Rouge

Rouge - Chapter Ten

"So. Joshua." Hunter picked up a box of Twinkies from the shelf and threw them in the shopping cart. "Where have you been this past week?"

He tried to move ahead of her. "I don't have the energy for this Hunter."

"What do you mean? It's a simple question. Are you studying something?" She peered at him with one eyebrow raised. "Are you sleeping with someone?"

Joshua's whole face reddened. "Wh- Hunter! No I am not sleeping with someone! Would you just-"

"It's okay if you are," she lied. "I mean, it's probably good for you. I can't even remember the last time you went on an actual date."

"Speak for yourself," he grumbled.

"Hey, I'm not the forty-year-old virgin here."

Joshua's whole body became stiff as he threw a can of beans in the cart. "I'm still thirty."

"Joshua, you're forty-three."

"Give me a break," he grumbled.

"I just want to know what happened last week, with the stove. I have a feeling you do."

Joshua turned around and looked at her with his crystal-clear eyes. A thousand different emotions flickered in the endless blue. Now was one of those times when Hunter wished she had superpowers and could read his thoughts. He was hiding something, and it was killing him to keep it from her.

For the smallest second, Hunter actually believed he would tell her the truth. His lip twitched and his eyes almost burst with excitement. But then the same lie he'd told her exactly a week ago after the fire fell out of his mouth and Hunter found herself thinking, with a mountain of disappointment, that the truth just wasn't something Joshua conformed to.

"I have no idea what happened." He picked up two different brands of pasta and examined them closely. "What will we have for dinner?"

"I still have some sweet and sour pork from work. It just needs heating up."

"No thank you, I feel like something other than Asian food tonight. What about a lasagna?"

"Okay. Go grab a frozen one since our stove is still dead. I'll get some munchies."

Hunter and Joshua split ways, and after gathering an armful of chocolate and candy, she zigzagged back through the aisles. She found Joshua standing in the seasonal section with the 'after Christmas' sales. A whole shelf of decorations were left on special. As Hunter came closer and threw her food in the cart, Joshua turned to her, holding a small snow globe in his hand and grinning.

One other thing Joshua liked very much – that never ceased to surprise her – was snow globes. There were thirty of them in their apartment. They were the only Christmas decorations he would allow, aside from her stocking that hung in front of the fire.

"Joshua, what are you doing?" Her eyebrows were raised as she slowly approached him.

His eyes widened, alight like a child, as he shook the globe and watched the fake snowflakes dance inside it.

"I don't have this one in my collection," he said in an almost robotic tone. "I have to have it. It has the North Pole sign in it."

"You have like a billion of them." She began pushing the cart towards the counter, turning around to see if he had followed.

He hadn't. "Urgh, Joshua!"

Abandoning the cart, she raced back to the out-of-season isle where Joshua had started pulling out all the snow globes, shaking them all, making sure each one was glittering with falling snow. She knew that everyone in the store was staring at him as though he were mental. Hunter saw it as OCD. He sometimes did it at home, particularly when work stressed him out.