As Told By Paramours

chapter twenty-four

josie

I MISS KHUSHI A LOT. I don't know if she's drifting away from me or busy with work.

I send her a quick message: how are you?

When I exit out of our messages, I see Elijah's and mine, and my fingers press it before my brain can ask them why.

The last thing I saw was the read notification from my voice note, and a nerd emoji. It's funny, because that simple emoji is him. And the fact that I can say that and mean it, the fact that I get to say I know this amazing person, I realize, means a lot to me. Elijah's friendship means a lot to me, maybe the way Khushi's does.

No less, I feel like I'm gonna be sick.

We're to meet in about two minutes, and I'm outside Jameson shivering.

It's not cold.

"Josie," he (Elijah, obviously) says behind me. For some reason, I'm fascinated by it. The way my name on his lips doesn't sound harsh, but it also doesn't sound too soft. It's almost a sentence in itself. Josie. It's a calling, a calling my body responds to before my head does once again.

"Elijah," I reply as I smile at him, his name also a full sentence. "Hey."

I want to hug him, I realize now.

"Nice to see you," I say.

"You too. Tommy?"

"As in 'where is he'?"

"Yeah."

"In his room waiting. Impatiently, probably. My car's over there." I point.

Elijah's eyes slide to my dark blue beaten up Volkswagen Golf parked a couple feet away from us, and I see the question in his eyes before he opens his mouth to speak.

"No, it won't break down while we're driving, and no, it is not contagious."

His lip twitches. "Not what I was going to say."

"But I was close?"

"... Define close."

"Within a fifteen mile radius."

"Oh. Then you were pretty close."

I grin. "I win."

He tries to hide his smile. "I get the sense that you've had many repartees like this that result in you winning every time."

I wince. "I— well. Is that a bad thing?"

"No," he smiles. This time, a full, blinding, edible-looking smile. I genuinely want to eat it off his face. I'm a freak. "Not at all."

"Josephine!"

I jump and my hand goes to my heart as I turn, eyes landing on Tommy.

"Tommy!" I think I shriek. "We were just coming to get you."

His brows nearly fly off his face. "Is that what that was? Perhaps flirting has changed since the fifties."

"Good grief, Tommy."

"He's got a mouth on him, doesn't he?" Elijah murmurs, and I mask my laugh with a cough.

"Don't think I can't hear you," Tommy jokes, shaking slightly as he hobbles toward us with his walking stick, murmuring something about retirement homes breeding old people who can't do a darn thing for themselves. His gray-black hair is uncombed and messy, and I get the sense he always kept it like that, even when he was younger. His short sleeve flannel is the same color as my long sleeve one I threw on lazily this morning over my white lace trimmed tank top: dark brown with light cream and light brown plaid.