Read Online Collide by Alyson Kent - Free Book Online Page B

telling him we had a project to work on
when he gave me the hairy eyeball, he informed me that you had
‘gone to obtain sustenance in the eatery below, but shall return
momentarily’. I assumed he meant that you had gone to grab some
dinner from the shopping area on the other side of this park, and I
was right. By the way, does he always talk like that?”
    Akira was genuinely bemused, and I hid a
grin. I wondered if they had the same equivalent of an eccentric
old man over in Japan.
    “He does,” I said, amusement lacing my words.
“He’s very eccentric, has traveled all over the world and collected
books and other odds and ends. Most of what you saw in the store is
his personal collection.”
    “Huh.”
    “Haven’t you ever run into someone who would
talk in an overly formal way, or who maybe collects things that
would be considered odd by mainstream society?”
    “Well, there’s a few odd ball fashions like
the Lolita craze . .”
    “Is that the one where girls dress up to try
and resemble dolls?” I asked.
    “Yeah, that’s it,” Akira confirmed. “But I’ve
only ever run into someone who had an overly formal way of speaking
once, and that was an old college professor who came and gave a
guest lecture about wood block prints. His language was so archaic
we could only understand about one word out of a dozen. He was
extremely polite with his language, too, almost overly formal, I
guess.”
    “Well, there you go,” I said. “Mr. Baker just
likes to be extremely formal, that’s all. Probably has something to
do with his travels. ”
    By this time we had reached the other side of
the park and were surrounded by restaurants of all types. One good
thing about being a tourist destination is the wide variety of
eateries a person can enjoy. I headed straight for Sloppy Joe’s, a
hamburger joint that had been around for well over sixty years and
was extremely well known for their made to order burgers and
milkshakes. It also helped that they were fast, too, and had
quickly become one of the favorite weekend haunts for my fellow
peers and other people that tended to worship all things surgery
and greasy. I’m not really sure what I thought Akira was going to
do, but he surprised me by following me into the diner and settling
down in the booth across from me.
    “Why are you surprised?” he asked. “We have
work to do, and I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
    “Sorry, for some reason I didn’t think you
were planning on eating with me. No idea why, it’s only logical
that you would,” I said as I pulled a menu over and glanced at it,
even though I knew exactly what I was going to get. “Brain fart, I
guess.”
    “Brain farts aside, I’ve never eaten here.
What would you recommend?”
    “Really?” I asked. “I figured one of your
teammates or f-friends would have brought you here before now, it’s
practically a historical monument to all that’s greasy and good and
is extremely popular.”
    I flushed a little over my stutter at the
word “friends”. I had almost said “fangirls”, and I’m not too sure
how well that would have gone over, because he really did seem
unaware of the groupies even if he wasn’t oblivious to his affect
on the female populace. It was a never-ending oxymoron, though I
suspected that his unawareness of the situation was carefully
cultivated and not quite as genuine as he’d like the rest of the
student body to believe.
    “No, at least half of the team are major
health nuts and the rest of them don’t hang around much once
practice is over. They’re too interested in catching up to their
girlfriends for quality time.”
    He wagged his eyebrows a little at “quality
time”, and I made a face in response.
    “Well, I always get the mushroom Swiss burger
with a chocolate shake, which, as far as I’m concerned, is nothing
less than the most heavenly ambrosia you could ask for. Toss in
Joe’s famous seasoned steak fries and oh maaaaaan,” I moaned. I
immediately