She opened the door all way and walked in and saw Larry sitting on a small ottoman in the middle of the room he waved to her and she waved back as she stepped into the room, and then three voices simultaneously greeted her. She turned her head to a large couch with the “Maniacs” she had heard over the phone, it was none other than the three people she knew best. Mike, Billie Joe and Tre. Suddenly the mornings events raced through her mind and felt frozen, “If I ever see you with him...”. She saw Larry jump off of the ottoman and rushed over to her and gave her a large hug, snapping her out of the small trance.
She tried to shake off the feeling and returned the hug. “Its been a while, where have you been hiding out ?” she said as they both let go of each other. “ME ! HIDING ?! never I was just a—“.
“Never mind” She interrupted, “What are you guys up to ?” she looked around for a place to sit, and the only open space besides the floor was on the couch next to Tre. She took a breath and walked over and sat down.
“Well we were recording until these jackass’s started fuckin’ around and fell over onto the equipment and broke it.” he said pointing to Mike and Tre, who both looked away as like they had nothing to do with it. “Broken” he repeated annoyed, “ If you guys were good I would kick your ass”. He said turning back to the guys.
Mike made a face, and mumbled something incomprehensible making Larry roll his eye’s, they went on talking about each other had been up too, the guys retold some of their “best” tour stories, reenacting stories from other times, stopping every now and then to play a song or two, as Larry and Mike were in the middle of a story Billie looked over towards the clocks on the wall.
“Shit !” he shouted practically leaping up off of the ragged old couch. “What’s wrong ?” Sydney said as everyone turned in his direction. “I told my mom I’d help her move some shit out of her garage when she got off work, and that was an hour ago...” he said hunting around for his car keys.
“Wellp I guess I better get going to too, its getting late and I have to walk” Sydney said getting up off the couch
and stretching a little, it was late, almost 6:30 “ All the crazies start coming out around this time and frankly I’ve had all the unwanted attention I can stand” she said picking her jacket up off the floor. Mike, Billie and Larry had already walked out of the room, Tre finally stood up off the couch and looked over at Sydney. “I could walk home with you, I don’t have anywhere to be in particular”, he said walking towards the door. Sydney looked down at the ground, she wanted to walk home with him, she wanted to hangout...plus she hated having to walk all that way alone, but she couldn’t shake what Faren had said to her. She looked up at him and smiled to see him trying scale the door, “What is wrong with you” she said, making him slip from his monkey-like position.
“Trying to climb the door of course” he said as a matter of factly, “ Are we going” he said swinging th door back and forth. She walked through the doorway, “Yea” she said, in her mind the “benefits” so to say, outweighed the “risks”, plus she liked hanging out with him. They walked down the hallway and waved goodbye too Janette, who was still gabbing away on the phone, she mouthed back “see you later” and went back to talking. As they walked out of the door they saw Mike sitting in the passanger seat, bobbibg his head to some song on the radio, and Billie sitting with the driver-side door open talking to Larry about something.
"There you guys are, we though he go lost" Mike shouted from the cracked window. Tre stuck his tongue out and walked over to the car, "You ladies can go on without me, I'm going to walk with Sid" He said with a hoity toity look on his face. Larry said goodbye to everybody and went back inside the building. "I'll tell my mom you said hi, well be home probably late, my mom's a pack-rat". They said their goodbyes and pulled out of the small parking lot, and they began their walk.
