Keeper and Protector (Joshler) ✔️

31

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"My heart jumps around when I'm alluded to."

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"Aww, he's so cute!"

Tyler's eyes fluttered open and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Josh and a woman with bright blue eyes standing in the doorway.

His hand went up to his pacifier, a look of embarrassment on his face. But the woman hurried over to his side, shushing him. "Shh, shh, sweetie, it's okay," she said as she crouched down next to him. "Keep your paci in, love."

Tyler lowered his hand, sleepy, doe eyes staring back at her. The corners of his lips turned up into a small smile when she placed her hand on his.

"Is that better?" she asked.

When he nodded, Josh came over and sat down next to him. "Hi, sweet boy. This is my co-worker and friend, Jenna."

Jenna gave Tyler a sweet smile. "Hi, Tyler. Josh has told me a lot about you."

"All good things," Josh put in, chuckling.

Tyler took the pacifier out of his mouth and gave her a shy smile. "S'nice to meet you, Jenna," he said softly. "You're so pretty."

"Aww!" She giggled. "You're such a cutie!"

Cheeks stained a bright red, he made a small noise in response. "How did your meeting go?"

"Good and bad," Josh replied, laughing a bit, albeit dryly. "It ended a little while ago, but I just finished talking with my father. Jenna wanted to meet you, though, so she waited around until I was done."

Tyler thought about asking what his father had to say, but he decided to wait until later on. "Do you have more work to do?"

"No, we're done for the day." Josh looked at Jenna and smiled. "Jenna knows a really good Chinese place here in LA, so we wanted to see if you'd like to go to dinner."

She smiled. "Yeah, I think you'd like it, Tyler."

"Oh..." Honestly, he wasn't all that hungry. The day's events had left his stomach feeling quite... uneasy. "Are we going right now?"

"In these gross work clothes?" Jenna laughed. "I definitely need to go back to the hotel to freshen up. It's almost 5:00, so how about we meet around 7:00-ish?"

Josh looked at Tyler for his approval, to which he finally nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Awesome!" Standing back up, she gave them a little wave and smiled. "See you guys in a bit."

Now by themselves again, Tyler leaned his head on Josh's shoulder and sighed a little. So much to say, yet not enough time...

"I can tell something's on your mind," Josh said. "Wanna talk about it later?"

Tyler just nodded, otherwise silent as his mind flip-flopped between excitement over Annaliese's big news and sadness over the missing Keepers.

What was he supposed to do when everything he knew was starting to change?

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"Did you have fun tonight, Ty?"

Half-past 10:00 and the boys had just got back to their hotel room. Despite this, they were already shirtless and laying in bed together, savoring the skin-to-skin contact.

"I did," Tyler said quietly. "Jenna is nice." Much like this afternoon, his mood was somewhere right between "anxious" and "soft."

"She is. I can tell she really likes you." Josh leaned over and kissed his forehead. "You did so well with her tonight."