Finally she said, “I’m sorry. I’m going on and on and you probably don’t want to hear all this.”
“I don’t mind. It actually sounds like it would be fun. You’ve got me wishing that I could go.”
She giggled.
“Yeah right.”
I guess I should be happy that I convinced her I was the dumb jock type. After all, wasn’t that what I was always going for? For some reason though, her idea that I wouldn’t be interested in something academic rubbed me the wrong way.
“So how are you doing this? Is your instructor breaking you into groups or what?” I asked her.
She looked like she thought that was an odd question but she replied.
“Yeah. We’re going to meet in the front and then he’s going to put us in groups of four.”
“So he won’t be with you at all during the day? He’ll just be there before for the instructions, introductions, and after, right?”
“Yes… why?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.
As we drove into the park that housed the zoo I said, “No reason. I was just curious.”
I dropped her at the gate and told her to have a good time. She thanked me profusely like I had done something extraordinary by just giving her a ride. I found myself thinking how cute she was… again. I watched her walk up to the gate where there were a group of her fellow students and then I drove a ways away and parked. I took out my phone and called Greg. He was a good friend of mine who worked at the zoo as a trainer. He was majoring in Marine Biology and had landed a sweet gig in the new sea lion exhibit. Please be at work, Greg.
“Hello?”
“Hey man, it’s Braxton. How’s it going?”
“Braxton? It’s six in the morning dude. I’m at work, I can’t pick you up if you went out and got yourself stranded at some chick’s house and she won’t take you home…”
“Chill,” I told him.
Sometimes my reputation was a big pain in the ass.
“I need a favor, but not that.”
“Okay, so what then?”
I could hear the suspicion in his voice too. None of this was good for my self-esteem.
“Don’t sound so suspicious.”
“Well, since when do you call me at six a.m.? For that matter, since when do you even get up at six a.m.?”
“Okay, okay,” I agreed so he would shut up. “I need to get in with that group of students that are doing the trainer tour today.”
“Shit, Braxton. I don’t have anything to do with that. I probably won’t even be one of the ones who talks to them.”
“Come on, man. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. Tell you what, the national underground championships are coming up in just over a week. You do this for me and you’re in the front row. You and whoever you want to bring with you.”
“Shit,” Greg said again. “Meet me over by the employee gate, and make sure no one sees you.”
“Thanks man!”
“Don’t thank me yet. I can get you in here, but getting you in that group is another story.”
“Their instructor is pretty much leaving them alone after they split up. There has to be like sixty students in that group. He won’t notice one more.”
“Okay, but if you get caught it’s all on you. Oh, and I still get to go to the match.”
I had to laugh at that. My friends were all as self-centered as I was. Sometimes that worked to my advantage.
I met him at the gate and he let me in. He gave me a hat that the zoo employees wore and a t-shirt. I knew Greg would come through.
“Thanks man. Where are they?”
“They’re over by the reptile house, breaking into their groups.”
I threw on the t-shirt and hat just so no one would wonder why a strange guy was wandering around before the zoo was officially open. I had to hand it to Greg, it was a great idea. I looked just like him now and with my sunglasses on I was completely non-descript. I put out my hand and he reluctantly bumped my knuckles. I grinned at him and took off.
“I’ll be by later this week for my invitation,” he shouted from behind me.
I saw Emmi before I even noticed the rest of the group. She was listening intently to whatever the instructor was telling them. She seemed smart and that almost turned me on as much as her smoking hot body.
I wandered into the group and stood just a ways behind her. I waited until I heard the instructor tell everyone to get into groups of four, and then I stepped up behind her. A guy with shaggy black hair and thick glasses stepped next to her too. I wanted to tell him to give it up, but I could see he was the type of guy who already knew he didn’t have a chance. He just wanted to be close to her. She still hadn’t noticed me as a third guy joined our group. This guy wasn’t a dork, but he wasn’t all that either. I saw Emmi smile at him though and I felt a twinge of something I wasn’t used to… envy.
“Okay, everyone have their groups?” the instructor asked.
That was when she turned to look at her group and she saw me. At first she smiled tentatively, not really recognizing me in my hat and glasses. But as she started to turn back around, I saw recognition set in. She turned back to me quickly.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a hushed voice.
I shrugged and whispered, “It sounded like a good time.”
Emmi glanced over where the instructor was handing out assignments. Then she turned back to me.
“You’re going to get us in trouble.”
“If anyone gets in trouble, Emmi, it will be me. Just stay cool and go get our assignment.”
She looked frustrated, but she turned then to the other two guys.
“Any preferences about where you want to start?”
“Try and get the reptile house,” the dorky guy urged.
“I’d rather have the tigers,” the other guy countered.
He was trying to look tough for her. I think he was failing.
“Okay, I’ll just see what’s left.”
While she was gone I slipped off my zoo shirt and hat and then I introduced myself to the other guys. Dorky guy’s name was Charles, of course.
“I don’t remember you from class.”
