I have family in town for the week and am off from work. What this means for you...more time to write and update since my kids are in school and I'm avoiding my family pretending to work from home (Don't judge, you haven't met them) What this means for me...I'm surviving on mostly alcohol and Ibuprofen. As a side note, I'd like to give a shout out to my liver...you are one tough son of a bitch.
"I want to build an extension for the bungalow here," Owen explained, standing in the front of his house, waving his hands animatedly around in what I guessed was supposed to display his intentions. I do DIY even less than I cook (which was saying something) so I had no idea what he was talking about at the moment.
He was making dinner while I lounged on his porch drinking sweet tea instead of beer. Accordingly to Owen the Safety Monitor, "mixing alcohol and narcotics was a bad idea". I pretty much made my living on bad ideas so I didn't see the issue. Unfortunately for me Owen held the keys to the kingdom, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. He currently had all the beer in his fridge, and he was heaven in the kitchen. The thinly veiled threats to stop cooking for me made me break out in a cold sweat at the mere thought. I couldn't go back to ham, mustard and potato chip sandwiches after experience the culinary orgasms that were Owen's cooking. I just couldn't. So I played nice and drank my sweat tea with a minimal amount of grumbling.
We'd returned from the raptor paddock a little over an hour ago, and Owen went right to cooking dinner. In an attempt to at least pretend like I wasn't 100% addicted to his food I tried telling him I was fine eating cereal at my house. He just shook his head, muttered something about wondering how I was still alive, and drove past my house without even slowing down. I gave him a half-ass scowl as a rebuttal, but inside I was leaping for joy. I approach cooking the same way I calm myself down after reading science fiction novels, with a stern shake of the head and the knowledge that it will never happen.
"Why?" I asked regarding his impending bungalow expansion. I thought our houses were pretty legit, why go through all the trouble to build an addition? That sounded like way too much work, especially in the Costa Rican climate. Plus, I was simply too lazy to even entertain this notion.
"A workshop. I still have a storage unit full of stuff stateside."
A workshop? He would go through all that just so he would have a place to store his crap?
"I'm not helping. I don't care what food you withhold as punishment."
Owen had the upper hand in the cooking department. In reality it wasn't even really a contest. My favorite thing to make for dinner was reservations. Owen had skills the likes of which made me wonder why he'd chosen the Navy and not culinary school. His mother's macaroni and cheese recipe alone was enough to put me in a food coma. I survived mostly on junk food, alcohol, and cereal. Lately Owen and I had been spending so much time together it had morphed into also sharing meals. I found comfort in his presence, and it made the slow process of healing somewhat bearable. Plus, there was the added bonus of having someone around to do all the grown-up stuff I was incapable of completing.
At least that's why I told myself I was slightly disappointment every night when he left for his bungalow. If I thought the disappointment was hard to reconcile it was nothing compared to the anxious feeling that fluttered in m stomach when I saw him for the first time each morning. When I caught myself inventing reasons to touch him or how I felt instantly better the moment he stepped into the room I knew I was seriously screwed.
"Oh, I think you could be persuaded," he smirked.
I shook my head. This was non-negotiable. I wasn't engaging in manual labor in my free time no matter what he did.
"I'm sorry to hear that. I guess I won't need to make my fettuccini alfedo anytime soon."
My mouth started watering immediately.
"I was going to make my chili sometime this week too," he pondered, looking contemplative.
I told myself to stay strong. It was only chili, no big deal. I'd survived without it for years. I could go back to a world devoid of the delicious beefy, tomato, onion and bean chili with just the right amount of smoke to heat ratio. Oh shit, I might cry.
"I should call Barry and tell him to forget grabbing that salmon from Enrique. I've never really loved herb crusted salmon anyway."
"Fine, you sadist! I'll help with your stupid shed!" A woman had to prioritize, and taking away his herb crusted salmon ranked above working in gut wrenching heat.
"Workshop," he smiled. "And thanks for volunteering."
"I hope you don't want your shed anytime soon because my doctor says I'm not allowed to lift anything heavier than a laundry basket." He ignored me. Typical.
My phone vibrating on the table, reaching over I grabbed it, seeing a text from Lowery.
Wanted to check on you. Meet up later? – Lowery
I chewed the inside of my lip. Lowery was sweet, but he'd already checked on me earlier this week. If he wanted to meet it was because he had information on his Mission Impossible assignment. I glanced up at Owen, seeing him still absorbed in his home improvement project, I quickly texted Lowery back.
