The Selfie

It started out as a marketing technique. If posting snapchats of the dinosaurs brought more people to the park, then it would be seen to that the social media marketing manager posted on the Jurassic World "story" at least once a day. There was one employee in particular who knew a friend of a friend of the social media marketer and somehow –god damn him- got access to the Jurassic World account: Owen Grady. The snapchat story became a steady supply of pictures of his raptors, silly pictures of his coworkers, and his latest bit of snapchat mischief was a sneaky picture of Claire Dearing at the last board meeting he'd been painfully forced to sit through earlier that afternoon. Claire was not one to take things like that lightly, not in any way, shape, or form.

Her white blouse was neatly tucked into the navy blue pencil skirt already, but she smoothed out her top again in an attempt to make herself look more than presentable. She prided herself on looking unusually great around Owen, especially after their failure of a first date; she wasn't even trying to impress him, just to remind the raptor trainer what he had missed out on by showing up in board shorts, by teasing her about her itinerary and her refusal to drink tequila with him. Heels clicking on the concrete as she made her way into the raptor paddock, she could be heard approaching a mile away. Maybe it was the vanilla scented lotion that always gave her away. Even then, Owen Grady hadn't heard her coming; his attention had been focused on the raptor beside him, locked into the harness and eyeing the so-called treat in his outstretched left hand. To any normal, non-raptor training person, it was a dead rat. His other hand contained his iPhone also held out in front of them, the snapchat app opened, the front camera on. That was how Claire found Owen, side by side with the vicious creature attempting to take a selfie with the damn thing. What the hell is wrong with this man? was all she could think as she stepped closer to him, clearing her throat with an effeminate ahem in an attempt to catch his attention without startling him. God knows she didn't want to surprise him and make him jump right into the eager jaws of his raptor.

"C'mon Blue, we just need one good one," the sound of his voice made Claire feel just plain strange; a mixture of mild irritation and a feeling she couldn't quite place. Maybe, in the furthest reaches of her mind, it was longing for what could've been. Now that made her feel strange, thinking that she felt anything other than contempt for the raptor trainer. His head turned in her direction and gave a slight nod, that grin she loved to hate finding its place on his lips. She hated even more that it made her heart flutter. "Hey… You need something?"

"I need you to stop this."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Claire." He shot her another grin, as if he somehow knew the effect he had on her. The effect they had on each other.

"I don't know how you got the password or why you get so much enjoyment out of unnecessarily spamming the account… But it ends now." Her expression throughout the duration of that sentence shifted from irritated to confused to harsh seriousness, and all the while Owen just watched with an amused smile. She could swear that every single thing she said to him went in one ear and right out the other; she had to give the man credit, he knew how to act unfazed. However, there was no way she'd be leaving without the password changed back and Owen logged out of that account. Sighing, she stepped closer to him and –for a second- thought she'd caught him swallowing a lump in his throat. Her vanilla lotion smelled strong; it filled his nose and his mouth in the most wonderful of ways, and he couldn't help but let his mind wander in the silence that settled between them. He could've been the one to fall asleep with her red hair splayed across his bare chest; he could've woken up before her and opened his eyes to the sweetest sight the world had to offer. Of course, could've been were the key words there. It was made quite clear to Owen that those kinds of things shouldn't even be happening in his wildest dreams by Claire. He couldn't help that thoughts like those flooded his mind when she was standing here less than three feet from him.

"Are you being like this because I wouldn't go out with you a second time?" Her voice was taunting, a smile on her lips like she had Owen Grady all figured out. She liked to think she did. There couldn't have been much more to him other than his Navy history and an indefinite (given the way he so carelessly put his face inches from his snarling raptor, she deemed his stay indefinite) future at the park. She'd convinced herself that if there was more to him, she didn't want to know.

"'Course not," he replied indignantly with a shrug, a smirk of his own appearing on his lips as his eyes shifted back to look at his phone screen.

