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“Bellamy, it’s just the truth. People would rather get chocolates for their significant other than flowers. Flowers die, but it is scientifically proven that eating chocolate releases like, serotonin or something.”
Clarke Griffin, part art major and part chocolate shop owner, was restocking her shelves as she did on a Tuesday morning at 6:30 in the morning. And as was part of her morning routine, Bellamy, the local florist, was sitting on her counter, absentmindedly sipping at a cup of coffee and arguing with her about whatever they were arguing about that morning. This morning, it was flowers v chocolate.
“Clarke, flowers are a classic. People have been giving other people flowers to represent love since the dawn of time, and I still think they are the most romantic thing you can give anyone.” Bellamy said, rolling his eyes at her.
“As you would, classics major. You’re the one thats only interested in things that happened at least a hundred years ago,” Clarke replied, grinning to herself.
“I can be interested in current things!”
“You have a flip phone Bellamy. You live in the past, with your delusions about flowers.”
“Then I bet you that I can sell more flowers in the two week lead up to Valentines than you can sell chocolates,” Bellamy said, puffing up his chest slightly. He had always had his pride, and these bets were a usual thing. To be fair, it was either have small funny bets on stupid things with his friends, or gamble away the rest of his money on the races like he did on the night Gina left him in college.
“Oh yeah? Well I’ll take your bet then. Winner gets to display their products in the front window of the other’s shop, hm,” Clarke said, her eyes lighting up slightly. She did like their bets, and this one seemed to be one that she would easily win.
“Deal,” Bellamy said, offering his hand out with a grin.
…
One week in, and Bellamy was taking this bet a lot more seriously than she was. She wasn’t making any extra effort to sell more profits; there were no adverts in the paper or sale signs in the window besides the usual Valentines Day shebang. But there was a lot more than she was expecting done by Bellamy. He was standing by the side of the road, running a small stall where people could park up by him, grab flowers for their S.O. And dash straight off again with a cute gift.
And that was a good idea, but if she did it now, that would be copying, and people would talk or would they talk or…
“Deep in though there? Or staring at Bellamy’s arms?”
Clarke would have jumped, but she was too used to Raven sneaking up on her. Raven was her shop assistant, had been since she opened the place, and was always teasing her about her relationship with Bellamy. In her head, there was some sort of sexual tension between the two of them, which is something that she couldn’t see. It wasn’t like she liked Bellamy, right?
“No Raven,” she said exasperatedly. “Just sizing up the competition.”
Raven chuckled. “Sizing up,” she said, wiggling her eyes. “Well don’t size up for too long, Clarkey. We have customers to serve.”
Clarke shook herself out of her stupor and walked back to the counter, trying to get what Raven said to her out of her mind. For some reason, it was starting to stick with her.
Every time she looked at Raven for the next hour or so, Raven would waggle her eyebrows and gesture to Bellamy, and after that Clarke would focus more intently on what she was doing and try to ignore the stirring in her gut.
During a lull in the amount of customers, Raven came up to her, leaving Lincoln to deal with the stragglers that wandered in. “Are you serious about this bet with Bellamy, because I haven’t really seen you doing anything about it.”
“Um, yeah, yeah I’m serious about it,” she said, feeling a bit flustered.
“No Clarke. What you are doing is waiting to see what Bellamy is going to do, because you luuuurrrrvveee him.”
“Go serve the customers Raven,” she said with a flick of her hand, clearly dismissing her.
“Okay then,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Clarke didn’t even laugh at her antics, instead turning her attention to another customer to try to get her mind off of what Raven had said to her.
On the other side of the street, Bellamy was just as distracted. He had noticed Clarke staring at him from her shop window, and whether it was conscious or not, the butterflies in his stomach had returned and were bugging him relentlessly.
And as much as he denied it, to Murphy or Miller or to Octavia or to anyone that asked, he knew that he did like Clarke Griffin and that he did want to date her.
But she didn’t want to date him.
He was there when she swore off dating for the foreseeable future, when her and Finn ended on a messy note and Lexa and her broke it off on amicable terms. He had been there to pick up the pieces time and time again, and now he was semi-confident that she only saw him as a friend.
But there was that little piece of him that still thought he might have a chance. There was always going to be that little piece of him that would always love Clarke, whether it was romantically or it was just as friends.
