Owen had immediately realized this was a horrible idea. That redhead was going to be tough to crack and those janitors were high as a kite if they expected him to bother with the trouble.
The kitchen staff had not lied when they said she wouldn't be able to resist that salad. Claire had even given him a second of false hope when she asked him to come in and set the salad on her desk. That's all the time he had with her before she kicked him out, asking him to close the door behind him.
Zara, the assistant, had been very helpful assuring him that food was an easy tool to get her attention. She barely had time to eat — and even if she didn't look like one, she was still human and had to eat from time to time. The English woman had also tipped him on Claire's drink of choice; Owen had looked so defeated after leaving that office that she had to do something to help him out.
He had been publicly humiliated by Claire twice in less than an hour. Owen had enough experience with women to know by now that being insistent was not going to help his case at all, but that's what his new friends — if you could call them that, wanted him to do. They were desperate to have Owen bring Claire on board before the next soccer match; which would happen in seven days from tomorrow.
"I'm not going to be begging some crazy chick to go out with me." He shrugged indifferently while he walked downstairs to the paddock. "I have better things to do." He started looking around for his tools so he could go back to work and forget about this afternoon.
"She's not crazy... she's just—in..intense." Hector begged him. Both Miguel and him were the two who had better English out of the ten, therefore they would be the ones directly communicating with Owen.
"I could see that." He huffed while he kept walking around, the two Latino men following him like dogs. "I thought this would be some easy money, but there's nothing easy about her." He kept brushing their pleading off, their case was truly not his problem.
"Would you do it for more cash? Seventy-five dollars for one date." Miguel offered him half of what they had collected in their fund. They would have to come up with a solution and get more money if it would end up being this expensive. They were hoping it wouldn't, but not even they had anticipating for the redhead to be this cold and annoyed by the handsome man they had carefully picked for her.
"A hundred bucks, up front, and twenty-five extra for each time I have to try get her to bite the bait." Owen was thinking of buying some luxury parts for his bike with that extra cash. He knew this would take more than one try, and if he was going to let some holier-than-thou chick walk all over him and keep humiliating him... the least he could do was think of his sweet ride and how pimping the bike up would make this whole trouble worth it.
The employees were doing this for their soccer team, he was going to do it for his Scrambler.
"Deal." Hector agreed. "But remember we have eyes everywhere. We won't pay you for the try unless we agree you did the best you could." They were no fools.
Owen sighed, still not believing he was still in this mess and shook hands with them, closing the deal. There was not turning back. It seemed he now was going to be into the fiery redhead everyone feared — or at least pretend he was, just so these goofs could watch some soccer in peace.
Owen released a heavy sigh. The Claire Dearing Starbucks usual in one hand and a fresh western breakfast omelette in the other. He had made it early to her office, Zara informing him she was running late. However, the assistant had teamed up with him and let him stepped into the office for him wait there.
This gave Owen some minutes to clear his mind, put his charming smile on even if he didn't want anything to do with her. He set her breakfast and coffee on the middle table in front of the couch, and casually let his hazel eyes scan her office.
Owen could tell a lot about her just by sitting in there. Everything was neatly in place. It was simple but chic. The view from there was pretty nice as well, he stretched his neck lightly trying to have a look at it from there. The glass wall behind her desk offered a view to the lagoon. He had heard they were in the last stage of introducing the park's first marine monster; the mosasaurus. He couldn't wait to check that one out.
This event was a big deal for the park and a lot of pressure on the redhead, the whole asset still under confidential stage so most employees couldn't connect the dots between the attraction and her short temper being more sensitive to exploding than it usually was.
He heard voices coming from outside her office, he could tell one of them was Zara because of the accent and he quickly assumed the other one belonged to the boss.
A pair of heels clicking against the floor seemed to get closer, the sound of a sigh brought his sight up from his hands.
"Didn't I ask you to leave?" Claire tilted her head.
"That was yesterday." He reached out for the coffee he had brought for her, glad she didn't seem to have one in hand already. She never did, it was until after she settled in her office when she found a minute to go back down and get one.
"Okay..." She looked to the side a little confused, "So is that how it's going to be? Me asking you to leave me alone every day?" Her green eyes moved down to the coffee he was holding out, Owen standing in front of her by then.
"Or... you could make this smoothly better for us and just give me a shot." He grinned.
Claire let a couple of seconds tick, her facial expression dead panned, "please get out."
Owen felt his fingers going slightly tensed around the coffee, trying to have his mind sell him the idea that he had just made twenty-five bucks out of this, and let his thoughts go back to his bike.
