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“Here’s an idea,” Lexa says, with a half smile and a tug of her hair. “You stop pretending you’re intimidating, and meet me by the pool at 10pm.”
Clarke takes this the wrong way, probably immediately, because this is regionals, damn it, and cheer is life or death. “Are you challenging me to a fight?”
She’s almost positive she can’t take Lexa on by herself. There is definitely a good chance she can get Octavia to hide in the bushes, or something. Maybe Raven?
“Nah,” Lexa says. “I’m asking if you want to come get high with me.”
It’s absurd. It’s the most absurd thing Clarke has heard all day, and that’s including Octavia saying that she could probably half-ass a basket toss. (She couldn’t.) Without thinking too hard about it, Clarke grabs Lexa by the arm (and holy crap, girl’s got biceps for days) and drags her into the girls bathroom.
They had, of course, both just been trying to go to the bathroom when this mess began. And then Clarke had walked into Lexa or Lexa had walked into Clarke or something, and Lexa had said “I hope you’re not this clumsy on the floor, Griffin,” and that had just been unacceptable.
Which is how they ended up exchanging insults in front of the girl’s bathroom without actually going into said bathroom for exactly seven minutes. And Clarke actually really has to pee, but to admit that would be to show weakness.
“Are you literally crazy?” Clarke asks, as the door slams behind them. “Are you trying to get my squad kicked out of regionals?”
Lexa wrinkles her nose. “I’m making a peace offering,” Lexa says. “Is that not a thing that happens at your school?”
“You are proposing something totally illegal that will get us both barred from regionals probably forever,” Clarke says. “Which is totally to be expected, given that your school is trash and your uniforms are also trash and your routine is terrible and-”
Lexa throws up her hands in mock surrender. “Show up or don’t,” Lexa says.
“I won’t,” Clarke says.
“Okay,” Lexa says.
They stand there in silence for a moment.
“Can you leave?” Lexa asks. “I have to pee.”
Ha! Weakness. “I was here first,” Clarke says. “Go find a different bathroom.”
Lexa’s expression twists into half-amused, half-pitying. “I’m just gonna go.” She turns away from Clarke. Reaches for the waistband of her skirt, pulls it down before Clarke can fully register that Lexa’s just called her bluff.
“Oh my God!” Clarke says, rushing for the door. “What is wrong with you?”
“Peeing!” Lexa retorts, and that’s enough for Clarke to flee. Not in terror, though. Because the weird feeling she’s getting is definitely because Lexa has a really pale butt, and it’s not especially cute or squeezable or anything and just-
Lexa is the worst.
--
“I mean, she could get me banned from the competition,” Clarke says. “All of us.”
“Yeah,” Octavia says. “Great point. I mean, as you know, we’re all a bunch of sticklers for following the rules.”
Clarke shoots her a glare. “You don’t even like Lexa.”
“No,” Octavia says. She curls her lips into a devious smile. “But Lexa likes yoooooou!”
“Called it last month, really,” Raven says. She shouldn’t even give her input, because one, she’s wrong, and two, she’s not even paying attention. She’s reading the Science Journal. “What kind of captain comes to watch the other school perform?”
“One that’s extremely competitive!” Clarke says.
“One that’s into the other captain!” Octavia says. “I thought that was weird!”
“It wasn’t weird!” Clarke says. “It was her assessing the enemy.”
“I bet this is a dream come true for her,” Octavia says. She falls back onto the bed. Pulls Raven next to her, even as Raven protests. “Alone at a hotel pool with the love of her life, Clarke Griffin.”
`“Oh, Lexa,” Raven says, putting her hand on Octavia’s arm. “Take me now!”
“Anything for you, my little blonde minx,” Octavia replies.
Clarke throws the neglected Science Journal at them as they dissolve into a fit of giggles.
“You guys are supposed to be cool,” Clarke says.
Raven sits up. Smooths her hair. “We are cool,” Raven says. “You make us uncool. It’s your gift.”
“I bet Lexa used to be cool,” Octavia says. She gives a dramatic sigh. “Then she fell in love with the world’s uncoolest cheer captain.”
“I’m very cool!” Clarke protests. “Like, the coolest!”
A pause. “Can I get you to say that to Bellamy on the phone?” Octavia says. “I want to see if he would literally suffocate from laughing so hard.”
“Wait!” Clarke protests, crossing her arms. “What about Bellamy?”
“He’s also fairly uncool?” Raven says.
“No,” Clarke says. “I mean, yes. But like, you honestly want me to see someone else? Even though Bell and I have-”
“History?” Octavia says, wrinkling her nose. “You guys never agreed to be girlfriend-boyfriend.”
“It will hurt his feelings,” Clarke says.
“I really don’t think it will,” Octavia says. “Bellamy does this weird thing where he wants people to be happy. Crazy, right?”
“Are you being sarcastic with me?” Clarke asks.
“No, mom,” Octavia says. “Never.”
“Okay,” Raven says. “Bottom line. Are you going?”
“No!” Clarke says.
Stares.
“Yes,” Clarke sighs. “Maybe. I dunno. It’s a bad idea.”
