ADAPTATIONS
8 – Pet's First Date
The weekend had finally come and with it, a much needed break and a chance to sleep in. Grant looked over at his digital alarm clock sitting on the night stand to see it was almost eight AM. Given a weekday, he would have already been up, showered, had breakfast and working somewhere within the dig site.
He could hear Billy just now getting up and rummaging around in the kitchen. Hopefully he wasn't going to attempt to cook breakfast again, because that turned out so well the last time. What was assumed to be a dead fire alarm came to life in ear piercing chirps, drawing the attention and aid from nearby dig site volunteers. The kitchen window and front door were opened, allowing plumes of smoke to escape the confines of the trailer. One volunteer had come running to the trailer with a fire extinguisher, only to learn the smoke was from burned bacon and biscuits left in the oven too long.
Grant continued to lay there in the comforts of his warm bed and fluffy down comforter, pretending everything was going to be all right until he heard a skillet hit the oven burner. This wasn't going to be good. Grumbling in protest of getting up, Grant got to his feet and went into the kitchen.
Billy, wearing only a pair of blue plaid flannel pajama pants, yawned out, "Morning, Alan." He went to the fridge to get the carton of eggs and brand-new package of bacon. "Sorry if I woke you up. I was trying to be quiet." He scratched his head full of hair, which was a disheveled mess on his head, and turned to the sink to rinse off a spatula. "Care for some breakfast?"
Grant shuffled over to the small dining table and sat down, seeing the morning paper neatly folded on top of it. "Oh good, Albert made the paper run this morning."
"Yeah, I heard him come in this morning around six something and lay it on the table." Billy opened the lid to the eggs and got out eight of them. "Alan? Breakfast?"
The senior scientist flipped open the paper. "Yeah, make me two and don't overdo them this time!"
The protégé nervously cleared his throat. "Hey, uh, I hope you don't mind but I invited Veronica over for breakfast this morning." He watched Grant go rigid where he sat, eyes unblinking and staring forward. "She's a cool chick, y'know?"
The older man's head slowly turned to stare at the younger man in both annoyance and disbelief. "You did what?"
"Yeah, I thought it'd be a good chance to get to know her some more."
Grant repeated the words slowly out loud. "Get to know her?" Billy nodded behind a boyish smile. "You don't 'get to know' her. You run and stay as far away from her as you can..."
Billy hesitated in cracking another egg, him holding it a couple inches above the mixing bowl's rim, and studied his mentor. "Why, what's so bad about her? She's seems alright to me." He finally cracked the egg and reached for another. "She's smart, witty...hot." Grant exhaled a heavy breath, rolled his eyes and shook his head at the same time. "Do you think her dad would mind me asking her on a date one night?"
What? "Her dad?" Grant slimmed his watch down on his protégé.
After cracking eight eggs, Billy reached into a drawer full of other cooking utensils and got a whisk. "Yeah…Isn't that scary guy with the scars her dad?" The empty egg shells were then tossed in the trash.
Grant almost laughed out loud to the scary part of Billy's description. While the ex-game warden did look more intimidating with the scars, he was not scary. "That's not her dad. He's just a legal guardian that adopted her at a young age."
"Really? Well, that explains why she's been calling him by his first name this whole time." A touch of pepper and the eggs were good to go. The younger man began beating everything together. "Well, think he would mind anyway?"
"Yes!" Grant remembered Muldoon calling Billy's little attention to the hybrid unwanted. "He's very protective over her and if you're wanting approval, you're going to have to prove you can be trusted." Heh. If only the younger man knew what was meant by that.
"Okay. Where do I start?" A knock came at the door, startling Billy and making him almost drop the mixing bowl. "Shit," he grumbled to himself. Grant shot him a sideways glance. After recollecting himself, Billy called out, "Come in."
Pet had heard the rumbling around from within the kitchen and slowly opened the trailer's door. She poked her head inside. "Hello?"
Billy scraped out the remaining eggs from the bowl before placing it in the sink. "Good morning!" He took a good head to toe look of the woman wearing her favorite boots, blue jeans and black tee shirt. "You look nice," he boyishly stated.
