Chapter 2:

There's a knock. Who knocks on my door at this ungodly hour? I look at the clock on the nightstand. 7:05am.

"Are you freaking kidding me?"

I try to tune out the knocking, but after 2 minutes, I give up. I practically drag myself out of bed and open the damn door.

"Claire? It should be illegal to knock on someone's door at this hour" I rub my eyes. "What's going on? Do you want to come i..? Why are you looking up?"

"Owen, you are wearing nothing but boxers" She says scratching her forehead and slightly chewing on her bottom lip.

"Wha..? Oh shit. Give me a minute" I run back inside and put on the first pants and t-shirt I see. I almost tripped in my haste to put them on. "Okay, sorry. Come on in"

She is blushing and I'm about to mention it to her, but decide that she's been embarrassed enough for the moment.

She clears her throat. "Um, yeah. I got a call about 20 minutes ago. They want us to go to New York to make a couple of interviews and a press conference. Our flight leaves in 5 hours"

Oh hell, no. I suddenly feel wide awake "I don't feel comfortable doing those interviews, Claire. Actually, I don't feel like defending the people who created the monster that killed all of those people. It almost killed us for fuck's sake!"

Claire looks me in the eyes for the first time since she got into my room.

"I know. I told them that you were very unlikely to accept. But they want you to go anyway. The headquarters of Masrani Global is in Manhattan and they want your statement, just to make sure they have all the information they can get to build a strong defense"

"I don't give a shit about them. I don't want to be a part of this. All those people wipe their asses with hundred-dollar bills, I'm sure they can get lawyers to defend them pretty well. They don't need me and I, sure as hell, don't need them"

I run a hand through my hair and sit down on the bed. Claire looks at me for a few seconds and then sits next to me.

"I thought you would say that. But I need you to help me, though. All the security footage of that night was leaked. Us looking for Zack and Gray, you with the raptors, me leading the T-Rex to the Indominus. The company has made me their spokesperson. Nobody on that company can tell what happened in the park better than me. Except you. You were there with me. I need you to help me, not them, me. Besides, I was thinking Manhattan is a pretty good place to have that date"

Oh, you sneaky woman. Sneaky, sneaky, beautiful woman "God. Not fair! Well played, Dearing. Well played" We both laugh.

There's that glint in her eyes again.

5 hours later, we're boarding an American Airlines plane to New York City. At least we're flying first class, thank you very much.

After an extraordinarily good meal, considering we're on a plane (risotto with beef? Yum) I start planning what our date could be, but in order to do that, I need to know our schedule. I want to do something amazing, something that Claire would love, nothing over the top. I want to make sure we are not in a rush that day, though.

"Okay, so what's the plan exactly? We land and what?"

She puts down the Vanity Fair magazine she was reading and pulls out her cellphone.

"Well, today they're giving us the day off. Tomorrow though, is going to be a bit of a hectic day. First thing in the morning, we have to be at the headquarters. There, they're going to tell us basically what we can and can't say and/or answer during the interviews and press conference. They already approved the questions we are going to be asked in Good Morning America and the Diane Sawyer Interview. That should take us the whole morning. Then, we hav…"

I almost spit the sprite I was drinking. I wipe my mouth with the cloth napkin.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Good Morning America? Diane freaking Sawyer?! What the f, Claire?! I thought we were going to be interviewed by a newspaper or something! Television? With the whole world looking at us? That's a whole other thing! Why didn't you tell me?!" I'm loud whispering this obviously. I don't want people looking at us and risking the possibility of somebody recognizing us.

"Oh come on, Owen! We were chased by dinosaurs for god's sake! Were you honestly expecting people to not give a crap about it? Honestly, on this day and age everyone finds out everything about everything in 2 seconds. 'Raptor Squad' and 'high-heeled badass' was trending on twitter before we boarded the plane, and it's been a week already. Which by internet standards is a damn century!"

She sits back, a bit exasperated.

"They're calling you 'high heeled badass'?" I'm trying to fight the smile that's creeping into my face.

She looks at me with a deadpanned stare. "That's the only thing you heard?"

"I think at this point in our relationship you know me well enough to know, that that is in fact, the only thing I heard"

At 'relationship' her whole face changes into one of amusement. She presses the button to call an airhostess. She doesn't take her eyes off of me. I feel like I'm in a Mexican stand off, but instead of guns, we have glares. I have a cocky, tight lip smile on and she is fighting a smile. When the airhostess comes to Claire, she turns to her and asks for a glass of champagne.

"You're leading me into drinking, Grady"

"Well, on the plus side, you would be the classiest patient in rehab"

"Wh..? You know what, I'm not even going to try an attempt to figure out how your brain works"

"You're a smart woman. You'll figure it out eventually"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Owen"

"Oh, on the contrary, Claire. It will get me everywhere"

I stop teasing her and ask her to continue telling me our schedule of hell. As it turns out, between interviews with big television chains, a press conference, interviews with important newspapers and magazines, and all the legal crap we have to unfortunately be a part of, our date will be, from the moment we land, in 2 weeks.