Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 2270

"This is it," you told yourself. "You're going to tell Josh how you feel and things are going to be different. Maybe good, maybe bad, but they're going to be different."

You took a moment to look at all the pictures of you and the boys that you had hanging around your mirror. They had walked into your life nearly five years ago, and things had been better because of it ever since then. Of course, it hadn't taken long before you fell for one of them. Those kinds of things just had the tendency to happen when you had two extremely amazing and attractive best friends.

Confidence surging through you, a rare feeling, you headed out to your car. You knew that this was something that you needed to do in person, things were too easily lost in translation over the phone. Not to mention that it gave you an opportunity to admire Josh in person, possibly for the last time. If things went bad, you weren't sure what was going to happen between the three of you. But after some guidance from Tyler, the two of you had determined that this was a necessary risk.

Josh's car wasn't in the driveway when you arrived at his house, but you decided to try the door anyway. Sure enough, there was no answer. Not wanting to make the twenty minute drive back home if he was going to be back soon, you decided to shoot him a text to see how long he would be.

Stopped by your house because I need to talk about something serious with you. Home soon?

You decided that it would be best to wait in the car where it was warm rather than his doorstep where you felt like your fingers were going to fall off if they were out of your pockets for too long. Your phone buzzed almost as soon as you shut the car door behind you.

Needed to pick up some groceries. Home in ten. Everything cool?

You smiled at the text, even though it didn't have any significant meaning. Maybe it was just the fact that he cared.

Everything's cool.

You decided to check up on Twitter and see if you had missed anything important while you waited. Your timeline was more flooded than usual with tweets from the clique, meaning that something major had happened. The boys hadn't mentioned anything huge lately, so you decided to do some investigating.

All of the tweets seemed to lead to the same ultimate conclusion: lots of evidence was pointing to the fact that Josh and Debby were back together, or at least a lot more comfortable than they had been previously. Photos of a party that the boys had gone to about a week ago had just been released, and it didn't take any reaching to see the chemistry between the two of them. You vaguely remembered Josh and Tyler asking if you wanted to accompany them, but you had passed because you had never been a fan of the party scene. Now you were wishing more than anything that you had gone.

You tried to swallow the lump in your throat as you scrolled through more tweets. Surely Josh would have mentioned that he and Debby were back together, right? Or maybe this was all just the beginning of their relationship rekindling and he didn't want to jinx it. Whatever it was, you knew that you couldn't tell him how you felt now. You wondered how you had even thought that was a good idea in the first place.

You threw your phone down on the passenger seat and pushed your palms into your eyes as a futile attempt to get them to stop watering. If anything, that made your vision worse. With an exasperated sigh, you turned the car on and decided that you would have to drive home crying, not that it would be the first time. The longer you waited in Josh's driveway, the higher the chance that you ran into him and had to explain why you were sitting in your car crying.

You slammed the front door behind you, locked it, and walked over to the couch, plopping face-first onto it. Now that you were home, you allowed yourself to completely break down and sob. Josh had texted you asking where you had gone, but you had ignored him entirely. Maybe he would forget that you had even texted him in the first place.

Your phone started ringing about ten minutes after you had gotten home. You didn't even bother looking at who was calling, you weren't going to answer. All you wanted to do right now was lay on your couch and feel bad that the universe had screwed you over. You wondered if Tyler knew about Debby, you had always thought maybe the boys kept secrets from you. It was mostly anxiety talking, but every so often you were pretty sure you caught them talking behind your back.

It had been nearly two hours since you got home and you had still yet to move from the couch. Normally you would have asked Tyler and Josh to come over on your day off, but they were the last people that you wanted to see right now. Instead, you had settled for laying on the couch for hours and letting negative thoughts run their way through your mind.

There was a knock on your door, startling you out of your thoughts. You started to get up to open it, but figured it was probably Josh or Tyler. On the off chance it was a package, you could get it later long after the delivery man had left.

Another knock, this time followed closely by, "Y/N, I know you're home."

It was Josh's voice, you would have recognized it anywhere. He sounded worried which would have normally made you open the door in seconds and pull him into a hug, but now you couldn't help but feel like he deserved it for the way he had made you feel, even if it was indirect.

On the other end of the couch, your phone started to ring. You knew it was Josh calling, he always called if you didn't open the door right away. Not wanting him to hear it, you quickly lunged for it and turned off the sound. It had rung once, but it should have been quiet enough that Josh didn't hear it. Maybe he would think you were napping and leave.

After a few minutes, you heard Josh's car pull out of the driveway. You let out a sigh of relief and laid back down on the couch, pulling the blanket up around yourself once again. This type of behavior wasn't something you could do forever, you knew that, but for the time being you needed to be alone with your thoughts.

You were in the middle of making dinner when your phone started to ring again. Hoping that it might be one of your parents, you walked over and looked a the name shining on your phone. Much to your dismay, it was just Tyler. Even though he hadn't done anything wrong, you knew that he would ask a million questions about Josh, and that wasn't a situation you felt equipped to handle at the moment.

