In Your Corner | ✓

Thirteen

Later that evening, once I'm safely tucked up in bed and just scrolling through my Instagram, my phone lights up with a message, quickly followed by another.

Josh: So, I skipped my shift tonight

Josh: Now I can't sleep

Wishing that I hadn't been drinking tonight so I could just drive over to the soccer house and talk to him, I do the next best thing I can think of.

He picks up on the second ring, tone a little flat. "Hey, Nat."

"Hi," I murmur cautiously, hoping I'm not overstepping by calling, but I can't stand the thought of him having a bad night and not feeling like he can reach out. "I'm glad you texted."

I had a couple of drinks at the bar with Jonny and Andrei, but the messages, along with the tone of voice, have me sobering up immediately.

"Yeah?" he asks quietly, and the vulnerability in his voice nearly kills me.

"Yeah. I told you to do that when you wanted," I confirm, hoping he actually takes my words seriously. "So... I'm glad you did."

There's a pause and then a sigh. "That's good."

I sigh too, realising the magnitude of his decision to miss going to Smith's tonight. Clearly, he's seriously struggling with everything, which is completely understandable. It just sucks that it happened at his place of work, so even that's tarnished for him now. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He groans quietly. "Not really," he eventually admits. "All I'm doing is thinking about it. I'd rather talk about something else, to be honest."

It worries me that he refuses to talk about it, but I don't want to push him too far just yet, so I nod, even though he can't see me. "Okay. Well, I went to Thirty Taps tonight."

Josh makes an impressed noise. "Really? Did you like it?"

"Hm, yeah, we loved it. The beer was so good. I can't believe we'd never heard of it before," I laugh, reiterating exactly what we'd been saying earlier on in the evening. "We each got a few, so that we could try them all out, you know?"

"I thought Anandi and MJ didn't like beer? I distinctly remember offering Anandi a beer once and she threatened to vomit all over my shoes if I so much as passed it to her," he replies, chuckling.

I burst out laughing at the memory that I remember so well. It was some time during sophomore year and Josh had looked completely gobsmacked at Anandi's words. She's never had a filter, even at the best of times.

"I actually went with two of the guys that I work with, because I've not seen one of them in ages and then the other one got a little upset we were planning to hang out without him so begged us if he could join," I relay, smiling again at Jonny's insistence.

To my surprise, Josh actually laughs at that. "To be fair, I admire his confidence. I think I'd be worried the whole time that I was imposing."

"I'd believe that," I remark, knowing that he's always fretting about overstepping or asking too much of people. "But no, Jonny hasn't the slightest sliver of shame."

"Have you practiced that alliteration before, Nat?" he teases gently.

Caught off guard, I laugh. "You know, I hadn't even noticed I'd said that," I confess. "Guess I'm just a natural poet, huh?"

"I bet," he agrees, his warm chuckle dripping honey into my ear. "What beer did you have, then?"

At Thirty Taps, they name all of their beers something different, so I stay quiet for a minute, as I try to remember all the names of the drinks that we ordered. They all start to muddle together, now that I think about it.