New Neighbours
Chapter Eight: Water Logged

"So what's the deal with this whole Sanctuary?" Tristin asked as I parked the car.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean do you take care of animals…like dogs and cats or what?"

I threw him a sideways look before opening the front door. I let him slip in first and held it open for a visitor.

"We have dogs and cats…not many of them thought," I led him inside the front office. "We take care of more…bigger animals."

He gave a quizzical look but didn't get the chance to say anything because a man dressed from head to toe in scuba gear walked up to us.

"Hey Rory, ummm…Do you think I could borrow Syd's leash?" He asked me, slapping his flipper repeatedly against the tile floor.

"Why? Aren't you working out back?" I asked gesturing towards his outfit.

"What?" Oh yah, I was but then your sister came and she had a bunch of people with her so I got out of her way. Then I realized that I needed to ask you about the leash."

"And you need it because?" I asked after I had finished signing in.

"Because we're moving Kara into her new home today and we need something to help us get her there." He thoroughly explained as he followed me out of the office.

"Yeah sure you can use it." I paused trying to remember where I had left it. "Ummm…I think it's in the shed."

"Thanks Ror!" He called over his shoulder as he disappeared behind one of the doors lining the hall.

I kept walking until I noticed that Tristin wasn't beside me. I looked around before turning back and retracing my steps. I found him quickly and I have to admit he looked adorable standing in the corridor, mouth hanging agape and eyes wide with wonder.

Very quietly I walked towards him from behind. I placed my hand gently on his shoulder and exclaimed at the same time, "Whatcha looking at?"

I jumped at her sudden appearance, and tried not to shiver under her touch. Even though I wanted to turn around and once again look into her cobalt blue eyes I couldn't tear my gaze away from the animal in front of me.

It wasn't as big as I had thought it would be –about the size of a dog- but still its eyes were a deep black and its teeth were razor sharp. I had never seen one before, only a couple times on TV. Come to think of it the biggest animal I've ever seen is a coyote!

"I'm guessing you didn't have a zoo back where you lived, huh?" She scared me again but this time I shook my head and tore my eyes away to face her.

"That's Sydney, she's a Siberian Tiger. She's only a year old, she's still a cub."

"I've never seen a tiger…Jeeze the biggest animal I've seen a big dog!" I laughed at that. He had a lot to see!

"You might be able to see her up close later if you want." Off his stricken look I guessed that wasn't the best suggestion. "Or not!"

His face relaxed a bit but he was still eyeing the tiger nervously out of the corner of his eye. He smiled slightly at me and shuffled closer to the glass viewing pane.

I suddenly got an idea. "Hey! Have you ever been to Sea World or a place like that?" I asked, while moving to stand next to him. I leaned my back against the four inch glass, perfectly calm with the fact that it was the only thing between me and a tiger.

"Sea World?"

To say I was surprised would have been an understatement. "You've never heard of Sea World!"

"No…." He said cautiously.

I quickly grabbed his hand and tugged hard in the direction we had come in. "I have a lot of work cut out for me!" I huffed.

I led him through the front door and around to the back of the large building.

"So where are we going/" He asked running his fingers through his spiky blonde hair; a nervous habit he had picked up from his dad.

I smiled at him, a wicked smile that made his heart speed up and his throat go dry. "I'll tell you one thing." I was laughing inwardly.

"Okay…" His cocky, overly confident attitude was gone. He was nervous; his eyes were darting all over the place. I loved it!

"You're gonna have to take your shoes, socks and shirt off!"

His head snapped to look at me. His eyes were wide for a minute but he quickly let his smirk slide onto his face. "Now Mary if you wanted to see me half-naked you could've just asked!"

"I could've just asked but then again that would mean I'd have to really want to see you half-naked! This unfortunately for you isn't on my top ten!" I told him sarcastically.

He laughed from deep in hi throat and slung his arm over my shoulders. "See that's where you go wrong. I know it's #1." He leaned down closer to my ear and breathed in a husky whisper. "Who wouldn't want to see such a fine specimen like myself not half-naked!"

Even though I loved the feeling of his figure so close to mine I pushed him away from me. "Ego much?" All he did was grin.

We continued walking over towards the back of the building. Once we turned the corner, another building could be seen.

It was a very long, white building, running the length of the main building and longer. Behind it the tops o three bleachers were standing almost ten feet higher.

As the teens moved closer to it the smell of salt water hit them hard.

"What is this place?" Tristin asked his eyes tracing the building.

"It's the beyond part of the Sanctuary." I told him rather vaguely.

"What?" He was totally confused now.

We had reached the door so I just shrugged leaving him in the dark. I opened the door and went inside. The smell of salt water was much stronger now and it burned Tristin's nostrils when he breathed that was because the one thing he could never remember doing in all his life was going to the beach. He slowly opened the heavy door, and slid through it.

The room he was in was what looked like a lobby. There were chairs, couches, tables and a counter with a computer on it. Tristin followed me into another room, through a pair of heavy double doors.

