"I'll be in the car. You might want to change your shirt. They're very sensitive to smell."
It was those words, those seventeen words from those red lips- the ones that curled into a smug smirk after she'd thrown them at him, dripping of acid and contempt for the Navy man- that immediately made Owen Grady realize he was entirely, thoroughly fucked.
This god damned redhead and her venomous words, the insistent green hues that scrutinized his every move, and those heels –those those damn things - that she felt necessary to wear to a dinosaur theme park. He was screwed. They were polar opposites: she was –at first glance- the single most uptight woman he'd ever seen in his life, and from the moment he laid eyes on Claire Dearing he knew there would never be any soft edges to the woman. She was all straight edges; for god's sake she lived her life the way she did her job: in the most organized fashion she could, she was all for itineraries and glances at the gold watch wrapped around her porcelain wrist. As for him, dates that included any form of planning beyond a time to pick up and drop off his date felt like he was attending a board meeting. He was a Navy man with rough and tough bred into him during his deployment, and Claire was an upper class college graduate from Wisconsin who worked her ass off to get to her position at the dinosaur theme park. Their differences became clear within ten minutes of the first date, and it was obvious they would never be able to make something work between them.
He'd watched the redhead as she sauntered back to her silver Mercedes, most likely rolling those green eyes of hers now that her back was to him. A slightly frustrated sigh left his lips as he spun on his heels and entered his bungalow, tugging the dirtied Henley over his head and scouring his bedroom for something clean. His eyes spotted the rumpled blue pile of cloth on the bed first and he brought the shirt to his nose and breathed in the stale scent of the cologne he'd put on that morning. At least it doesn't stink. He buttoned up the blue shirt and tucked it into his jeans, pulling the same vest over his shirt. Sure, he'd worn the exact same outfit to his shift at the raptor paddock earlier but she didn't know that. He shut the door behind him, even though it almost wasn't necessary; it wasn't like shutting the door kept the island's pesky insects out and there was certainly no reason to shut the door to keep potential burglars out. No guests ventured out this far from the park. He blamed it on habit, his mother was always yelling at him to shut the door when he would play outside as a young boy. He walked to the passenger side of her car and looked at the redhead for a moment; she was typing away on the little device that seemed to never be far from her hands, he always loved to catch her like this. For a few moments the stern expression disappeared, her lips parted slightly as those slender, pale fingers tapped away at the screen.
He pulled her out of her cyber world by sliding into the car and shutting the door behind him, she looked up suddenly and there was that look again. The one she was constantly giving him whenever he did something that annoyed her even the slightest. "Don't slam my door, Mr. Grady."
"I'm not gonna break the car by shuttin' the door. Relax, Claire." He shot her a look of his own as he buckled himself in and she rolled her eyes at him for what seemed to be the millionth time in the last half hour or so of their little meeting. She started the car and pressed her foot down on the gas pedal; one thing Owen was sure he knew about Claire was that she liked to drive fast, not that he'd spent much –or any- time with her in a car but he'd seen her peeling out of her parking spot enough times to know that this woman was not in the business of being patient, especially when she was running late. He also knew that both of them failed miserably at making small talk with each other –something that had only gotten worse after the date from hell.
"So we're going to arrive at the paddock and you're just going to step inside for a few moments, inspect the interior, then you can take a walk around the outside and after that I'll drive you back to your…home and you can get back to whatever it was you were doing before," Claire's words were always so precisely chosen, the way she spoke, her tone, the pauses, everything she did was with a purpose. Usually her purpose was to indirectly insult Owen without sounding unprofessional. They were always trying to take digs at one another, always trying to one-up the other.
He didn't care much for organizing his life down to every last second and he especially didn't care for Claire organizing it for him, but he didn't give any answer besides a curt nod.
"After that, I've been invited out to dinner with a few investors…" It was almost as if she was rattling off her own to-do list, but his ears had perked up at the mention of dinner -potentially with other men. He gave her sideways glance with his brows slightly cocked.
"Dinner? With who?"
"I just said with a few investors I spoke with earlier, were you not listening?" Her tone was irritated as she drove them along a dirt road, one she'd taken many times to the paddock of the beast it held. "Are you jealous, Mr. Grady? I thought the ending of our…date was clear enough."
"It was." He replied gruffly, his fingers tapping anxiously against his thigh at the mention of the date: the one that they both ruined equally, him with his board shorts and overly laid-back attitude and her with the itinerary and her refusal to loosen up.
"Good, I'm glad we're both on the same page."
I don't think that we are, Miss. Dearing.
The rest of the car ride was utter silence.
