Page 118 of More For Me

He shrugs. “Because it’s good to face your fears.”

“Bodhi, there’s nothing wrong with having a phobia,” I tell him. “Did I tease you too much? Because I swear I don’t think less of you or—”

He smiles and bends down to kiss the tip of my nose. “I know.” His eyes darken a little, a look of determination settling on his face. “But I think it would be good for me.” He gives me a sheepish smile. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course,” I say automatically. If he really wants to do this, there’s no way I’m letting him go by himself.

Bodhi manages to hold up pretty well as we make our way across the zoo to the marsupial area. He’s even whistling—but I have a feeling he’s only doing that to distract himself. He doesn’t start to sweat until we’re actually in the education center where they make us wait for our turn to go out into the habitat. A zoo guide explains to us what to expect outside—mainly that the kangaroos and wallabies are able to freely roam through the area and we’re not to touch or interact with them in any way.

“Who the fuck would touch one of those?” Bodhi whispers, staring with wide-eyes at a poster of a kangaroo on the wall.

“No feeding the animals, no stepping off the path,” the guide continues. “If an animal should approach you, please just stay still and wait for a guide.”

“What the hell is a guide going to do if one of those things decides to choke-hold me?” Bodhi hisses.

I look up at his pale face. “We really don’t have to do this.”

His expression turns stubborn. “I want to.”

But he grips my hand tightly when the guide opens the door into the enclosure. We step out into the sunshine with the rest of the group. Almost immediately, an excited squeal goes up from some of the kids as a small, fluffy, animal hops right onto the path in front of us.

"Oh, it’s so sweet,” I say, standing on my tiptoes to see around the kids. “Bodhi look at it, that’s not scary at all.”

“This is a red-necked wallaby,” the guide says and Bodhi snorts.

“It’s not scary because it’s not a kangaroo.”

But then a little face pokes out in the middle of the wallaby’s furry belly and Bodhi recoils. “Alien parasite,” he hisses. One of the kids looks up at him, frowning in confusion, and I take Bodhi’s arm. “Let’s walk this way.” No sense in having him scare the crap out of all the kids with his ridiculousness.

The habitat is actually pretty cool. The staff is very strict about keeping people from feeding the animals, so they mostly ignore us, hopping around the fields and brush around the path. We see a few of the larger kangaroos off in the distance, but it’s mostly the smaller wallabies that get close to the walkway. Bodhi slowly starts to relax, his grip on my hand loosening so I can finally feel my fingers again.

Then a kangaroo hops out from behind a nearby tree. The thing is huge—taller than Bodhi, who’s over six foot. My gaze goes straight to its muscular legs—what did Bodhi say about them kicking each other? Like MMA fighters?

“Everything’s fine,” I say in my calmest voice, because Bodhi is trembling next to me. “It’s way over there.”

It does not stay way over there. The kangaroo bounces a few times, covering a huge amount of distance with each jump. It hops out into the path in front of us and stops. Then it turns its head in our direction, its dark eyes seeming to bore right into me.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Bodhi whimpers beside me. “It’s staring into my soul.”

“The guide said it’s normal for them to come on the path,” I remind him, even as I feel my heart rate start to pick up. It’s not really scary—as big as the thing is I just can’t imagine it hurting us—but Bodhi’s obvious terror is hard to ignore. “Just don’t approach it.”

“I’m not going to fucking approach it,” he hisses. “But how do we stop it from approaching us?”

“We just stand here,” I tell him, squeezing his hand.

Then two things happen in very quick succession—the kangaroo takes a huge hop towards us, and I suddenly find myself jerked backwards, nearly knocked off my feet. I blink and realize that Bodhi pulled me behind him and he’s now standing squarely between me and the kangaroo.

“Back off, demon,” he snarls, and the kangaroo tilts his head.

“Don’t antagonize it!”

“I’m not letting that thing choke-hold you, Everly!”

“Oh my God, it’s not going to choke-hold me. Do you think they’d let people in here if these things were dangerous?”

“I know what I saw in that video,” he says stubbornly.

“How’s everyone doing over here?” another voice says, and we both snap our heads over to see a zoo guide approaching, her expression completely easy, like this is something she sees every day. Which she probably does, seeing as how the entire habitat is designed for the animals to roam freely.