Chapter 19
I didn't sleep well that night, but it was for very different reasons than the last time.
Because the only thing I had in my mind was Lexi.
Lexi kissing me. Lexi looking at me with those wicked eyes of hers.
I could still faintly feel her lips against my own, and her weight on me.
It was a really good thing I hadn't slept over at her place. I might have done something I regretted if my girlfriend was beside me right now.
Because I kept replaying over and over again what we'd just done and... I wanted more.
It shouldn't be that surprising though. I shouldn't be feeling ashamed somehow that I was feeling this way.
But I was unfortunately. It was like I was feeling bad for wanting more. Which I really should stop doing.
Lexi was my girlfriend now. I was allowed to want her.
I grabbed my phone a few times, fighting the urge to call her or text her.
We'd just been together.
And she was probably sleeping soundly right now, not replaying everything in her head over again, and overthinking in the process.
Or maybe she was. Lexi was an overthinker after all. But somehow, it kinda felt like she wasn't doing any thinking when it came to how physical we were getting. Like nooooo thinking at all. There was just a lot of how-to-make-Blake-suffer in her head.
Couldn't I just sleep and stop thinking about my girlfriend in just her bra straddling me in my car?
Could I have this at least?
I dozed off a couple of times, just enough to have half dreams that just felt like grainy replays of last nights events.
I sort of gave up on sleep when the sun rose.
I went for a long run, and ended up in front of Josh's place, kind of on purpose.
I hadn't called him in advance, but I assumed he was there. So I made myself at home, and went through the maze that it was to get inside Josh's apartment.
I was greeted by Miss Puss when I walked in.
I petted her. "Where's Josh?" I asked her, like she could answer me, but she just looked at me, blinking slowly, and headed back to her favourite spot by the window.
I chuckled, shaking my head, and headed to the kitchen.
No Josh.
It was pretty early. He was probably still sleeping.
I headed to his room. And here was Sleeping Beauty, eyes closed.
I threw myself beside him on the bed.
He let out a pained sound, muffled by his pillow.
"Goooood morning sunshine," I greeted him.
"Get your stinky armpits out of my bed," Josh mumbled against his pillow.
I frowned, sniffing myself, but I didn't particularly smell bad. "I'm not stinky," I pointed out.
He started to kick me at that. "Get your sweaty armpits out of my clean bed then."
I laughed, and just tried to grab him while he just kept kicking and flailing his arms around. "Why? Do you have problem with sweaty armpits," I asked, amused.
"Only with yours. Get out," he said, and managed to push me off the bed, making me fall on my ass on the floor.
"Ruuuuude," I said, popping my head by the side of his bed.
"You want breakfast? Is this why you came over?" he just said.
I threw myself back on the bed, practically on top of Josh. "I missed you, I just wanted to cuddle."
"Attention whore."
"Loooove you," I drawled.
Josh was quiet for a minute. I thought he'd fallen back asleep by listening to the even sound of his breaths, but then he suddenly said, "I'm so goddamn tired, I binged watched Proong Nee Gor Rak Ter. I don't know why I did this to myself. It wasn't particularly good. But it was like a car crash I needed to look at till the end."
"Tomorrow I love you?" I said, trying to translate the title.
"Yeah, essentially. A Thai trainwreck."
"You love those," I pointed out. He'd made me sit through a lot of them.
"Yes, they're my bread and butter," he answered smugly, "Speaking of which, breakfast?"
I snorted. "Just tell me you want me out of your bed."
"WASN'T I CLEAR ENOUGH ALREADY!" he yelled, hitting me with a pillow, "Get yo sweaty self off my bed!"
"Suuuuch a drama queen," I laughed, and rolled off his bed. "Fine, keep sleeping. I'm going to go play with Miss Puss," I told him, standing beside his bed.
"She'll gracefully ignore you."
"I'll go work on the mural then."
"Great, you've been slacking."
"Slob."
"NORMAL HUMAN BEING WITH NORMAL SLEEPING NEEDS!" he yelled again, throwing another pillow.
I caught it and threw it back at him, laughing again and left him alone.
Josh hadn't made much progress on the mural without me, but he'd traced a few things, and I knew him well enough to figure out what he'd been trying to do, so I got the paint out and everything I needed and got to work.
I put on a playlist with soft music, and for an instant, my head was not filled with my girlfriend anymore.
About an hour later, Josh came out of his room, dragging his feet all the way to the kitchen. I followed him.
I sat in silence while Josh made breakfast with one eye opened.
Miss Puss came to rub herself on his legs now and then, making him smile each time.
Josh really was suuuuuch an old cat lady.
"I need to stop watching bad television till the morning hours," Josh whined over his benedict eggs on a bagel with smoked salmon.
It was one of his best breakfasts.
I just laughed at him, and ate more.
Once we were done, I cleaned the dishes while Josh just threw himself on his couch in the living room.
I brought him coffee, and went back to work.
As I kept painting, I thought about Lexi and the drawing she'd given me on my birthday.
"It's going to be Lexi's birthday soon. I'm not sure what to give her," I suddenly said out loud.
"Give her your dick," Josh replied automatically, eyes still closed while lying on the sofa.
I almost dropped my pot of paint. "Dude."
"If you haven't already I mean, sorry, I don't know," he answered, raising his hands defensively.