Now, after realising that this shop out the front was a good idea to both win this bet and spy on Clarke a little more, he was out here conversing to people from their cars, selling them arrangements and bouquets of flowers and trying to take his mind off Clarke.
He had had a couple sneak peeks at her books, just as he knew that she had had some sneak peeks at his. Considering Octavia and Lincoln were ‘discreetly’ screwing, he had been using her to see what was happening at Clarke’s. She was recording steady purchases, the same as usual, which meant that she really wasn’t doing anything about the bet.
For him, that meant one of two things. He could either ignore the fact that he knew her sales record, and continue trying to win the bet or he could throw it. Throwing it would make Clarke happy, because winning always made her happy, but that would negatively affect his sales. Or he could go all out, which meant positively affecting his sales, making Clarke unhappy but giving him more bragging rights.
As he glanced up, he saw the sale sign go up in Clarke’s window, and he knew then that she was beginning to take it seriously. Maybe it was time for him to take it seriously too.
…
Usually on Valentines Day, as it had been for the past two years, Bellamy and Clarke would have a quiet night in at Bellamy’s, watching horror films and eating popcorn, with Bellamy pretending that he wasn’t scared and Clarke pretending that she was.
But when there was no sign of Clarke, he had walked over to her shop to investigate.
Instead of Clarke though, he was greeted by a note that was pinned to the CLOSED sign on the door.
Bell,
You win. Counted the numbers, and your’s (you’re not going to mind anyway).
Looks like flowers are better.
Don’t come and gloat or I’ll cut you up.
Clarke
Suddenly Bellamy’s stomach filled with nerves. He could hear it in the letter how Clarke was feeling, about how kind of melancholy she was feeling. Valentines Day always tended to do it to her, but usually Bellamy was there to cheer her up.
There were idea’s floating around in his head now, about what he could do moving forward. It was just about implementing those ideas, and working up the courage to do it.
If he pulled it off, he would count it as the bragging rights for winning the bet. If he didn’t, well, bye bye his entire life.
…
As she flipped the open sign to closed, she stared out the window towards Bellamy’s shop. She could see someone moving around in there, but whether it was Bellamy or O, she couldn’t tell. For some reason, as she stared at the shop, she felt butterflies spring up in her stomach. When the figure in the shop seemed to come towards her, Clarke quickly turned away, feeling a blush spring to her face.
Bellamy hadn’t been over for two days, and she was starting to get worried. Maybe he was angry that she ditched him on Valentines Day, or maybe he was just busy. Whatever it was, it was starting to unnerve her.
Performing the routine task of counting the money out of the till was calming her down from her odd nervousness from before. She couldn’t tell why she was nervous, but it had unsettled her. She didn’t usually get nervous over nothing.
But not even a minute after she sat down, the bell above the main door rang, and she glanced up, expecting to see Raven. Instead, she saw Bellamy, a faint flush on his cheeks as he walked through the door, a bouquet of flowers gripped tightly in his hands.
She felt the anger grip to the sides of her stomach as it began to twist around in knots. Just because he was the winner didn’t mean he had to rock up here and rub it in her face.
“Are you here to gloat or something, because I can tell you that it isn’t funny,” she said without looking up from where she was counting, letting the bitterness seep into her voice. But for some odd reason, instead of Bellamy grinning and beginning his long gloating speech, the blush on his face began to spread faster.
“Uh…,” he began, rubbing his hands against his jeans. “I’m not here to gloat.”
That got her attention. She looked up at him and began to really take him in, looking at all the signs of nervousness that he was displaying.
“Then what are you here for?”
Bellamy stared down at the floor. “I’m here to maybe ask you on a date thing maybe?”
Her entire face blanched, but instead of her stomach sinking, she felt it rise up in some sort of joy, twisting itself around until it settled comfortably in her throat.
“Oh. Okay.” She said softly, not really aware of what she was saying. Bellamy’s face broke out into a grin, his eyes lighting up.
“You wanna go get coffee or ice-cream or something?” he said, letting the flowers hang limply at his side. When they brushed the side of his jeans, he suddenly remembered about them again. “Or maybe put these in some water?”
She grinned wolfishly at him. “I think I would have preferred chocolate.”
“Yeah well, its proven that people like flowers more, so…” He returned her wolfish grin, and laid the flowers on the table, offering out his hand instead.
“Come on then, Clarke. I’ll even buy you a chocolate brownie!”