at the little girl in his arms, wishing she could just be his since she already felt like his. Why couldn't it be that simple?

"And how's that going for you?" she asked him.

"Not so good," he admitted. "That's why I wasn't completely . . . with you last night. I couldn't get it off my mind." Last night had been a first for him, too. The only other times he hadn't cum during sex had been when he wasn't really all that into it with the girl. Never because of anxiety.

"Why'd you lie to me, though?" she asked him, sounding a bit hurt. "You could've told me Finn was here. We could've talked to him together."

"You really think that would've done any good?"

"I don't know. But we're a team, Bellamy," she reminded him. "We're in this together."

Together, he thought, glancing down at the ring on her left hand, the one that signified just how together they'd promised to be. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry I lied. I just didn't want you to worry."

"But you're worried," she said, looking at him sadly.

"Yeah." He was. There was no point in trying to hide it. He was worried as hell that something was going to go wrong, that this whole plan to adopt Avery was going to hit a major snag in the form of a guy who'd never wanted her to be born in the first place.

Clarke tucked her legs up underneath herself and turned to face him, moving in close enough to rest her hands and head on his shoulder. "You know what I think?" she said. "I think it's all gonna be okay. Finn didn't wanna be a dad nine months ago; he doesn't wanna be one now. He just . . . wants attention."

He wasn't sure whether she truly believed that or was just trying to be optimistic for his sake. He appreciated it, but it wasn't enough to make him stop worrying. "We can't just put our heads in the sand and act like he's not a problem, Clarke," he said.

"But he's not," she insisted. "He didn't say he was gonna fight for custody, did he?"

"No." At least he hadn't said that. But the most dangerously paranoid part of him felt like there had been a lot left unsaid, a lot that Finn still, at some point, might decide to say.

"So I don't think we have anything to worry about," Clarke reiterated. "He knows you're her father. He's just jealous."

Bellamy sighed, wishing he could be jealous and be away from them at the same time. Just completely out of their lives. They didn't need him or want him around. Things were good when it was just the three of them, because that was the way it was meant to be. "I just wish he wasn't even in the picture," he said, letting himself be honest with her now in a way he hadn't last night. He still didn't feel great about any of this, but at the very least, opening up to her and not keeping it a secret did manage to make him feel better.

...

Clarke stayed awake after Bellamy fell asleep that night. Because he fell asleep with Avery on his chest, and Clarke felt like the image was just too perfect not to capture on paper. So she turned the bedside lamp on dim, took out her sketchbook, and began drawing, trying to get every little detail just right, trying to make her drawing look as precious as the real life sight was.

Avery was so small that one of Bellamy's hands covered her whole back. He looked like a gentle giant holding her. He'd been holding her almost all night, ever since he'd gotten home. And she knew why. She knew that everything she'd said to try to put his mind at ease hadn't been completely successful. He was still worried, and he would continue to be worried until it was all official, until Avery was legally his daughter. But in every other way, the ways that mattered the most, she already was. Right now, she was lying asleep on the chest of someone who loved her more than anything in the world, rising up with every breath he inhaled, coming back down with every exhale. She looked so sweet and so content, and why wouldn't she? She was with her dad.

When Clarke finished her sketch, she scrawled a quick title at the top: Fatherhood. That was the picture right there, and Finn wasn't in it. Then she quietly tore it out of her sketchbook and set it down next to Bellamy so that he would see it whenever he woke up. Putting her book away and turning off the light, she lay down next to him and their daughter to fall asleep.

...

After a nice, low-key weekend, Bellamy had hoped to feel energized when he got back to work. But a rainy day meant they couldn't practice because they'd tear up the field, so the guys just came in to lift weights instead. He and Miller did some lifting while they were supervising, but that got over with soon enough, and then it was back to the office. He'd had no idea how much of coaching involved sitting behind a desk, reaching out to people to schedule things and order stuff. Plus, there was a lot of reading. When Miller came back from the printer with a thick packet of papers and plopped it down in front of him, he was almost afraid to ask what it was. Turned out he didn't have to, because Miller told him, "The state athletics association came out with its revamped player safety handbook. I made you a copy."

"Fantastic," he muttered, thumbing through it. Pages upon pages, small font . . . great.

"Looks like we've got some reading to do," Miller said.

