by Maz Maddox
“We are,” he argued gently, but I found enough strength to leap from my seat and turn on him.
“He pulled a gun on me!” I repeated, waving my hand towards the door. “And where were you? You left me here alone.”
“I needed to get something--”
“I’m not like you,” I couldn’t stop myself from barrelling over his words. “I’m not trained. I can’t shoot. I don’t have a bat. I’m scared, Dalton.” My eyes stung as shameful tears welled in them. “You can’t leave me alone again. I thought…” I swallowed. “I thought he was going to kill you and I couldn’t stop it.”
“Hey, hey.” I tried to turn away as he took hold of my shoulders and steadied me. “Let me show you what I went to buy. I think it’ll cheer you up.” He steered me over towards the kitchen, bringing me to the counter with the bag set on top. I rubbed at my temple to fight back a throbbing headache as he walked around to the other side and began removing tools from the shopping bag.
There was a mix of things inside: various chisels, brushes, an Exacto knife, some picks, a magnifying glass and an electric Dremel with different heads. I blinked in surprise, the fog slowly leaving my brain.
“You...got me…” I trailed off.
“For the fossil. I had to guess but this should work, right? It’s not the fancy shit back at the museum, but it should at least put a dent in it.” His smirk looked less sure of itself as he finished with a flourish. “Taa-daa.”
“I...don’t know what to say,” I said honestly, because I didn’t. All I had wanted since before any of this started was to be working on the fossil. The thing had been my world for months and having to put my passion aside had been killing me.
This was a slice of normalcy. This was giving something important back to me.
It made me feel less lost. Less scared.
I smiled so wide I felt like my cheeks were going to burst. “Thank you.”
“Ah.” Dalton grinned, looking very proud of himself. He reached over and poked a finger into my cheek. “It’s cuter in real life.”
I slapped his hand away and rubbed at my cheek, but the smile didn’t fade. How could it?
“I hope you realize this is all I’m going to be doing now,” I warned with a laugh.
“That’s the plan.” Dalton was already clearing a spot for me to set up as a workstation. “You can toil away on the rock to keep from going stir crazy. I’ll watch movies loudly and try to distract you.”
“I honestly don’t know how to thank you enough. This was…” I took a breath, searching for the right word.
“Charming? Sweet? A way into your pants?” Dalton offered casually. “Blow job currency?”
“Ah.” I slid the case over to the new workstation. “You fixed it. I was feeling guilty but now I remembered you’re actually a prick.”
Dalton clicked his tongue and winked. “Your prick, sugar bear. Don’t forget it.”
The safe house didn’t have a lot of counter space to spare, but I took over the breakfast bar with my equipment. Even though the tools weren’t the quality of the ones back at the museum, they did the job just fine. The familiar grind of the Dremel against the stone put a smile on my face, and I apologized in advance for the amount of dust I was going to kick up.
Surprisingly, Dalton didn’t bother me while I was working. Hours flew by as I slowly picked, ground, and dusted away a few more layers from the egg. From a bystander’s point of view, I hadn’t made any progress. But I knew I had.
My stomach was the only thing that pulled me away from my work, as usual, so I paused to make some dinner. The safe house’s food was mostly cans and frozen meats, but I was able to make something out of the supplies. Dalton was content with chowing on jerky, but I made sure to cook extra to make sure he could get some real food.
After dinner, I worked for what I thought was just an hour or two more, but was shocked to see it was close to midnight when I finally looked up. I uncurled from my perch and popped my back, shaking out my hand that was holding the Dremel. The shower was going when I walked into the bedroom, which gave me an opening to slip in.
If I could lay down and settle into the mattress, maybe he’d think I was asleep and leave me alone. It was a terrible plan and one I knew wouldn’t work, but I was tired and a little sore from hunching over a fossil all day. I pulled some sweats on and climbed into bed, curling up with my back to Dalton’s side.
