Lost...

[Aric Austin Lansidel]

Aric felt embarrassed. He had gotten lost and had ended up in some park instead of at his dorm room. That only caused him to take out his laptop and jumped online thanks to the power of WiFi. He'd have to thank the genius that came up with that some time. He had to find out where he was.

He had only been in the city for a little less than a week. To be honest, he hardly knew his way around. Aric had managed to get himself comfortable with the layout of the Crimson U campus, but anywhere else he went seemed to end up with him getting lost. Today was no different. Who knew an errand to the market would end up with him getting lost. It was suppose to be an easy back and forth trip following the same route there and back, but somehow he managed to get confused on the way back as of which way he was suppose to go.

He looked up on a map where he was, Mayoral Park, and found out where he had gone wrong. Now he felt even more embarrassed. Than a pop up grabbed his attention. Yet another social network looking for people to join. He was a sucker for such sites and he never really understood why. Maybe it was curiosity that lured him to them, but the none the less had he already managed to register and post a blog. Okay, maybe he liked to blog. Yeah, that had to be it.

[Kaci Jennifer Lewis]

Kaci was quite a picture walking through the park. After all, she did have a guitar slung over her shoulder. She was wearing nice dark denim jeans and a dark green halter top with her favorite sneakers. She managed to look stylish while totally casual at the same time. Kaci was brand new to Silverado. Her parents had decided that she should finish high school on her own, so she could slide into the real world slowly. They were still paying for a lot though.

Kaci pushed her blonde hair behind her ears and ran her fingers through the back of it. She really needed to redo her dark brown streaks, but she just hadn't had time. As she strolled she noticed a guy wandering aimlessly as though he was hopelessly lost. Not hard to do, but amusing all the same. She watched as he whipped out a laptop and wished she'd thought to bring her's. She walked over towards him to say hi.

"Hi there," Kaci said, offering her hand. The direct approach seemed best. "I'm Kaci Lewis. I'm new here, and I'm willing to bet you are to." She didn't elaborate on her bet, since she didn't really want to embarrass him. "You look like you're older than me," she commented. "You probably go to Crimson U, huh?" She was still 17, not out of high school yet. Figures the first hot guy she'd run into would be in college.

[Aric Austin Lansidel]

"Hello... yeah I've been here less than a week." Aric looked down at the Hawaiian shirt he had on along with his sandals and khaki shorts. Clearly he stuck out considering he hadn't seen anyone else around with that kind of get up on. No, this was a more sophisticated city when it came to wardrobe he feared. "Let me guess, the shirt gave it away?" He allowed a slight laugh to escape from his mouth.

"I start my first semester there in just a few days." He looked at her and sensed a tone in her voice when she had added the "huh" that made him think that she in a way didn't want him to be in college. The age thing must be an issue he figured. "I just turned eighteen in June," he added in hopes that would make her feel a little better.

"By the way my name is Aric, but yeah my friends back home like to call me Al. They're kind of weird like that. I personally like Aric better."

[Kaci Jennifer Lewis]

Kaci laughed. "The outfit is definitely interesting," she agreed, "But I think it was more the deer-in-the-headlights look. It's a confusing city though." She grinned. The last time she'd seen Hawaiian clothing was at a themed party she'd been at. It was kind of funny.

When he told her he'd just turned eighteen, she relaxed a bit and smiled. "I'll be eighteen in a few months," She told him. "I thought you were older than that." Somehow it seemed weird to think that a guy in college could be barely older than her. It wasn't weird in the least, but it seemed funny somehow.

She nodded when he introduced himself. "Nice to meet you, Aric." She replied. "And I understand the name thing, I had a friend who would call me "basket kace", like a play on words? Anyway, it was annoying, so I'll I won't call you Al if you won't call me Basket Kace." She grinned, knowing how dumb that sounded, but small talk was something she had to work at sometimes to sound okay.

