The Beat and The Pulse Box Set 2

by Amity Cross

  Ryan grunted and grasped my hand. “Then why are you still wearing his ring?”

  “It’s just habit. And it’s only been three days, so give me a fucking break.” I snatched my hand back and shoved it under the hem of my top. “That’s a Tiffany ring, just so you know.”

  Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  Realizing I was being a selfish, entitled bitch again, I frowned. Work in progress, indeed.

  “Do you know what you need?” he declared, sitting up straight.

  “Obviously not, but I assume you do.”

  “Of course, I do. It’s easy for me to sit here and pick apart the places where you took the wrong turn. But I’m not you. You can’t see.”

  “What makes you such a bloody expert?” I exclaimed, seriously pissed off. “I haven’t seen you in almost…”

  “Ten years.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Ten years…” I trailed off as the realization began to sink in. I was twenty-eight years old, and I hadn’t really lived. I was twenty-eight, and I still didn’t know shit about the world, who I was, and what I really wanted.

  “Forget about it, J,” he continued, placing his hand on my knee. “Let’s worry about right now.”

  “Right now?”

  “It’s clear you need to do something. Let your hair down, have some fun—”

  I jerked away from him. “I am not having sex with you!”

  “Bloody hell, Jade!” he exclaimed. “I’m talking about your bucket list, not your vagina. Shit.”

  Some of the tension eased from my shoulders, and I eyed him warily. “What about it?”

  “I have some time off training. A week, to be exact.” He turned to face me, his expression serious. I stared at him, transfixed. He had some epic bone structure going on with all the rugged, chiseled handsomeness. “Get some time off work, and let’s do them all. The fucking zoo, the stupid balloon. All of it.”

  “Why?” I breathed, my face screwing up.

  “Don’t question it, J,” he whispered. “Just go with it.”

  When I’d written all those things down, I never thought I would actually do them. It was an exercise to help me find who I wanted to be—that was all. A visualization. Nobody actually did this shit, did they?

  “C’mon…” Ryan murmured.

  Could I take time off work, blow off all my responsibilities, and have my Eat, Pray, Love moment? Could I rediscover my identity in a week? Probably not, but it could be a good place to start. Maybe I just needed to learn how to smile again. Like, actually smile like I was in a toothpaste commercial and mean it.

  I glanced up at Ryan and wondered about the whole notion of fate and destiny and all that shit that was in the pages of the books I marketed. Was the day I ran into him on the street fate? Had all of this happened for a reason? I would never know if I didn’t try.

  “Okay,” I declared. “Let’s do it.”

  8

  Jade

  Standing outside the gates of Melbourne Zoo, I stared up at the facade and smiled.

  The first item on the agenda for bucket list week was ‘experience the world like a child.’ Rocking up to the zoo, right before it opened, was a fantastic choice. It had all the big-ticket items. Fast food, ice cream, animals, toys, balloons…everything to satisfy the adventurous spirit of a kid.

  When Ryan had convinced me to take the week off, I’d been apprehensive, but when he’d told me he was coming along for the ride… Well, I wasn’t sure about it at all. I’d wanted to rekindle our friendship, but have him along on my journey of discovery? Who knew how that was going to turn out.

  Now that we were standing in line for a day at the zoo—a place I’d never been before—I was glad I’d also left the organizing up to Ryan. He’d set the bar high.

  He complained, but I paid for both our tickets, and we were let inside with the first visitors of the day.

  Taking the map, I stood in the middle of the path and glanced around. A wide parkland area opened up before us, and to the side was the gift shop, and in the distance, I could see the edges of some enclosures. Wondering what was inside, I unfolded the plan of the zoo.

  “Where do you want to go to first?” Ryan asked, checking his watch.

  Studying the map, I saw there was a whole range of animals we could check out. There was a big elephant experience, tons of monkeys, chimpanzees, orangutans, badass lions, giraffes, a reptile house, and even a huge butterfly enclosure.

  “All of it!” I declared.