The room was amazing, with an all around, floor to ceiling, wall aquarium. It had millions of fish swimming around inside from small yellow guppies to cat fish to big sting rays. The room itself was circular and had three different doors in it, not including the one we had come through.

The room as bright and exciting as it was with a blue ceiling littered with glowing stars and a blue shag carpet, was cold and damp. With all the water surrounding you, it sent chills down your spine. The doors and the carpet felt damp and slippery but it just added to the overall effect the room had.

I walked over to one of the doors in the room that had a picture of a cartoon dolphin on it. Turning the knob I opened the door and held it open for Tristin. I let it slam shut behind him and dried off my hand on my pants.

I led him through a twisting corridor and out into a small room that broke off into change rooms/bathrooms, another corridor and the hospital area where biologists helped the animals.

I kept walking and went straight into the second corridor. Tristin hadn't said anything and neither had I for a little while but it was a comfortable silence.

I stopped when we came to the end of the hall. There was a water tight seal door separating us from the tanks.

"Okay so I guess you've figured out where we're going, right?" I asked him, breaking the silence.

"Yeah…"

"Okay, good." I turned around to face the door and punched in my code name. "Now I know you've never seen many wild animals and the fact that you started with a tiger isn't so great. Dolphins, on the other hand, are small and they don't bite or have claws."

"Okay, I like the not biting part but they're still wild animals, right?" He asked as he watched the door slowly disappear into the floor.

"They really aren't wild. We've had these dolphins for a couple of months now so we know them pretty well. Plus one of the dolphins has been with us for about two years now!"

We both stepped over the slowly receding door. I punched my code back in and the door started to rise once again.

"What do you mean they've been with you?" He asked, walking carefully down the vertical ramp.

"Well we don't keep the animals here. We rescue sick animals, or animals that or hurt or dying and we nurse them back to health. Then when they're ready we release them back in the wild." I explained to him.

"What about the dolphin you said you've had for two years?"

"Well he's very special. You see he isn't sick or hurt or anything. He just doesn't want to leave." I told him with a small laugh.

I walked over to the middle of the room where a giant pool was. It led out into the enclosed holding tank for the dolphins but they must've been out there because I didn't see them in this spot.

"Are you gonna come in?"

"What!"

"Are you gonna go in the water you know…swim with the dolphins?"

"Yah, sure." He was sounding a little more like himself now.

"Yeah! Now you should take off everything except your shorts." I instructed while kicking my own shoes off.

He did as he was told and I was surprised to see a very toned, muscular body underneath. I knew he liked what he got to see to because he had a very large smirk on his face while staring at my long legs.

He was the first to regain focus and saw that I was clearly checking him out. "Well maybe you're not the Mary I thought you were. And if you still are I'm sure I can help."

His tone was lathered with innuendo and it washed over me like a cold shower. "Could you be anymore of an asshole!" I didn't miss a beat.

"Ooh kitty has claws!"

"What can I say, when they tried to de-claw me, I scratched their eyes out!" I tilted me head to the side and shrugged my shoulders innocently.

"Do you have an answer for everything?" He asked his curiosity shining through.

"I don't know…Do I?"

"I'm sure you do." He regarded me once more. "Tell me, why do you answer a question with a question?"

I let a smirk spread like butter across my face. "I'm inquisitive." Flipping my hair over my shoulder I walked to the side of the pool.

"So where are the dolphins?" Tristin asked kneeling down beside me.

"They're outside in the holding tank." I leaned down and let my hand slice through the water, judging its temperature. The pools were kept heated in the winter so you could still go in them and so they weren't that bad.

Tristin let his gaze wonder around the room we were in. There were two doors that he could see. One was at the top of the ramp and the other on the wall beside him about three feet away. He guessed that it must lead outside. Getting up to his feet he walked towards the door but only got halfway when I stopped him.

"It's locked." I told him. I had stood up also and was pulling my hair into a ponytail.

"So then how do you suppose we get outside?"

I smile a toothy smile before turning my back to him. Backing up a couple feet I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. Then I broke into a sprint and jumped at the edge of the pool. Tucking my legs against my chest I executed a perfect cannonball.

When I returned to the surface I saw that my cannonball had completely soaked Tristin. I let out a very unladylike snort of laughter at his expression. He was standing there, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. His hair was dripping wet, the small beads of water traveling down his neck and chest, only to deposit onto the tile beneath his feet.

"Oh, yum..." I mumbled, my mouth going dry.

"Like what you see Mary?" His overly confident voice broke my trance. I knew not to say anything because no matter what he would be able to twist it around and inflate his already huge ego. I instead chose to stick my tongue out at him in a childish manner.

I dipped under the surface again, hoping the water would help me get the sight of him out of my head. Unfortunately it was burned in my memory, something I knew I would never forget.

I opened my eyes, hoping to get them use to the salt water. When I resurfaced I noticed that Tristin was sitting at the edge of the pool with his legs in the water.

