GONER

13 • Lake Water

A/N: If I mention a song or something,
I suggest you listen to it because I pride myself on not listening to completely terrible music. I adore Seahaven, and The Killers by the way, which is why they've been in the previous chapters a bit. Oh, and I have one song that reminds me so much of the way Tyler thinks of Josh in this particular story, and I love it so much that I cried when I first heard it. But I'll reveal that later :))

***

After our ice cream was finished, Josh made us switch seats. He climbed into the drivers seat clumsily, making the both of us laugh, and I handed him the keys with a profound noise that sounded like a forced sigh, and he giggled when noticing my hesitation. But I was just joking with him, because he could drive well and I knew he could.

"You remember when I told you we were going to do dumb things?" He asked, a mischievous smirk on his face.

I made a sound that was stuck somewhere in between a nervous groan and a laugh full of anticipation, and he smiled even bigger. "Oh, God, Josh."

"What?" He asked innocently. "I didn't even tell you what we were doing. And it's not even that dumb. We can save that for another day, when we have more time. You have nowhere to be, I'm guessing?"

I shot him a dumb look, and he held his hands up in mock surrender.

Before we started moving, I sent my mom a quick text telling her that I was alive and probably wouldn't be back until later. Not that I was expecting he would want to hang out for as long as I wanted to, but just to be safe.

After that, he started the car and then we were driving down towards a place I didn't even know had existed, simply because I've been to maybe 5% of this town, if that. Probably not even close to that, if I was being honest. I asked no questions, though, and just listened to his instructions on how to unlock his phone and find this band called Moose Blood, and when I did, he told me to find this song called Gum. And I did. And, surprise, I loved it.

"Look at me," Josh said gently, his right hand moving from the steering wheel in a flash of movement, and up to my face. His fingers brushed my jaw, igniting little nervous sparks across my skin, and I tilted my head and moved my eyes towards his, and he smiled, nodding. "Your eyes are something worth being documented, you know."

"I. Um."

"Now that I'm thinking about it," he said, shifting around in his seat. "Just about all of you is." How could he say all of this so casually, and not see how it affects me?

"I-I'm not a-attractive, if that's what you were implying."

"Not even just physically. You're quite magnificent in every sense of the word, even if I haven't known you for that long."

"Josh, I'm-"

"An incredible individual and deserve a lot of good things."

My cheeks were on fire as he spoke, and I huffed, eyes on my feet, while he chuckled. "Don't hide," he cooed. "You're cute."

"Josh. You. You can't just say things like that."

"And why not?"

"Partly because they're not true, and-"

I honestly was planning on finishing my sentence, but he slammed on the brakes before I could even blink. Truthfully, I half expected another car to ram into us from behind seeing as we were in the middle of the road, but I just gasped, slamming my hand down on the door in surprise. He looked very tense and very shocked, but I couldn't understand why. Though, I knew I had a reason to be afraid. He just stopped a car that didn't even belong to me on a relatively busy street, and was looking at me instead of the land before the both of us.