Chapter 5
“Can I ask you something?” says Clarke after an awkward pause.
“Of course” answers Lexa.
“What made you pick me on that website? I mean, there are thousands of women on there. Why me?”
Lexa looks at her for a few seconds and then lowers her eyes while she gently brushes her thumb over the back of Clarke’s hand before she answers “I don’t really know, I had the feeling like I have known you before. You seemed familiar to me. Does that make sense?”
“I think so.” says the blonde with a smile.
Lexa looks at her watch and jumps up “They are going to do the announcement in 10 minutes! I have to get ready, please excuse me for a few moments” and she walks away.
Clarke doesn’t really know what’s happening but as everybody is proceeding into the next room she just follows the crowd. The next room is even bigger than the last and in the middle there are rows of chairs lined up in front of a stage with a TV screen behind it. Clarke chooses a chair in the second row, so she could still see everything but wouldn’t draw any attention. While everybody is sitting down, she gets out her phone to check the time. Midnight. Damn, the time flew by! Then the lights above the audience go out and only the stage is illuminated. Lexa enters the stage together with Mr. Hampton and for some reason Clarke has to smile as she watches her standing there all confident.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all very much for attending this event. Now, I and Mr. Hampton are going to announce how much money was donated tonight for the Memorial’s Children Hospital here in Chicago.”
They all look at the screen where the number $350,000 appears. Everybody is clapping and Clarke was quite impressed by that sum. The next 20 minutes Lexa and Mr. Hampton talked a little about why their businesses want to support the families of children who cannot afford treatment for their kids. Clarke never knew that Lexa had such a gentle heart.
Lexa’s POV:
The heat of the spotlight is making her sweat a little on stage while she talks about the cause of this evening. Every time when she looks to the crowd she tries not to look directly at Clarke. After everything was said they leave the stage and she is doing some more small talk with some people before they all return to the first room. Her eyes are looking for Clarke and she spots her at the bar again. Her heart is still racing from standing in front of so many people. Something weird happens when she is walking towards Clarke. She remembers that the evening is basically over now and that it all was a play to her. She remembers that she is paying her to do this and that it probably means nothing to her. Her heart doesn’t race anymore and the happy feeling from earlier was gone.
Her face had an emotionless expression and her voice was cold as she says “Come on, let’s go.”
Clarke seems to notice the change in her voice and behaviour and just nods before she follows her to the car. Without saying anything she gets in the car and starts it immediately. During the whole ride Lexa isn’t saying a word. She doesn’t know what to feel, it was stupid of her to think that this was anything but a job to the girl next to her. She shouldn’t have told her all these things of her. It was a mistake.
As they arrive at the address where Lexa picked her up from, she just turns to Clarke and says “Thank you, your services have been more than sufficient. I will write you your cheque.” And she gets out her chequebook and a pen to write the sum on it and signs it before she is handing it to Clarke. She reaches out and takes the piece of paper
“Did I do something wrong?” she asks worried.
“No, you were very convincing.” Lexa responds.
Clarke seems a little confused and disappointed but says “Well, anyways I wanted to thank you for this lovely evening. I enjoyed it a lot.”
And she leans over and gives Lexa a gentle kiss on her right cheek before she gets out of the car. There they are again, the butterflies in Lexa’s stomach that she has been trying to ignore this whole evening. She can’t help but to look at Clarke walking away one more time before she turns around and drives home. She is angry with herself and doesn’t know what to do. She just doesn’t understand what’s the matter with her, she never got attached to somebody this fast and she hired her in the first place for this. Lexa was aware of the fact that an arrangement like this normally involves sex at the end of it but she just couldn’t bare the thought of taking her home and waking up in an empty bed the following morning.
As she arrives at home, she slams the door and opens the fridge to get a bottle of vodka and pours herself another glass. She downs it and the liquor burning in her chest afterwards drowns this nagging feeling that she has been naive. Two more glasses and she feels totally numb to the world again. She takes off her clothes and throws them carelessly on the couch before she totters into the bedroom and let’s herself fall on the sheets. Before she closes her eyes her thoughts wander one more time to Clarke and how beautiful she looks when she smiles before she falls into a restless sleep.
When Lexa opened her eyes again she had the feeling like she didn’t sleep at all. Her head was killing her and she felt sore and dehydrated. She attempts to get out of bed several times before she succeeded. On her way to the kitchen she notices that her clothes, that she threw on the couch last night are gone and probably in her closet right now. Lexa drinks a glass of water and realises that it’s already 2pm. She sighs out loud because she slept all day and didn’t get anything done for next week. Her phone is lying on the counter so she unlocks it to check her messages. There are just a bunch of emails as well as text messages from the people who attended the event yesterday and what to thank her for hosting it. She already wanted to put the phone back on the counter before she notices that there is one more message, from Ms. Griffin. Lexa isn’t sure if she wants to really read it but her curiosity conquers and opens it:
From: Ms. Griffin
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I have arrived at home safely. I really liked this evening with you. I hope there will be further interactions between us.
That made her smile a little bit, at least she didn’t fuck it up completely and maybe still got a chance. But wait, she probably writes that to every one of her customers. God damn it Lexa. Get her out of your head already.