Somehow I was on my way to the mall with Leo in the driver's seat. I never got tired of looking over and seeing him there, smiling as I looked away. I never wanted him to catch me, since he would start turning his head in my direction a little.
"So, what restaurant were you thinking about for lunch," I brought up, crossing my ankles as we kept moving along the highway.
"I hadn't thought about it yet," he softly chuckled, stopping at a red light.
"IHOP has great food. Would you be interested in that?" Hesitation was laced into my voice, since I was aware that he had been to insanely expensive eating places before. I knew we had just dined at Apple Bee's recently, but it still felt odd that he liked the same places as me.
"Yeah, that sounds good. You want to go there or the mall first," he double checked as we moved along the road.
"The mall. I'm kind of hungry, but I want to go shopping first. I'm surprised you wanted to come with me today. I mean, I'm probably just going to be trying stuff on most of the time. I need some new winter clothes."
"That's alright. I'm not going for anything specific."
I nodded as my heart sped up at the sight of the big building. We both stepped out of the vehicle, him sure to pull his baseball cap over his eyes. No one recognized him as we headed for the front entrance, him opening the door up for me.
"This building is big, but a lot of the stores have closed in it," I noted before we got far.
"Yeah, malls don't do as well as they used to," he agreed.
"Did you used to go to the mall a lot? I only went on weekends with my parents, but I always thought it would be fun just to go with friends."
"I went enough. I would go with all my closest friends and we would goof off, and get a bunch of food. We always enjoyed having the huge pretzels with cheese and smoothies."
I nodded as I felt a smile inching its way across my face. "I think they still sell that kind of stuff here. Would you want to do that instead of IHOP?"
"No, I wanted to sit down for a meal. I mean, it was fun back then, but now that's more something I do at ball games."
"Oh yeah, I've gotten doughy pretzels at those places too. I've never seen a major team play though."
"The Los Angeles Lakers are great," he claimed.
"Aren't they the team with the Laker Girls?"
"Yeah, they're a dance squad for them." He cleared his throat a bit almost seeming to be blushing, but it was hard to see beneath his hat. We ended up going into the Forever 21 store first, me browsing through a few items as the music blasted overhead. I found a pink striped, crochet sweater that I thought was cute right away. I went on to grab quite a few sweaters, not having any trouble with finding items I liked.
"Could you tell me what you think of some of these? I'm not sure how they're going to look on me," I admitted to Leo.
"Alright," he agreed, crossing his arms as he patiently waited near the dressing rooms. I felt a bit self-conscious as I pulled the first article of clothing over my head. When I stepped into the entryway, I was surprised by how directly Leo was looking at me. I couldn't read his expression as he just stared.
"Do you think it looks silly," I wondered out loud.
He shook his head out of his daze before answering, "No, that color looks really good on you." He cleared his throat a bit as I tried not to smile silly.
"Which one? It's a bunch of different colors put together," I teased. I was feeling more confident when I realized he was tripping over his words. It made me feel better that I wasn't the one who felt lost on what to say for once.
