NOTE: After this update, I'll be moving to every Sunday to align with AO3 and Wattpad updates.
Nic laughed as she walked down Main Street with Eric and he called out all the insane bits of commercialism she hated about the park. As much as she loved her job and living on Isla Nublar, it sometimes pained her to see just how much of a marketing machine the island was.
"What the hell is a Mesozoic Macchiato?" he asked, pausing in front of the cafe as he read the menu.
"Weirdly delicious," she replied, grinning. "Matcha in the macchiato to make it green, dinosaur on the cup. You wanna try one?" Was it incredibly gimmicky? Yes. Did she still love it? Also, yes.
Eric shook his head and continued toward the Innovation Center. "Maybe later."
"You sure?" she prompted, following him. "Early morning, boat full of screaming children…."
Her cousin laughed. "I think I'll need something more alcoholic than a Macchiato for that."
"Jurassic Sunrise?" she offered. The look he gave her made her howl with laughter. "Tequila sunrise, but on brand," she explained.
"Seriously?"
Nic chuckled and led him down the street, dodging excited children. Not that she blamed the kids for being overly excited - if this wasn't where she worked and lived every day, she might be just as hyped up! She grinned as she watched a nine-year-old boy speed up the steps with his less-than-thrilled teenaged brother following him. The teenager's expression made it clear exactly how he felt about being stuck watching his kid brother.
If Eric ever felt annoyed with her when they were kids, she hadn't known; he'd never once rolled his eyes at her or snapped. All he'd ever been was a fiercely protective older brother figure that anchored her to reality when she was struggling.
"So, what do you want to do first?"
Eric gave her a toothy grin and pulled out his phone, making Nic groan. "What?" he asked, arching an eyebrow at her.
"An itinerary? For a vacation?" In a way, she understood his need to itinerize his life - he did effectively adopt a kid at 19 - but could he not just chill out for a vacation?
"Relax, Tadpole," he laughed. "It's just a list of what I want to do, I didn't plan the whole two weeks."
She reached out and grabbed his phone, scrolling through the list - T-Rex (no surprise there), Gyrospheres, Cretaceous Cruise, Mosasaurus, Pachy Arena, all the rides, the safari tour, and -. "The Petting Zoo? Really?"
Eric snatched his phone back with a glare. "What's wrong with wanting to pet a live dinosaur?"
"Nothing," she replied. "Super manly to want to face down a baby Triceratops."
The glare turned into a smirk and he started typing away on his phone.
"Eric."
"Hmm?"
God, she hated that shit-eating grin of his. "The fuck are you doing?"
He feigned shock, striking a dramatic pose - hand on his heart, mouth agape - and held his phone away from her. "Eunice Evelyn Forester!"
Now it was Nic's turn to glare. Using her full name made her cringe every time - she wasn't some old lady, she was only 35! What the hell had her parents been thinking, naming a child 'Eunice'? "Give me the phone, Sasquatch, and I'll forget about the full name thing."
The shit-eating grin returned and he held the phone over his head. "Come get it, Tadpole."
There was no way in hell she'd ever be able to get it off him if he wanted to keep it away from her, the tall idiot. But that wasn't going to stop her from trying!
Owen bit back on a frustrated groan. The last two hours filling out paperwork all because that dumbass kid couldn't follow basic safety protocols. Repeatedly. It wasn't like he didn't know the raptors were dangerous!
But it was mistake after mistake with this idiot. First he knocked Nic into the pen - and that was almost a year ago - then it just kept going. Dropping treats, letting the pig out.
You'd think after nearly getting someone killed, the kid would smarten up, but no. Owen had tried - fought hard as hell - to get the kid fired after he'd knocked Nic into the pen. But try as he might, the kid was still around because he was related to some higher up at InGen. All he could do was hope the incidents wouldn't result in his raptors being punished for human idiocy.
And that Nic would stay far away from the pen. Not that he had to worry about that, with how badly things had gone between them. She seemed to be just as happy to avoid him as he was to avoid her. Imagine, some techie who'd probably never set foot into the woods was his soulmate! What the hell were they supposed to do on dates - he hated video games and she was probably terrified of camping!
Not that he'd ever actually asked her what she'd want to do on a date.
The elevator doors opened on the Innovation Center and he put on his best smile as he made his way through the crowd. It probably wouldn't do any good to scare the tourists off by scowling - or at least that's the way Barry had put it earlier.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and carefully made his way through the crowd. As soon as he got outside and away from the crowd, a laugh drew his attention and he saw Nic next to one of the cafes with some jackass. Smiling, laughing, trying to get something out of the guy's hands.
Whoever he was, the guy was slightly taller than Owen, muscled…he supposed some people might've thought he was good-looking. And Nic was eating up every word.
She looked genuinely happy.
Wasn't she supposed to be his soulmate, not that jerk's?
Owen finally let his mask slip and scowled at them, before jogging down the stairs and rounding the corner to his motorbike. He hopped on and took off, in an even worse mood than he had been.
Nic smiled as Eric ran over, giddy as a schoolboy after spending the last half hour petting baby dinosaurs. She thought she'd be calling his bluff by going to the petting zoo first, but no - Eric was excited as hell! It probably shouldn't have surprised her, after all, Eric was a big animal lover. Every time she visited him at his cabin, he had some baby something or other in his care.
"Half an hour at the petting zoo and you're ready to adopt a Triceratops, huh?" she teased as he approached.
He grinned at her. "I've dealt with enough animal transportation at work, I think I could smuggle one back home."
Before Nic could reply, her phone went off in her pocket. As she pulled it out, she frowned at the screen - Claire Dearing? What did she want?
"Gimme a sec?" she asked Eric. "Big boss lady."
