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Sam was minding his own business, walking from the gates to the monkey exhibit, when he found himself with a fancy digital camera in his hands and two tourists staring at him expectantly. The man pulled the lollipop out of his mouth. “Come on, dude, the rainbow might disappear any minute! Get the shot!”
“Oh, um…” He examined the camera, figuring out how to take a picture when he accidentally took one of his foot. Pointing it at the couple, he told them, “Say cheese?”
“CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!” the man yelled in the most obnoxious way possible, throwing his arms out as he turned to his companion like he was Will Smith.
“Cheese.” The woman’s voice couldn’t be less enthusiastic if Sam had asked her to say monkey shit. She barely moved a muscle, not even to hold any kind of smile. The difference was hilarious, but he wasn’t sure about the picture. On the other hand, if this was an actual couple that was used to each other, they were probably expecting it. Sam held the camera out to them.
“Yes, perfect, look at this, babe!” The man pulled his date’s arm until she came to see it. Sam took a proper look at the picture, and couldn’t help smiling. The pair looked like absolute opposites, but standing under the rainbow, it was clear that they were together. The woman finally gave a small smile as she looked at it. “Dude, you’re awesome, thanks so much for not wasting time trying to force my girl Kali to be someone she’s not over a stupid picture. She’s got a gorgeous smile when she wants to smile, but you try to force or trick one out of her, she gets this horrible clown-like rictus. Not exaggerating one bit, this one time we asked a guy to take our picture in front of the lion enclosure and after Kali finally gave up and realized he wasn’t going to stop pestering her about smiling for the camera, he was so horrified by the results that he dropped and broke the camera.”
“Good times.” Kali’s smile grew wider, but still genuine. “Thank you, Sam. You did well.”
“Which qualifies you for a special offer!” Kali raised an eyebrow, causing her partner to hesitate, but then she nodded. He continued, “I know you’re at work right now, but Kali and I would love to take you on a date when you get off. And, if you’re into it, where you get off.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Uh….” Sam said, displaying his genius-level intellect. “What?”
“You get us. We like having more people involved. You seem like the kind of guy who’d want us to buy him dinner before we take him to bed, and even if you’re not interested in the bed part, I bet dinner with you would be a blast.”
Kali put a hand on her partner’s forearm. “I think he might like to know your name first, Gabriel. My apologies, Sam, I’m still working on teaching him manners. His father was… not a good role model.”
For a moment, Sam wondered how she knew his name, but then he remembered the giant name tag he was wearing from conducting a school tour this morning. He could hear his brother telling him not to be an idiot and to pounce on this opportunity – Gabriel even reminded him a little of Dean. “I should warn you, you should probably let me go home and shower and change after work first, otherwise there’s a good chance I’ll smell like monkey poo.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Gabriel said. “We could meet at a restaurant. Kali’s vegan, well except for being a maneater…”
“Not literally, whatever the men I reject for dates or people who cross me as head of HR might claim,” Kali interjected.
“Or the fun, consensual type of man eating, if you know what I mean,” Gabriel added with a wink. “Anyway, other than that, we’re happy with whatever you pick, and we’re buying, and you heard Kali’s head of HR and I’m independently wealthy so don’t worry about picking something out of our budget.”
“Or below our taste. One of my favorite foods is Burger King’s Impossible Burger.”
Of all things, that was what made Sam’s brain break. He could not imagine this woman, in her perfectly-pressed obviously high quality pantsuit at a freaking zoo of all places, eating at Burger King. Now it was his college girlfriend Jessica laughing at him for being a class snob. She’d spent years convincing him that rich people were, when you got down to it, just like other people except that they usually didn’t live under crippling angst about losing a job or getting sick and finding themselves financially devastated. “Pirate’s Bone work for you guys? Even my brother, a huge carnivore, loves their burgers.”
“Hear that, honey? We might need to keep this one,” Kali told Gabriel.
“If I didn’t think he’d run into the monkey pen and never come out, I’d be on one knee proposing,” Gabriel agreed. “You just made the perfect choice. I love that place. What time can you meet us there?”
“Um.” He was off at four, allowing time to go home, explain to Dean how he’d picked up a date, and get cleaned up… “About six?”
“Can’t wait.” Gabriel threw his arms around Sam in a hug. Kali was more reserved, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before following her boyfriend off to wherever they were headed.