Chapter 8
“Yes?”
Octavia looks up from her laptop and gives a Clarke a disapproving look, “No.”
“C’mon,” she groans, “this is the fourth outfit I’ve tried on. What’s wrong with it?”
“You look like you belong in a western.”
Clarke narrows her eyes at Octavia through the mirror, offended. “This is one of my favorite shirts.”
“I know. You’ve worn it far too many times, my dear.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me the first eight times I wore it?”
Clarke’s question doesn’t garner a response from Octavia this time and the room falls silent. Annoyed, she walks over to the woman sitting on the bed with the laptop cradled in her lap.
“What are you looking at that your eyes are glued to the screen?“
Octavia’s right eyebrow twitches up at the sound of Clarke closing in.
“Uh, uh!”
Her attempt to conceal the content on her laptop is thwarted by Clarke who reaches for the screen before Octavia can close it.
“So which dating site are you on?” Clarke says humorously before positioning herself in good view of the screen.
“What the---”
Clarke’s entire body tenses at the sight of Lexa’s face.
“How did you get this?” She points at the picture as if Octavia could mistake the sudden shift in her voice for anything else.
“It’s not hard to find people on the Internet, Clarke. Even though this girl doesn’t have a social media presence, her bakery does. I only had to go through some tweets and two news articles to find a picture of the owner of the renowned Red Brick Bakery.” Octavia’s lips twist smugly at her fine detective work now that the cat’s out of the bag.
She continues, “So that’s her, huh?” Octavia studies the picture of Lexa intently, and for some reason, it makes Clarke feel slightly self-conscious.
“Yeah.” She tries her best to sound nonchalant about her date, but Octavia doesn’t buy it.
“So transparent.”
Clarke opens her mouth to offer a defense of her less than suave behavior the past few weeks but concedes that it’s probably a lost cause at this point.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” The question comes out as more of a statement than a search for validation from her friend.
“Pretty?” Octavia’s lips grow into a teasing smile and she bumps Clarke’s shoulder playfully, “She’s gorgeous, you lucky duck.”
“Yeah…”
Sensing the change in Clarke’s mood, Octavia closes her laptop and turns to face her friend. “So are you going to ask her about the incident from twenty years ago?”
Great, they’re now calling it the incident. Why did she have to go digging up some twenty-year old memory? Now it’s nearly impossible to be in Lexa’s company without feeling like she’s keeping a secret from her.
“I’m not sure,” Clarke rubs at her temples. Octavia just reminded her that the question couldn’t stay on the back burner forever. “I don’t want to come on too strong. Telling her that a scribbling on a chair brought me to her twenty years later is---“ Clarke racks her brain for a good adjective to describe her situation but comes up short on words.
“Romantic?” Octavia smiles at her.
“Roman---no.” Clarke lets Octavia know that she appreciates her camaraderie with a squeeze of the shoulder, but her body deflates when she weighs the issue again, “Am I in over my head with this?”
Octavia muses the question carefully before answering, “Yes, but it’s okay to be in over your head when a pretty girl with pretty green eyes is involved.”
---
It takes two more outfit changes before Octavia allows her out of the door. Clarke admits that she’s grateful for the sweater they picked out because the temperature’s forecasted to dip by ten degrees in the evening. Fifteen with the wind chill waiting at the subway station. But if it gets too cold, Clarke knows to call Mr. Potter for a ride home.
“You look pretty tonight.”
The sound of Lexa’s voice at the restaurant’s entrance surprises her. “Hey!” She says breathlessly, “Were you standing outside waiting for me this whole time?”
“No, “ the other woman grins, “I actually just got here. I had to make a quick stop somewhere first. Looks like that worked out for us as far as timing goes.”
Despite only knowing Lexa for just a few weeks, Clarke is fascinated by the small things she gets to learn about the woman. Like the fact that her grin is cute and the color blue suits her.
“Yep, looks like it worked out for us after all.”
The statement replays in her head a few times while they make their way through the restaurant, and Clarke wonders if it’ll actually be okay if she keeps this little secret from Lexa.
