Thirty: Not My Fault You Were Born Incomplete

"I need to start liking warm beer," Zoe declared, opening the freezer and dumping a six-pack directly in the trash. "It's either that or no beer at all."

"No beer at all sounds better," Josh said, completely unsympathetic. "Beer's bad for you."

The vertically-challenged Zoe put a hand on her hip, which just made her look disturbingly like a teapot with the mix between her pixie cut and the longish voile skirt she was wearing. Josh fought not to laugh, aware he'd get in trouble for it.

"Oh, really? So are energy drinks. You're more likely to have a heart attack or develop diabetes from your drinks than I am to get sick by drinking the same amount of beer." Her eyes narrowed. "And a little empathy wouldn't go amiss, you psychopath."

Josh was in an exceedingly good mood after the week he'd had, caused by his newfound dynamic with Emery. He grinned. "Here's me developing empathy: let's go for a beer run."

Zoe stared, hand falling from her hip in astonishment. "A beer run? You? Voluntarily? I'm not sure I can handle so many changes in the great Josh Winters in a single month."

"It's not entirely selfless. You're paying for my company with all the Ibiza stories you've kept from these guys." His tone was smug.

Fifteen minutes later, as they left the bodega, Zoe announced, "You've brought great honor upon yourself and your ancestors. Thou shalt be named Josh, the Beer Bard."

He snorted. "Beer Bard is awful! Is that an expression you caught in Ibiza?"

"Nope. All I caught in Ibiza was sunshine and scores of hot Spanish men." She opened her arms wide, proof Josh carried all the beers he didn't even drink, and twirled in delight, head facing the night sky. A pointed, mischief-colored look completed the ensemble, making her look like a pixie more than ever. "You'd have liked it, I think."

Josh laughed along with her, but something in the sound of his own laughter didn't ring true. It was funny, no question, but... Before Emery he'd have felt genuine enthusiasm at the 'scores of hot Spanish men' she mentioned. These days, when he couldn't even bring himself to pick up a hot local man to have some meaningless fun with, he just felt pathetic. If he'd been the one flying to Ibiza he'd probably have spent his time finding the male equivalent of a chastity belt and attaching it to himself or something. And now he felt depressed.

"Jesus Christ," she said, "I've never seen anyone look so miserable at the thought of hot Spanish men. There were other nationalities too, I promise."

A huff of more genuine laughter despite himself. "Spanish will do nicely, really." Whatever sense of personal boundaries he'd had fled; that was the only conceivable explanation for the next words that came out of his mouth. "Did you release them back into the ocean as soon as you caught them, or did you actually eat any of them?"

Zoe spluttered, amused. "You didn't just ask me that!"

"No, you're right, I didn't," Josh was quick to assure, mortified. "I think I left my brain at Mark's."

"So forget you ever asked?" She was offering him a graceful way out, proving that even pixies had mercy.

"Yes, please." Mark's building was already in sight. Five more minutes and they'd be surrounded by company, hopefully preventing him from further sticking his foot in it.

"'Kay. I won't tell you how I went through three boxes of condoms in a week, then," she said sweetly, in a sing-song voice. "That's boxes of twelve, if you're counting."

Oh, for the love of — What did one reply to that? He was still formulating a response when his mouth took control without his input once again. "Not even a thought for dripping-wet Dan in the rain?"

She stopped, half a dozen paces away from Mark's. Her eyes hardened as she looked at him, then softened at whatever she found in his. "Oh, it's like that, is it? I told you last time — you can have an epic romance even if you're not dating. That doesn't mean you have to be celibate."

Josh felt like an insect, pinned under her gaze under the street lights. He wished he shared her instincts — they made sense to him, but then what made sense didn't always fit every case, and his was a particularly hopeless one. "Yeah, I... Yeah."

Zoe sat on one of the steps leading up to Mark's building, patting the spot next to her, and he followed suit. "Do you know what the difference is, between the two of us?"

"Several inches, a few body parts, and our taste in drinks?" He got a half-hearted smack to the chest for his cheek.

"Besides that, genius."

"Enlighten me."

