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It’s dark when he pulls up to her street, the summer sun long since set. The lights are off in her house save for the back porch bulb that he knows clicks off automatically at midnight. It’s times like these that he hates his car, because no matter how beautiful the vintage Camaro is it also boasts an engine that could wake the dead. He cuts the engine immediately, hoping like hell it didn’t wake her parents.
The night is still as he waits with baited breath but no lights turn on upstairs and no neighbors come out to investigate.
It’s hard sometimes, being the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, when you’re dating the girl from the right side. But it’s a secret, this thing they have between them, and even though he knows that right now it’s for the best it still kind of pisses him off that this is the only way he gets her.
Better than not having her at all, he supposes.
It doesn’t take long before her front door is opening and closing, the only light guiding her towards his car coming off her cell phone screen. He can see her wild blonde curls piled on top of her head in a messy bun that he can’t wait to mess up later. She’s in nothing but pink cotton sleep shorts and a black tank top because despite the fact that summer is almost over it’s still hotter than hell outside.
But so is this girl. Damn.
She’s got a grin so wide he can see it through the dark and then she’s racing around his car, opening the squeaky metal door as quietly as she can before pulling it closed behind her.
“Hi,” she says breathlessly and he smirks, reaches over and slides his hand around the back of her neck. He barely has to tug and she’s leaning into his kiss, the strawberry lip gloss she’s been wearing all summer the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.
“I wasn’t expecting you to text tonight,” he says, pulling away from her reluctantly so he can start up his car. They both wince at the loud noise, damn his need for a souped-up ride, and he waits until he’s sure the coast is clear before heading towards their favorite late night destination.
It’s been the same all summer. Clarke does shit with her friends during the day, the ones from her own side of town, and then at night she texts him to hang out. He doesn’t think of it like a booty call because they don’t always hook up. Sometimes they spend the night at the diner his mom used to work out, binging on greasy burgers and deep fried zucchini. Other times they end up at the abandoned drive in theater, lying on the hood of his car while he shows her the constellations and tells her the stories of their origins.
She told him once that a bad boy history nerd was something she never knew she always wanted.
Not that he’s a bad boy, by any stretch of the imagination. But in this town, when you’re from Arkadia Heights, and not Arkadia Proper, it doesn’t matter if you’re a straight A college student with a full time job that also takes care his younger sibling in the wake of your single mother's death. In the eyes of the elite, you’re less than.
Clarke Griffin has never looked at him like he’s less than, though. Not when she brought her cute little hybrid into the auto shop he works at to have a taillight fixed. Not when he made a move, asking for her phone number even though he was positive she was way out of his league. And not even when they went to that cheesy diner for their first date. Clarke looks at him like he can give her the world without needing a single cent to his name.
“I just wanted to see you before school tomorrow,” she says as she runs her fingers up and down the back of his hand where it sits on the gearshift. It should weird him out a little, dating a girl that’s still in high school but she’s a few months from eighteen and he’s barely twenty. That's part of the reason that she hasn’t told her parents about them yet, because she swears that while they aren’t rich snobs like people she knows they might have a problem with his age.
“I’m glad you did,” he says, lifting her knuckles up and brushing a kiss across them. “I missed you.”
He finds himself saying shit like that around her that he’s never said with anyone else before. Not even Echo, the girl he dated almost all through high school. He honestly thought he’d marry her but she went to college in another state and they just couldn’t keep it together through the long distance. That’s how he knows she wasn’t the one for him. For the one you’d be able to work through anything to keep them in your life.
Things like dating in secret for three months.
“So, where to tonight?” He gives her a smirk and she blushes as she scrolls through his playlist, settling on a slow cover of a song by Joshua Hyslop that he knows she loves. Her soft voice floats over to him as she sings along and he swears that he doesn’t think he could live without this girl even if he wanted to.
The giant screens of the old drive in flash bright white when his headlights hit them and he knows what Clarke is going to say even before the words leave her lips.
“I wish we could have come here when it was open.”
It’s something she’s said more than a dozen times over the summer. One night he brought this little cell phone projector that he bought to see if they could watch it on one of the screens. It only ended up taking up a corner of it but she still kissed him like it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.
