An outing with Grace (part 4).

By this point there was so much I wanted to ask her. I wanted to know her hobbies, too, know a bit more about her family, and of course, ask her about the rumors. Asking that last one from the get go would be kind of inappropriate, wouldn’t it? So for now…

“Then… What about you? What are your hobbies?” Weirdly enough, I don’t think I could’ve asked that had Grace not asked first.

“I have a few. I like collecting stuffed animals, but I have to be picky or they’ll flood my room, haha! Then there’s… Okay, you won’t believe me, but I actually enjoy reading academic articles and papers.”

“Really?” I asked. “I mean, I believe it, but I wouldn’t have expected it.”

“I don’t read ANY academic papers, nor overly complex ones. Just the ones that seem interesting. Things like studies on social media use or motivation, engagement and achievement. After you said you played videogames, I found this undergrad thesis about using them as a tool for EFL teaching, and it was pretty neat.”

I was afraid to look stupid by asking what EFL was, but thinking I could look worse later by pretending to know, I asked anyway. “What’s EFL?”

“Oh. English as a Foreign Language,” she explained easily.

I almost face-palmed. Obvious in hindsight, isn’t it? Well, that aside, “Oh. That does sound interesting. Can you link it to me later?”

Grace blinked at me. “You… want to read it?”

“Try, at least,” I said sheepishly. “Academic language confuses me sometimes, but if it’s about games, then I might understand it a bit more.”

Grace smiled, took her phone and tapped it a few times. Then I heard my own phone buzzing. She’d already sent it to me. “Don’t feel **** to read it just because we talked about it, okay?”

I nodded.

“Well, there’s one last hobby I should tell you about…” Grace sighed and her cheeks reddened. “I did promise to tell you everything, after all.” Before I could even tell her that she didn’t need to say anything if she was embarrassed, she went and revealed the big secret. “I read a lot of erotica.”

…

…

Excuse me?

“E-Erotica?”

“Yep. Erotic literature.” She admitted with a straight face and a small grin, still looking at me. “Off-putting?”

“N-No! Not at all!” I told her immediately. “It’s just… even more surprising than the others.”

“I read a lot in general, and visual porn doesn’t really do it for me. At one point I discovered erotica and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

I could understand. “Imagining things is better than seeing them, right?”

“Exactly,” Grace giggled. “Professional porn can be a little gross. And sometimes I get really invested in the stories I read. Does… Does it really not weird you out?”

I shook my head. “It’s not like I’ve ever believed girls don’t have a libido. I just thought…” that she took care of it… in other ways.

Grace narrowed her eyes, like she was examining my expression, like she was trying to read my mind.

“I-It’s nothing,” I said, laughing awkwardly. “S-Say, should we get going?”

She looked at the time and her own expression eased up. “Yes, we should. My car is parked close. Let’s go.”

We finished eating and left the restaurant. I followed Grace to her car. It was red, compact and with four doors. The sporty sedan wasn’t as flashy as Mila’s car, but it didn’t need to be. Another point of contrast was that Grace’s car was squeaky clean both on the outside AND the inside.

“Mila cares about if her car looks cool more than anything else,” Grace told me, giggling. “I just need something to move around, and this one is easy on the gas. Looks nice, too, so that’s a plus.”

The drive to our next destination wasn’t very long, but it did take us to the outskirts of town. The moment I saw the huge rollercoaster in the distance, I had to ask.

“Are we… going to the amusement park?”

“Yep. No good with rides?” she asked me.

“I can manage.”

We were lucky to find a parking spot quickly. Even in such a huge lot, the place was packed with cars. People were trying to make the most out of the last days of summer, but I guess so were we.

The amusement park we were going into was big. The huge rides and ample spaces were the reason it was built further away from the city center. You pay a single ticket and you can spend the entire day there, going on as many rides as time allows.

“What do you say?” Grace asked me. “Up for it?”

“Yes,” I answered with a smile. “I haven’t been here in years.”

“Last time I came here I was too short for most rides. I should barely meet the minimum height now.”

I chuckled. “Same here.”

As we waited in line to pay for our tickets, Grace continued our little game. “Now that you mention it, you’re pretty short. Runs in the family?”

I nodded. “Mom is half-Korean, and from what I remember, my dad was short, too.”

“From… what you remember?”

“My dad passed away when I was eight. I don’t remember him very much.”

“I see. I’m sorry to bring that up.”

I chuckled. “It’s fine. And your family?”

“Divorced parents. I live with my dad,” she explained easily. “No siblings, but three younger cousins.”

We paid for our tickets and went into the amusement park. Seeing the hordes of people walking around, the bright, abundant colors and hearing the sounds of laughter and screams of excitement… It made me realize I was at an amusement park with Grace Valentine.

…

NOPE. Not a date. Remember. Not a date. Just two people, two… friends hanging out together. Don’t get carried away, Oliver. This was already more than I could ever wish for. Have you noticed how much I was talking? I felt safe talking to her, much like I did with Mila. Grace was asking me these questions and… she wasn’t judging me.

Grace then suddenly hooked her arm around mine and stood so close to me that our shoulders were touching. “So? Where do you want to go first?”

Not a date.

Not a date.