The smell of a crisp, almost minty body wash was permeating the air from the steam of the shower. Just beyond the steady hiss of the shower, Dalton was humming a song I didn’t know. He mumbled lyrics and made some drumming noises as the water shut off. I shut my eyes and feigned a deep sleep as the door was pushed open.
Dalton let lose a refreshed exhale as he walked around the room, apparently not caring that I was asleep or just calling my bluff. Either way, it was rude. When I heard him rifling through a duffle, I cracked my eye open to see what he was up to.
He was digging his toothbrush out of his bag, his mohawk wet and dripping down his neck and back. Naturally, he wasn’t wearing a damn thing, so I got another full view of his back tattoos. They were really impressive, as was the way his skin moved over his solid frame.
I sighed at myself and shoved my pillow under my head, adjusting in clear annoyance.
I was ignored, and Dalton marched into the bathroom to brush his teeth. There was a part of me that wanted to snap at him to hurry up so I could sleep, but that would not only give away that I was awake. but it would suggest I wanted him to hurry up and get in bed with me.
My stomach warmed at the thought and I hated myself a little for it.
After brushing his teeth while humming and singing to himself, Dalton flicked all the lights off and slithered into the bed. His crisp body wash was refreshing and cool, and reminded me of breathing in the morning air after the first snowfall. The mattress dipped as he rolled over, and a warm arm snaked around my waist.
“What are you doing?” I turned my head towards him, alarmed.
“Ha. I knew you weren’t sleeping.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“You woke me up.” God, I was really bad at lying.
“Hmmm. Did I?” Dalton snuggled up against me, completely flush against my back. He was like a small radiator, warm from the shower all the way down to his feet. Small droplets of water from his hair dripped onto my shoulder and while I couldn’t feel it, I was painfully aware that he was naked.
“You’re crowding me.” I adjusted my pillow again. “And you really need to start wearing clothing to bed, Dalton.”
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” Warm breath danced over my neck, sending a wave of chills over me. It almost sounded like a genuine question, until I heard him chuckle at me shivering. Why the hell was this guy constantly fucking with me?
“Can I ask you a personal question?” He asked while hugging me closer, his legs tangling with mine lazily.
My heart was beating so hard I was worried he could feel it since he was pressed against me.
“If I say yes will you let go?”
“No. But nice try.” He drove the point home by patting my chest. “It just seems rude to ask you personal questions without permission.”
I rubbed my face, speechless at his crooked reasoning. Since I had been frustrated into silence for a moment, I just nodded. There was a pretty good chance I knew what his line of questioning was going to be about, since he was spooning me and my ribcage was rattling around under his grip.
“What got you into paleontology?”
And I was once again surprised.
“Um,” I faltered, since I was ready to defend my lack of relationship, stance on personal boundaries and/or constant insistence on clothing to the nude man hugging me. My brain took a moment to recalibrate to the question. “I got into it when I was a kid.”
“Mm-hm,” he hummed expectantly.
I sighed, defeated. “My dad took me to the Field Museum as a kid before we started taking our
road trips out to Montana. I was maybe six? I don’t know if you’ve been there, but they have this massive T. rex skeleton there named Sue.”
“Dude, everyone knows Sue. I follow them on Twitter,” he scoffed, like I offended him. “That non-binary theropod is savage.”
“Yeah, I agree,” I said around a chuckle. “And I’ve met their social media coordinator. They’re also badass. Anyway, looking up at Sue as a little kid was like facing down a dragon but a thousand times more magical, because it was real. Staring up at the jaws of a monster was the first push. Jurassic Park hitting theaters was the nail in the coffin.”
“I thought those movies were scientific travesties to you people.” I could hear the smile on his lips, which flushed my skin with goosebumps. I coughed and adjusted, hoping he didn’t touch my arms.
“What do you mean “you people?””
“Uh, paleontologists, dude.”
