Chapter Eleven
When Ernestine woke up in the morning, she was warm in spite of the fact that she was sleeping in the tent. Oh. Right.
She rolled over, and there he was. Sleeping.
Gorgeous. It had been a weird few days when he hadn’t really spoken to her that much.
But then…then he’d said that he was sleeping out here with her.
And he’d shown her just how nice it was to share a sleeping bag with another person. It had never occurred to her.
She still hadn’t gotten to explore him in quite the way that she wanted to. Because the tent was so crowded and cramped. But he didn’t seem to mind at all. And he was efficient, even in a small space; for such a large man it was impressive.
She supposed there was some nice freedom in the fact that Rowdy and Dakota were aware that they were sleeping together.
Since he didn’t seem to think that he needed to get back right away in order to cover their tracks.
They weren’t going to be covering their tracks.
Because they were going to be having sex. The end.
It wasn’t like the digs that she’d been on abroad. Even when she’d been in a group she felt very alone. Isolated. She didn’t feel like that with him.
His eyes fluttered open, and he smiled. Her heart leaped against her chest. “We’ll get all the things ready for the trek. You’re going to dig all day?”
“That’s an oversimplification.”
“I’m sure it is. But I mean dig as a broader term for all the things you do here at the dig site.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I am. I’ll probably work half the day until it gets too warm, and then I’ll head back to the glass cabin.”
“I’ll meet you there. I’m sure you’ll need a shower.”
Oh, he was being playful, and she really liked it. She smiled. “I’m sure that I will.”
She continued to dig, and try to make absolutely certain that she wasn’t wrong about what she had found.
She wanted to be absolutely sure that she wasn’t wrong.
This was too important to mess up, and she couldn’t afford to have any information about it leaking.
Which sounded a little bit paranoid, until you remembered that she was in the most intense bone war since the Gilded Age.
Something she could never forget. But she also thought about Jax a lot more than she would’ve thought she would.
Usually, when she was totally obsessed with the work thing there was no room for anything else.
She wasn’t sure if she liked that he was splitting her focus or not.
It was unusual, strange and very much not something she would normally expect.
But there he was, in her mind along with everything else.
Right next to the significance of this discovery.
And every time she moved and her body ached in a certain way she thought of him. It was because of him.
It was an interesting thing, moving through a workday like this and having something else on her mind.
And when she got back to the glass cabin, she realized that he was coming over, and she did a little happy dance in her kitchen.
She’d thrown herself into work almost on purpose right after they’d had sex.
Maybe it was a self-protective thing, because she had felt the impact of it.
But then when he’d come again, and he was nice, and he wasn’t different or a stranger it was just… Nice. It was just really nice.
And when his truck pulled into her driveway she couldn’t stop smiling.
She opened the door, and she didn’t even try to suppress what was bubbling up inside of her.
She did what she had done down at the dig site.
She hugged him. And kissed him. He chuckled, and wrapped his arm around her waist. “A guy could get used to a greeting like that.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling flushed with pleasure.
“I brought some ingredients to cook you dinner.”
“You’re going to cook me dinner?”
“Yes. I’m good at it.”
“What are you making?”
“I thought that I would make you spaghetti.”
“How did you know that I love spaghetti?”
“An easy guess. Mostly because I don’t know very many people who don’t like it.”
“True.”
“Just a second.”
He went back to his truck, and returned a few moments later with shopping bags. He had all the spaghetti supplies in them, and a new jug of lemonade.
“You know that I like it,” she said, filled with wonder.
“You told me.”
“Yeah, but… Most people don’t care.”
He shook his head. “It’s not a hard thing.”
It’s not a hard thing. But it had always seemed hard. She was different, and she knew that. Having reasons didn’t make it easier on her or the people around her, but he acted like it was easy.
He had no idea what that meant to her. No idea.
She perched on a chair, and watched him cook until she looked at the time and realized that she had lost track of everything entirely, and she was supposed to FaceTime her parents.
“Oh. I have to… I have to make a call.”
“Okay.”
