semi-automatic | joshler

18. caring and sharing

Play the song: "24/7" by The Neighbourhood.

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When a couple of days later Tyler appears in front of the garage 15 minutes until 9 p.m. and it's already dark, Josh greets him with a knowing smirk and moves from his place straight into his car standing in the driveway, and circles it around to open it from the passenger's side.

"About time. I was waiting for you," he speaks up at the sight of Tyler's fully confused expression, which can be noticed easily illuminated by fluorescent lights coming from inside. He points at the opened passenger door. "Hop in."

"But I came earlier than usually," Tyler mumbles under his breath, making sure however that Josh can hear him before he closes the door after him. If Josh wants to go somewhere, he doesn't have to wait for Tyler. What if he came here at midnight?

"Yeah, but I thought you wouldn't come at all, sweetheart," he answers with a shrug and starts the car.

Every time Tyler thinks Josh wouldn't call him like this any time again, that he forgot, or found it as a mistake, or would be regretting it, he says it in Tyler's direction again, and it makes Tyler drown in his own puddle made from his melted heart, because Josh says it with even more soft tone in his voice every time.

And Tyler has no idea, where that came from, but he wouldn't mind if Josh kept calling him sweetheart if he likes it so much as well, even though it seems like he's replacing Tyler's actual name with that name at this point.

But he doesn't tell Josh that. "Where are we going?" he asks him instead.

Josh keeps his eyes on the road. "I'm kidnapping you to the store."

"Do you think you are allowed to kidnap me?" Tyler asks.

Josh laughs at that. "Well, I think you got into the car willingly, so it's maybe some other kind of kidnapping."

"How do you know you are older than me so you can call me a kid?" Tyler is surprisingly talkative tonight. Maybe it's still because of that huge amount of ice cream that day. But Josh doesn't mind. At all. He's thankful for it.

"I am sure about this." Josh smiles at Tyler whilst saying this.

"Yes, fine, old man," Tyler gives up, earning a muffled laugh from Josh. It's a very nice and safe sound to hear, especially when Tyler got used to see Josh all pissed off at everything and making people intimidated by him. Now he doesn't hide with laughing at what Tyler sometimes says, and this is maybe this thing, that actually makes Tyler's day better.

"Well, look at you. Agreeing to some old man taking you on a trip at night, and you don't even know exactly where." Josh grins at the road, and if Tyler were sitting in a backseat, he would see him all smiling in a rearview mirror.

"Apparently the force field doesn't work on me."

"What?" Josh raises his eyebrows, still apparently amused, and Tyler sighs dramatically, because he is sure that Josh knows what he is talking about, and explaining things is really hard for him. But Josh does it on purpose; almost forcing him to speak. Tyler is too weak not to give him this satisfaction.

"At school everybody avoids you and doesn't come near you." He looks up at Josh. Josh nods to keep going. "And when I saw you on the first day on a courtyard, you were sitting all alone on a bench, even though every other bench was occupied. I thought you were surrounded by some force field, and I kind of wanted to get one for myself, too, because you can be unavailable even though everybody sees you."