• Zach •

"Your aunt's got you VIP access… so you can get in all the rides without waiting in line." Nice, nice, but I'm still fucking tired as shit. That's why I'm laying in this bed, on my phone, headphones on, trying to get them to take a hint and leave me the fuck alone. I could even feel my eyelids get heavy and my body relax into the bed.

"Let's go," Gray urged. I growled in response,

"Dude, she said we had to wait."

"I don't wanna wait anymore!" He pulled open the blinds to let enough sunshine to kill a vampire bat. I groaned at the blinding light hitting my eyes.

It was that stupid lil' assistant that forced us to leave. We just walked in not five minutes ago and she telling us we needed to leave already. Like, excuse me, but do you not fucking see the bags under my eyes?! Of course, not having the energy to fight her, I just had to go with it.

Gray lead the way out with the wonderfully stupid and preppy whatsherface to the too-warm-and-crowded-for-Zach outside world. Wait what was her name again? Zazoo? No that's from The Lion King. Fuck, what's hers? Wait, why do I care?

The hotel was situated on one side of the large pool in the center of the park. It wasn't long to get on the path to the main part of the park, but, from the looks of it, it's gotta' a 20 minute walk to get there. Fuck me. Not only was walking torturing enough, we had to walk by all the amenities that the hotel offered; the pool, the spa, the … boys. Fuck me, but now it's the fun way, at least.

Through the constant conversations of the crowd, a voice boomed over the intercoms.

"Get your raincoats on, everyone! The Mosasaurus exhibit and feeding will take place again in exactly one hour!"

"Oh. My. Gosh! Canwego, canwego, canwego!?" Gray tugged at my sleeve, but I pulled away with a rough jerk.

"Gray, no, we have to go meet aunt Claire first."

The loud speaker continued, "Proper attire, including shoes and shirts, must be worn at all times." Through the loudness of the world around us, the one with the weird name spoke up. "Your aunt arranged to meet you at 1:00," she said not bothering to look up from her phone. Fuck, what was her name!? Za? Zaro? Zantac? Heh, Zantac. I'll call her that.

As we neared the main road (I guess that's what it would be called), Gray began to speed up. A lot. She tried to keep up with him and stupidly clomped all over the place with her heels.

My eyes began to wander to everywhere except where I was supposed to be going. And I mean, goddamn, the guys here are just stunning. The entire world is represented here. I'm seeing more backgrounds here than I ever would have back home. Shit, the closest I ever got was the one time we went on vacation to the Jersey Shore and I saw so many backgrounds of off-season white trash.

I don't know if it's the exhaustion or the lack of bathing over the past 16-something hours, but as someone as sexually repressed as I am, this environment is driving me up a wall and not in the fun way, either. Dirty thoughts entered my mind and there was no stopping them. The boys were just so damn cute. That random thought that popped into my mind on the boat came back: I just want a fling here. Yeah, well, maybe I might go to the other direction and just be the absolute biggest slut I could be. I've never been with a guy, but I'd be willing to bet that, with as many as there are here, I could finally, finally, get some.

The only thing keeping me from them is the cock-block known as Gray. Well, and my lack of confidence, but mostly Gray!

"Let's go!" Gray urged.

"Dude, chill." I finally caught up to Gray on the steps of the Innovation Center after that greuling walk. We walked in and I looked around to see if there's any more prime boy-toys to look at. I spotted a few, but it wasn't like I was going to do anything about it. Then the charming voice over the intercom tore me away from the lust.

"Welcome to the Innovation Center, where technology meets prehistory." And that's when it hit me.

Gray! Where is that little shit?!

Worry made my stomach drop in a second and I rushed into a sheer adrenaline high. My eyes bolted everywhere looking for him. The intercom and my panicked thoughts did not help.

"...can go horn-to-tooth with the apex predators."

He'd better show up and never fucking do this again.

"Literally meaning "three-horned face" in Greek …"

There's so much people. He's almost as good as gone.

"… Triceratops is half as tall as T. rex."

Oh my god, what have I done …?

"… as one-hundred trillion tons of TNT."

I'm the worst brother ever.

"...turn its head back to look over its shoulder to better aim the swing of its dangerous tail."

I can't believe I was that mean to … wait ….

"Gray," I gasped softly, seeing finally that brown hair. I heard that sweet, little voice as he was doing whatever he was doing.

"Cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine. The same four things in everything that ever lived."

I was so relieved that it hurt. I let out a sigh and went up to him, tapping his shoulder with a cold, shaking finger.

"H-Hey," I sputtered. "don't wander off, all right? Mom's not paying me for babysitting," I said, swallowing the hard lump in my throat. Gray looked up at me with those beady, innocent eyes and a smile. Fuck, I feel so guilty. A voice directed at us broke through the crowd. Suddenly, my guilt was replaced with that good ol' Mitchell family resentment.

