Blogger | Josh Dun

Part 32

Lunch consisted of a small Q and A from Laura after my mum had joined us. The questions were standard; asking my mum and I what England was like, how my studies had been when I was at university, and about my dad. She'd been sympathetic, but not patronising, which was a breath of fresh air.

Josh had sat next to me the entire time, with his head on my shoulder and his hand on my knee. It was comforting, and he was warm, despite the cold winter weather outside. 

We were all just quietly chatting when the door opened, and a petite redhead with big doe eyes walked in. 

Josh stood up to greet the new person with a hug. 

"Ashley!"

"Josh!"

They embraced, before Ashley let go to hug everyone else in the room. She got to me, and pulled me from the stool I was sat upon to hug me properly. 

"I'm so glad I've finally met you! Josh honestly talks my ear off about you whenever I hear from him." 

She turned her head to smirk over at him, who just shrugged. 

Ashley hugged my mother and exchanged a hello before turning to Laura. 

"I left Andrew outside, so I'm going to help him bring in all our stuff," she laughed as she swept out of the room. 

Josh and I sat back down, his arm moving almost automatically to wind around my waist comfortingly. I gave his knee a squeeze and gave him a small smile, which he returned before pecking the tip of my nose. 

There was a sudden retching noise as Jordon pretended to throw up. Laura leant over to slap his arm, a soft, "stop it, foul child," being said before Jordon cracked up in laughter. 

Ashley came back in with her husband, a couple of suitcases being tugged behind them. Andrew did his own greetings, quickly rushing to give Ashley a hand with taking the suitcases upstairs. 

"So," Abigail chirped from beside her mother. "I hope you've all got sweaters to put on, because mum says we're going ice skating!" She clapped her hands excitedly, running out of the room almost as soon as she'd finished her sentence. 

We all laughed, slowly traipsing to our own rooms to get ready to go. 

...

We all walked towards the ice rink, making bets on who would fall over first. So far, Josh was the favourite, everyone claiming that his clumsiness would cause him to slip almost as soon as he'd put his feet on the ice. He was sulking beside me, his hand linked with mine. 

My mum leant to whisper into my ear. "Are we going to mention how clumsy you are? I'm sure I can think of a few stories to tell them so that a few bets fly your way." 

I nudged her gently with my elbow, feigning an angry look. "Don't you dare."

She laughed, dodging my next elbow prod and stalking ahead to walk with Josh's mum, who pulled her into a conversation about the differences between winter in America and England. 

We all booted up before making our way to the edge of the ice. Josh was clutching onto my arm tightly, mumbling about how he refused to be the first to fall over. I pecked his cheek.

"You know, if you fall over, I go down with you, right?" 

He looked up at me and laughed nervously. "That's the plan."

We both wobbled closer to the entrance of the rink, realising that everyone else was already skating around the ice, laughing and having fun. 

"This isn't something else you're secretly really good at, is it?"

I shook my head. "Nope, we're in this together."

Josh took his first tentative steps onto the ice, quickly grabbing onto the wall around the outside and steadying his balance, before reaching his gloved hand out to me. I took it, sliding ungracefully to be beside him, my feet shooting in several different directions before I was hoisted upright by my boyfriend's strong arms. I blew some air out of my nose in relief, giggling quietly at the ridiculousness of the situation. We were two grown adults, looking like newborn giraffes taking their first steps. 

Josh had to speedily latch back on to the barrier beside him, as holding me up meant that he was more likely to fall over. 

"I say that we do one lap round the ice so that we can't be accused of not trying, and then go and get some hot chocolate. I'm sick of this already." 

I laughed loudly at his downhearted expression but agreed, starting to pull myself along the wall so that my feet glided shakily against the cold floor.  I heard a thump behind me and tried to spin quickly so that I could see if Josh was okay, but the momentum caused me to lose my footing and fall to the floor with bang of my own. I looked over at Josh, who was already on the floor, the cause of the first thumping noise. He dragged himself the short distance towards me, a worried frown across his features. He looked me over to check I wasn't in pain, before we both broke out into loud laughter simultaneously. 

"I don't think I want to do the whole lap," I groaned between chuckles. "Can we call it quits now?" 

Josh nodded, pulling himself upright before reaching down to tug on my arm and help me back onto my feet. We waddled towards the little cafe in the building, Josh ordering two hot chocolates as I sat down at a table and pulled the stupid skates off of my feet. When Josh returned, I started telling him a story about the first time I'd been ice skating, but trailed off when I noticed the intense stare he was giving me. 

"Josh, are you okay?"

His eyes didn't waver, he just nodded as he reached out his hand and brushed a fleck of ice from my cheek gently. His palm cupped my face as he pulled me towards him, his lips brushing mine delicately once, twice, three times, before he pulled away and took a sip of his drink as if nothing had happened. 

I sat staring at him, breathless, my heart racing. We kissed all of the time, but that kiss had felt different, more meaningful and beautiful. 

I babbled incoherently, before Josh winked at me and greeted his family who had just come off the ice, all talking at once about who had fallen over and how much fun they'd had. 

I sat in silence, still confused about why that kiss had blown me away so much. 

I was so in love with that boy. 

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A/N - I know I don't usually write Author's Notes in actual chapters, but I just want to thank everyone who has stuck with me and this story recently. So many people have left lovely comments and each and every one of them has made me smile. I'm really happy to be back, even though I'm not very happy with this part, I'm just glad to be writing again. I will try and update more regularly as I definitely have an 'end goal' for this story, and I know exactly what I want to happen, although any ideas would be greatly appreciated! 

In other news, I saw Paramore this week in London, and although they didn't play The Only Exception, I kept thinking about THAT chapter in this story and how much I wanted to write more, so I guess you can thank that for the update! 

Again, thank you so much for sticking with me even though I'm unreliable af. Please keep voting and leaving comments, it means so much to me. 

I love you all. x