Thirty-Two: I Should Find It Vaguely Alarming

"Get in here quick and start undressing," Emma called from her bedroom. Josh poked his head around the connecting door to her office.

"I thought we'd already established I don't swing that way," he said, suppressing a grin.

She wheeled herself into his field of vision dressed, of all things, in a swimming suit. "Ass."

The pun was too easy to pass up. "Yes, my preferences tend more towards that general area."

Something hit him on the face — when had she learned to aim?

"''Ass' as in 'don't be one'. Dress those. You're taking me swimming."

"You bought me swimming trunks? I think I should find it vaguely alarming that you know my size."

"I know many things, minion. Most of them alarming. Hurry up. Glorious sunshine beckons."

In her office, he slid out of his trousers and underwear before putting the trunks on. He'd been right — they were exactly his size. Emma was already brandishing an inflatable mattress as he walked in the bedroom. "Blow this. Spare me comments on general preferences."

Damn it, did she always have to have the last laugh?

#

"— and, of course, I went without him. I actually wanted to get there on time, and you know how it goes. He loves me —," Michelle was saying.

"—just not as much as he loves his beard," Emery finished for her.

"Lies," Mark countered, mock offense in his tone, "all of it, baseless lies. And you," he pointed an accusing finger at Emery, "I came to you as a healer, and this is how you repay me?"

Emery snorted. "I'm fairly certain my repayment involved taxes, though I understand you'd have welcomed new and improved beard-care tips instead." He gestured towards his clean-shaved face. "It is readily apparent I'm not the man for that job. I am feeding you, though, which I imagine carries some weight?"

Mark harrumphed, swallowing his bite of Emery's homemade pizza before sharing the night's most astounding piece of news. "Yeah, feeding me using my own girlfriend's recipe. I could eat this at home."

"Could you, now," Michelle countered, "are you sure? I don't remember you learning how to cook it."

Mark straightened on the couch, puppy dog eyes aimed at his girlfriend. "I meant I could beg for it at home, love."

"Of course that's what you meant," she replied with a fond eyeroll. "A for effort."

"Are you certain, an A?" Emery interrupted. "You're far too generous. I wouldn't even consider a C until he'd offered a foot massage if I were in your shoes." A pointed look at her high heels. "I mean that literally."

And now Michelle was laughing because Emery had made a joke, and the world tilted sideways.

"I thought men were supposed to stick together. There's no gender loyalty anymore," Mark grumbled.

"Implying that you believe there ever was such a thing?" Emery raised an eyebrow. "Josh, what have you allowed your friend to go through life believing?"

Both words and breath were robbed from him simultaneously. When Emery had mentioned having met Michelle, earlier that day, Josh had been baffled enough. He'd mistakenly pictured dinner as some stilted, formal affair on Emery's side. Him droning on about figures, Mark and Michelle nodding sleepily along, Josh the one tasked with keeping the event at least moderately lively.

He hadn't expected this. Emery, coming alive in a social setting? What had happened while Josh was working? Emery was trading barbs with Mark as if he'd known him for years; he'd known to call Michelle and ask her for a pizza recipe, of all things. He finished sentences in tandem with her as if they were fast friends. He fit in.

Emery was moving on. Without Josh.

Wasn't that what Josh wanted? To give Emery a reason to go on, and to never be that reason himself? Why did it hurt this much, then?

He knew the answer to that question, had known it at the very least since Mark had called him out on his behavior. Even now, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the cramped couch, Josh's left arm was angled just right, slightly backwards and to the side as if for support, so he could tell himself what he was doing wasn't the closest thing to putting his arm around Emery's back and leaning into him.

It hurt because that wasn't really what he wanted.

He wanted to turn to Emery, to put his hands on Emery's face, to kiss him as he'd imagined a thousand times. He wanted to ask Emery to slow down, to include Josh in whatever his future plans were on a permanent basis. He wanted to forgive him. To reach out and take a chance.

There were so many scenarios he'd envisioned where he finally took that step, risked trusting Emery even after the hurt he'd dealt Josh in the past... It wasn't that Josh expected Emery would ever hurt him that way again. It certainly wasn't that Josh didn't think Emery cared.

But he couldn't forgive him. Couldn't make his fantasies come true even when they were there for the taking, and that had never been starker than now, seeing how well Emery fit in his life, all of his life. How easy it was to picture a future in which they were together, with no doomsday clock counting down to Emery's inevitable departure.

Emery was moving on.

One day, he'd move out. Sooner or later he'd find someone new. Josh hated that he didn't know how he'd react then — if he'd be able to bring himself to be happy for the man he loved, or if he'd finally regret not having taken action when it'd been his for the taking. If he'd choose that moment to risk it, only to hear Emery say the time had passed.

Why couldn't he do something about it now? Here he was, living fragments of a life that wasn't his, and he could no longer tell himself it was enough.

It took him a moment to realize everyone had gone quiet, waiting for him to reply when he'd already forgotten what he'd been asked.

"I'm sorry," he said weakly, trying to salvage what was left of his dignity at his best friend's expense, "I haven't been listening to a word. I'm still trying to figure out what Michelle sees in this oaf."

