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Clarke lowers her arms slowly, still cheering, as the band bows one final time before they make their way off stage. Raven bumps their shoulders together, looking over briefly with a wide grin on her face. They stay at the front of the crowd for a while longer, knowing that pushing through now would just cause general unhappiness, and they’re far too elated to start in on any unpleasantries.
It takes time for enough of the – mostly drunk – crowd to realize that they’re not going to get another encore, but eventually the mob breaks up into little groups that make their way back off the lawn and out to the parking lots.
Clarke grabs Raven’s arm. “LET’S-” Raven winces and Clarke stops, realizing she no longer has to scream. “Let’s go up the hill,” she suggests. “The lot’s gonna be crazy for the next half hour, and we might as well chill out.”
So they walk the hundred or so yards back and away from the stage to where the hill starts to slope up, and then a little up until they have a clear view of the city way in the distance. There are still too many floodlights on all around to really appreciate the night sky, but it’s a lot quieter than it was down by the stage.
“This was a great idea, wasn’t it,” Raven says, stating more than asking. Clarke doesn’t need to look at her friend to know she’s got a shit-eating grin on her face again.
“Yes, I concede, you have great ideas,” Clarke admits. “Sometimes, anyway.”
Raven flops back on the grass with a low thud. “Name one that wasn’t great, Griffin.”
“That time you insisted we’d get matching blue streaks in seventh grade,” Clarke fires back.
Raven cackles. “Please, that was hilarious.”
“You used too much and it took ages to wash out!” Clarke protests. “I had to walk around with half a head of blue hair for like two months!”
“Your point?”
“Oh, forget it.”
Clarke lies down as well, lightly elbowing Raven on the way. Her friend lets out an exaggerated oof, but doesn’t complain otherwise. They lie there until the noise all around dies down and the last bits of the partying crowd have left. Raven is the first to stir, pushing herself to her feet and then helping Clarke up. Raven lights the way with her phone, and Clarke throws an arm around her friend’s shoulders.
A few steps down the hill, the swaying cone of light hits something in the grass that flashes back up at them. “Wait,” Clarke says, stretching her far arm out in front of them. “Point it back that way.” Raven complies, and there it is again. A wallet is sitting in the grass, flipped open to a plastic-covered id slot showing a driver’s license. As Clarke bends to pick it up, Raven lets out a hissing noise.
“Shit, they just turned off the lights at the gate. We gotta hurry, Clarke!”
“Fuck!” Absently clutching the wallet, she follows Raven, who’s taking off jogging toward the gate. The guard yells something at them as they slip through where he’s trying to lock up, but then they’re out and running toward the almost empty parking lot. A couple minutes later they’re sitting in Raven’s car, pulling out of the lot and driving home, cackling at how they almost got locked in.
The next morning, Raven announces her presence by dropping loudly onto the couch.
“Coffee’s in the kitchen,” Clarke tells her absently, clicking through Google results.
Raven groans, but gets up nonetheless. She’s back a minute later, leaning over Clarke’s shoulder to look at what her roommate is doing on the computer this early on a Sunday.
“Remember the wallet I found last night?” Clarke asks, preempting Raven’s question.
“Wallet? What wallet?”
“Like, right before we almost got locked in.” She picks up the thing – black nylon, with a big piece of shiny black duct tape covering what’s probably a rip in the back. “This.”
“What about it?”
“Well, I wanted to return it. The guy it belongs to – at least the one whose license is in here – is local, if his address is right.”
Raven takes the wallet from Clarke, flipping it open. “Bellamy Blake, huh? Lives on the other side of town, if that’s right.”
“Yup. And apparently he’s, like, living in the stone age. No Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, anything. All I can find is some eight year old Google result that has the names of kids in his high school graduation class.”
Raven takes a long drink of her coffee. “You know you can just, like, turn this thing in at a post office and they’ll get it back to him, right?”
Clarke closes the tab, going back to facebook. “Yeah, but… what if he’s moved but hasn’t updated his address?”