"So how do we get outside?" He asked, hoping to distract him from staring at her.

"I told you, you have to get in the water!" I punctuated my sentence by smacking the glass like surface with my palms.

"But it's cold!" He whined like a four year old.

"Well the water is coming from the Atlantic ocean so I would think it'd be cold!" I ducked under and swam over to him. "Don't worry it's heated so you get use to it fast."

"So you said the water comes from the ocean, how?" He asked me still sitting on the edge.

"Stop stalling!" I told him. I lifted myself out of the pool and walked over to a desk on the wall opposite. I picked up a whistle, to call the dolphins with and started back.

"I'm curious!" He tried to reason.

"Yeah and I'm impatient. Listen if you don't get in that pool right now…"

"What? What are you gonna do to me?" He interrupted rather rudely.

"Well you'll get a taste of my wrath!" I told him with an utterly straight face. "I do have a wrath you know!"

He broke out into laughter and let a genuine smile appear. "Well I can't argue with that!" He jokingly replied before sinking into the water and under the surface.

I, too, got into the pristine pool, the whistle hanging around my neck.

He came up seconds later and I motioned for him to follow me to the end of the pool.

"All you gotta do is swim underneath the wall and you're outside." I gave him the one simple instruction.

He nodded in understanding and held up his hand counting down from 3. On 1 we both sucked in a breath and dived under the surface.


"So I'm guessing your kinda-date didn't go that well, huh?" I asked Lilly later that afternoon.

"No not so much." She replied her voice held sadness to it.

"Well it didn't turn out to be that bad though!" I exclaimed happily, trying to cheer her up.

"Yeah, this is the life!" She laughed and I joined in.

The two of us were lying on top of two floating chairs, in the middle of the dolphin pool. Tristin and I had found Lilly, Blake and a couple of the jocks from school swimming with the dolphins. Lilly had said that she and Blake had met up with Jeremy, Adam, Matt and Bradley when they had stopped for coffee. The guys were now playing with the dolphins.

"And it seems that your day wasn't as bad as you thought it would be." She was gloating and I knew that in her mind she was probably jumping up and down screaming, 'I told you so! I told you so!'

"Okay, okay so maybe you were right!"

"I knew you would have a great time!" She kept on saying, her smile was huge and I could tell she was very happy for me.

"Oh really you did! Please, tell me how you knew that day wouldn't totally blow!"

She smiled very innocently and said in her sweetest voice: "Because you like him!"

"No! No I don't!" It came out way to quickly.

"Yes you do. You want to hug him and kiss him all day long!" She had sat up on her chair and was making pretend kissing noises.

"No I don't!" Great that didn't even convince me! I'm so pathetic!

"Right you keep telling yourself that!" She said, mockingly. "So tell me if you don't like him how do you explain what you said in the bathrooms at Velocity?"

I scrunched my brows together trying to recall our conversation that night.

"Well loosely translated, it means you're falling for Tristin and you're falling hard," She told me with a smile while stroking my hair.

"Yeah well it sucks."

"Okay that was just a glitch! I so didn't mean it!" I tried to convince myself it was the truth but I couldn't stop thinking about what happened at the park.

"Listen, Ror sweetie, you have to accept that you really like Tristin. It's not that bad!" She tried to persuade me.

"But Lil, he's preppy…he's a jock…he wears one of those ugly letterman jackets! He's everything I've always hated! How can I even like him?" I was desperate for answers, I needed to know.

Lilly carefully climbed over onto my chair, making sure it wasn't going to flip before she started talking. "Rory, you don't get to choose who you love, your heart chooses. Because you know if we got to choose ourselves, I'd be dating the lead singer of Placebo!"

That made me laugh. Ever since we discovered that group she'd been in love with the lead singer, Brian Molko.

"Plus you're not the only one who fell for a guy straight out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue! I did, even Maddy did!" She put her arm around my shoulders giving me an affectionate squeeze. "It's okay to like Tristin; it's even okay to love him."

"Thanks Lil." I told her truthfully. It was moments like these when I thanked the heavens for Lilly. I don't know what I would do without her.

"Whoa slow down girl! Have you come to terms with your feelings?" She asked me.

I swallowed and closed my eyes for a second before looking over to where I knew Tristin was. I knew that my heart had already decided but I needed to know for sure. I got my answer plan and simple when my blue gaze landed on him.

They had been playing basketball and Tristin had just gotten a basket. He jumped up and splashed back down, holding his fist in the air like a trophy. An uncontrollable urge to smile came over me and I couldn't feel my heart speed up. When he looked over at me he smiled softly but when he winked I felt butterflies erupt in my stomach and this warmth spread through me.

"Yeah, I like Tristin." Finally admitting it was exhilarating and freeing. It felt like a weight had just been lifted off my heart.

"Yeah you do!" Lilly squealed grinning widely.


Hopefully you all liked this chapter.
Hugs and Kisses,
Ella.