10 Things I Hate About You

Chapter 9

"What have you got for me?" Claire sighed, her arms crossed against her chest, with a face that threatened people to not mess with her that day.

She was standing in the Control Center, that stupid whiteboard by her side while she asked her people to give her the usual report on how things were around the park.

It was the morning after her embarrassing failed attempt at kissing Owen. Lowery, Vivian, and the rest of the analysts in the room were quiet, looking back at her.

They managed to go through their reports without any inconvenience. It would have been a terrible day to mess up, or for the park to pull off something that would just trigger the ticking bomb in those green eyes.

Once she heard what she wanted to hear, Claire merely nodded and turned on her heels, ready to leave, but a very shaky voice stopped her. "Claire?" Lowery called out.

"WHAT!?" She warned, it had better not be about that stupid bet she was very aware she had lost, because she was not in the mood to deal with that kind of stupid shit.

"Um... about your dare..." He grinned. He hunched his shoulders, expecting her to beat the crap out of him for brining that up.

The redhead sighed loudly and turned back around, "that stupid bet was not even real." She rolled her eyes.

"It was real when you tried to mess with us and join in!" He tried to defend their point of view here. She had lost on her own terms.

Claire narrowed her eyes and shot him a death glare. "What is it?" She looked away and shook her head.

One of the guys from the front row threw Lowery a bag, and he handed it to her.

Claire rubbed her forehead and peeked inside. She chuckled and pulled out a white shirt from it. She threw the bag back at Lowery and let the shirt hang from her fingers. "No." She shook her head and, crumpling the shirt up in a ball, she threw it back at her employee. "There's no way I'm wearing that!" She shrugged.

"But you lost!" He pointed out at the whiteboard. Claire followed his hand with her eyes and, stepping close to the board, she grabbed the cloth and wiped the whole thing. "HEY!!" Lowery complained.

"And you stop that!" She hissed. "Who told you that it was okay to watch me like that!?"

"You did!" He recalled.

Claire rolled her eyes, her arms once again folded against her chest. After a second of silence, she sighed and turned back to Lowery. It was very evident in her eyes that she was not only humiliated, but hurt and confused.

"Claire?" He looked down at the shirt and then back to her eyes. "He is a jerk." The brown haired man said softly, not wanting to add anything more, since the redhead was still his boss and it would come out as inappropriate. "And we are sorry for this whole thing. We thought it would be fun, but we are putting an end to it." He added, before the rest of the room nodded and mumbled.

They managed to make her smile a little and she then sighed, looking down at her shoes. "Give me that." She snatched the shirt away from Lowery and, giving a second glance, she took a deep breath.

It was a white Mickey Mouse shirt. The perfect consequence for Claire for having lost her bet, since she had always been very open about how much she disliked Disney, and more specifically Disney Parks, since they were the competition. It wasn't personal, it was just business, and that is why her belief on that subject made wearing that shirt around Jurassic World very ironic.

****

She had tied a knot on the back of the shirt so it fit better, also glad she was wearing a stretch denim blue skirt on that Sunday morning, so her half-forced outfit could look at least a bit decent.