Chapter 11
eleven
Kate
“So,” Dani says, drawing out the word as she slides into the other side of the booth at brunch. “How was the event last night?”
“It was…interesting,” I say.
“How so?” Tyler asks from where she’s seated beside me.
“Josh was being weird.”
“Weird how?” Dani asks.
“Well, from the second I met him in the lobby he was all…fidgety. Josh. The man who can stand in front of eighty thousand people half naked for an hour and half every night was nervous.”
I’ve been replaying last night over and over in my mind, trying to figure out what was making him so uneasy, but nothing makes any sense. He does events like this all the time. Crowds don’t faze him. Cameras don’t faze him.
He’s the type of person who thrives under that kind of spotlight.
So why did he seem…off?
Maybe he was tired. Or maybe something’s going on with the band that I don’t know about. For a second, I even wondered if he’d had too much to drink before we walked in, but that wasn’t it either. He wasn’t sloppy or distracted, just…keyed up, like he was waiting for something to go wrong.
And around me, of all people. Which makes no sense at all.
“I’ve never seen him like that,” I say.
“Told you that dress was a good idea,” Dani says, wagging her eyebrows at me. I roll my eyes.
“Shut up. It had nothing to do with me.”
“I bet it had a little to do with you,” Ty says, spearing a strawberry with her fork and popping it into her mouth.
“He doesn’t do relationships,” I remind them.
“Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want to sleep with you,” Dani argues.
“Stop, he’s my boss.”
“So?” Dani asks.
“So that would be highly inappropriate. And besides, he doesn’t see me that way.”
Nobody does, the voice adds.
“I bet he does now,” Ty says with a wink.
I don’t respond—because they’re clearly delusional. The last woman Josh Calloway was seen with graced the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. In what universe would Josh fucking Calloway ever want to sleep with me?
Although, he did look at me differently last night.
And he did hold me close to him while we were dancing.
And there was some tension…
No. Nope. No way. Not going there. Not doing this.
Delusional.
After a beat of silence, Dani puts Tyler in the hot seat, prying about how things are going with Eric.
Tyler, still utterly clueless that Eric is madly in love with her, chatters on about their interviews, the things she’s learning, and how the writing process is going. Dani shoots me a knowing smile, and I hide my answering grin behind my cup of coffee.
The way Eric looks at Tyler is straight out of a movie. It’s the kind of love people spend their whole lives searching for. The kind I secretly hope I’ll find someday, and I can’t imagine being that oblivious to someone being head over heels for me the way he is for her.
The moment I’m alone in my room again and have time to think, Josh’s confession about his ADHD shoots to the forefront of my mind, so, I sit down at my laptop and do what I do best—research, take notes, make lists, convert the lists into a spreadsheet, and come up with a plan.
I dive into articles, medical studies, and forums, reading anything that will help me understand how his brain works.
I jot down notes on strategies for memory retention, productivity hacks, and small changes that might make things a little easier for him.
Like coming up with consistent sleep and wake times, setting a “no alcohol or phone screens” rule an hour before the designated sleep time, and becoming more consistent with his workout routine and diet.
The fact that we’re on the road for the next four and a half months will certainly make things a little more difficult, but I’m always up for a challenge.
The more I read, the more I see him in every description.
I don’t know how I didn’t notice the signs before—his forgetfulness, the way he loses track of time, how his mind seems to move in a hundred directions at once.
The way he struggles to filter out distractions, how overwhelming schedules can be, or why he gets frustrated when he forgets something important.
But what’s obvious is how much effort he’s already putting in.
He might brush it off like it’s nothing, but I’ve noticed that he’s followed through with the Post-it note plan, the way he started repeating details back to me when I tell him something important, and the fact that he even told me about this in the first place.
And now that I know, I don’t just want to help, I need to. If there’s anything I can do to make things easier for him, I’m going to do it, because that’s what you do when you care about someone. You figure out ways to meet them where they are, not ways you can change them.
When I think back to his interactions with people over the last six weeks, I recognize that for all his confidence, for all the ways he commands a room without even trying, there were moments where he felt like he was the odd man out.
Like the way his brain works is some kind of flaw or chink in his armor that he’s desperate to keep hidden.
Times where someone would poke fun at his forgetfulness or his seemingly random train of thought, and he’d brush it off with a joke but then drop his shoulders as if he was disappointed in himself.
I hear the door to Josh’s room click open, then close.
“Hey,” I call as I rise from the desk in my room.
“Hey,” he calls back. “How was your morning?”
When I round the corner and step into his room, I find him sitting on his couch in his workout clothes, head back against the wall, eyes closed, and hands folded in his lap.