Emery laughed, playing along, but Josh was sure he knew that wasn't the truth of it. At least he wouldn't know why, unlike Mark, who'd see right through Josh. "You have my utmost thanks for proving my point."

"Alright, that's it," Mark said, getting up and gesturing for Josh to follow, "you and I are taking this outside. Him," he waved his head in Emery's direction, "I need for taxes. You're about to get a punch in the face."

'A punch in the face.' He was about to get his ear talked-off in real time? Not a chance. He might not be able to avoid it, but he could definitely delay it.

"Sit down, Mark," he drawled. "The pizza's going to get cold."

The rest of dinner passed in much the same fashion, good-natured ribbing intertwined with his hopeless, pointless longing. A purgatory of his own making.

He'd barely paid any attention to Michelle, whom he'd been dying to meet for months; Mark kept sending him knowing glances, all throughout dinner. And Emery... Emery pressed closer, mistaking Josh's restlessness for emotional distress at having just returned from a client. Josh took the comfort of feeling Emery's warmth against his body and vowed never to correct that assumption.

Once dinner came to an end, Josh rose to take care of the dishes, since Emery had cooked. Mark rose as well but, before he could open his mouth, Michelle had set a hand on his shoulder and told him to get started on the tax discussion with Emery while she helped out in the kitchen.

"Now in private," Michelle said, her low voice a testament to how it wasn't really private at all, not when Josh's open plan meant they could see Emery and Mark sitting on the couch from behind the counter. "It's good to finally meet you, Josh."

He smiled back. "It's good to finally meet you too. I was beginning to wonder if Mark had made you up."

"I hear I have you to thank for him finally taking a hint and going out with me?"

Josh located the dishrag and began drying and putting away the dishes she was washing. From the corner of his eye he saw Emery pointing something out in one of his myriad papers while Mark looked intently at it.

"He's not the brightest bulb when it comes to these things, and with the way he looked whenever you sent a text? I couldn't let that pass him by."

"Oh, it wouldn't have," she replied, closing the tap. "I'd have asked him out directly if he hadn't taken a hint." She waited for Josh to close the cupboard before turning to face him fully, hazel eyes sharp and direct. "I don't believe in missing out on the good things in life when they're right there waiting for me to do something about them."

Josh felt something cold in the pit of his stomach. He hadn't expected Mark to tell her; it wasn't his story to tell. It felt like a betrayal. "He told you," he said without inflection.

"Depends on who you mean by 'he' and no, not in so many words."

If not Mark... Emery? Emery had told her? "Go on?" He hadn't intended to make it sound like a question.

She shrugged. "I was warned by four different people, Mark among them, not to assume the two of you were a couple — that's a dead giveaway."

Zoe, Dan and Sam. Being helpful while making him want to wring their necks.

"Anyway," she continued, "I'm shutting up on the subject now. I know it's not my place to talk about this stuff. Not yet anyway, and not while I'm trying to make a good impression on you. I know how much you mean to Mark — I mean, he introduced me to his parents before letting me meet you. I know Emery's on my side, but this dinner's pretty terrifying."

Mark's parents. They treated him as if he were their son whenever he showed up, but he hadn't been to their house since they'd moved to Jersey a few years back. He had to find the time, instead of always saying he'd try and make it and then not going. "He's just being an ass. I was always going to be an easier sell than his mother."

Michelle shook her head. "That's so not true. His mother was sold even before she met me."

"Let me guess: you have a working womb and she's decided you're not afraid to use it?" Mark's mother had a craving for grandchildren, and her oldest son planned to have exactly zero of those, so all her hopes rested on Mark. It made for awkward first meetings with girlfriends; Mark wouldn't have introduced Michelle so early on if he hadn't been confident that conversation wouldn't derail the entire meeting.

"Right in one. I tried to tell her I want kids in a couple of years, not tomorrow, but I don't think she was listening past me wanting them. And his dad's a hoot. He calls the two of you Ebony and Ivory, did you know?"

"Yes!" The joke was a longstanding one. "He'd sometimes play the record on his turntable the minute we walked in, when I started going to their place more often." Damn, he really needed to go for a visit. He missed the fun they'd had, but he'd been treating the move as if they'd flown to a different continent, rather than fifty miles away.

"That must have been priceless!" She smiled at him. "So, do I get your seal of approval? I know being with Mark will mean having you as a part of my life until we're all old and wrinkled, and the sooner I get that seal the better. Well," she mock-confided, "until the two of you are old and wrinkled; I'm going to be young and beautiful forever, just so you know."

Josh laughed. If it was his approval she was after, she'd had it even before they met. Seeing Mark that happy was endorsement enough. Which didn't mean he was about to let her off the hook. "If only one of us gets to be young and beautiful forever I'll fight you for it."

"Damn, we'll have to be enemies, then." A grin. "But we can call a temporary truce maybe, and move onto more important subjects: what embarrassing stories can you tell me about Mark that I can use against him? I'm not above either flattery or bribery, just so you know."

He had just launched himself in a delightful anecdote involving Mark's scrubs and a Halloween party when Emery walked in the kitchen, expressive brown eyes smiling at him, and asked if he'd take care of coffee; these moments might be stolen, but Josh had them for now. Might as well live them.