[Aric Austin Lansidel]

"I'm far from the island," he said as a way of agreeing with her that the city was confusing. "I knew my way around the island well enough that I could probably navigate it in my sleep. This city though, well I'm not use to a place this big. Plus there's so much crammed into every mile of it. I suppose it get's easier to navigate with time though like almost anything else."

"Well people have told me that I look a little old for my age." Aric stopped and thought about it. He did look older than most of his graduation class, but he supposed that it ran in the family. All in all he was lucky he wasn't one of those people that looked and sounded young for their age, that had to be a hard way to live when no one believed you when they talked to you over the phone. "It's kind of a blessing I suppose, I've never gotten carded for anything oddly enough."

"Your situation seems a little bit more understandable. Just the same, I don't necessarily look like an Al. When I think of what an Al looks like I see a guy a bit shorter than me and that wears preppy clothing or a girl that's a tomboy. Those guys back home would probably name you Kale." He had let out a short stifled laugh.

[Kaci Jennifer Lewis]

Kaci had a wistful look on her face. "I'd love to go to Hawaii someday. Assuming I can get the money that is." She agreed with his assessment of city life, she'd been a mostly suburb girl up until recently. She added, "I walked around with a giant city map until I knew where all the cool stuff was. I looked like a touron. That is, a tourist-moron." She grinned. "That's what my family and I always used to call tourists. Rude maybe, but fun."

Kaci agreed with him in regards to his looks. "I definitely would have guessed twenty or so," she commented. "A lot of people think I'm sixteen still, even though I'm almost eighteen." She shrugged. "I guess it's my childlike enthusiasm." she said jokingly.

Kaci laughed as well. "I'm good with Kaci for now." She glanced down at his laptop and asked, "What are you doing?"

[Aric Austin Lansidel]

"I'll have to remember that term for when my next time back on the island. We have plenty of those back there. You'd be surprised how out of place some of them look. The ones that tried to fit in were usually the funniest of them all." After having had said that he laughed at her joke about her childlike enthusiasm.

The girl wasn't rather cool like the girl friends he had back on the island. He could certainly see her fitting in with them. "I kind of miss being sixteen though and getting mistakened for eighteen. That was so much more fun for the rather obvious reasons."

"I was typing up a blog for some networking site that I joined. I'm a sucker for those type of sites. Maybe it's because my friends from back home were on at least two of them each." He knew he probably sounded like a dork or geek but he didn't give a rat's behind what he sounded like.

[Kaci Jennifer Lewis]

Kaci laughed with him. "I can imagine. My grandparents went to Hawaii once and brought back all this tourist junk. We had no clue what we were supposed to do with it!"

Kaci was the opposite. "Heh, I can't wait to be eighteen. It's so annoying to be treated like a sophomore when I'm almost done with high school!" She made a face at the thought, then shrugged. Not like she could do anything about it.

"A networking site? I had one once, but I was never on it. I have a blog though. I just need something to write about." Kaci knew that most people who were addicted to that kind of stuff were just weird, but Aric didn't seem weird to her, so she wasn't going to make any comments on that.

[Aric Austin Lansidel]

"It sounds like they were like a lot of the other tourists. Some tourists are just down right gullible though and will buy anything that you make almost seem like a souvenir. I've seen shops take advantage of that, and of course no one says anything thinking that most people wouldn't buy that stuff."

"Yeah, I guess. Than again it can't hurt you too much. Not to sound sexiest or anything, but you're a girl. I'm sure you never had a problem finding a date with those youthful looks of yours." He thought back to how some of his lady friends use to complain about how as soon as they were juniors and seniors the guys were looking for freshmen and sophomore girls to go out with. "Too many of my guy friends use to dump girls once they found someone younger that they liked."

"I'm sure you could find tons of stuff to write about around here." He glanced around at the other people in the park. "There's tons of people to refer to in a blog around here." Aric thought for a moment and perhaps it was her young looks, but she looked too sweet to write about other people in such a way. "Than again you could just write about how you found this guy lost and in the park on his laptop. I'm pretty sure enough people would find that to be hilarious."