Bellarke One Shots Book 2

54) Sweet on You

The Glacier Ice Cream Parlor, was, unlikely enough, the best place to study in town. It was bright and comfortable and reasonably quiet, if you knew where to sit. It was decorated like an old 50's soda shop, all chrome and pastel colors, giving the place an air of being lost to time. Clarke Griffin discovered it shortly after moving to Arkadia, Virginia, before her junior year. She'd been wandering the streets shortly before school started, canvas messenger bag slung over her shoulder, scouting out an after-school hang out spot like the one she had in Raleigh with Wells. Cafes and bookstores stuck out their doors like open arms, tempting her inside, but from the minute Clarke saw the Glacier, she was sold. Sitting at a dead end, its modest one-story building shone with chrome and neon, capturing the eye and seeming to command you to enter.

She loved it there; the parlor was like a step back, a insulated bubble impervious to the problems of the outside world, a respite from her busy, constant life as an honor student. It was an escape from her new school and her depressed, controlling mother. The corner booth was her favorite spot. Tucked in on the far side of the shop, it looked out onto the wetlands next to the building, a small, sunlit haven that smelled of cooking sugar. Clarke would spread her homework out across the table, prop her feet on the opposite bench, and bury herself in work with the occasional stop for a bite of whatever Octavia had concocted for her that day.

Octavia Blake was a freshman at Arkadia public high school, two years behind Clarke, and worked the kitchen with her parents at the Glacier. They met a few weeks after Clarke started frequenting the parlor when the intrepid fourteen-year-old marched up to her and asked for her help.

("No one takes me seriously here," Octavia had moaned. "If I had a taster, Mom might actually put my stuff on the menu and not chalk it up to what she calls my 'twisted taste buds.'" She'd put finger quotes around the words and rolled her eyes, eyes lighting up when Clarke laughed. "Please?" she'd begged, "even just this once?"

Clarke hesitated, but Octavia had turned those big green eyes on her, and she agreed. "Just this once," she'd admonished, "and if it sucks you're buying me a chocolate shake."

Unbeknownst to her, she was about to become Octavia's guinea pig, and Clarke's mouth became the testing ground for the younger girl's creations. Suffice it to say, some days were better than others.)

Thus began what Aurora Blake fondly called the "Blake-Griffin Era of Excellence" As a team, the two girls put a new special on the menu every week and added countless items to the shop's exclusive list.

In Clarke's opinion, the delicious experimental sundaes were only one perk of studying at the Glacier. The others included Octavia's older brother, Bellamy, who worked the counter. Bellamy was a senior with both girls at Arkadia. Lean and dark, he stalked the hallways of the school like a predator, glaring at anyone who got in his way. He often showed up for work at the Glacier with more than a couple bruises and once or twice, a cast on his arm. Most of the school was terrified of him, and did their best to avoid him whenever possible. If there was a fight, he was most likely in it. If there was a prank, he (along with Monty Green and Jasper Jordan) was most likely responsible for it. Clarke, who was an Office TA sixth period, saw his name on the suspension list more often than anyone else in the school.

Clarke's mom, Abigail Griffin, heard about Bellamy not soon after school started and warned her daughter to stay away from 'troublemakers like him'. Clarke was careful not to mention that 'that Blake boy' worked the counter at the place she went to every day after school. She never made eye contact with him when she entered the shop, only hurried past the counter and display cases to her booth in the corner. Octavia would bring out whatever creation she'd made that day and Clarke would get to work on the mountain of homework she always managed to have.