“Alright.”
We sat on the phone in silence for a moment. Then, we both gave little awkward laughs.
“Bye, November. See you then.”
“Bye, Kaleo.”
The second the call ended, I hopped up and rushed to the bathroom to start taking my hair down. I finished in half thetime I usually did and did a speed run of my makeup. I threw on some jeans and a cute thin, long sleeved black top. I was still barefoot when Kaleo made it to the house.
He was holding a series of flowers in one hand when I opened the door. He smirked down at me while I just stared at him. He’d thrown on some dark jeans and a black shirt too and he looked good enough to eat.
There was definitely sexual chemistry between us if nothing else.
I gestured between us.
“Great minds think alike.”
“Don’t they?” He offered the flowers to me. “And this is for you.”
“The flowers you got me last week are alive and well, Kaleo.”
“And?”.
“And I didn’t need more.”
“Well you have more now and even if you don’t need them, you deserve them so.”
“Okay,” I exhaled. “Well either way, thank you and they’re beautiful and you can just come inside. I’m almost done getting ready.”
“Alright.”
I gestured for him to enter. He leaned in and kissed me. I froze. He continued on like nothing had happened. He brushed past me and smacked me lightly on the ass as he did it.
I stood in the doorway for a few seconds before I closed the door and headed further inside. I went to my room, checked on my hair and makeup, slipped my shoes on and quickly put on my jewelry too.
By the time I came out of the bathroom, Kaleo had already put the flowers he’d gotten me on the dresser in my room. I was more shocked about the kiss we’d shared than the fact he was navigating the house so quickly and quietly.
He hadn’t made things complicated or awkward. He’d just done it like it was a regular part of our time together. I liked that, how comfortable he seemed and how easy things were flowing even if they were flowing fast.
He walked me to the passenger’s side and opened the door for me. We talked the entire drive out to the the little petting zoo. Kaleo paid for our entry and I rushed to get a little food to feed the different animals before he could so I could contribute to the date in some way. He snatched up two maps on his way to me and as soon as he was close enough he offered me a trade.
I took a map from him and he grabbed the two pails of food.
“Alright, baby. Tell me where we’re going. You lead and I’ll follow.”
“Alright.” I nodded once and looked at the map, mentally coming up with a route for us. “I’m ready.”
“Let’s do it.” He gestured for me to lead the way.
I did.
Kaleo and I fed all of the animals and I had him take pictures of me holding a baby alligator. I was a fan of all of the little animals. I loved the chickens, goats and smaller pigs. Kaleo, on the other hand, ended up being a natural with cows, reindeer ponies and horses.
He had me opt out of the horse riding so that we could instead do the safari ride set up. It was a two hour excursion that they only offered in daylight hours where we piled into a truck with several other people and took a guided tour of the land and saw the animals that weren’t in the petting portion. We still got to feed them from inside the truck and I got much more information than I’d been getting on their little name plates.
We were only about thirty minutes in the first time I noticed Kaleo seemed to be having an even better time than I was having. He didn’t ask questions or make it a priority to be the one feeding each of the animals, but he had an almostpermanent smile on his face. He kept a hand on my leg and whispered his commentary directly in my ear. He placed little kisses on the side of my head randomly every hour or so and made sure he was always touching me in some way.
After the safari, we got lunch in one of the bird themed restaurants on property and called it since we’d lost sunlight while we were just sitting together talking about our favorite and least favorite animals and debriefing about the people we’d shared our truck with.