“Are you kidding?” I laughed. “Most paleontologists my age are in that career because of those movies. Specifically, the first one. If Sue was seeing the dragon, then those movies put a face to them. Made them move and stare with big, dilating pupils. They became my obsession.”
“So, you wanted to grow up to tame the dragon, huh?” Dalton squeezed my chest with one hand, in the same manner someone would grab a boob. “Big strong Sir Simon the Dragon Slayer.”
“No, not tame it.” I slapped his hand and he giggled. “Understand it. The entire point of being a scientist is to understand and learn. Each piece we find, each new discovery, is a snapshot into our own past. Understanding the earth and life on it millions of years ago is like learning how we all came into existence. It’s all connected.”
Dalton hummed again and rested his chin on my shoulder. “You feel like you have a connection to dinosaurs?”
“They were around when our ancestors were just tiny little weasels hiding in holes. Now their legacy lives on in the birds we see today, and we write poetry about them, imitate their songs, and craft works of art around their beauty. I think we’ve always been connected to them.”
Silence stretched for so long, I thought maybe he had fallen asleep while I was talking. I glanced back over my shoulder, but couldn’t see his face in the dark.
“...Dalton?” I finally asked when a couple minutes had passed. He gave my chest another pat and untangled his arms from around me, rolling over onto his side. I blinked in surprise and turned to look at his back as he adjusted his pillow.
Free of his hold, I lay back down and did the same, wondering what the hell I had said that pushed him away. I was thankful to have some space to breathe, but also worried maybe I took his fun a little too seriously. Unfortunately, I had a bad track record of waxing poetic about my admiration for history when people just wanted to crack a joke.
It took forever to get comfortable after that, and I had a hard time convincing myself it wasn’t because the situation beforehand was actually a little cozy.
I shivered a little and pulled the blanket up higher.
Chapter Eight
Dalton
Holy shit, was I defenseless against that fucking dimple.
I felt like I was moth slamming my face into a lightbulb when I looked at it. The picture didn’t give the alluring dip justice. Simon could have asked for all of his enemy’s skulls in a floral arrangement and I would have delivered it, if it meant seeing that dimple again.
And the statement about our ancestors being works of art?
Arrow through the fucking heart!
I was so worried I was going to just roll him onto his back and demand he fuck me right then and there, that I had to physically pry myself away from him. That boy was smooth. I was like melted candy in his palm.
Luckily, the man was content with chipping at a rock for literally hours at a time, so I was able to keep myself busy and distracted.
We fell into a routine over the next three days: I would wake up hours before he did to get in my morning hunts, Simon would wake up, make breakfast, and spend his time between meals sanding down rock from a several million year old egg. During the evening, he’d take a break for dinner and a stroll around the property. Then, it was back to the egg while I lived up to my promise about watching loud movies.
The only downside was that the sneaky bastard would stay up so late working on the egg, that I’d be sound asleep once he finally slipped into bed. I never got the chance to properly seduce him or playfully molest him while he was all frisky from excavating. I couldn’t keep up with his late night grinding to try and get in some of my own. My dreams of using the pillow top and my raw sex to bed the cute professor failed. Instead, I got a bed mate who snored a little and hogged the damn blankets.
Even still, he was cute to look at in the mornings. I never woke up beside the same person more than once, and sure as hell not someone I didn’t ride into the night. This was...snuggly. Comfortable. And one particular morning, Simon had mistaken me for a body pillow and snuggled right up against me in his sleep.
I had never been the small spoon. It was almost as addictive as my dimple kink.
By the fourth day in our little pretend domestic bliss, Simon had slowly taken over more of the breakfast bar with his tools and fossil dust. I found him at his normal perch, hunched over the rock like a greedy gargoyle scraping away at treasure.
“How’s the egg hunt?” I put my hands on his shoulders and squeezed, feeling his tight back melt under my touch. He arched his back and rolled his neck side to side as I massaged his shoulders. “You’re going to be a hunchback if you keep sitting like that.”
