Youngblood

Chapter 11

Joe's POV

It's a couple of days later, and today Josh is coming out of hospital. We've planned to have a party at the Maynards, and we've checked with Josh's Mum and she says that's ok. The lot of us are in the car park of the hospital waiting for Josh to come out.

"Hopefully he's not too tired," Anna says.

"Fingers crossed," Dianne quips. A couple of minutes later, Josh appears at the door as we all cheer.

"Hey!" I shout. "How are you feeling?"

"Alright, to be fair," Josh comments. "Why are you all here?"

"We've got a surprise," Jack says. "Come on, we need to head back."

"How? There are too many of us to fit into a car. And nobody can drive," Josh asks.

"Josh, you're asking too many questions," Caspar says. "Just follow us."

We lead him up to where three cars are parked, with my Mum, Josh's and the Maynard's inside. We split off and get into them, and all drive off to the Maynards. I sit next to Joe and Caspar and Oli is in the front.

"Be sensible," Mum warns us.

"We always are," I say. I can see Mum rolling her eyes in the rear-view mirror. We clamber out and head inside the Maynard's house, where everything is set up.

"Surprise!" Mikey calls when we're all inside. Josh looks around. "We know you love a party."

"I do indeed," Josh says, heading straight over to the alcohol.

"Course that's where you go to," Anna sighs.

"Maybe later," Katya laughs.

"Why wait when you can not?" Josh says.

"Can I choose the playlist?" Conor asks.

"Only because you have the best taste," Oli says. Conor takes his phone and puts on his Spotify playlist and connects it to the speaker and turns up the volume really loud.

"We can't even speak now!" Jack yells, heading over and turning it down slightly so we can all now at least speak to each other. "Right, that's better."

"Where's the food?" Josh asks.

"Well he's back to normal," I laugh. "Everywhere Joshua."

"Oh yeah," Josh says, spotting the bowls dotted all around the room. He heads straight to the crisps and starts stuffing his face with them.

"You look like a hamster," Lauren says.

"Oh really?" Josh questions.

"Yeah," Lauren sniggers.

The party seems to be going really well and Josh is acting like his old self again. It's nice to see him so relaxed, especially after what happened.

"Should we ask him what happened?" Conor asks. "We need to know if he got attacked."

"Which he did," Katya says.

"We don't know that," Conor repeats. "Anyway, should we ask him?"

I glance over at Josh, who is seeing who can fit the most amount of crisps in their mouth with Mikey. If you didn't know what had happened, you wouldn't be able to tell.

"Not yet," I say. "We don't want to spoil the mood."

Dianne's POV

I had never been to a proper party before. I only really had a couple of friends in Australia and they weren't the sort to hold parties. But I'm really enjoying this one.

"Right? Time for some alcohol!" Josh shouts.

"You've just come out of hospital," Byron reminds him.

"And?" Josh presses, heading into the kitchen and taking out some bottles of beer. Joe gets one and chucks one over to me.

"I love you," Joe says.

"I love you too," I reply. Joe pulls me closer and we share a kiss, short but passionate.

"Ooh," Oli teases.

"One day you'll be lucky enough to have a girlfriend," Joe comments. "Maybe."

"I will," Oli says.

"I won't ruin your confidence," Joe laughs, helping himself to some chocolate and passing me some.

The hours pass and everyone starts to get really quite drunk. I look over at Mikey and Caspar, who have started singing at the tops of their voices and dancing around to Cotton Eye Joe. They drag Joe into it, and then Joe pulls me in, and the four of us are dancing around like we're some kind of crazy fools. But I love it.

I don't get too drunk, as otherwise everybody will be dying by tomorrow and there will be nobody left who doesn't have a panging headache. It then gets to one o'clock, and we decide that it's probably best we should start heading back, seeing as Josh has only just got out of hospital and needs his sleep.

"We can ask him tomorrow what happened," Joe tells everyone else.

"Do you need us to come over and help clean tomorrow?" Byron asks.

"No, it's fine," Jack says.

"I'll make them two do it all," Anna laughs.

"You can come back to mine tonight gorgeous," Joe says. "Don't want to wake your mother."

"She's probably awake on the phone knowing her," I sigh. Joe smiles sadly at me and pulls me in for another kiss before we head outside and get in the Uber we are sharing with Oli and Caspar.

Joe knocks on the door to his house and his Mum opens it.

"Sorry for the state of me Dianne," Tracey apologises.

"I'm probably worse," I laugh, but when I laugh, I feel a pain in my head. "Can we go to sleep straight away?"

"Course baby," Joe says. Tracey closes the door and I head upstairs and Joe lets me fetches me some of Zoe's pyjamas to wear and Joe gets into bed and lets me sleep next to him, putting his arms around me.

I've never felt safer.

A/N: New part! This one was just a bit of a relaxed chapter there will be some drama soon I promise! Also thank you for all the support on this so far! It means a lot!