by Anna Martin
Then he flopped back over Kit, who was lying on his back with one arm over his face.
“Hmph.”
“Sorry,” Logan mumbled again.
“What do you keep apologizing for?”
Logan screwed his face up. “I feel like I’m constantly pushing you around.”
Kit rolled onto his side and gently pushed his fingers into Logan’s hair, making Logan look up at him.
“You really are stupid.”
“I am. Yeah.”
“No.” Kit rolled his eyes. “I like that you’re bigger than me, Logan.”
“You… do?”
“Yes.” He was blushing now. “How did you not figure that out already?”
“It’s not something that gay men like, though.”
“Are you kidding?”
Logan squirmed. He’d never been good at this—talking about himself, talking about his feelings.
“Gay men like… you know. Men who are elegant and sophisticated. Like you.”
“There was a compliment buried in there, I think.” Kit pressed his lips together to hide his smile. “Who told you that?”
“I guess I figured it out for myself. When you see two guys together, they’re always… nice-looking guys, you know?”
“You’re nice-looking.”
“So are you.”
“This isn’t about me,” Kit said, tugging Logan’s hair to make him look up again. He smoothed his hand over Logan’s hair and gently cupped the back of his neck.
“I’m not attractive to gay men.” Logan shrugged awkwardly. “It’s okay.”
“Well, I won’t talk for all gay men. But I’m gay, and I certainly think you’re hot. And I like that you’re bigger than me, and I like that you hold me down and fuck me stupid.”
Logan laughed at that. “I thought it was pretty fun too.”
Kit angled his head to kiss Logan again, this time slower, maybe sweeter.
“Go let Dizzy in.”
Logan huffed a laugh. “Let me clean up first. And put underwear on too.”
“Okay,” Kit agreed easily. “Then let Dizzy in.”
Logan kissed him again, and did as he was told.
Chapter Fourteen
It had always been something of a running joke in their family—which woman was Kit’s biological mom. Watching them walk off the tiny passenger plane, hand in hand, all he could think was how beautiful they both were.
The joke only really made sense when Kit stood between them. Where Helena was short and pale and wore her blond hair in a thick braid down her back, Marie was tall and dark-skinned and kept her hair cropped short in tiny spirals. When Kit was growing up, Helena was Mom, Marie was Mama. They had been together since the early eighties, when being in an interracial lesbian relationship was about as taboo as it got.
Seeing them again now made Kit realize how much he’d missed them.
He broke into a jog, running straight into his parents’ arms before they could even get to the check-in building.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Mom said, leaning in to wrap him up in her familiar scent. Mama got her arms around both of them, like she used to when he was a kid, and all was right in the world again.
“I missed you,” Kit mumbled into her shoulder. He allowed himself to be squeezed for a moment longer, then took his mom’s carry-on bag and shouldered it. “How was the flight?”
“Long,” Marie said. A little over twelve hours from Chicago—Kit knew from his trips home. “I need a shower.”
“It shouldn’t take long to get through customs. I already checked you into the apartment and got your keys and everything.”
“Our wonderful son,” Helena said with a sigh, and Kit reveled in the flush of pride.
There wasn’t really a formal customs and immigration center on the island. It wasn’t big enough and didn’t see enough traffic for that. Not yet, anyway. All the commercial flights went into Auckland. Then anyone coming out to the Archipelago had to change onto one of the tiny local flights that only held about thirty people. Island authorities were trying to make it so the New Zealand officials dealt with customs, but that hadn’t been agreed yet. Instead Ellen, who worked in administration, came out to the customs building—which was really just a hut—and stamped passports.
They moved through the line quickly, and then Kit ushered them to the apartment he’d reserved. There were always a handful of apartments that were purposefully left unoccupied by the people who lived on the Archipelago, so any visiting experts or dignitaries had somewhere to stay. If there was space, anyone could book the rooms so family could come and visit, though fewer people took up the offer than Kit had expected. His moms had visited a couple of times.
“Oh, wow,” Marie said, throwing open the doors that led out onto the small balcony. They were overlooking the cliffs that led down to the ocean, which was currently crashing against the rocks dramatically. The air was cool, but it was dry.
“You like it?”
“It’s great, Kit, thank you,” Helena said, pulling him into another hug.
“I have a few things planned,” Kit said, letting his arm settle around her waist. “Dinner tonight; then I’ll show you my lab tomorrow. One of my colleagues runs presentations on the dinosaurs, if you want to go to that? I thought it could be interesting before we go out onto the island.”
“Kit, we want to spend time with you,” Helena said softly. “All of those things sound amazing. But we’re really just here for you.”
“Okay,” he said. “I have some time owed to me that I’m going to take so I can show you around.”
“Are we allowed into the labs? The other ones, not just yours,” Marie asked, clearly excited at the prospect.
“I think I can manage that, yeah,” he said with a laugh.
“Marie,” his mom said with a huff.