“I’m in the professor’s night class,” I told him. “I couldn’t make our date so he let me come to this one.”
“Oh,” he said, buying it.
I was glad because I didn’t know if the professor had a night class or not. The other guy’s name was Troy, and he was the one I’d have to watch. I could smell the competition oozing from his pores.
“We start with the reptiles and work our way around from there,” Emmi said walking up to us.
“Yes!” Chuck roared with an excited smile.
Troy stepped up next to Emmi. It was close enough to be intrusive if you ask me.
“Okay. Let’s go,” he told her.
I wondered who had elected him as class president, but I followed them. Walking behind her gave me a nice view anyway. When we got to the reptile house they let us in the back where the employees go in. There was an older fat guy and a young hot blonde working in there.
The fat guy said, “Welcome. I’m Mike and this is Selena. We’re your reptile handlers and you’ll be with us for about two hours before moving to your next spot. Right now we’re feeding them. I’ll have two of you go with Selena and two with me.”
Troy was already standing next to Emmi. I needed to think fast or I was going to end up spending the next two hours with Chuck.
“Hey Emmi,” I said, tapping her shoulder. “Look at this.”
She turned towards me and I grabbed her arm. Nothing too dramatic or cave man, I just gave her a little nudge in my direction. There was a cage behind me with turtles in it that had just hatched from their eggs. I pretended that’s what I wanted to show her.
“Okay, you and you come with me,” Mike said to us.
I was still elbow to elbow with Emmi. I wasn’t even the least bit pissed that I had to look at Mike’s belly hangi
ng over his too-tight khaki shorts for the next two hours. It was just me and Emmi as far as I was concerned. She gave me a look that I wasn’t sure how to interpret- I guess it was a virtual scolding. I just grinned at her though, which I think pissed her off even more. I grinned at Troy too as Mike led us away. He was probably pissed off as well.
Mike took us on a mini-tour first. It was actually interesting to see the cages from the back. I didn’t care for the snakes though. When it was time to feed them, rats no less, I wasn’t raising my hand.
“What’s the matter, tough guy?” Emmi said, tauntingly. “Are you afraid of a little snake?”
I looked at the glass enclosure in front of us. It was a Boa, and there was nothing “little” about it.
“No, but this is your field trip. I want you to get the full experience.”
It was worth a shot, but she grinned and rolled her eyes. She wasn’t buying it. She reached for the little rat cage Mike was holding out.
“You went through so much trouble to be here. I don’t want you to miss out.”
The problem here was I hated rats worse than I did snakes. I don’t think it has anything to do with being tough or not. It was just a personal preference, and I personally preferred that rodents and slithery snakes keep their distance.
“Come on, Braxton,” Emmi goaded. “You don’t have to touch them. Just open the little door there,” she pointed at the snake’s habitat, “and open this door,” she said, pointing at the door on the cage she held, “and hold it up next to it. The snake will do the rest.”
I involuntarily shivered at the thought. Damn it! I bet Troy was somewhere right now letting one of the creepy little bastards crawl all over him. I took a deep breath and used two fingers to take the cage from her.
Mike came over and said, “Okay, I’m going to slide up the window on the snake enclosure and you slide yours up at the same time and dump them in.”
Sure, Mike, sounds like a piece of cake. I tried to smile, but I think it probably looked more like a grimace. As Mike slid up his side and I started to slide up mine, he proved that he was not the king of timing. Mine was up before his was, and my rats started jumping out of the cage. God help me, but I think I may have screamed like a girl. It was a blur after that for a few minutes, but Mike and Emmi were laughing, I’m sure at me, and then I saw them doing unspeakable things. They were picking up the scurrying rats by their long, disgusting tails and dropping them into the snake den. I was afraid for a minute that I was going to be sick.
When the ordeal was over and all the rats had been picked up and the cages shut once more, Emmi finally stopped laughing.
“Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
I shot her a look and a finger that I usually reserve only for male friends and girls I don’t want to seduce. She threw her head back and laughed again.
This wasn’t what I had planned.
The rest of the reptiles were much less disgusting, and after our two hours we moved on to the tigers. I could tell that this was where Troy thought he was going to prove his prowess. Imagine my delight when the trainer gave him the bucket of meat to dump and as he was doing it the daddy Bengal started coming in his direction. Troy started shaking out what was left in the bucket as fast as he could and by the time he got out of there he had meat all over his Nikes and sweat stains under his pits. It was a beautiful thing to watch after my own embarrassment.
We went from exhibit to exhibit, having lunch along the way. Emmi seemed to be having a great time, and it was fun to see how she interacted with other people. I was used to it just being her and I around the house, and I was usually giving her reason to be defensive. She was really personable and funny. I think Troy and even Chuck may have overdone the laughing at everything she said a little, but I also knew exactly what they were thinking, because I was thinking it too. Whatever might get me a chance to sleep with her was worth a shot.
The sea lion exhibit was our last of the day. I took Greg aside and told him I would up the invites to four if he asked his trainer to somehow make me look good here. Greg rolled his eyes, but then he got a look at Emmi and I could tell he understood.