"Yep." And reading was such a hell of an easy thing for him, wasn't it? Damn, getting through that packet would take him hours. Even just looking at the table of contents made his head hurt. The letters looked like they were moving around on the page, rearranging, and he couldn't keep them straight. Some appeared backwards to him at first, and he had to blink and really focus on the word to even read it correctly.

"You alright?" Miller asked, kicking his feet up atop his own desk.

"Yeah," Bellamy said, rubbing his forehead. "Just got a lot goin' on." Feeling stressed definitely added to the normal difficulties of dyslexia. And lately, his stress had been pretty damn consistent.

...

Try as he might to look like he belonged in his psychology class, Bellamy couldn't help but feel like he stuck out like a sore thumb. Sure, it was just an intro level course, so there were probably a lot of people taking it who didn't really care about it much; but he couldn't help but think that they were all probably better students than he was, than he'd ever been. Without football, UCF wouldn't have even accepted him. And that was always hanging in the back of his mind.

"Make no mistake about it," the professor, an old guy who seemingly refused to smile, said, "I run a busy class, and I expect you to keep up. If you fall behind, don't email me or come to my office. Check the syllabus and get caught up. It's that simple."

Bellamy reached down into his backpack, taking out a wrinkled piece of paper that he hoped was the syllabus, but it ended up just being a flyer advertising a party on Friday. "What syllabus?" he asked the girl next to him.

"The one he emailed us," she replied.

There'd been an email? When? Had he gotten that? He must have looked freaked out, because she opened up her binder, took hers out, and handed it to him. "Here," she said. "I accidentally printed two."

"Thanks." He looked it over, immediately wishing he hadn't. Weren't intro classes supposed to be easy? This looked like a lot of homework, way more than he had time for with all the practices and games they had.

"Your assignment is to read the first five chapters by our next class," the professor told them. "It shouldn't be too hard."

Easy for you to say, Bellamy thought, opening up his textbook to a random page. Page ninety-eight. And that was still just chapter four.

"You're free to go," the professor said, motioning towards the door. Some people stood up and bolted. But Bellamy just sat there, feeling freaked out, because there was no telling how long it would take him to read five chapters. It was gonna take even the people without a reading disability a long time. How the hell was he supposed to keep up with them?

"You look overwhelmed," the girl beside him remarked as she packed up her backpack.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I wasn't expecting this much homework." High school had been child's play compared to this.

"Well, at least it's just reading," she said.

"Yeah, but I suck at that." He closed his book and shoved it into his bag, sighing as he relented to a sleepless night. They had an afternoon practice that would probably extend into the early evening, and by the time he grabbed some dinner, it'd be at least 8:00 before he had time to start on any homework at all. And that was assuming he managed to find the motivation. That'd always been hard for him.

"Just skim it then," the girl suggested, "take notes on the important parts."

"I suck at that, too," he informed her.

"Really?"

"Yeah. My handwriting's crap. I can't read what I write half the time. And I can't skim very well, 'cause . . ." He wasn't about to tell a total stranger about his problem, so instead he just muttered, "I'm just not very good at it."

She stood up, swinging her backpack over her shoulders, and suggested, "Well, find a quiet space then. Get rid of all the distractions and just focus."

"I'll try." Luckily, since his roommate never talked to him, he didn't have to worry about any distractions there. "Thanks again for the syllabus," he told her as he headed out. Maybe it'd be worth it to try to sit by her again next time. She definitely seemed to have a better handle on the whole academic thing than he did.

As he was walking down the hallway, he heard a "Hey!" come from behind him. When he turned around, it was that same girl. She came towards him, light brown curls bouncing, a knowing smile on her face. "You're a freshman, right?" she guessed.

"Is it that obvious?" He hated being on the bottom of the totem pole again.

"Kind of," she said. "Plus, I think I heard about you. Football phenom, am I right?"

Phenom? He was good, no doubt, but he didn't want to brag. "Well, I'm the backup quarterback," he said. It wasn't like he was going to be a game-changer just yet.

"Yeah, I saw you on the news," she said. "You know, they have special services at the tutoring center just for student athletes."

That piqued his interest. "They do?"

"Yeah. I volunteer there."

He thought back to all his tutoring sessions with Monty Green. As torturous as they'd been some days and as often as he hadn't actually wanted to sit through them, they'd been beneficial. Without Monty, he probably wouldn't have passed half his classes.

