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TRACK 28 - PART 2

"Now can I know where we are?"

TJ pouted her bottom lip and batted her long lashes at me. The car rolled to a stop outside our destination. I got out of the vehicle and extended my hand for her to take.

"Welcome to Coney Island. Normally there are a lot more people," I said, explaining the vacancy that surrounded us, "But, we're actually going here."

TJ looked up at the large structure. "The New York City Aquarium?"

"Yeah, I just thought since the last time we were here together, we explored some of the sights of the city at three in the morning, it might be nice to see an actual attraction."

I feared she would think it was lame or boring that I had brought her here. The worrying feeling was quickly diminished when she looked at me with a wide smile and excitedly asked, "Do you think they'll have sharks here? I've never seen one before!"

"They have an entire exhibit that we are seeing."

She quietly squealed beside me as we walked towards the entrance. "How did you know I loved sharks?"

"Lucky guess."

In fact, it was an incredibly lucky guess considering only a few moments ago I was fearing that the beginning of my surprise for our date night had been a grave miscalculation. After a quick introduction to the tour guide, an older gentleman named Benard who insisted on being called Benny, TJ and I entered through the main doors of the exhibition. Although he seemed like a nice man, I was glad Benny allowed us to roam the space on our own, and only was near for question purposes. Because that meant I was able to hear more of TJ's fun facts.

"Did you know there are approximately five-hundred species of sharks?"

"I did not," I said, putting my arm around her waist as we walked. "When did your love of sharks start?"

"When I was younger, one of the few channels we got at Silas's house played all these documentaries about nature and I was just fascinated by them," she explained. "Plus, Pat once said he was scared of them because they were evil, and so I learned all the facts I could to prove him wrong."

We passed through another set of doors and TJ stopped in her tracks and sucked in a breath at the view in front. The tunnel we were in had fish swimming on either side and above where we stood. I think I was almost as amazed as she was to see a fish swim up and over our heads to the other side. The light reflecting off the water created a rainbow effect along our path.

I pointed to a blue fish with a yellow tail. "That one looks like Dory."

"That's a blue tang fish."

"Wow, you really know your fish facts."

TJ giggled and shook her head. "No, they just have the information of all the fish in front of us," she said, pointing down at the information panel near the bottom of the glass.

"What's the orange one with the white stripes?"

TJ looked down at the panel. "A butterflyfish," she read.

"They have funny little bodies don't they," I commented, stepping closer to get a better look at the square-shaped fish with a small fan-like tail.

She gasped, pointing to one that swam out from behind the coral reef structure. "Look! That's a blacktip reef shark!"

"Shit, that guy is big!"

"That's what she said," she murmured under her breath, looking up at me with an innocent smile as if she never said it. "I think they average about five or six feet long."