Page 42 of Josh’s Play

“Oh,” Noah retorted. “With that Josh guy?” Thankfully, he had lowered his voice. “The person you don’t spend all your time with?”

I glared at him before I pulled my phone out and texted Josh to let him know I was on the way. I nodded and scowled at my teammate before I replied.

“We don’t spend all our time together,” I said, only it sounded like I was whining it in disappointment. “We’re doing schoolwork,” I added quickly, pointing at Noah. “I know your girlfriend knows what that is since she takes this place seriously, but you might want to grab a dictionary and look up the word. It’s what people in college do when they're not on the ice.”

Noah slid next to Diane and put his arm over her shoulders. “It’s not all that people do when they're not on the ice.” He smirked, but Diane shoved him.

“Give the man a break, Noah. He’s off to study while we’re watching these idiots flipping through the channels like that’s entertainment.” Noah didn’t respond, but Diane looked at me pointedly. “Have fun recording your podcast. It sounds like a great project. Say hi to Josh for me. You are working with him, right?” She didn’t give me time to respond. “Tell him I hope his finger’s getting better. And congrats on the scout coming to visit. I know that’s a huge deal; you should be super proud.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll let Josh know you said hi.”

I was heading to the kitchen to deposit my dirty dish, and thought I heard Noah whisper something along the lines of, “You should have told him to kiss it and make it all better.” His girlfriend’s, “Shut up,” came through loud and clear.

Diane leaned over the back of the couch to watch me as I exited the kitchen on my way to the front door. “Hey, can we listen to the podcast?”

“Nah, we haven’t published it or anything. It’s just for class.”

“Hmm.” Diane had a note of criticism in her voice. “That’s too bad.”

It was obvious my friends had their suspicions about Josh and me, and I was surprised to find that I wasn’t overly anxious that Diane suspected me of liking him. It didn’t seem like he had a problem with it. They’d said they just wanted me to be happy.

I shifted my thoughts to the man waiting for me in the library. I found myself almost giddy as I headed that way. My heart was thumping yet again, and I focused on the beating of it as I imagined sharing my exciting news with Josh.

I hadn’t even called my parents yet, but I found myself racing to 3C and bursting through the door. Josh was setting up the microphone he’d purchased after our first attempt at recording, hooking it up to his computer, and he looked up from where he was leaning over it to take me in.

“Hi.” My voice sounded overly excited.

“Hey.” His sounded cautious. “You okay?”

I could feel the flush on my cheeks as I realized he wasn’t thinking about how my day had gone after I’d left him. He was asking about our night together.

I answered the question he was asking as I made my way over to the ottoman, tossed my jacket, and sat down. “I think I am.”

The microphone plugged in, Josh pulled a chair in front of me and straddled it. I realized I was disappointed that Josh had put space between us. He sat quietly and waited for me to continue.

“I really am okay, Josh. Last night, well, this morning”—my smile was shy, his more of a smirk—“it was amazing. I feel like I should say thank you.”

“Oh, trust me, there is no need for you to thank me. I had fun.” I’d had fun, too, but the word still felt a little disappointing, like it wasn’t big enough for what had happened. It seemed like Josh had more to say, so I waited him out, trying not to look disillusioned.

“And I meant what I said, Cam. I get the whole ‘no distractions’ thing, but there’s a difference between a distraction and”—I could sense him searching for the right word—“and tension relief.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Tension relief?”

“Yeah, that’s all it needs to be.” He shrugged, and his eyes casted down. I thought I heard a bit of disappointment in Josh’s voice, but that couldn’t be right. If anyone knew about meaningless sex as tension relief and simple, no-feelings fun, it was Joshua Marchetti-Gordon.

He shrugged, and his voice got softer. “I can be that for you. Whenever you want.”

My eyebrows shot up again, and Josh jumped up, shoving the chair aside roughly and pushing me flat on the ottoman, his body draped over mine as he kissed me. I held him tight and rolled us to our sides, locking one of his legs between mine and pushing us up so that our legs weren’t dangling awkwardly off the piece of furniture.

We kissed for minutes on end, with movements that managed to be neither soft nor frantic. In my mind I thought, just right. I could feel myself getting hard, which didn’t surprise me since I was so inexperienced and horny, but so was Josh, which did surprise me since I pictured him as so much more in control than me. I guess I also still thought he was doing this more for me than for himself. When he started to gyrate his hips, he adjusted himself until our groins were touching. I let out a needy moan, and he responded by pulling back and sighing. It took his hips a minute to realize Josh was putting on the breaks, but eventually, he lay still in my arms, and his hand moved to brush the hair from my face.

“I love your floppy hair,” he said, and his look reminded me of a deer caught in the headlights. My heart might have skipped a beat at the words and his soft touch, but Josh yanked his hand away quickly and jumped up. “See! Just like that! Tension relief! Look at how relaxed you look. You’re welcome.”

Josh didn’t sound relaxed at all, and I was actually pretty amped up, but I had to admit, as I sat back up, that the tension I tended to carry in my shoulders had dissipated. Part of that tension was the constant need to keep my closet door closed, and part of it was my perpetual worry about my future career.

Josh had turned away from me and was fiddling with his computer again.

“Test, test,” he said into the microphone before adding, “Should we talk about last night’s game?” This was said facing away from me and into the mic.