“It would make things a lot less weird between the teams if you guys just got it on already,” Raven says. “Just saying.”
“It’s not weird,” Clarke says. “It’s just competitive.”
“It’s super weird and full of sexual tension,” Octavia says. “Just make out already.”
“This discussion was useless,” Clarke declares. “You’re terrible friends.”
“Whatever, Captain,” Raven says. “I’m going down to get cheese fries.”
“Regionals diet!” Clarke says, as Raven brushes past her.
“You know no one’s following that, right?” Raven says.
“I am,” Clarke says.
A nod. “That explains a lot, actually,” Raven says.
Octavia purses her lips. “It really does.”
--
Clarke goes.
She goes in the only bathing suit she thought to bring, her light blue one piece. She thought it had been the most practical option for working out in the pool. Except she hadn’t worked out in the pool even once, and now all she had to see Lexa in is her terribly 90s bathing suit.
She throws a dress over it and hopes for the best.
She’s not really sure what she’s thinking “the best” will be. Lexa gets caught smoking weed? Lexa has an even lamer bathing suit?
Lexa and Clarke make out? If she’s going, she must want that, right?
Well, she’s certainly been thinking about it enough. Who’s going to initiate? What do Lexa’s lips feel like? Is her skin soft? Is her hair? These are the real questions. Questions Clarke’s had all along, really. Very embarrassing, complicated questions.
No one’s even at the pool this late, not even any other poorly-intentioned cheerleaders. Just Clarke and the heated pool.
This feels like a set up. But really, Lexa’s the one who made the offer. So what’s she going to do? Get Anya to push Clarke into the pool?
Clarke cranes her neck. Glances over her shoulder. It could happen.
“Waiting for someone?”
Clarke almost falls off the pool chair. She manages not to, and is very proud. She sweeps her hair out of her face. “I mean,” Clarke says. Takes a deep breath. Squares her shoulders. “I’m accepting your peace offering.”
Lexa smiles at her, kinder than Clarke’s ever seen her. It makes her stomach twist. In a totally normal way. “Do you want to sit?” Clarke asks, gesturing to the chair next to hers.
Lexa sits down next to Clarke, taking up the rest of the space on the pool chair. “Thanks.”
“So, um,” Clarke says, ignoring the sensation of Lexa’s arm pressed against her own. “Are we going to go swimming, or something?”
Lexa snickers, which makes Clarke feel inexperienced and stupid all at once. “I don’t have a bathing suit,” Lexa says. “Why, are you wearing yours?”
Clarke tugs on the edge of her dress. “Maybe.”
“You can go swimming, if you want,” Lexa says. She reaches into her blouse, pulls out a glass pipe shaped like an elephant. “I’m gonna light up.”
“It’s fine,” Clarke says. Stares at Lexa’s elephant for longer than she should.
“You good?” Lexa asks. Pulls a plastic bag out of her bra. A lighter.
“How did you fit all that stuff in your bra?” Clarke asks.
Another wicked grin. “I’m talented.”
“Clearly,” Clarke says.
Silence. Lexa picks up her lighter, again. Flickers it on and off. “Question, Clarke Griffin.”
Clarke raises her eyebrows. “Full name.”
“Do you want to kiss me?” Lexa says. “Before you get baked, I mean. Just because I-” Lighter on. Lighter off. “I don’t have sex when I’m high. I’m not gonna like, take advantage of you, or anything.”
Clarke swallows. Who put all this cotton in her mouth? “I didn’t think you would.”
“It’s just a thing to do,” Lexa says. “Icebreaker.”
Clarke finds herself smirking. “This is how you break the ice?”
Lexa bites her lower lip, for a moment. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s sharing. Modern equivalent of breaking bread.”
Clarke lets herself laugh at that. “That’s kind of stupid, you know that?”
Lexa smiles back. “It kind of is.”
A pause. Too much tension. Way too much.
Clarke kisses her. It’s the best time she can think of. Lexa leans into it. Brushes her nose against Clarke’s. Drops the lighter on the chair and runs her hands up Clarke’s back.
So. Answers to the questions. Lexa’s skin is very soft. Her lips are well-moisturized. She tastes like toothpaste. The cinnamon kind. Clarke likes it. (And likes that Lexa brushed her teeth before this meeting, same as Clarke did.)
Lexa has an insistent way of kissing. She flushes her chest against Clarke, smushes them together until they’re just a warm pile of limbs and lips and soft hair.
Clarke has to come up for air. Lexa doesn’t. She kisses Clarke’s jaw. The hollow of her throat.
And Clarke likes it a lot. She really does. But...it’s regionals. And this feels like it’s moving really fast.
“So,” Clarke says. She idly notes that she’s begun to play with Lexa’s hair. “Should we get baked?”
Lexa pulls back with a small laugh. Steadies herself on the chair. “Well if you ask like that,” she says. Clarke doesn’t miss the way Lexa’s gaze flickers to her lips. “Let’s hang out, Griffin. Let’s get baked.”
“I should warn you I have no idea what I’m doing,” Clarke says, firmly.
Lexa just shakes her head. “Of course not.”