Kieran glanced at me, surprised. “You think so?”
“Yes. You don’t need to decide what you are before you experience anything. That’s… backwards.”
Kieran absorbed that in silence. “And you?” he asked after a moment. “Do you always—” He hesitated, clearly searching for the words. “—approach things like this?”
I considered the question. “Not always. But when I see something I like, I tend not to pretend I don’t.”
Kieran’s breathing caught, and he stared at me for a few seconds.
I held the barcode against the ticket machine, and we walked through the barrier. I stopped a short way from the entrance. “What would you like to see first?”
Kieran looked at me with a grin. “I have absolutely no idea.”
I chuckled. “Good. That makes two of us.” As we opened the folded map, one word came to mind.
Careful.
This one was worth taking my time with, and now I really wanted to see where it led.
Kieran
The zoo was bigger than I expected.
Not just in size, but in feel. Wide paths, open spaces, trees everywhere… It was more like a park than anything else. The noise of the city faded almost immediately.
We walked side by side, unhurried, past the lion enclosure, the giraffes, the elephants… And all the while, we talked. The conversation came easily with safe topics like music, travel, my observations so far about the city.
I found myself relaxing. It was surprisingly easy to be with Stefan.
Too easy, perhaps.
We stopped at an enclosure where a group of monkeys swung effortlessly between ropes and branches, their movements quick and unpredictable. I had to smile.
“They make it look so simple.”
Stefan glanced at me. “Most things are, when you don’t think too much about them.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “I have no idea how to do that.”
“Ihadnoticed.” Stefan’s tone was light, and it carried no sting.
We moved on, past the female rhino, and the ridiculously cute red panda who wouldn’t come down from his tree, despite the coaxing shouts of the many children who stopped there.
At some point—I wasn’t entirely sure when—Stefan’s hand settled briefly at the small of my back as we navigated through a narrow crowd. It was no more than a guiding touch, and it was gone almost as soon as I registered it.
And yet the warmth of it lingered.
I became aware of where Stefan was in relation to me, his proximity.
We stopped again, this time at a glass enclosure.
Inside, a large tiger paced slowly back and forth, its muscles shifting beneath its skin with quiet, controlled power.
I watched it, transfixed. “There’s something unsettling about that.”
Stefan stepped closer to me. “Yes. Because it’s contained.”
I glanced at him. “What do you mean?”