Jurassic Heart (21 page)

The bar manager didn’t make any fuss when I walked in, probably because of the number of us who were there together. We snagged a booth, flagged down a waitress, and ordered several pitchers of beer.

“Why is drinking beer such a paleontological thing?” Nancy asked as she leaned back and sipped her drink. “I’ve never seen you guys drink anything else.”

“Nick drinks cosmos most of the time,” Boner said, teasing me, and I elbowed him in the ribs.

“Boner drinks piña coladas.”

“It’s easy, cheap, and freely available,” Raven said, ignoring us both. “When you’ve worked in some of the places we’ve been to, beer is the best thing you can drink.”

“Less germs,” River added.

The bar offered platters of food, which we decided to start with instead of ordering entrées. I realized I was hungry just as the food arrived: great tin foil plates loaded with wings, onion rings, mozzarella sticks, garlic bread, battered mushrooms, chicken strips, and dips.

“What is that?” Raven asked, poking her fork at a battered mushroom. “I want to eat it. It looks fried.”

“It’s good,” I told her. She sampled, frowned, and then reached for another.

We talked shop as we ate, discussing in detail the things there wasn’t time for during the day. I mediated a debate about assessing the age of a particular animal and the theories surrounding how best to do it. Boner, as usual, decided to get both technical and controversial. I ordered another round of drinks.

For once, I thoroughly approved of everyone getting steadily drunker as the evening went on. Around midnight, Nancy hauled her husband to his feet and dragged him home, blowing kisses and promising to see us all soon. That left us “young’uns” to keep going, and we did. With style.

As a group, we were definitely young. Due to the many, many years of study it takes to become a paleontologist, most of our colleagues at the universities were older men who looked down on anyone under the age of thirty as a kid who couldn’t know anything. Both Boner and I were rapidly closing in on thirty-three, and the Goth Twins weren’t far behind us. To the old-school diggers who had been around for years, we must have looked like children playing in the mud.

We had good undergraduate and grad students that bulked out our numbers but brought down our average age even further. I had hoped, back in the beginning, to get a few more experienced people on board. It hadn’t worked out, and that was fine. Times like these—sitting around a table getting drunk—made me feel more carefree than I had in a long time.

“Hey,” I said, leaning over to Boner.

“What?”

“Is it okay if Hunter joins us?” I asked, nervous about his response. “He really wants to meet you.”

“Meet me?”

“Yeah,” I said and elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re my best friend. It’s important to me that you get along with each other.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll go and fuck him in the bathroom?”

“Stop being an asshole.” I sighed. “Should I tell him to come over or not?”

“Of course you should,” Boner said with a genuine smile. “I want to meet the man who’s stealing my Nicky away.”

“Don’t call me Nicky,” I muttered, not that he’d listen to me. It was the one nickname I despised, so of course Boner used it as often as he dared.

I sent Hunter a message to let him know where we were, leaned back in the booth, and panicked for a solid twenty minutes while I waited for him to turn up. He walked into the bar looking like he owned the place, with that arrogant swagger I loved to hate. In jeans and a black button-down shirt, he was a picture of effortless style, but the way he looked around for me gave away the nervousness he worked hard to hide.

I lifted my hand in a wave, and he smiled as he strode toward us.

“Hi,” I murmured, sliding out of the booth to let him in.

He kissed me lightly on the lips, something I thought I hated. Somehow it was different when Hunter did it.

“Guys, this is Hunter,” I said, not bothering to wait for a lull in their conversations. They’d all been giving him not-so-surreptitious looks since he walked in. “You already know River….”

I went around and briefly introduced him to everyone.

“And this is Boner.”

“I’ve heard so much about you already,” Hunter said, taking the hand Boner offered and shaking it.

“Likewise,” Boner drawled. “All good, I hope?”

“I wouldn’t like to say.”

When Boner laughed, I relaxed.

Conversations started popping up again, and Hunter relaxed as attention shifted away from him.

“Let me get you a drink,” I said, reaching for one of the pitchers on the table.

“It’s okay, I’ll get one from the bar.”