"My name's Gina, by the way," she said, extending her hand.

He shook it and introduced himself to her. "Bellamy."

"Nice to meet you," she said, letting her hand linger in his. When she pulled it away, she stuffed both hands in her back pockets, causing her chest to stand out a little more. Some girls stood like that when they were trying to flirt, but Gina was all business when she asked, "So do you think you might want some help sometime? I'm more than willing."

"Well, I had a tutor in high school, so . . . maybe," he said. The semester had just started. It was too early to tell whether or not he was going to need the help just yet. "But I'm trying to work a lot harder now than I did back then. So I think I can try to do it on my own."

"Sure," she said. "Just remember, there's nothing wrong with asking for help."

"Says someone who's probably never had to ask for help before," he said, sensing that she was one of those Raven Reyes types who just breezed through school.

"Not true," she said. "I suck at speech, but I had to take a communications class my freshman year. That was like hell for me, but my roommate helped me through it."

"Oh, I'm actually good at speeches," he said. "Speeches and football."

"I'm sure that's not all you're good at," she said, smiling.

Whoa, he thought. Was that a come-on? Was she into him? Were girls like her into freshmen? Or was it different than high school? Did his looks and his athleticism not actually matter as much here? Maybe he was just being full of himself.

"Anyway . . . stop by the tutoring center anytime you start feeling overwhelmed," she said. "I'd be happy to work with you."

He nodded and just smiled back at her, and she walked past him and continued on her way. Probably had another class to get to, which was probably for the best. It definitely felt like she'd been flirting with him at least a little bit, and normally he would have been okay with that. Used to it, even. Hell, he would have welcomed it. Gina seemed nice and everything, but he just wasn't in the mood to flirt back with her. Because she wasn't Clarke.

...

Bellamy knew there was no way he was going to get any reading done, so he was grateful when Clarke's familiar voice rang out. "Knock, knock," she said, tapping on the doorframe as she poked her head inside his office.

"Hey," he said, glad to see that she had Avery with her. "What're you doin' here?"

"Bringing you lunch," she said, setting a Wendy's sack down in front of him. She must've gone through the drive-through for that, because as far as he knew, they still weren't allowed to go in there after their little . . . escapade.

"You know me so well," he said, opening up the sack to take out the burger and fries. "I was gettin' hungry."

"Figured," she said. "Hey, Miller. Sorry I didn't bring you anything."

"That's alright," he said.

Clarke cleared a little bit of a space and set Avery's carrier down on his desk. "You left before I even woke up this morning," she said.

"Yeah, I wanted to get an early start on some stuff." He'd woken up without any alarms and shut all of them off so she could sleep a little longer.

"Did you see my drawing?" she asked.

"Yeah, I like it. It's in my desk," he said, pulling open the drawer. "See? I'm gonna frame it and put it up on the wall in here."

"Good," she said. "I'm glad you like it." She swiped a couple of his fries, popped them into her mouth, then glanced over at Miller, who was already several pages into the player safety manual. "Hey, Miller?" she said. "Do you think we could have a minute?"

"Uh, sure," he said, getting to his feet. "Sex or talking? I need to know if I should bring air freshener with me when I come back in."

Clarke rolled her eyes and said, "Just talking. Come on, like we're gonna do it with Avery here."

Yeah, that would have been kind of weird. But Bellamy would have been down for it if they'd decided to turn her carrier to face the other way. Hell, it wouldn't have been the first time they'd fucked in that school.

When Miller left, Clarke grabbed the chair from his desk and rolled it towards him. "Hey, so listen, I just wanted to let you know that I talked to Kane today," she told him. "About the Finn stuff."

"You did?"

"Yeah. Just 'cause he's a smart guy, and he's got some lawyer friends, so I figured he could offer some good advice."

Bellamy wasn't sure how he felt about other people in their family knowing what was going on, but if anyone knew anything, he was glad it was Kane. That guy just always seemed so calm and in control, so hopefully he'd know what to do. "What'd he say?" Bellamy asked, eager to find out if she'd gotten any good info.

"Well, he doesn't think we need to lawyer up just yet," she replied. "In fact, he thinks it's in our best interest not to lawyer up at all. If we can just handle everything with Finn ourselves, then we won't have anything to stress about."

He held his burger in his hand, suddenly not very hungry, because now his stomach was tightening up with the feeling of stress again. "But what if Finn gets a lawyer?" he pondered.