Sure, meet you there around 2100. – Jo
What's 2100? – Lowery
Jeez, I was working with amateurs.
9 p.m. – Jo
Tucking my phone quickly into my pocket I sipped my tea looking to Owen. He was still deep in thought, probably picking out color schemes and carpet swatches for his shed. I closed my eyes intending to just relax for a few minutes before asking if Owen needed any help with dinner. He always said no, but it made me feel like less of a mooch if I offered. My catnap somehow turned into a full-blown REM cycle at some point.
"Jo, wake up. Dinner's ready." Owen was sitting beside me on the loveseat gently shaking me.
"Shit, I'm sorry. Do you need me to do anything?" I tried to sit up, but my ribs protested causing me to fall back down.
Owen leaned forward, putting one hand behind my neck and the other around my shoulder pulling me into a sitting position. "You OK? Need another pill?" he asked, worry fluttering across his face.
"No, I'm good. Just tried to get up too fast."
He helped me stand up, keeping his arms wrapped around me. My hands found their way to his chest, and those damn butterflies made my stomach roll. What was this man doing to me? I looked up at him through my lashes, and found he was watching me with an indecipherable look on his face. I realized this was the closest we'd been since my drunkfest at the bonfire.
To be fair, that wasn't technically accurate. Apparently we had been pretty close after my dip in the river the way Barry tells it. Owen had steadfastly refused to allow anyone else to hold me the entire way to the clinic, keeping me curled in his lap in the back of the van. When the medic attempted to take me from his arms Barry had to intervene to keep Owen from inflicting bodily harm on the poor guy. Personally, since I was unconscious for all of it I didn't think it counted.
A timer binged inside his house signaling some yummy goodness was ready for consumption. His eyes drifted towards his camper and the moment was gone. I stepped back clearing my throat awkwardly. Rubbing my arms to stave off a none existent chill I felt a sudden inexplicable loss. Not for the first time I realized our relationship was changing, heading into uncharted waters for both of us. I was a tall woman, but Owen towered over me, making me feel small in comparison. It was a sobering thought to realize I didn't want him to let me go. Somehow we'd gone from being able to barely tolerate each other, to forming a slow friendship, to this...whatever this was.
"Go ahead and sit down. I'll bring out your plate," he told me, moving past me into the house.
I sank into my chair at the table trying not to think too hard on what was happening between us. Not that I didn't care, but I had no experience with something like this so I had to assume everything would just work itself out in time. Having never had a long-term relationship, of any kind, I didn't know what to make of all the signals he was throwing out. Barry told me one day at work he was casually discussing setting me up on a blind date with one of his friends and Owen overheard the conversation. The result was a chair being thrown across the room, and a very angry Owen. Boys were so strange.
In an attempt to solve the "What's going on with Owen and Jo's relationship" I snagged a Cosmo magazine from Vivian. A few days ago Owen had a meeting with Claire at headquarters regarding the raptors, and he ignored my protests that I would be fine for an hour by myself. I put up a pretty mean fight for someone with three cracked ribs, but when the other party in the confrontation can just pick you up and carry you around it's hard to get your point across. Now I understood why toddlers were pissed off all the time.
The cover of the magazine promised it would clearly explain, "4 Signs a Guy's Into You". Figuring it couldn't hurt, and having nothing better to do these days, I took it with me.
According to article, if a guy texts you between noon and 5 p.m. he likes you. Owen texted me all the time, even when I wished he wouldn't. It's not that he was smoothering me with texts. It was that I don't like texting. I'm too afraid people will text me back, or worse call, and then I'll be forced to have conversations with them. I avoid it at all costs. As for Owen, I guess this sign was a yes. For all the good it did me.
Sign number two, we schmooze your pals. This one was a bit tougher to decipher. I didn't have a lot of "pals" to schmooze so I didn't know if this could be used as a variable or not. Hamada and Lowery were the closest things I had to friends, but they were both guys. I'm not sure the "schmoozing" aspect applied to the male species of pals because that just sounded weird to me. I decided to file that sign as undecided.
Sign number three, they take you out during the day. This was an unequivocal yes. Owen and I were practically joined at the hip since I got hurt. We spent so much time together we were probably sharing a lung or something by this point. Considering he could be hanging out with me because I was hurt, and not because he liked my personality, I didn't know if this was a reliable measuring stick either. So, another check in the undecided column.
