I have to cover my mouth when I laugh, because she’s right. There are quite a few women staring at me with expressions ranging from curiosity to hunger to disgust. The disgust is coming from a little old lady with white hair and a kid sitting across from her who must be a granddaughter.
“Oops.” I widen my eyes at my wife, and soon we’re both laughing. Definitely not dropping to one knee now. Not with Nana over there throwing me the evil eye. That’s okay. I have all day.
“Wait, we’re going where?”
Mira’s eyes are wide as she turns her body to face me from the passenger seat of the rental car.
“The Creature Conservancy. It’s like a little zoo with a bunch of exotic animals. I scheduled a private tour, and guess what?”
“What?”
“We even get to pet some of the animals.”
My beautiful wife lets out a happy little squeal and does a shimmy in her seat. The jewelry box in my pocket digs into myhip, begging to be pulled out. Maybe this place will give me the right opportunity to propose. I wonder if there are any monkeys that are trained? Maybe one could bring the ring out to her?
Nah, that seems risky.
Mira has her phone out, telling me all about the animals we can expect to see when we park. She’s particularly excited that they have several sloths. Those weird little fuckersarepretty adorable. I’m excited to see the reindeer.
“Welcome to The Creature Conservancy,” a young guy, who appears to be in his early twenties, says when we step inside the large building. He pushes his thick-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose, his gaze skimming right over me and landing squarely on my wife. He offers her a lopsided smile and sticks out a hand. “I’m Matt. I’ll be leading your tour today.”
“Thanks, Matt.” I grab his hand and give it a firm shake, which makes Mira giggle. Her body vibrates against mine as I wrap an arm around her and pull her close. “I’m Griffin, and this is my wife, Mira.”
Mira sucks in a sharp little breath at being publicly introduced as my wife. And I get it. Saying it out loud was like a jolt of electricity zinging through my body. Holy shit, that felt good. And so does knowing I made my girl blush. She doesn’t shake Matt’s hand but offers him a little wave.
Poor Matt looks disappointed that Mira is married. Not that I blame him. Hell, I’d be disappointed, too, if I was him. But I’m not, thank god, and I get to make love to this goddess whenever I want. Sucks to suck.
“Right, well, if you’ll both follow me, we’ll start in our reptiles room.”
We follow our guide through the conservancy, stopping often so Mira can coo over some scaled, feathered, and furry creature or other. We take tons of photos. She focuses on the animals, but I focus on her. My camera roll is going to be filled with mywife by the time this trip is over. We take selfies, and Matt takes several of us together in front of different enclosures.
I think one of my favorite moments is when we’re introduced to Scooter the warthog. The expression on Mira’s face is absolutely priceless.
“Oh my god, he’s so ugly he’s cute!” she cries when she sees the thing. He’s got little tufts of wild hair that stick out all over his head, long, curved tusks that jut from his mouth, and a body that’s covered in sparse, coarse hair, except for the dark mane along his back.
Ugly isn’t a strong enough word.
“You think that thing is cute?” How is it cute? Women are weird.
“Of course he is. Look at his lil’ snout.” She leans forward and coos at the thing like he’s some adorable little baby she wants to cuddle and kiss.
“He needs to trim his ear hair.” I wrinkle my nose at him. “A little manscaping could go a long way, dude.”
Cracking up, we barely hear anything our guide says about Scooter, too lost in each other. Just when I’m considering pulling the ring from my pocket, Scooter lifts his whip-like tail and lets one rip. I swear to god, it’s the longest, loudest fart I’ve ever heard.
Fucking warthog.
Okay, so that wasn’t the perfect moment. That’s fine. The next thing we’re going to do is feed a few macaws. That’ll be romantic. I’ll propose then.
The macaws are much larger than I thought they’d be. They’re beautiful—a feathery rainbow of colors with long tails and sharp beaks—but they also freak me out a bit. Their little clawed feet are creepy, and their talons pinch when they perch on my arm.
“You’re so beautiful,” Mira coos to the gentle bird she holds. The creature preens under her praise and leans into each soft touch she gives as she runs the side of her fingers down its neck and chest. I can relate. There’s really nothing better than being stroked by Mira someday-she’ll-agree-to-change-her-last-name Graves.
The rainbow dinosaur gently plucks a blueberry out of Mira’s palm, eating it as daintily as a bird can.
Mine pecks at my watch, ignoring the berries in my palm entirely. The damn thing manages to catch an arm hair in its sharp beak. “Motherfucker. You little shit!”
Matt, the guide, snickers behind his hand. The dude’s lucky I’m a nice guy, because if I wasn’t, he wouldn’t be getting a tip for that shit. “Looks like Spike is feeling a bit feisty today. Sorry about that.”
