Someday: A Collection of Joshaya One Shots

Fractions ✅

Maya's POV

It's Tuesday night and I'm sitting at the Matthews' kitchen table working on my math homework with Riley though, in this case I would use the term working loosely seeing as though I've just been staring at my paper for the past hour.

"Riles, why are there fractions with variables in them? I can barely understand fractions as it is! How can I solve for x using them?" I exclaim in frustration.

"Maya, fractions are just parts of a number" she explains simply. "What's so confusing?"

"Everything" I shout as the front door opens. My head snaps up from my paper and a smile tugs at my lips when Josh walks through the door.

"Hey kiddies" Josh exclaims as he sets his bag of laundry bag onto the floor.

"Hi Uncle Josh" Riley says nonchalantly, not bothering to look up from her homework while I can't seem to look away from him.

He begins walking towards us and my mood shifts completely, my homework forgotten as soon as our eyes lock.

"Josh" I greet as he stops in front of the table, looking down at me.

"Maya" he smirks causing my heart to skip a beat. Since we started our someday pact things he had certainty gotten more flirtatious between us and I looked forward to seeing him once a week when he came to do his laundry. "You look stressed gorgeous. Something wrong?" he asks worriedly and I sigh.

"Fractions" I reply with a roll of my eyes as I slide my paper towards him.

"Still having trouble with these?" he asks as he takes a seat and looks up from the paper and back up at me.

Josh was well aware of my struggle with the mathematical concept since he witnessed it first hand the day we all spent looking for Beary the Bear Bear.

"Yes and now they've added variables!" I exclaim in annoyance.

"Maybe I can help you" he suggests holding his hand out for my pencil. I hand it to him as he moves to my side of the table sitting down next to me. "What about fractions confuses you?" he asks, turning his head to look at me.

I shrug. "I don't know. It just makes no sense. How can there be parts of numbers?"

"Like this" he says breaking my pencil in half.

My eyes widen. "Josh" I exclaim. "That's my only pencil."

"I'm sure Riley has extra" he replies with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. "Now, you had a whole pencil before right?"

"Yea and now I have two" I huff.

He smiles, shaking his head. "No, that would mean you have two whole pencils. What you have is one pencil in two pieces. Two halves if you will" he explains.

The gears in my head start to turn as I make sense of his words. "Okay, so halves are two parts of a whole" I state more like a question than a statement, looking for confirmation.

"Exactly! Now, what if I broke it again?" he asks breaking it into three pieces.

"That would be a third" I answer immediately causing his smile to widen.

"Mhm" he hums. "See, fractions are easy" he adds as he places the broken pencil back on the table.

"Maybe" I concede. "But what about the variables, what the heck does a, b, and c have to do with anything?" I ask confusedly.

Josh laughs smiling adoringly at me. "How about this, I'll stay and help you with your worksheet and afterwards we'll go out for ice cream."

"It's past our six weeks Matthews" I remind him as I turn my attention back to my homework.

"Yea, well maybe I'm not too good at counting" he replies as he lifts my chin so I'm forced to look up at him. A blush rises on my cheeks.

"Well maybe I could help you with that."

"Whenever you want" he smiles before releasing his grip on me and encouraging me to finish my worksheet.

Reluctantly I do as he asks and with a little help from both he and Riley I finish the worksheet in less than an hour.

Afterwards, we leave the house for ice cream and he holds my hand the entire time neither of us caring in the slightest that it's not our six weeks.