She took her phone out, and scurried to her bedroom, hitting her parents’ number and holding it out.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello, Ernestine,” her mom said.
“Good to see you. I hope that you’re well.”
“We’re doing well,” her mom said, before launching into all of the news about the neighborhood that Ernestine genuinely didn’t care about.
“That’s very interesting,” she said. “I think I’ve made a discovery that might actually change things significantly in the scientific world.”
“Oh,” her mom said. “Your dad joined a new committee and—”
“Well, don’t you want to know what it is?”
She got distracted and paced out of her bedroom, not thinking about the fact that Jax was still in the kitchen.
“Honey, I’m sure it’s very interesting, but it means just as much to me to know that you’ve made it. You can tell me what it is, but I’m not going to understand.”
“I know but… You could…look it up.”
“Of course. Of course I can. What is it?”
But it was so clear that she just didn’t care, and it made Ernestine not want to tell her anything.
Because what was the point? What was the point if she didn’t care even a little bit?
Even at all about what Ernestine had discovered.
What was the point if she was on the verge of the most groundbreaking thing that had ever happened in her career and her mother still didn’t care?
“It’s fine. Like you said. It’s just not something that interests you.”
“I didn’t say it didn’t interest me. I said that I wouldn’t understand it.”
“But…” She looked up at Jax, who was staring at her with intensity from his position by the stove. “If you cared you would figure it out.”
Because Jax did. He wasn’t an expert on dinosaurs.
And he kept saying things about Jurassic Park, and he still listened to everything that she’d said about the discovery.
And then he had slept out in a tent with her.
And she had known the man for a week and a half.
And still, that was how he acted. That was how he treated it.
Like it mattered and so did she. He brought her the exact lemonade that he’d seen her buy, because he understood that it meant something to her.
He had listened when she’d said there were certain foods she liked to have.
“I don’t think that’s fair. You don’t know anything about the committee your father is on.”
“Yes, I do. I think it’s boring. It’s desperately boring.
I do listen to you, though. You’ve spent most of the conversation talking about yourself.
And I tried to trade. I tried. But I guess I kept thinking that if I did that perfectly enough that it would make you care about what I’m doing.
About what I’m spending all of my time on, and doing my research on.
But I think I was wrong. And there’s nothing that I can do about it.
Because you just don’t care. Because we just care about different things and…
” She turned, again without thinking, and realized that Jax was behind her. She turned again quickly.
“Is that a man behind you?”
“Yes,” Ernestine said. “It is a man. Oh, maybe you’ll be more interested in that.
There’s a man here cooking me dinner because I am sleeping with him.
I think you find those sorts of interpersonal things interesting.
So there he is.” She turned her phone quickly, showing Jax again, then turned back to herself.
“And I’m going to go now, and I’m going to talk to him about my fossils, because he cares about my fossils.
And he doesn’t make it feel like that’s hard. ” She hung the phone up then.
“Damn, Ernestine,” he said. “Way to use me to get back at your mom.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her face hideously scarlet, and embarrassment building in her chest.
“No. Don’t apologize. I really meant I’m glad you did that. Go ahead and use me. That was rough.”
“I’m never going to be interesting to them.
I’m never going to do anything that makes me part of them.
And that sucks. Because I think I kept thinking that if I did the right things, and learned the right script that I could find the balance.
And I would unlock something in my mom, and my dad.
We talk every week, and… About something like that.
Your mom is gone. And I have mine, and here I am fighting with her because she’s not interested enough in my fossils. ”
“Me going through bullshit doesn’t mean this doesn’t hurt. I’m sure that if I still had my mom we would have issues. That’s how parental relationships are. You don’t have to apologize. I was here. I heard that. I saw it. She was really dismissive of you.”
“Thank you.”
“Gutsy, though, telling her about me. I think my mom would’ve had a cow about that.”
“Oh. My mom is really interested in my sisters’ personal lives. Way more than she’s ever been in jobs. Plus, it’s not like we’re teenagers. She would expect us to be having sex at this point.”
“My mom was quite Catholic,” said Jax. “I don’t think she would’ve wanted me out there sleeping around.”
“Really?”