"I know what I'm doing. You... don't." She looked apologetic, right down to the way she lifted her shoulders slightly and turned her wrists so her palms would be facing up. That did nothing to take the sting from her words.

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"I don't know what it means for you — I don't know you all that well. But I know what I'm happy with, and I don't keep agonizing over Dan whenever one of us wants to do something — or someone. If I did I'd do something about it. You know, other than sounding shocked a woman is actually having fun in her own skin."

"That wasn't what I meant at all —"

"— I know. It's why I'm telling you this instead of 'get the fuck away from me you misogynistic jackass'."

He laughed, relieved he hadn't been misinterpreted. "So how do you do it? How do you separate the 'epic romance' from the 'fun in your own skin' without one tainting the other?"

"I think you're looking for parallels, but you don't know any of my reasons and I don't know any of yours, so it's hard to draw anything at all." She shrugged. "If you want to get the guy, go get the guy. If you don't, then don't. But I can't tell you how to feel about either option. Sometimes these things are complicated."

'Complicated' was certainly the right way to put it. He fished a bag of chips from the stash they'd just bought and handed her a can of beer. "Three boxes of twelve, huh?" The others could wait a bit longer for their beers while she regaled him with her adventures and he wished he could follow in her footsteps.

#

"What did he do?"

Josh knew it would do him no good to pretend to misunderstand, but he did it anyway, busy wrapping copies of the anthology to send to each of the poets. "He? He, who?"

Emma nudged him, quite deliberately, with her chair. "Don't insult my intelligence, minion. You two barely look at each other. What did he do?"

He looked at her and found he couldn't lie to her face. He set the wrapping paper down. "I'm sorry, Emma, that's not something I feel like sharing."

"That bad?"

"Just... Let's say we're looking for different things and leave it at that, okay?"

She ran both hands through her hair, shaky irises trying to see into his core. Whatever she saw propelled her to sigh. "Leave the wrapping. Nice hot day. Let's go out to lunch."

Grateful for any excuse to be out of the oppressive house, Josh didn't realize the trap he'd be walking into until he found himself sitting face to face with her, being grilled over Italian food, with nothing but time on their hands.

She could be very persuasive, but not in this. Josh thought she might take his side, and ruining her relationship with her brother over his broken heart wasn't something Josh wanted to do. "Emma, please respect that I'm not going to tell you," he said at last, tired and worn.

She nodded, deflated. "I hoped you wouldn't make me do this."

"Do what?" He resisted the urge to look around to see if she'd manipulated the circumstances so that Emery would show up at the restaurant. The fallout wasn't worth contemplating.

"Tell you what happened to him." Her face was as serious as Josh had ever seen it. "It's a breach of his confidence. Shouldn't be me telling you."

"Then don't," he pleaded. Whatever it was that had happened to Emery, he wasn't interested in knowing. Emery was nothing that concerned him.

"Have to. Might help you deal with whatever idiocy he's done." She took a bite of her ravioli. "He had a fiancé once."

The inner voice that had protested so loudly that it wanted to know nothing of Emery went silent, very much against Josh's better judgement.

"Seven years ago. Give or take. He was in love. Happy."

And what, he'd been cheated on and so Josh was nothing but a plaything to him? If that was it, it wasn't an excuse.

"There was an article on Emery. Net worth, financial genius, PR thing." Emma swallowed another forkful of ravioli before continuing. "Got himself kidnapped along with Simon — the fiancé — after that."

That wasn't where Josh had expected this to lead. He found himself unable to look away, caught in the web of her tale.

"He was released — he was the one with access to the money. Paid the ransom. Went to drop it off himself in some boat in the marina. Simon... They killed him right in front of him. Instead of his wedding there was a funeral. Hasn't looked at anyone the way he looks at you since Simon."

Josh sucked in a breath. He didn't want this. Didn't want to feel empathy or sympathy or whatever the hell it was he felt for Emery. It was tragic, it must have been devastating, but it was no reason to reduce Josh to a commodity. He must have known — he had to have seen it in his eyes, when Josh had told him nothing had been unwanted so far, how much Josh cared for him. And still he'd lead Josh on, played him without a hint of remorse.