Pet arched a brow questionably. How did she look nice? She was wearing everyday whatever clothes. She drove her hands into the back pockets of her pants and nodded out, "Thanks." She looked at the young scientist, taking note of his distinct tan lines and pajama pants. "Nice to see you dressed up," and went to sit down at the table, across from Grant. He made sure to not make eye contact with her as he lifted the newspaper to block her from his view.
After breakfast, Pet joined Ellie at the plastering tent to learn how to properly mix the plaster and coat the prepared fossils.
Grant was heading towards Quarantine with Billy in tow, amused at how asking for permission to date the hybrid was going to go. At first, he didn't want to be bothered with this, but was finally talked into it after Billy promised to clean all the little fossils for the next week. It was well known how much the protégé hated cleaning the little bits of rocks and fossils as it was tedious and mind numbing. Being given the opportunity to torture the junior scientist with what he hated the most was too tempting to pass up.
Muldoon stared up at Billy, a scowl on his scarred features. He had just sat there and allowed himself to endure this whelp's asking for permission to take Pet on a date. At least he had the courtesy of asking for permission rather than taking it upon himself to ask her without.
Though Muldoon wasn't too partial to this guy, he had been treating Pet with respect and even like a gentleman on occasion by opening doors to trailers for her. The ex-game warden leaned back where he had been sitting, over his own plate of breakfast, and studied the anxious, younger man. "Alright," he finally answered, gesturing to Derek with a fork stabbed into a piece of sausage. "But he goes with."
Derek's head snapped up from his eating breakfast to gawk wide eyed at his uncle. "What? Oh, hell no I'm not babysitting them!"
Muldoon glaring at him in annoyance silenced the bounty hunter. "While you're out, pick up some ammo for the artillery."
Derek furrowed his brow and squared his eyes down on the man across the table from him. After a couple minutes, he understood what was being asked and nodded in understanding. "I can do that." He turned around in his seat to look back at Grant, baffled beneath his hat, and questioned. "Hey Doc, are there any ammo stores around here? Say, for a rifle?"
The paleontologist was further more confused. "What type of rifle are we talking about, here?" If the present company was anything to go by, Grant wouldn't put it past Muldoon to have a large game hunting rifle under his pillow.
"Well, more like…rifles..."
Pet was elbow deep in plaster and having fun with it when she saw Billy later that morning. He had a small plastic bin full of small fossils and teeth in one hand and various picks and brushes in his other. She snickered. "Get in trouble and having to clean the little bity stuff now?"
Billy nervously laughed and shook his head. "No, uh, actually-"
But whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by Derek barging into the tent with a smirk. "He wants to ask you on a date, Pet!" The hybrid dropped her head annoyingly to the side and glared hatefully at the bounty hunter. "He told the Doc he'd clean the small stuff for a week if he'd let him ask you out."
Pet clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes down. "Way to ruin the mood, ass wad!" She took a handful of plaster and launched it across the tent at Derek. She meant to hit him in the face but instead, it ended up in splatters across the bottom of his shirt and front of his pants.
Derek looked down at the mess and grew furious. "Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know how bad this looks?"
Pet snorted and gathered another handful of plaster. Derek darted out of sight outside the tent, Pet smearing the plaster on the fossil in front of her on the table. She then smiled innocently at Billy and stated, "I'd love to."
The angry red filling Billy's face blended into boyish blush, though it was impossible to tell one from the other. "Cool."
The drive from the excavation and to the nearest town offering more than a grocery store, gas station and diner was torturously long. Derek had music playing, but it was more to fill the quiet void that had taken over the red Jeep's cab. Pet was flipping through a magazine about ways to improve skin care as Billy sat in the back seat, bored. The current song playing on a CD ended, Derek reaching over to turn up the volume for the next song. Good thing Pet wasn't paying him attention or she'd notice the shit eating grin he was wearing. The moment Pet heard the next rock song on Derek's play list start up, she paused in reading her magazine mid-sentence. Her blue-green eyes slimmed down on the stereo, her thinking how the song sounded a bit familiar in its own way. Then she heard it; the opening lyrics. Her expression contorted to speechlessness when realizing the song was a remade rock version of one of her favorite songs.
