Double Dare II waterparks

009

Otto frowns at his phone, hating the way the word friend hits him like a knife right to the heart. Grace always calls him a good friend and it always has that same sting to it. He knows she doesn't mean any harm by it, she doesn't even realize he has feelings for her, but it still hurts. He tries not to think about it too much, knowing he probably has no chance with her anyway. She's had feelings for Awsten since before she even knew Otto existed; Otto is sure he doesn't stand a chance. Otto, as much as he hates to admit it, is jealous of Awsten in this sense. The one person Otto really, genuinely has feelings for is completely in love with Awsten and Awsten doesn't even noticed. Otto can't stand it. How does Awsten not realize how lucky he is? He can't, for the life of him, understand how Awsten could be this oblivious to the fact that grace is in love with him. Then again, he reasons, Grace doesn't see his own feelings towards her. She's just as oblivious as Awsten is; maybe that's why they make such good friends. Even Otto has to admit, the personalities of the pair complement each other scarily well. Grace , when she doesn't just go along with things for the sake of seeing Awsten smile, reigns him in from his more ridiculous or possibly damaging jokes or activities. Awsten, on the other hand, is often able to convince grace to do things that she wants to do but is too shy to admit to wanting to do. In any case, the two extremes of their personality almost always balance out perfectly. Anyone else would say the two are meant to be but Otto is far from thinking that, mostly because he notices the way grace clearly feels and has seen Awsten literally laugh at the idea of dating her. He knows Awsten meant no harm by it, after all, Awsten thinks the possibility that grace could ever feel that way about him is at zero, but he also knows that hearing that would have hurt grace and the thought kills him. Worse though, is the fact that he's a hundred percent certain she would have laughed right along with Awsten just so he didn't feel bad. Otto tries not to overthink things with grace . It's not like he's in any position to confess his feelings so thinking about it really doesn't help but he can't not think about it. He's not her first choice, he reminds himself whenever he mistakenly allows his thoughts to wander, Awsten will always be her first choice for everything. There's nothing Otto wouldn't give to be her first choice but he's settled into the reality that he's not. Despite that, she always seems to end up at the front of his mind. He may not be hers, but she'll always be his first choice. Even with her quiet nature, she's his loudest thought. The world is a loud place but all it's sounds seem to fade to background noise when he gets to hear Sophia's quiet laugh and no storm could ever quite measure up to the natural disaster seeing her cry is. He's only seen her cry once, when her parents , died. ●☆●☆●☆●☆● Grace hates parties. She really, really hates them. She hates the creepy old dude who introduced himself as Dr. Clayton Richards and his insistent flirting despite grace's clear disinterest. The man is old enough to be her father, as made clear by his thinning white hair and wrinkled skin. Grace can't imagine what made him think this was at all appropriate. Luckily, the flirting finally meets an interruption. "Clayton," Elliot greets with an entirely fake smile. The old man seems to want to correct him, get him to say Dr. Richards instead of his first name but then he recalls that the younger man is now his boss and refrains. "I see you've met my sister." Elliot's fake smile becomes real when he gets the intended reaction: Clayton nearly choking on his drink in shock. "Is he bothering you, Grace ," Elliot's smile vanishes as soon as it had appeared, being replaced with concern. "I was just—" Clayton starts off only to be interrupted by Elliot. "Question wasn't for you, Clay," Elliot says sternly, easily going into work mode. Arguing with Elliot when he's in work mode is the equivalent of trying to convince a brick wall of something. "Grace ?" "I'm fine," she mumbles awkwardly, feeling the tension reach a high point and wanting nothing more than to escape the situation. "I'm just gonna go get some air." Elliot nods, knowing not to push. He gives a sarcastic smile to Clayton, patting him patronizingly on the shoulder as he walks passed him, telling him he'll see him at work on Monday. Grace takes off in the opposite direction and makes her way outside, appreciating the chill in the air. She doesn't particularly enjoy the cold but being inside with so many people felt hot and stuffy, in a way far worse than the cold could be. After taking a moment to breathe, she pulls out her phone, working pretty much on autopilot at this point. She's not much thinking about her actions until she notices what she's doing and frowns in confusion. In situations like this where she's uncomfortable or anxious, her first choice on the list of people to call is usually Awsten. She usually pulls up his contact and pushes call without even having to think about it. This time, though, it is not Awsten's contact that her finger is hovering over the call button on. She decides to go with it, figuring that her brain must have chosen this route for a good reason. "Hello?" "Hey, Otto."