Nostalgia || Joshaya

chapter 5

The first night was weird.

Last night Maya had dinner with the guys and then went straight to bed. The others still stayed at the reception, sitting around and talking. Maya hadn't gotten much sleep because Riley had been snoring or having a dream about Lucas that she'd spoken out loud.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Riley said when she noticed Maya was already awake. "Yeah, morning or whatever." Maya turned to the wall and covered her head

After a while, Maya actually woke up and got ready for breakfast. At the time that had been arranged, they all left their rooms and met in the hallway. After all, they had rooms next to each other. Except for Josh. He didn't show up. But when they reached the lobby, a question was answered. But even more, arose. The group stopped a few feet away from Josh.

"There he is," Cory stated. Josh was laying on the bay window, covered with the hoodie of "some" Mount Sun Lodge employee.

"He has the same clothes on..."

"Who's that girl?" Maya pointed at the young brunette.

"... and he's sleeping." Riley continued her sentence.

"Who's that girl?!" Maya asked again. Still pointing and the girl sitting at the reception table.

"He must have been here all night," Riley added up.

"Who's that girl?" At this point, Maya was a bit aggressive.

"And there she is..." Cory narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the young lady. "Lauren Junior." Maya couldn't believe her eyes.

Riley, meanwhile, went to wake up her uncle. Cory then walked closer and they straddled each other again so Josh could walk on that one healthy leg.

"You talked to her?" Maya didn't ask until breakfast when it was just her and Josh at the table.

"To who?" He didn't understand. "Miss perfect from the reception."

"Oh, you mean Lorry? Yeah, we talked a bit. But I fell asleep." He wasn't lying. At all. The truth was that they really had talked, he'd fallen asleep mid-sentence. But they talked all night. It wasn't until about half-past six that Josh couldn't stand it, leaned his head back, and fell asleep in an instant.

"Oh, cool. Is she nice?" "I mean, yeah she's fine."

Was Maya not good enough to talk to? Like he had to talk to the other girl. But she actually had nothing to be jealous about, but she still felt something...

~

That day went kind of quickly. But not faster, than Josh's night. When it's night and you're having a great conversation about someone you're passionate about, the time goes fast. Like, really fast. Josh didn't even notice it was morning until his forgotten alarm went off at five. They talked some more after that, but Josh fell asleep while Lauren was talking about herself.

It was a little rude, but she wasn't angry. He talked and talked all night about 'some' girl until it wore him out. He complained, he vented, he talked... and Lauren just listened. She understood why he was so invested in talking about her. She caught something about her name being Maya and something about an age difference. It sounded interesting to her, like some kind of love story. Even though she didn't know these people and didn't care about them at all, yet. When Josh started his speech, she kind of regretted speaking to him at all because their story had no end. But when he got to "someday" and Mount Sun Lodge, she perked up. Who knew that their family ski lodge, would always bring someone love? I mean, only twice so far, but Lauren was already suspecting a third time, them being here again, especially with Maya, as Josh mentioned.

After breakfast, they escorted Josh to his room and the others headed down the slope. "Room service," came a knock, not long after Josh was left alone.

A smiling Lauren came out from behind the door, tea in hand. "Knew you'd be here," she laughed. "Here you go, raspberry tea."  "Thanks." Josh sat down on the bed and took the tea from the girl. But it was hot so he put it on the nightstand.

"You know, we had some good talk yesterday... and I'm thankful for that, but I fell asleep in the middle of your story. I think that now, we should talk about you, and you only... if you have time, of course."

"Hmm, let me check my calendar." Lauren pretended to look into an imaginary calendar. "Yeah, I have some time now. My night shift has ended and my next one will be tomorrow night. If you'd like to talk again."

"Yeah, why not?" Josh smiled.

"So what was it with your brother?" "He started his dream career a few weeks ago..."

"Sherpa," they both said. "I remember him from years ago."