Claire Dearing felt like she was sitting on hot coal, while the walls of a rather big conference room at Masrani Corp. were closing in on her. She tried not to show her restlessness and slowly let out a deep breath, she never felt keeping in her lungs. Vivian and Lowery were sitting at her sides, while Barry was spread out on two and half chairs behind them. It has been almost four and half hours of yet another testifying day for her, Owen and other park administration employees. Masrani Corp. board opened an internal audit concerning Indominus rex breaking out of its cage, while fully operating it in a joint, international investigation lead by US Department of Justice. Thereby, both Claire and Owen were happy to hear they would be spared repeating their testimonies hundreds of times in cases against InGen and other individuals involved.
Lowery was long asleep, drifting away after the very first 30 minutes of the deposition. His head was now impending over Claire's right shoulder, in contrast to Vivian who was repeating chunks of her own testimony under her breath and was almost jumping in her seat. Truth be told Claire wasn't really listening to the deposition either, knowing almost word by word what Owen would say. She kept getting lost in her thoughts, Barry's commentary in French bringing her back to reality from time to time.
Claire steadied her breath and focused her eyes on Owen, who was recounting his version of the Isla Nublar events to the investigation committee. He was bombarded with questions focusing on exact moment when Claire asked him to look at the new dinosaur, by Mr. Masrani's order. She remembered driving to his bungalow that early afternoon and finding him forearms deep in his motorcycle. Her right eyebrow instinctively rose up at the thought, that back then she would had never expect to see Owen Grady in a full, three pieces suit.
And boy, did he wear them a lot last weeks.
Whilst Claire still had a job, Owen had none without his animals and lately he spent most of his free time looking for one. Claire knew he was not particularly excited at the perspective of working with other animals than dinosaurs, but he had to adapt until the board and authorities decided on next steps concerning park's future.
While Claire definitely appreciated the steel-colored suit she helped him pick out this morning, she really missed those dark jeans along with unbuttoned, beige shirt that perfectly exposed his forearms.
Immediately, she recalled the day Claire Dearing met Owen Grady.
-x-
2014
The first time Claire saw Owen, he was wearing those exact clothes. She secretly fell in love with that style on spot. He was on the raptors nursery pasture, his back facing her and potential Velociraptor sponsor, whom she was giving a tour to.
"Our newest techniques posit that by the time the raptors enter adulthood, at least three out of four should recognize our animal trainer as their alpha," Claire exalted then. "Currently, as you can see, our assets are still a bit too young for that, each around 3 months old. Our trainer is more of foster-mother to them than anything else." She smiled apologetically. "However, their training was started early, just after their first month."
"Well that's definitely something worth looking at," Natalie Benton replied and drew near the window, watching closely Owen play with the little dinosaurs. "And I'm not talking about the dinosaurs only." She looked at Claire suggestively, raising an eyebrow.
A shadow of unprofessional blush ran across Clare's face at Natalie's words. She did not reply and led Natalie downstairs to her to the new animal trainer.
The two women approached the entrance to the pasture and Claire entered her security code.
"Consider that soon we won't be able to waltz in here like that," Claire remarked and held the door open for Natalie.
As they approached the den, Claire stayed a bit behind Natalie and pulled her phone out to find the old mail about their new worker assigned to the raptors she got from InGen 4 months ago. Owen Grady, Owen Grady, she repeated in her mind. Looks shaggy, but is very professional, Claire already started analyzing the man in her head.
"Mr. Grady," she called, putting her most business voice on. "We haven't met yet, my name is Claire Dearing, I'm the operational manager here, and this," she looked over to dark-haired woman, "is Natalie Benton, from New Interplay Inc."
The dark-blonde man stood up from the ground to greet them, while petite reptiles wandered at his feet, hissing at each other.
He smiled warmly at both of them, unconditionally causing an appreciative feeling flash through Claire's chest. "I'm sorry, I would shake your hands but I'm afraid I'm covered in too much dirt and raptor saliva," he explained and wiped his hands in a very dirty towel on his shoulder. "How can I help you?"
"Ms. Benton wanted to ask about some… technicalities regarding our raptors. It would be great if you could answer a couple of questions," Claire suggested.
While Owen was patiently replying all of Natalie's questions, Claire focused on quickly skimming through new e-mails on her phone. Suddenly she felt a slight pinch at her ankle. It was hard enough to make her squeal like a 5-year-old girl.
"Blue!" The young trainer yelled. In a matter of seconds Owen was by her side, one unruly baby-raptor immediately safely landed under his arm.
