Thursday Night

“See what happens when you speak shit into existence?”

Despite the way that Tamia feels about Rory Carter, she didn’t rain on Joshua’s parade after he told her about what happened between him and Rory at the supermarket. In fact, Tamia hyped Joshua up, helped him pick out a nice outfit to wear to the party, and she even gave him money to buy condoms in the instance he found himself wanting to get frisky with someone.

“…it comes true if you believe hard enough,” Tamia finishes. She grabs a handful of popcorn from the large bowl positioned between her and Joshua on the couch, neither paying much attention to the movie playing on TV. “Sucks that I can’t go to the party with you, though. I have a very important dick appointment tomorrow night that I can't miss."

Joshua laughs, shaking his head. “Choosing dick over your best friend. That’s just sad.”

“Honey, if I were to let you have one night with the man that I’m fucking with right now, I guarantee you’d also choose the dick over me. It’s just that powerful.” Tamia laughs. “Bring Lucas. You know his ass stays ready to turn up.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Joshua sighs.

He doesn't have a problem taking Lucas with him to the party, it's just…sometimes the ginger gets easily distracted when in the presence of hot men, no matter if they’re single or straight. Joshua knows that at some point in the night, Lucas will more than likely ditch him to go hookup with some guy whose name he won’t care enough to ask for.

Lucas is a proud thot and has no shame admitting it.

“Anyway, I’m really excited about the party, but I’m also kind of nervous,” Joshua confesses. “Me and Rory have never hung out in person before. What if he turns out to be the opposite of how I've always envisioned him to be? What if he turns out to be a complete jerk? I'll be devastated if—”

"If what? If he doesn't live up to the expectations that you set for him?" Tamia finishes Joshua’s sentence. Joshua shrugs his shoulders in confirmation. "Well, in a few more hours you’ll find out exactly what type of person Rory Carter is. And if anyone tries to come at you sideways at that party and Lucas isn't around to have your back, just text me the addy and I’ll totally abandon the dick to come throw hands for you."

"You really are my ride or die, aren’t you?" Joshua smiles, bumping fists with his bestie. He then directs his attention back to the television and they spend the next few hours eating snacks and watching movies until they get to the point where they can barely keep their eyes open. Tamia is the first to call it a night and Joshua eventually follows suit a few minutes later.

After Joshua enters his bedroom, he notices a flashing light coming from his cell phone which rests on the nightstand, letting him know that he has missed notifications to check. He ventures into his inbox first.

"Oh shit...Rory sent me a new text."

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Overthinking what his response should be, it takes Joshua approximately eight minutes to reply to Rory's text.

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Joshua falls onto the center of his bed, squealing and rolling around because of the winking face emoji that Rory had sent with his last message. Although it means absolutely nothing, Joshua feels otherwise. Not to mention he's still high on the fact that he even has Rory Carter's number saved in his phone.

As nervous as Joshua is to step outside his comfort zone to attend this party tomorrow night, he’s excited, nonetheless, because it means he'll have a chance to get closer to Rory. Just because the guy is straight doesn't mean that the two of them can't have a good time together.

Joshua is aware that he will probably never have a romantic relationship with Rory, so for now, he will happily settle for friendship instead.