"Gray, is that you?" Gray shouted after it,

"Aunt Claire!" He took off towards her on top of the staircase in the center of the pyramid. She made her way down, hanging up on whoever she was talking too. Yeah, sure, she's busy, busy, busy. Gray ran up and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

"Hi," he said. Aunt Claire barely hugged him back.

"Oh, my gosh, you're so sweet." She tried to pry him off and was successful, but she turned to me. Oh no.

"Whoa, Zach. Last time I saw you, you were like …" she faded. "That must've been — what — three, four years ago? Wow, too caught up in your ego?

"Seven. Seven years, but, you know, close."

Yeah, sure. Real close. What were you doing all those years, whoring your way to the top like dad once said?

Wow, I need to stop. I'm doing my best to be nice, I swear! But no one is nice when they're this tired. She went on, "I see you already got your wristbands. And this is for food," she handed us another wristband. "And Zara here is going to take great care of you … until I'm done working tonight, okay?"

Zara, okay okay okay, I got it.

"You're not coming with us?" Gray said, disappointedly. It even hurt me to hear him say it like that. Probably just because I almost lost him, but still! Of course, with my current mood, the hurt didn't last a while.

Wait, I lost it. Zantac it is.

"I really wish that I could, but … tomorrow I can take you into the control room … show you behind the scenes and all of that. That's gonna be cool, right?" Her eyes widely met mine while she said that, as if to ask if she was saying the right thing. Gray gave a disappointed nod and looked away. Nice aunt-ing, Claire. "Okay, so I will see you tonight at 6:00." Zantac cut in and shook her head.

"No, no, no. Don't forget you have the …."

"Right, of course." Claire went on. "I will see you tonight at 8:00. What time do you go to sleep? Or do you go to sleep at different times?" Gray and I were silent, exchanging a glance. Claire went all totally awkward (as if she wasn't already). "Okay, so, have fun … and take very good care of them, okay?"

Zantac nodded and Claire gave us a goodbye and left. You'd have to be a new level of stupid to not notice the disappointment on Gray's face. Fuck, I have to put my big brother face on don't I? Ughhhhhhh.

"Zach …" Gray asked, weakly. "is aunt Claire going to see us today?" I sighed,

"Yeah did you not just hear her?"

"Oh … okay," he awkwardly shifted around before going on. "Does aunt Claire care about us?"

"I don't know, Gray, does it look like she does? She obviously can't make time for us, so she obviously doesn't. C'mon, let's go. We don't fucking need her …."

Everything seemed to get harder and harder today. Keeping up with Gray, dealing with Claire and Zantac, the worst sleep depravity I've ever felt, and, probably worst of all, being surrounded by Even getting up and down the stairs seemed to be a hard labor for me. I was so tired and apathetic that I was just ready to keel over and die ….

And then I saw him.

I don't know how a stranger like him captured me in a single second, but he made me freeze right in my tracks. This boy was stunning. Absolutely stunning. And not just that, there was something else about him that just drew me to him. Like this connection …. He stood a few inches shorter than myself with a sharp jawline, adorable nose, perfect eyebrows, and dark, curly hair. Not like messed-up home perm curly, either, like perfect, long coils in a haircut that framed his face so well. And he's got those deep blue eyes. Why the fuck is blue my favorite color?! And his black jeans? Tight black jeans. Jeans I just wanna rip off ….

I was spending what energy I had on memorizing his face. His gaze seemed fixed on the woman in front of him. His piercing, and I mean piercing, blue eyes were only on her. It looked intense and his eyes seemed to glisten. They were ...? Oh my god, oh my god, he's tearing up!

My body suddenly moved forward, not knowing what the fuck I was doing, I was just reacting. I even bumped into a couple of people on my way there trying to pass them. My steps were quickening and my breathing even did, too, just from the sheer anxiety rising in my chest. I was getting close, just ten feet away, but, the next thing I know, he's handed a piece of paper and is off into the crowd, disappearing in seconds. I held my breath in those few seconds before my heart dropped. He was gone; just like that. I wanted to chase after him. To be that stranger who comforts anyone who is sad or crying. To thank me, his hero, he sucks my ….

After that thought crossed my mind, it was time for Big Zach to stop before it became obvious what his thoughts were about with the obvious appearance of Lil' Zach. Hm, maybe my intentions in doing this weren't the most pure.

I tore myself away from him and caught up with Gray and Zantac, but there was no way he was going to leave my mind any time soon.

Revision note: y'know, in my last note before this revision, I mentioned how I wanted to laugh at Zach. Yeah, still stands.

I'm also thinking that I'll change a fair bit in the next chapter. From my recent brainstorming sessions (aka when my mind checks out during the day) I think the revisions from here will have more drastic changes to the plot.