Unraveling Josh

by Edie Danford

  Josh laughed. “Well, yeah. I don’t know all his secrets. Yet.” He gave me the crooked smile.

  Oh God.

  I made a show of zipping up my bag and shifting my ass around on the seat. I was busy and had places to go—no time to hang out and listen to Sheree give Josh a rundown on what to expect the second half of the quarter, etcetera. No time for milkshakes. Or lunch dates. No time for high-stakes relationships with guys who were brilliant and kind and sexy and needy and—

  “I gotta tell you though, Sheree,” Josh said, picking up my bag, all casual like it was no big deal to handle my things, or maybe carry them home for me. “This guy has some amazing ideas about the intersection of art and politics.”

  “Oh?” Sheree looked from Josh to me and back. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Josh said, ignoring the glare I was sending him. “He and I have been talking about one of your favorite topics…”

  He launched into an explanation—way more thoughtful and succinct and smart than the way I had put it when we’d discussed it in his bed the other night—of one of my way-out theories about Hazen Torvek.

  I kept my eyes on his hand, which had started a slow stroke—one that had to be unconscious—on the worn strap of my bag. Sheree was making vague noises of interest about what he was saying. I sunk into a crazy of quagmire of thoughts about whether it was possible to change my major. Or my persona. Or my lunch plans.

  “Anyway…” Josh wound down his monologue. He smiled sheepishly, like he was suddenly aware how he’d been babbling about my theories like a proud professor. “I’m hungry.” He stood. I stood too. I extracted my bag from his hands, hopefully in a way that didn’t seem like I was snatching it away from him.

  “I’m hungry too,” Sheree said. “And I’ve got a fun afternoon of packing ahead of me.” She rolled her eyes and shuddered.

  “Packing is the worst,” Josh said as we stepped down from the first row of desks. “You want to join us? I’ll buy you a goodbye milkshake at the Ellery Inn. You won’t be able to get ones as good in Ann Arbor, I’ll bet.”

  Sheree laughed. “Not a maple creemie, anyway.”

  “Maple creemies in Michigan are too terrifying to ponder,” Josh said, smiling his charming smile. “You gotta come with. Right, Nick?” He bumped my shoulder.

  I looked at him. I looked at Sheree. Josh’s smile was turned full force on me now, handsome and easy and hopeful. Sheree’s mouth was smirking and her eyes were challenging. She knew I didn’t want her to come to lunch. She obviously thought I was using my evil powers—ones she’d thought I’d used on Pearlstein and her roommate—on Josh, playing him for everything he was worth, which for a punk history major with a penchant for hot ass would be a very clever play.

  Because what Sheree was thinking made me mad, and maybe a little guilty, I forced my mouth to smile and say, “Yeah. You’ve gotta have at least one last maple creemie before you hit the road.”

  Josh nodded, happy, down with the plan, oblivious to the ridiculous inner turmoil that a stupid decision about lunch could stir up in my head.

  We walked to the door and waited for Sheree to gather her things. Josh took my hand and squeezed it. As he let me go with a lingering touch, he said to me in a low voice, “I was so stoked when I saw you walk into this classroom. Made me realize how great it’s gonna be to be able to discuss theory and project ideas with someone who actually knows and cares about this stuff.”

  I nodded lamely, my skin humming from his brief touch, my chest constricting from the intimacy in his eyes.

  He deserved someone as sweet and open as he was. I wasn’t that person. Was I? If I didn’t come up with a way to show him or tell him that, he’d figure it out soon enough on his own.

  But maybe it was possible to be the guy he deserved for the next few hours, the next few days. Maybe even the next few weeks. Because, damn it, Josh Pahlke still made me believe in stuff I shouldn’t believe in.

  Chapter Eleven

  Josh

  LUNCH WAS FUN. I was surprised because I’d been worried Nick would bail after I’d offered Sheree the invite. Obviously they had some kind of history—a history that turned the normally cool Sheree into someone with some bite, and that turned Nick, who’d been relaxed and funny and fricking adorable when he’d left my place this morning, into big-time Mr. Moody-broody.

