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“Bellamy, just pull over and ask for directions.”
Not to her surprise, he ignored her, driving past the gas station she was pointing at. Clarke rolled her eyes, huffing as she turned away from him and looked out of her window.
After several hours on the road, Clarke’s phone, which they had been using for directions, died. Of course, that wouldn’t have been a problem if Bellamy knew where his own phone was to use for directions. But after almost a half an hour of searching the entire car for it, he gave up. Thankfully they had decided to bring a map along with them, and were using that for about 15 minutes when it blew away with the wind. The fight they had then could be written about in history textbooks. It was loud and harsh words were said from both parties. He felt that if she had just kept a tighter grip on their map, they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. Of course, she wasn’t going to let him blame her for him having a ridiculous convertible with the top down, driving at 80 miles per hour while they were relying on their directions coming from a paper thin map. They had been driving in circles for about 2 hours, and every time she suggested stopping and asking for directions, they would get into an argument. After each argument, they were both left tense and wouldn’t talk to each other for a very long time, until Clarke tried to convince him again to ask for directions. Rinse and repeat for 2 hours.
She assumed he was changing his tactic. Maybe he thought that if he ignored her instead of arguing with her, she would put up less of a fight and not bother him so much. He was wrong. If he wanted her to stop talking, she would. But she was going to make damn sure that he was well aware of her.
She leaned over, turning the radio on and raising the volume of a generic pop song that she knew Bellamy hated. Soon enough, he growled and shut the radio off. She easily leaned over and turned it on again. His jaw clenched tightly as he turned it off again.
As she was about to turn it back on, her hand inches from the knob, Bellamy gritted out, “If you turn that on one more time, I’m leaving you on the side of the road.”
Again, Clarke rolled her eyes. “I dare you. Maybe then I’ll actually be able to make it to Florida.”
“I’m trying, princess,” he said tensely.
Clarke sighed. She had to give him that. For 2 hours he had been trying to figure something out on his own. Every few minutes Clarke could see the wheels in his head turning, considering what they could possibly do. She felt slightly guilty for being so hard on him, but only slightly.
“I know, Bellamy,” she said, massaging her temples with her hands. “I just wish you would stop being so stubborn and ask for directions.”
“We don’t need help. I can figure this out.”
“If we weren’t on a time limit here, I would be all up for letting you figure this out,” Clarke said. “But you know that we need to be in Tondc by tomorrow night. The wedding rehearsal dinner is taking place and the maid of honor and best man need to be there. Plus, Octavia would kill us if we missed it.”
Bellamy remained silent, not wanting to admit she was right but knowing it was true. He still didn’t want to ask for directions, but figured that if they ate something it would help settle them a little bit, make them less antsy. The car displayed that it was almost 6 PM, so it was a good time to go and eat dinner.
They were both quiet until Bellamy saw an exit that had a rest stop with food chains. As he pulled into the lane, heading towards the exit, Clarke hid her smile as she turned to look out the window. They pulled into a parking space, then got out and walked into the large building that advertised various fast food chains. Bellamy headed towards one that was all about health, but Clarke scrunched her nose, pretending to head towards the McDonalds. Instead, she turned right when she noticed Bellamy wasn’t paying attention, and quickly made her way to the information desk nearby.
“Hi,” she greeted, a wide smile on her face. “I was wondering if you could help me out. I lost my map and my phone died, so I’m not sure about the directions for where I’m trying to go.”
The woman behind the information desk smiled back at her. “Where are you trying to go?”
“Tondc, Florida,” Clarke said, then asked quickly, “Where are we exactly?”
“This is Mount Weather, South Carolina,” the woman answered, her eyes kind.
“South Carolina?” Clarke asked, biting her lip. She had thought they got farther than that, but it seemed those 2 hours driving around aimlessly had cut them back a lot.
“If you don’t mind me asking, m’am, where are you coming from?”
