Page 13 of Up All Night
“I love Turkish and Russian. I listen to music from Tukey and Russia because I love how it sounds.” I wasn’t lying, either. Check out my Turkish pop music playlist on Spotify sometime. “But I think Spanish is the most beautiful language.” I have a problem with it, honestly. It does things to me. Terribly wonderful things.
Yet Hadrian made a semi-disgusted face. “Spanish is not good. Does not sound nice.”
“Really?”
“Yes, yes. Italian is more better.”
Well, at least he wasn’t going on about French. I had a bit of disdain for it at the time.
“Do you study English?”
“I try to speak English when I can, but it is hard to study.” He typed into the translator again. I couldn’t help but notice he was translating from both Greek and Kurdish. Later, he would tell me he was half Kurdish, his family having immigrated to Greece by way of Turkey. My love for geography got a heavy workout that night – and here I thought memorizing all the prefectures of Japan was an amazing feat. By the end of that night, I had refreshed my entire recollection of not only the Mediterranean but parts of the Middle East as well. “I speak some at work. And Italian. I learn Italian from work.”
“Wow. The Italian restaurant?”
“Yes, I work with Italian food. Some…” He punched something into his phone. When I saw it again, it said“Mediterranean fusion.”Fancy.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes. I want to work with Italian restaurants in America.”
“Really?”
“Yes!” Hadrian had a gorgeous smile. The kind that makes a girl hope that he’s putting his smile all over her by the end of the night. “Right now I get visa to go to America. This January, I go.”
“Wow.”
“So I must practice my English. You help me practice, yes?” He drank the last of his beer. I had barely touched my wine. I needed it now, no matter how bitter and sour it was. (And it was quite a bit of both.)
Because let me tell you… “help me practice my English” is the death blow to any relationship in Japan. Ask any ex-pat and they’ll give you a ton of stories about how they thought they were on a date or made a friend only to find out they were used for free English lessons. So far tonight, Hadrian hadn’t even flirted with me. Oh, he ordered a drink and food for me, but he hadn’t…flirted.When I thought about it, our messages weren’t flirty on his end either.
So for the next few minutes, I tried not to panic. I tried not to fall into the trap of thinkingthis guy wants to practice his English on me. He has no romantic or sexual interest in me.A tad crestfallen. That was me. I needed to shut down any fantasies I had about this man, but they were not going to happen. I had to prepare myself for that, like I had to prepare myself for him acting like a damn man in every area of lifebutthe one I wanted.
Which happened when the waitress brought our food over. French fries and margherita pizza? Nice. I could do those. The salad also looked pretty delicious… until Hadrian went ahead and poured the accompanying dressing all over it without asking me first.
I hate dressing. Salad dressing is something that should have never been invented, but I digress. As I had forced myself to do many times when in the presence of new people, I accepted every piece of food, including those I knew would make me sick. I would at least try it, damnit.
(It was as bad as I feared. First, bitter ass wine, and now dressing-drenched salad that made me wanna barf.)
Hadrian tried it too. His face was as bad as mine.
“Oh… oh, it’s not good.”
At least we could agree on that.
He hailed the waitress and got a second beer. I was still working on my wine without minding how quickly I drank it. Pretty soon, I would not be moving like a normal person, but I didn’t know that yet.
“So what do you do?”
Oh, boy. My favorite question in the whole world.
I don’t usually lie about my profession, unless I have a feeling the person is going to be a huge ass about it. I didn’t get that impression from Hadrian, but how the hell did I explain what I did for a living to someone who wasn’t the best at English? Nuances, you know.
“I write books.”
“Books?”
“Yeah. You know, stories.”