Her head swiveled to face the Jeep driver, who was happily singing to the lyrics while drumming on the steering wheel and jiving in the seat. He didn't have to look at the hybrid to completely see the expression on her face for he already imagined how she'd respond. Seated in the back seat and watching the passing by scenery was Billy, him too a bit taken by surprise by the remade song. He as well as everyone else at the excavation knew how much Pet loved the female pop band's original version. His questionable stare went to Derek before settling on the slightly irritated young woman seated next to him. A part of the young paleontologist greatly worried of an almost predictable lashing out from the woman and anxiously held his breath with anticipation.
The more the song went on however, the woman's reaction became a mix of unreadable glares. Her eyes would slim down on the driver as she would drum her fingers on the center arm rest as though debating on what to do.
Derek still paid the woman no attention as he sang a part of the lyrics out load. Derek's attention went straight to Pet, continuing to sing, "and you're a crazy bitch!" He brought his eyes back to the road, ss though not concerned with the hybrid's opinion.
Oh boy, Billy thought. This was going to be the part where she was going to lash out, but she didn't. Instead, she shifted in the passenger seat to better observe the bounty hunter in his rocking out, a semi smile of amusement at the corner of her lips. Billy was at a loss of what to think or say at this reaction and brought his gaze back to Derek. The driver met the backseat passenger's eyes in the rear-view mirror as he sang out with the song, "I don't care, Say fuck it" again. Once again, Derek's favorite lyrics came back around. He looked back to the woman to sing to her, this time shrugging apologetically when the beat slowed for a very brief moment before picking back up.
Pet snorted a laugh. "Asshole."
Billy chuckled and shook his head to himself, looking back outside. The town wasn't too far ahead as he could see the water tower peek over a nearby hill. When the song was over, Derek heaved a satisfied breath out loud. He pointed to the Jeep's CD player, stating, "Now that, Pet, is how the song should've been all along."
She sneered at the man. "Why do you proceed to torture me like this?"
"Because," he started, turning down the volume, "If I'm having to drive you and Romeo on your little date, I get to listen to whatever I want. Besides, driver's prerogative."
"Oh, stuff it," Pet stated.
Derek wiggled his brows at the hybrid. "How about I stuff you instead?" The smile Billy had been wearing was quickly replaced by a sour glare at the driver.
Parking spot after spot was taken at the city's mall. At one point, Derek thought he had found a decent spot until another vehicle pulled in from the other side and straight into the spot in front of it. In a tangent of profane words, Derek drove around to the other side to snag the empty spot there, but it had already been taken by a truck coming from the opposite end of the parking aisle. More profane words. Up ahead, roughly four cars away were reverse lights. He saw them and waited, blinker flickering to show his intentions. It was between him and a Lincoln on who would grab the spot after its availability. Thankfully, because of the way the vehicle was backing up, Derek was able to slide in behind it, leaving the Lincoln to search for another spot.
Inside, the place was as packed as the parking lot. Walking around inside seemed more like an invasion of privacy, what with people walking so close to each other. This made Pet extremely uncomfortable and she subconsciously clung to Billy's arm, given his proximity to her, before immediately realizing it. Derek followed behind them some feet back, grumbling to himself in dissatisfaction. And here he was, expecting the hybrid would have been all over Grant at this point. With the way she had been talking about him to no end and from what he remembered during his summer in Kenya, he was certain things would've gone another way.
The three walked around, Pet poking through different shops of a sort, offering cute styled clothing in an assortment of colors. She frowned, however, in realization. "Something wrong," Billy questioned.
Pet's smile sunk lower. "Yeah, I just thought about it...I don't have any money."
Derek side stepped closer to the two and opened his wallet to hand her three hundred dollars. "Don't spend it all at once."
The woman gaped at the money being handed to her. "What? I can't take this from you! No telling what sort of fucked up I.O.U. you'd try to pull off on me!"
"It's not from me," Derek retorted. "It's from Uncle Rob."
Hearing that at least made Pet relax a little in accepting it. "Where did he get this? He hasn't been working since Ju…uh…the park." Her blue-green eyes momentarily shot over to Billy, forgetting he was there for a split moment.
