flower crowns and other neat stuff - joshler

part 11

josh stared at him, jaw dropped. "you're kidding me?" he asked.

tyler shook his head, smiling slightly. "nope."

"they actually want to talk to me? of their own free will?"

tyler chuckled. "it's not like i could force them. plus, why is that so hard to believe? i don't know if you've noticed, but you're pretty frickin cool."

josh ducked his head. "hardly. and i mean, pretty much everyone is terrified of me. so, there's that reason."

tyler waved him off. "patrick and gerard are really nice. they're giving you a chance. then we'll figure out how to show people that you're not some evil bastard, or whatever all of those other assholes like to believe."

josh grabbed his arm. tyler felt like he was going to spontaneously combust. josh didn't seem to notice his incoming death, and instead smiled at him. "i really appreciate this, tyler. you're the best."

tyler blinked at him. "uh-huh," he squeaked.

josh let go of his arm and tyler shook his head to clear it of very non-platonic friend thoughts.

non-platonic friend thoughts were bad when the platonic friend that the thoughts were about was probably not having non-platonic friend thoughts about tyler.

he was probably straight, too. it would be just tyler's luck, him having zero chance with somebody who was probably the most perfect person that he had ever come in contact with.

why couldn't he have a crush (god, he hated that word) on someone super available like patrick.

on second thought, patrick wasn't really his type. he didn't even know what his type was, but patrick wasn't it. it was a lot more like dyed hair, maybe red. heavy eyeliner. maybe his type had a nose ring, too.

oh, tyler was so fucked. so, so fucked.

he cleared his throat and smiled weakly. "well, let's, uh. get to my house, then. i guess you're driving?"

josh nodded. "i know where your house is, so it should be fine."

tyler followed josh out to the student parking lot where his car had been parked.

he had stopped josh on his way to the lot to inform him of the impromptu get together they were having with patrick and gerard at his house.

at first, josh had been reluctant. but tyler had managed to convince him that it would be fine.

over a week had passed since his conversation with patrick and gerard at the bowling alley, and he'd hung out with josh plenty since then, but he'd completely forgotten to tell him about the meet up at tyler's house that was happening that night until right then.

and the only reason he'd remembered to tell josh was because patrick had told him that he'd see him later on his way out of school. tyler had other things on his mind, like replaying the events from two days ago.

josh had stopped by his house without warning, holding two disposable coffee cups and wearing a big smile on his face.

even though it was a monday night and tyler was exhausted, josh had managed to get him out to the forest (in the dark!) to watch the sunset with him from the treehouse he'd shown tyler that very weekend.

august was over with, and tyler was happy about it. in the fading light with josh, he couldn't help to think about the way the red in josh's hair was illuminated by the sun.