Lexi The Relationship Guru
"Honey, I'm home!"
The sound of Josh's voice at stupid o'clock in the morning roused me from my sleep.
Groaning, I rolled over and buried my head underneath Blake's heavy arm, which was resting on my pillow, hoping that maybe the ostriches were on to something and Josh would just go away.
When Blake had lent Josh his set of house keys for some reason or another a couple of months ago, neither one of us had been expecting for him to make a copy of it to keep for himself.
The first time he'd let himself in, we'd been cuddled on the couch watching a movie, much to Josh's disappointment since he was hoping to catch us in the act.
Blake had taken the keys away from him but he just produced another one, and then another when we took those from him too.
In the end, we'd just given up and let him be. Knowing Josh, he'd get bored of randomly popping in soon enough and leave us in peace.
This morning, Blake was, surprisingly, asleep next to me. I smirked as I eyed him sleeping peacefully. I suppose our vigorous activities the night before must have tired him out.
Not wanting Josh's ridiculously obnoxious and overbearingly loud personality to wake him -because let's face it, the poor boy needed every ounce of sleep he could manage to get- I pecked Blake softly on the forehead and reluctantly got out of bed, picking his t-shirt up off the floor and slipping it on.
Stretching as I made my way out of the room, I almost bumped into Josh who was balancing three to-go cups of steaming coffee in his hands and was dangling a bag of what looked like doughnuts from his mouth.
"Did she kick you out again?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as I reached out to grab one of the cups before they all went tumbling, and the bag from his mouth.
"Of course not. I decided to stop by and get some sex tips from you and Blakey so that Daph and I can keep things fresh," he deadpanned.
"What do you think? Of course she kicked me out!" exasperatedly, he threw his arms up in the air and sloshed coffee onto the floor much to my dismay.
I choose to ignore what he had said about sex tips because I knew for a fact that Josh and Daph's sex life definitely did not need any further spicing up and the doctors at the nearest ER could definitely vouch for me.
This was clearly evident from the number of times we'd had to rush Josh to the hospital only to find out that he had -or rather, Daph had- fractured his penis. We'd even had to bring Daph in once when they'd accidentally used a deep heat rub instead of lube and she wouldn't stop screaming from the burning sensation.
"What did you do to piss her off this time?" I asked, leading the way to the kitchen, the furthest away from the bedroom where Blake was sleeping.
With Josh in our apartment though, it wasn't quite far enough. The boy was damned loud!
"What makes you think I did something? What if it was her? I mean, she knows she's not supposed to use her B.O.B., Bob, without me but I swear she still does. I'll catch her in the act someday, I swear it," Josh rattled on, completely disregarding my question.
I couldn't help but think that he was purposely avoiding telling me what had actually happened. Knowing the two of them, it was probably something so stupid it wouldn't even make sense to argue about it.
The last time Josh had needed a place to crash, it was because Daphne had heard him singing a Rolling Stones hit in the shower. She had kicked him out quicker than he could finish singing 'I can't get no satisfaction'.
Of course, a couple of days later Blake and I had walked into our apartment to find them christening our living room carpet. It goes without saying that we had to get a new one.
"No seriously, what did you do?"
For what seemed like ages, Josh had just stood on the other side of the counter, glaring at me.
"I don't like you very much right now, you know, Lexi," he huffed, feigning a look of hurt and resting a hand over his chest, causing a grin to creep onto my face.
Our silent stand off was interrupted by Blake appearing at the kitchen door, looking adorably dishevelled in a pair of low slung sweats alone, his bare chest distracting me from Josh.
"Don't you have your own girlfriend to keep you occupied at five o'clock in the morning? Or, at least a cat?" he grumbled, coming to stand behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. My head rested comfortably below his chin as I leaned into his body.
"I decided that I wanted a trade in. What do you say, Blakey?" Josh joked lamely.
All three of us cringed at the thought of what Josh had just said.
"Oh shit, now I feel like bleaching my brain to get the mental image out!" he yelled, clamping his hands over his eyes and walking around the kitchen in circles, bumping into the cupboard and the fridge while he was at it.
Blake and I burst out laughing at Josh's discomfort, causing him to stop and glare at us for a moment.
"Some best friends you two are, taking the Mick out of my suffering," he complained melodramatically, walking into the living room and dropping onto the couch with his hand on his forehead.
"Why don't you tell us what actually happened so we can decide if we should let you stay or kick you back to Daph," Blake suggested.
Still standing at the kitchen counter, I watched Blake's eye bypass the cup of now lukewarm coffee, heading straight for the double chocolate doughnut instead and I smiled -the boy and his chocolate.
"You know how I was making that sculpture of Daphne for her birthday, right?" Both Blake and I nodded though Josh couldn't really see us.
We'd been enlisted to help Josh make over a hundred tiny little white daisies out of paper mache for his sculpture.
It was a beautiful concept, this sculpture he liked to call 'Daphne Of The Woodstock'. It was of a girl -Daphne, of course- sitting crossed legged on the ground with her head thrown back as though enjoying the sun and the music, and it fit her to the T.
He'd made it entirely out of driftwood, save for the paper mache daisy chain he was making to go around her head.
"What about it?" I asked, groaning inwardly at what I was sure was going to be something trivial and pointless.
"Well, she came to surprise me at my studio and she was wearing this really hot dress, I swear the girl knows exactly how to get my attention, I mean..." Blake clearing his throat interrupted Josh midway, stopping him from getting too far away from the point.
With a sly grin in our direction, Josh started again.
"Yeah, so she came to the studio and she saw me working on it. Apparently, her boobs don't look like that," he said, sounding defeated.
In that moment, I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh at him or cry for him. Blake on the other hand was vibrating with laughter next to me, his shoulders were shaking so much I thought he might have been having a seizure.
"It's not funny! I might have upped her a couple of cup sizes but I don't see what the problem is," Josh complained, glaring at both Blake and I.
This time, I did laugh.
It was only several minutes later when I had calmed down enough to speak coherently that I did.
"Josh, with Daph what you see is exactly what you get. You should know that by now," I told him, reaching out to give his shoulder a comforting squeeze.
"It's not like I'm giving her a boob job for her birthday. I love her boobs. Daphne Of The Woodstock was just keeping me company for a while, I thought I could experiment a little," he argued stubbornly, causing Blake to choke out a laugh and then resume eating his doughnut which had been previously forgotten.
"We girls are odd creatures, Josh. As much as Daph doesn't act like other girls, she is on the inside. We're allowed to criticise our bodies, nobody else is. You adjusting her sculpture's boobs indicates that there's something about her you want to change," I said, hoping that some of what I was saying was making sense to him.
Daph was the toughest person I knew but I also knew her deeper that what was on the surface. Just like most other girls, she just had that little bit of insecurity on the inside.
"Show her that you love her just the way she is, even without Double Dang boobs."
When Josh leaped off the couch like his rear end was on fire, I jumped, startled.
"Where are you going?" Blake asked as Josh headed straight for the front door, seemingly deep in thought.
"To the studio. I have to shave Daph's boobs off."