"I'm sorry, they are way past mascot stage," Owen apologized, but failed at making a convincing sorry face. Instead, he watched her with mischievous interest until the end of their visit. Claire felt a shiver down her spine, his hard gaze following the two businesswomen as they headed back to Claire's car.
In the following months when she got to know Owen, it certainly did not escape her notice how easy on the eye was the former Navy soldier. His openness and laid-back attitude would not bother Claire that much, had it been restrained to outside-work hours. There was something annoying in his playfulness towards thin group of women in staff. During these months Claire was too preoccupied with her job to notice she was the one his flaunts were directed at.
Claire started avoiding the Velociraptors attraction as much as she could while still fulfilling her park's operations manager obligations. Weeks later, when it was absolutely unescapable, Claire finally met Owen during a Halloween party organized by the company for the island employees. Most of the evening she spend hitched to Vivian alone. Her eyes however kept deceiving her and followed the one man she wanted out of her head. When Claire felt Champagne-drunk enough, she escaped the painful view of a bunch of oceanarium girls laughing ridiculously loud at Owen's jokes. She excused herself and headed for her quarters.
She walked the empty corridors of the hotel, her high-heels in her left hand and suddenly felt mood for fresh air. She dropped into the terrace on 4th floor, sat down at the nearest table and enjoyed 2 AM air for a little while.
"Well here you are, Dinosaurella." A soft, male voice broke the silence of the night, accompanied by a slight chuckle. "You lost your snakeskin slipper," Owen Grady himself said, approaching Claire with one of her shoes in his hand.
"Thank you, it must have slipped through my fingers," she replied, a slight hiccough caused by too much champagne following her words. Owen's eyes widened a little when a giggle escaped her lips.
"Dinosaurella," she repeated. "That's definitely some better idea for next year's party," Claire admitted and pointed at her simple dress in Minnie Mouse style. She removed her mouse ears and placed them on the table.
"On the other hand I really dig those painted whiskers," he admitted and pointed at her face, before sitting down at the other side of the little table. "I don't think you could pull them of with Dinosaurella."
Claire waved her hand. "Please, look at yourself, Mr. Flintstone. You really put a lot of energy into your costume, didn't you?" she wondered out loud and admired his sleeveless outfit.
In a thousand lifetimes Owen Grady would not be able to explain to anyone how vividly her eyes were shining in that moment.
He grinned widely and started explaining to her the process of picking out the right costume idea and completing it. Soon they eased into conversation and started talking about almost anything that came to their minds.
It was around 5 AM when she sobered up a bit and finally looked at her watch. Owen Grady was such a smooth interlocutor; she could not tell when the last three hours had fled by. However, Claire felt inevitable tiredness winning her over from head to toes. At one point, she yawned heavily and half-closed her eyes, barely sitting straight up.
"I am just about that boring, aren't I?" Owen teased.
"No, it's not that," Claire objected, though did not stop another yawn escaping her mouth. "I'm sorry, I had meetings today basically from 7 AM up until… 8 PM I think." She frowned and noticed him looking funnily at the top of her nose.
"Of course," he answered in lenient tone. The next moment he rose from his seat and held out his hand to Claire. "I'll walk you to your room, you can't exactly be sure if one of our cold-blooded wards isn't taking a stroll down the hotel kitchen right this moment."
Claire rolled her eyes but smiled while taking his hand. "I'm sure it's not."
They took a staircase to the 5th floor, where her apartment was, never letting go their hands. When they reached her door, Claire found out it was suddenly hard for her to finally say goodbye.
"Go out with me," Owen breathed, hovering over her and stroked one, red forelock out of her face. She was standing barefoot at her door threshold and wondered what kind of magical powers had afflicted her.
Claire nodded slightly and licked her lips. "I'll check with my calendar and get back to you with suitable date, okay?"
"Okay."
"But you're in luck," she teased, keeping a serious tone, "with current events going on, I should have some free time around February."
Owen narrowed his eyes. "Not funny."
"It is a bit," she giggled. "Thank you for escorting me, Mr. Grady."
"My pleasure, Ms. Dearing." Owen smiled longingly at her. After a couple of quiet seconds, he finally headed for the elevator. "Don't think I won't hold you to this," he said pointing a finger at her and pushed the elevator button down.
"I wouldn't think otherwise," she remarked with laugh and closed the door behind her. She stood there for a while, analyzing last couple of hours. What did she get herself into?
In the morning, she let herself be lazy for a bit and stayed in bed until 12 AM. She even asked the breakfast to be delivered right to her room. It was very unlike her, but she hadn't had that good sleep since… she started her job at Jurassic World.