"Then we would, too," she said. "Kane knows someone, a family law guy. But we don't want it to come to that. And it probably won't, because, let's be honest, Finn can't afford a lawyer. And definitely not a good one. So for right now, we just have to suck it up and keep the lines of communication open with him. It sounds like that's all he really wants."

Or he wants Avery, he thought forlornly. That was still the worst fear plaguing him. Still, though, he was willing to follow her lead on this, so he said, "Okay," and tried to push his fears down inside.

"And in the meantime," she said, stealing a few more French fries, "you and I need to focus on planning our wedding."

"Yeah, there's a lot left to do." They had less than a week left now, and he still didn't even have a nice enough suit for the big day.

"There is," she agreed. "Like figuring out who's gonna marry us, for starters."

"That's a big one."

"And ordering the cake."

"Ooh, that's a big one to me." He supposed he could always ask his mom to make something, but he didn't want to hassle her.

"And do you realize we still have to pick out our rings?"

"Yeah." The more she listed off, the more behind he felt. "This feels like every assignment I ever did in high school. Just left until the last minute."

"Don't worry, I've got a to-do list," she assured him. "But we have to fill out our marriage license after you get off work, because otherwise we won't actually be married after our wedding."

"Can't have that," he said.

"Nope," she agreed. "I got us an appointment and everything up at city hall to get it done."

"You're on top of things," he said, both grateful and impressed.

She grinned, moving out of Miller's chair and into his. "I like being on top," she joked, crawling up onto his lap.

He set his food aside, his hands much more interested in grabbing at her hips instead. "See, this is why I'm marrying you," he said, eliciting a laugh as she brought her mouth down on top of his.

...

It ended up being a very good thing that they went and filled out the marriage license when they did, because in Maryland, there was a waiting period of two days until after it was issued to be able to actually tie the knot. Which was bullshit, but whatever. They'd timed it right with a couple days left to spare.

The actual form they filled out was pretty standard, didn't feel all that much different than something a doctor's office would ask a person to fill out. Just the regular information, nothing special. Except it felt special to Bellamy, so special that he just had to sit there and watch his fiancée write in every word. It would be one of the last times she wrote Clarke Griffin on anything, because she'd made it very clear that she wanted to take his last name.

The next day involved ring shopping, which also felt surreal. Bellamy had never been the type to wear rings of any kind, but this was one ring he couldn't wait to wear. Every single day. For the rest of his life. Just a simple silver band, but it was going to signify so much. Finding one big enough for his huge fingers was a bit of a hassle, of course, but he must not have been the only guy with that problem, because the jewelry store had a couple of good options for him to choose one. Clarke found one that matched perfectly with her engagement ring—it was a lot more sparkly than his plain, masculine band—but it was a bit too big for her small fingers. The store owner said they could get it rushed off for resizing and have it ready to go the day before their wedding. Clarke wasn't sure whether or not she wanted to combine it with her engagement ring or switch her engagement ring to the other hand after they got married, so for now, she opted to leave them separate.

Even though everything was pretty last minute, it was also fun as hell. They got to do a cake tasting at the local bakery, which Bellamy thoroughly enjoyed. Having such a close deadline actually made things easier, because they didn't have time to second guess any of their decisions. When they found something they wanted, they just went for it, happy to be able to cross one more thing off of their ever-dwindling to-do list.

One thing that wasn't so easy to cross off was a special project he had going with Roan, though, one that Clarke didn't know about. As nice as a beach wedding was going to be, he didn't want to just have Clarke walk down the aisle to a whole lot of empty sand. He wanted an actual wedding arch, and he wanted to make it himself. Sort of as a gift to his bride. Of course, his construction abilities were a little rusty—and perhaps had never been the greatest to begin with—so he knew he had to enlist Roan's assistance. Luckily, Roan had a shed in his backyard that they were pretty much able to use as a workshop, and he didn't mind helping. It took a couple of late afternoons to put it all together, but by the time it was done, it looked good, like something professionally made. Roan had shown him how to do a few new sanding and staining techniques to get brand new wood looking like driftwood, so the arch would fit the beachy theme.