"I'm afraid the people who love me will all be dead by then."

Josh had thought Emery was referring only to his parents and Emma when he'd — No.

It was no excuse for how Emery had crushed him. Josh might feel less animosity towards him now, but that was as far as it went.

Emma must have known it too, judging by the resigned look in her wavering eyes and the casual way in which she said, "He must have really blown it. Sorry, minion. Let's have dessert."

Josh felt guilty for the hope he'd just yanked away from her. She'd been far too invested in his would-be relationship with Emery. Maybe he could cheer her up by turning the tables on her.

"How about you, then? You're there playing matchmaker and, what, going 'always the bridesmaid, never the bride'?" He forced a lighter smile. "Can I prod you for tales of all your great romances?"

Well. Going from despondent to disgusted wasn't the reaction he thought he'd get, but it was still an improvement.

"Ugh. None, minion. Just how I like it."

"None? None what?"

"Great romance. Or small one." She had the gall to sound patronizing. "Not my style."

He stared. "Love's not your style?"

"Romance. I'm fine with love. I love people. My brother. My friends. I'm complete. Don't go around like you."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" How had he gotten himself into being attacked for looking out for her?

"You know. Missing half. I'm both my halves. Not my fault you were born incomplete."

The woman had the uncanny ability to make him feel like an idiot no matter what the topic of the conversation was. Josh didn't know why he even opened his mouth sometimes. Still, looking at the curve of her smile, he'd put money on her including him in the friends she loved, so maybe he wasn't half bad.

#

"Your friend's an idiot," Emery offered, tone scathing, as soon as Josh opened the front door. Well. That was always a warm and fuzzy way of greeting him after not seeing him for three months.

He was sitting at the counter with his laptop, a familiar mountain of papers spread around him. Josh had come to realize that, while Emery did sit at the desk in his bedroom, it was only when Josh was home. The kitchen counter seemed to be his spot of choice during all other times.

"If you mean Mark, I'm going to agree on principle," he said, setting down his bags and closing the door, "but it's weird that you know that."

Now that he looked closely, quite a few of the papers were filled in the chicken scratch that passed for handwriting in Mark's world.

"The number of mistakes he's made with his taxes over the years is staggering. With enough taxpayers like him the government would be able to eliminate the deficit in ten years, I'm sure."

"You're doing his taxes?"

"He seems quite incapable of doing them himself." Emery's phone rang. "Speak of the devil. A moment, please."

Had Emery just dismissed him to answer a phone call from Mark? Josh carried his bags to the bedroom, dumbfounded.

Emery knocked on his open bedroom door a minute later, still on the phone. "I will call you back. Yes, in a moment. Okay." He turned off his phone. "Josh. I'm sorry I didn't ask when you came in: how are you feeling? Company or solitude?"

He smiled at Emery. Coming home after a client had always been about being by himself, following his routines, coping. But it'd never felt like home — it was simply the place he kept his stuff in. With Emery there, someone who understood the toll his work took on him at times, even the drive was less painful. As if he were being comforted by anticipation. "I'm mostly okay. This one feels unfinished, but that's how these things go, sometimes. My client slipped into a coma last night. She was transferred to a hospital, but they don't expect her to wake up. Either way I'm not needed there, so here I am."

"I think dinner would do you well."

"I think so too, but not at two in the afternoon," he quipped back.

"Obviously." Emery's tone was dismissive, but his expressive brown eyes were warm. "Your friends were meant to come by for dinner tonight, to discuss questionable financial choices. I didn't think you'd already be home or I'd have consulted you on it. If you don't think it's what you require I'm happy to reschedule."

"My friends?" Was Emery handling taxes for the entire hospital staff?

"Mark and Michelle."

Josh's eyes widened. "You've met Michelle?"

Emery furrowed his brow. "Was I not supposed to?"

Emery talked about meeting his best friend's girlfriend, whom Josh himself had been dying to meet for months, as if it were a run-of-the-mill occurrence. He was doing Mark's taxes and scheduling dinners. What sort of strange reality had he walked into?

"By all means," he said, stunned, "sign me up for dinner."