When she finally got up, she called Zara about some minor issues and scheduled their rounds for 3 PM.
Claire took her time writing reports in matted bed, while nibbling on croissant and some fruits. She nearly landed on the floor with her laptop and remains of her snacks the moment her wristwatch announced 4:45 PM had just passed.
Trying to remain calm, Clare quickly put on some fresh clothes and grabbed her phone on the way out. Smoothing her messy hair in the elevator did not help her looks at all, so when Claire stepped out on the ground floor she wasn't really surprised at Zara's eyebrows lifted high up in curiosity. Claire scolded herself in her mind severely for being late. A day when she was late for appointment usually ended badly for her. However, she couldn't wipe away a smug smirk from her face and it accompanied her till the end of the day. Her thoughts kept wandering back to damn Owen Grady and his silly Flintstone costume.
Just as Claire expected in the evening karma kicked her in the butt for being late for her rounds. She was so worn out after one, ill-tempered VIP guest raising hell for being expelled from a ride, she almost forgot asking Zara to look at her calendar.
The two co-workers nearly parted for the night, when Claire remembered it and questioned Zara about next free evening in her graphic.
"Is something wrong?" Zara knitted her eyebrows at the request, but pulled out her paper calendar. Since they started working together, Claire had never asked that kind of question.
"Everything's fine, I just… I just need to know. Personal stuff, you know?" Clare responded and adjusted side of her hair, while looking around.
Even if Zara put two and two together (after all she did see Owen Grady immediately follow her boss leave the party), she did not give it away. "I see you have a relatively light Thursday. Your last meeting ends at 4 PM," Zara proposed, her voice muffled from holding a pen with her lips.
"Thank you," Clare replied and headed for her apartment. She felt silly and almost jumpy on her way.
She pulled her cellphone out the moment she stepped into her quarters and dialed Owen's number.
Owen did not reply right away and when he finally did, she could hear him pant heavily.
"Yes, Dinosaurella?" he chuckled.
"Stop calling me that," Claire scowled, but smiled wryly from ear to ear. "Does Thursday 7 PM work for you? What time do you put the raptors to bed?"
Her heart fluttered at the sound of his sincere and loud laugh. "If you want to drop by and read them a goodnight story, all you have to do is just say so, Claire. Thursday 7 PM works perfectly for me. Cacti Taqueria has great food, if you don't mind your meal spicy."
"I never been there but it's okay. I guess I'll see you then, Mr. Flintstone," she mimicked his playful tone and hung up.
Until Thursday, Claire worked like a little, well-oiled machine. Her focus was in the right places and she thrilled when the Velociraptors got another sponsor to their list. Owen and his training should be recognized with this success, she thought and could barely reign in her anticipation to tell him the news. She got a call with the good news on Wednesday morning and had been bursting with need to tell Owen ever since.
She almost had a chance to tell him on Thursday morning when she met him in the main lobby. Met being a mild term, because she bumped right into him at the park's main lobby. She was in rush for the control room where Mr. Masrani was already waiting for their monthly meeting. On these meetings Claire usually summarized to him every major issue going on at the time, though Claire suspected he scheduled them only to have an excuse to leave the office for park trip.
Seriously, what is wrong with me, she scolded herself. Frustration grew in her, it was 3rd time this week when she was late to a meeting.
"Claire?" Owen brought her back from momentary reverie and ogled her with pining curiosity.
"No time, 4 minutes late," she breathed and looked around to see where that damn Zara wandered off to. "I'll see you tonight?"
Owen only nodded and told her, "Go."
She caught up with Zara and looked over one more time to Owen. She smiled at him when he winked at her, before going his way.
Claire re-focused on Zara's report and mentally prepared herself for a tough day ahead of her.
The day went considerably well contrary to Claire's morning predictions. She even had the time to make a twenty-minute call to Karen during the lunch and that definitely did not happen often.
After lunch, she got back with Mr. Masrani and they headed for the garages to do some field rounds. They visited a couple of attractions with her car, Velociraptors being one of them. Claire was very satisfied how Mr. Masrani was clearly fascinated with the raptors and their tricks, obeying just the simplest orders a dog could do. While her boss was in some kind of trance, observing Barry work with the dinosaurs, Claire felt she wasn't needed for the next fifteen minutes and sneaked away.
