BITTERSWEET ° grant gustin [rewrite]

iv. real life

four
real life

—

Alex and Julia sat down in the small Olive Garden booth that their hostess had escorted them to a few minutes ago. Their waitress had just taken their drink orders, and the two girls wasted no time in digging into the salad and breadsticks that were handed to them. Truthfully, Alex had been hoping that the food would distract Julia from the real reason the two had come to dinner in the first place: Alex's prolonged crush on Grant Gustin.

Alex had only met Grant a few times—mainly at events that the CW would hold where they needed multiple people from the casts of different shows—but the two only ever engaged in small talk that never got anywhere outside of the events themselves, which Alex always thought was odd because they both had so many mutual friends. It seemed stupid to Alex that she even had a crush on him to begin with, especially since she barely even knew him. But, Alex would have been lying to herself if she hadn't been wishfully thinking that the crossover might be the event that would change all of this.

The waitress returned with the pair's drinks, taking their order before retreating to the kitchen to give the order to the chef. "Sorry I was late," Julia said, sliding another breadstick onto the small appetizer plate in front of her. "Grant and Carlos kept messing up the scene, we had to reshoot it a bunch of times."

Alex's head immediately shot up at the mention of Grant's name. If the coffee she had before entering the Italian restaurant didn't wake her up, hearing Julia mention Grant surely did. Alex locked eyes with her best friend and knew right away that she had fallen into Julia's trap: she was going to have to talk about her crush on Grant now.

"Alex, it's okay to like him." Julia casually spoke, as if this wasn't a big deal to the blonde sitting across from her. "Maybe the crossover will give the two of you a good chance to actually talk. Those CW press events are always awkward for everyone."

Alex hated that Julia always had the same mindset as her. It was as if their brains were hardwired to the same channel; if one of them was thinking something the other would most likely end up speaking it into existence. Maybe that's why they were such good friends.

"It just feels so stupid." Alex mumbled, finishing the salad that was on her plate and moving on to a breadstick. "I barely know him, but every time someone mentions him to me I get these weird butterflies in my stomach and I can't help but smile."

"That's probably the softest thing you have ever said." Julia responded, as the waitress returned with their entrées. "I meant what I said earlier, by the way. If you want me to talk to him, I totally can."

Alex shook her head, "That's good." She told the waitress, who stopped putting the shredded cheese over her pasta and moved on to do the same with Julia's meal. "I'm not sure, Julia...I mean if he doesn't feel the same way I'm going to look like a fool and feel humiliated."

Julia shrugged, "Who knows, he might be feeling the same way and you'll never know!"

"I just want to wait." Alex said, "I don't want things to feel weird before we have to film the crossover episodes." Julia nodded, dropping the topic for the night and moving on to eating her food.

The two worked on finishing their food, talking about everything Alex missed while she was back home in Texas, only occasionally mentioning the crossover. Once the two of them had finished eating, they paid the bill and tipped the waitress, leaving the restaurant to go back to Alex's apartment for the night.

While Julia drove on the highways back to Alex's home, the two of them loudly singing songs that were on a playlist Julia had recently been obsessing over, Alex realized that she was sure of two things.

One, she had nothing holding her back from expressing her real feelings about Grant. And two, there was no better time than the crossover for her to finally make a move.

—

a/n
sorry for the lack of updates :/
also hi i suck at writing real life chapters haha