Sweet Tooth | joshler

VIII

This chapter is long as hell I'm so sorry lmao
Also there's a triggering topic in this chapter, self harm, so I'll put another warning right before that section.

————

Josh went home that evening and worked up the guts to send Tyler a text, which Tyler replied to happily.

The two ended up texting each other for hours, their conversation lasting until four in the morning when Josh called it quits and went to bed.

But after that, they didn't stop.

The first conversation resulted in many others, and eventually, they even started to call and FaceTime. As well as that, Josh continued to pay Tyler little visits at work that would usually last between thirty minutes to an hour, and then he'd leave to usually go see his mom.

Another week or so of this routine passed though, and it was now Friday, (two weeks later from before) and Josh was going to stop by the bakery again.

This time, he had gone to see his mother first because his brother texted him that morning about something the doctor had mentioned about something going wrong. It turned out not to be much of a big deal at the time, nothing that affected her too much, but it still gave Josh and his family a scare.

With the stress from that, once Josh left, that's when he decided to go see Tyler. While he was still oblivious to everything happening with Josh's life, Josh still wanted to be with him, even him he couldn't tell him about it or rant. Tyler almost always lightened his mood and gave him the chance to destress for a bit, so he figured it to be a good idea to see him anyways.

When he got to the bakery, it was already around eight-thirty, so they were pretty slow by now which was perfect since that meant Tyler probably wasn't very busy.

He walked inside and saw Jenna helping a customer at the counter, so he stood by and waited until she was done and the customer walked outside until he spoke with her.

Jenna noticed he had come in, but obviously only spoke to him when she was free. "Hello again, Josh," she greeted, not too enthusiastically, but also not too bland to where it sounded rude. She didn't not like Josh, after seeing him for almost two weeks now, she had come to find that he did seem kind like Tyler said, but that little sliver of jealousy still showed sometimes whenever he with with her.

Josh didn't think much of it though, and he answered back, "hey, Jenna," trying to seem happier than he actually was, but he still looked slightly upset and his tone was still a bit sad-sounding.

She already knew that he was there to see Tyler, so she didn't waste any time making small talk and cut straight to the point, "Tyler's in the back."

"Thanks," was all the response he gave, heading over to the kitchen to go see his friend while Jenna stayed back and gave a slightly annoyed sigh.

He opened the door to the back and saw Tyler there at the counter taking off his gloves, and he looked up quickly and realized it was Josh that had just walked in. He smiled to him and pointed out, "hey, you're here later than usual."

"Heh, yeah, I know. I had to do something last minute today and it ended up taking a while, but I still wanted to come by," he told him with a faint smile.

"mm, gotcha," was all Tyler said in return, until he threw the old gloves away and looked back to Josh, and he happened to notice that he looked a little off. Out of concern for him, he asked, "...hey, you okay? You look kinda... upset..."

Josh shrugged and played it off, "I'm okay, just kinda worn out and a little stressed from being busy all day, don't w-" He paused when his stomach randomly growled and added with pink cheeks, "...and apparently I'm also hungry."