Work Text:
"I hate you,” Clarke complained as soon as Raven picked up.
“Bullshit, you love me,” her best friend/roommate/hero said, laughing.
“Hate, hate, hate,” Clarke grumbled, army crawling through the living room, phone balanced precariously in the crook of her neck.
From this level, she could easily see that they desperately need to vacuum the house; there was a mighty army of dust bunnies that looked pretty much ready to take over. But she had much, much bigger problems than a potential dust bunny invasion.
“Babe, I’m awesome, and we both know I’m your favorite,” Raven said. “What’s going on?”
Clarke crept into her room and cautiously raised to a crouch. It was probably safe, being on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen — site of her ultimate humiliation — but one couldn’t be too careful. Hurriedly, she snapped the blinds closed and fell backward onto her bed with a groan.
“Clarke?”
Clarke closed her eyes. “‘Clarke, live a little! Pull that stick out of your ass! A little spontaneity in your life will do you good!’” she mimicked. “I hope you’re happy; now I can never leave the house again. You’re going to have to do all the grocery shopping from now on; I’m a shut-in.”
“Oh God, what did you do?” Raven sounded annoyingly amused rather than concerned.
“You told me to get you a pic of the handyman next door; it’s totally your fault.”
There was a beat of silence, then something approximating a girly squeal. Not that Raven Reyes would ever admit to making such a sound.
The house next door had been vacant for nearly a year, so it wasn’t a surprise that the couple who bought it needed to have a little work done before they moved in. What was a surprise, to Clarke at least, was the extremely fine, lean, tanned handyman they had hired to do the work.
It was totally wrong of her to watch him through the window over the kitchen sink, she knew that, but it’s not like she meant to do it. The first day, he’d been working on the back deck, and she’d found herself entranced, watching the muscles in his arms as he pounded in nail after nail. She’d been so focused on him that she’d burned her breakfast, but she still couldn’t stop herself from returning to spy out the window a few minutes later. After that, she couldn’t help but sneak peeks throughout the day, texting updates to her best friend.
That was the beginning of the end.
After a moment, said friend spoke again. “Okay, where’s the pic? I need to see this allegedly hot handyman I keep missing out on.”
“Well, I don’t have that,” Clarke said, tapping her screen a few times to text a photo over. “But here’s a lovely shot of our ceiling that I got as I tripped over my own feet when he saw me playing paparazzi!”
It was suspiciously quiet on the other end of the line.
“Raven, are you on mute? Are you laughing at me? You know what, friendship canceled, okay? I would move out, except I can never leave this house! I was perfectly happy just being boring, no-fun Clarke, and you just had to make me do this! I’m humiliated!”
“I never said you weren’t fun, you just … get tunnel vision, that’s all,” Raven said. “School’s important, yeah, but so is a social life. And you are so thirsty for that guy next door; do I need to read you your texts? There’s about 85 of them just speculating about what he could do with his hands. It’s awesome, even though I’m 50/50 on whether he’s real or a figment of your sex-starved imagination.”
“Sex-starved is a bit of an exaggeration.”
“A little groping when you made out with Niylah at Harper’s party a couple weeks ago doesn’t count.”
“Anyway,” Clarke said. “He’s very, very real. Unfortunately. Ugh, this is the universe punishing me for being a creepy pervert.”
“Well, now that he already knows you’re a creeper, you could just —“
“No.”
“But —“
“Raven.”
Her friend sighed. “Okay, fine, I’m just going to have to install secret cameras if you’re not getting the job done for me.”
“Will you focus for a second?”
“He really saw you trying to take his picture?”
She closed her eyes, picturing the moment that the guy slowly stripped off his T-shirt, revealing possibly the most lick-able abs she’d ever witnessed in person. He’d slowly stretched, completely unaware that he had a gross stalker watching him from next door, and jammed a purple baseball cap over his wild, dark curls before reaching for something in his tool belt. This was the moment, she thought, raising her phone and focusing it. He was looking down, he’d never know, and then … he looked straight up at her and fucking smirked.
He knew, for sure.
“He really saw,” she said.
Raven sighed. “All right. Text me the grocery list; I’ll do the shopping for the shut-in. I guess you’ll have to drop out of school now. At least you’re only taking that one class this summer.”
“I know you think you’re being funny, but I’m considering it.”
“Bright side, Octavia said they’re moving in in a couple of weeks, so you only have to stay inside for that long.”
“That’s true,” Clarke nodded. “After that, I’ll never see the guy again. Problem solved!”
“Oh my God, I hate you,” Clarke muttered into her wine glass.
“You know, I’m really going to start taking it personally if you keep saying that,” Raven whispered back, her own glass held in front of her face. “Bright side, I no longer think you’re losing your mind.”
Before Clarke could answer, the kitchen door opened and their neighbor Octavia came in carrying a big pan of lasagna.
“Wow, that smells amazing,” Clarke said, keeping her eyes only on the food and their hostess, studiously avoiding looking at the man sitting across from her.
