Chapter 3 Bren

Bren

I’d done it. I felt like high-fiving myself.

Whistling the tune of “Baby Got Back” as I washed flecks of poo down the drain, nothing could dampen my mood.

I’d had a one-night stand—a damn good one, in fact—and like a mature, responsible woman, I’d kept the no-strings promise I’d made to myself. Booyah. Smiling again, I felt proud of myself. And satisfied in a way I hadn’t been in a long time.

It was only normal that my mind had wandered to Mason a few times throughout each day over the past two weeks. It was the only sexual experience I’d had in what felt like a decade, and so it was natural that I’d want to replay it—my own personal highlight reel, something to remember fondly and enjoy when I was in bed, alone at night.

“Why are you in such a good mood?” Mandy asked, peeking into the gorilla’s night house.

Hosing down one last oversized log, I turned and shut off the water. “Hey, lady. How was vacation?”

Mandy was five-foot-nothing of pure sass and sarcasm. I loved her. She was technically my boss, but it never felt that way. I was grateful for her friendship and all the guidance she’d given me both at work and in my personal life.

Mandy smirked at me and shook her head. “I’ll tell you all about our trip in a minute. When you bring two toddlers on a plane, it’s not a vacation—it’s a trip. But first, you’re going to tell me why you seem positively enthralled to be cleaning up shit. Isn’t Andy here today?”

“Yeah, I told him to go have his lunch. I’ve got this.”

Her eyes widened. “The hell you say? Let’s go catch up inside. You can fill me in on what happened while I was gone.”

After coiling the hose and putting it away, I followed Mandy inside. The gorillas weren’t due back inside their enclosure until this afternoon, but I was happy to be done with that task early.

I shucked off my rain boots, leaning for a moment to steady myself on the wall. Whoa. A wave of nausea washed over me, and I sucked a deep, cleansing breath into my lungs. That was the third time today that had happened.

Shaking my head, I followed Mandy toward the workstations, and after washing my hands at the sink, I sat down on the stool next to her.

“Now, spill it, Bren,” she said, grinning at me like she knew something I did.

“Fine.” I shrugged. “I took your advice. Are you happy?”

She pumped her fist in the air. “You got laid! I’m so proud. Give me all the squishy details. And leave nothing out. Todd barely has the energy for sex anymore, and when he does, I have to be in the mood to deal with his beer belly.”

I inwardly shuddered. The idea of holy matrimony had never interested me, and Mandy sure as shit wasn’t selling it. Honestly, I didn’t want to fall in love. It just didn’t appeal to me. I saw all the negatives and none of the positives. Being single with a great career as a zoologist was more than enough for me. It didn’t take years of therapy for me to figure that my dad passing away when I was young and my mom falling into a deep depression had shaped that view. But, hey, I got lonely sometimes and a girl had needs. Hence my magical one-nighter.

“I was thinking about what you said—about needing to put myself out there more. I considered online dating.”

Mandy grinned. “But?”

“Filling out that long profile and answering hundreds of random questions was so daunting, and I didn’t like the idea of putting all my personal info on the Internet. It just didn’t seem necessary to exchange names with someone I merely wanted to exchange bodily fluids with.”

Mandy patted her heart. “Sometimes you make the feminist inside me very proud.”

I rolled my eyes. “So I figured before I went that route, I wanted to try things the old-fashioned way first. I got dressed up cute and went to a bar I never normally go to—you know, one of those young, hip, way too crowded places?”

She nodded, totally absorbed in the story. “A meat market is the technical term, yes.”

“I sat alone at the bar, sipped my drink, and made eye contact with a couple of cute guys around the room. A few minutes later one of them came up to talk to me.”

Her eyebrows wiggled. “And bow-chicka-wow-wow?”

I laughed. “Not exactly. He was cute, but he didn’t get my blood pumping. After I made an excuse about needing to go to the restroom, I spotted the most gorgeous man I’d ever laid eyes on sitting alone in a booth in the corner. He looked so unhappy, and I thought that was so odd—like the two of us were the only ones in the entire club who were just enduring this scene rather than partying it up like everyone around us seemed to be.”

“Hmm.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Then what happened?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, and it was almost as if I was right back inside that club, the bass of the music pulsing through my veins, the handsome stranger’s electric blue eyes locking on mine from across the crowded room—the hair on the back of my neck standing up when I realized he was even more attractive than I’d first realized—and then ducking my chin to scurry away—sure that no man in his class would ever been interested in me.

“A few minutes later, when I came out of the restroom, I was ready to call it a failed mission and head home. But Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy was waiting for me.”