Down But Not Out

Chapter 24

Of course, Josh had kept grinning at me for the rest of the day, but luckily Marie had decided after a while, that she was bored of watching YouTube videos, so there was no risk of her saying something to embarrass us further. Apparently that wasn't enough, because she'd decided to try and embarrass me by grilling me about what had happened between Josh and I whenever he was out of the room. Just like Summer, she had thought something had happened between us that I wasn't sharing. Like for example both girls believed that I'd either told him how I felt and he rejected me, or we had both kissed. No amount of arguing with either of them had convinced them, and there was no way that I was bringing Josh into this to get my friends off my back. Especially since we had kissed in a way although it hadn't meant anything because we were doing it to get rid of Rebecca, who I actually didn't like at all. I couldn't believe he'd actually gone out with her, because she wasn't even pretty, even with all of the gunk on her face.

"Hey, this is really good" Marie announced just as Josh walked passed us when he'd finished doing whatever in the employee's room. He stopped behind us and we both looked at the computer screen to see that Marie was on one of those websites where people could share their writing with the rest of the world. I smiled, since I liked these sort of sites and there were a lot of people on here who really should be published authors.

"What's it about?" I asked her and she glanced away from the computer screen to look at me. She grinned and I rolled my eyes but leaned closer to read with her. It was obviously about You Me At Six.

"Lizzie, move your head, I can't see" Josh huffed and I moved around so that I was facing Marie. That way I could see the screen from the side and Josh could easily see the screen from where he was standing behind Marie.

"Hmm, You Me At Six" Josh said and I bit my tongue to keep myself from giggling loudly. I was pretty sure he was annoyed with us already. Sighing I leaned closer to the screen and scanned a few paragraphs before pulling away and blinking rapidly. Shit! I hadn't realised she was on fanfiction.net which actually had a lot of fan fictions about anything.

"This is actually good" Josh sighed and I grinned at him. I'm sure he was annoyed with girls fantasising about being with him. Then again he did say that he wanted to read something that I'd worked on, even though he didn't actually know that this belonged to me.

"Yeah, actually the main female character reminds me a little bit of Lizzie" Marie stated and I looked at her, eyes wide. They both looked at me and I tried to compose myself.

"Really?" I said, trying to sound interested, although I knew this already since the characters I always wrote about had a little bit of my personality in them.

I looked to my left to see that Josh was looking at me. I smiled at him, feeling the heat creep up onto the back of my neck. I saw the knowing smile cross his lips and looked away to see that Marie was reading again, occasionally gasping or making noises that suggested she thought the part she was reading was cute.

It was then that a guy walked in and wandered over to the ladies' section. I smiled to myself, as a strange thought crossed my mind before I walked over to him.

"Hiya, can I help you with anything?" I asked him and he jumped at hearing my voice. He scratched the back of his head.

"Maybe, are you Lizzie?" he asked- in an accent that sounded like he was from up north- and I frowned at him, before nodding slowly. He smiled in relief.

"Then yes, you can help me. My friend came in here looking for something for her boyfriend and said you'd helped her out" he stated and I nodded while thinking about who he could be referring to.

"Oh, are you talking about Anna?" I asked and he smiled.

"Yeah I am. Anyway I was hoping you could help me out. See the thing is that I like this girl and she said that she loved the designs from here. I'm going back home soon and was hoping to buy something from here in the hopes of impressing her" he shrugged and I smiled at him.

"I'm guessing you like her then?" I asked and he nodded, while sending me a shy smile, "-okay then, so what did you want to buy her?" I asked and he shrugged at me while shaking his head.

"I don't actually know. She mentioned something but I have a feeling it was from last season's line." I bit my lip and nodded before sighing.

"Okay then, tell me a bit about her and I may be able to help you out" I suggested and he nodded before telling me a little bit about her.

She loved wearing dark clothes on top, paired with light coloured trousers, jeans, skirts and shorts. The girl he liked wasn't very girly but she wasn't fussed about wearing bright colours although she was interested in weird looking things. I bit my lip while my eyes scanned the racks before I smiled and pulled out the skull top that I'd recently bought. I held it up to him and he grinned.

"She will definitely love that" he nodded and I smiled in relief.

"Do you know her size?" I asked him and he shook his head. I returned to the top back to its rack before walking over to Marie, gesturing for the guy to follow me while telling her to stand up.

"Okay so who is this girl more like, comparing us to her, weight and height wise?" I asked him and he glanced at Marie, before shaking his head at her. His eyes racked my body and I saw him bite his bottom lip, making me feel very comfortable before I averted my gaze to randomly look over at Josh. I saw that he was watching the customer intently, and even from here I could see his fists, which were in his lap. I looked back at the guy and saw that he looked at me at the same moment.

"She's like you" he stated and I nodded before hurrying back over to gather the right size which should fit the girl. I was extra quick so I was back behind the counter in no time.

"I'm Jeremy" he said as I handed him his change and I nodded at him.

"Nice to meet you Jeremy. Tell Anna I said hello" I said and he nodded before walking out of the shop. I heard Marie hum from next to me and turned to see that she was watching him retreat.

"Not sure what to think of him, but he was cute" she said and I rolled my eyes at her. I hadn't really noticed his looks but thinking about it now he wasn't too bad.

His hair was a dark blonde while he had sparkling brown eyes. He was built well and was about the same height as Josh- meaning he was a head taller than me- with a lip piercing on the left hand side of his bottom lip. I shrugged at Marie.

"Yeah he was cute" I stated and Josh stood up before brushing past us and slamming the door to the employee's room behind us.

"What's up with him?" I asked Marie, although of course she wouldn't know. My friend looked at me and shrugged before glancing behind her at the closed door and sighing.