Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

got up, came and sat beside him in the doorway, pushing open the other half of the door so they could share the space without touching. "That's better. It's fucking hot up here."
    For a while they were quiet, sitting there in the shade of the overhang, watching the goats wander around their bit of pasture below. Eventually Josh said, "Did you ever wonder what would have happened if Coach had picked some other kid who wasn't my little brother?"
    "Sure." Only every day for years. Trey made his voice light and amused. "Maybe you'd have married Hannah."
    "No way," Josh said seriously. "I liked her, but she was way too earth-mother for me. She'd have had me turning vegetarian and marching in protests."
    "Heaven forbid."
    "Hey, I like meat." Josh hesitated. "Anyway, when I wondered about how things would've been different, I wasn't thinking about Hannah, I was thinking about you. You were the best friend I had in the whole world. The only one who really knew me and stuck with me and didn't laugh at my ideas and shit."
    "Your ideas were shit. I was just too polite to laugh."
    Josh punched his arm. "You know what I mean. When Dad said we were moving, I threw a major fit. But there was no changing his mind. He was tired of being the family whose kid got Coach Lindgrom sent to prison. Or the parent of "that poor boy". Once the new job offered him a little more money moving was a done deal."
    "I remember."
    "I tried not to go." Josh frowned to himself. "I suggested that I could stay with you to finish high-school. Or become emancipated since I was seventeen. I even pointed out how much money he could save by leaving me behind. But Mom said my brother needed me and..." Josh hesitated.
    "You couldn't fight that."
    "No. I didn't know if it was true. Felix didn't seem to pay much attention to me. But if there was a chance... I had to go. But damn, I missed having you around. And you didn't call me much or email or anything."
    Trey wasn't up to remembering the reasons for that. "Sorry."
    "I wasn't sure if you were getting bored with me hanging around you."
    "Jesus, no. It was the other way round, remember? You were the one who knew people and thought of things to do. I hung around you."
    "So why?"
    Trey went the easy route. "Because I was lazy and self-centered and..."
    "Bullshit."
    He sighed. "Because it was too damned hard. Because I figured the less we talked the quicker we'd move on, find someone new to hang out with." He stopped there, unsure whether that sounded cold or emo or a bit of both.
    Josh nodded slowly. "Which we did. I just wish you hadn't cut me off like that. But I guess it worked out okay." He pushed to his feet. "Even with this door open it's too hot to hang around up here right now. Come on, help me grab some bales and finish up. I really, really want a shower."
    "I'm the guest. I get first dibs." But Trey sat for a moment longer, looking out the loft door, caught back in time, in a moment when life had seemed infinitely hard and yet had held a center to his orbit in the person of his best friend. The heat and the darkness of the loft and the scent of hay and Josh moving behind him blurred the past and the present. And for just a moment as he stood and turned, he expected to see the skinny boy with shaggy, dark hair and big, shadowed eyes waiting for him there by the top of the ladder.
    CHAPTER 4
    By Thursday, Josh decided he was so ready for Aunt Julie to get back. The store had been quieter on Monday and Tuesday than on the weekend, and he'd thought he was getting the hang of things. But apparently the day after Fourth of July was Let's-All-Go-Buy-Antiques Day. It was only mid-afternoon, but already he was catching himself hiding between the stacks instead of stepping up to the challenge of finding a customer the die-cast toy milk truck or rooster salt-and-pepper shakers they were searching for.
    At the register, Trey somehow still had his customer-service smile intact. Trey used to be the shy one, but somewhere along the line that had changed. It bothered Josh that he didn't know when. He should have made more effort to keep in touch himself, maybe made sure he applied to the same colleges as Trey senior year instead of just indifferently taking the recommendations of his new guidance counselor in New York. But by then their friendship had been withering for four months, and nothing had seemed worth the effort.
    Well, things would change now. Josh was determined. He would call Trey again, not just IM him.