<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #4080FF">'Assuming you're a local' - how adorable!</span></span> Alannah laughed softly. Dimitri. Funny name. He didn't look Slavic to her at all - not that she had met many Slavic people - but much more Italian, or maybe Greek. Somewhere around the Mediterranean, in any case. Was Slovenia near the Mediterranean? Alannah had no idea.<br/><br/><span style="color: #4080FF">"I am indeed a local,"</span> she grinned, pulling out the other chair. She sat down sideways, with an arm slung across the back of it and her legs crossed, one foot dangling restlessly in the air. <span style="color: #4080FF">"D'ya mind?"</span> She asked. She was supposed to be working, after all, and not talking to strangers at the tables she was supposed to be serving. <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #4080FF">Then again, he had been served, and so had everyone else,</span></span> she argued to herself. She tilted her head and looked him in the eyes. "Lotta mud where ya come from?" She asked, referring to the fact that he had never owned a pair of sneakers. His shoe situation seemed stranger and stranger to her. What kind of person only owned hiking boots?<br/><br/>Alannah was brought back from her musings about footwear when he asked about beaches, and she couldn't help but grin. She had lived here all her life, and knew the waters around Boston far better than most others. Of course, Dimitri couldn't know that, but what a stroke of luck for him to ask a mermaid about beaches! <span style="color: #4080FF">"Depends on what ya looking for,"</span> she said. <span style="color: #4080FF">"There's Constitution and Winthrop, if ya want a bit of solitude, though Constitution is wicked close to the airport. Wouldn't choose that if you're aftah quiet and cleah watah."</span> She grimaced as she ticked them off on her fingers. She'd tried Constitution Beach once, and didn't much care for it. <span style="color: #4080FF">"Sunbathing's down at Malibu and Savin, but that place is almost always too crowded for my taste. I usually go down to Winthrop or Nickerson in Quincy, just south of here, if I just wanna go swimming. Squantum Point is quite close to it, though, and is much prettier. Even if you can see the gas easement from there."</span> She grimaced again. Boston was ideal for a city person, who at the same time required copious amounts of water, but she really wanted to go swimming in clear water for a change. No chance of that, since all the clear water was always full of humans. Alannah had a good feeling that if a half shark-half girl showed up, screaming would be involved.<br/><br/>She looked at the clock. 1:45pm, meaning her shift since 5am would be finished in 15 minutes. She abruptly leant across the table, folding her arms. <span style="color: #4080FF">"Listen, if ya want, I can take ya. The T's a pain to navigate for a newcomah. Whaddya say?"</span> She gave him a lopsided smile and raised a narrow eyebrow. She wouldn't object to spending a few hours with this handsome man before she had to go into the water. Tomorrow was her day off, after all.</div>