Sign number four, we e-mail you. I didn't know what to do with this one. First of all, what was the world coming to if the measure of how much a person liked you was directly proportional to how much he emailed you? Nothing says sexy like an exploding inbox full of emails. Whatever happened to buying someone a drink and hitting them with a, "are those space pants because your ass is out of this world"? However, I digress.
As far as I knew Owen didn't e-mail anyone, me included. Claire was always bitching about him not getting this e-mail or that memo. I only know about all that because she yells at me about the same thing. I didn't even know what my Jurassic World email address was so it was hard to take points away from Owen on this one. Yet again, a check in the undecided column.
By the time I was done reading I knew nothing more than I did when I started. Plus, I felt like a tool for turning to Cosmo for advice. I decided to leave it alone for fear I would break something in my brain trying to figure it out. Probably the trick was to not let people know how weird you really are until it's too late for them to back out.
Owen brought out dinner and per the norm it was amazing. If this man was bad at something I had yet to see it. It would be annoying if he wasn't so much fun to look at. If this kept up I was going to get spoiled, and need larger pants.
At 8:30 I was fighting a losing battle trying to not look at my watch. I needed to find an excuse to leave so I could meet Lowery. Our normal nighttime routine these days consisted of eating dinner at Owen's then going back to my house where we watched TV or talked until I fell asleep on the couch. That would not work tonight. I needed to shake Owen and I needed to do it now.
Deciding to go for broke I busted out a fake yawn, "Man, I'm wiped out. I think I'm going to hit the sack early tonight." Even to my own ears it sounded lame.
Owen didn't seem to find it the least bit suspicious. "Alright, need me to walk you home?"
"Nah, I'm good. Thanks though." Was it really going to be this easy?
Our goodnights exchanged I walked back to my house making an extra effort to look really sleepy. Probably I just looked drunk or high.
At my house I turned off the lights then sat on my couch. I was chewing on my fingernails with my leg bouncing trying to wait the appropriate amount of time before I snuck out after my bedtime. I didn't know how long I should actually wait. Having grown up in the foster care system or on the streets no one ever cared when I came or went so I had zero practice at stuff like this. All this cloak and dagger bullshit was exhausting my patience. Why was patience a virtue? Why couldn't hurry the fuck up be a virtue instead?
After 10 minutes I couldn't wait anymore and peeked through my blinds. Owen's outside lights were already off, and I couldn't see him anywhere so I grabbed my keys leaving my house. I stopped halfway to my Jeep because I realized I was actually tiptoeing. I rolled my eyes, some stealth ninja I was turning out to be.
I started my Jeep making sure to keep the headlights off as I backed out onto the dirt road. Once I was a few miles away from my house I flipped on the headlights, making my way to the east side of the island to meet Lowery.
It took about 10 minutes to get to the turnoff. If you didn't know it was there you would never see it. It was barely more than a glorified footpath through the jungle. A little more than a half-mile down the path the jungles dense foliage opened up exposing an expansive cliff that dropped down about 100 feet. There was a small patch of beach at the bottom that was only accessible during low tide. Huge caves were cut out of the side of the cliff and probably housed bats or something equally as creepy.
Lowery found the spot while scouring maps of the island years before construction actually started. Lowery was the most paranoid person I knew, but according to him it's not paranoia if they are really after you. I slowly walked down the dirt path to the beach spotting Lowery pacing back-and-forth, his flashlight bouncing in time with his steps.
"Hey Lowery," I called out by way of a greeting, walking across the beach to meet him. The closer I got the more I could see how nervous he looked. He was sweating despite the cooler temperatures tonight, and he couldn't look me in the eye. "What's wrong? Are you OK?"
"Jo, I'm sorry..." he started, but never finished as two figures emerged from the caves cloaked in shadows. I immediately went for the gun holstered at the small of my back, aiming at the approaching threats as I pulled Lowery behind me. Lowery yelped, turning to face the caves his flashlight illuminating the figures. My mouth dropped open, and I whipped my head towards Lowery silently demanding an explanation.
"Hey Jo, fancy meeting you here. Wanna put the gun away?" Owen said, trying to sound nonchalant. He wasn't fooling me with that tone. There was rage in his eyes.
