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Anne Boonchuys day was ruined with a simple greeting, she was sitting in front of the largest take in the aquarium, having lunch witching the various fish swim around, it had been one of many highlights of working at the aquarium of the pacific, when she heard the voice.
“Anne, how nice to see you.”
The Thai-American herpetologist turned to the origin of the voice and put on a fake smile.
“Sterling.” said Anne, smiling a forced smile which would have rivaled many of the actors who worked in L.A.
Standing next to her was a guy in shorts and a bright red T-shit, he was handsome and had great hair, Anne had agreed to that the moment she had agreed to go on a date with him.
It had been at Sasha begging, she had agreed to go out with him during a double date, Sasha and girlfriend Lois, and a coworker of Lois’s, Sterling.
Anne had shallowly agreed to the date the moment she saw him, He was good-looking, how could it go wrong.
She then discovered what was wrong and why Sasha had to beg her to come on the date. He was mind-numbingly boring.
Now once during the entire date did he ask about her, he was always talking about things he was doing things he was achieving at work and generally how awesome of a guy he was, slowly the night had descended into him taking control of the conversation. Credit where it was due when anyone tried to talk about something other than him, he let them talk for a few minutes, but eventually the conversation drew back to him.
The worst part was how he kept bringing up how once he had fought a crocodile, the same story again and again, Anne had fought worse than a crocodile, hell she knew from her colleagues that his story was false.
Sterling was the only one having a good time during that date, Anne just sat there wanting to die, Sasha and Lois just gave her an embarrassed smile, both would apologize to her later.
By the time the date was over, Anne gave him a hug and ran home, praying that an asteroid would crush her before she met him again.
Sadly, said Celestial collision didn’t happen, thus she still had to deal with Sterling again.
“What are you doing here?” asked Anne.
“I wanted to see if you wanted to go on another date, considering how well our last one went.”
Anne swallowed there was nothing more unbearable than this.
“Um, how did you know I was here?”
“I called Sasha, she told me.”
Anne felt a level of hate towards her blonde best friend only rivaled to that time they had a sword fight at the Newtopia gates, Sasha would later tell her that she needed to get him away from her patients A.S.A.P, Anne forgave her. Those kids had gone through enough.
“Oh, well about the date, My schedule is kind of booked up.”
“Really, with what?”
“Oh, I’m getting my hair done.”
“I can come to that.”
“Really.” said Anne dejected,
“Yeah, we can get them done at the same time.”
Anne swallowed, “My aunt died, and I have to go to Bangkok,”
“Hey I can come with you for support, My boss gives me lost of spare time, he actually encourages me to take as much time off as possible.”
“Umm, I need to work at my families restaurant.”
“I’ll meet you there, we can eat during your break.”
Anne was looking at him, how could she get out of this in one piece.
“See, Sterling, I… I…” Anne was stuck, there was no way out of this, she was doomed, she swore she saw Sterling smile.
Hope came in one word.
One Beautiful word.
“MOMMY.” said the voice of a small child.
Anne turned around to see a young boy with brown skin blue eyes and curly hair, he was wearing a green shirt and a purple shorts, with Blue shoes.
This was Max. he was not Anne’s son, So Dr. Boonchuy was confused by this, the kid was a constant visitor to the Aquarium and for all intents and purpose a nice kid, despite his trouble making, she had no idea what eh was doing at the moment, however.
“Max?” said Anne, confused.
“Mommy, are you going to playing with the frogs? Can I play with the frogs?”
Anne had no idea what was going on here.
Max then turned to Sterling and put on his biggest smile, “Who is this Mommy, is this my new Daddy.”
It took only a second for Anne to realize what Max was doing, she briefly looked at Sterling, she saw the confused look transform to one of sheer terror, it took all her effort to fight off a huge smile that threatened to break out on her face.
The smile she did have been one that she had seen on her mother's face before, one of love. She hoped it would work, to sell the act even more she gave Max a big overly dramatic hug
“Oh, my little Polliwog, there you are, you little troublemaker, I’m not sure about this man, I mean he might want to be your new father but-”
Sterling had a look of horror on his face, “Um, Listen I have to be somewhere else, I may call you later.”
“Really?” said Anne sweetly, “I mean, I figured you’d want to come on a date with me and Max.”
“No, thank you.” said Sterling quickly. “Bye.”
Before Anne could say anything else, Sterling was out of her life.
“Bye Daddy.” said Max sweetly before he turned to Anne removing the wide eyes and sweet smiling replacing them with a smirk, “What a chump.”
Anne let out a breath of relief, “Thanks Max.” she said, smiling.
“Don’t worry about it, anyone could tell you didn’t want to be there.” Max said shrugging. “And If you want to repay me, well, I’ve always wanted to hold Grimothy.”
Grimothy was the largest toad in the Amphibia exhibit, Max has been allowed to hold a lot of the Amphibians in the exhibit but not the big one.
The 23-year-old thought about it for a second and then sighed, before a smile appeared on her face, “Okay, but here are the rules, it’s only for a minute, and you have to be gentle, he’s old and need his rest.”
“Okay, so when can we do it.”
“Just let me finish my lunch first, and then we’ll go.”
“Cool, it’s a date.” said Max, smiling.
Anne gave the boy a small bop on the nose and laughed.