“Ugh,” he grunted, staying still and rolling his head forward. “That feels awesome.”
I smirked and snaked my arms around him, hugging his chest as I rested my chin on his shoulder. He tensed, but didn’t try and shake me off. Victory. Simon wasn’t a thick guy by any stretch, but he was fit enough to feel firm. The swimming kept him in decent shape and his skin smelled like woodsy body wash and fossil dust.
“Oh, look,” I said pointing at the fossil. “You uncovered more rock from the rock.”
“That’s more shell,” he corrected, tapping the part in question with a brush.
“How the hell can you tell?” I didn’t move from the shoulder I’d claimed as I spoke.
“Years of experience.” He turned his head towards me slightly, unable to move too much without our faces colliding. “And there’s an old paleontologist trick to telling the difference between fossil and rock.” I hummed that I was listening, so he continued. “We lick it.”
“Hot,” I said immediately.
“Seriously,” he said around a chuckle. “Fossilized bone has a stickiness to it that rocks don’t.”
“Oh, Simon,” I warned, squeezing his chest with my arms. “You opened up so many jokes about licking rock hard things.”
“I forgot who I was talking to,” he said dryly, finally trying to pry me off of him.
“You want to test my fossil?” I wiggled my brows while he struggled. He was failing miserably while I cackled when my phone rang, so I released him to grab it. I unlocked the phone and answered while averting my attention to snacks. “What’s the news, your majesty?”
“Good news, killer turkey,” Royal sang. “You’re clear to get back on the road. Hyena lost your trail and they’re pulling back towards New York to retrace their steps.”
“Hot damn.” Our little vacation was over. I should have felt excited to get the hell out of the tiny safe house and back on the road, but a strange sense of loss dampened it. This dumb little shack had started to feel like home.
Home. Since when the fuck was that my life?
“Thanks for the update,” I added. “We’ll get back on the road today.” No point in wasting time here. Rip it off like a bandaid and move on.
“Sounds good. I’ll keep you updated. Later, D.”
“Bye.” I hung up and grabbed a Dr. Pepper from the fridge that I actually didn’t want. I wanted a cigarette and another
day here.
“Are we leaving?” Simon stood from his perch, stretching up tall to pop his back. “I was just getting used to this place.”
Me too.
“Yep. Let’s get packed and get on the road. We got a long haul still.”
And just like that, our little pretend bubble was popped.
It didn’t take long to get everything packed up and stuffed back into the Rodeo. Simon tried to clean up before we left, and I assured him that it was fine how it was. There was still dust on the counter, wet towels from our morning showers and dishes in the sink. I thought the guy was going to have a fit for leaving it the way it was, but he got over it once we were on the road again.
I checked our route for the next destination, which was only a couple hours away. Sure, we had to get back on the road, but that didn’t mean our tourist stops were over. I still had a couple more things in mind before finally getting into Dallas.
We had gotten a late start, so it was likely that we wouldn’t make it out of Kentucky before we had to stop for the night. It was bleeding into evening when I took the exit for our next stop, grinning that Simon was too wrapped up in reading on his phone to catch it. He had missed all the big billboards and signs advertising this place since his attention was on a new paper about sauropod shoulder placements.
He only finally looked up when I tossed the Rodeo into park.
“Are you serious?” he tried to sound unamused or offended, but I heard the stifled laugh.
“Yep.” I was all smiles as I climbed out of the car, knowing he’d follow me.
“Jesus.” Simon unbuckled and stepped out, shutting the door with a sigh. “Dinosaur World? Really?”
“Yep!” I said again, walking backwards towards it so I could watch his face. He glared at me as I hooked my finger for him to follow.
“This place is for kids. And the dinosaurs are just going to frustrate me,” he complained but was following me regardless.
“It clearly says for all ages, Simon,” I tossed over my shoulder as I turned around to walk forward again. “You can point out everything wrong with them. It’ll be fun.”
