Chapter 2
“Have you seen this?” Clarke grimaces, sliding the weekly Polaris school newsletter across the table towards Raven.
Raven picks it up and after a few minutes she scoffs, “do you think she wrote this herself?”
Clarke laughs, “probably, I can’t believe it though, she’s only been here a week and she’s already making the front page as Polaris’s new soccer superstar, she scored the winning goal of the first game of the season, what’s so special about that?”.
“You don’t know much about soccer do you Griff?” Miller asks placing his tray on the table and sitting down beside Clarke. “They beat Azgeda! We haven’t beaten them in over twenty years! This is massive, Lexa is like the school celebrity now”.
Clarke rolls her eyes so much they threaten to roll right out the side of her head, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Miller.
“What? You don’t like her? I think she seems pretty cool” he offers Clarke a carrot stick from his open packet which Clarke swiftly turns her nose up at.
Raven sniggers “Call yourself a member of the skai kru? Not only have you forgotten that Clarke absolutely detests vegetables with a vengeance but if you haven’t noticed that she probably hates Polaris’s Ronaldo more then you must be blind”.
Miller shrugs and snaps another carrot stick in half before getting up and making an excuse that he needs to find Jasper for something. He knows what Clarke’s like when she’s grumpy and it’s probably best he keeps his distance, there’s only Raven who can cheer her up when she’s like this.
There’s a brief pause of complete silence and Raven takes the moment to take a large gulp of her chocolate milkshake, before almost spitting the contents over Clarke at what she says next.
“I’m going to join the soccer team!” she announces with confidence.
Raven splutters and begins coughing loudly. “Excuse me? What? You? Couch potato Clarke? Join the soccer team? What kind of parallel universe have I just slipped into?” she lifts the milkshake carton up to her eyelevel and inspects it intently as if it had somehow been tampered with.
Clarke scowls and whacks her friend on the arm. “A girl can change her mind can’t she? Maybe I just want to get some more exercise” she puts on a look of nonchalance as if it’s no big deal.
Raven giggles “You get plenty of exercise already thirstmonster” she winks and Clarke rolls her eyes. “You sure it’s not because you want another opportunity to get under Queen Alexandria’s skin?”
Hmm, that lovely bronzed skin. Under her skin? Clarke perhaps wouldn’t mind being against her skin. I wonder how soft it is?... Clarke shakes her head as if to clear it, no, she hates Lexa.
*****
Raven is as dumbfounded as everyone else when Clarke actually decides to tag along to the next training session, she goes along for moral support (of course) and definitely not because there’s a possibility for this entire fiasco to be hilarious.
She sits at the side of the pitch with her legs tucked under herself, a sly grin washing over her features as she notices Clarke glaring at Lexa at every chance she gets.
“Right” Coach Jackson begins “We’ll start the session with some simple passing exercises, seeing as Clarke is our newbie here I think it will be the best idea to pair her with our match winner here” he gives Lexa a slap on the back “if anybody can teach good passing technique it’s this one” Lexa smiles back at him rather stiffly, giving a small nod.
Clarke wants to protest, she really does but it looks as if everyone else has already left to pair up themselves. This can’t be happening, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Lexa begins to make her way to a patch of spare grass, bouncing the ball on her knee as she goes, Clarke rolls her eyes, “show off” she spits. Oops, that didn’t mean to come out.
“What was that princess?” Lexa looks up, fixing Clarke with a hard look.
Princess? Clarke’s blood was already boiling, she had to keep herself from clenching her fists.
Clarke advances so that she’s only standing a few feet in front of Lexa. “I said, you’re a show off” she punctuates every word with a hard edge and all Lexa does is smirk in response, she wasn’t about to let this girl get a rise out of her, not a chance.
She sighs, “let’s just get on with it shall we?” Lexa kicks the ball, rather harder than she intended in Clarke’s direction which goes sailing past her. Oh if looks could kill.
Clarke goes trotting after the ball and when she reaches it she picks it up, dropping it and absolutely booting it as hard as she can, it doesn’t actually end up going anywhere, all it does is fly way up into the air and comes back down, almost hitting Clarke on the head.
Lexa breaks out into a loud laugh. This girl is so highly strung it’s rather hilarious to her. She knows she shouldn’t laugh but she can’t help it.
Coach Jackson comes running over in concern, “no, no, no Clarke not like that!”
“Look, like this” he demonstrates how to do a simple pass with the side of your foot, it should be easy enough but Clarke isn’t used to sport, and she definitely isn’t any use when in this sort of mood.
“Watch how Lexa does it” he tells her before walking off to go and praise Harper and Monroe’s efforts.
“Watch how Lexa does it” she imitates him in a high pitched voice before passing the ball in a much calmer manner in Lexa’s direction.
