Chapter 3 #2
Josh raised his glass. “To practice.”
I hesitated for a beat, then clinked mine against his.
He reached to take a sip. Pouting his plush bottom lip, he managed to look a little stunned. “And it doesn’t taste nearly as much like cough medicine as I imagined.”
“If you thought it was going to taste like cough medicine, why did you order it?”
“I like to try new things,” he said. “Life is too short not to have a little fun.”
I reached to try my own drink. It wasn’t too bad either. “Even when it comes to crazy holiday drinks?”
“Especially then,” said Josh. “Low risk, high reward. Well, some of the time, there’s a high reward. If not, at least now I can say that I’ve had a martini with a show.”
That was something he definitely could say. However, I wasn’t sure that I ever thought he would.
I kind of forgot just how carefree Josh was.
Or at least, he used to be on special occasions when we were young.
As Gina’s older brother, he always felt a lot older than us—until he wasn’t so much anymore.
Most of the time, he hung out with his friends outside of their house, where it was basically the place to be growing up.
Josh and Gina’s mom was the perfect sort of mom.
She cared when you spoke and genuinely asked how your day was when you arrived from school, never bothered by where you dropped your backpack.
She always made the best snacks she’d lay out, “just in case you’re a bit peckish,” and never minded when I ended up staying for dinner—or well past dinner.
I often didn’t want to go home to where I was living with my grandmother before she passed away my senior year.
After that, I was eighteen, and no one else seemed to question how I was doing on my own.
The small two-bedroom single-story house that hadn’t been updated since it had been built in the ’50s, however, was quiet. Too quiet.
“You never said where you got your job since you moved here,” I said, trying to keep Josh talking so that I didn’t go through all my past memories of the town and house that paid for my tuition, though not much else in the condition it was in.
His forehead creased. “I didn’t?”
Maybe Gina was right in the fact that I had been acting weird around the house. Sure, Josh wasn’t there all the time, but when he was, I hid in my room and only came out for water and the few snacks I stashed in the back of the cabinet.
“I got a job back in IT.”
“Big, fancy start-up work again?” I kind of thought when he had dropped off the face of the earth two years ago that he was done with all that, though it made sense. It was what he had gone to school for, and he clearly was good at it. “I thought you were over all that.”
“Oh, I am. I don’t think you could pay me to go back to another tech start-up or whatever again.
” He chuckled. “Nah, done with killing myself to not even live. You don’t need to, and in the end, I didn’t care all that much about what I was even doing.
Not like some of the guys I’m still friends with who are there.
Anyway, I got a good gig working in a middle school a few weeks ago. ”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. The technology called to me once more, and I answered. It is just in a different, less I want to gouge my eyes out so I never have to look at a screen ever again kind of way. I’ve been working at the school for the past few weeks, drinking all the coffee I want from the teachers’ lounge and plugging in computer chargers for technologically challenged almost retirees. ”
“Wow. Sounds like you’re loving it.”
“You know what?” He looked like he really considered that. “I think I am. Or at least liking it enough, which I’ll take.”
“I didn’t think you’d come back,” I said quietly.
Josh looked up. “What do you mean?”
“To the city. Home.” I shrugged, offering both options like one might feel safer than the other. “You seemed like you were doing fine out there—traveling, living your life … with everyone else you were traveling with.”
I took another sip of my sangria, letting the warmth of the brandy smooth out the edge in my voice. Hopefully, it masked the fact that I’d seen nearly every photo he’d posted over the last two years—sparingly, yes, but enough to remind me that he was still out there, still moving. Still not here.
“I did enjoy it,” he said after a beat, his tone gentler than I’d expected. “A lot actually. Turns out, there’s a whole world to see when you let yourself look.”
He gave a half laugh. “Pretty sure my bank called twice just to check that I wasn’t having a midlife crisis. Quarter-life?”
“Were you?”
He grinned. “Honestly? Probably. But I think it worked. Got just enough vacation time banked from that ‘big, fancy corporate’ job—your words, by the way. Figured I should use it while I still had it. Life’s short, you know?”
“So you said,” I murmured, not trusting myself to say more.
Josh leaned back slightly, his fingers toying with the corner of the menu. “But, yeah, I’m back now. Zipper on my suitcase finally gave out. I took it as a sign. Sorry. I’m rambling.”
