"You did ask Flash to call his uncle, right?" Judy asked as her and Nick were walking down the street.
"Yup. I stayed right by him as he made the call."
"How do you do that? How can you stay so patient while one of your best friends is a sloth?"
He shrugged, "I just can. Flash maybe slow but he's a fun guy to be around."
"And since we're going to the DMV where there are other sloths, we better take the subway giving us plenty of time to be there and back."
On the subway they sat together as the car moved and Nick decided to ask.
"So what did you mean by 'big things for the future'?"
"Well, like if I pass into the final year I have to think of my career."
"That's true, next semester I'm forced to take the CAT."
"The Career Aptitude Test?"
"Yup."
"What do you think you'll get?"
"No idea."
"Is there a certain career you want?"
"Not really."
"I don't know what career I want either. But you can bet it won't be a carrot farmer." She eyed him.
He ended up smiling, thinking about he kept telling her last year she would end up a carrot farmer after she failed school. Now he was grateful that didn't happen. He smirked and told her, "You know how I said you pushed me into my schoolwork?"
"Yeah?"
"Well it's obvious you had to push yourself to prove me wrong, so how much you wanna bet I'm the reason you get to skip next year."
She rolled her eyes but she couldn't help think that maybe some of that was true. His taunting had fueled her to work super hard last year and she managed to become one of the top students in her class if not the whole school! But she hasn't skipped over yet so she won't boost Nick's ego by admitting he was right.
Once at the DMV they met with Flash's uncle as she told him the plate number repeatedly. She was so anxious to get going but Nick looked unfazed by the slowness, she was amazed at how calm he was around sloths she wished she had his kind of patience.
It was past lunchtime when the sloth finished and said, "Here… you… go…"
"Thank you!" Judy grabbed the paper and hightailed out of there while Nick watched on amusement before giving thanks to his pal's relative and followed after her.
"I am staving!" she said once they were out the building.
"You're in luck; I know a quaint little restaurant nearby that gives the best meals."
Moments later he led her to an eatery called the Bella Notte restaurant. He held the door open for her as she playfully rolled her eyes but was secretly flattered by the gentlemanly gesture.
A small black feline waitress came up to them with a pearly smile and greeted Nick, "Buongiorno, Nicholas."
He chuckled, "Buongiorno, Isabella."
Judy suddenly felt uneasy of Nick knowing this pretty kitty but she kept a straight face on.
Nick gestured, "This is my friend, Judy from the All-Girls' school."
Judy extended her paw, "Nice to meet you."
Isabella took it and they shook, "Nice to meet you too," then asked Nick, "I take it you want a table for two then?"
"Yes, please."
"Follow me." she led them to a booth, once they sat down she gave them their menus, "I was kind-of surprised to see you, I thought after the last date you wouldn't come back for some time."
Judy raised a brow at Nick who gave a cheesy shrug and turned to Isabella, "Well, this isn't a date, just two friends having lunch together."
"But it's almost four." stated the cat.
"A late lunch then." he replied.
"Well, I have to get back to work but I'll give you two a few minutes to decide." and she went on.
Judy smirked, "Come here often?"
He gave a sheepishly grin, "Sometimes. It's a great place for first dates. Not that this is a date. But anyway, this was one of my favorite places to go to when I was little. My parents would bring me here all the time, then for awhile it was just me and my mom. This place was actually where they first met."
That peak her interest, "Really? How did they?"
"Well… my mom was sitting alone in a booth eating her dinner when a soaked to the bone fox suddenly sat down with her. It was raining that night and my dad was trying to get some place dry and when he spotted the restaurant and in the window was my mom. He told me how it was love at first sight for him."
"Awww…" Judy gushed.
"So he went in and sat across from the vixen and told her he hoped he wasn't being too forward but he couldn't help himself from the moment he laid eyes on her and said his name was William. Will for short. He asked for her name and she said it was Samantha. Now my mom had some guys hitting on her before so she was being careful of this fox that just suddenly came to her in the middle of her dinner but he seemed sincere enough.
"So with caution she tested him out, starting with questions that were easy to answer before giving out a hard one. Good news is my dad passed her little test with flying colors and started to be more open with him. So for their next few dates they came here. And eventually, they fell in love, got married, and had me."
"That's such a sweet story." then with concern in her voice she asked, "Is that why you bring dates here? Hoping you can have what your parents had?"
"Well, yeah. But my first date here didn't go so well so it wasn't the same love story as my parents' and I kept trying with other dates but it was the same result…"
"How sad… but… I'm here now so…"
"But it's not a date. We're just here because we missed lunch and are trying to get something to eat."
She looked into her menu, "Let's get something to eat then."
But suddenly a chubby black cat in a chef hat and apron busted out the kitchen and spotted them and quickly went over to give Nick a bone-crushing hug.
"Nicholas! How good to see you!"
Nick gasped out, "Good… to see… you, Tony…"
Judy gave a confused look as Nick said after he was free from the cat's grip, "This is Isabella's father, Carrots. He is the owner of restaurant and knew my parents."
"Indeed! They were my best customers and good friends! In fact their story is one I tell to all the young lovers that come into my restaurant. It's just so beautiful!"
"It sure is. Nick just finished telling it to me."
