10 Things I Hate About You

Chapter 7

Claire was a woman who learned from previous experience, and from the few weeks she had known Owen for, she knew he was too unpredictable for her to try guess what he had in mind for their date. She would go crazy if she took a moment to think of the many possibilities and so she had avoided doing so.

After he had walked her back to her office that past Wednesday, they had agreed to go on a second date on Monday. She had once again required for them to stay on the island and he had given her his word on it. The only detail she had about their afternoon plans was that they would cook together. To the redhead, that didn't mean anything. Knowing Owen, she was already picturing him taking her hunting so they could prey their own cow and then make it steak.. or it could be something simple like cooking chicken or preparing a salad. Regardless, she was going to be mentally prepared for the former.

The idea for them to cook together had come to Owen after the few conversations they had the mornings when it was her turn to be in charge of their daily breakfast and how they came from the hotel restaurant; the food there was of higher quality and she still wanted to impress him.

One date, a Halloween party, countless amounts of daily texting, and the handful of breakfasts they shared had the redhead slightly admitting to (only) herself that she was developing a deep crush on him. Was she going to act on it? Not just yet, and the control center room didn't think she would either.

They had their whiteboard filled with odds and divided by dates. They were very optimistic about the relationship that was supposedly blooming between their boss and the handsome man. They had up to six dates listed with their odds so far. Each person making a bet on which one they thought would feature the inevitable first kiss.

All of them were putting a lot of thought into it, they had observed the couple at the Halloween party and they could notice how Claire was slightly begging for a kiss already, not to mention each day the redhead looked more smitten than the one before. The odds for her to be the one to kiss Owen first were higher by ninety percent of the people in the room. Ten still thinking this would go the traditional way and Owen would kiss her first — she wanted to kiss him, but hadn't done so yet.

When it came to the odds on which date they were betting on, no one was down for the second date; they knew their boss too well. Most people had them kissing by date five, some even dare push it to date six. The spying they hoped they could enjoy that afternoon would only be for observation, see if they were right or they needed to update their odds.

A couple of guys were working on a tiny capsula microphone, this little bet was slowly getting out of control. They still were keeping their distance and not interfering, but they wanted to make sure they could listen to her date.. specially if they went to a place out of the security cameras' range.

The guys knew her daily routine and by the time the redhead was stepping into the room, they had already rolled their whiteboard out of her sight and knowledge. Lowery already had the microphone in hand and just needed to figure out a way to have her leave with it.

Claire had changed into a pair of skinny jeans, a white lace tank top, a siam blue ruffled jacket, and a pair of silver flats. The entire security room noticed this and they quietly exchanged glances. They couldn't blame her, though, after all she was going out with the same guy who had made her ride a go-kart across the island.

After a few seconds, she felt Lowery's fingers playing with the end of her jacket and slapped them off, "Sorry." He pushed his glasses up and gave the people a thumbs up; he had successfully slipped the small microphone into the front pocket of her jeans. The appliance so tiny it would take a lot for her to feel it.

"What do you have for me?" The redhead requested the usual update before she could head out to her date.

They didn't have any highlights for her which helped ease her mind and go to her date knowing the park was having a good day with minimum incidents, just the usual like those damn kids always getting lost. She didn't stay for more than five minutes, her intention was just to make a quick stop before meeting Owen whom had insisted for him to pick her up instead of Claire driving to his bungalow like she had suggested.