Thirty-Three: But How Do You Know You've Tried Enough?

"You look different," Zoe commented, eyeing him up as Josh was folded over Mark's couch, trying to reach a fallen die.

"My ass is jutting in the air and my head is down here," he replied, feeling the blood pooling in his upturned brain. "Could that have something to do with it?"

"Debatable. There are times I can't tell one from the other."

This was what he got for opening the door for her just a little. He contemplated throwing the die he'd just retrieved at Mark's head, for having gotten him into this mess in the first place. "Why do I keep coming to these nights?"

"The home-cooked soup, when you don't steal it," Sam quipped from across the room.

"I've apologized for that so often that they're considering including my photo in the dictionary next to 'I'm sorry.'" He straightened, blood flowing more naturally now that he wasn't trying to stand on his head.

Sam rolled her eyes. "'I'm sorry' isn't in the dictionary. 'Dumbass' is, though."

He turned to face Zoe. "A little help here?"

"Nah, you can handle her. Or I can whisk you away to the corner bodega, if you'd rather hide."

"The bodega? Please tell me you didn't freeze the beers again."

"I didn't freeze the beers again," she deadpanned, over Dan's whiny, "She totally froze the beers again."

Josh sighed as he followed her out the door. "Once. A guy takes some soup once, and he's in the doghouse forever. But you get to freeze beers every other week and no one bats an eyelash."

Zoe batted all her eyelashes on cue. "Didn't you know? It's one of the advantages of being a Manic Pixie Menace." The damn nickname was capitalized, no doubt.

"Okay," she said once they were going down the stairs, "let me try this again: You look different."

Josh shrugged. "I don't feel different. I haven't done anything different. My hair is the same, clothes are the same, I'm the same I was last week. I have no clue why you think that."

"Not last week, it's been months now. There's just something about you that feels different. I can't put my finger on it. It's your eyebrows, I think."

"My eyebrows?" That alone made Josh raise them, fighting the urge to take out his cell phone and look to see if anything was out of place.

"Yup. They're not furrowed all the time anymore. You look less stressed."

Ah. That. Was it that evident? His decision to embrace the good things Emery had brought into his life had relieved him of some stress, yes. He felt happier most of the time, lighter. That was probably it.

"See? And now you're smiling for no reason. Different. Called it." She turned to face him as they were both zipping up their coats, mischief in her eyes. "Is it Emery?"

"Is everything Emery with you guys?" He felt unreasonably incensed that she'd think that, nevermind that he'd just been thinking it himself. Why couldn't she assume he had something else affecting his life, other than Emery?

"Emery, then," she replied, as if Josh's reaction were some sort of confirmation.

The cold November air had frozen her brain, and it'd gotten stuck on the last thing Josh had said. Either that or he was being childish, so it was clearly 'that'. He was silent the whole way, which was also not childish.

The bodega felt like an oven in comparison to the street. Maybe now that they were indoors again Zoe's brain would thaw and it'd be safe to speak. "If you think people are that easy to read you should be a shrink."

"And have to go through another four years of residency? Not on your life! I don't need to be a psychiatrist to know you're changing the subject, by the way."

Two could play that game. Josh located the beers, giving her just enough time to bask in the victory that wouldn't last. "If I were changing the subject I'd be bringing up Dan."

Instead of the guilty, just-been-caught-with-her-hand-in-the-cookie-jar look Josh had been expecting, she had the gall to look nonplussed. "Dan? What makes you think that'd be a decent subject-changing attempt?"

"I'll never understand you."

She spared him a pitying glance as she took the basket from him and made towards the cashier. "Just because I'm wired differently doesn't mean I'm hard to understand, you know?"

Teasing her was less fun when he was left to trail after her like an ill-behaved schoolboy, and being insulted in the process didn't help. How could she be so unfazed? Josh sighed, then wanted to bite his tongue as he remembered Mark's remark about his sighs.

"Look," Zoe continued, putting her wallet away, "you don't drink my beer and I don't drink your stuff. I don't know why you think the rest would be interchangeable. Dan isn't Emery, and I'm not you."

