Page 112 of Begin Again Again

Josh sat down beside her, two Cokes in hand. “You know what I think is good?”

Beth prayed it wasn’t something romantic. “What?”

“All the masks still around.” He gestured to a middle-aged couple in matching masks. “I don’t think people are gonna get sick the way they used to.”

“I hope not.”

“Yeah, hopefully all the idiots in my office’ll stay home when they’ve got the flu, not come in and cough all over their fucking desks.” Josh cracked open his Coke and drank.

“I mean, I’m sure people do it because they feel like they’ll get in trouble for taking days off.”

He snorted. “More like they’re martyrs who think the place would come to a grinding halt without them.”

Beth laughed. “Maybe. I’m just self-conscious because I never used to be able to take sick days when I was a kid. I got my best friend sick so many times she called the flu Beth pox.”

“Try being Filipino. My mum took my brother to rugby training the day after he broke his arm.”

“Hardcore!”

“Yeah, she always made us soup if we were sick though.” He smiled fondly. “I think it was good our parents were hard on us. Made us tough.”

Beth thought back to the days when she was so sick she couldn’t go to school. How she’d sat alone, bored out of her mind watching Jerry Springer, then her mum came home and had a go at her for not hanging out the washing. She didn’t think that made her tougher. She thought it made her far more susceptible to binge-drinking.

“What are you thinking about?”

Beth looked at Josh’s cheeky ‘confide in me’ smile and knew she couldn’t tell him. He’d see it as an overshare or a minor betrayal or both. Beth didn’t know much about Josh, but she knew when a person was from the school of ‘you don’t talk that way about your parents. Especially not your mother.’

She thought again of Byron, of the unanswered text he’d sent three nights ago.

Can’t stop thinking about you, Horoscopes.

“Are you going to drink your Coke?”

Beth smiled at Josh. “In a bit. Why don’t we go to the next room?”

They walked through a room filled with huge proto-sea creatures made of garbage, a sign of what climate change might bring.

“Spooky,” Josh said. His apparent seriousness made Beth relax. “Yeah, sometimes the thought of rising seas keeps me up at night.”

Josh slid his arm around her side. “I’ll protect you from planetary melting?”

She laughed. “Cheers.”

He steered her around a gigantic puffer fish with the body of a takeaway coffee cup. “Are you coming to Daisy’s New Year’s party tomorrow?”

“Yeah, it sounds good.”

He grinned. “Nice to have the midnight kiss locked in early.”

Fuck, Beth hadn’t thought about that. Maybe shewouldkiss him. Better the devil she knew. Or maybe better just to not spend New Year’s at home alone thinking about Byron. It was one kiss and she’d kissed a lot worse.

“Isn’t that a little presumptuous?” she teased.

Josh wove his fingers through hers and pulled her around so they were face to face. “I don’t know, is it?”

And before she could think of what to do, he leaned forward and kissed her square on the mouth. It wasn’t long and there was no tongue, but it burned like betrayal. Josh pulled back, exhaling comically. “That was…”

“Yeah.” Beth rubbed her lips and smiled softly at him, playing the part of the girl who was excited to have been kissed. It wasn’t a complete lie, it was nice to be touched and it was nice to have been chosen, but she didn’t want to kiss Josh. She wanted to be kissed by a man who had no idea what he wanted.

---