What Lies Under

c h. | t w o

✵ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｂｌｕｅ✵

dedicated to WriterAndReaderNn because i love me some spam (and nice comments)

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"CLAIRE, ARE YOU really sure you want to do this?" Louisa's voice sounded as anxious as always, even when it was over a 1000 miles away.

Claire bet if she were to turn around and look at her laptop's screen, she would also probably be biting her lip- a tell that she felt uneasy about any situation.

"Come on guys. You're almost as bad as my mom. Nothing bad is going to happen," Claire said offhandedly as she continued rifling for a shirt. "Tash, you don't believe this stuff, do you?"

"Well, Claire you have to admit, it is kind of freaky," a surprisingly masculine voice said, making Claire jump. "You should at least read some of the legends about the lake, like-"

"Dom, she was asking me not you," Tash interrupted.

Claire turned around abruptly, holding a shirt to her chest. "Wait, Dom is there too?"

"Don't worry, he hasn't seen anything," Tash assured Claire as she slipped her shirt on. "Though it would be better for everyone if he made some friends his own gender."

"Tash, we can't throw him out of the group just because he isn't a girl," Louisa said. "We're all still part of the same swim team so it'd be hard to avoid him."

"Yeah, Natasha," Dom taunted childishly from somewhere off screen, even though Louisa wasn't exactly defending his cause.

Tash rolled her eyes in response, before tilting her head, presumably to look at him, Claire guessed.

"You can come back now," Tash told him, once Claire began to put her hair in a high ponytail.

Claire could hear scrambling before Dom's impish smile appeared two inches from the camera on Tash's iPad. His brown eyes shone brightly and his dark hair was as unruly as ever in what he called 'the orchestrated bed-head'.

"Have you really been there the entire time?" Claire asked him as she readjusted the elastic in her hair.

"Of course," Dom replied. "I've been listening in to all your dirty little teenage girl secrets and also your massive crush on me."

"I don't have 'dirty little teenage girl secrets' as you say," Claire replied with an amused eye roll. "And as for the crush thing, you wish."

At that, Dom sighed wistfully and turned to face Louisa. "She's still in denial, Lou. She's still in denial."

He threw an arm around her, causing Louisa to blush right before she pushed him off her and straightened her outfit.

"Anyway," Claire said. "I've heard Lou's opinion and unwillingly, Dom's own too. So, what about you, Tash? Do you have any paranoid fears of me swimming in the lake?"

"Well, Claire, the place doesn't even have a name. That is a bit off," Tash admitted her uncertainty.

"Of course the lake has a name. It's-" Claire paused to think. As far as she knew, all the locals had called it The Lake as well. "Huh. I guess it doesn't have a name..."