  “We’ve got all day,” he replied with a laugh. “Maybe we should start at one end and do the loop.”

  “There are keeper talks and everything,” I said, pointing at the times on the brochure. “They have seals, too! And Penguins! Oh, oh, and meerkats!”

  “Definitely a child,” Ryan muttered as I hurried off toward the lions.

  The morning went by in a blur of color and wonder. We spotted snow leopards through their jungle habitat. We laughed at the baboons and their unfortunate red bums. We watched red pandas and tree kangaroos lounging over branches high up in the sky. We spotted birds in the aviary. We sat and listened to the keepers talk about the elephants as they were fed in the yard behind. I rushed through the reptile house, freaked out by the snakes. We pressed our noses up against the glass of the platypus exhibit, watching the little mammals slice through the water like rockets. We counted stripes on zebras as they roamed around a herd of giraffes. The list was endless as we made the rounds of the entire zoo.

  When we reached the butterfly house, I dragged Ryan inside. Pushing through the first door, then through another, we stepped into a sauna. It was stifling, but I assumed it was to keep the air acclimatized all year round for all the different species of butterflies.

  A colorful shape flew past my face, and I tried to see what it was, but it was gone as fast as I could twist my head. Turning the other way, I pointed and gushed as I picked out all the different colors and types of butterflies. They were landing on people’s clothes, on their hands, their faces…it was incredible.

  Spinning on my heel, I looked for Ryan, who’d fallen behind.

  “Ry…” I began, wanting to show him everything I’d found, exactly like the child I wanted to be today.

  He turned slowly, his body rigid. That’s when I saw the bright blue butterfly perched precariously on the bridge of his nose. A beefcake fighter, muscle-bound and macho to the extreme, with a butterfly on his face. Epic.

  “Um…” he said, his eyes crossing.

  “Don’t move,” I said excitedly, taking out my phone. Opening the camera, I snapped a picture and smiled. “You look so cute.”

  He shook his head, dislodging the butterfly. “If you so much as Instagram that, you’ll be sorry.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” I retorted, giggling like a schoolgirl.

  Rolling his eyes, he glanced at his watch. “C’mon. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “A surprise?” I tilted my head to the side. “What kind of surprise?”

  “Animal themed, obviously.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the butterfly house and into the sunshine.

  “It’s not something to do with snakes, is it? I’m not a fan, you know.”

  “I’m not telling,” he shot back, leading me through the zoo. “It’ll ruin the surprise.”

  Finally, we stopped beside a group of waiting families and couples. Among them was an employee with a clipboard, talking enthusiastically with a father and a toddler.

  Ryan told me to wait, then he approached her. I watched nervously as he spoke to the woman, trying to decipher what he had in store, but it was a mystery. When he returned, he was tight-lipped. Whatever we were all waiting for wasn’t going to be revealed until whatever it was began.

  “Tell me,” I said, moaning. “I’m dying.”

  “Just like a baby,” he shot back, loving every second of it.

  “You’re cruel!”

  “Shh,” he hissed. “It�
��s starting.”

  “Welcome to Melbourne Zoo, everybody! Are you guys ready to feed the giraffes?” the woman called out. “Follow me, and we’ll meet your keeper, who’ll introduce you to some of our residents.”

  My mouth fell open, and I clutched Ryan’s arm. “We’re feeding giraffes?”

  He nodded. “I booked it online last night. I thought it would be good.”

  “Good?” I exclaimed as we were led into the rear of the public enclosure. “It’s epic!”

  I was almost jumping out of my skin with excitement as we stood there waiting. I hugged Ryan’s arm against me, not giving two stuffs about how I looked or what he thought about my touchy-feely mental capacity. Today, I was ten-year-old Jade, and who gave a flying fruitcake.

  “We have a few safety rules,” the keeper said, grasping my attention. “No patting the giraffes. They’re precious about being touched.”

  Ryan snorted beside me, and I punched him softly in the gut.

