Fruit Snacks

15- Clarity

A/N- Hey you guys, this is taking place of Monday's update because on Monday I'm going to be working from 8AM to 1AM and will have no time to post it, let alone be able to respond to your comments ASAP. Thanks for understanding! Today it's The Broken by Lit

Today is Tuesday. I was dreading this day. I haven't spoken with Tyler since the awkward encounter in the park, and now I'm going to spend at least a few hours with him completely alone.

At least Oli isn't here to awkward things up again. I complained to him and kind of yelled at him the remainder of our day together, which resulted in many threats of getting fired, but I knew he'd never follow through on any of them.

I've just pulled into Tyler's driveway, and am seriously considering turning around, leaving, and just texting Tyler saying I threw up or something and can't make it today. But, I sucked it up. I turned off my truck, went up to the front door, and knocked. Two knocks have never sounded so foreboding before in my life.

As I waited for Ty to answer the door, I rocked back and forth on my heels and awkwardly played with a loose thread hanging off the hem of my shirt. Please don't answer the door so I can go home...damn. He's opening the door.

When I saw his face, I gave him what had to be the most awkward smile I have ever made in my life. He gave me a small smile back and stepped aside so I could walk in.

After he shut the door we went into the kitchen where he wordlessly grabbed two water bottles out of the fridge and tossed one to me. He cleared his throat and looked over at me.

"So, Oli seems nice."

"Oh, uh yeah he's pretty good. When he's not messing things up for me that is," I let out a forced chuckle.

"I swear I didn't tell him we were a thing or something like that."

"It's fine dude, seriously don't worry about it. So, he's your boss? You work at the music store over on Kingston Street, right?"

"Yeah, I've been there for five years. I started there when I was sixteen."

When I finished talking I took a sip of my water, but that turned out to be a bad move because what Tyler said next caused me to do a literal freaking spit-take.

"Isn't it kind of weird to date your boss?"

I spit out most of the water I had been drinking and started choking on the rest of it. I set the bottle down on the counter beside me and leaned over, placing my hands on my knees in an attempt to breathe better.

Once I finally finished coughing my lungs up, I wiped to slight tears from my eyes that had welled up due to the burn in the back of my throat. I a smaller, more careful sip of my water before finally explaining to Tyler why he question had caused such a reaction.

"Me and Oli?! No, no, no, no, no! We're not dating! He's like six years older than me, and he's engaged to another guy named Josh Franceschi who is also from the UK. In fact he just proposed to him last week, anyways not the point, I'm not dating Oli! In fact I'm not dating anybody right now. Just a single Pringle."

I wanted to smack myself in the face for that last sentence. Good job Josh; let's see how many more times you can make an awkward fool of yourself in one hour.

Tyler's POV

I almost let out a huge sigh of relief when Josh explained that he was still "a single Pringle," as he put it. I had honestly thought he was dating that Oli guy. I don't know why, but that's just the conclusion my mind jumped to.

And honestly, I think I was jealous. I've been jealous of other people before over material items, but never about another person and it felt so much more intense. I was almost angry at the man I knew nothing about, simply because I thought he had the one person that I've ever wanted to be with. Josh.

Ok, so over the past few days my feeling for Josh may have grown a little bit. I know I told myself I was going to push them to the side and focus on my music, but that was proving to be easier said than done. No matter what I'm doing, my mind finds some way to bring Josh into the situation.

Like "Oh, you're drinking coffee? Doesn't the color remind you Of Josh's eyes? Oh you're brushing your teeth? Aren't Josh's teeth really white and straight and basically perfect?"

You get the idea. No matter where I go or what I do, Josh is on my mind.

And it's starting the show in my songs too. Lately whenever I've been trying to write some new lyrics, they've been a little less focused on my internal battles with my mind, and instead focused more so on loving someone. It wasn't intentional; those were just the words that flowed from my mind to my pen.

"Oh, I gotcha. Sorry for assuming, it's just...I don't know it seemed like you guys were together or something. My bad." I said, finally answering Josh.

"It's ok, glad we got that cleared up though..." he trailed off.

"Ha, yeah. So um, anyways you want to go down to the basement and start practicing? I was thinking we could work on Lovely today."

Crap why did I pick that song?!

"Yeah sounds good; lead the way." He said with a small sweep of his arm. I gave him a slight smile before turning and doing just that.

We walked down that stairs in silence, but it was a more comfortable silence than earlier. It was still a little awkward, but the tension had lessened a considerable amount.

As we worked on the song, I couldn't help but keep glancing over at Josh. Josh wasn't who this song is originally written about, but it definitely is now. He probably doesn't understand even half of how amazing he is, and hopefully I can change that for him one day.

But, now is not the right time. Instead we just kept working on the song until it was perfect.

"Hey, how would you feel about trying to book a live gig? We've finished enough songs to do a full set if we could get one." I asked as I turned off my keyboard.

"Sounds sick, let's do it."

Little did I know, that was the real start of things.