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I grinned. “I’ll go get our coats.”
27
ELIZABETH
I’d known Travis was hiding something. Obviously, he was, considering he was working for the company under a fake name. But I had gradually begun to believe it was something so devastating we wouldn’t survive the revelation. Instead, I actually felt closer to him now that I knew. I felt some of my last walls of resistance opening up.
I imagined that would be frightening—to be open to someone and vulnerable. But I only felt relief, like an immense weight had slipped from my shoulders.
Except I couldn’t stop revisiting our conversation—the one where I’d told him I would do anything to help him as long as it didn’t put my future at Glass Designs in jeopardy. Why should I feel so dirty for saying that? It was reasonable, wasn’t it?
I spent my entire life working towards this single goal. Maybe being with Travis was wonderful and fun, but what would happen if things between us didn’t work out? What if I crashed my career to help him and we broke up a few months or years down the line? What would I have then?
A small voice inside wondered if a few months or years of happiness with Travis was a perfectly acceptable reward. But my entire identity couldn’t just be my relationship. I needed more than some other person. I needed my own goals, achievements, and challenges. Glass Designs was my outlet. It was my proving ground—the place where I got the satisfaction of throwing myself into difficult situations and overcoming them.
Travis taught me it was okay to have both. I could be happy in my personal life and still tackle the work with the same energy. I’d learned I should stop choosing work over happiness. But what was I supposed to do if I had to give up work for happiness? What if I couldn’t have both?
Travis nudged me on the way to the kangaroo exhibit, smiling easily. He had a way about him that always helped me relax. “Stop brooding,” he said. “I can see it on your face.”
“I’m not brooding,” I said.
“Liar. And I know why you’re brooding. You think I’m offended about what you said. But I’m not. You don’t want to risk your career, and I respect that. I don’t want you to give up your career. I want to have you just like this. Badass and ambitious.” He gave another charming little smile and a shrug. “I like a working woman.”
I smiled, feeling some of my doubts melt away. God. He was such a good guy, wasn’t he? “Thank you, Travis,” I said. I stopped so I could stand on my tippy toes and plant a kiss on his mouth.
“If I get rewarded with kisses for that kind of thing, expect more of it,” he said once I pulled away.
I learned that kangaroos have some of the softest fur of any creature I’d ever touched and that Travis was adorable when he was enjoying animals. Getting him to leave the kangaroo enclosure was like trying to get a kid to leave a candy shop. Amusingly, the animals seemed to take to him like some sort of Disney prince. By the time we were supposed to leave, he had three of the kangaroos hopping after him like his own personal entourage.
We had greasy, but delicious pizza for lunch. Travis had on a black jacket, dark jeans, and a gray shirt. The man looked good in everything. It honestly wasn’t fair, but I was starting to see him as mine, and the unfairness of his looks was bothering me less and less. After all, he was my arm candy, so all those longing looks I saw passing women throw our way just served to remind me that he could have any of them and he’d chosen me. No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible not to feel my confidence skyrocket because of it.
“I’m thinking of getting a kangaroo,” he said offhandedly as he chewed on a piece of pizza crust.
I grinned. “How do you plan to do that, exactly?”
“I have my ways.”
“Are all these deals on the side you work out with zoos even legal?”
“Do I look like a man who would break the law?”
“Yes,” I said. “But you also look exactly like the kind of man who gets away with it.”
“That’s hurtful. But I actually have a guy who advises me on this kind of thing. He can usually find a loophole. Sometimes I can’t keep the pets if they’re too exotic. Like I had a giant sea turtle once. You should’ve seen the aquarium I had to have built for that one.”
“Why?”
“He got hurt. The local zoo didn’t have funds to build him a proper enclosure, so I generously offered to put him up for a few months. Sometimes I have to take crash course training sessions or hire professionals to come by, but it’s worth it.”
