"Leonard, isn't that your neighbor?" Carl James asked.
He turned. "Umm..yeah. That's Sydney."
"What's she doing? Carl asked, watching Sydney...well, watch everything.
"Not sure. But...maybe we should say hi?"
Carl looked at him. "Do you...have a thing for her or something?"
"No!" Leonard protested...perhaps too much. He looked embarrassed. "We barely talk. I mean...yesterday we talked about her dog...but it's mostly hi, bye...nice weather sort of stuff."
But Sydney had caught sight of them, and came over. "Hi, Leonard. Hi...Leonard's friend."
"Carl..."
"Hi, Sydney. What are you doing here?"
"Exploring, watching people do things..."
"People watching...that's cool," Leonard said. "You want to...maybe...hang out with us?"
"Hang out...you mean do stuff?" Sydney said. "Okay..."
"I mean, if you're busy...what?" Leonard said. "Did you just say yes?"
Sydney looked at him. "No, I said okay...but that means yes," she said.
Carl looked around. He didn't want to spend the afternoon watching Leonard strike out with a girl and being uncomfortable. The only girl he'd really hung out with recently was Kyla Leeson, who was friends with Jay Duncan. Leonard, Jay, Carl, and Walter Smukmeyer often got together to play games. Kyla wasn't really a girl though...well, she was, but she always seemed like one of the guys.
"We were going to go to the bookstore, then the video game shop, then maybe walk around a bit, then go see a movie. But...we could go into a few stores if you want to look for anything..."
"I like books," Sydney said agreeably.