Not wanting to deal with your overthinking for much longer, you decided to head upstairs, get ready for bed, and watch a movie before falling asleep. Maybe an idea as to how to deal with this situation would come to you while you were sleeping.

Your movie had barely started when you heard the front door open downstairs, which seemed unusual. Deciding that this wasn't an issue you could just ignore, you rolled off your bed and dug around until you found the baseball bat that you kept hidden under it. Now that you were armed, you crept towards the front door.

Much to your surprise, it was Tyler standing in your entryway. The two of you looked at each other in shock: you hadn't expected to see him in your house and he hadn't expected to see you creeping towards him with a baseball bat.

"So you are alive," he said.

"Of course I'm alive," you grumbled, swinging the baseball bat down to your side. "Why are you in here? The key I gave you is for emergency purposes only."

"With how you've been acting today, I would say this is an emergency."

"It's not an emergency, I'm fine."

"Y/N, you've been ignoring every call and text that Josh or I have been sending your way. Not to mention that you didn't even answer the door when Josh showed up."

"I just wanted to be alone today, is that such a crime?"

"It wouldn't be if you hadn't texted Josh that you needed to talk to him about something serious and then cut off all contact."

You had to admit, that had been a little stupid of you. Not wanting to admit that to Tyler, you shrugged.

"Josh has been freaking out all day, thinking he did something wrong. What is this all about?"

"He's not here, is he?" you asked, leaning around Tyler as if to check that Josh wasn't hiding behind him.

"No, it's just me. Josh doesn't even know that I'm over here."

You sighed and pushed your hair back from your face, "I went over to Josh's house to tell him how I felt, but he was at the grocery store. I was on Twitter to kill some time, but then I saw all these photos of him with Debby at the party you two went to, and everyone was speculating that they were back together. I thought maybe he hadn't mentioned it, so I knew that I couldn't tell him how I felt. I left without telling him and then shut everyone out because I felt like an idiot."

Tyler held his arms out and you eagerly accepted his hug. Of course, telling Tyler everything that happened caused you to start crying again.

"Hey, it's ok. You're not an idiot for having feelings. Josh and Debby aren't together, I can tell you that. They just spent some time catching up, and I guess photos made it look like more than it was. They spent maybe ten minutes together at that party."

"Really?" you sniffled.

"Yeah. He told me afterwards that he would have rather stayed at home with you and me and watched movies."

This made you smile, "Ok."

"And I still stand by what I said, you should tell him how you feel."

"Maybe I will," you said, although you weren't sure you would be able to build up the same level of confidence that you had that morning.

Tyler held you at arm's length and looked into your eyes, "It's a necessary risk."

"I feel like you know something that I don't."

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," he smirked. "But I do know that I want you to be happy."

"Thanks, Ty," you smiled.

"Alright, you look like you could use some rest and I should get back to Josh and let him know you're fine. Sorry for breaking into your house."

"No worries," you waved him off. "It was necessary."

Tyler nodded and walked back out the front door, making sure to lock it. You grabbed your baseball bat and headed back upstairs, already formulating how you were going to tell Josh.

You hopped out of your car and closed the door behind you. The sun was shining today, but it was still colder than you would have liked. You only knocked on Josh's door twice and your fingers already felt frozen.

Josh swung the door open a few moments later. This time, you had the foresight to tell him that you were on the way over before you left your own house. It would be harder to chicken out that way.

"Hi," Josh smiled, looking almost relieved to see you.

"Hey," you said, still feeling a bit embarrassed about how you had acted yesterday.

"Want to come in?" he asked.

"Yes, please. I'm freezing."

Josh stepped out of the way and you made your way towards the living room. You took a seat on the couch, followed closely by Josh.

"I just want to start by saying I'm sorry for how I acted yesterday. I let my emotions get the best of me, and it didn't go over very well."

"It's alright, we all have those days sometimes. I'm sorry if I bothered you, I was just worried about you."

"Which is understandable," you smiled. "Anyway, the thing that I wanted to talk to you about."

"Right."

You took a deep breath. It was now or never.

"I-um-I have feelings for you, Josh," you mumbled, looking down at your feet.

You could feel your cheeks going bright red, and you didn't want to see the look on Josh's face.

"You do?"

"Yeah. I have for a while, actually."

"I have feelings for you too."

You turned to look at him, hardly believing what you were hearing.

"For real?"

"For real."

"That's awesome," you smiled.

Josh looked a little confused at your choice of words, but smiled nonetheless.

"So, uh, what now?" he asked.

"I guess we're...dating?"

"Yeah, that sounds right," his smile grew wider.

You nodded.

"So, can I kiss you?" he asked.

"Yeah, that would be good."

He leaned forward and pulled you into a kiss. You smiled against his lips. Tyler had been right, this was a necessary risk.