“I don’t mind,” I said before I could stop myself.
And I didn’t. Not even a little. Which was a problem.
This was supposed to be a fake date. A practice date. A warm-up round before the real thing. But sitting across from Josh, listening to his voice, watching the way he smiled a little when he talked about the world—this wasn’t practice. This was the thing I’d been trying to avoid.
Because talking to Josh? It was … nice.
Too nice.
And that was exactly what I didn’t want to admit.
Ever since Gina and I had moved into the apartment, we’d been bumping into people from the old days—faces from high school, college, the ones who’d drifted to the city like we had. It was strange and oddly comforting.
But Josh?
Josh was different.
He was the kind of familiar that made my chest ache in that low, quiet way you couldn’t quite explain.
The kind of familiar that reminded me of how he used to be.
And how everything had changed after the accident.
How he vanished, leaving nothing but an empty room and a trail of stories that sounded more like myths than memories.
For a long time, I figured I’d never see him again.
I’d pictured him settling down somewhere far away with a sun-kissed partner who spoke seven languages and wore linen without wrinkles.
They’d raise brilliant, nomadic little children and drink espresso at three p.m. and make the rest of us look like we were stuck in slow motion.
But now he was here. He was sitting across from me like it was nothing. Like we hadn’t left things unsaid.
Maybe he had moved on. Maybe he didn’t even remember how humiliating that night had been for me.
Unfortunately, I still did.
Josh glanced back down at the menu, his brow furrowing slightly before he glanced up at me with a spark of amusement. “Did you pick this place?”
I shook my head.
“Gina,” we said at the same time.
We both looked around, taking in the tiny plates and elaborately described appetizers. I scanned the menu again, landing on something I couldn’t pronounce.
“Who names a dish bouchée à la reine?” I asked under my breath. “Sounds like a dare.”
Josh laughed. “I think it’s French for you’re not getting full tonight.”
I smiled despite myself. And just like that, the weirdness thinned out. A little.
“Do you want to finish this drink and go somewhere else?” asked Josh.
My forehead creased, though he was already taking another long sip of his cheery drink until there was nothing but a final few drips sitting at the bottom.
“We really don’t have to go anywhere else. I’m happy to call it and head home to eat one of my microwavable noodle dinners really.”
That sounded sad, didn’t it? Certainly not what a normal girl would admit to and certainly not on a date, fake or not. But this wasn’t a date.
This was me. And this was Josh.
And we would never be on a date.
Ha! The hilarity of that.
I pushed a smile to make myself believe it even more and hoped that it sold my complete unperturbed-ness of how this evening had taken a turn from a girls’ night out with Gina.
“What? Why not?” he asked.
“Because,” I said. He waited for more. “You really don’t have to be here or keep doing this. It was supposed to be my pretend practice date, and I get that you are doing something nice for your sister when she called, but …”
“I’m nothing but dedicated to the cause,” he said seriously.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Impressive,” he commented, reaching up to push up his own eyebrow. Whenever he let go, it fell. “I could never get that right.”
I shrugged. “Party trick.”
“Anyway”—he took a deep breath, as if coming up with some sort of way to say what he was about to say—“what I’m really trying to say is that there’s a hockey game on. I know a bar just down the street. It could be a fun time. Do you really want this to be the end of your night?”
Josh already passed the server his card effortlessly as he passed by. I tried to reach out to offer to split our check of what was likely overpriced holiday drinks, but it was too late.
“You in?”
I glanced down at my lifeless phone again on the edge of the table.
No notifications. No emails. Yet I should really get back home. Get back on the hunt. Work on the freelance projects that needed to be done sooner than later so that, hopefully, I’d attract new clients.
My stomach growled.
Josh grinned as if my body had answered for me. “Pretty please? Come on. You know it’s my treat. And I can’t stand to let my little sister down.”
Is that who he couldn’t stand to let down?
“Think of it as a thank-you for letting me crash on your couch for the last month.” He stood up as he pulled on his coat, waiting for me to do the same.
The server came back with the check, and he signed off without glancing at it.
“They have fantastic wings. Better than baked artichoke cream bruschetta. Actually, maybe my sister has a point; that sounds amazing. But still, you want to mix up your boring practice date to a night you might actually enjoy?”
He reached for my coat on the back of my seat and extended it to me with raised eyebrows and waited. “You only live once, remember?”