Tides of the Heart (Crestwood Chronicles #1)

Chapter 13

In the morning, Hazel treats me to breakfast at a local diner, and we gorge ourselves on huge plates of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausages before returning to the garage to pick up the Jeep.

Predictably, the mechanic found several additional problems. After consulting with his dad via sat-phone, Hazel agrees to an oil change and a new air-filter, but declines the more expensive services. The poor Jeep is on its last legs—or tires—anyway, and paying for more would be like buying a lifetime gym membership for a nonagenarian. Finally, with everything settled, we return to camp.

To my relief, I discover that the others were given a day off as well, so I haven't missed anything; and while they didn't get to enjoy the benefit of a night in a hotel, it still goes a long way towards alleviating any feelings of unfair treatment.

I'd been more worried about what they'd think of Hazel and me spending a night in a hotel, given it's no secret we're 'a thing.' Fortunately, most people either don't care, or are polite enough to pretend they don't. I still catch a few dirty looks from Michaela, who offers to pray for me, and George's teasing request for a play-by-play makes me blush, but otherwise the incident of my trip to town comes and goes, and is largely forgotten.

Maybe it's the isolation and the limited choices on hand, but it soon becomes apparent we're not the only ones pairing off, either. River and Riley become inseparable, and Hazel tells me he saw the doctoral students, Kaja and Sebastian, making out behind some rocks when he went for a run.

As all things must, the internship eventually comes to an end. With a week remaining, the bus returns and takes us all back into Moab, to a fossil preparation lab shared by several universities. There, we're set up in a dorm-like situation, four to a room, with two bunk beds in each, and everyone (except Hazel and I, who broke our no-shower streak at the hotel) enjoys their first real shower in nearly three weeks.

In the lab, we learn about the fossil preparation process, how the bones are removed from their plaster jackets and from the rock, and allowed to participate, hands on. Not being part of the actual cohort, Hazel is absent from these lessons, and I find myself missing him after less than half an hour.

I try not to let it distract me, but my thoughts continually wander from the ankylosaur rib on the table in front of me to images of Hazel in my mind. When the session ends and I find him waiting for me outside the lab, a whole swarm of butterflies takes flight in my stomach, and a wash of heat rushes through my veins. Some people say love is like an illness—a chemical imbalance in the brain—and if they're right, then I've got it bad.

I'm still not sure how things will work out once we return to Crestwood, but I'm about to find out.

On the last day of the internship, we bid goodbye to the desert and the dinosaurs and board a plane that carries us back to California and the coast. At the end of a long day of travel, we arrive in the same parking lot from which we departed, weeks before, and Hazel hugs me goodbye. We've both got our own affairs to attend, and it will be a few days before we see each other again. It already feels like eternity.

"See you Saturday," he says, pulling me close for a kiss, not caring who sees or what they think. I kiss him back, but already I feel my old hesitance and fears resurfacing, and let him go sooner than he'd like.

I know he'll walk me to the bus stop if I give him the chance, but he's quickly distracted as everyone makes their last round of goodbyes, and I slip away, unnoticed, which is my preferred state to be.

When I reach my apartment, Lana greets me with a happy squeal and lots of teasing about how long my hair has gotten, how tan I've become, and how I'll fit in perfectly with the 'hot surfer' crowd now. Not wanting to endure a game of twenty-million questions, I don't mention Hazel and instead present her with one of several raptor teeth I found, prepared myself, and was allowed to keep.