He nodded and without fighting her, he started to walk out.
"Leave the coffee." She instructed before taking it from him. She took a sip and closed the door behind him.
That was a very passionate group of employees. If they put this much work and dedication into anything, they could assemble a solid labor union at the park, but Central Americans were lazy. They were lazy and stingy for most things except soccer. They had been left with only twenty-five bucks in their fund after paying Owen for his efforts and that (up front) first date, however they wouldn't give up. It was time to come up with a plan.
Each janitor kart was displaying a funds jar now, that way all of them could be collecting change from every corner around the park. The jars read their inspirational tag; 'Por Navas, por el Real, por el Fútbol' and they had even decorated them with their team's official colors. They were loving this, because not only did they get to collect the change found misplaced and the donations given by other employees, but some guest would assume it was a tip jar and leave them some sweet cash in there. Even staff who were unaware of the bet would leave their change with them.
Every day, at the end of their shifts, everyone of them would head to different vendors and cash-in the change they had collected. Gift shops and food stands alike always welcomed it, helping them avoid giving Owen a bunch of single bills and quarters for his trouble.
On his end, Owen didn't really feel like he was making much progress. He had spent the last three days bringing that woman her morning coffee and breakfast just to watch her ask him to leave. One of those times, she even closed the door on his face. But then again, he let the thought of having seventy-five bucks just that easy drown the humiliating aspect of his insisting.
That morning though, he decided to try something different. He was running out of time and these people were pressuring him, insisting they didn't pay him twenty-five bucks every day just for them to end up missing the match. If they had paid him those hundred bucks up front, they were expecting him to have Claire distracted enough for them to enjoy the game.
Claire greeted Zara good morning on her way to her office. The door was closed and that made her wonder, "please tell me he is not in there naked on my couch or something." The redhead closed her eyes, already expecting to see him there just like the past few days.
"He didn't come today." The English woman shook her head and smiled softly.
"Oh." Claire frowned a little. This twirly feeling invading her stomach while she nibbled on her lower lip. Why was she even caring if he hadn't come over? It kind of upset her actually, how dare he. This man had spent half the week greeting her with coffee and good breakfast, just for what? To stop doing it eventually and so fast? In all honesty, Claire wasn't even surprised. That's why she hadn't even bothered show him some gratitude. Because yes, she quietly appreciated the detail.
"Is everything okay?" Zara tilted her head, noticing Claire was still standing there.
"Yeah." She nodded and reaching out, she opened the door to her office and walked in.
Zara smiled to herself, taking notice on how the Raptor Wangler's absence had gotten to her boss.
The next few hours had gone rather uneasy for Claire, she was hungry and was quietly missing that fresh hot breakfast she had been slowly getting used to. She found a small window of down time which she used to walk to the break room down the hall from her office.
She had a five dollar bill with her, trying to get some of those Pingüinos she loved so much. They were cream filled chocolate cupcakes that the vending machine offered for like seventy-five cents. It was ridiculous that she was using that bill to get them, because she would then end up with this heavy amount of change and she hated change. That was one of the reasons why she didn't have any on her at the moment; a couple of days ago she had given all the change in her purse and around her office to the cleaning lady "for [her] cute little jar".
The main reason why she was feeling beyond stupid doing this was because the machine wouldn't even take her bill. She always ended up fighting with the vending machine, it was the same every single time. She'd watch it take the money and immediately take it out with an error message being displayed on the screen. She was hungry and she didn't have time for this.
"Just take it, you bitch!" She was aggravated after dealing with it for five minutes now. The only reason why she didn't start kicking it was because there was a security camera right on the corner and she was positive the control room was starting to bet on a side; who would win the fight? Claire or the vending machine, the only one in that whole island that could afford refused giving her what she wanted unless she asked nicely.
The redhead sighed. She had tried all sorts of 'tricks', folding the bill, using the edge of the machine to help the folds be less pressed in it, and so on.
She turned around just to watch Owen walking in. Yes he was looking for her, and yes, Zara had told him where to find her.
She immediately turned around ignoring his presence which made him smirk, "it doesn't want to cooperate huh?" He chuckled. "May I?" He reached out for the bill.
Owen fed it to the machine and it made those little sounds announcing it was reading it. Claire would really hate everything if it would work with him. She avoided making eye contact, looking away while she felt his eyes on her.
The vending machine returned the bill which made Claire smile to herself. Owen fished for some change in his pocket, the redhead parted her lips slightly almost waiting for him to ask what was it that she wanted so he could get it for her.
