“Positive. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you because I really love you so much. But we haven’t been dating long, and I want to enjoy every stage of it with you, not rush through it and miss any of it.”
“That was smooth,” Liam says.
I grin at him. “Yeah? Did you already get me a ring?”
“Not yet… the one I wanted would take too long to be made.”
I can’t help but laugh at this man because what else can I do? “No! Liam! First off, do not spend so much money on me that it has to be custom made!”
“What if I die? I want you to have all of my money.”
“Yeah? And if you died today, where would all of your money go? Speak honestly.”
“To… you.”
“I saw the paperwork. I’m well aware you put me in the will to receiveeverything. I don’t need a ring to receive it.”
“You can have it all now, if you’d like.”
“Nope.”
“What am I allowed to get you for Christmas?”
“I don’t know. Something like… ooh, Lucille loves these little rattle mice.”
“You want me to get you two-dollar mice for your cat?”
“Yes.”
Liam sighs. “If I got you something that rhymed with the word bar, what model would you like?”
“I love my car. I don’t need a new one yet. Let me think about it and I’ll let you know what I want, okay? Nothing too much. I’ve been needing some new jeans. We could go clothes shopping and I could pick out a couple of things.”
Liam grunts, and I take that as his confirmation that he hates this idea because he can’t buy me the world.
I really don’t need the world.
I just need him.
FIVE
Liam
It’s three in the morning but sleep has eluded me. I’d fallen asleep pressed against Gabriel with that cursed cat trying to sleep on my body and Lucille trying to sleep between our faces, but something hit me in my dreams and I’m not quite sure what it was.
So now I’ve lain awake for the past thirty minutes with my mind racing as I question what stood out to me.
I keep thinking about the layout of the zoo and envisioning the easiest way to get Zach’s body to the hyena pen. But while at the zoo I’d been so fixated on movinghisbody… that I…
Pulling out my phone, I open the map of the zoo and look at it for a long moment. Then I zoom in on an empty area.
That’s right… didn’t there use to be an entrance on this side? My parents took me to this zoo once when I was younger, and I remember that as soon as we walked in, the African exhibit was to the right. But now the entrance…
I type into the search engine “zoo parking lot construction” and scroll through random articles on the zoo until I find oneabout the new parking lot being built on the west end. The east parking lot would be converted into a botanical garden open to the public.
They must have closed off the entrance entirely. The entrance to the botanical garden fromthe zoo is more up north.
But why does any of this matter?
