Page 67 of Mayhem
Once their paintings dried, they returned the easels to the booth, took their paintings and supplies to the car, and placed them in the trunk. Erin then asked Paetyn if he would walk around the park with her.
They walked hand in hand around the large park, avoiding children playing as they ran by, and Erin had to try her hardest not to laugh at a little girl who was irritated with her brother as they played tag. He continued to target her and not the other kids playing with them.
"So, what made you want to major in hospitality?" Erin asked as they walked up the steps to the pavilion.
"My father and Lena own a bed and breakfast, and when I was younger, I enjoyed helping out during the summers. I knew I wanted to go into business for myself and be my own boss when I graduated, so a business management degree made sense to complement it."
"You double majored?" she asked, and when Paetyn nodded, she bumped him with her hip. "Overachiever," she teased.
"You know what they say. Anything worth having is worth working and waiting for."
"Touché."
Erin lifted Paetyn's arm and looked at his watch. They'd been at the park for a few hours, and it was going on five forty-five. It would take them a few minutes to walk back to the car, and by the time they got to the restaurant, it would be after six. She typically didn't eat that early, but she hadn't eaten lunch and planned for them to go dancing afterward.
"Come on, let's head to dinner," Erin stated as she led the way back to the car.
Once again, Paetyn opened the door for her and fastened her seatbelt before getting in behind the wheel. As he pulled out of the parking space, Erin turned to look at him.
"Since I'm still learning about the city and restaurants, will you choose where we have dinner?"
"Is there anything you have a taste for?"
Erin shook her head when he glanced at her. "Not in particular."
Paetyn nodded, and she turned back in her seat, turning up the radio a bit as a song she liked came on.
Erin sat beside Paetyn as they waited for their meals to come out. They'd shared an appetizer, and he was currently using his middle finger to draw circles on her knee as she told him about being a military brat and all the different places she stayed untilher mother decided she wanted to put down roots in Florida when she was eleven. They'd discussed this before, but she always told them something new.
She found herself growing quiet as she thought about it. It never failed that thinking about their settling down made her sad because she couldn't help but wonder if they hadn't done that, would her sister still be alive? She'd died almost two years after they had, a few months before Erin's thirteenth birthday. Paetyn squeezed her knee, and she figured he could sense her mood had slightly changed.
"How many other languages did you learn due to moving so much?" he questioned in Spanish.
"Two that I can speak fluently. Though one is thanks to Chayse in part, and two, I can converse in, I wouldn't say I'm fluent. I also haven't spoken them in a while, and one that I would probably butcher at this point," she responded in kind.
"What are they?"
"Spanish and French fluently. Japanese and Korean conversationally, and I butcher Russian. We weren't stationed there, but I wanted to learn something new, and I just let it go because I didn't have a good teacher or resources at the time."
Paetyn chuckled. "If you know the basics of Russian, you can get Cruz to teach you Polish. It isn't the same, but they're both Slavic languages, so there are some similar fundamentals."
"Like what?" Erin asked, switching back to English.
"Cruz calls you Maly. In Russian, it's malen'kiy."
"You speak Russian?"
"Not at all. I'm on the butcher bus with you," Paetyn chuckled, and Erin joined in. "But I do speak Polish conversationally. It's hard not to pick it up or learn it when you live with two native speakers. Sort of, in the same way they picked up Spanish."
Erin nodded as their server returned with their food. He sat the steak down in front of Paetyn and passed her plate between them, placing it in front of her. He asked if he could get them anything else, and Paetyn asked him to wait a moment.
"Can I, baby?" he asked, gesturing to her plate, and Erin nodded.
He slid his plate aside, picked up his fork and knife, and cut into her fish. Paetyn pushed the two pieces apart and turned them so the server could see them.
"This fish is undercooked."
"I can assure you, it's fully cooked. That's the way cod looks when it's cooked to perfection."