  Maybe it was the lure of French fries and a chocolate milkshake, but Nick left his broodiness somewhere between the history building and the Ellery Inn. He stayed in the conversation when Sheree and I talked business, adding his very valuable two cents about Pearlstein when I asked for his input. Sheree gave him a hard time about some late assignments for an intro course she’d TA’ed last year, but he didn’t get uptight, he just smiled and told a few lame-but-funny jokes about his propensity to procrastinate being “history”.

  We’d had to wait on a table and service was slow because of the two-for-one lunch crush, so Sheree had to leave before Nick was done with his milkshake. I’d sucked mine down, but it had been the only thing I’d ordered.

  A waitress cleared away Sheree’s plate and Nick picked up his tall, half-full glass of chocolatey goodness. He settled against the back of the booth, visibly relaxing as he fiddled with his straw, stirring and sucking with obvious joy.

  Under the table, I captured his outstretched legs between mine, jostling him, trying to interrupt his bliss. He didn’t look up but his lips twitched into a smile.

  “You’re gonna give yourself an ice cream headache drinking it like that.”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “You’re just jealous because yours is gone.”

  I laughed. “More like it’s turning me on watching your mouth work and your cheeks hollow out.”

  He dropped the straw long enough to give me an evil smile. “Why don’t you order another one and then I can watch you? Give you pointers on your technique.”

  I squeezed his knees tight between mine and then released them. “One was more than enough,” I said. “But you can judge my sucking technique any time you want back home.”

  I expected another lusty look from him, but, after poking his straw around at the stuff remaining at the bottom of the glass, he put it down on the table. His brow furrowed slightly as he pushed a fry toward a ketchup blob on his plate.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Are you seriously on a diet? Because I can verify with a variety of senses that your body is in perfect shape.”

  “A solid endorsement.” I smiled at him. “But it’s not so much about my weight or my looks. It’s about tone and energy level. If I’m gonna try some light workouts with this guy next week, I need to cut back on at least some of the junk.” A guy here at Ellery—a friend of a friend in Boston—had been in touch to ask if I was interested in training in the next few weeks and I’d said yes. I knew I might be pushing it with my foot, but I wanted to give it a try.

  “And who is this guy again?”

  “He’s on the ski team and he’s a Fen-man—”

  “Of course.”

  “And,” I continued, giving him a fake-stern look, “he’s a senior who’s supposed to be a good guy. Someone I worked out with in Boston knows him.”

  “Huh.” He popped the fry into his mouth and chewed slowly. “And you don’t know his name?” His eyes were narrowed as he continued to observe his plate. Ah. Here came Mr. Moody-broody. Interesting.

  “John something. John Reese, maybe? Something basic with an ‘R’.”

  “Johnny Reed?”

  “Yeah, that sounds right.”

  The furrow in his brow got deeper. He ate another fry.

  “You know him?”

  He shrugged, all deliberate nonchalance. He stuck his straw back in his mouth and sucked slowly.

  I waited a beat and asked, “He hung?”

  Nick’s eyes went wide. He made a choking sound, dropped the straw and began coughing for real. It was obvious he wasn’t in danger of dying so I laughed at him and gave hi
m my water.

  After a few swallows and gasps, he recovered enough to glare at me.

  “What?” I asked. “I had to give you a hard time for being all jealous and broody. As if I would have an ounce of energy or a second of time or any inclination…any reason whatsoever to be with someone else.”

  His glare morphed back into that wide-eyed look. His eyes were red-rimmed and wet from coughing. He had a smear of ketchup on his T-shirt. His hair was a disaster today—my fault. We’d showered in the middle of the night to slick off the sweat and jizz on our skin, and we’d been so wiped after another round under the water that we’d fallen into bed without paying attention to things like drying off or combing out his wet, thick hair. Then this morning we’d slept right up until his phone had dinged with his class reminder.