Not like the junior scientist didn't already know. Derek continued. "Heh, yeah well that twelve point six mil settlement from InGen says otherwise."
The people standing opposite of the bounty hunter were taken by surprise. "Okay," Pet stated. "Sounds good to me."
Happily humming to a song playing over the store's sound system, the chipper woman started going from clothes rack to clothes rack, rummaging around and occasionally holding up a shirt to look at. Derek whispered into her ear, loud enough for only her to hear, "Make sure you find something you can wear out in public without the jacket on. And be careful that you don't give yourself away to Romeo, here. I'm trying to keep the amount of people that know about you down to an extreme minimum, okay?"
The young woman gave him a sideways glare and a faint snort. Across the clothes rack was Billy, studying the two whispering people intently. After a couple moments, the woman stepped away from her chaperone to continue shopping. Thirty minutes and one-hundred and thirty-two dollars later, Pet was done shopping in one store and on her way to another, bag hanging from one arm while another was wrapped around Billy's.
In an excited squeal, Pet bolted into another store; this time a young person's jewelry store. New pierced ears and fifty dollars following, the hybrid was content and proceeding onwards. The smells of food flooded the hybrid's senses and she tracked down the source of to find the mall's food court. An assortment of food selections was available from pizza, Chinese, Mexican, a walk through offering different flavored chicken wings, a place specializing in corn dogs and finally a sandwich place.
Derek made a beeline for the sandwiches while Pet almost fell over herself going for the wing's line. Billy settled on a pizza and the three happily sat, munching on a late lunch. Not far from the food court was a movie theater, Pet studying the display signs for what was being shown. One seemed to strike her in particular. The poster displayed a long looking space ship with a planet looming in the back ground.
The hybrid absent mindedly started tapping on Derek's shoulder from across the table. "Hey...hey Derek, can we go see that?"
He followed her finger pointing to the movie theater. "Depends. Are you going to drag us to see a chick flick? Because if so, hell no!"
The woman slapped him on the shoulder. "No, shit wad, I was looking at seeing that spacey looking movie. See it? The one with the space ship on the front?"
"Ah yeah..." Derek shrugged, taking another hefty bite of his sandwich. "I suppose."
Billy made sure to swallow his bite before speaking, unlike the other man present at the table. "I heard some people talking at the dig site about it. They said its sort of weird and twisted. Something about space travel gone wrong and a black hole... everything basically going straight to hell... literally."
Pet's eyes were wide as saucers. "Oh, I have to see it now."
Derek scoffed. "Hopefully its better than that damn dinosaur movie that came out earlier this year. Forgot the name of it...Not like it really matters, anyway. Ever since Jurassic Park and the San Diego incident, everything's been buzzing with dinosaurs." He took another bite of his sandwich, wiping away a trail of mustard running down his chin. "I wouldn't be surprised if Hollywood ended up trying to revise that old TV show I grew up watching called Land of the Lost."
Billy smiled widely. "I remember that show! I used to love that show! I had the little play set and everything. It's what got me interested in dinosaurs."
Pet watched the two young men giggle over certain moments of the series and resumed finishing off her wings. While Billy finished his pizza, Derek went to the theater to check on show times for the movie of interest. He checked his watch, it being four-twenty PM. The next showing was at five-fifteen. "Perfect," he said and went back to the group.
Throughout the movie, Pet hardly blinked. Derek sat behind the dating couple and giggled at one part of the movie. He'd have to remember that line as it seemed way too easy to bait the hybrid with it. Instead of black, though, he'd have to find a way to reword it for his favor. Blue-green eyes stayed locked on the movie screen, her forgetting about the M&Ms she had gotten at the concession stand.
After the movie, the three strode out with Pet in giggles. "Man, that lead scientist guy was hot!" A vicious smile upturned her features, there being a scheming glint in her eye. "The things I'd like to do to him! What was the name of that movie, again? I want it when it comes out on sale..."
Derek shrugged. "Something, something Horizon? I don't know, I wasn't paying attention. It lost me about midway through the movie..."