“You okay there? You have to at least get through the appetizers first before you decide that the date’s boring,” Lexa whispers teasingly into Clarke’s ear as they follow the hostess to their table. It makes Clarke blush profusely.
“No, I---“
But before Clarke can explain herself, the hostess hands them over to their waiter.
“Good evening, my name is Todd, and I will be your waiter today.”
Clarke and Lexa greet him with a friendly nod and hello before taking their seats. And it takes Todd five minutes to go through the daily special. By the time he’s done talking up the lobster ravioli, Clarke’s forgotten about her misstep and is ready to order.
“I’ll give you two a few minutes to digest all of that information while I go get your waters.”
As soon as he leaves their table, Clarke leans forward with the menu in her hand, “I know he wants to sell us on the lobster ravioli, but I hear the soup’s really good here. What do you think?”
“Raven?”
“Huh? What?” Clarke asks dumbly before she realizes that Lexa’s looking past her to the table behind them.
“Raven, you should have told me that you were a lightweight.”
Clarke and Lexa sit there dumbfounded as the shorter woman tries to help the intoxicated one out of her seat. The patrons around them are obviously trying their best not to stare, but the odd couple sticks out like a sore thumb when one lays like a dead log at the table.
“Is that---“
“Raven.”
“And---”
“Isabel.”
“And are they on---”
“A date?” Lexa blinks, not believing what she’s seeing, “Yes.”
“Well that escalated quickly.”
Laughter bubbles to the surface between the two of them as the reality of the situation settles in.
“Do you think I should go check on them?”
“I think it’ll be a good idea. Raven doesn’t look too good.”
“I was actually more concerned about Isabel,” Lexa chuckles and stands from her seat. She squeezes Clarke’s fingers gently as she leaves. “Remember that you have to get through the appetizers first before you leave. I don’t want to come back to an empty table.”
Clarke watches Lexa’s back as she walks to the other table and wonders where this girl has been her entire life.
---
“Are you two on a date?”
Isabel fumbles the phone in her hand at the sight of Lexa in the restaurant. “Lexa! What are you doing here? And no! I---. It’s not a date. She just demanded that I meet her here at five. No. No. No.” She trails off for a while before it dawns on her.
“Oh my god.”
“Relax, Isabel. It’s not an interrogation. I don’t care if the two of you are on a date.”
“We’re on a date. I’m on a date with Raven Reyes. Oh. My. God.”
“Shhh, it’s okay.”
Lexa looks down at the sloppy mess of a drunk at the table. Of course, you’d ply yourself with alcohol to get through the date.
“I’m sorry Isabel, she’s not normally like this. You two obviously have some things to talk out.”
“What---I—“
After watching Isabel go through five different emotions within a span of a few minutes, Clark decides to walk over there and offer Lexa reinforcement.
“You looked like you needed some help over here.”
Clarke greets Lexa with a smile, and she reciprocates the warm affection.
Isabel is unsurprisingly very surprised to see Clarke with Lexa together, and her curiosity betrays her immediately, “Wow, are you two on a date too?”
Lexa laughs even though the idea of them being on a date together is giving her butterflies, “Yes, but Clarke’s already bored with me.”
“What!” Clarke looks at Lexa, genuinely offended, “You’re the most interesting person in this room. In every room.” Her mouth snaps shut after the embarrassing words that the entire room’s probably had an earful of spills out of her mouth. There’s an odd expression on Lexa’s face, but they both look away from each other rather quickly before either can decipher the meaning
Clarke notices that Isabel’s been staring at them with wide eyes the entire time.
“This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” the girl says as her eyes move between Lexa and Clarke.
Feeling self conscious under the girl’s gaze, Clarke quickly changes to the more important subject at hand, “How about we call a cab to help Raven home?”
“I’ve got Mr. Potter on speed dial,” Lexa says as she pulls out her phone.
Sure enough, Mr. Potter is honking his horn in front of the restaurant in less than ten minutes, and it takes both Lexa and Isabel to dislodge Raven from her seat.