  “No teasing or breaking the food into smaller pieces,” the keeper went on. “Keep hold of your personal possessions, and watch the giraffes at all times. They’re relaxed animals and quite friendly, but we don’t want to startle them.”

  We were handed buckets that contained several pieces of long-leaf lettuce as we were given some facts about the giraffes they kept at the zoo.

  “The giraffe is the tallest land mammal on the planet,” the keeper said as he moved through the assembled group. “They spend most of their lives standing up.” He stopped by a family with a young girl and added, “They even sleep that way. Can you imagine?”

  I tried to picture it but couldn’t conjure the image.

  “They sleep up to two hours a day, napping for five to ten minutes several times throughout the day and night,” he continued. “It’s so they can always be on the lookout for predators. They’re safe here at Melbourne Zoo, but we strive to preserve their natural behaviors. Conservation of these precious animals is our number one priority, along with all the residents.”

  Watching as several giraffes approached across the enclosure, I tugged at Ryan’s T-shirt excitedly.

  “Look at them,” I said breathlessly. “They’re much prettier in real life than on TV, don’t you think?”

  “Of all the things I thought I would be doing today, this was not one of them,” he replied, craning his neck as the animals milled around the fence.

  “Now remember,” the keeper said. “Be gentle, and hold your hand steady. They won’t hurt you. They take the lettuce with their tongues. See if you can guess how long they are.”

  Ryan nudged me, and I held my arm up high. The closest giraffe locked onto my piece of lettuce, its head lowered, and its purple tongue darted out, wrapping around the vegetable, and sucked it back into its mouth. Then it raised its neck and proceeded to chew happily.

  “Holy fuck, I’m feeding a giraffe!” I exclaimed, much to Ryan’s amusement. “Look at that tongue!”

  “A giraffe’s tongue is designed to be able to strip off leaves from acacia trees in the wild,” the keeper said behind us. “You’ll see it’s quite dark in color. An almost purplish tone, wouldn’t you say? It’s primarily to stop it from getting sunburned since giraffes spend most of their time grazing on the African savannah.”

  Sunburned? I rolled my tongue in my mouth and decided it wouldn’t be very nice.

  Ryan handed me another piece of lettuce. “Imagine the things it could do with a tongue like that,” he murmured into my ear.

  “Stop being filthy,” I retorted, holding out my hand toward the giraffe. “I wonder what her name is…”

  “Her name is Nakuru,” the keeper said on his way past. “She came to us from a zoo in New Zealand a few years ago. She’s six years old.”

  “What a sweetie,” I said, gushing, studying her long lashes and big brown eyes.

  She came right up to the edge of the yard and plucked the lettuce from my fingers again, her tongue grazing my skin. It felt like sandpaper rasping against me, and I shivered at the contact.

  “Do you want to give her the last piece?” I asked, offering the bucket to Ryan.

  “Sure.”

  He reached inside and grasped the lettuce, then held it up toward Nakuru. She lowered her head one last time, wrapped her tongue around the green leaf, and shoved it into her mouth.

  As the giraffe wandered away and we were led back into the public area of the zoo, I turned to Ryan and asked, “Was it what you expected?”

  “I wasn’t sure what it was about,” he replied. “It was great seeing them up close.”

  “I liked it.”

  “Good,” he declared. “That was the whole point.”

  “I need to rest my feet for a bit, though,” I said, wiggling my toes in my shoes.

  Wandering down the path, we found ourselves back at the parkland by the gates. We’d done the whole loop and then some. Spying a seat, I made a beeline for it and sank down on my ass. Relief washed over my tired limbs, and I slouched with a relieved moan.

  Ryan and I sat side by side on a bench, silent and completely comfortable with each other, and watched the world go by. Thinking about all the things we’d seen that day, I grinned.

  “Did it do the trick?” Ryan asked, glancing at me as I basked in the sun.

  “What trick?” I muttered, my face turned to the sun.

  He grinned and shook his head, his attention returning to the view of the weird-looking boar that the map told us was called a peccary.