When it was time, our assigned trainer, a guy named Seth said, “Okay…You. Come here.” He motioned me over to the edge of the big pool where the lions were swimming with brightly colored fish.
It was cool to see it from this angle.
“Here,” he said, handing me a bucket of fish. “Can you whistle?”
“Yeah,” I told him.
“Whenever you’re ready, give ‘em a whistle.”
I held the bucket in one hand and put two fingers in my mouth, giving a high-pitched whistle. Within seconds sea lions heads were bobbing up in front of me and two even jumped up on the plank next to me. I started throwing the fish to them, making sure that each one got at least one like Seth told me. It was so cool that I almost forgot Emmi was watching me. When I looked over at her she was giving me a look that seemed to have softened quite a bit. I guess there was just something about a guy with a bucket of fish….
On the way back home when she could have been chastising me for crashing the trip, she was talking excitedly about how much fun it had all been instead. She was right, it had been fun. I loved how animated her face got when she was excited about something or how she wrinkled her little nose when she was thinking.
“What was your favorite part?” she asked me.
“I’m thinking it was the sea lions,” I told her.
“You kind of still smell like fish,” she said with a grin.
“And you smell like a rat,” I told her. “I can’t believe you touched them. Ugh!”
She laughed.
“I hope we never have a mouse problem at the apartment. I guess I won’t be able to count on you to be the big strong man and empty the trap.”
The thought of that gave me the chills, and I couldn’t even pretend that I’d be able to do it.
“Nope, sorry. You’ll have to grow a pair and take that one on yourself.”
She laughed again.
“Men are so dumb. They say “grow a pair” like that makes you tough. I heard you scream like a girl today and you have a pair, right?”
I took that opportunity to say, “Yes I do. When we get home I’ll show you if you’d like.”
She rolled her eyes at me once more, but she smiled. I was getting closer…..
CHAPTER TEN
EMMI
The past two weeks had kind of been different between Braxton and me. After the night at the lake things seemed more relaxed, like he wasn’t trying so hard to get me in bed. That night had been fun too and I really hadn’t expected it to be, so it was a nice surprise. His relaxing a bit about the sexual innuendos also made me more comfortable to do things like watch a movie with him that night or joke around with him like I was able to that day at the zoo. I felt like I was finally getting to know him, and he wasn’t really such a bad guy.
I was appalled when he first walked up in that stupid zoo hat and shirt at the zoo that day. I could never do anything like that. He’d made some gross comment one day about having brass balls. That day I thought maybe he really did, because it would have taken that for me to crash a college field trip. I didn’t admit this to him, but that had actually turned out to be the best day that I’d had in a long time. I thought about it a lot, and I had concluded that it had been so much fun because it was the first time I really got to see him with his guard down. He started out trying to impress of course, but after you drop a cage full of rats on your feet and scream like my Aunt Sally, it would be hard to keep up the façade. He was also super cute with the sea lions. I could tell that he was fascinated by them, and it was fun to watch his face light up every time one of them took a fish from his hand, or let him pet them on the head. One of them had even nuzzled his leg and acted like it didn’t want him to leave.
When the trainer called her Suzie, Braxton had said, “I should have known she was female. They do this to me a
ll the time.”
It was a typical Braxton comment, but I could tell that he was really touched by it. Our roommate relationship was slowly changing to a friend’s one and I liked it. He hadn’t given up on the perverted comments, but he at least seemed more good natured about it, like he was actually joking.
I was telling Zoe that the other day and she laughed and said, “Trust me, if you agreed he would jump on it… you.”
“Well, I’m not going to agree, so we’ll never know.”
“Why not, Emmi? You know him better now, he’s freaking hot. Why not just spend a night in his bed?”
“Why don’t you sleep with him?” I asked her. “You get all hot and bothered every time I mention his name.”
“That would just be weird since the two of you dated. Besides, I am kind of dating Mike.”
“Mike?” I asked her.
“Yeah, the guy you met at the club. He’s not a hot guy like Braxton, but he’s really sweet and really smart. Smart guys do it for me, you know that.”
I did know that. When we were in high school, Zoe wouldn’t even think about going out with a guy who had less than a 3.0, and she preferred a 4.0. Something about the intelligent mind really turned her on. I thought about what Braxton had told me about being a computer analyst. I didn’t say anything to Zoe, I had promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone that he was a lot smarter than he let on.
“That’s great… are you going to Braxton’s fight with me?”
“Yes, I hope he’s still pretty when he gets done.”
Me too, but I didn’t say it out loud.
Braxton had taken off earlier in the afternoon with his duffel bag. I ran into him leaving when I was coming in from a walk to the store.
“Hey,” he said. “I’ll see you there tonight, right?”
“I’m going to try,” I told him. “I’m not sure if Zoe can pick me up or not.”
“Well, if you can I left you that flyer there on the table. Don’t forget to bring it or they won’t let you in. I hope you come,” he said winking.
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