Josiah
After they’d gone to bed early Thursday morning, Josiah had felt this wistful ache in his whole being as he’d tried to fall asleep. He’d sensed it, Denny’s indecision and pain in the hallway, but they weren’t ready for anything like sleeping in the same bed again. Every fiber of his being had told him to go to Denny, to ease the pain he was feeling, but Josiah hadn’t been able to.
When they’d met in the kitchen around midday for breakfast, they’d both been bleary-eyed and out of it. But they’d continued with their day, with Denny going to work for a few hours in the afternoon after making Josiah promise he’d call if Denny was needed for anything at all.
Josiah then drove back to the Hare to check on the twins and Nelson who had slept in the break room on a cot he’d produced from somewhere.
They’d all agreed that for now, Yolanda and Drea would stay at the bar and Josiah would stay with Denny.
On Friday, Josiah did the bookkeeping from Denny’s while Denny went to work and then therapy in the afternoon. It was weird and domestic to make dinner for them while he waited for Denny to come home.
It continued like that, acutely domestic and achy past the weekend. The twins weren’t sure what they wanted to do and Josiah understood that. Besides, a great big part of him loved playing house with Denny, even though it would only come to a terrible screeching halt at some point sooner or later.
On Wednesday morning, Josiah woke in Denny’s guest bedroom and sighed. It would be another long day. This time last week everything had been… not good. At all. It still wasn’t all good and it was different, but at least he had all his family still. He couldn’t really complain.
Denny had left early to go to therapy and then work, but he’d promised to show up for open mic night. The fact that Denny was taking this therapy thing seriously was awesome. While Josiah tried to wake up in the shower, he wondered how Denny would feel after today’s session. On Friday, he’d come home and been in his own world most of the evening.
To Josiah, that felt familiar. He’d gone to therapy for a couple of years after he started to work at the Hare. He’d needed to purge some of his past, and his therapist had helped with that. He should go again, at least for a few sessions, but he hadn’t gotten to it yet.
He ate breakfast and then started the drive to the Hare sometime after midday. Of course the traffic was a bit annoying, but he was early and that was fine. His mind kept going back to Denny and the little he’d said about his Friday therapy session.
Josiah hadn’t asked, but Denny had still volunteered that they’d deep-dived his relationship with his parents and Dave, and his own marriages. Today, Denny was supposedly going to talk about his current identity and how to handle the whole thing of being bisexual in relation to his relationship with Josiah.
They still hadn’t talked about the elephant in the room. They both knew that Josiah had been in love with Denny for ages. They also knew that Denny kind of wanted Josiah back in a way he hadn’t before. But that was it. Nothing else had been talked about or established as a truth.
For the time being, they were best friends again and everything else was on the backburner, and if Josiah was completely honest he… didn’t mind. Because he was terrified of losing half of his soul and that was what Denny had become for him, whether he’d known it or not. Friendship like this was one thing, but add love to it, the kind of bone-deep love Josiah could feel thrumming in his body whenever he let it, and everything changed.
He parked in his usual space in the back and opened the door with his keys. Drea bounced down the stairs from the apartment and smiled at him.
“Hey boss!”
“Hello, you!” He gave her a hug because she clearly wanted one and it wasn’t every day she did that.
“Yolanda is in the front already and Nelson is bringing lunch for everyone before we open.”
“Awesome. I’ll go see if I have some receipts for deliveries in the office I forgot, but I’ll be in the front in a bit.”
“Okay!” Drea continued along the corridor toward the swinging door.
Josiah smiled. He liked to see her happier again. The things the twins had lost were mostly material, easily replaceable. The one thing that Drea had run into her bedroom to try to save was an old blanket their grandma had made her.
She hadn’t made it into her room because of the smoke, of course, but they’d found the blanket on the corner of the couch in the living room while they were packing their stuff. Drea had confessed that it was the only personal thing she had left from their grandma who had been there for them when nobody else had.
He found the receipts and stuffed them into his laptop case. He then went to push open the door and peered into the bar.
“Hey, do you guys mind if I go grab a few things from upstairs?”
Yolanda was organizing their stations and smiled. “Not at all. It’s a bit box-ey there, so be careful. We got some of the stuff back from the place.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.” He went to his place and sure enough, there were several cardboard boxes in different sizes littering the small apartment.
The twins had found a good place that did ozone treatments and most of their belongings were salvageable. With the help of Lieutenant Bailey, they’d even gotten a discount. The firefighter had come by twice in the last week to check on the twins, but everyone had known he was really there because he was sweet on Yolanda. Well, everyone except Yolanda herself.
Josiah went to the closet in the corner where he’d moved all the clothes that remained there and grabbed sneakers and some of the clothing he’d used back when he still jogged in the mornings instead of taking walks. He needed to get into shape, especially if he was going to spend time in the car every day.
He recognized that it was a little paranoid to think that it’d make a huge difference, but since Denny had some exercise equipment in the house, why not start using it?
He stashed his clothes and a couple of books he wanted to read but hadn’t gotten to yet. The twins and Nelson were already eating, and Nelson pointed at the extra container.
