said drily. “And you wondered why we don’t work together anymore?”
I laughed and slung my arm around her shoulders as we walked up to base camp.
“Got anything good?”
“Another small rodent, I think,” she said. “Post-Cretaceous, but I’ve got dirt samples for River to confirm.”
“Good work,” I said, and it was. She’d only been on-site for a few days, and a discovery this early on was promising. For all the negative press I’d been giving Eric White, he seemed to have picked a good spot for digging.
We were far enough out of town to make it not worth driving in every day at lunch; it took too long. Instead, most people brought a packed lunch, and we sat outside to eat, enjoying the good weather while we could.
It sort of felt like the old days when we were students. Well, Boner and I were students before River and Raven; they were undergrads while we were grad students. It was how we all met. And Pete and Andre were technically still at school, and Nancy and Chuck hadn’t been in school in a long time.
The atmosphere among the team was more like the lightness that comes from having no responsibility, even though we actually had quite a lot to be responsible for. We could fuck around and have a laugh and tease each other about stupid things like avocado sandwiches (seriously, who in their right mind would put avocado in a sandwich? Even though River insisted it was a seeded baguette).
I stole some of Boner’s chips, so he took a huge handful of mine and we argued about who owed what to whom. Then someone suggested we just fuck each other and be done with it. Boner snickered and elbowed me in the ribs.
“Yeah, Nick, why don’t you just let me fuck you and be done with it?”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Because I don’t want to.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” River said, leaning in from my other side and grinning like she knew something. Which she didn’t, of course, but she’d been around in the early days when Boner and I had hooked up, mostly when we were drunk.
“When you’ve all stopped arguing over my sex life,” I said, standing and brushing off my jeans, “we need to get back to work.”
People drifted back to the site in twos and threes, and I stayed behind to check on the lab results. That was the only reason why I spotted the TV news crew in our parking lot when I emerged an hour later.
I was curious enough to sneak down the side of the road, knowing I could approach from this angle without anyone spotting me. It didn’t take long for me to find Hunter Joseph in the middle of the small crowd of people: him, a small blonde woman in a tailored blue suit, and a few guys with pieces of equipment. I could have gone over to them, demanded what they were up to, insisted they move on. Or I could stay just out of their line of sight and watch. And listen.
He was dressed smarter than before, in a pressed white shirt and jeans, the shirt unbuttoned at the collar to show off his throat and a good inch or so of chest. He was fucking handsome. There was no use in denying that. In the midafternoon sunlight, his black hair was shiny and loose around his shoulders, and his dark-brown eyes smoldered as he laughed at something the woman said.
I guessed the woman in the suit was the reporter—she fussed with her hair and makeup for a minute while the crew seemed to be figuring out a way of getting both her and Joseph in a close-up shot together. She was shorter than him by at least a foot and a half; she barely came up to his shoulder. In the end, someone turned over a box and she stood on that, laughing and flirting with Joseph as he offered his hand to steady her.
After a few minutes, the action seemed to intensify; I was close enough to hear the whole thing. And all I could do was watch helplessly as he decimated our work one point at a time.
“I’m not denying that the work these paleontologists are doing is important,” he said. “We just have to weigh the possible
I laughed and slung my arm around her shoulders as we walked up to base camp.
“Got anything good?”
“Another small rodent, I think,” she said. “Post-Cretaceous, but I’ve got dirt samples for River to confirm.”
“Good work,” I said, and it was. She’d only been on-site for a few days, and a discovery this early on was promising. For all the negative press I’d been giving Eric White, he seemed to have picked a good spot for digging.
We were far enough out of town to make it not worth driving in every day at lunch; it took too long. Instead, most people brought a packed lunch, and we sat outside to eat, enjoying the good weather while we could.
It sort of felt like the old days when we were students. Well, Boner and I were students before River and Raven; they were undergrads while we were grad students. It was how we all met. And Pete and Andre were technically still at school, and Nancy and Chuck hadn’t been in school in a long time.
The atmosphere among the team was more like the lightness that comes from having no responsibility, even though we actually had quite a lot to be responsible for. We could fuck around and have a laugh and tease each other about stupid things like avocado sandwiches (seriously, who in their right mind would put avocado in a sandwich? Even though River insisted it was a seeded baguette).
I stole some of Boner’s chips, so he took a huge handful of mine and we argued about who owed what to whom. Then someone suggested we just fuck each other and be done with it. Boner snickered and elbowed me in the ribs.
“Yeah, Nick, why don’t you just let me fuck you and be done with it?”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Because I don’t want to.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” River said, leaning in from my other side and grinning like she knew something. Which she didn’t, of course, but she’d been around in the early days when Boner and I had hooked up, mostly when we were drunk.
“When you’ve all stopped arguing over my sex life,” I said, standing and brushing off my jeans, “we need to get back to work.”
People drifted back to the site in twos and threes, and I stayed behind to check on the lab results. That was the only reason why I spotted the TV news crew in our parking lot when I emerged an hour later.
I was curious enough to sneak down the side of the road, knowing I could approach from this angle without anyone spotting me. It didn’t take long for me to find Hunter Joseph in the middle of the small crowd of people: him, a small blonde woman in a tailored blue suit, and a few guys with pieces of equipment. I could have gone over to them, demanded what they were up to, insisted they move on. Or I could stay just out of their line of sight and watch. And listen.
He was dressed smarter than before, in a pressed white shirt and jeans, the shirt unbuttoned at the collar to show off his throat and a good inch or so of chest. He was fucking handsome. There was no use in denying that. In the midafternoon sunlight, his black hair was shiny and loose around his shoulders, and his dark-brown eyes smoldered as he laughed at something the woman said.
I guessed the woman in the suit was the reporter—she fussed with her hair and makeup for a minute while the crew seemed to be figuring out a way of getting both her and Joseph in a close-up shot together. She was shorter than him by at least a foot and a half; she barely came up to his shoulder. In the end, someone turned over a box and she stood on that, laughing and flirting with Joseph as he offered his hand to steady her.
After a few minutes, the action seemed to intensify; I was close enough to hear the whole thing. And all I could do was watch helplessly as he decimated our work one point at a time.
“I’m not denying that the work these paleontologists are doing is important,” he said. “We just have to weigh the possible
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