I gave him a steady look and refused to budge. “Take the damn drink, Hunter.”

He was laughing as he accepted the glass and clinked it against mine. “Cheers.”

This was a situation I’d never observed Hunter in before. We were getting good at being on our own, either in a crowd or alone somewhere, but this was our first chance to be a couple among friends.

After a few minutes, I figured it out.

“You’re
shy
,” I whispered into his ear.

“What? No I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” I countered.

“I’m… observing.”

I smirked at him and squeezed his knee under the table. A second later, he found my fingers and tangled them with his own, and my smirk deepened.

“Still observing,” he said, his face turned against my neck so no one else could hear. I just laughed.

Raven poured another round of drinks and gave Boner big Bambi eyes. Their flirtation had become a two-way street. It was still one of the most bizarre pairings I’d ever seen, although I was probably biased by my sexual history with Boner. A large chunk of the time we’d spent together over the years had been in gay bars, and I’d watched him make those very same moves on a variety of men.

“Women and gay men have always gravitated toward each other,” Raven said, leaning over the table. “We have what you might call
shared interests
.”

Boner leaned in too, and I tried not to laugh as he gave her an oh-so-casual raised eyebrow. “Gay men and other gay men have gravitated to each other more.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah. We both look for the same thing in a sexual partner.”

“A dick?” Boner offered with his tongue lodged in his cheek.

“How crude,” Raven said coolly and sipped her beer.

“Well, I mean, women have to deal with period pains and childbirth and waxing their legs and plucking their eyebrows… and don’t even start me on the whole hair removal from the bikini line issue.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this. But please continue.”

“So you’re good at dealing with pain. But you bitch and whine about taking it up the ass.”

I snorted beer out my nose.

“Most gay men don’t, I’ll give you that,” I said, feeling the need to add to the conversation.

“How on earth is that even relevant!” Raven exclaimed. “You’re so full of shit, Boner.”

He was laughing as he stood up on the bench of the booth and extended his hand to Raven.

“What?” she demanded

“Come with me.”

“No way.”

“Don’t make me come and get you….”

As soon as she stood up, Boner dragged her out of the booth and to the bar, dancing along the way to whatever pop song the jukebox was blaring. While Hunter threw his arm around my shoulders, Boner boosted Raven up so she sat on the bar, her legs swinging back and forth like a little girl.

“They actually look good together,” Hunter said, having to raise his voice over the music. It had got increasingly loud as the night went on.

“I know. I don’t know whether or not to be freaked out. I mean, I’ve known them both for years, and they’ve never done anything like this before.”

“What, flirt?”

“Yeah,” I said, laughing. “Not with each other.”

I watched them do a tequila shot, chased down with more beer. At this rate, things were going to start getting messy. The rest of the team seemed to be splitting into two camps, the “no, thanks, we’re going home” camp and the “yes! Tequila is a great idea!” camp.

After only a moment’s hesitation, I joined the tequila camp.

At the bar, Boner and Raven managed to arrange some kind of deal with the bartender, who was lining up another round of shots.

“Nick!” Raven giggled. “You should join us. And Hunter. River likes you, so I’ve decided to like you too,” she said, patting Hunter on the cheek.

“Thanks,” he said drily.

“You’re welcome,” she said solemnly. “Have a shot.”

The booth and the food abandoned, Team Tequila crowded around our little corner of the bar: me and Hunter, Raven and Boner, River and Pete. When I sucked on another wedge of lime, my teeth started to ache and my eyes watered.

Hunter rubbed the corner of my mouth with his thumb.

“I’m reluctantly impressed,” he said, his eyes still fixed on my lip.

“At my drinking pro—prow—my drinking ability?”

“Yeah,” he said and snickered. “Hang on. Bathroom.”

He stumbled his first few steps across the room, and I caught Boner leering after him.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said, poking a warning finger into his chest.

“I’m not,” he said. “Doesn’t mean it’s not fun to imagine, though.”

“Imagining is thinking. Don’t do it.”

He smiled at me, slow and heavy with alcohol. “He’s all yours, Nick. I promise.”