"Seriously?"
"What?" he asked, looking at me, and then rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, what does your girlfriend like? Aside from your dick."
"Shuuuuut up," I said, and threw a clean brush at him.
He didn't even try to dodge it. He really looked like he didn't care.
"What? Does she not like it? Wait, what was it Tyler said? Your chest? She likes your chest? Walk shirtless all day long. She'll love it."
"You're absolutely useless."
"I'm useless?"
"Be serious!" I whined.
"I'm a hundred percent serious. It's not my fault Blake Norma Eaton suddenly decided to be a prude."
"Ralph," I corrected him, glaring at him.
"Norma. Norma Desmond," he explained.
Sunset Boulevard? Really? "Seriously?" I asked.
"Don't shoot me you old hag," he said, referring to the movie.
"Useless."
"Hey, she's your girlfriend," Josh said and yawned, "shouldn't you know what's going to make her happy for her birthday?"
"I'm just new at this boyfriend thing," I replied staring at the brush in my hand.
"Don't worry," Josh said, stretching his hand to pet Miss Puss as she passed beside him, "I don't think Lexi Grayson cares about what you give her for her birthday. I think she's already very happy to be dating you."
"A wild affirmation."
"But still a true one."
I went back to my painting after that, while Josh nursed his coffee.
A little later, I asked him, "what were you planning to do today?" It was like 9AM now. Most people usually woke up at this time. Josh had a right to complain. It was the weekend after all. Luckily, Josh didn't have a normal schedule.
"It's Sunday, so flea market," he replied, yawning again.
"Do you want me to come with you?" I offered.
He shrugged. "Sure, the kleptomaniac Beatles fan hasn't been around lately, so I could take the company,"
I grinned at that remark. "How's it going with Daphnee?"
My best friend just rolled his eyes. "There's no going. There's nothing going on."
"Is this your decision or hers?"
"It's a mutual agreement."
"Why?"
"Because you shouldn't mix heroin and cocaine together," he replied, like I was an idiot for asking.
"I'll pretend like that makes sense."
"Speedball is dangerous, okay?" he whined.
I rolled my eyes, used to his strange tantrums. "Alright."
"She's her weird, and I'm my weird and it clashes," he explained.
"I thought you liked her. At least I never really saw you get affected by anyone the way she does."
"She throws me off my game. But that's it."
I studied my best friend. I didn't know what I was seeing. I'd never seen him in love before. I had nothing to compare it with. I wasn't sure it was that though. But there was definitely something between them, more than he was letting on.
"I think you're both too focus on one upping the other. If you stopped doing that, you might actually fit perfectly together," I remarked.
"We don't all get to be with the love of our lives, you know."
"I know," I replied softly.
Josh chuckled. "Don't look like that, it's fine. Look, I've known for a very long time that I'm not going to suddenly find the perfect person for me, that completes me the way your Lexi completes you. I'm okay with that. I don't think we all need love to be happy. I think you can still lead a very happy existence without the love of your life by your side."
I looked at him, tilting my head. "It's a little lonely, though, isn't it?"
He shrugged. "Everyone is a little lonely something. That's fine. There's also nothing wrong with being alone. I love being alone."
"Do you?"
"Well, I always have Miss Puss, so I'm never completely alone. And let's be honest here. Miss Puss is my true soulmate," Josh replied with a grin.
I chuckled. I wasn't disagreeing though. "You know what? Sometimes I think that maybe Jayden reincarnated in Miss Puss. I don't know, you two were always so inseparable, it would make sense."
"That's a nice thought," Josh said, and then grabbed Miss Puss from and looked at her right in her eyes. "Hey, Jay, look at that, Blake doesn't even want to give his girlfriend the D for her birthday,"
I sighed, rolling my eyes, lifting my head in discouragement. "Goddamn idiot."
Josh ignored me, shaking Miss Puss at my face, "Your brother is a pruuuuuude Jay, a pruuuuuuuude."
Yeah, that had probably been a bad idea to mention this, I thought as Josh started to chase me around the apartment, kinda shaking his cat at me.
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Happy Monday my little Pumpkins! :D
I hope you enjoyed the Josh and Blake moment. It's always fun to write these two together. You'll be seeing more of the gang in general in the next few chapters.
NaNoWriMo is still going pretty well, even though I went home to my family for the weekend. I was worried I'd fall behind, but I still haven't. Crossing my fingers it stays that way. I'm about one day in advance, word count wise. And I've uploaded one chapter a day on Wattpad, which makes me very happy. I think I can really manage to finish Life in Paintings by the end of the year. And then I might be able to share the project I'm working on right now. I put a quote from it everyday on my instagram (instagram.com/kaygiard) if you want some sneak peeks. (I've also uploaded my first chapter on Patreon : patreon.com/kariannegiard).
Anyway! Writing is going well, I'm uploading chapters, and hopefully you guys are also having fun reading what I've shared. This week I should be uploading more Life in Paintings, and probably some Weird and Weirder. Maybe Another Virgin and the Whore. And I've had The Headline file opened all week long, so maybe this too. We'll see. I was thinking maybe Dallas and Austin too. Aaaah. Too many stories. XD
Alright! Back to writing! :D See you guys next week. I love you all! <3