“I can’t believe you still don’t use a notebook to write. With all your ideas to write, I’m sure it gets crowded up there.” He pointed toward my head, nearly poking a saucy finger in the middle of it. “Didn’t you say that once before? That you had lots of stories and characters in your head, and sometimes, they felt like they were talking all at once?”
I had. When I wrote stories like that anyway. “I guess I did.”
“Don’t you still write?”
“Of course I do. I thought you knew that I was trying to find a job to write. That’s the city dream after all,” I sighed with a bit of hesitancy. The longer I spent trying, the less sure I should continue to.
Writing was solitary, no matter how many people said they were cheering you on in the background after all. In the end, all you had were results. And I didn’t have many of those to prove to myself that this was what I was supposed to do, even though writing wasn’t what I was supposed to do after spending hourson my computer and years racking up debt and student loans through school …
What was?
“Hey.” Josh ducked his head down to catch my eyes. The longer I thought, the further they drifted down, toward my shoes. “Are you all right? Sorry if I brought something up.”
“No. It’s fine. It’s all good,” I assured him. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
Overthinking.
“Like I said, writing hasn’t been exactly a dream since I graduated. The first or second time now. The world isn’t exactly built for artists who don’t know someone who knows someone. Isn’t that a phrase?”
He hummed, looking back down at my hands still over my plate of wings. “We definitely need more napkins.”
Pulling my brain out of my internal spiral, I glanced down at my sauce-covered fingers. “Yeah.”
He reached across the bar counter to commandeer a few.
“Thanks again.”
“Means you’re eating them right.”
“Does it? Or does it just mean that I’m a messy eater?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Means you’re enjoying it.”
“Enjoying it again?”
He smiled. “When I travel and try to eat new things, I always have the tendency to make a mess of myself though. Just happens. I have no idea how to stop it, and I’ve given up on trying.”
“People must think you have eating issues.”
“Especially when it comes to dessert. I got icing and sweet creams all over myself in France—the ratios were all over the place—but I still couldn’t stop myself from trying a new pastry. Or in Asia. Did you know that in some places, it’s considered bad form not to slurp when you’re eating something good?”
“Really?”
“Maybe. Could just be a lie to weed the Americans out.” He pursed his lips, as if considering this new thought before offering another laugh.
I was unsure if I’d ever heard Josh laugh this much in his entire life. At least not while I was around. It was a good look for him. The sun-kissed freckles he must’ve developed against his tanned skin. The way his voice dipped when he chuckled. The laugh lines around his mouth he didn’t try to hide.
“Either way, the ramen went down great,” he said.
I laughed. “That good?”
“Best ever. Be disappointed if it wasn’t.”
“It was worth it though?”
“The noodles?”
“The travel,” I said. “The up and leaving your good job and running away.”
