Judy was having a hard time looking at the unclothed deer that was having yoga exercises with other unclothed mammals. In fact, the yak that let them in was bare as well and she had to muster every fiber of her being from running away then. She probably would have if Nick wasn't by her side right now and would have never heard the end of it.
Donna wasn't much help anyway. The moment Nick asked her about the motorcycle and the seat covers she told them she was having a hard time remembering given she had short-term memory loss.
Judy asked, "So you really have no memory of the motorcycle?"
Donna-being a bit on the ditsy side-replied, "Yep, sorry about that."
Nick questioned, "And your friends didn't bother telling us this, why?"
"They could have forgotten themselves or they did it just to annoy you, they're funny that way."
Nick snidely replied, "Oh, yes, we're laughing on the inside." he faced his girlfriend who smacked her forehead and could tell what she was thinking. This was a complete dead end. The culprit was still nowhere in sight and they were right back where they started.
Judy turned to go, "Well, thank you for your time, Ms. Stagwell, we'll just see ourselves out and…" she stopped short when she spotted a familiar tiger across the pool, "Oh… my…" she covered her mouth in shock.
Nick saw what she was looking at and ended up gapping, "Is that…?"
Mr. Stripe was wearing nothing as he conversed with other nude mammals and ended looking toward where Judy and Nick were making his face sagged and went over.
"Ms. Hopps. I'm surprised to see you here."
Judy flushed, "I'm a bit surprise to see you here as well, Mr. Stripe."
"I hope you'll keep this between us. This is just my way of dealing with the stress in my life when it gets to be too much."
"I get that." she responded.
"So, how are you enjoying winter break?"
"Fine. Nick and I have been cracking down on the case."
"Oh, yes. Headmistress Bellwether told me about that, how's that going?"
"Sorry, but we're only allow to tell our findings to the deans."
"Understood. Well, keep up the good work." he gave a thumbs up and when back to his friends.
"So, Carrots, thinking of calling Mr. Stripe: Mr. Strip from now on?" Nick gloated the minute they were outside the club.
Judy's face burned from anger and embarrassment. I just can't believe a civilized teacher like that could ever…
"At least I don't have to worry anymore about you swooning over him in class."
She glowered at her boyfriend, "I never swooned over him in class."
"It sure looked that way when you were performing the balcony scene with him."
"It's called acting, sweetheart. And why would I be attracted to him when I was already moony-eyed for someone else at the time?" she smirked.
"I'm hoping that someone else was me, Fluff."
She kept smirking, "I guess you'll never know." she moved forward.
He thought to himself, Oh, so that's how you want to play, Carrots, fine. We'll play… with a smirk he called out, "Alright, Carrots, if you want to play hardball, we'll play hardball!"
She stopped and turned her head back with intrigue. What is it her fox has planned? Suddenly in one swift move he pressed his lips to hers with his tongue licking on them asking for entrance. She tried pushing away since they were in public but he kept on kissing. She knew he wasn't going to break away from this easily and let his tongue into her mouth, but he wasn't going to enjoy it for long as she bit on it.
"Ow!" he moved back and held his tender tongue.
"Serves you right," she crossed her arms, "For gosh sakes, Nick, we're in public!"
He mumbled something that she couldn't understand.
"What was that?"
He held his tongue while mumbling, "Nothing. Nothing at all."
The expression on her face told him she didn't buy it but decided to let it go for now. She then suggested, "Let's get some ice cream to help with that silver tongue of yours and then how about hitting the arcade afterwards?"
He smiled and nodded.
"But no more kissing like that, got it?" she eyed him.
He held his paw up meaning he meant nothing but goodwill and nodded.
They stopped at Jumbeaux's Café where they got the junior size ice-cream sundae that was still huge by a small mammal's perspective but the couple didn't mind sharing a bowl since there was plenty of ice-cream to be had.
Judy smirked, "How's the tongue, Slick?"
"It would be better if you got me a jumbo-pop to go with it." he twitched his brow.
She rolled her eyes, "And you can't buy it yourself, why?"
He grinned sheepishly, "Because I forgot my wallet at home?"
She sighed, and went straight to the counter to buy the large jumbo-pop. She struggled carrying it over but managed to get over to the booth where she and her boyfriend were sitting. She glared at him, "Satisfied?"
"Very." he grinned and took the large popsicle.
She frowned, "You're not going to eat that are you?"
"Am I? No. No, I am not." he smirked.
"So I wasted fifteen dollars for nothing?"
"Not nothing. Come on, I'll show you."
They made it to a run-down apartment complex and were heading down to the basement.
Judy asked, "Where are we?"
"My home." he stated, "when I was younger, my parents and I lived in a townhouse until… you know."
She gave a single nod not wanting to bring up Nick's painful memories of his father's death.
"It wasn't for the trust fund, we never would have met."
