Barry and Owen sat and ate their lunch with Claire's salad sitting close to his tray. His eyes glued to the innovations center hoping luck was on his side.

"What's the plan?" Barry wondered, motioning towards the salad.

"Well my main hope is she joins us for lunch, but if she doesn't I will bring it up to her." Owen explained.

"And if her assistant comes for it?"

Owen shrugged, popping the last bite of his first taco in his mouth. "Well I just run it up before she can get to the booth to pick it up."

Barry rolled his eyes. "Smooth."

Checking his watch once more his eyes rose to the innovations center. The flash of red hair immediately caught his attention. Luck was on his side. He waved to try and get her attention as she walked closer to them, but her eyes were locked on her phone. "Claire!" Owen called out before he even had the chance to think of a better way to get her to look his way.

She hesitated and quickly looked around before looking back down at her phone, continuing towards the taco cart.

"Hey, Dearing!" Owen called out again.

This time Claire stopped in her tracks, spinning around towards the voice, her face settled in an annoyed glare as she prepared to lecture whichever employee on the appropriate way to get her attention. Her features immediately relaxed when she saw Owen waving at her. Glancing quickly over her shoulder at the taco cart and ignoring the grumbling in her empty stomach, she walked over towards them. "Dearing?" Claire asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well if you weren't glued to your phone you would have noticed the first time I called for you." He motioned towards her salad before she could respond. "Hungry?"

"I—" Claire cut off as she concentrated on the salad container. "I…" She tried again, turning back towards the food cart. She gathered her thoughts before turning back towards Owen. "How did you…" She trailed off, hiding the urge to stomp her foot in frustration at the fact that he had her blubbering.

"Lucky guess. Want to join us?" Owen gestured to the empty chair at their table.

"Oh, erm…" Claire glanced down at her phone then back towards the innovation center and finally took a quick look around to see if anyone spotted her. She has never sat in public for lunch unless she had a meeting. Her lunch hour was spend picking at her lunch while she answered emails at her desk. During her climb up the corporate ladder, less and less colleagues asked her to join them for lunch. She had to admit it felt nice to be asked by someone who wasn't constantly hitting on her.

"Oh come on. Barry and I would like to talk more."

Biting her bottom lip as she tried not to laugh at his poor attempt to get her to eat lunch with them. She knew for a fact that he didn't have any actual questions for her. He had already tried that one on her. But she couldn't deny his smile and found herself walking towards the empty chair.

Owen slid her salad towards her and she peeked inside, her eyes immediately shooting up towards him. "This is my usual order. How would you know?"

"Tabitha helped a little." Owen confessed.

With a roll of her eyes, Claire picked up her fork and took a bite. "Thanks."

The three quickly fell into an easy conversation and Claire found herself actually relaxing.

"What did you guys do before signing on with InGen?" Claire asked and Owen immediately waved his finger at her.

"Oh no, no, no. You don't get to ask—" he mimicked her as he used air quotes, "— personal questions."

"Ok, fine." Claire smiled at him, "I've been working here for eight years and interned here before that." She informed him, answering his earlier question.

"Oh wow," Owen leaned his elbows on the table as he listened to her. "So you saw all this start."

Claire nodded as she took a bite of her salad. "Now my turn. What did you guys do before signing on with InGen?" She repeated her earlier question.

"Navy." Owen answered.

"Military?" Claire raised an eyebrow in question, a sly smirk playing at the corner of her lips.

Owen leaned back in his chair, folding his arms against his chest. "Impressed?"

Unable to hide her burst of laughter, she quickly apologized. Owen looked across the table at Barry and found him snickering. His eyebrows furrowed, unhappy he missed the joke.

"I'm impressed you were able to follow orders." Claire said through her laughter. At that, Barry couldn't hide his laughter anymore.

Owen should have been offended. He knew that, but he couldn't help but smile as he watched Claire's face light up as she laughed. "Yeah, well," he shrugged her off, leaning back in his chair with a smile on his face that he couldn't seem to get rid of. "I quickly became the one giving the orders. I was in charge of the project we were working on."

Claire's laughter died off as she leaned towards him. "What project?" She wondered.

"I worked with dolphins."

"Awe," Claire couldn't help but sigh. Dolphins were always her favorite growing up. She quickly composed herself realizing just how relaxed she was becoming. She cleared her throat and sat up straight. "That's quite a big difference. Going from Dolphins to raptors. You ready for that challenge?"

"Hell yeah!" Owen said excitedly. He loved studying the marine animals and taking on this project with the raptors was a challenge he was eager to start.

Getting lost in his excitement, Claire found herself studying his smile. The way it stretched to his eyes when he was really happy about something. His eyes… Claire lingered there for a moment, entranced in the way they sparkled when he laughed. She wasn't sure how long she was lost in his features, but her world seemed to flip upside down when hazel eyes locked with hers. She could see everything in his eyes. Normally she would feel embarrassed if someone caught her starring at them, but with her eyes locked with Owen's she felt something different.

Barry cleared his throat to try and get their attention. He glanced down at his watch realizing they were scheduled to be down in the nursery five minutes ago. With another failed attempt to get Owen's attention he kicked him under the table.

Breaking his gaze from Claire, Owen shot daggers across the table towards his friend.

"Just thought I should let you know it's almost three." Barry said, tapping his watch.

"Three!" Claire shrieked, jumping to her feet. She should have been on a conference call with Mr. Masrani half hour ago. Her face paled as she looked down at her phone realizing she had a missed call from Zara and four text messages from her. "Shit." She hissed.

"Everything ok?" Owen asked, stepping towards her.

"Huh?" Claire looked up at him and then back down at her phone as she sent a quick text to Zara. "Oh, yeah, just have a meeting I'm supposed to be in." Turning to toss her garbage away she smiled as she backed away from Owen and Barry. "Thanks again for lunch, but I have to go." Waving quickly, she turned away from them and hurried towards the innovation center.

