“I love cheap cologne.” He’s testing me, and his joke makes me smile.
“Nice try, but you were supposed to say I’m not cheap.”
“Right, yeah, that’s obvious now. Let’s redo that scene, taking it from the top.” He reaches for me and pulls me against him.
I do not want to step away right now. Not a single molecule in me wants any space from any of his. But I swallow hard and step back anyway, slipping my hands into his to stay connected but from a distance. “Bad idea. Terrible idea.”
“Wereallysee the world differently,” he says, his tone dry, and I laugh. “Are you going to explain why this is a bad idea?”
“I probably should,” I say. “But not right now. I’d like to hear the rest of the story of how old Josh became this Josh.”
He sighs. “Back to the balconies?”
I glance around. “Let’s make this a balcony. Sit.”
“Uh, here?”
“Yes. Right here. On the kitchen floor.”
“Okaaaaaay.” But he sits.
I turn and sit too so that we’re back-to-back. “What do you think? Balcony vibes?”
“In a weird way, yeah.”
I wiggle a little, not because I’m uncomfortable but because I like making the touching between our backs kinetic. “I’m listening.”
He’s quiet for a bit, like he’s wandering back to the space and time. “My grandmother’s death shook me up. I was on the first plane home. I knew my grandparents were old, but you’ve seen my gramps. Full of energy. My grandma was the same. Their deaths seemed . . . distant. Abstract. Something way in the future. And then it wasn’t.
“I’ve always had a good relationship with my grandparents, Gramps especially. And even though I knew he wasn’t impressed with my college or law school performance, I know he’s always rooting for me. I think deep down, I knew there was a point where I’d turn it around and do the expected thing. But I didn’t have a timeline for it.”
He falls quiet, and I drop my head back so it rests against his shoulder, my way of saying,I’m here.
He sighs. “You know that thing people say about how tomorrow isn’t promised?”
“Yeah.” It’s even truer in old folk homes.
“That sunk in. Not so much for me. I don’t think I’m invincible or anything, but it sunk in that I could lose Gramps just as easily. And what if I lost him before I had a chance to live up to the legacy he built for me? It haunted me from the second I got the call about my gram. It was all I could think about through the funeral and everything else.
“The night before I went back to school, I stayed with Gramps, and we had a long talk on his porch. I told him I was sorry I’d been such a screwup but that I was going to turn it around, that I know time is precious, and I would use all of mine to make him proud of me. And then I asked if he would help me get into rehab.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“I know. I wasn’t a great guy.”
I reach over my shoulder to squeeze his. “No, I meant that I’m proud of you for going to rehab. That’s hard, especially to choose for yourself, not be forced into it. Most people can’t do that.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he says softly, “Thanks.”
“Rehab went okay?”
“Saved my life. No doubt about it. So yeah, it was hard but good. And it stuck. I had to defer that semester, which means taking basically a whole year off to keep classes in the right sequence. I interned most of that year at the firm, waiting to pick up my coursework the following January. Then I went back to school, and I started kicking ass. Tore it up for my last three semesters.”
“And you’re still doing it at work?” It was pretty obvious what motivated his long days.
“Trying to.”
“Trying to? Or are?”