“Ark, Virginia,” Clarke responded. “I’m sorry, I thought that we’d at least be in Florida at this point.”
The woman raised an eyebrow at her. “We?”
“Yeah, we.”
At the deep voice, Clarke turned around, grimacing. Behind her stood Bellamy, who would’ve had his arms crossed if he wasn’t holding his food, and a bag from McDonalds, which was most likely Clarke’s. He did manage to glare at her though. She smiled up innocently at him, but his glare didn’t falter.
“Bellamy!” Clarke exclaimed, with mock happiness. “So this very kind woman was explaining to me where we are. She might be able to give us directions to get to Tondc.”
He was still glaring at her, but asked, “And where are we exactly?”
“Mount Weather, South Carolina,” the woman repeated again.
At hearing the words South Carolina, his eyebrows furrowed. Clarke could tell he had thought they were farther than that, too.
She turned to the woman and asked, “Is there a way you could help us get to Tondc?”
“You said it was in Florida, right?” the woman asked. After a nod from both Clarke and Bellamy, the woman typed away at the computer in front of her. “I pulled up directions from this location to Tondc, Florida. I can print it out for you if you’d like. You can use that to find your way.”
Clarke grinned happily. “That’d be great. Thank you so much.”
The woman smiled back kindly and turned to go grab the papers from the printer in another room. As soon as she walked away, Clarke turned to Bellamy, who stood silently behind her.
She looked up at him with her eyebrows quirked, a smug smile plastered on her face. “So who was right about asking for directions?”
And then Bellamy was back to glaring at her. “Shut it, princess.”
“Yes, Bellamy. I was right. Thank you for admitting that, it was very big of you.”
Before he could give her a sarcastic response, which Clarke was sure it would have been, the woman came back with a piece of paper in her hand. She handed it to Clarke, explaining that the drive there would be about 9 hours long.
“You may want to consider stopping at a motel at some point before your arrival,” the woman said. “In 9 hours it’s going to be 4 o’clock in the morning.”
Clarke thanked her again, handing her a 10 dollar bill for her troubles. Bellamy may have been irritated with Clarke, but he still had manners. He smiled gratefully at the woman, thanking her as well. They both turned and walked out of the building, heading to the car to eat.
They were both silent as they ate, each left to their own thoughts. When they were done, they threw the wrappers and bags out. Clarke looked at Bellamy, seeing in his posture that he was still upset with her. She rolled her eyes, silently wishing he would just get over it already. Men and their egos, honestly.
“So I say we drive all the way to Florida, and once we get there we get a motel room, sleep, then head out in the morning,” Clarke suggested, shrugging. “We should be in Tondc before the afternoon comes around.”
Although Bellamy wanted to protest the idea, he realized he wanted to do it just to do it, because it was actually a good idea. He sighed, brushing his hair back with his hand. “Fine, princess. Sounds like a plan.”
Clarke nodded her head, thinking. “I can charge my phone while we’re sleeping. You can get some rest from all this constant driving. And our backs will thank us for not sitting in the same position for a couple of hours.”
She hadn’t noticed that Bellamy’s gaze was on her for awhile, still deep in thought. Then she looked up, finally focusing, and stared right into his dark eyes. She raised an eyebrow at him in question, waiting expectantly for his answer to her unasked question.
He shook his head, the corners of his mouth tilting up slightly. “Nothing,” he said, then smirked at her. “Just don’t lose the directions this time.”
Clarke narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s almost 7 o’clock, asshole. There’s no need to have the convertible top down, so we should be perfectly fine.”
He chuckled, shrugging. “I just need to make sure. You wanted to get some directions so bad, it would suck if you lost them again.”
Her blue eyes went wide in frustration. “I didn’t lose them last time!”
And as she continued to berate him, yelling about how only assholes drove fancy ass convertibles on road trips, he settled in his car seat comfortably. Not because of the seat itself, which was starting to really mess up his back, but because he finally realized that some people are worth all the pain that came with it, if just for their company.