Josh swallowed, nearly tripping on the bodega's single step on their way out. These conversations never went well for him. "I have history with Emery. If it wasn't for that..."

"You'd be making out like a pair of teenagers? There's your first difference right there. The two of you are already living together. Dan's a great guy." Her eyes turned soft and unfocused, a wistful smile coloring her features; Josh felt mildly worried she'd accidentally hit a lamppost, face-first. "A really great guy," she continued, smile widening. "We don't have whatever history you have with Emery. And yeah, a part of me wants to jump him and keep him and get the whole shebang, complete with white picket fence. A really big part. But the rest of me... I can't picture us living together without shuddering at what we'd end up as. We fit so well because we're just friends; the rest just feels possible because we never went that route. It'd be a catastrophe. We need different people, we want different things, different kinds of relationships, and ruining what we have on a wild goose chase would just be stupid."

He stopped, forcing her to turn around to face him. "But if you don't try, how do you know?"

It was dizzying, how someone could look so passionate one minute and so resigned the next. She offered him a shrug, but the ache was there, behind her eyes. "How does anyone know anything? Even if we tried and it went terribly wrong, how would we know we'd tried enough? People don't know these things, Josh, not unless you know something I don't. Yes, I love him. Yes, I think he loves me too. But one of us would commit to a life we wouldn't like and end up resenting the other one for it. This way we'll get over the romantic feelings and we'll still have what we started with. At the end of the day all we have to go by is our gut."

And hers told her to steer clear of Dan, romantically. With no past history to keep them apart, and when it was obvious the man shared her feelings. It felt beyond insane to Josh, to not even give Dan a try. His inability to get over Emery might be pathetic, but at least he'd given it a try, that night in Emery's office. Despite the devastating result, he could rest easy that he'd tried.

'But how do you know you've tried enough?'

#

"You're cooking lunch?" Josh couldn't help the disappointed tone.

"You may rest assured, that does not mean there wasn't enough of yesterday's dinner for you to indulge in your morbid leftover fascination," Emery replied over the sizzling sound coming from the frying pan. "I won't be here for dinner, which is why I'm cooking it now."

Not there for dinner? That was new. "Hot date tonight?" It was an offhand remark in a teasing tone. Normal banter between friends. Nothing to it, really.

Emery huffed a half laugh as he piled bacon on two plates. "If one considers going through the shelter's tax deductions over the past five years a hot date then certainly."

"Five years?" Josh shuddered for dramatic effect. "Better you than me, I suppose. But when you're wondering why none of the other children will play with you during recess, this is why. The things you do for fun are terrifying."

"Tony will be helping me as well as providing dinner, so one must consider at least one of the other children chooses to play with me during recess," Emery quipped good-naturedly.

"Tony?" Josh's voice came out higher and far too cheerful to his own ears, like something out of a fifties sitcom, but Emery didn't seem to notice. "Is that the guy who runs the shelter?"

"He is, yes. Considerably more competent with his taxes than your friend, but still woefully unprepared for the intricacies of the Internal Revenue Service."

Josh wasn't really listening anymore. He'd seen Tony in passing once, when he'd been headed to the Village and had offered to drop Emery off. Attractive enough, for those who liked the scruffy, just-got-out-of-bed look. Mid-thirties, Josh would wager. And a little too enthusiastic at the sight of his volunteer math teacher, though Emery had seemed oblivious to that.

Was still oblivious, by the looks of it. Did the shelter really need its deductibles checked, Josh wondered. It was an awfully convenient excuse to have dinner with someone without asking them out in so many words.

"Josh? I didn't mean to imply you, yourself, ought to contemplate the intricacies of the Internal Revenue Service just now. I'd like to eat lunch before we become a spacefaring civilization, if that would be acceptable to you."

He couldn't help a fond smile. Even Emery's ribbings were endearingly high brow. He doubted Tony would have the ability to appreciate them, although he had zero facts on which to base that assumption.

Lunch tasted like cardboard, despite the delicious smell.