City of Smoke // Brian 'Otis' Zvonecek ✔️

10 || JEALOUSY

Jealousy wasn't something that Otis often felt, not really. In his whole life he'd never been given much reason to be jealous, at least, not for things of importance. But when he saw Rory, standing at the bottom of the firehouse apron talking to a guy he'd never seen before, well he wouldn't deny that he soon began to feel a heightened sense of, slightly rage filled, jealousy building within him.

"There you are, man, I've been looking for you all over the place." Cruz's semi-exhausted voice reached Otis's ears, making him glance to his side where his friend soon came into view. "What are you doing out here?"

"Nothing." Otis mumbled, his head dropping to look down at the table before him, but only for a few seconds as he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from Rory for very long. Or the guy she was with. The tall, handsome, brunette guy she'd been talking to for what felt like hours, when it reality it had only been about ten minutes.

With a furrowed brow, Cruz's eyes moved from Otis, who was tensing his jaw so much he almost thought it would snap in half, and when he followed his line of sight down the apron, he wasn't surprised to see that it was Rory who was making Otis like this. Or more so, the guy she was with.

"Stalk much?" Cruz half chuckled half scoffed, folding his arms across his chest while his gaze fixed back onto Otis, who was gripping the axe on the table so tightly his knuckles were almost transparent.

"I'm not stalking." Otis snapped a little more harshly than he meant, but Cruz took no offence. Nor did he take offence to the glare Otis shot towards him. "I'm cleaning."

"Uh-huh." Cruz nodded, rolling his lips to hide a smile as he rounded the cleaning table and stood in front of his, not so subtle with his jealousy, friend, blocking his view of Rory. "And are you forgetting that you cleaned the axes last shift?"

"So?"

"So..." Cruz drew out, taking the axe from Otis, incase he decided to go all Patrick Bateman on his ass, which was a lot easier than he thought given the tight grasp Otis had on it. "You don't need to clean them again."

Otis scowled a little, crossing his arms over his chest as he huffed out a breath, reminding Cruz of a child who'd be told no or had their favourite toy taken away from them. His eyes looked over Cruz's shoulder, watching as Rory laughed or smiled at whatever this new guy was saying to her.

Otis had been more focused on Jimmy lately, who'd become way too close to Rory than Otis would have liked, that he hadn't even considered the possibility of Rory meeting someone else.

"Seriously, Otis... Will you just ask her out already before you drive yourself, and me, crazy?" Cruz said, nudging Otis's shoulder and making his attention fall back on him.

"I already told you Cruz, I can't ask Rory out." Otis replied around a sigh, an underlining sadness and regret to his voice over his reasoning.

"Right... Because you think she deserves better than you, I forgot." Cruz mumbled, unamused and with a slight roll of his eyes.

"I don't think." Otis muttered, throwing the rag he held in his hand on the table. "I know. She deserves someone better than me."

"So what, that means you're just gonna sulk around in a jealous rage any time she talks to another guy? I mean, you practically ignore Jimmy most days and the two of them are nothing more than friends."

"I do not ignore, Jimmy." Otis replied, hesitantly, as he did. He did ignore Jimmy a lot. He also chose to ignore Cruz's mention of him being a jealous sulk because he did not sulk... Often.

"Whatever... Listen, Rory likes you and I know you like her too. Are you just going to keep letting this silly fear you have, where you think she's suddenly going to resent you, stop you from being happy?"