Impractical Jokers Short Story

Chapter 36

Sal's POV:

Joe filled a cup with water and pointed for me to go back to our room. I rolled my eyes at him. For once in his life, Joe was actually being really serious about something.

"Come on, stop moping, we really need to have a talk," he told me. I sighed and got up off the couch and followed him into our room. I sat on my bed and he sat on his. He put the cup of water on my night table for me and I thanked him. "Can we have a conversation without any voice raising and screaming? Murr and Lucy are asleep in the next room over and I don't want to disturb them. You just need to calm down when you start to get really upset."

"I will do my best."

"I know we've never talked about it one on one, but all of the times where you have recently mentioned Q and y/n have been when one of them is around and I'm sure that influences your answers because of their comments. I'm going to be completely unbiased, I'm not going to take sides here. Imagine that we were best friends in middle school who lost touch when we went to separate schools and we decided to meet up sometime before college and at some point, I asked you, 'did you ever finally ask out y/n? What's going on with that?' How would you respond to me?"

I took a minute to really take in Joe's question.

"I would tell you, 'I never got around to asking her out because someone else swooped in and asked her out first and they've been dating ever since.'"

"I'm sorry about that. Who was it?" Joe asked, really getting into his character.

"You remember Q, right? We went to middle school together, but I don't know how close you were."

"Oh, him! Yeah, he was a funny guy."

"He asked out y/n before I got the chance and they've been together for 3 years now."

"I'm sorry man, how have you been feeling about that?"

"Pretty f**king shitty actually. But she cheated on him so I at least got some hella fun experiences with her."

"Whoa whoa whoa, what?"

"We did a musical together and we were cast as the leads and one day during rehearsal, we went backstage and she started kissing me, so I obviously kissed back. Then it started happening more and more and she told Q and he wanted some time apart to process everything. Then her and I slept together. A few weeks later, they made up and the three of us talked about how the situation needs to stop and that it's harmful to our friendships as a whole."

"That's a lot. He still took y/n back after all of that?"

"They promised that they would work through it all. She'd be so much more happier with me and I know it. She won't believe it and neither will Q. I keep telling them that if y/n was truly happy with Q, then she wouldn't have started making out with me. We get into arguments a lot and it gets loud fast."

"So you're jealous still?"

"I don't know what the right word is. God, I love her and I don't want her to waste all of her time with Q when she should be with me!"

"You're jealous, but she really loves Q and Q really loves her. What are you going to do if they stay together through college? You can't just yell at your friends every time you see them because you're going through feelings of jealousy and anger."

"And that's going to be so difficult. Seeing her dance with him at prom and cuddle up with him on the couch just makes me happy that she's happy but it pisses me off that it's not me she was dancing with or cuddling with."

"I think you need to focus on getting over her at some point. 10 years down the road, they could be married and I'm sure they wouldn't want you to be aggressive at their wedding. Embrace the fact that she's happy and that your best friend is also happy. There are billions of other people out there for you to meet, you don't need to focus on the girl you liked in middle school."

"It's just not that easy, man. You say that like I haven't been spending years trying to ignore my feelings for her. On one hand, I know that it's a terrible thing to still love my best friend's girlfriend, but at the same time, it's impossible to stop. When she kissed me and we got all intimate, it felt like maybe I still had a chance with her."

"I can see how you can feel that, but she loves Q. You need to force yourself to get over her. Once we all go separate ways in college, you won't see her as often. She might spend a lot of her weekends up in Manhattan studying or working or she might come home often. I haven't asked her yet. It's possible that once she leaves, we won't see her until Thanksgiving, which is probably the longest gap of time that you two haven't seen each other."

"It will be, it's scary. I'm going to miss her a ton," I told him.

"I know it's going to be tough for you, but I think it's in your best interest to at least be considerate to Q and y/n while they're together. Don't go looking to start conflict. Don't make her get upset with you because you don't respect her and Q's relationship. We still have another 2 days here with each other and at least make it through the rest of the weekend without arguing with Q. And stop drinking, dude, it's making you worse."

"I still get mad at myself for taking too long to ask her out," I confessed. I played around with my hands because I was nervous to admit to anyone how emotional I was getting. "I take one look at how happy they are and wish it was me instead of him. I see them kiss and I wish it was me instead of him. I know it should be me. If I had just asked her even the night before that party. She would have never gotten the chance to get to know Q that well. It would've been me if I just grew a pair and asked her out. I take all of that pent up anger that I have towards myself and take it out on them which is awful. If I can't date y/n, I still want her in my life and I don't want to ruin that. The same goes for Q. The four of us have been so close for years and I don't want him to hate me because I can't control my damn feelings."

"Sit them down and apologize to them. Being drunk in the middle of the night is the perfect time to just let all of your feelings come out just like how you're doing it right now. Tomorrow night, sit outside with them after they get back from their drive and just apologize. Clear the air. I think it'll be important for all three of you to talk in a calm way," Joe recommended to me.

"Yeah, I think I'll do that. Can we just not tell Murray about anything that went down with me, y/n, and Q tonight? He's never going to let me live it down," I requested.

"Not a problem, he wouldn't even remember this night if he saw what happened out there," Joe laughed.

"I appreciate you talking through this with me, Joe. I'm going to fall asleep in a minute, I'm going to go get ready for bed and I'll be back," I told him while grabbing a bag of stuff to take into the bathroom.

"Anytime, Sal, I'm here for you."

When I came back after doing my nightly routine, I quietly came back into the room, passing by Joe's bed where I saw that he was asleep. I walked to my bed, quietly put my bag down, got under comfortable in bed, and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep.