Page 45 of Honeysuckle
“You did not just list off yellowthings.” Josh smiled at me and the lines around his eyes crinkled in the softest way. I’d never noticed how gentle his face looked when it wasn’t scrunched angrily.
“The sun, cheese, lemon cookies…”
“Please stop.” He sighed, but the smile remained.
“It’s easy to pick a favorite color, you just have to think about things that you love,” I explained to him. “Honey,” I added. "It’s yellow…”
“Yeah, I know that honey is yellow, Tuck,” he said, but went quiet. I didn’t think it was even possible for someone to not have a favorite color, but the question weighed heavily on his shoulders in an unexpected way.
I should have known it was coming, it was just a part of the circle. We had slipped unknowingly into awkward silence all because Josh didn’t have a favorite color.
"Favorite food?" I asked.
“All food is food,” he fired back.
“Mine’s chili, or actually… when Ella gets french fries from Hilly’s and we eat them with the leftover chili, that’s the best,” I clarified.
“Surprised you actually have a favorite, considering you didn’t eat dinner yesterday or breakfast today before we got on the bus,” he said, completely ignoring the light tone in my voice. I was trying, and he just wanted to fight, as per usual.
I chose to ignore his jab and moved on. "What music do you listen to?”
“I don’t,” he said.
“You don’t listen to music? Like at all?” I was growing increasingly worried for Josh’s well-being. At this point in the conversation, it seemed like all he could manage was baseball and angry contemplation.
“I like silence, Tuck.” It was a pointed response, aimed at me to get me to shut up, but if there was one thing I was bad at, it was social cues, so I kept talking, if only to get under his skin.
“Void of color, eats to survive, and hates music…” I hummed. “Do you read?”
“No.”
“What about movies?”
Josh shook his head.
“Seriously?” I grumbled. "Do you watch other sports?”
“Nope.”
“Ok,” I said, refusing to give up. “Favorite thing to do outside of playing baseball?” I asked him. There had to be something he enjoyed other than the sport.
He scowled at me, his lips pressing into that typical Josh expression. Anger and annoyance. “Baseball is the only thing Ido.”
“That can’t be true. There has to be something you do other than baseball,” I said, refusing to take his answer at face value.
"I study," he muttered, clipped and flat.
“You study?” I scoffed and flipped my hat into my lap before brushing the knots from my hair with my fingers.
“Yup.”
“Shit, Logan, I’m trying to get to know you… You can’t just study and pitch,” I complained, the frustration coming out in my voice.
“I can, because that’s what I do, Tuck, and if you need something more exciting than that, go harass someone else because that’s my life,” he muttered under his breath, but his voice had fallen into an irritated territory.
“There’s got to be more!” I urged, and Josh finally broke. He shifted in his seat and stared at me.
"There’s nothing more," he said, his voice low but steady. “That’s it. I’m sorry that my life isn’t sunshine and favorite foods. We didn’t have a TV growing up, and the only music I ever heard was from the apartment above us when they turned it up to drown out the sounds coming from ours,” he snarled. His cheeks were red and his eyes were darker than I had ever seen them. His confession turned my mouth dry.