With a beating heart, she headed for Owen's office that was placed just outside the raptors cage. She almost abruptly entered it, before stopping in her tracks and looking through the window into the room. There, she noticed Owen and some female worker talking in quite intimate way. Claire recognized her as Jane from baby-dinosaur attraction. The female trainer gesticulated heavily, while getting closer to Owen, practically hovering over him. Next thing she saw he hugged the trainer tightly, his nose deeply buried in the her neck. He straightened to look back at the woman, said something to her and brushed away the hair from her face just like he did that for Claire the Halloween night. Apparently the gesture encouraged Jane as she reached to kiss him on the corner of his lips.
Claire decided she invaded too much and turned around to walk back where she left Masrani with Zara. Zara asked her what happened, because never in her life she saw a woman sprint that fast in damn five-inch high-heels through gravel, but Claire ignored her. Trying to be as delicate as possible, she reminded her boss they had another meeting at the headquarters and hurried him a little bit too hard for it.
Claire got lost in her thoughts while driving. At the same time Masrani was practically drooling over the raptors, but when it wasn't necessary for her to answer him she remained perfectly quiet. Her inner voice was definitely screaming with panic that moment, feeling totally out of control. The scene she just witnessed was more than ambiguous one and it killed her that Owen Grady manipulated her.
As Zara promised, Claire was duty free precisely at 4:00 PM. Three hours until the date. That was three hours she knew she'd spent on overanalyzing than getting ready In her apartment. If she could, she would just cancel the stupid date but after all Claire was too decent to do that, having no other reason than spying on him. Maybe it was a misunderstanding, she wondered, feeling even more lost in her feelings. To calm her idiotic rumination she did what usually helped her to calm in those kind of situations – she organized the plan for the date to the point of printing it out to put in her purse.
Just before 7 PM she entered the restaurant they were supposed to meet at and she groaned under her nose. Immediately, she noticed she was too much out of place in her elegant dress, standing among a crowd of sunbathers that looked like they just left the Plesiosaur beach.
The moment Owen showed up at the restaurant in very similar clothing to the sunbathers something clicked in her, that made her cranky all evening. This is pointless, we are nothing alike.
"Hi, don't stand up," he said, approaching her. Her face stayed straight when he bended over and kissed her on the temple. However, her heart betrayed her and fluttered loudly at the touch. "I ordered us some tequila at the bar already."
"No tequila for me, I'm on a diet," Claire lied and felt like she got punched in the gut when his smile dropped.
From this point onward, the date turned straight into a disaster. Claire had not felt the ease of talking to Owen like after the Halloween party. All the time she sabotaged every topic that came up, unconsciously awaiting the moment he would mention the female trainer. He did nothing sort of and she was too proud to bring it up.
When they finished their meals, Claire took out her evening plan and presented it to Owen.
His eyes went wide and he simply admitted, "I was hoping I could take you to the beach, I had no idea you wanted to take the boring tour 70+ year old park guests go for."
"It's not boring. It's actually very well organized. You know what, never mind," Claire drawled and asked the bypassing waiter for the check. "I had a long day and tomorrow I have to leave for the continent at 6 AM."
They split their check and Claire first rose from the table right away. Owen followed her out of the restaurant and said nothing until they reached the pathway leading to the main entrance of the hotel.
"Claire, you've been acting strange this whole evening. Wanna tell me what is this all about?" he asked gently and took her right hand in his.
"I'm sorry, Owen. This," she took her hand back and pointed between them, "is not doing anything for me. Goodnight."
With that, she turned around and walked for her apartment without looking back. She couldn't tell if she was angrier with Owen or with herself. Once more karma kicked her in the butt. Why did she have to be late that day?
-x-
Jane. Jane Lawrence. Hearing the name of baby-dinosaur trainer interrupted Claire's exaggerated remembrance.
"Was Ms. Lawrence also involved in Velociraptor's upbringing process, Mr. Grady?" a U.S. government representative asked.
"Yes, up until certain point she was very much involved," Owen recalled and shifted in his chair. "Ms. Lawrence's opinion on raptors upgrowth and training progress is basically the same I delivered today. We were always unanimous in that matter."
"Thank you, Mr. Grady, we will contact Ms. Lawrence," the older woman answered. "This will be enough for today. We're going to have a 30 minute break now and after that we'll call Mr. Barree Allard for his testimony."
"Merde," Claire heard Barry mutter under his nose. "On va en finir avec ça."
"I feel you, Barry," Claire murmured.
Almost everybody left for some refreshments and soon she and Owen were the only ones left in the conference room.
"You look too good for your own good in this suit," she said in serious tone. She got up from her chair in the auditorium, but remained in her place stretching out a little after an hour of motionless sitting.
