Might As Well

Chapter 5

"Okay! Okay, come on, give me a chance!" Clarke giggled uncontrollably two hours later. They shared a bunch of food and had moved from glasses of wine to cheap beers after dinner. "Alright. For the gold medal in fake girlfriending," Clarke paused.

"C'mon, Honey, you got it," Lexa joked as she held the paper from Anya, a combination of fact and fiction now crinkled and written all over, out of Clarke's view. Clarke closed her eyes and clenched her teeth in thought.

"We've been together for over two years and we met through Lincoln and Octavia at her birthday party. I didn't like you at first and you had to chase me, because I didn't realize you were trying to hit on me. I hog the blankets, you do the grocery shopping, I do the laundry and you vacuum. My job is my real job, I'm allergic to shrimp for some reason, you take the trash out and apparently we're super sweet to each other and it makes Anya want to throw up," Clarke rattled off.

"You're killing it, Babe," Lexa encouraged her. They started peppering in pet names uncomfortably at the start of the night, and they morphed into a well-received joke and familiar nicknames as the quizzing progressed.

"I feel like there's more, though!" Clarke held up two fists and shook them.

"I think maybe we've had enough for tonight," Lexa folded the paper and handed it to Clarke. "You've earned a break."

"Thank god she didn't get too weird and claim that I'm bilingual or something," Clarke polished off her beer and tucked the paper into her handbag. "I don't think I could've learned French by next week. You've got to hand it to her. She came up with a pretty normal person for you."

"She's been dying for me to date someone she likes," Lexa rolled her eyes. "Looks like she just made one up."

"What kind of girls do you usually date?" Clarke asked.

"None, really," Lexa shrugged and finished off her beer. The bartender glanced their way and Clarke shook her head as she motioned for the check.

"That's so bizarre," Clarke's giggles were still dying down. "Why don't you date? You're a delight to spend time with. This date has been a blast!"

"I don't know," Lexa shrugged, refusing to get hung up on Clarke calling their nondate a date. "I was engaged a long time ago. It didn't work out. I haven't really been the same since."

"Why not?" Clarke asked. Her eyelids drooped a little as her smiles widened from the drinks and the laughs.

"A lot of reasons," Lexa glanced away. "Pretty much boiled down to she demanded I be someone I'm not, and I," she trailed off. Clarke patiently waited for her to finish. "I just couldn't do it."

"I hate that," Clarke wrinkled her nose. "I'm sorry, that really sucks."

"Yeah, probably for the best," Lexa pushed her empty beer bottle around in a circle on the bar top to avoid looking at Clarke. "I've pretty much kept to myself and focused on work and my training since. This is the first date I've been on in a very long time."

"Me too," Clarke said warmly. Clarke's eyelashes and the smell of her hair and the way her ass looked in her black jeans and the way they both endlessly laughed became a heady cocktail that had Lexa too confused.

It wasn't a date. It was a friend date. A planning meeting. They were getting to know each other so they could pull off a major con.

It wasn't a date.

"She treated me very poorly. Ultimately, I realized we were wrong for each other and I called it off," Lexa added thoughtfully. "In hindsight, she was a total bitch."