She slightly smiled thinking how true that was. And it was also true that if she never heard of Zootopia's All-Girls' Academy she never would have met Nick otherwise.
He kept speaking, "I thought giving my mom the fund would be the best thing for us but now… I'm glad that wasn't true." He stopped at a large freezer fit for the larger mammals. He got on a stepladder and opened it up.
Judy hopped up to another stepladder and looked inside the freezer seeing other jumbo-pops in it. She gave her boyfriend a confused look who merely had a smirk on his face as he set the jumbo-pop he had with the rest of them and went down and began explaining.
"It's a hobby of mine. I got the idea when I was twelve. I would melt down jumbo-pops to make smaller versions of popsicles called "pawsicles"."
"Wait… didn't you do something like that in the dream?"
"Yup, but there some minor differences, first off I don't sell my creations off, I keep them to myself." he moved to a sunlamp and turned it on, "I use this to melt the jumbo-pops," he grabbed a glass container, "then I pour the liquid in this," he moved to a shelf in the corner and grabbed a mold of a small pawprint and pointed out he had several like them, "Then I pour them in this and put the stick in before putting it in the freezer right here." he pointed to a refrigerator that was size appropriate for them. He shrugged, "It's that simple."
"That's… pretty clever." she smirked.
He gave a dismissive wave, "No big deal, really."
"Speaking of big deals, how's your band coming along? Did you finally get a hold of playing your guitar right again?"
"Not yet, given things got busy in the last week of the semester. But once we get back, I'll be practicing harder than ever." He gave a slight frown, "What about you? Going to patch things up with Dawn?"
Her ears drooped from hearing her estranged friend's name, "I hope so, providing she'll let me near her enough to talk."
"And if you can't?" concern filling his voice.
She sighed, "Then… I guess our friendship is over with."
There was a pause before he said, "You told me she felt jealous from her mother seeming to favor you in school but I don't think you told me what caused her to think like that. You've been going to school together for almost two years so why now would she feel this way?"
Judy gave another sigh, "I wasn't sure if I should tell you this but the day the headmistress told me about possibly skipping was also when she offered an opportunity for me to attend an independent study program giving me a chance to get head start on the career of my choice."
He let out a low whistle, "That's a pretty big deal."
"The problem is, it requires me being away for a semester and if I skip a grade next year…"
His eyes widen realizing what she meant.
She gave a slight nod, "That won't give us much time to be together before graduation not to mention my friends. She's giving me until the spring."
He touched his chin in thought, "That doesn't give you much time to decide."
"And if Dawn is right about her mother preferring me over her then it just shows how much my headmistress wants me to succeed. I hate to let her down but at the same time I don't want to go so far away from you, Fru, and Giselle."
He questioned, "Do you really want to go?"
She stood quiet before uttering, "Well… I wouldn't mind it, and it would be a great help for when I try to become a police officer."
He pondered on that. He knew from experience how hard foxes can get employment and even when they did, their employers still had a tint of distrust toward them and with Judy trying to become the first rabbit officer ever, her grades alone won't get her the connections she'll need. At least with this program there was a shot of doing that.
She voiced, "I still have to apply so chances are I won't get accepted."
He made a small scoff, "I seriously doubt that." and gave a smirk.
She felt at ease knowing her boyfriend wasn't as upset as she thought he would be.
He continued by saying, "We'll make it work, Fluff. You can call me every night before you go to sleep. We can still date on the weekends, I'm sure even in an independent study program you're allowed to have time off to relax."
"So does this mean…?"
He took her paws, "I want you to apply. It's a good thing for you and I want you to take it."
"Would you'd have?"
"In a second." he stated.
Her eyes lit up as the idea struck her so quickly, "You should apply, too!"
"What?!" he shouted out in genuine surprise.
"Think about it, Nick, we're both thinking of going into law enforcement and we'll likely be seniors next year so we need to spend time together as much as possible. Especially if we'll end up married and starting a life toget-"
He held his paws up, waving, "Whoa! Whoa! Stop hitting the fast forward button, Carrots! You're getting way ahead of yourself."
Her face sagged in worry, "Do-do you not want to marry me?"
He gave a stun look as if she asked such a ridiculous question, he sighed and held her paw up to his face where he kissed it and softly said, "Of course I do… Ever since our kiss at the ball I knew you were the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with…"
She was on the verge of crying for joy.
"I just think we need to slow down, much like how we almost gave in to our urges on Clawsmas. But there's still so much you don't know about me and there's lots I don't know about you…"
She gave a small sniffle and wiped her eyes before asking, "Would you like to go first?"
He smiled as he started leading her out of the basement, "I'll tell you on the way to the arcade, and then, you can tell me all about you when we go for pizza. Sounds good?"
She smiled brightly and nodded before taking his paw and they walked out of the building paw-in-paw.
AN: Now that I'm getting closer to the Battle of the Bands competition, some more song suggestions would be helpful. Thank you.