"You're not the only one that can pull off the business look," Owen spoke, as he approached her and put his hands in his pockets. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with right hand. "I'm dead tired."
"You can leave, after all you're done for today," Claire suggested and smoothed her cobalt-colored dress.
Owen shook his head. "I want to be some kind of support for Barry," he murmured and grabbed Claire by her sides. "Thank you for being here for me."
Claire looked him in the eye and felt some of her tension go away at the slightest Owen's touch.
"I've been meaning to ask you," he breathed in her face and Claire could swear all the air in the room was sucked out and filled in with the scent of his cologne only. "We haven't been alone for weeks now and there was no good time either…"
"I know… Karen is doing everything she can to distract herself and the boys from the divorce, so all her focus is suddenly on me and the investigation," she interrupted him. "I swear if I see Gone with the Wind one more time I might staple her to my roof."
Owen chuckled, but was not fooled by Claire's attempt to change the subject. "Anyways, I was wondering if there's a chance you have changed your mind about that second date with me," he carried on.
After a couple of over dragged with silence seconds Claire burst out, "Who is Jane Lawrence?"
"What?" he asked in high tone, tilting his head back.
"Yeah, drop the sudden impairment." Claire narrowed her eyes.
"She worked in the nursery long before I came to work with the raptors," Owen mused. "She was big time help in the first months after they hatched. Why do you ask?" He noticed that Claire was clearly not satisfied with this answer as she raised her eyebrows suggestively.
The red-head sighed heavily and decided to break the ill cycle. "The one that was very touchy-feely with you the afternoon before our date."
Owen winced. "You saw that."
Claire wanted to riposte something about romantic kind of interactions at workplace, but bit her tongue.
"Listen I might or not might have told her I was gay so… she decided she could make me her gay BFF…" he rambled on and knitted his eyebrows at one point. "That fired backwards really, because she bugged me even more and… that day, our date day, one baby in the new Ceratopsians litter died and she was devastated… it hit me really hard too…"
Claire caught herself nodding understandingly at his chaotic attempt of explanation when she stopped him. "Wait, what? Why on earth would you tell her you're gay?" she enquired. Just when she was sure the relationship between them couldn't get any weirder.
"She became very imposing after the Halloween party," Owen sighed. "I really did not want to scare you off, you just agreed to go out with me after months of avoiding me… and I kind of improvised."
"Badly. You're an idiot," she exclaimed, which he acknowledged by spreading his arms in surrender gesture.
"I might be an idiot, but you're the one who ridiculously overreacted instead of spilling the beans at the date if that bugged you."
"She kissed you almost on the mouth!" Claire hissed. "I assumed you would be calling right away to cancel the date."
"In my defense I pushed her away, because that was enough. Still, instead of talking about what's on your mind, you decided to sabotage the date with the stupidest reason ever."
"It wasn't that stupid. Also I thought you would sense what I was angry about," she blurted.
Owen clenched his jaw and cocked his head to the side, shaking with laugher. "Woman, are you for real… you're forgetting I don't read people's minds and analyze them like you like to. I really believed you did not feel the way I did so I backed off."
Claire didn't have any response to come up with anymore. She looked at him with eyes wide-open, their surroundings becoming oblivious to her at that moment. Owen grunted angrily and pinned her against glass railing that separated the conference room. He covered her mouth with his in a frustrated, hungry manner. She yelped softly like the last time they kissed, because that damn man just loved to be overdramatic. However, this kiss was not filled with gratitude like the first one they shared after Claire saved Owen's life. She responded immediately and deepened the kiss, pressing her left palm in his hair and pushing him even more into her. His strong arms kept caressing her sides and a low moan escaped Claire's lips when his tongue entered her mouth. He still tasted like the vanilla coffee they shared on their last break. She could still feel his warm breath on her chin when they parted a little, his eyes seeking hers. Owen clearly wanted her to realize he would hold her to the promise this kiss meant.
"Ms. Dearing, Mr. Grady. If you don't mind," the chairman of hearing committee rebuked as he walked into the conference room. Behind him, in the doorway, stood Lowery with his mouth hanging open. Claire saw him breath out "nice" as he sat down a few seats to their left.
I really do mind, Claire thought and sat down next to Owen in the auditorium chairs. She placed her palm on his lap, fingers intertwined with his and kept it there until Barry's interrogation finished.
Her eyes kept wandering to the man beside her. After a couple of minutes, her gaze was met with Owen's mischievous one.
Claire Dearing could not think of any more excuses to run.