“It’ll be fun,” Kit insisted. “I can show you all my research labs, the breakthrough work I’m involved with.” He hesitated for a moment, then decided to tell them everything. “A, uh, a friend of mine is actually hand-rearing an infant dissimosaur.”
“You’re kidding,” Marie breathed. “How the hell did you get management to sign off on that?”
“We didn’t, yet. We only brought her in a few weeks ago. Technically no one knows we have her.”
“We?” Helena asked.
“Yeah. Me and Logan. Dr. Beck.”
“Logan, huh?” Marie asked. She was smirking, the expression familiar. “Not the infamous, dreamy guy you’ve had a crush on since forever?”
“Mama,” Kit complained, feeling his face flush with color. “He’s a valued colleague.”
She shrieked with laughter. “Valued colleague, my ass. You’re foster-parenting a dinosaur with him.”
“A very illegal dinosaur,” Kit protested. “We’re both going to get in so much trouble when we get caught.”
“Can we meet him?” Helena asked.
“The man or the dinosaur?”
“Kit. The man.”
“He offered to make dinner for us one night, if you like,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to offer until after you’d had chance to meet him.”
“Are you dating him?” Marie pressed.
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“Then yes,” Helena said. “We’d love to have dinner with you both.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Of course it is. Kit, you haven’t dated anyone in years. We’re so happy for you.”
“Don’t…. It’s really not like that,” he protested.
“I’m sure it isn’t,” she said, still teasing him.
“Well,” Kit said, a little too loudly, “I have a few things I need to tie up in the office, so I’m going to do that and let you settle in.”
“Sounds good to me,” Helena said and squeezed him quickly again before he left.
Kit had already called Bruno’s and arranged for lunch to be taken over to the apartment, and he knew his moms would want to shower and nap in
the afternoon, so he had a good few hours before he needed to head back.
He’d inherited his work ethic from his mama, who had always worked long hours when Kit was a kid but still managed to make time for him and his mom. Kit tended to save up all his vacation time to take at Thanksgiving and Christmas, since those were the times of year they could all take time off together.
He had been accused more than once of living for his job, and though that was true, he’d never considered it a bad thing. Ever since he’d been promoted into the role of lead dinosaur geneticist, it had been one amazing adventure after another. Never in his wildest dreams did Kit think he would be given the opportunity to lead and shape dinosaur genome research, and now he was doing just that with a team of people he admired and respected.
And one person who he admired for a multitude of reasons.
“What are you doing in here?” Kit asked, amused to find Logan in his desk chair.
“Why is your office so much bigger than mine?”
Kit closed the door and folded his arms over his chest. “You can’t answer a question with a question, Logan.”
“Waiting for you.”
Kit pressed his lips together to stop himself from smiling.
“Now I’m waiting for you to tell me why your office is so much bigger than mine.”
“Because I asked for it,” Kit said simply. “Where’s Dizzy?”
Logan gestured to a large backpack that was propped against the side of Kit’s desk. He guessed she was asleep in there. Probably on top of something soft belonging to Logan.
A quick peek confirmed his suspicions. Kit leaned against his desk, mindless of the paperwork stacked across it, and curled his fingers around the edge. Logan looked up at him from under his dark lashes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Kit said, poking a finger in his chest. “You know I can still feel you from last night.”
“You can?” Logan asked, sounding delighted by this.
“Yes. So behave.”
“You make that a very difficult thing to do, Dr. Sterling,” Logan said, making Kit laugh.
“I’m sure. What are you working on?”
“You know, one of my teams found something interesting yesterday in quadrant six.”
“That’s at the top of the West Island, right?”
“Yeah. One through six are on the West Island, seven through twelve are the North Island.”
“Right. What did they find?”
“A carcass,” Logan said with a simplicity that told Kit this wasn’t unusual in his line of work.
“That’s nice,” Kit said drily.
“Well. It was a protoceratops, which, you know, they’re not at the top of the food chain. But it was nowhere near the rest of the herd.”
“Maybe whatever killed it dragged it there.” Kit shrugged. “That’s not so unusual.”
“Except there were no signs of an attack. It was a complete, unharmed, uneaten protoceratops. Just dead, way out in quadrant six, miles from any other protoceratops.”
“Huh.” Kit folded his arms over his chest. “That’s weird.”
“Right! Weird. Tony took a blood sample so you can check for diseases.”
That was going to be the next major project Kit worked on now that the genome project was complete—figuring out what infections and diseases were specific to these animals and what that meant for their survival. It sounded like he was about to get a jump start on that work.
“So what now?”
Logan shrugged. “I dunno. We just keep an eye on it. Maybe their territory has shifted into quadrant six, and we haven’t noticed yet. Maybe it got separated from the herd somehow. Maybe the river flooded and carried an animal that died of natural causes downstream, and it washed up in the forest.”
“I find it very upsetting when there’s no definite answer to a question,” Kit said, only partly joking.
Logan smiled. “It’s often the way with a lot of what I do. We can come up with theories, but there isn’t always a neat answer.”