  As I began to understand his question, I let out a humph. I hadn’t thought about Hunter and his slimy cock, Margaret the mega bitch, or work the entire day. In fact, I’d smiled the whole time we’d been here, immersing myself in the experience rather than worry about things that were completely out of my control. Now, to be like that all the time. That was the goal, I suppose.

  “Stay here,” Ryan said abruptly. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked, twisting around.

  “Just… Wait there, okay?” He backed away like he was going to do a runner, and all I could do was nod.

  Frowning, I turned around and cast my gaze out over the zoo. Families were picnicking on the lawn, their rugs and baskets spread out while children ran riot. Strollers were laden with bags from the gift shop, balloons were tied to toddlers’ wrists, and among all of it, the hum of exotic animals entwined with the modern sounds of humanity.

  I was away with the pixies when a giraffe descended in front of my face—a plush, cute, mass-produced, soft toy—and I almost jumped out of my skin.

  “Holy sh…eet,” I exclaimed, saving my expletive at the last second.

  “For you,” Ryan said, sounding pleased with himself. “As a reminder.”

  Plucking it from his hand, I ran my fingers over the silky faux fur and straightened the tufts on its head. It was the cutest thing ever. It was the simplest thing, but the fact that getting it for me had even crossed Ryan’s mind in the first place meant more than I thought it would. Hunter never gave me silly little gifts that reminded him of random things we’d done together. Outside of the big kahunas—birthdays, Christmas, and the random anniversary—it was business as usual.

  “Do you like it?” Ryan asked, sitting beside me.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “I like all of it. Every bit.” Every last drop.

  “Don’t tear up on me, J,” he said with a chuckle. “We’ve three more things left on your list, you know, and that’s not even counting the mysterious number five. Save some for later.”

  “I thought you were doing a runner just now,” I said, clutching the giraffe in my lap. “But you came back with a stuffed toy.”

  “You weren’t that annoying, J. You should’ve seen your face when you fed that giraffe. I would say that was experiencing the world like a child, one hundred percent. Cross it off the list.”

  “You know what would be the perfect ending to today?” I prodded.

  “What?”

  “Mother
fucking ice cream!”

  Ryan made a face. “Only you could make ice cream come with an explicit language warning.”

  “C’mon,” I said, threading my arm through his. “Ice cream, then home.”

  As we walked through the zoo toward the food stall, I hugged my giraffe close and laid my head against Ryan’s shoulder. I felt special. This day was special.

  It was the most perfect day a girl could’ve asked for.

  9

  Jade

  “Jade, wake up.”

  I moaned, screwing my eyes shut and swatting my hand blindly at the voice.

  “C’mon, sleepyhead, time to get up.”

  “It’s so not,” I muttered. “Liar.”

  “You’ve got half an hour,” Ryan said.

  My eyes snapped open, and I saw him kneeling beside the couch, dressed and way too awake for the darkness outside the balcony windows.

  “Bucket list item number two,” he declared, yanking the blanket off me.

  I cried out, but it was too late. His eyes widened slightly as he copped an eyeful of my black lacy knickers, and I pulled the blanket back over me.

  “Ryan!”

  “Hell, if I knew you slept in nothing by a singlet and knickers,” he said, scratching his head. “They look really nice, by the way.”

  Lifting my hand, I slapped him playfully. “Perv.”

  “Ow, seriously. Thirty minutes.”

  Picking up my phone from the coffee table, I saw it was four thirty a.m., and I sank back onto the couch with a dramatic groan.

  “Hot air ballooning is a sunrise activity, J,” he said, anticipating my complaining.

  “Why does it hurt so much?” I said, moaning and being completely overdramatic.

  “Once you get moving, you’ll be fine. Up you get.” He grabbed my hands and tugged me out of my makeshift bed.

  I stood before him in nothing but my singlet and knickers, my boobs all nippley and pressing against the fabric, with my cheeks on fire. It was a little too intimate for my liking, and from the look on his face, a little uncomfortable as well.