Holding On To You//Joshler

Chapter 11

✾Josh✾

Tyler ate in a way that seemed like he thought that someone was going to come along and take away his meal. Well, I say meal but he only had one slice of pepperoni pizza. I did say that he could eat more but he must have felt bad for 'taking' mine. Seeing as Ty wasn't touching the mushroom side (even after I peeled every mushroom off for him) I ate most of that side too. I didn't have the ability to be ashamed of my eating habits, I liked pizza and I didn't think there was much more to it.

As I stuffed more (stuffed) crust into my already full mouth I noticed Ty's face, for some reason he was staring intently behind me.

"What's wrong Ty?" I asked, the words had to work their way around the food in my mouth so my question sort of came out as a series of mismatched grunts.

"Swallow before you talk" he retorted, his smile seemed happy enough but his eyes still looked riddled with confusion.

After a few seconds of awkward chewing I finally met Tyler's standards of speech, "What are you looking at?"

He outstretched his hand to point at the restaurants entrance, he cocked his head in disbelief as if he were trying to see if his eyes were screwing with him.

"There," he muttered "Is that Brendon and-"

"Helen?" I interrupted, "That's definitely her!"

I could see that Tyler was not so happy to see Brendon, I don't know why he seemed to hate him so much; I mean I got that he was an ass, but irritating people generally don't make someone this angry. He was so pissed that I could feel the heat radiating from his boiling blood.

"I wonder why she's brought him" I said calmly but I knew there was no point trying to be rational in a situation like this.

"If she knew what was good for her, she'd stay away from him" Ty said in a low grumble.

"Should I be concerned? I don't want my friend to get hurt" my voice wavered a little in fear, Tyler's tone was chilling. It was obvious that he hated Bren for a reason, a reason that wasn't to be made light of. Tyler had made it obvious that he did not socialise with the people at his school, but it was obvious that Bren had done something to hurt him.

"You weren't supposed to hear that," he paused for a second and started to twiddle his thumbs, "Don't worry he wont hurt her or anything"

"Why isn't he good for her?"

I could see the sweat accumulating on Ty's brow, I didn't want to make him uncomfortable but I couldn't let my friend walk into a bad possible relationship.

"He's just , I don't know, he just likes to tease people"

"So, he's a bully then?" Ty gulped, I was crossing a line and I knew it.

"Look at the way he's acting around her" I turned around to see Brendon taking a picture of Helen, she was grinning happily as she posed in a stand In cardboard cut out of a cartoon Italian chef.

"She seems happy enough"

Tyler was avoiding my question, but Helen seemed safe in Bren's company so I didn't see any reason to pry into an awkward topic, things were just starting to feel a little normal between us.

"I know he wont touch her though, he has a moral code when it comes to girls"

"Oh wow" I scoffed, if he was going to treat girls right then he should also treat all genders right. But I didn't want to talk about him right now, I wanted to change the subject desperately.

"Should I call for the bill?"

"You did devour all the pizza, there's no point waiting around" Ty said shaking his head in effort to mock me.

"I did offer you more its not my fault!" I squeaked as I raised my hand in effort to grab Kimya's attention. "I'll pay seeing as I did eat ALL of the food we ordered"

"You didn't make me order the wrong thing, its not your fault. We can split it" Tyler slid a 5 dollar bill onto the table.

"I'll let you pay for your drink and that's it Ty, I'd feel bad!"

"Fighting like a married couple already are we?" Kimya said as she appeared out of nowhere, "The bills $10" She took the money from the table and waited for me to respond. I fiddled around in my pocket for my wallet, my heart sunk. I must have left it in my other jean's pocket when I was rushing to meet Ty this morning.

"I'm sorry Ty-" I whined but he cut me off,

"I said I'd pay for shouting at you anyway" he took out another bill and nodded politely at Kimya "Keep the change for yourself" he said as he turned to leave. I glanced at the table to see he left a ten and not a five. I knew he could be a nice person.

♪Tyler♪

Brendon was eyeing me up from head to toe when he saw me, his glance had always unnerved me. It felt like he was undressing me with his eyes, but not in the good way. In a way which made me feel like my vulnerability was clear for him to notice. But I wanted to stop Brendon from picking on Josh and I had to let Brendon know that he wasn't going to be another target. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but I was going to find a way.

"So did you get the job?" I asked Helen, trying to sound concerned.

She smiled and nodded, "All thanks to Brendon here!" Helen poked him playfully in the chest and he chuckled back.

"Hey! Don't be saying that all the girls will think that I give out special favours" he smiled cheekily and winked. Helen's cheeks radiated a pink glow, she wasn't embarrassed, she seemingly enjoyed the awkward conversation that was unfolding.

"I'm glad" I said awkwardly, Brendon shot me a look of disgust as I caused his flirtatious conversation to stop.

"Aw thank you Tyler, that's really nice of you" Helen approached me with open arms, I freaked and looked at Josh quickly for help, but he was too busy eyeing up Bren for some reason. Awkwardly, Helen loosely hugged me but pulled away when she realised that my arms were still by my side.

"Sorry if that was awkward" she whispered in my ear.

I smiled a little as she returned back to Brendon.

"So do you two want to go hang somewhere?" she said, oblivious to how horrible her nice suggestion sounded.

"I was thinking that me and Tyler could have some alone time, is that OK?" Josh said as he reached out for my hand, I silently thanked him for the hell he'd helped me escape.

"Yeah OK Josh, you two getting the bus home then? I think I'm gonna stay here"

Josh nodded before he waved goodbye to his friend.

"Thank you for that" I said quietly, hoping that Brendon didn't hear.

"It's ok, I felt like we would both be third wheeling anyway"

I nodded and continued to walk out of the food court, "Do you want me to let go of your hand now?" Josh said immediately after Bren and Helen were no longer in sight.

"I didn't notice" I said as I wormed my hand out of his grip.