Change (Published under The Change For Her)

Forty-Three

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Autumn is such a beautiful season, the way leaves change into vibrant colors it's magical. I love how they brighten the world up. Driving around to the unknown location Liam's taking me, seeing the fall decorations, colorful leaves covering the slowly dead grass, the red and orange on the trees brings peace to me. My eyes catch a sign that says Briskfield's Zoo with an arrow pointing right, which is the direction Liam takes causing me to look over at him.

Liam knew my eyes were on him, a smirk form on his face, and keeps his eyes on the road. I turned my attention back towards the window to see that we were now entering a parking lot. A smile takes place on my face when I notice the giant Briskfield's Zoo sign over the ticket booth. I bite my lower lip as excitement fills me at the idea of spending our first date here. "I'm just gonna guess that I picked the perfect location?" Liam looks over at me. My face starts heating up causing him to lightly chuckle while shutting off the engine before exiting his Mustang.

He makes his way to open my door, "Come on, let's go be surrounded by animals," Liam holds out his hand for me and I take hold of it so he can help me out. He guides me towards the entrance, the closer we get the smile on my face grows bigger. Going to the zoo was one of my favorite places. Back in Maple, my father would take me to the zoo during one of our father-daughter dates. His favorite animal to watch was the sea lions, he loved watching them perform. After he passed the way, my mother started taking me and Maria.

"Two tickets please," Liam tells the admission lady behind the ticket booth.

"That'll be $38.50," She smiles. Liam scans his card before she gives us tickets to enter.

"Thank you," We say while walking away.

"Where should we go first?" Liam asked me while examining the Zoo's map. "How about we start in the Africa exhibit and end with the penguins?"

"Sounds good to me," Liam wraps his arm around me and leads the way.

"Oh my gosh, Liam look!" I remove myself from him when I see cute little creatures with fluffy white and black tails climbing around. I can hear Liam laughing while following me. "They're so cute!" I squeal.

"They're called Lemurs," Liam reads off the sign, he comes up behind me and watches them play. "They kinda remind me of King Julien."

"That's exactly what I was thinking." I turn to look up at him, I take his hand and start tugging him to find the giraffes.

"Chlo, where are you taking me?"

"We found Julien, now time to find Melman."

"You are something else," Liam pulls me back so he can wrap his arm around me and kisses the top of my head, causing electricity to shoot down my body. I lay my head against his shoulder following the sign that points towards the direction we wanted to go. We walk past the warthogs and rhinos until we finally get to the giraffes' house where you can feed them. "Okay, go find Melman," Liam opens the door and lets me enter first.

I make my way over to pay for a feeding cup, I reach into my purse to pull my wallet out. I grab three ones to put in the machine but before I could, Liam takes a hold of my wrist. "I want to feed them," I look up at him through my lashes.

"It's a date, which means I'm paying for it," He tells me as he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket.

"I can pay for it with my own money," I argue.

"My treat," Was all he said while he inserted three-dollar ones. Fills up a small bowl of food and hands it to me.

******

We were halfway through the zoo grounds, so far it's been extremely entertaining. I still can't stop laughing about the encounter we had at the gorilla exhibit. Liam had his back towards one of them, talking to me while I had my phone in my hand recording the gorilla mocking him. I tried so hard to keep the laughter in but sadly that failed. Liam tried to get me to show him the video but I figured I'll let him see it once I upload it onto Facebook and tag him in it.

Now we're walking around eating dip & dots, my eyes light up when I see sea lions swimming around doing tricks. Liam takes notice and pulls me gently towards the seating area for the show. "Let's go watch," Was all he said as we headed that way. My eyes stay on one of the sea lions bouncing a ball back and forth with the zoo employee, I have no clue what proper name is for the person.

"My dad used to take me to the zoo and our favorite thing was this," I gesture to the sea lions. "We would sit and constantly laugh while watching them perform." Liam pulls me closer to him, wraps his arm around, and gently rubs my arm. "Stuff like this always makes me feel like he's still here." Liam doesn't say anything just kisses the top of my head. We sit quietly actually laugh at the sea lions until the show comes to an end.

Liam guides me to the exit so we can follow the path to our last destination. The penguin exhibit. Even though this date was simply nothing extravagant, it's been perfect. The date beat fancy restaurants and it was an actual first date that wasn't dropped on me. I look up at Liam, sparks fill my veins and my cheeks heat up. When I first met Liam, I assumed he would bring trouble in my life just because of how he dresses. The way people are staring at us, I bet their questioning why I'm holding hands with him. Liam is the exact opposite of what I assumed him to be.

"Why are you staring at me?" His eyes don't even meet mine, they stay looking forward to making sure we're going the right direction.

I look away my face is probably tomato red, embarrassed about getting caught. "Sorry," I softly say.

Liam wraps his arm around me pulling me close while he chuckles, "Don't be sorry, babe," He kisses the top of my head. "You can stare at me all you want."