BF(F?): A Josh Richards Fanfiction *completed*

24

I groaned the next morning as I got out of my bed. Last night's events were kind of rough, and I still wasn't entirely sure if I was going to tell Josh that I had already known about Jaden and Nessa.
I went downstairs, and Josh was already sitting at my kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee while my mom stood at the stove, flipping a pancake.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," Mom greeted me as I hugged her from behind. "Coffee?"
"Mmm, yes, please," I agreed, taking the mug that she handed me from the counter. "Delicious."

I sat down at the table next to Josh. "I'm going to assume that you got me back here last night. Thank you."
He nodded. "Of course. We take care of each other. it's the whole best friend thing."
At that moment, I decided to pretend that I didn't remember anything from the night before. "What happened last night? I remember getting there, and then, I remember waking up."
"Um, a lot," Josh sighed. "I, uh, well, I caught Jaden and Nessa together."
I was hopeful that my look of shock was believable. "You found who? Doing what?"
"Yeah," he chuckled wryly. "Isn't that something?"

Mom put a plate stacked with pancakes on the table, setting a bottle of syrup next to it. "That's crazy to me. I can't believe that they're the pair that came out of this."
"Mom," I warned, looking up at her as I put a pancake on my own plate. "It feels like it might be just a little bit too soon to bring that hot take up."
"No," Josh disagreed. "It's a valid response to the whole situation. If I wasn't so close to the situation, it might even be laughable."

The three of us sat in silence, eating our pancakes and sipping our coffees. "Okay, I know that I can't ask for too much," Mom began, "but do you have any more plans this weekend? I think that it could be good for you. It's been a long time since you've gotten out of the house. You obviously need it."
"Thanks, Mom," I groaned. "I don't know. I think that I'm just going to get ahead on my schoolwork for next week."
"Like hell you are," Josh interjected. "I had plans with Nessa, but we all know how that ended up. You and I are going to do something fun today. What do you want to do?"

Mom gave me a look, and I shook my head at her. "We can do whatever you would like to do, Josh."
"Well, we're gonna go to the mall then. Maybe we'll get dinner and see a movie," he suggested.
"She doesn't have a choice. it's a date," Mom said, getting up from the table and taking the plates from in front of Josh and me.
"Alright, Ma. I will go next door and get my stuff together. Text me when you are ready to leave, okay?" he said to me, hugging my mom before leaving.

As soon as Mom heard the door shut, and she looked back at me from the sink. "You can't tell me that you don't remember any part of last night."
I laughed. "I remember some of it, Mom, but I'm not ready to confront a whole lot of it, so I chose to play dumb."
She shook her head. "You better tell him that you heard what he said to you last night. You don't think that I've been rooting for the two of you this whole time?"
"What the hell does that mean?" I asked, pouring myself another cup of coffee and pulling myself up to sit on the counter.

"What are you doing?" she asked, putting the plate that she was washing back down in the sink. "Get your butt off my kitchen counter."
"I will answer your question after you answer mine. What does 'rooting' for us mean? What does 'this whole time' mean? I don't understand." I crossed my legs underneath me, eliciting another glare out of my mom.
"Get off my countertop, and we'll discuss it."

I climbed down reluctantly, sitting down next to her at the table again. "Alright, spill, Samantha."
She glared at me again, folding her hands on the tabletop in front of her. "Patti and I were best friends in college, remember?" I nodded, and she kept going. "We both got married, and we moved in next door to one another, and well, it was perfect."
"I'm really hoping that this is not going in the direction that I think it is, Mom," I said, wringing my hands under the table.
She ignored me, continuing to speak. "We got pregnant right around the same time, and when we found out that she was having a boy and I was having a girl, we thought about what it might be like to end up as a family."

I shook my head. "You tried to make it out that I would be destined to be married to our next-door neighbor?"
"I didn't say that you were destined to be married to him, but we did think about it."
"Well," I sighed, "at least I know that if I am in love with him, the way that he's in love with me, then I will have your full support. I am going to go upstairs and get ready to go out with Josh," I said, standing up.

I went upstairs, and for the first time ever, I was nervous about hanging out with Josh. What would we talk about? Would I tell him that I loved him? Was I supposed to tell him that I knew about Nessa and Jaden? How would he react if I did?
I couldn't bother to think about it any longer, so I pulled a pair of jeans on, switching my hoodie out for another one of Josh's old ones.
After pulling my hair up into a messy bun and taking one last look in the mirror, I texted Josh that I was ready. I suppose it was time to face it. Now or never.