"And are you Nicholas' latest girl? Miss…?"
"Judy Hopps, sir, and well… while we're not currently dating, I think that's about to change soon…" she smiled at Nick when saying that.
He was a bit taken aback by that but it made him happy nevertheless.
Tony was smiling too. He had seen Nick's previous dates and none of them had smiled that way toward Nicholas. He leaned down to the fox's ear and whispered.
"She's sweet one. You take my advice and settle down with her."
Nick felt himself going hot and quickly said, "Ah, Tony! As long as you here, we can place our orders."
"No! You will do no such thing! Instead, I will give you a plate of spaghetti on the house!"
"Hey Tony, thanks!"
"Well, yes, thank you, but are you sure?" Judy questioned.
"I am sure!" the cat then went toward the kitchen shouting orders.
Nick smirked, "Good old Tony, when I was a kit he gave free food to me all the time. He even catered at my parents' wedding and my father's funeral."
"Such a nice guy, I'm glad you know him."
"You know talking about my parents makes me very curious about your parents."
"Well, you already know they're farmers."
"But how did they meet?"
"Well… my dad was making deliveries around the tri-burrows when he saw a car on the side of the road with a flat tire and this pretty bunny was trying to fix it. Mom always told me she grateful for that flat or else she never would had met the love of her life and have 276 offsprings with him."
"276?!" his eyes bulged out.
She rolled her eyes, "We were born in litters, Nicholas."
"Ah, that makes much more sense. Carry on."
"So Dad stopped to help and while he was fixing her flat, they introduced themselves and had a nice long chatter and when he was done she went turn on her car but it wouldn't start. Thou… Dad didn't know this until much later but it turned out Mom sabotaged her own ignition just so she could spend more time with him…"
Nick was shaking his head amusement, "This explains so much about you…"
"So Dad offered to ride her to town so they could get a tow truck. They really liked each other's company that they started courting."
"Aw, that was cute."
"Oh, that's not the end of the story, bud. When rabbits court, they have to go through many trials to prove they will be mates for life to their families."
"Like what?"
"Well, Dad had to earn my mother's father's approval just as Mom had to earn my dad's mom's approval. Winning over the future in-laws is an important family value to rabbits. As we tend to have large families, we tried to keep close as possible."
"Sounds a bit backwards to me, if two rabbits are deeply in love why do they need to earn approval from others?"
She gave a small smile, "As much as agreed on the whole love thing, but rabbits are clans and to start fighting with another clan is very bad, given in the tri-burrows we are a very large population and are a community, " she frowned, "partially why I was at those play dates with Ruby…"
"I know we shouldn't talk about this but what was that like? Growing up with someone you thought you knew but turned out to be so phony that you couldn't bear to look at them again?"
She sighed, "Ruby was the best friend I had… we did just about everything together… But then…" she couldn't bring herself to tell Nick about the prejudice that Ruby had against predators given he had his own experiences of mammals being bias to his mother.
"Then…?"
She hung her head, "There was… a weasel. He did nothing to provoke the attack in the first place, but Ruby didn't care. She and a couple of other kids that were prey as well were beating on the poor thing. So I stepped in and told her to back off and she said those awful things about predators being the enemy still, I broke off our friendship."
"Dang…" he uttered.
She looked up and saw the emotionless expression on his face.
"What about the cheating boyfriend? Was he like that too?"
"I'm not really sure. Roland and I never talked about predator and prey relations."
"Too busy smooching?" he asked before he stop himself and cringed, "Sorry. I didn't mean for that to come out."
She winced herself, "There were… some kisses here and there… but… they didn't have any spark to them. My parents told me that they had a spark when they had that first kiss."
"Really? My parents had a spark too."
She knew she was going to regret asking but she had to know, "Did you have that with any of your past dates?"
"No. I didn't. Some were willing to kiss on the first date some just got up and left."
"That's too bad. I bet you're one hell of a kisser."
He smirked at this, "That I am, Carrots. That I am."
Tony then appeared with the large plate of spaghetti, "Here it is! The best spaghetti in the whole city!" and set it before them.
They started eating and a few bites in they accidently forked the same strain and stared at each other in bewilderment.
Nick said, "You know, this reminds me of that old movie with the two dogs…"
Judy motioned, "Where they took both took a strain of spaghetti and end up kissing?"
"That's the one."
"I love that movie, it's so sweet."
He said with a suggestive grin, "Wanna reenact the scene?"
She smirked, "Nice try." and cut off her half of the strain and kept on eating.
After saying goodbye to Tony and Isabella, they headed to the subway and rode it back to their schools.
It was sunset as Judy held out the paper with the license plate they ran. The motorcycle was in the Rainforest Distract.
"That's going to be a ways from the academies so we can't go tomorrow without missing curfew." Nick said.
"We'll have to go this Saturday then."
"Alright."
"You might not see me until then, because I need to help Fru win the Snow Princess competition again and I got a couple of tests to study for."
"I got a History exam to do this week anyway and I have that first band rehearsal with the guys."
"Okay, see you Saturday." and she started making her way to inside when she turned around and smirked, "Oh, and by the way, I had a great time on our date." then she made a run for it.
Nick gapped but in the end he just smirked.