I nodded once and turned back to the bar, where I was still working on a bottle of beer.

“Hey. Hey.”

I looked up to find the bartender, a tall, wide, heavily tattooed and bearded gentleman, leaning with his elbows on the bar.

“Didn’t we kick you out a while back for fighting?”

“Uh. Yeah.” I wondered if they were going to kick me out again. Nervously, I pushed my glasses back up my nose.

“Weren’t you fighting with that guy?”

“What guy?”

“The big guy. Long hair.”

“Oh. Yeah. We decided not to hit each other anymore.”

The bartender smiled, shook his head, and then laughed. “The things you see…,” he muttered and turned away to serve someone else.

After the next shot, I couldn’t remember a single thing.

I
WOKE
to the sound of my own internal groaning.

“Ow,” I whispered. “Ow… ow… ow….”

Next to me, Hunter moaned too.

“Did you stuff a sock in my mouth overnight?” he asked, his voice raspy. “I’m too old for this. Way too old for this.”

“Me too.”

We shuffled on the bed, ending up with Hunter on his back, me curled up with his bicep for a pillow. He gently stroked at my hair, soothing my aching head.

“I think Team Tequila has been permanently disbanded,” I muttered.

Hunter laughed, and then moaned at the sound and the jostled head. “Okay,” he said decisively, although he made no attempt to move. “Okay. We will have water and painkillers, a shower, and breakfast. Then everything will be okay.”

I wasn’t convinced and weighed it against my other option, which was staying in bed and not moving.

“Nah. I think I’m just going to stay here. You can bring breakfast to me, though, if you like?” I added hopefully.

He poked me in the ribs, which I guessed I deserved.

“Come on, lazy,” he said and threw the layers of blankets back, exposing my naked ass to the cold morning air.

I whimpered and attempted to curl into a ball, which wasn’t helpful. Since my options were severely limited, I followed Hunter into his bathroom. It still wasn’t big enough for even him, let alone the two of us together, yet we squeezed into the shower together anyway.

It turned out to be a better idea than it sounds. Even though I couldn’t really move, my wet, naked skin was pressed up tight to all of Hunter’s wet, naked skin, and because he was taller than me, he could poke one elbow out to shampoo my hair for me.

When he was done, the soapy suds sliding down between us, I wrapped my arms around his waist, laid my head on his chest, and stayed there until the water started to run cold.

I had a few spare pairs of underwear at his place, which amused and slightly confused me, because it meant I must have left sometimes wearing his underwear or none at all.

I dressed in a pair that was definitely mine and my jeans from last night, since they weren’t completely disgusting, but one of his shirts which was too long in the arms for me, so I rolled it up to the elbows. Hunter pointedly did not laugh at me and pressed a soft kiss to my neck.

“The first part of my plan worked,” he said, his words mumbled against my skin. “You’re feeling better already. Just admit it.”

“I’ll feel even better after breakfast,” I said hopefully.

He huffed a laugh and led me to the kitchen, set the kettle to boil to make coffee, and pulled a range of pans from the cabinets. To make myself useful, I poured two large glasses of water and found the painkillers in the bathroom. I set his on the counter and swallowed half of the water in one go, and then set about sipping the rest of it.

A couple of bar stools sat at the other side of the L-shaped counter, so I plonked myself down, propped my elbows up and my chin on my hands, and set about watching him cook.

“Scrambled or sunny-side up?” he asked as he set the skillet on to start heating up.

“Scrambled, please.”

“No problem. I’ve got bacon and toast to go with the eggs, but not a lot else.”

“It sounds perfect.”

“You’re perfect,” he said, leaning over the counter to brush his lips over mine. I smiled into the kiss, trying to enjoy it rather than dissect how disgustingly coupley it was. His bottom lip caught mine, dry skin against dry skin, and something hitched in my stomach. All I could think was,
No… you’re perfect.

Hunter pulled away first, humming softly to himself and combing his slightly wet hair back from his face. He kept hair elastics all over the place—I teased him about it sometimes, telling him his place looked like a teenage girl’s bedroom. There were a couple stashed in a teacup on the counter, and I passed one to him.