"Oh no," Eric wailed, his voice dripping with fake melodrama. "More time with baby dinosaurs!"
"Just go, you idiot," she said, shoving him away as she pressed 'answer' on her screen. "Hi, boss!" She ducked through an Employees Only door to get some semblance of quiet away from the screaming children.
"Ms. Forester." Everyone in the park tried to insist on less formality, but for whatever reason Claire Dearing just couldn't seem to shake it. Nic had even seen Simon Masrani correcting her, attempting to drive that informality home with every visit and phone call. It just never took. "I've just given a tour of Paddock 11 to Mr. Masrani -."
"Simon," his faint voice shouted in the background.
"Simon," she sighed. "Anyway, the systems were on the fritz and the only other person qualified to fix them is -."
"Home for Christmas," Nic finished. When he got back to the island, Brian was going to owe her big time.
"I know you're on vacation yourself, but we really need someone to take a look."
Nic sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Maybe vacationing in the place she worked was a bad idea.
"Mr. Masrani -."
"Simon!"
"Simon," she bit out, "has agreed to give you additional paid time off in lieu. New Year's Eve."
Pulling the phone away from her ear, she gave it a funny look then brought it back. "New Year's? Who's going to work?" How had Simon Masrani found a replacement for the most popular day off of the year? A smarter woman would've just taken it and not questioned.
"We've got it covered," her boss assured her.
Shaking her head, Nic agreed to a few hours work and went back out to give Eric the news she'd be busy for the afternoon.
Claire did her best to right her bad mood as she drove through the jungle. An argument with her sister about how she was supposed to be with her nephews, a helicopter trip to see the Indominus with Mr. Masrani flying, the computers at the paddock going wonky. At least Mr. Masrani let her take the company car parked at the paddock to Owen Grady's bungalow instead of flying her there.
And she'd been able to convince the only qualified tech on the island to head over to the paddock.
Small miracles.
Now all she had to do was convince Owen Grady to come inspect the paddock's safety so Mr. Masrani would sign off on it.
As the bungalow came into view, she pushed out a tense breath. The man himself was sitting…was that a bucket? Was he sitting on a bucket to work on that damn motorcycle she'd had to pull strings to get brought to the island?
No, she could do this. She could be calm, collected. Claire Dearing was a professional who didn't let one bad date stop her.
Besides, it wasn't like either of them went into that date thinking the other was their soulmate or anything. It was just an itch she thought she could scratch with him. Only to spend the whole evening with a cocky ex-Navy jock in boardshorts. Needless to say, she'd gone home and scratched her own itch. Alone.
Pulling the car to a stop next to one of the palm trees, she glanced at herself in the mirror - a silent pep talk - then got out of the car and called out to Mr. Grady.
"What the hell do they want now?" Grady grumbled as he took a sip of beer.
Drinking during working hours? No, this was fine. He wasn't on the clock. And technically, he worked for InGen, not Jurassic World. Owen Grady wasn't her employee to discipline. "Mr. Grady, we need you to come take a look at something."
Completely professional. Not at all venting her frustrations.
"I'm pretty busy," he grumbled. "And don't call me 'Mr. Grady', call me 'Owen'."
Was that supposed to be friendly?
Claire pursed her lips, then pasted on her best smile and said, "Owen. We have a new attraction we've been working on in the labs and -."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" he interrupted, putting down his beer as he stood up from the bucket.
"It means we've made a new species of dinosaur," she replied, balling her fists behind her back. First, she spent the morning being interrupted by Mr. Masrani, now Owen Grady!
Owen scoffed. "You just went and made a new dinosaur?"
"Yeah," Claire shot back. "It's kind of what we do here?"
He shook his head, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, and walked away without a word. Up the stairs and around the back of his haphazard wooden shack.
No way in hell was Claire going to follow him - the damn thing might fall apart! Either that or she'd break the heel off one of her new Louboutins, and no way in hell was she breaking her new shoes on that damn shack!
"The exhibit opens to the public in the new year," she called out. "Mr. Masrani wants you to inspect the paddock for vulnerabilities."
Grady popped out from behind the shed, features scrunched up in confusion. "Why me?"
At least he wasn't being argumentative. "I suppose," Claire sighed, "he thinks that because you can control the raptors -."
"All about control with you," Grady groused. He ducked back behind the shack and returned with a large wrench in hand. "Like our bad date - you brought an itinerary."
By now it was obvious he was looking for a fight, so she took a deep soothing breath and ignored his comments. "Can we just focus on the asset, please?" Whatever the hell had crawled up his ass wasn't her problem; she had enough to worry about without his bullshit.
Grady pushed past her and dropped back down to sit on the bucket. "The asset?" he scoffed, starting to work on the bike again. "Look I get it. You're in charge out here, you gotta make a lot of tough decisions, it's probably easier to pretend these animals are just numbers on a spreadsheet. But they're not, they're alive."
Where the hell was he going with this. "I'm aware they're alive, Mr. Grady."
"Owen," he corrected, dropping the wrench. He turned to look at her. "You might've made them in a test tube, but they don't know that."
Claire sighed. "I don't have time for this, Mr. Grady. Go get changed." And without another word she turned and walked back to her car.
Owen pulled his vest on over his button-up and sighed. He hadn't meant to be short like that, especially not with the woman effectively running the damn park. Normally, they got along just fine, with the exception of their horrible date.
But today? Seeing Nic with that jackass? The idiot kid getting hurt?
Not to mention he had the impression Claire was just as ready for a fight as he was. Maybe they were both too keyed up for a reasonable conversation.
But he'd definitely started it by interrupting her like an asshole. And he would have to end it by manning up and apologizing.
Another sigh and he pushed the mental image of Nic laughing with that tall idiot out of his mind and headed for the car.