"Mr. Grady, I really don't want to have to do this, but I'm going to confiscate your phone and log you out myself if I have to." She'd given him the warning as she reached out to snatch the device from his hands; however, she never envisioned that the events that occurred after were even remotely a possibility. Just as she reached out, Owen dropped the treat in his hand and did as well, capturing the redhead's wrist in his firm grasp. He wasn't sure what the hell was going through his mind as he pulled her down beside him and threw his arm over her shoulders, but he did know that he had the widest damn grin appearing on his lips as his finger pressed on the white circle on his screen. Before Claire could even fathom what had just happened, he'd already saved the picture to his camera roll and posted it onto the story for everyone to see. As soon as her brain slowly processed and pieced together what Owen had done, her expression shifted. To say that Claire Dearing was angry was an extreme understatement. She was seething, outraged beyond belief that he had the audacity to touch her, let alone to take a picture of her –with her- without her permission. She'd blown up at people before, but what Owen had coming was… Well, she could've sworn she'd seen a trace of fear behind the amusement in his eyes when she stood up again and glared down at him. She smoothed out her blouse and skirt again, ran a hand through her red locks, and breathed in for a few seconds before she let him have it.

"How dare you? Do you have any idea how easily I could see to it that you're fired immediately, Mr. Grady? This is the most idiotic thing you've done yet, and I've just witnessed you trying to take a… selfie with a raptor, for fuck's sake! I cannot believe…" Her voice trailed off as she realized her lecturing was getting her nowhere; Owen had an entertained look on his face, but his eyes were distant, lost in thought. How was he supposed to focus on anything when he'd gotten his face and Claire Dearing's face in the same picture? The same woman who showed up to their date armed with an itinerary and a refusal to relax at all with him, the same woman he'd had a massive infatuation with for months was now in a picture, occupying the same space on the screen of his phone with him. While she might've have been an unwilling participant, she was still a participant and her face was still mere inches from his, and not even Claire's harsh words thrown at him could snap him out of the pride he was feeling.

Claire let out something between a frustrated groan and a sigh. "You can keep the picture, but I have a few conditions." His eyes refocused and widened as his mind raced, she'd just said what? "First, I don't want another living person to see that ever."

"What about Blue? She saw it."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Not funny."

"Wasn't meant to be."

"Sure it wasn't. Anyways," Claire cleared her throat in a slightly pretentious manner and began again. "I want it taken off of the story right now before anyone gets a chance to see it." She eyed him carefully as he silently deleted the new picture along with the one he'd taken in the meeting earlier from the story –but not before saving it again, just for good measure- and turned his phone around to show her it was truly deleted. She gave a curt nod and before he could shove the iPhone back into the pocket of his jeans, she stopped him.

"Wait, I want to see the picture…"

"Uh-uh, you're gonna delete it."

"I'm not. I have a bad feeling you'll be showing this picture off later and I just want to see how bad it is." Claire was probably right; Owen probably would be showing the picture to Barry later and swearing him to secrecy like they were schoolgirls, and Owen wanted to tell her that it was damn near impossible for her to ever look bad, but he decided ultimately that it was best to pull up the picture and place the phone in her waiting hands. There was no winning when it came to an argument with Claire.

Her face was priceless to say the least; the picture had been taken mid-surprised gasp and her eyes were staring directly into the camera with a look pure horror. As much as she wanted to hate the picture and as much as she wanted to want to delete the picture and shove his phone back into his hands, she couldn't. She didn't want to at all. Maybe it was the expression on her face or the fact that Owen was so damn proud of himself for managing to catch her by surprise, but something about it made laughter bubble from her lips and Owen stared at her like she'd completely lost her mind.

"Okay, that's a little funny," she admitted, "can you… Can you send that to me Owen? I'm willing to bet you still have my number in here."

She placed the device back in his hand and, for what was the greatest millisecond of his life, her fingertips brushed over his rough, calloused palm and if he hadn't before, he knew it then. This woman had him wrapped around her finger in ways he hadn't even imagined were possible, from hearing her laugh –really laugh- to the way she'd called him by his first name…

Newton's Third Law states that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction; if that were true, his reaction to Claire's gentle smile and friendly words would've been a frown and a harsh fuck off. After everything she'd put him through, getting his hopes up and carelessly crushing them again and again whenever he so much as began to think he might possibly may be getting somewhere with her, that was what he would've done if she were quite literally any other person in the world. However, she was still Claire and he was still Owen, so he opened his messages and typed out a message along with the picture to send to the redhead beside him before he could forget. Not that he would ever forget that Claire Dearing wanted the picture of them together.

We do look kinda great together. I think we'd look even better out at dinner tonight though. No board shorts this time.

She retrieved her own phone when it buzzed in her purse, and the rosy blush that spread over her pale cheeks like a wildfire was a good enough answer for him.