“Are you going to discuss it in your seminar tomorrow?”
“Nah.” Logan stretched his arms over his head, letting his spine pop. “If it keeps happening, I’ll try and come up with some better theories. But right now it’s just an odd thing.” He frowned at Kit. “Wait, are you coming to my seminar tomorrow?”
“Was planning on it, yeah. My moms want to come.”
“Oh.”
“Is that okay?”
Logan leaned in and kissed him slowly. “Sure.”
Chapter Fifteen
Logan had been running the seminars for months now. Most of the time he forgot he was supposed to be giving the presentation until a few minutes before it started and the reminder popped up on his phone. That was okay, he was familiar enough with the material to wing it.
There was a constantly revolving door of people working at the Archipelago. Few people were willing to relocate away from their families for a full-time position, even if it meant studying real-life dinosaurs in a natural habitat. The ones who did relocate often didn’t stay long—a year or two, or until their specific project concluded—then they went back to internationally renowned institutions with something of a badge of honor.
The regular turnover meant Logan’s seminars were always in demand. He tried to mix it up, too, talking about different animals or new research in order to keep the content fresh. The interns and recent graduates came to all the sessions. He was getting good at picking them out now.
There wasn’t a lecture theater on the island, so all his presentations were delivered in a meeting room that was big enough to hold thirty or so people. Logan had never had that many people attend his lectures; fifteen to twenty was a good turnout.
“Good morning,” he said to the little group. They quickly fell silent. “To those who don’t know me, I’m Dr. Logan Beck.”
He started the lecture as he always did, running through his qualifications and experience, then outlining the work they did on the islands. It was always surprising how many of the visiting scientists actually had no idea how the data and samples they were working on had arrived on their nice clean tables. A few people were taking notes. Kit and his moms were just listening.
Logan took a deep breath.
“Today I thought I’d talk about one of the most interesting species we have on the islands. The dissimosaurs were not immediately recognizable as any dinosaur previously classified. They are small, herbivorous animals who live in social groups of around twenty. We have two herds, one on each of the islands north of here.”
Once he was into the flow of things, the rest of the lecture came easy. He had some pictures on the projector of both herds, plus the drawings that had been done after the autopsy that had been done to formally identify the dissimosaurs.
It was instinctive for him to want to talk about Dizzy and everything they had learned about dissimosaurs from studying her, and he kept having to catch himself when he went to refer to her. It definitely wasn’t safe to let anyone know about her yet. Dizzy was sleeping on an old sweater in his office, hopefully not tearing the place apart while he was gone. They hadn’t quite figured out how to ease her separation anxiety just yet.
“Though we have limited physical contact with any of the dinosaurs here, the dissimosaurs are extremely friendly,” Logan continued. “They have absolutely no fear of humans and are quite inquisitive little things.” He paused and shrugged. “I like them,” he said, earning a laugh from the group.
A hand went up toward the back of the room.
“Yes?”
“Will we be able to see the dissimosaurs from the observation deck?”
Logan shook his head, trying not to bristle at the question. “We don’t offer any guarantees that you’ll see any animals at all,” he said. “The observation deck is just across the bridge, at the southernmost point of the West Island. Both dissimosaur herds move in territories much farther north.
“Here at the Ar
chipelago, there’s a very delicate ecosystem that we’re trying hard to preserve. Certain habitats are difficult to access, and we try and avoid the animals we know are in a breeding season.”
It was the perfect link.
“The dissimosaurs have just finished their breeding season,” he continued. “The different species here have very different breeding patterns. We believe, though we don’t have enough data to support the assumption just yet, that the dissimosaurs mate in the same pairs each year. Each breeding pair produces only one or two eggs, which may or may not produce a live offspring. They raise the infants in a social group, very much unlike the protoceratops, for example, where the male abandons the female shortly after breeding. Female protoceratops raise their young alone and kick the males out of the herd once they reach adolescence. From observing them, we’re able to assume that their famous cousins, the triceratops, behaved in a similar way.”
The lecture lasted for another half hour or so; then he took a few more questions. The group broke up naturally, the tourists heading to Starbucks for refueling and his colleagues probably doing the same thing before they went back to their posts.
“Can you wait a moment?” Logan said as Kit and his moms came over. “I just want to check in my office….”
Kit understood and nodded. “We can stay here.”
“I’m only down the hall.”
“Don’t worry.”
He dashed off, not wanting to make a show of his hurry but desperate to check on Dizzy. He’d left her for over an hour and a half, much longer than their usual separations.
She had pooped—in her litter box—and Logan decided that deserved a little more than the usual amount of fussing. She was quite content shredding some paper that he’d left on the floor in case of any accidents, and he closed the door carefully behind himself.
“Sorry,” he said as he stepped back into the meeting room. Kit was deep in conversation with a man Logan recognized from one of the labs, so he turned to the two women, who were grinning up at him with unbridled enthusiasm.
“Hi.”