He never did, instead he punched the numbers for some corn based snacks into the board. There was this Central American brand that had about six kinds of different snacks in the machine. He got one of each, they were very cheap about a quarter each.
Claire shifted, her arms folded against her chest, watching him casually move around the kitchen. He found a lemon in the fridge and grabbed a plastic glass and a couple of spoons from the cupboard, as well as the Tajín that was for commune use.
"C'mon." Owen motioned with his hand so she could meet him at one of the tables, they had the break room all for themselves.
It was only the two of them and one maintenance guy whom had walked in a few minutes after Owen. This one guy was working on fixing one of the microwaves, but Owen was positive he was the one keeping an eye on them; making sure the twenty-five bucks for this try were fairly earned.
Owen placed everything on the table and pulled the chair out for her.
Claire hesitated joining him for a second, but she was really curious to see what he was going to do with all those snacks. She cleared her throat and taking the chair, she pulled closer.
Her green eyes scanned the different snacks, she noticed that at least two of those were very hot.
She was quiet while Owen mixed them all in the glass, squeezed the lemon and sprinkled some Tajín in there. He covered the glass with his hand and shook it softly.
Claire licked her lips, his peculiar way of fixing the snacks making her eager to taste it.
He grabbed one of the spoons and dug into the glass with it, "open big." He smiled while taking the spoon over to her lips.
The redhead bit on her lower lip and after narrowing her eyes and offering him a glance, she opened her mouth letting him feed her that first bite.
She smiled while chewing on it, it was actually really good. She made a face tasting the sour of the lemon juice and immediately after started gasping because of the hot of some of the snacks.
Owen couldn't help laugh and noticed how cute she actually was. His eyes soft on her red cheeks before she stood up and poured herself a glass of water.
Claire gulped half of it in less than a second and laughed along with him once the effect had passed.
Owen used the same spoon to have a bite himself, he was used to the hot so his reaction wasn't the same.
Claire was soon back on her chair by his side. She fixed her eyes on his and nibbling on her lower lip she leaned closer, asking for him to feed her again.
The maintenance guy behind them, he pulled his cellphone out and took a picture of Owen feeding the redhead. He sent it to the rest of the group celebrating that some progress had finally been made.
"Someone is hungry." Owen teased her, feeling how she was once again leaning closer for more.
Claire was smiling big, "Well, you see... I didn't have breakfast today." She casually shrugged.
"How come? Is your chef on strike or something?" Owen laughed, fully aware of what she was doing there.
She shook her head before she opened big and felt him feed her another bite, Claire had already gotten used to the sour and hot of the little snack. "I don't know, I guess I was expecting for someone to bring me some but he didn't show up." She narrowed her eyes, flirting a little with him.
"What a dick." Owen shook his head.
"Hmmm."
"Maybe he felt you didn't care for it." Owen shrugged before he took a bite of their snacks.
"I didn't." Claire said firmly, but her green eyes found his giving away that not caring was a thing of the past, sort of.
He found his hazel eyes exploring hers, they were this peculiar shade of green; so beautiful and penetrating. "Maybe I can make it up to you." He suggested softly.
She tilted her head, curious to hear what he had in mind.
"This is certainly not a proper breakfast by any means, maybe we could do lunch? He suggested.
The redhead was quiet for a couple of seconds, studying his hazel eyes and trying to figure out his intentions, because this certainly was not something that happened to her very often. "What are you after?" She murmured.
"What do you mean?" He scratched his arm lightly.
"If I were you, I would have told myself to go fuck herself after that first time." She shrugged.
"What can I say? I'm into it." He chuckled.
She nodded and went quiet again. She was playing with her fingers. He could tell she was very hesitant and wish he could do something to encourage her to agree, but he decided to remain silent, and give her the time she needed.
"Lunch?" She echoed his suggestion from before.
"I can bring it up to your office, whatever works for you." He insisted.
Claire smiled softly and nibbled on her lower lip. He was looking at her with wonder and anticipation, and she found it really hard to decline. So hard that she pushed herself into doing so, "I don't—I don't think so." She shook her head.
He frowned, this chick was really something else. He could swear she had been flirting with him, and had just hinted for him to keep bringing her breakfast. So what was her deal?
"I'm sorry I can't finish our snack, but I went over time and I'm running late for a meeting." She said apologetically before standing up and heading out of the break room.
Once again, leaving Owen sitting there wondering what would it take to have her open up a little bit, enough for him to get away with dating her so he could comply with his part of the deal.