"Hey, wait up!" Owen called after her.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Grady, but I'm late." Claire said quickly as she picked up her pace.

Owen easily kept up with her. "It's Owen, and I'm walking this way, too."

"Oh," Claire nodded. "Right, the lab." She sighed, unable to not feel a little angry at Owen for distracting her through lunch. But she was even more angry at herself for being sucked in. She's only had one relationship during her time here, and it ended because of her. She chose work over love. Her biggest flaw was the inability to let her emotions for someone get in the way of work. She glanced over at Owen as he walked beside her. How did she allow him to distract her so much?

After her two year relationship with Andrew Carter, the senior veterinarian for the dinosaurs in the park, Claire swore off all men. Andrew stood by her as she rose up the corporate ladder, but once her ranking and pay exceeded his, the whole relationship changed. Their breakup sent Claire headfirst into her career, refusing to give herself any free time for men. After Andrew there were only a few who attempted to ask her out, but Zara is on top of all rumors on Claire and was quick to inform her that many of the male employees had a bet to see who could get her in bed.

Now here she stood with Owen Grady pecking at the wall she had built. Did he have the strength to knock it down? Did she want to allow him to test that strength? Claire snuck a peek at him out of the corner of her eye and already saw him smiling at her. He wasn't like other men. Men who immediately comment on her looks, outfit, or give some lousy joke about her red hair immediately followed by, "We should go out some time." She found herself actually enjoying being around him. His laid back attitude and the fact that he looks her in the eye when speaking has her questioning everything she ever said about men.

Tuning back into the present, Claire listened as Owen and Barry spoke as the three walked. "You think they will all hatch?" Barry wondered as they walked up the steps to the innovation center.

"I hope so." Owen answered with a weak shrug. "Velociraptors thrive in packs. Wu says all four eggs are viable, so here's to hoping."

"You think you will be able to train them for the military?" Claire asked as she pressed the elevator button.

Owen grumbled under his breath "Look, I'm not for training them for attack dogs, or interested in them being our front line weapons. I'm in this for the research."

Claire raised her hands, palms towards Owen, "Ok, I didn't mean to hit a sore spot."

"Don't be sorry, I've worked with Hoskins for a few weeks, but he's losing sight that these are animals and not robots."

The elevator doors opened and Claire stepped in, turning to smile at the two men waiting for their own elevator to go down to the lab. "Good luck." She said as the doors shut.

Being alone in the elevator, Claire glanced down at her watch and groaned. 45 minutes late for her meeting with Mr. Masrani. As the elevator rose to her floor, Owen's words echoed in her head. She just couldn't grasp how he was against the outcome of his training, but he still looked forward the the research part of it all. To her, if you're not 100% into your job, you shouldn't be doing it at all. The elevator doors opened and with a heavy sigh, Claire hurried down to hall towards her office.

Zara stood up, a grin spread wide on her face as Claire approached her. "Lunch meeting run a little late?"

"Shut up." Claire grumbled as she hurried passed her assistant and rushed into her office. She could hear Zara laughing, but ignored her as she dove for her desk to log in for her conference call.

"Ah, Claire," Mr. Masrani smiled warmly as he adjusted his computer camera. "So nice of you to log in." He joked, purposely looking down at his watch.

Claire cleared her throat. "Sorry about that, Mr. Masrani. I had a last minute lunch meeting that ran over."

Mr. Masrani waved his hand absentmindedly. "Zara already filled me in. Are the trainers settling in ok?"

Claire nodded, doing her best to hide the flush in her cheeks. "They seem very eager and ready for the raptors."

"Henry filled me in this morning on their progress. The four eggs seem to be right on track."

"Yes," Claire agreed. "Due to hatch any moment."

"Sleeping arrangements for Mr. Grady set up so he's close to the nursery?"

Claire tilted her head, confused. All employees who lived on the island lived in an apartment building only minutes from the park. Why would Owen need special arrangements is he had an apartment? Mr. Masrani seemed to understand her unasked questions and answered, "Mr. Grady has requested land away from the park."

"Oh?" Was all Claire could say.

"Yeah, so please have a room available for him at the hotel. Vic would like Owen to be close to the raptors to be their nighttime feedings."

Flipping screens, Claire made the arrangements for a suite for Owen. "He's all set." Claire said as she hit the reserve button.

XXX

"Oh I got her." Owen bragged as soon as the elevator door closed, Claire now out of earshot.

Barry snorted as he shook his head. "How long you going to be able to keep up that charming facade you got going on?"

"I'm always charming!"

With a roll of his eyes, Barry stepped into the elevator. The ride down to the lab was silent as Owen reminisced over lunch.

The elevator doors opened and both men were greeted by a tall, dark haired man in a white coat. They followed him towards the eggs. "Seriously though," Owen said softly to Barry. "She's different. She's…"

"Way out of your league." Barry reminded him.

"Na, she just has to loosen up a little."

"Who are we talking about?" The doctor asked as he turned towards them. Owen glanced down at his jacked which read Dr. A. Carter.

"No one." Owen said quickly, not wanting it to get back to Claire that he was talking about her.

Dr. Carter stifled an eye roll and motioned towards the eggs, one of them with a significant crack down the side. "I'm the vet that will be doing checkups on the raptors once they hatch. You can call me Andrew."

"Oh, they're hatching!" Owen shoved by Andrew's outstretched hand and hurried towards the makeshift nest.

"Owen you need to bunker down and be ready for them to imprint on you." Henry Wu directed.

"Yeah, I know." Owen waved him off as he studied on the one egg that shifted slightly. "Come on, girl." he whispered to the egg.