In the end they actually get quite a good passing rally going backwards and forwards, in silence, nobody dares to say anything. Clarke still has a scowl on her face and Lexa finds it incredibly hard to keep a smirk off hers.
At the end of the session they have a five a side practice game. Clarke wouldn’t want to admit that she was struggling but she was. She tried to keep up as best she could but running wasn’t her forte. Frustration began to set in and she wanted nothing more than to storm off the pitch, her team were losing, Lexa had already scored a hat trick and nobody was passing the ball to her.
“Echo!” she screamed, waving her arm in the air “here!” but Echo completely ignored her and instead passed to Kellie. She couldn’t help the growl that erupted from her throat and she noticed a certain brunette laughing in the distance.
Right, that’s it.
This time when Lexa received the ball and was thundering towards goal Clarke put on a spurt of speed determined to reach her. She did, but her tackle wasn’t at all well timed and she ended up kicking Lexa hard on the ankle.
“Owwww!” Lexa exclaimed hopping slightly. “What the hell Clarke?”
“Oops, my bad” Clarke grinned devilishly, earning a death stare from the brunette.
Unfortunately Clarke’s foul earned the red team a penalty which Lexa coolly put away only making things worse.
At 5-0 Clarke was begging for the final whistle, she wanted nothing more than to get home and have a cold shower, her level of agitation was increasing by the minute, especially when Echo started having a go at her.
“Piss off Echo” Clarke growled, “I’ll show you”.
Clarke made sure to mark Lexa when the red team had a corner in the last few minutes, she moved from side to side trying to cover the brunette and when the ball started travelling through the air directly towards them both Clarke took her chance. She dived, rather ungainly in an attempt to intercept the ball. But that’s not what she did, what she actually did was intercept Lexa. Her arms attached themselves around Lexa’s middle to try and steady herself but the force in which she dived only meant that she landed on Lexa, in a heap, on the grass. Her arms were kind of stuck around her waist and her head, embarrassingly so, careened into Lexa’s chest.
It was a minute or two before anyone moved, both girls were fairly winded. Until Clarke looked around her and realised how awkward their positions were and at that she was back on her feet in an instant. Lexa scrambled to her feet slightly slower as she had taken the full impact of the ground and stumbled around when she did holding onto her lower back.
She hobbled up to Clarke, leaning in so their faces were inches apart.
“What the fuck Clarke?” she growled and Clarke wasn’t sure why but a pleasant shiver ran up her spine.
“I, I- didn’t mean to-“
She shivers under the intense scrutiny of the brunette’s stare and has to avert her gaze.
“Lexa? Are you okay?” coach Jackson jogs towards them and Lexa hobbles off to the side lines, “we’ll get some ice on that back, let’s get you inside”.
That signals the end of the session and the rest of the girls make their way to the changing rooms.
Most have already left by the time that Lexa arrives back, she gives Clarke a brief snarl before passing her and making her way to her gym bag in the corner.
Clarke has finished getting changed so she should have left by now but something is stopping her. She stands, mouth slightly ajar as she watches the brunette pull her Polaris shirt over her head almost too slowly than necessary revealing the rippling muscles of her shoulders and back. But that’s not all, she has a tattoo, a tattoo that covers the entire length of her spine. Intricate circles and lines adorn the skin and Clarke is intrigued, what could they possibly mean? Or is it just some random but beautiful design?
She wets her suddenly dry lips and wonders briefly before she stops herself in shame of what it would be like to map every inch of that tattoo out with her mouth, her tongue, and she imagines the glorious sounds she might be able to coax out of the brunette if she did.
Fuck, Griffin. What the hell is wrong with you?
She has to bite down into her lip to save herself from groaning at the thought.
Damn Lexa and damn her attractiveness.
“Would you like a picture, Clarke?” it’s lost its harshness from earlier on and she’s back to clicking the k softly.
Clarke startles and finds Lexa just buttoning up her shirt and glancing over her shoulder at the blonde. She had noticed her staring, shit.
Quick, quick, think of something to say Griffin.
“I like your tattoo” she blurts out. Great Clarke, that’s just great.
The brunette smirks knowingly, averting her gaze back to the front and straightening her shirt out.
“Thankyou” she replies, grabbing her bag and turning around.
Clarke still hasn’t moved.
Just as Lexa is about to pass her she pauses, “Monroe tells me there’s nobody who hates sport more than you, so is there any particular reason you came here tonight?” there’s that damn inquisitive head tilt again.
Clarke opens her mouth to speak but, not for the first time around this girl she’s lost for words, she shuts her mouth abruptly when Lexa speaks again. Just before she makes her way out of the changing room she utters.
“It’s okay Clarke, I already know”