I dropped my gun to my side, speechless, looking back at Owen and Barry. Of course Barry was here too. Did Owen do anything without Barry? My mouth opened and closed a few time, but I couldn't seem to form a coherent word, much less sentence. My brain had officially short-circuited. I couldn't process the presence of these two, but I could bitch slap Lowery.
"What did you do?" I turned, glaring at him as I took a step forward. Owen moved quickly, placing himself in front of Lowery and effectively cutting me off. I snapped my eyes up to his, my mouth in a hard line.
"I think the better question is, what are you doing?" he snapped. "Because from where I'm sitting you're taking reckless chances."
"How do you even know about any of this?!" Now I was pissed. I wasn't being reckless. Yet.
"Lowery volunteered the information," Owen answered.
"That's not exactly...I wouldn't say..." Lowery supplied as Owen turned to look at him. He quickly dipped his head, letting his words fade.
"The way I understand things, you have Lowery here risking his job to hack into an InGen secure sever. Is that about the gist of it?" Owen asked, his tone furious.
"I wouldn't let anything happen to him," was my rebuttal.
"And what about you?"
"What about me?"
We were nose to nose at this point. Owen's fists were clenched at his side, his body tight with anger. I didn't understand where it was coming from. I had this under control. Besides, he barely tolerated Lowery most of the time and now he was suddenly president of his fan club. Barry cleared his throat, reminding me that there were other people on this beach besides the two of us.
"I think we should focus on what Lowery has to say. The what or why is irrelevant now," Barry voiced, ever the politician.
I holstered my gun, crossing my arms over my chest, looking out at the ocean. I tapped my finger against my forearm, gauging the implications of having Owen and Barry involved in this. I could protect Lowery. I had a plan to keep him safe. Owen and Barry threw my entire plan off kilter. How could I possible protect them all? Dread was building in my gut as thought of every possible bad scenario. I couldn't let anything happen to them. They were my friends. They were literally all I had.
"Well, ah, I've made some progress getting past their firewalls. Their system has triple redundancy and operates completely outside Masrani's normally protocols. Which is weird. I'm not sure anyone even realizes how well insulated InGen's research actually is," Lowery explained, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
"So you found something?" I said turning to him.
"Um, well, no. I mean, I have found some research, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that everyone in the company doesn't have access to or would find strange."
I turned back to the ocean sighing. If Lowery couldn't find anything it was because it wasn't there. I was wrong. This was a new feeling for me. It sucked.
"I'm sorry I asked you to take such a big risk for nothing. I appreciate you giving it a shot," I told him, moving past everyone back towards the dirt path. I needed some alone time and some ice cream to digest all this.
"Wait, I didn't say there was nothing," Lowery called after me. I froze, turning slowly.
"What did you find?" Owen inquired.
"There is an isolated server housing terabytes of information that isn't connected back to the system. That's highly unusual. I can't access the server's contents without physically getting into the server room, but I did see something interesting in some associated files which were accessible. The lab keeps records on every dinosaur in the park, not surprising. What is surprising is there were two shadow files on the computer I hacked that essentially had nothing in them but filler information made to look like actual files."
"Which two?" Barry asked, stepping closer to Lowery.
"The Velociraptors and something called an Indominus Rex," he answered.
We all stood in a circle, the only sound the crashing of the ocean waves on the beach.
Why would InGen keep the raptor files off the main network, and what the hell was an Indominus Rex?
angelicedg: Well, they are in on her suspicions, but not really because she volunteered it. Oh well, she's got more help now.
Mystery Guest: Thanks! Hope you liked this one :)
animagirl: Yeah, Hoskins sucks! I watched it, funny! Thanks for telling me about it.
xxyangxx2006: I agree...Hoskins needs a right hook to the temple. That guy is cray cray :) Thanks for reading!
Rachel: Thanks for reading and don't worry about Jo and Owen. Those crazy kids will figure it out, eventually :)
Desert Vulpes Zerda: So, that was based on a true story. My Dr. wanted to put me on daily meds for migraines. It took him 20 minutes to go over all the side effects. Ridiculous! I told him if I shouldn't have to choose between anal leakage and my brain feeling like it was boiling in it's own juices so I asked for door #3. He said there was no door #3. I told him to build one, put prescription pain meds behind it, then call me. That guy is a sadist!
Storylover00: Thanks so much! Hope you enjoyed the latest :)