Octavia’s brother, aka hot handyman, aka the unwitting subject of her brief foray into stalking.
She was never going to forgive Raven.
It had come as a huge shock, when Octavia and her lovely husband, Lincoln, had invited them to dinner, to be introduced to the other dinner guest: Octavia’s brother.
“Bellamy Blake,” he’d said with a smug grin, holding out his hand to shake. He held hers just a moment too long before she tugged it away. “I’ve been helping O fix the place up.”
Raven had frozen beside her before letting out a choked laugh and offering him her hand to shake. “I’m Raven. So you’re a handyman, huh?”
He’d looked from Clarke to Raven, still grinning like an idiot. “Part-time,” he said. “I’m a teacher, and I’m on break for the summer. I offered to help Octavia with the house.”
“A real blessing to the neighborhood,” Raven said, and Clarke elbowed her. “I mean, the house looks better already.”
“I do what I can,” he said modestly, before Octavia ushered them into the dining room.
Now, completely ignoring the fact that Clarke clearly wanted to ignore Bellamy’s existence entirely, her traitorous friend spoke to him. “Bellamy, you and Clarke have something in common,” Raven said. “She’s studying to be a teacher, too.”
“A photography teacher?” he asked, clearly amused at his own joke.
“Art,” Clarke answered shortly, rolling her eyes. If this continued much longer, she was going to have to crawl under the table, so she reached for a change of subject. “So, Octavia, you said you and Lincoln run a dog rescue? How does that work?”
As Octavia and Lincoln enthusiastically took up the subject of their work, she shot a warning glare at Raven and went back to ignoring Bellamy altogether.
That plan only worked for as long as she managed to avoid being alone with him; it went down in flames as soon as he cornered her in the kitchen after dinner.
“I get the feeling you don’t like me,” he said.
“I don’t know you,” she said, trying to edge past him.
“You can’t get to know me if you’re afraid to talk to me.”
That was definitely a challenge, and Clarke never backed down from a challenge.
Jamming her hands on her hips, she glared at him. “What would you like to talk about, then?”
“Ummm,” he crossed his arms, leaning against the counter. “I don’t know, maybe we could talk about hobbies? I mean, clearly you’re in to taking pic—”
“Oh my God, I’m sorry, okay?” she snapped before clapping a hand over her eyes and sighing. “I am sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to spy on you, I just … I don’t know what I was doing. I would be totally pissed if someone did that to me. It will not happen again.”
As she turned to go, she felt him grab her arm.
“Wait, just wait,” he said. She turned back but kept her eyes on the floor. “I was just giving you a hard time. I … um, to be honest, the only reason I even saw you in the first place is that I was looking for you.”
That got her attention, and she raised her eyes from the floor. He looked … sheepish, almost, and the tips of his ears were red.
“You were what?”
“I, uh —“ he cleared his throat. “I saw you in your backyard, the first day I was working. I thought you were really … you were really pretty, and every time I saw you at the window after that, I hoped you might look over. And then I could come and introduce myself without seeming like …”
“A creepy stalker?”
“Right,” he said. “I guess it takes one to know one.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, laughing. “I did apologize.”
“If you really want to make it up to me, you could take me out to dinner,” he said, stepping closer to her.
“Yeah? And how will you make it up to me?” she asked.
Just then, the door to the kitchen banged open, and they both stepped back slightly as Octavia came in. “There you are! We’re starting the movie; get a move on!”
As she settled next to Bellamy on the love seat, the only two spots left, he leaned closer and answered her question. “I’m sure I’ll think of something,” he whispered in her ear, setting off a shiver despite her best efforts to avoid it.
The jolt of attraction she felt was quickly dampened when she spotted Raven’s knowing grin and thumbs-up over his shoulder.
Shaking her head, she exchanged a smile with Bellamy before turning toward the TV.
Maybe she didn’t exactly hate Raven after all.
1 year later
“Hey, babe, I’m going to fix those loose boards on the deck,” Bellamy said.
“Awesome,” she replied absently, eyes on her laptop, reviewing some of her notes from her instructional courses. She wasn’t due to begin student teaching until next month, but she wanted to make sure that she was fully prepared for the experience.
“I’ll be outside,” Bellamy said.
“Mmmm-hmmm,” Clarke said, jerking when something landed on her head. “What the hell?”
Pulling her boyfriend’s shirt off her head, she looked up, raising her eyebrows. Bellamy stood shirtless, hands just above the tool belt on his hips, grinning at her. She couldn’t help but take a moment to appreciate the view; even though she could see him naked any time she wanted, she never got tired of it.
“I just wanted to let you know I’m working on the house,” he said. “In case you wanted to grab a camera.”
“Oh my God, you’re hilarious,” she said flatly, throwing his shirt back at him. “It’s been a year; get over it!”
“Never,” he laughed, tossing his shirt on the couch next to her and heading out the door.
Clarke turned back to her computer, holding out a whole two minutes before closing her laptop.
She was a weak, weak woman.
“Shit,” she muttered, picking up her phone before following him outside.