He parks in front of one of the screens and rolls down his windows before he shuts off the engine. The air outside is still stifling hot but a light breeze hits them every so often and cools their already sweating skin.
“Bellamy…”
Her voice is barely audible over the music that’s still playing softly in the background.
“That doesn’t sound good,” he says with a dry laugh and if she’s about to break up with him he thinks it’s a pretty shitty way to do it considering they have a thirty minute drive back to her house. “Just say it, Clarke. Is this,” he motions between them with his index finger, “over?”
“What? No!” Her voice is too loud in the quiet car and she shakes her head at not just him but also herself. “No, of course not.”
She reaches for him, pulling him so he’s practically in her seat, and kisses him. Her fingers scratch at the back of his neck like he loves and he nips at her bottom lip like he knows she does.
“So, what’s wrong?”
Clarke pulls away so she can look at him and it’s crazy how just being this close to her can make his heart pound out of his chest.
“I think I’m falling in love with you.”
She says the words so bluntly that it takes him a second to catch up. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth and he grins slowly, lifting his thumb up and pulling it down.
“Really?”
Clarke scoffs a little, her flushed cheeks visible even in the dark. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Well, I am,” he admits. “It’s not every day the princess falls in love with the pauper.”
“Stop that,” she says seriously. “You’re not a pauper and I’m not a princess. And I just told you I love you. You could at least say something back.”
Bellamy grins and tugs her closer to him. “You didn’t actually say the words.”
Her breath hitches when he runs his finger along the strap of her tank top. “I love you, Bellamy Blake.”
There’s no way to hide the grin on his face so he doesn’t try to. “I love you, too.” He whispers the words against her lips and she lets out a little moan that goes straight through his body. “Now, will you please come over here so I can kiss you properly?”
She laughs as she climbs over the center console and straddles his waist, her hands diving into his hair at the same time her lips connect with his. Kissing someone has never felt this electric, like the simple act of kissing her could start a fucking forest fire. The breeze is gone, causing the entire car to heat up like a furnace but he doesn’t even care. A light sheen of sweat builds everywhere the tank top doesn’t cover and he groans, licking a stripe over her shoulder and kissing up her neck.
“You taste so fucking good,” he whispers in her ear and she lets out the sexiest moan when he bites the skin behind her ear.
He practically dies when she rasps out, “What do I taste like?”
“Summer,” he says as he kisses his way back down her neck. “I can’t wait to find out what you taste like in the winter.”
She giggles, this soft little sound that he adores. “Probably hot chocolate,” she says into his mouth. “I love hot chocolate.”
“Good to know.”
They end up in his backseat, her legs wrapped around his waist as he buries his face into her neck. By the time they both come down it’s practically a sauna in his car.
“It’s so fucking hot,” she says, the curse word rolling off her tongue so easily it makes him laugh.
“I’m corrupting you,” he says as he pulls himself away from her. “You hardly swore at the beginning of the summer.”
“Maybe,” she shrugs as she pulls her tank top back on over her head. “But I love it.”
“Good.”
The lights of her house are still off when they pull up a few hours later and he reaches for her before she can open the door that’ll take her away from him for who knows how long. School is starting for both of them and with his job and taking care of his sister, he won’t be able to sneak out in the middle of the night to spend time with her.
“I’m sorry summer has to end,” he says, his voice a little sadder than he meant it to be. “I don’t want to lose you, Clarke.”
“You won’t,” she tells him seriously, and when she kisses him he knows that she means it. “I’m telling my parents about us. This is real and I want everyone to know it, even if they don’t understand.”
He nods and smiles, kisses the tip of her nose before gesturing to her house with a tilt of his head. “G’night , Princess.”
She’s almost to the door when she turns around and shouts, “I love you, Bellamy Blake!” then tilts her head back, laughing before she skips the rest of the way to her front door.
His chest rumbles with laughter as he drives away, reaching for his cell phone when he hits the stop sign at the end of her street. He thumbs out a text to her before driving back towards his own side of town.
And I love you. Even if you are a little crazy.
Everyone in love is a little crazy, Bellamy. You’re just going to have to get used to it.
And he can. For her, he really, really can.