“My god, how much does she weigh?”
“Maybe it’d be best that we take her home? I don’t think Isabel’s able to get Raven to her house alone.”
“You’re right.”
But Clarke realizes that Mr. Potter’s cab is only able to accommodate three people today when she opens the cab door.
“What gives, Mr. Potter?”
“I’m moving. You two called me in the middle of a transit.”
As if on cue, Lexa and Clarke turn to look at each other.
“I guess we can reschedule our date? I took the train so I can easily get home. It’s important that you get Raven home safely, though.”
Lexa nods, but the disappointment is obvious in the crinkle of her brow.
“I guess we should say goodnight then.” It’s difficult to hide the disappointment in her voice too.
“Wait.” Lexa shifts her feet slightly before speaking again, “I can walk you to your stop.”
Clarke accepts Lexa’s offer with a smile, and for the next 20 minutes, they walk along the sidewalk under the stars as Mr. Potter’s cab move beside them with a drunken Raven and flustered Isabel in the backseat.
“I had a great time tonight.”
Lexa looks at Clarke, confused. “We didn’t get to have dinner before I was dragged away by an intoxicated woman who’s unable to express her feelings in a non-threatening tone.”
“Yes, that is all true,” Clarke laughs, “But we get this.” She gestures to the sidewalk, to the open night.
“You’re fine with just this?”
“Well, I’d like to have my soup at some point. But did you know that tonight was the first time we’ve spent time together outside an Emergency Room or a bakery?
“You’re right.” Lexa smiles at Clarke, and it’s so sweet that she wishes the sidewalk never ends.
In the background, she can hear Raven arguing with Isabel about the time.
“What time is it? I need to know the time!”
“It’s 7:05PM, Raven.”
“No, I need to know it in military time, god dammit.”
“Why do you need it in military time?”
“Because it’s important!”
“Raven’s the strangest drunk I’ve ever met.”
Lexa laughs. “She’s misunderstood, that’s all. One of these days, she’s going to figure out how to get through a date with her crush without having to resort to alcohol to calm her nerves.”
Clarke smiles at her, “One of these days, we’re going to have to have a proper date outside of the Emergency Room and your office.”
“Are you asking me out on another first date?”
“Yes, but if I’m not mistaken, you were the one to ask me out on this date. So it’d be the first time that I’d ask you out, ever.”
“Your logic makes sense.”
“You can’t fight logic.”
Lexa laughs, and it surprises her how many times she’s laughed so easily tonight.
“Here’s my stop.”
“I’ll wait until your train arrives.”
“Are you sure?”
Clarke looks at Mr. Potter who’s sitting in his idle car, snickering at Lexa for leaving him there with a drunken Raven and Isabel.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to compensate Mr. Potter fully for his service.”
Clarke nods and doesn’t argue with Lexa about staying because if she’s being honest with herself, she doesn’t want this night to ever end.
They find a bench and make themselves comfortable there. For the next twenty minutes, and Clarke only knows this because she hears Raven asking for the time again somewhere in the distance, they trade stories about anything and everything.
“That’s me,” Clarke tells Lexa as the train pulls to a stop.
“That’s you.”
“Call me when you get home safely.”
Lexa’s already pulling Clarke in for a hug before she even realizes it.
“I---“
Lexa laughs again before waving her shell-shocked date goodbye.
But when the doors of the train close, Clarke comes to the realization that she doesn’t have Lexa’s phone number.
She yells out, “I don’t have your number!” Everyone in the train stares at her in confusion and so does Lexa because her words are muffled from inside. Clarke gestures her hand in a shape of a telephone and hopes that Lexa will understand.
This causes Lexa to smile and step forward to blow her breath on the window. She traces her number with her finger, and Clarke does her best not to blink, fearing that she’ll miss something important.
A man sitting nearby makes a comment about how beautiful Lexa is before pulling out his phone to try to take down the number.
“Hey, buddy, that number’s mine.” Clarke glares at him before returning a smile back to Lexa.