Josh arrived about twenty minutes later, dragging a metal chair over from a nearby table and falling into it gracelessly, kicking his feet up onto the uneven table.
"Hey, watch it, jackass" I warned him, pulling away my bucket of ice cream before he landed his foot in the raspberry sauce.
"Don't worry, princess, you're ice cream castle is still intact." He replied, grinning at me before looking over at Matt with a questioning glance. "Who's the kid again?" He asked, and I sighed at the way he said it. His tone of vlice seemed to infer that just because Matt was a little younger than me, I shouldn't be hanging out with him.
"Josh, this is Matt. Matt, Josh lives across the street from me, and he's an ass. Josh, Matt is my friend, and he's not an ass."
Josh seemed offended by my proclamation of his ass status, I looked at him accusingly. "Someone who wasn't an ass wouldn't steal someone's phone just to put their number in it, dickwad" I reminded him, eyebrows raised.
"Okay, I guess you do have a point there, sweetheart" he said, scratching his chin slightly. He looked at the table and back to me and Matt, before walking inside, presumably to get ice cream.
"Nice tension" Matt giggled, stabbing at his ice cream with the plastic spoon he had been provided with.
"What on earth are you talking about?" I laughed, hooking by ankles behind the legs of the cold metal chair.
"All the nicknames. Jackass, princess, dickwad, sweetheart, it's like a competition. Who can run out of pet names first? Except, yours are all insults. But I don't think he cares."
"Are you suggesting that me and Josh are flirting?" I asked, my mouth hanging slightly more open than I'd like at this point. I mean, sure, Josh was decent looking, I guess, but he really was a jerk, and the last time I took a risk with a jerk it didn't exactly go to plan.
"I am indeed. Except neither of you realise." He finished quickly, just as Josh jumped down the small step out of the shop and in to the street.
No sooner had Josh sat down with an optimistic look pn his face, however, than the heavens above opened down on us. Rain was suddenly pouring down around us, and we were stuck a good twenty minute walk from any of our houses.
"We're fucked!" Matt decided, throwing up the hood of his jumper.
"Language, kiddo!" Josh shot back, making us both laugh.
"I'm thirteen!"
-
We had abandoned our ice cream for the sake of getting out of the rain. And Josh hadn't stopped bitching about it since.
"If you loved your ice cream so much, why don't you marry it" I chuckled, ensuring not to leave a nickname in the statement. Since Matr had mentioned it, I'd avoided pet names, and Josh seemed to have caught on quickly.
"Well," he began, "I would've, but no, it's raining, September doesn't like rain, we have to find a dry spot. I want my ice cream." He ended his complaint by huffing, folding his arms and looking down at the ground, a pout on his lips. He looked like a five year old.
"We'll get ice cream when we go out next time" I promised him. Wait, was there going to be a 'next time'? Had I just decided that for myself and screwed up any possible friendship I could have had with this boy?
He huffed again.
"Fine. But you're paying!"
-
It took around fifteen minutes for Josh's mom to show up to pick us up. He had called her a little while after he decided I owe him ice cream. By the time she pulled up, Matt had already decided that if he didn't walk home right then, he would be in more trouble than he would be if he was simply drenched. Drenched and late, however, is too many strikes.
When he saw her car slowly round the corner to the park we had hidden himself in, he sat up so hard he hit his head on the underside of the climbing frame we had taken shelter under. I laughed at his misfortune, but couldn't help notice how odd he had been acting. I had been noticing it slowly. He seemed... on edge. Anxious. He kept twitching slightly, too. I didn't bring it up, however. It could have just been the cold.
When we both clambered in to the back of his moms car, and I had introduced myself to remind her of who I was, Josh leaned over and said to me quietly,
"Is it okay if you go straight home? I have... stuff. And it's late. Please?"
I was slightly taken aback but I nodded. If he didn't want me in his home, I didn't have any right to complain.