Page 75 of Tough Call

A blonde woman still had on her oversized sunglasses, and both she and I learned very quickly why Roy had advised us to leave them in the car: a small monkey jumped onto her shoulder, snatched the glasses off her face, and disappeared into the bushes. She squawked in protest, but the sunglasses were history.

Mine and Madars’ were still safely in the van. Roy was getting an extra tip, that was for sure.

“Look.” Madars pointed past me. “There’s a baby.”

I turned, and sure enough, a baby monkey that couldn’t have been more than eight inches tall had perched on the windshield of one of the vans. He was fascinated with one of the wipers, and was inspecting it with his tiny, nimble fingers.

Beside me, Madars grunted and stumbled a step.

When I looked at him—oh.

One of the larger monkeys was partly on his shoulder, partly on his head. Madars was vibrating with laughter but obviously trying to stay as still as possible so as not to jostle the monkey.

Laughing, I snapped some photos.

“Please don’t crap on me,” he murmured. “Please, please don’t crap on me.”

“I could give him some water,” I offered.

Madars flipped me off, and I snorted. A few people around us gasped and turned. Some took photos. Others seemed terrified, as if the monkey was going to attack Madars.

To his credit, Madars just stayed perfectly still apart from giving me the bird. I noticed him glancing at Roy a few times, as if gauging our guide’s reaction. Roy stayed calm and gestured for Madars to do the same, which he did.

The monkey played with Madars’ hair, leaving it messy and spiky in places. Then something caught its attention, and it leaped off his shoulder, sending Madars stumbling a couple of steps.

“Holy shit,” he laughed as he regained his balance. “They’re a lot heavier than they look!”

“I bet.” I turned my phone screen so he could see it. “And I got some great shots!”

He leaned in, and we thumbed through the photos. I was going to have to get some prints of these, too. He was laughing in every one, and the monkey just seemed to be enjoying itself, playing with his hair and looking around.

Madars chuckled and ran his fingers through his hair, rearranging it back into order. “Can you send those to me? My mom will love them”

“Without context? Because that would be hilarious.”

With a wicked grin, he said, “Ooh, good idea.”

“He didn’t mess on you, did he?” Roy asked.

Madars’ eyes went wide. “Wait, they really do that?”

Roy laughed. “They’re monkeys. What do you expect?”

Madars and I exchanged glances. I didn’t know about him, but prior to today, I’d had no idea what to expect from a monkey. I still didn’t, other than apparently stealing sunglasses, playing with windshield wipers, and jumping on—as well as shitting on—random people.

“I guess we learn something new every day,” I murmured to Madars.

He just laughed, unaware of what that smile did to me every single time.

And yeah, I did learn something new every day.

In particular, how much harder I could fall for this sweet, gorgeous man.

After our tour, Roy dropped us off at the end of Gibraltar’s high street. We paid him, tipped him generously, and then wandered off in search of lunch. There was some more historical stuff down here, too, but we were hungry, so we kept walking.

As we passed by a small church, Madars said, “I toured that one last time I was here. It used to be a mosque—the last holdout before the Moors were pushed out of Spain.”

I whistled. “That sounds like some dark history.”