Page 27 of Stuck with the Hot Boss
Evie and Leo exchanged a surprised look. They weren’t the only ones.
‘Go on!’ said Keith. ‘Hop it! Enjoy the sunshine.’
Everyone hopped it.
‘It’s not even ten-thirty,’ Evie said to Leo, when they were outside. ‘What do you want to do? Go get an early lunch?’
Leo lifted his face to the sun, then smiled at Evie.
‘I,’ he replied, with certainty, ‘want to go to the zoo.’
‘Thezoo?’
‘When was the last time you went?’ he asked her.
‘Maybe … two years ago?’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Of course,’ said Evie. ‘It’s the zoo. What’s not to love?’
‘I haven’t been since I was five years old, and that was for a photo shoot,’ Leo told her. ‘I never had any proper friends when I was a kid, and when I was older, it felt too tragic to go on my own. So, I didn’t.’
Evie linked her arm in his. ‘Well, now you have me,’ she said. ‘And I’mexactlythe kind of friend who loves pretending they’re five years old.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘What do you remember most from when you were five?’ Evie asked.
They’d paid for their tickets and were walking into the zoo proper.
‘We saw this elephant having an absolute waterfall of a piss. I meangallonsof the stuff, and it went on forages. My parents could not drag me away.’
‘It’s always the truly educational experiences that stick with us, isn’t it?’ said Evie. ‘My great love was the Reptile House and reading about the Gaboon viper that produces enough venom to kill all of London. Possibly, I’ve misremembered that statistic, but who cares?’
‘Don’t tell Nigel about it,’ said Leo. ‘He’ll steal it and release it in Keith and Kev’s office.’
‘He has a point, though, Nigel does,’ said Evie. ‘WhenIstarted, Keith and Kev told me they’d never give up control of Double K. They’d sell it to their employees before any outsider. Weird that they changed their minds when they were so adamant.’
‘Maybe they just got tired?’ suggested Leo. ‘The economy’s been hard going for the last few years, and it’ll be a struggle for a while yet, so maybe they decided they’d earned a break?’
Evie took his arm again. ‘How about we stop talking about work?’ she said. ‘And although the zoo sadly no longer has elephants, I suggest we go see what other large mammal might have recently drunk a whole lot of water.’
It was hard for Evie to reconcile Leo now with the Leo she’d met on his first day. Onlyfive daysago; how could thatbe! That Leo had been brittle and aloof, closed-off behind a wall of business jargon and humour-free ambition. Leonowwas hilarious. He practically skipped through the zoo, being constantly amazed by what he saw.
‘It’s a gorilla! An actual freaking gorilla! Eating acucumber!’
‘Check out the buggy orange eyes on that! What is it? Oh, of course. It’s an AYE-AYE!’
‘Hey, lemur! I like to move it, move it!’
‘That tortoise looks like Janice. Only less hard and wrinkled.’
‘Wow, that bird is blue. Like,incrediblyblue! That’s not a normal colour, right? Nothing’snaturallythat blue.’
Evie was glad she’d bought tissues with her, because she was now crying with laughter.
‘Did you takedrugswithout me noticing?’ she asked him, dabbing her eyes.
