Yeah, sure. They have a lot to talk about anyways.

“Sure, get Robert to drive you back…” Ann sighs. When he stares at her with a confused expression, she clarifies “Right, Robert’s the limo driver. Tell him ‘Big Sits’, that’s my codeword for ‘do what this guy says and come back to pick me up once you’re done’.”

Leonard nods, puts back on his disparate clothes, and says “G-Good luck, I h-hope you guys have a n-n-nice time.” as he closes the door behind him, waving goodbye as he does.

It turns out Ms. Prift wasn’t lying about the codeword, and once he said it the overweight man in the driver’s seat sighed “She has been hung up on that woman for years. I do not think it will work out between them, no matter what Ms. Prift does.” in a thick Russian accent. Lenny says nothing.

The drive back feels remarkably short, and his phone says it’s about 11:00 once Leonard reaches the apartment. He remembers that he hasn’t eaten anything yet, thinking that Ms. Prift would have taken him to dinner first. He also remembers something else that makes him cringe. “… again with the waving…?”

Once the necessary flights of stairs were climbed, surprisingly quickly too on account of the Cauldrons, he was home free. The door was opened to reveal Erica doing stuff with the thrift store DS in a t-shirt and sweatpants. She greeted “Oh, welcome back! I found a Gameboy SP charging cable in your stuff, and the ports matched the DS so I thought I’d explore the game. And as it turns out, the game’s currency is ‘bits’. As in ‘one-eighth of a byte’. There’s already a lot in here, but you could probably fill it up by using files you were gonna del—“ before noticing his shaken expression. “Is everything okay, did the date go badly?”

“… well…?” Leonard sighed.

“Holy shit, that’s some baggage.” Erica gasped. “Wait, hold on.” She dashed over to the fridge, pulling out something in a tupperware. “Here, it’s tonight’s leftovers. Should still be kinda warm, I practically just put it away.”

It was some kind of cheesy pasta casserole, with chopped up hot dogs and (formerly) frozen vegetables mixed in. “T-Thanks…” he muttered as he plopped onto the couch, unbuttoning his shirt. “This helps more than you know…”

His roommate nodded, handing him a fork as she said “Don’t mention it. Now, what’re you thinking for the Digimon thing?”