The Aspiring Marine Biologist [Perrentes]

Chapter Five: Pleasant Surprises

AN: This will probably be super short, I'm so sorry. It's just to get me back into the writing mood! With that being said, I apologize in advance if it's kinda crappy. I haven't flexed my writing muscles in a looong time. Nevertheless, I'm excited to be doing it again! Photo credit: https://goo.gl/JAXNMW

Well, this is awkward. 

Vic raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Yes I know him Mikey, don't you remember anyone from high school?! Why so surprised?"

Tony, who was still in the hallway holding a guitar, promptly put it down with a sigh and joined me at Vic's bar.

I added my own sigh. "He's my new intern at my work."

"Ahh! I see!" Vic yelled over his blender. He's making his classic spiked smoothies. It's basically a straight fruit smoothie, but with some kind of alcohol involved.

"If I'm interrupting, I can go!" Tony bellowed.

"No no Tone, you stay! My brother here is just uptight, but he'll come around!" 

Vic cut off the blender, poured our drinks, and slid Tony his first. "Mmm, sweet and spikey. Just the way I like them!" Tony complimented.

I held back a comment of disgust. How would someone, knowing they have a crucial job to do tomorrow, possibly even think let alone want to entertain alcohol?

Vic slid me a drink as well. "And for youuuuu hermano"
I eyed the drink, and eyed Vic, giving him that 'you really think in gonna drink that?' Look.

He apparently got the memo. "Hermano. I did not invite you over to be an uptight stranger. If you don't want to have fun, you can go back to your own casa while Tony and I here have fun!" He shot Tony a look, who smiled back but didn't comment.

I pondered with this in my mind for awhile. I was just given the chance to get out while I can, so why am I still sitting at this bar?

"When you decide, you may come join us on the couch." Vic said, walking around the marble bar and into his living room.

I'm sorry. Tony mouthed to me as he followed Vic. At least he shows some kind of empathy for my obvious discomfort of his presence. I decided that I'd take a few sips of Vic's drink, and observe how Tony is outside of work. even though I doubt it'll change. If he's obnoxiously frivolous in the work place, I expected an even more, drunk obnoxiously frivolous Tony now.

I walked into Vic's living room, which is not even a separate room. Although Vic isn't an architect, he has a pretty amazing architectural eye. When you walk into his door, the first thing is the bar on the left. It's a smooth white marble, with white glass decor hung up around. His floors are mahogany brown, and he has a huge white carpet covering them in the living room, which is right in front of you from the door. The living room has a wide, taupe U shaped couch. The coffee table is also mahogany, and littered with music and guitar magazines. Parallel to the middle of the U couch is his flat screen, with various gaming consoles hidden away neatly in the shelves under. Finally, to the right of the TV is a sitting area with more taupe colored throw pillows and decor. Needless to say, his house is commodious and captivating. No matter how much I don't exactly like being here, at least it's very aesthetically appealing.

I joined the two on the couch-being careful to seat myself at the opposite end of the U.

"So Tony, what do you want to watch?" My brother asked, turning on Hulu.

Tony smiled shyly. "Well, I was actually hoping to show you footage of what we did last week at my internship. If... that's okay with you, Mike?"

My expression lifted. "Yeah, go for it." 

He  squealed in zeal and went to attach his camera to a cord connecting it to the TV. Soon enough, a video of him and William appeared, walking down on the San Diego beach where the hatching site was.

William looked bewildered with the camera he was holding, asking Tony if he was recording or not. Tony to which confirmed, and they kept walking. 

Throughout all of this, real time Tony was explaining the feelings he encountered on this job. At first I was annoyed because I simply didn't care, but as video Tony and William began seeing the young turtles traveling towards shore, real time Tony began spouting facts about them like nobody's business.

"Did you know turtles have a class three survivorship curve, meaning a lot of them die early on but thrive in adulthood? Did you know that turtles are semelparous , meaning they have a ton of offspring at once, in hopes that most of them survive to carry on the parents' genotypes, even with no parental care whatsoever? Did you know that turtles most closely represent the third class of animal demographics, which is randomly spaced out and predominantly solitary?..."

And he kept going. At first, again, I found myself irritated with his nonstop speech. But then I started listening. These are the kinds of facts that someone with no passion would not be able to reiterate. And if they could, it's a high chance they'd be wrong. But Tony was right. I listened to him go on and on and on. It became obvious that we lost Vic in biological jargon awhile ago, but my brother was being friendly and nodded his head along anyway. 

After awhile the video shut off and Tony began showing us his favorite pictures from the job. 

"And, my personal favorite, here's this little guy." Tony changed the picture.

I couldn't believe it. Tony managed to lay down (without killing his camera with sand!) and capture a macro portrait of one of the turtles digging it's way through the sand.

I looked at him, and he was already staring back, waiting for my comment. "Tony, I want you to edit that and send it to me. It's going on our company's website."