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"Um." She looked down at her, then back at him. "I don't know if they'd fit right." So yes, they were for you, Jake. She began shifting her pile back to one arm. "I'm not trying to treat you like a kid. I mean, it is Christmas time, and I know my bank account has more in it than yours. But," pile shifted, she grabbed the two shirts with her now free hand, "if you'll buy them, you can take them." She held the shirts out to him.

"And...unless you wanna look around in here more, maybe we should check out. There are still a lot of stores we can hit."

Sherry scowled. Really, Jake? "No, I think--" She decided it might be best to not argue. With a resigned sigh she let herself be ushered to the counter, where she payed for her stuff and tossed a few light-hearted scowls at Jake.

"Okay," she said as they stepped out of the store, "Do you want to hit the food court real fast? I'm rather hungry, and we still have a few hours to kill."

"What? You don't have to do that. I can pay for own food." She shrugged as she led the way to the food area. "Though if you really want to, I won't fight it. But it means you have to choose what we eat."

As they neared the food court the smells reminded her just how hungry she was. All kinds of delicious food smells. It was a fairly standard food court, with lots of food places lining the walls, and a whole horde of tables in the middle of the area. And the people; it was holiday time, after all. "Oh! Yes!" Spotting an open table, Sherry dashed right over to claim it.

"If you really want to pay, then I'll guard the table and you can go get something." Her stomach grumbled. "Anything is ok!"

Sherry lost Jake almost immediately. Holiday shoppers. Where on earth did they all come from? It had never ceased to surprise Sherry. Never.

She understood it, to a point, too. Christmas shopping. She still had to do her own, matter of fact. She sat, going over her mental list of gifts that she hoped to find. She'd have to ditch Jake for a bit, considering he wasn't going to like what she had planned for him. Well. That would be easy enough, she was sure.

Her stomach rumbled again. She was hoping he'd hurry. It had been ages since she'd eaten.

When he did return to the table, he would be faced with one simple, honest question, in a voice full of curiosity. "What is that?"

Curry? She'd heard of curry, but she'd never had curry. "Okay."
Jake seemed to like it well enough, so it couldn't have been that bad. Reaching for her spoon, she went ahead and tried a little bit. "Hrm." It wasn't bad. So she had a little more.

"This isn't bad. Quite good, actually," she admitted after a few minutes. "Good choice." She smiled in thanks, and ate some more. It was nice to have something different and tasty.

"So, what do you want to get into next?"

For some reason, having Jake just sit there and more or less watch her eat made her self-conscious. When she realized that, it only made it worse. His suggestion, however, actually helped with that. Took her mind right off it. She had been hoping to split up for a bit; perfect.

"That," she looked him in the eye, "sounds like an excellent idea. You can go ahead and go, if you like. I'm almost finished."

She glanced around. The place was packed. They had their phones, but still, getting lost in this place would be easy. "Where shall we meet?"

"That," she glanced up from her plate to look at the tree, "sounds good."

Then she stared at Jake for a moments. Just what was going on in that head of his? And how did his eyes get to be that--



"Alright! One hour." Her attention turned back to the remnants of delicious on her place. One or two more spoonfuls, then it was full on shopping time.