“Then that’s not your problem, Clarke. You can’t be expected to hire, like, a private investigator or something to return a lost wallet.”
“Well, it’s not like I have much to do today anyway…” Clarke replies.
“And…” Raven pokes.
“And… well, he’s kinda cute, don’t you think?”
Raven gives the picture on the license another once-over, and then another. “Kinda cute, you say?” She snorts, tossing the wallet back onto the table. “That’s honestly the most attractive driver’s license picture I’ve seen in my entire life, Clarke.” She takes another sip of coffee, sitting down across from Clarke at their dining table. “So what, you think that if you return his lost wallet to him, he’s going to be so grateful that he’ll fall in love with you?”
Clarke gives her roommate the stink eye. “I’d settle for getting his number… for starters. I mean, who knows, maybe…”
“You’re hopeless,” Raven comments. She sighs deeply, then adds, “So, no Facebook, no nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you tried family members?”
“Like…?”
“Like check for anyone else with the last name Blake in town.”
Clarke updates her Facebook search, then scoots her chair a little closer to the corner and turns her laptop, letting Raven see. They go through fourteen people before Raven smacks her mug down with an exclamation. Clarke winces at the noise even as Raven bats her fingers away from the touchpad to bring up a picture from the page of an Octavia Blake, then zooming in on the guy standing beside the girl in the center of the picture. There’s no tag on the picture, and the picture is a little too low quality to be absolutely sure, but the curly black hair, tan skin, and the stupidly attractive smile all more or less match the guy on the driver’s license.
“I think that’s him,” Raven says, needlessly.
Clarke agrees, her stomach doing a funny little flip-flop thing. She pushes it down, focuses on the moment. “Let’s see if he’s in any more pictures.”
They find a handful more, and eventually they’re pretty sure they’ve found him. Well, found someone who knows him. Clarke decides to send a message to this Octavia girl. Her hands are starting to get a little clammy as she types, which is ridiculous. She just spent hours trying to locate him, without any trace of getting nervous.
Hey, do you know a Bellamy Blake?
Raven’s gone to make fresh coffee, so while she waits for a response, Clarke continues looking through Octavia’s profile. Her birthday information is public, placing her at a year younger than Clarke – and about six years Bellamy’s junior, going by his driver’s license. Octavia and she have no mutual friends, and from the few pictures she’s looked at so far that feature other people, there’s nobody she recognizes.
The tab flashes, indicating a new message.
Ya thats my brother
Who is this?
Clarke sighs in relief, all while her heart decides that now is the time to act like she’s just been sprinting.
My name’s Clarke, I found your brother’s wallet after a concert last night.
Raven sits back down beside her, silently sliding a steaming mug over to Clarke. A moment later, they see Octavia type something.
Halestorm?
Yes
Hang on
They sip their coffee together in silence, waiting for Octavia to come back.
This is Bellamy appears on the screen. Clarke’s stomach does the flip-flop again, only this time it feels almost like it’s trying to launch something up her throat. Shit just got real. Octavia says you found my wallet?
Yeah, I have it sitting here, Clarke replies. It’s funny, she thinks, how calmly her fingers type out her response while she’s almost bursting with nervous energy.
That’s great. Should I come by your place to pick it up, or do you want to meet somewhere public?
**_ _**“Either he’s really nice, or he’s scared that you’re a serial killer,” Raven comments. When Clarke directs a frown at her, she elaborates, “I mean, he’s probably being nice. For one, he’s offering to come by so you don’t have to go out of your way for him, but for another, he knows that you might not be comfortable giving out your address to a stranger – even a hot one.”
“You’re reading way too much into this,” Clarke retorts, reaching for the keys, even though she silently agrees that Raven might have a point. “Waaaaay too much.”
Public should work. Do you know Lincoln’s?
Are you kidding me? Of course I know Lincoln’s. She’s not sure if that was a joke or if he actually feels slighted that she implied that he doesn’t know the place. Her neck heats up, but she decides to assume that it was a joke, because who would get upset about that?