It very suddenly felt like every moment in Owen Grady's life was preparing him for this, leading up to this: this being running like hell from a mad fucking dinosaur. What the fuck was Masrani Global thinking when they endorsed this fucking thing? He slid under the car, Jesus Christ he hadn't done that since his little league days and in any other circumstances it would've been almost laughable. His heart was racing as he waited; waited for death for what felt like hours as the earth trembled beneath him. Jesus Christ I'm gonna die, I'm gonna fucking die. There were times in the Navy like this, and he'd seen enough combat to know that this was different but he reacted the same way he had when he'd witnessed one of his buddies shot in the shoulder: quickly. He looked up and drew his pocket knife, slashing the gas line quickly and spreading the gasoline all over himself as it drained from the line. Claire's words were ringing in his mind. They're very sensitive to smell. The stuff was strong, filling his nose and making his eyes water, but he shut them and stayed flat on the ground as he tried to calm the hammering in his chest that he prayed that thing wouldn't be able to hear.
One step, two steps closer, and then the beast was standing right there not even twenty feet from the car he was hidden under. His entire body trembling as he prepared for death. So many things he still hadn't done, he'd never gotten a second date. He'd never gotten to press his lips to a certain redhead's. He'd never written back to his mother's last letter she'd written him while he was deployed. He was going to die and his mother wouldn't even know where to go for his funeral.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
As if by some miracle, the beast lingering by the car breathed in and he had been almost certain that his last thoughts were going to be a string of desperate profanities but she blew out a distraught breath and bellowed out a roar that rattled Owen all the way through his bones and then lifted her head and stomped off. It wasn't a miracle for everyone else in the monster's path but he was alive. He slid out from under the car, now that the paralyzing fear of impending doom was fading residually to the back of him, he was angry. Angry at Masrani, angry at the lab scientists, angry at Claire. The first person he'd crossed paths with was working on the paddock's construction, and for a moment it crossed Owen's mind that after this the poor guy probably wouldn't have a job.
"I need the keys, and I need 'em now." It was an odd request, but it was met with hands that fumbled for a moment with detaching the car key from the rest and the key was dropped into the Navy man's waiting hand. He'd just witnessed the guy almost die, the least he could do was give him a ride back to the park to warn everyone else.
He'd stormed into the control room, knowing two out of his three targets would be there. As the elevator doors slid open and the security guard requested to see his badge, he felt the anger bubbling red hot inside him as he caught sight of the redhead looking calm and collected as ever. He'd pushed past the security guard. You wanna see my fucking badge? It's on the ground somewhere back at that fucking hellhole. As soon as Claire spun on her heels at the recognition of Owen's voice, he pretended not to see the relief in her eyes as he demanded to know what the hell happened out there.
"I need you."
Her expression was frantic as she approached him rapidly, like she was a lion hunting for its prey and the prey was Owen Grady. He couldn't say no, not even if he wanted to and he didn't want to. She was beyond terrified, her nephews –whom were left under the care of her British assistant while she was busy at work- had ran off on their own and Zara couldn't find them anywhere. The redhead was terrified what her sister would do if anything happened to her boys, they were all she had left now that her marriage with her husband was falling apart. With a murderous dinosaur on the loose –it was almost ironic that during the one time her nephews visited the monster would choose to break free- and no one else seeming to care that there were two guests missing, he had to help her.
The Claire Dearing he saw on the car ride there was not the same Claire as the one that stepped out of the car and followed him over to the dying Apatosaurus. The version of herself that rode in the car with him was frustrated, constantly on her phone staying updated on the whereabouts of the Indominus Rex and hoping she would hear from her nephews. When he stopped the car, the phone went away and she redirected her attention to the situation at hand –something the parks operation manager was very good at. She carefully stepped over to the dying animal and knelt down, bunching her clean white skirt around her thighs to keep it from getting stained. Her hand shakily rested on the dinosaur's neck, it was almost as if he could see the gears turning in her mind. These animals are really alive, but these animals are dying because of me. Owen tried to make the creature comfortable in her last moments, as she drew in her last breaths he caught sight of a tear rolling down Claire's porcelain cheek. How could someone who acted so emotionally distant, so unattached, suddenly feel something for these animals? She'd worked here long enough to know that they were alive, she'd just never seen any of them dying up close and personal and it made everything so much more real. The way she moved, the way her hands barely caressing the dinosaur's neck, the tears, the subtle parting of her lips as she sighed softly, all of it only reasserted Owen's infatuation with the mysterious redhead.
He couldn't do it. He wasn't going to have almost died so many times and not kiss Claire. So he did, after she saved his life he couldn't help himself; she had never looked more flawless and flawed at the same time with her usually pin-straight hair starting to curl and her skin caked with mud and dinosaur shit. She was beautiful and the softness of her hand as she helped him up was too much, and so he stood up straight and pulled her to him and pressed his lips to hers before she could protest. A soft, surprised squeak escaped her as soon as his lips captured hers, and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest because…because Jesus Christ he was terrified that they were going to die and also he was kissing Claire Dearing. He was kissing Claire fucking Dearing.
"So what do we do now?"
"Probably stick together," He replied, with a slight nod. "For survival."