“You alright?” I ask, leaning against the doorframe.
“Yeah,” he says, keeping his eyes closed. “Great.”
I can tell he’s lying, but I can’t tell why.
“Josh,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, why?” he asks.
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re all mopey this morning. You haven’t cracked a single joke or called me, I don’t know, Karen or Kathy, since yesterday morning.”
“I’ve never called you Karen,” he says, finally lifting his head to look at me. He takes a beat and clears his throat. “Look, I just—I’m trying to process everything I learned last night and be better.”
“Better?” I say, crossing the room to sit next to him. “Josh, you don’t have to be better. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I forgot you at the arena, Kate,” he says, rising from the couch as soon as I’m seated beside him.
“That was weeks ago.”
“Yeah, well,” he sighs as he combs his fingers through his hair. “The guilt has been eating me alive.”
“Did someone threaten you?” I ask, worried Dani ignored my wishes and decided to say something on my behalf.
“What? No. Why?”
“I—never mind.” I pull my bottom lip between my teeth, chewing it nervously. “Look, whatever’s going on here,” I say, motioning between the two of us. “I don’t like it. If I did something to upset you last night, I—”
“No,” he says, cutting me off. “You didn’t do a thing, Kate, you’re…
” he trails off and scrubs a hand down his face.
“I want to talk to you about everything. I just...need to figure out how first. But, for now, I need you to know how sorry I am. For everything—everything I did and everything you felt because of my actions. I should’ve told you about my ADHD.
I should have just told you from the beginning so that you—”
“Josh,” I say softly, trying to comfort him. Trying to put an end to the pain I can see in his bright green eyes. He’s spiraling, and I’m not quite sure what to do to help him.
“Wait, let me just—” he exhales again, shaking his head.
“I’ve been thinking about it for hours—about how you must have felt every time I called you something other than Kate.
That you didn’t matter or that you were just someone I couldn’t be bothered to remember, and that’s not true.
It was never true. You are so much more than that.
So much more, and I—” He cuts himself off, and I watch as he takes several breaths before continuing.
“I know you,” he says. “You’re going to sit there and tell me it’s fine and force a smile, but I know your smiles, Kate, and I’ll know it’s fake. I hate that I made you feel that way. It wasn’t okay.” He finally glances at me, then away just as fast.
He shakes his head, a humorless laugh escaping. “I guess part of me thought if I didn’t say anything, if I just tried harder, then you wouldn’t notice or think less of me for it.” His throat bobs as he swallows. “But in the end, I still fucked up. I wasn’t honest and you got hurt because of me.”
My heart twists in my chest as I stare at him.
“I…” he exhales. “I need you to know that I see you, Kate. I see you and I appreciate you. I always have. I’m sorry it took me so long to show you, but I’m going to.
Every single day from here on out, I’m going to show you how much I appreciate you.
You’re…you’re really important to me, alright?
If you believe anything at all, please believe that. ”
His words settle between us, and I stand from the couch and cross the room to him. I reach down and take his hand in mine, threading our fingers together and squeezing, hoping he finds comfort in the gesture and I’m not crossing a boundary.
His eyes drift down and lock on where I’m touching him and I panic, taking his reaction as a sign that I’ve overstepped. I try to pull away, but he flexes his fingers once. A silent plea for me to stay.
“You’re right,” I say. “I do wish you had told me sooner. Not because of what it would’ve changed for me, but because you didn’t have to carry it alone.
I would’ve been there for you, Josh. I am here for you.
” I smile when his eyes move from our hands and back up to mine. “You’re important to me, too.”
Something flashes in his eyes, but it’s gone too soon for me to identify what it is. He squeezes my hand before pulling me closer and taking my other hand in his.
“I’ve met a lot of people, Kate, but I swear there’s no one out there like you.”
I let out a short laugh. “Right. A chronically overachieving introvert with a people-pleasing complex and a self-deprecating joke for every occasion. Truly rare.”
Josh shakes his head, his brows drawing together.
“No. You’re one of a kind because you care—because you go out of your way to give a damn when most people can’t be bothered, and I swear, Kate, the world would be a hell of a lot better if there were more people like you.”
I swallow the knot of emotion currently caught in my throat and try to ignore the way my heart is beating wildly in my chest. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out, because what do I even say to that?
My mind is spinning because yesterday, Josh was my boss. My friend. But right now, everything feels charged—like the air before a storm. Like something’s shifted and neither of us knows what to do with it.
I tell myself it’s nothing. Leftover feelings from a romantic evening. A starry-eyed mood hangover.
But then he looks at me like he’s one second away from closing what little space remains between us, and I realize that if he did, I wouldn’t do a damn thing to stop him.