  Now, as I stared at him in all his messed-up glory, I wanted to reach across the table to pull out the band barely holding the waves in check, run my fingers through those tangles, lean in to lick the chocolate taste from his lips, breathe in the scent of him. I closed my eyes for a fast second, overwhelmed with a surge of feelings. “I’m so fucking into you,” I told him. “I can’t think of anyone or anything else. I think I’m in love with you.”

  His lips parted and I could hear him take a short, sharp breath. After a few moments where all I heard was the sound of my heart beating, he licked his lips and said, “God. I can’t believe you just…”

  His voice was soft and hoarse—more than usual. He’d just been coughing, but the break in his words sounded almost like tears. He was making me nervous. My eyes began to burn and the skin along the back of my neck prickled with sweat. I rubbed at it. “Just…what?” I prompted.

  “That you just say stuff like that.”

  His incredulous tone sure as hell made me feel like it had been the wrong thing to say, but I had to ask him, “It’s bad to say what I feel?”

  He stared at me for another moment before closing his eyes and leaning his head against the booth’s back.

  I bent my knees, pulling my legs back to my side of the booth.

  The prickly sweat on my neck was traveling down my spine and beginning to itch like hell. I didn’t know what to say or how to respond. I hefted my hips to pull the wallet from my jeans. The vinyl booth made rude creaking noises. Nick’s eyes flashed open.

  He reached across the table and put his hand on mine. My fingers curved around the worn leather of my wallet. Beneath the table he tugged one of my feet between his, moving my leg forward, his bony ankles biting into my calf. His hold, both of hand and my leg, was hard. I could feel the neediness vibrating from his skin. His eyes were dark, dark, dark—glossy under the diner’s bright lights. Emotion. I didn’t see or hear him express it very often—at least not blatantly—but I’d felt it a thousand times in his touch over the last few weeks.

  “Josh,” he said. His voice came out croaky and I watched him take a breath and lick his lips. “I’m an idiot.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “I mean, of course it’s not bad for you to say what you feel. I just can’t believe…believe that you would feel that for me—I don’t deserve—”

  “No,” I said, turning my hand under his, twining our fingers. “Don’t say it.” It killed me to think that for some stupid reason he didn’t believe he deserved my love. I knew he was young and probably there were reasons why he’d hopped from guy to guy and steered away from one-on-one relationships in the past. And probably there were reasons for why he hadn’t talked about that kind of shit with me. So, yeah. Probably I was handling this all wrong.

  I looked down at our joined hands and said, “I don’t want to hear that bullshit about you not being worthy or something. I feel what I feel. But it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about this right now. And it’s okay if you’re feeling freaked out because I spewed a bunch of—”

  “Now you’re the one talking bullshit.” He didn’t loosen his grip but he said, “Can we get the hell out of here? I really need to hold you…be with you alone.”

  The rasp was back big time in his voice. My dick twitched. “Hell yes, let’s get out of here.”

  He got money out of his messenger bag and said, “I’ll meet you in front if you can pay the bill.”

  I nodded. He looked uncomfortable physically and I could guess the reason. Now that the weather was cooler, he’d been wearing ridiculously hot—low slung and skinny—jeans every day. They hugged him just right in all the right places. As I stood in line to pay the bill, I watched him through the diner’s big front windows. He leaned against one of the parking meters by the sidewalk, his bag carefully shielding his crotch—acting cool as hell despite his pink cheeks and obvious pose. Someone approached him—a short guy I recognized from the library café—and Nick smiled at him crookedly as they chatted. Cocky. Sexy. Smartass. God. That was my fly guy right there. It had been past time to admit how gone I was.

  When I finally got through the line and outside, the café dude had left. Nick came up to me and, in a move that made me laugh out loud because it was such an obvious—and halfway sheepish—reference to how he’d picked me up in Boston, he offered me his hand. “Come with me?”

  “Always,” I said.

  We smiled at each other as we headed up the sidewalk.

  “I don’t suppose you drove to campus today,” he muttered as we waited at a crossing signal. The Green was a few blocks ahead, the tower a good ten-minute hike beyond that.

  “No, damn it.”

