Last night, Ripley caught herself staring at him during theCalvin and Hobbes–rules Scrabble tournament, then caught Fiona staring at her when she looked away. His bone structure is poetry, curved and graceful underneath his golden skin. Every time she sees a sliver of his wrists, she remembers the snap of his thumbs into his cuffs as he rolled up his sleeves, and she feels hot and empty-headed.
In short, she’s an idiot.
Fucking dig fever. People need ways to release the pressure of intense, single-minded work—wildly competitive games, hyper-accelerated friendships, and, yes, love at first dig site.
But things that feel good on the dig can hurt you in real life. You might waste years on a shitty guy. You might not speak carefully enough the day you can’t find your favorite hat, and when he impatiently snaps, “You’re looking in the wrong place,” you might blurt, “Oh my God, that’s it! Will, you’re a genius!”
With fossil dust still in your eyes, you’d put him in the acknowledgments on the paper you hoped would make your career, and this would ruin everything.
Ripley might have dig fever for Smithson, but at least this time she knows not to feed it.
She wipes her forehead and settles her hat back on. It’s almost time to mix another round of electrolyte drinks. The summer is getting hotter, and the less experienced crew members don’t yet realize how much water they need. Jordin in particular will work for hours without a break, sweat glistening on her dark brown shoulders.
Water is what Ripley needs too. A good solid rain, followed by dry days where she can find the fossils the weather has uncovered.
She lets her eyes go unfocused above the canyon wall, then drifts them down. She tries to think like a creek that would carry a bird’s body downstream. She looks upward and thinks watery thoughts.
But today, like every day this week, it’s been nothing but wide, hard, oppressively blue Montana sky.
In the past seven days, she’s spent every available minute walking the canyon, looking for the rest of Beauty. Cara and Griff are focused on getting Beauty’s wing out of the ground between helping the other crew members cap and turn everything they can. If the dig shuts down, Ripley and Cara will spend the summer prepping the bones, which will improve their sale price, and trying to scrape together a few thousand bucks for a scanner appointment.
It’s far from what she’d hoped for, but it’s what she’s got.
In eighteen hours, Smithson’s two-week deadline to find the money expires. It’s nearly lunchtime, which means it’s already after five Greenwich Mean Time. How likely is he to find money when the workweek is over and the London crowd is rolling three gin and tonics deep on a Friday night?
Not very.She goes back to relaxing her eyes, slipping her body around rocks like she’s a primordial forest stream.
Willing fate to throw her a bone.
Lunch is build-your-own sandwiches again. It gets tired by August, but in June it’s still fun to choose toppings from the selection Renzo keeps in the propane-powered refrigerator.
Ripley wanders in from prospecting after most of the crew has already eaten. Matteo has coaxed Jordin into a patch of shade under some aspen trees, while Finn and Fiona are sunbathing on a rocky outcropping. It’s a bad idea with their ghostly pale skin, but Ripley guesses it’s time for some experiential learning. Where Griff and Cara are, Ripley has no idea.
Where she’ll sit, she also has no idea. A big chunk of plastered bone takes up half the table space. Smaller capped specimens fill up three of the four benches.
Smithson sits on the one available bench.
His hair is mostly hidden under the wide brim of a dark blue hat, but what she can see of it is mashed across his forehead, suggesting he spent the morning running his fingers through it, disturbing his careful Clark Kent combing.
She unceremoniously plunks her plate down next to his. Shewill notmake a big deal of this.
He twitches as she steps over the bench, his eyes quickly jumping from her shorts-clad legs to her face. “Club sandwich?” he asks, indicating the tower of feelings she’s about to eat. “Rather an old-fashioned choice.”
“I always have a club sandwich on Fridays.”
“Really,” he says in that terribly British way that might mean anything fromThat’s dreadfultoDo go on.
ThatDo go onvibe of his should be a controlled substance.
“Really. When I was a kid, my dad would take me out to the diner on Friday nights. You know those cute diners you see in movies—the little silver trailers?”
“Oh, yes. There’s one I adore in East London. Fat Boy’s. Great milkshakes.”
Now she’s imagining him on a red-vinyl barstool, the dimple in his lower lip wrapped around a thick straw. “Chocolate orvanilla?” she asks so she can stop thinking about his mouth and ice cream and what it might taste like on his lips.
“Strawberry.”
“Really?” she says in the American way that always meansReally.