He held her small, shivering frame during the whole ferry ride away from that island. Together they watched their past, present, and future disappear as if it never existed; everything they thought was secure, everything they thought they would never lose was gone over the course of one day. He could finally see Claire for who she really was without the emotionless ice queen façade; she was just a woman who wanted to save as many people as she could from the mess and the monster she felt responsible for. He wanted to bury his face in her mud-caked hair and mumble to her, no one blames you, Claire. This isn't your fault; you were just doing your job. He didn't, though; he let her have her space because he knew damn well that what she would want, what she needed was time and space to re-prioritize her life, and to figure out where Owen would fit in now that they'd promised to stick it out.
Her mind was a bigger mess than the park itself, and she could hardly speak when she filed off of the ferry behind everyone else. Plenty of Uber drivers were waiting just beyond the dock to give free rides to the nearest hotels, Owen and Claire slid into the back of a sleek, jet black Mercedes and it only reminded of her own car still on the island. Jesus Christ, Claire, don't break down again. She took a deep breath just as Owen shut the door behind them; somehow he just knew that she wasn't okay and he pulled her in closer, holding her tight enough to put all of her broken pieces back together even if he knew they'd come apart again as soon as he let her go. Claire felt broken; she couldn't cry, couldn't speak. Not that she had anything to cry over or anything to discuss, it wasn't like she'd lost any family members. Everyone she cared about was safe, so why did she still feel like this? Maybe it was guilt she was feeling for the people she couldn't save: Masrani, her assistant, so many guests whose names she didn't even know.
The Uber driver took them to the nearest hotel, and Claire slid out of the car onto her wobbling, swollen feet. They were red with blisters and scratched from running through the jungle, but she was grateful that she'd left them on so her feet wouldn't be in even worse condition. Once they'd made it inside the hotel building, they quickly realized that the odds of them actually getting a room within the next twenty-four hours would be slim to none; there were people camped out on the décor chairs of the lobby for god's sake. Claire let her tired eyes slid shut for a moment; she was so close to just saying fuck it, I give up. I can't do this anymore but she couldn't give up, not when they were so close to finally getting the peace and rest they deserved. She reopened those stern, insistent eyes of hers and straightened her back before she marched right up to the reception, and while she knew how rude it was she was still Claire fucking Dearing.
"Miss, I can't help you right now. I can't help any of you right now." The receptionist glances up from her computer, on which she was typing furiously, and looks around the room at the massive amount of people waiting.
"I understand that, but there must be some sort of special room you have when the park has celebrity appearances…" Claire started to trail off, realizing the hopelessness of this whole situation. By the end of the night, they'd end up on the floor of this damn hotel lobby; she didn't mind as long as she was with Owen at this point. The receptionist looked the redhead just as a sigh left her lips.
"Hey! You're the girl, the one from the park! I, um… Wow, I'll see right away if I can get a room for you and the raptor guy."
This was what she'd be known for, for the rest of her life. She nodded slightly, grateful for the room but not for the unnecessary attention. She had just been doing her job: keeping the guests safe.
"I have something available on the top floor if that's alright," the redhead nodded again. "Okay, it's not ideal… One full bed, no view, but it's a place to sleep for the night."
Claire glanced around the lobby again, her eyes landing on a family with two young, wailing children and two parents that looked more exhausted than she felt and –there was that pang of regret again. As tired as she was, as much as she wanted to let her head hit the pillow and call it a night, she turned back to the woman behind the desk. "I can't take that room-"
"Do you want another…?"
"No, I want you to give it to someone else. They need it more than we do." The receptionist stared in awe at the redhead as if she'd just witnessed some grand act of kindness, and Claire gave a slight nod of her head to reassure the young woman that yes, she was absolutely sure.
She stepped briskly away from the desk and shook her head when Owen raised a brow at her. "They're all filled, but I think there's a motel down the street we can get to."
As if they hadn't gotten enough exercise in the events of the day, they headed back outside into the humid Costa Rican night and walked to the motel down the street like she'd promised. It was even less ideal, the lobby smelled faintly of mildew and there were enough odd stains on the carpet to make her visibly cringe but thankfully –thankfully they had a room available and the pang of guilt didn't strike when she said they'd take it, that they'd take anything at this point. As soon as the room key was graciously gifted to them, they were nearly falling asleep standing but they dragged their tired bodies just a little further into the motel room.
Claire pretended not to notice the mysterious dark patch as she stared up at the ceiling. She had been beyond exhausted for hours leading up to the moment she and Owen had finally climbed into the full-sized bed, but now that they were here with sleep readily available she found herself unable to keep her eyes closed for longer than a few seconds.
"I smell like shit," Claire quietly said aloud, knowing Owen was awake next to her. She could tell by the occasional sighs that he wasn't able to sleep either.
"Me too," the Navy man replied, his hand brushing over his other arm which was caked –literally- in shit: dinosaur shit, to be precise. "Wanna take a shower?"
"You can take one first, if you-"
"Or you could take one with me, conserve water and all that." It was a bold move, he knew that much. Claire didn't say yes –but she hadn't said no either, so that had to mean something. Instead, the redhead sat up and tiptoed to the bathroom, only pausing to glance back at him and that was enough reason for him to drag himself out of bed.