  “I don’t know if I’m gonna make it.” He brought our clasped hands to his crotch for a moment, just long enough for me to feel what was happening under his zipper.

  I laughed. “Poor baby. I might have to cut those jeans off you, huh?”

  He made a noise that sounded like “Glergh.”

  As we started across the street, his fingers tightened on mine and he whispered, “Won’t need to cut them off. Keep thinking of all the things I want to do to you. Just a couple rubs, baby, and I’m gonna go.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered. Now I was about to go. “How about your place? It’s ten minutes closer.” There were no special condoms or lube there, but we weren’t gonna need them if we popped just from unzipping.

  “Good thinking.”

  The Green and the surrounding sidewalks were crowded, and Nick handled the people who knew him and wanted to chat with very brief “laters”.

  I wondered if he realized how tightly he was holding my hand and how crazy-hazy his eyes looked. I felt dorkily proud that it was me who had Mr. Cool so obviously hot and bothered.

  Vegan House’s porch was crowded with open-top boxes full of vegetables. A woman with a long skirt in rainbow colors sat on a porch swing. “Hi, guys!” she said cheerily. “Here to pick up your CSA share?” She held up a clipboard.

  “Um no,” Nick said, barely pausing before he opened the screen door.

  “Oh, sorry!” she said. “Are you visiting…or do you maybe live here?”

  Nick looked at her. “Yeah. You’re Lauren, right? I’m Nick. On the third floor across from Kelsey.”

  “Oh lord,” she said, thumping the clipboard with the heel of her palm. “Sorry, Nick. There are a couple people this year I just haven’t gotten to know yet. You’re like ghosts!”

  When her bright blue gaze fixed on me, I smiled at her. “I’m Josh. How you doing?”

  “Great!” She had a cute smile, but her voice was farther along the scale into the too-damn-cute category. “Nice to meet you, Josh.”

  “Okay…well, cool.” Nick’s gaze was fixed on the house’s interior. “We gotta split.”

  “Hey, Nick,” she said, stopping him. “Did you realize you’ve missed the last two house meetings? And that you’re due to cook and shop next week?”

  “Shit.” He bit his lip, looking like he was holding back a scream. “Sorry.”

  “You got the text about the planned menu, right? I contributed one that was a big hit a couple weeks back. You remember the carrot terrin
e?”

  Nick’s cheeks were an interesting shade of crimson. “No. I uh, think I missed that one.”

  I took pity on both of them. “I’ll make sure we’re on top of things for next week, Lauren. Don’t worry. Nick’s a great cook.”

  “Really?” she said. “Cool. Can’t wait.”

  “Catch you later,” I said, putting my hand on Nick’s shoulder. He shot through the door and I quickly followed.

  “Oh my God,” he croaked as he booked through the entry hall. There was nobody in the main living area. The place smelled heavily of curry and I caught a glimpse of long couches and brightly colored pillows, before Nick grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the stairs. “Carrot terrine…” he muttered as he headed up, taking the stairs two at a time. “What the fuck is carrot terrine.”

  It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of disgust. The dismay oozing from his voice made me laugh.

  As we rounded the landing and headed up the next flight of stairs, he said, “It’s not funny. I’m gonna have to make carrot fucking terrine.”

  I laughed harder. “It is funny. Say it again.”

  He paused on a stair and looked back at me. “Carrot fucking terrine.”

  “When you serve it…” I gasped out more laughter. “You gotta say it just like that.”

  He made a rude sound that might’ve been a laugh.

  By the time we were halfway down a narrow hallway, he was definitely laughing. Giggling. And I was giggling too.

  He got the door to his room unlocked and as soon as the door snicked opened, I was pushing him through, shoving up against him with my whole body.

  As I shut the door firmly behind us, I didn’t have time to register anything other than the distance to the bed before Nick dropped his bag to the floor with a thud, turned, grabbed me around the shoulders and went after my mouth.

  It was more of a mash than a kiss. As soon as we connected, the energy between us exploded. Lips, teeth, tongues. I’d pay the price with bruised, puffy skin later, but I was completely willing to cash out for Nick.