The Cat on the Balcony

1- The Move

A/N- This is going to be in Josh's POV unless otherwise stated!

Sitting in the backseat of the car, I tapped my feet to the rhythm of the music playing in my headphones. 

Occasionally I would poke my fingers through the bars of my cat's crate seated next to me. She would try to catch my finger between her little white paws and it was adorable. 

My parents were in the front seats, probably discussing plans for our new house. They both grew up in Columbus Ohio, but they had to move to LA for my dad's job a year after they first got married. 

They had always wanted to move back to Ohio though. At the end of my sophomore year of high school, they told me my dad finally got a job opportunity in Columbus and he took it.

I wasn't really that upset about moving. I didn't have any close friends, and I've always wanted a white Christmas, which is almost impossible in LA.

"Josh!" I took out one ear bud at the sound of my mom.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"I've been calling your name for the past five minutes," she laughed. "Are you hungry? We're going to stop for lunch."

"Can we go to Taco Bell?"

"There's not one close to us, dear."

"Frick."

"We'll stop by McDonalds. On the brightside, we're only one hour away from the new house! It's actually pretty close to the neighborhood I grew up in," Dad said, one of his signature nostalgic smiles creeping across his face. 

He always loved talking about the "good ole days" and to tell me stories from when he was younger.

However, with me being energetic, this car trip has been hell. Sitting for hours on end for days in a row was making me go mad. 

Jenna, my cat, was getting restless too. She's normally pretty quiet, but she's meowing fairly frequently now, letting us know of her discontent. Thankfully, we're almost done with this trip.

Our new house is in a small subdivision. From the online photos of the house, I had already picked out my room; I actually had the whole upstairs to myself which was going to be amazing.

I chose the room with a balcony attached to it as my bedroom, it was pretty sick. Also, I finally get to have my own bathroom and even a separate room for my drums. 

Since living in LA is expensive our house was pretty small; another reason why I wasn't very upset about the move.

Finally, an hour and a half later, we pulled up to our house. I was dying to get out of this cramped car. At lunch we just went through the drive-through, so I haven't been able to stand or walk around for about 6 hours. 

I threw the car door open and tried to jump out. When I say tried, I mean I forgot to undo my seat belt so I just ended up choking myself and making an embarrassing noise.

I unlatched the seat belt and jumped out. Throwing myself down face-first onto the grass, I was so happy I didn't even care that my hat had been knocked off my head.

"Freedom, sweet, sweet freedom I missed you!" I shouted dramatically while fist-pumping the air. 

I heard the faint sound of laughing, and when I looked to my left I saw a boy who seemed to be around my age standing by his mailbox, letters in his hands. 

He has slightly tan skin and short brown hair. His thin legs were clad in black skinny jeans and he was wearing a plain blue t-shirt.

I blushed and dropped my head back down into the grass. 

Way to go, Josh. Make an embarrassing first impression on your new neighbor. 

Your cute new neighbor. 

I slightly lifted my head back up and watched the boy walk back up his driveway and into his house; his shoulders were slightly shaking so I knew he was still laughing at me.

"Okay drama king, get your ass up and help us unload the car before the truck gets here with the rest of our stuff!" my dad shouted over his shoulder as he opened up the back of the car.

"First let me take Jenna inside and get her stuff set up in the bathroom or something for now, she's dying to get out of that crate," I said as I stood from the ground, making sure to grab my hat and put it back on.

I grabbed all of the cat's necessities and went inside the house; looking around as I tried to find the stairs. After I found them and the bathroom, I set up all of Jenna's stuff. After everything was settled, I went back to the car to get her.

I brought her upstairs to the bathroom and shut the door before I opened up her crate door. She sprang out of the crate like I did out of the car, but she had more success. 

She meowed happily as she walked over to her food bowl and started munching. She was purring like mad and I don't blame her, I'd be happy to get out of that crate too.

I rubbed her head in-between her ears before standing back up and leaving the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

It took us about an hour to unload the car, and about thirty minutes after that the truck showed up with the rest of our stuff, making me groan in frustration. Yes, I wanted our stuff, but I was hoping for a longer break. 

All the furniture and boxes were moved in and settled later that evening. Unopened boxes were strewn about the house but all of us were too tired to bother unpacking them right now. 

I jogged up the stairs to let Jenna out so she could start exploring the new house. She had a lot of fun jumping on and weaving around the boxes. 

However, once she found a stray piece of bubble wrap all her attention was focused on that, the boxes were forgotten.

We ended up ordering pizza for dinner, but we had to sit in the living room to eat since the table was covered in boxes. We sat around for a few hours, doing a few little things here and there, until about 10:30. 

Normally I stay up until one or two in the morning scrolling through tumblr, but tonight I was too tired. I took off my shirt and slipped on some gym shorts before throwing myself down on my bed with a grunt. 

My eyes slipped shut and I was out cold within twenty minutes or so. The last thoughts I had were of the cute boy next door with the best laugh I've ever heard.