**_I know it’s a little much to ask, but could we meet now? _**Okay, clearly not upset.
Of course. I can be there in, like, thirty minutes. She hopes she’s not coming off as too eager, but also not like she wants to keep him waiting too long, while giving herself enough time to get over there in a calm fashion.
**_Great, see you soon. _** No, she’s absolutely not imagining him smiling that stupidly attractive smile of his, or imagine his voice saying the words instead of typing. He’s probably got a really attractive voice. He has to.
“You know it takes, like, ten minutes to get to Lincoln’s, right?” Raven comments drily.
“You know that I’m still in my pajamas, right?” Clarke retorts. “Be right back.”
Clarke’s ready to leave fifteen minutes later, hair wrangled into a ponytail, light makeup on, and dressed in dark jeans and a casual T-shirt. Raven’s waiting for her by the door, wearing sweatpants, a hoodie, and dirty running shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m driving you,” Raven declares, jingling her keys in one hand, holding Bellamy’s wallet out to Clarke with the other. “Gotta make sure he’s not a serial killer.” She tilts her head. “You’re looking good, Clarke. Trying to impress anyone?”
“Shut up,” Clarke retorts, grabbing the wallet.
As Raven pulls into the parking lot at Lincoln’s, Clarke spots him first, leaning against a shiny blue Ford pickup truck. Raven parks a few spaces over, and they get out together. It occurs to Clarke only now that Bellamy actually has no idea who he’s meeting here, other than that she’s a girl. Her entire Facebook profile is private, so even if he’d wanted, he couldn’t have looked at any of her pictures. Even her name is “Clarke G”.
She puts on a smile and waves to him as Raven comes around the car. Her friend elbows her, not even trying to hide that she’s checking him out.
“Definitely hot,” Raven comments. “Looks like he works out a lot.”
Indeed, Bellamy is only wearing a T-shirt, and the sleeves are visibly straining to contain his biceps.
Clarke lightly kicks her ankle. Bellamy stops a few feet in front of them. Clarke’s heart is starting to beat a lot faster than it rightfully should, and her neck is heating up again.
“Are you Clarke?” he asks.
“Yep. And you’re Bellamy,” she replies, carefully keeping a lid on her jumbled emotions. She opens the wallet and makes a show of comparing him to his license photo. “Yeah, definitely you.” She closes it back up and hands it over.
Bellamy takes it, his fingers brushing Clarke’s and she almost jumps at the unexpected contact. She barely manages to not yank her hand back reflexively – that would send all the wrong signals. He sighs heavily. “Thank you so much, Clarke. You did a lot more than you had to to get this back to me. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” she says. It sounds lame. You could show me your appreciation by giving me your number, she wants to say, but that would sound creepy.
They’re standing there in a somewhat awkward silence for only a few seconds before Raven clears her throat and reaches a hand out to Bellamy. “Hi. I’m Raven, Clarke’s roommate.”
Bellamy shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you, Raven.” He smiles, but his eyes come back to Clarke immediately. He takes a deep breath, seemingly gathering himself. “Can I buy you breakfast? Like, as a thank you for doing this for me, I mean.” His gaze flicks over to Raven. “Both of you,” he clarifies.
Clarke blinks. Somehow, she didn’t expect him to actually want to show his appreciation. Raven, as usual, is a little faster on the uptake. “Thanks, but I have this thing I promised to help my friend with, so I actually can’t,” she says, all while subtly maneuvering her hand to the small of Clarke’s back, applying just a little pressure. “But Clarke here has nothing planned at all, and all she’s had for breakfast so far is a couple cups of coffee.”
Clarke shoots her a look, but then Bellamy is already talking again.
“Okay, great! Is that okay with you, Clarke?”
“Yeah,” she manages, still a little confused, a lot nervous, and quite a bit excited. Raven pokes her back, and she snaps out of it, a smile coming to her face. “Yeah, I’d love to.”