I like it when you talk, Ripley. I like talking with you.She can’t believe it’s been less than two hours since he said that. An hour since he told her he hasn’t stopped thinking about her for three years, laid the kiss of her life on her, then walked it all back like he was trying to save her from something.
She pauses the podcast.
“First thing, it’s notparents,plural. It’s just my dad. Everyone calls him by his full name, like he’s some kind of legend. Even I think of him asSteve Adamssometimes.”
“Ahh,” James says drunkenly. “Steve Adams, Ripley Adams. He passed the full-name thing on to you.”
“Sure,” Ripley says so as not to end up in an argument with someone so incredibly loopy. “Dad was a mechanic, but now he’s on disability after he lost most of his right lung to cancer. He’ll joke about it. You’re allowed to laugh.”
“See, this is extremely helpful. Is your mother one of your American formidden—morbidden”—he wets his lips before trying again—“forbidden topics?”
Ripley wishes she hadn’t seen his tongue touching his lips.Especially now that she knows what its touch feels like on her mouth.Inher mouth.
“No. No, it’s not like that. It’s more like she isn’t relevant to the conversation. My parents got divorced when I was pretty young. They haven’t been in the same room for twenty years.”
“Are you close with her?”
“Not really. She made an effort after she remarried and had my half brothers, but she and I don’t really understand each other. She’s very…” Ripley gropes for the right word. “Very beautiful.”
James rotates his head limply toward her, looks at her with half-lidded eyes. “You’revery beautiful.”
“You’revery high.” Ripley does her best to ignore the tug between her legs. “What I mean is, my mom’s obsessed with the way people see her. Like, she’ll tell my brothers a story she ‘remembers’ from my childhood, but it’s cobbled together from three separate birthdays plus photos my dad sent her from school pageants she didn’t come to.”
“Ah,” he mumbles. “She’s a bone bed.”
An amused sound escapes her lips. “You really need to sleep this off.”
“No,” he insists. “Think about it. Thousands of animals killed by the asteroid impact, their bodies washed out to sea by the tsunami. All their bones in a pile on the seafloor. We can put together a skeleton for a given species, but every bone might be from a different individual. It looks like a dinosaur, but it was never alive.”
“True,” she agrees, her throat tight. “And there are some fossils you just won’t find in a bone bed. Birds, for one. They would’ve been too light to sink with the other animals. You’ll never find them no matter how deep you dig.”
“And you, Ripley Adams, are looking for birds,” he says dreamily, his mouth pulling into a tender, melancholy smile.
Her heart twists, part pleasure, part pain. “Yeah. I am.”
A few minutes later, she turns at the fadedGolden Times Mobile Home Communitysign. The blacktop is rougher here, pocked with unrepaired holes from last winter’s snowplows. Trailers line the street, most fronted by neat yards dotted with play structures, trees, and clotheslines. Bitsy Roos’s house is still hot pink, and she’s added a stripe of lime high on the north side where Joe Humbert’s reproachful hedge hasn’t yet grown tall enough to hide it from view.
Ripley slows down, glancing over to see whether James is asleep again. In his boneless state, he’ll end up with whiplash if she hits a pothole going anywhere near the speed limit.
He’s nestled against the window, awake. His gaze lingers in the places where his mouth touched her: lips, collarbone, throat. The aftermath of their kiss curls in the air like smoke.
“It’s not that I don’t want you, Ripley.”
She stills, hands frozen at ten and two, some wild emotion crackling through her limbs. “Could’ve fooled me.”
He scoffs. “OfcourseI want you. I have been unable to forget you for years, and even that is a dull comparison to the way I feel when I’m actually next to you. Your passion is so…did I tell you I’m working again? Although I can’t say I’m sleeping. My nights…God, you’re exquisite, Ripley. You make me want to…” He shifts in the seat, tugging at his trousers.
Jesus.The burst of heat in all her lonely places is so sharp she can’t breathe. She has a million questions, but she’s not about to take advantage of him.
“You’re high, James. So, so high, and I promise you do not want to keep going with—”
“But I need, Ineedto be your last line of defense. If all else fails, I have to be able to intervene. In any capacity you require. If you and I start a relationship—”
“Literally no one mentioned arelationship—”
“Then my ability to help you is compromised. And because the world and science and paleontology are the way they are, you will be hurt far worse than I if any conflict of interest comes to light. My reaction to you three years ago wasmyproblem, but I turned it into your problem. And now it’s my responsibility to be the solution.”
“I didn’t ask you to solve my problems, James.”