The hardest part, it seemed, was figuring out who was actually going to marry them. Neither he nor Clarke had gone to church in years—actually, he'd never gone in his life—so they didn't have a pastor. Abby said she knew someone, a friend, but Clarke was reluctant to have any of her mom's friends initiate the ceremony, because she said all she could picture was Callie. Even if this person was nothing like Callie, she didn't want to chance it. It seemed like they might have to, though, until Murphy, of all people, suggested someone to Bellamy while they were out at Eligius having a drink two nights before the wedding.

At first, after he said the name, Bellamy wasn't sure he'd heard him right. "You're shittin' me."

"No, I'm dead serious," Murphy insisted. "Monty can do it. He got ordained online a couple years ago just for the hell of it. Let him marry you."

To be honest, Bellamy hadn't entirely ruled out the possibility of asking one of their friends to get ordained online, so if Monty had already done that . . . "Would he even know what he's doing, though?" he wondered.

Murphy shrugged. "He's Monty. He'll figure it out."

That was true. Monty was a smart guy, and he was well-spoken, too. If any of their friends were up to the task, it'd be him. "That actually might work," he said, wondering if Clarke would go for it. "'cause I had to cut him as a groomsman to let Jasper to do it. But if he's the one marrying us . . ."

"There you go. Problem solved," Murphy said. "So it's me, Miller, and Jasper as groomsmen, right?"

"Yeah." He could have chosen more, someone like Roan and maybe even Lincoln if he'd felt generous, but he'd wanted the same amount of groomsmen as Clarke had bridesmaids.

"And Miller's your best man?"

"Yep." It'd been a tough choice between him and Murphy, to be honest. "Sorry, I've known him longer."

"Nah, that's alright," Murphy said. "As long as you let me throw you a bachelor party tomorrow."

Bellamy's eyebrows shot upward, because with the time crunch they were under, he hadn't really given much thought to that. But at this point, everything was planned, ready to go. There wasn't anything he and Clarke had to do tomorrow night to make sure they were ready. Roan was bringing the arch in a big U-Haul the day of the ceremony, so . . . his Friday night was wide open.

When he got home that night, he ran both ideas by Clarke. She was all in on the idea of Monty being the one to marry them and called him up right away. He agreed to it, so that was simple enough. But Bellamy was hesitant to bring up the bachelor party to her, because he didn't want her to think he was going to go out and get hammered or anything. Not the night before his wedding. He waited until they were getting ready to crawl into bed and just casually slipped it into the conversation. It definitely caught her attention, though, because she stopped pulling the covers back and gave him a suspicious look. "A bachelor party, huh?"

"Yeah." It wasn't going to be the wildest night of his life or anything, but it was still tradition. "I hadn't even really thought about that until he brought it up."

"Uh-huh," she said skeptically.

"No, I swear. 'cause I'm not a bachelor, you see?" He moved in close to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "I'm already completely committed to you. My mind doesn't even go there."

"But you still wanna have a bachelor party," she said.

"Well, if it's okay with you." He felt like he was going to be a good husband, because here he was already asking for his future wife's approval.

"You don't need my permission," she said, putting her hands on his arms. "Have your party. Actually, I think the girls wanna throw me one, too."

"Oh, really?" A bachelorette party? He wasn't sure whether to picture them sitting around the living room playing games like they had for her baby shower or going out and having a crazy time.

"Yeah. Raven's getting pretty good at throwing together parties for me," she said.

"Hmm. Something tells me it won't be as tame as the gender reveal one, though."

She slid her hands up around his neck and said, "There might be a couple strippers. Apparently Harper knows some people who . . . went that route with their dancing."

He nodded slowly, trying to be cool with that. "Okay. Male strippers or female ones?"

"Hopefully both," she said, smirking. He must have looked a bit worried or jealous or something, because she quickly assured him, "Don't worry, I'm sure none of them even compare to you."

"Alright," he relented, knowing he had nothing to be jealous of. Besides, fair was fair. "And if Murphy drags me to a strip club, I'll just look. I won't touch," he promised. "'cause I only wanna touch you." He moved his hands down over the curve of her ass to give it a good squeeze. "And kiss you," he added, bending his head to press a hot kiss against the side of her neck. "And fuck you. I wanna fuck you, Clarke." He fell onto the bed with her, loving the way she laughed at him and immediately coiled her legs around his waist. She wanted to do it, right? He wasn't misreading the signs. And this time, he didn't feel so stressed out that he wouldn't be able to properly concentrate. No, this time, they were both gonna get off on it.