Chapter 5 – Josh's POV

One Hit (To The Body)

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

"Wake up bitch!"

I'm cocooned in my bed duvet, comfortable and content and why the hell is someone annoying me?

I open my eyes and I see Blake's dark form going towards the light switch.

"I swear to god you open that light you're dead," I mumble. Luckily for him he hears me and stops dead in his tracks.

"Snow White awakes!" he exclaims.

He might not be so safe finally. "Not Sleeping Beauty?"

"I think a scenario of you living with seven other men playing their bitch is much more fitting with your character."

Did he seriously come into my room in the middle of the night to annoy me? "I hate you."

"Thanks."

"What the hell are you doing here, waking me up at..." I look at the clock on my table. I groaned and hide my head in my duvet cocoon. "ONE IN THE MORNING! You sadistic fuck."

He laughs. "Come on, that's no way of talking to your best friend."

"Right now you're my arch nemesis."

"Stop complaining and get up already."

"Why? I obviously don't need to bail you out of jail so there's no reason for me to get up."

"Come on," he presses and there it is, the catch in his voice. It's very very slight and if I wasn't such a sucker for voices and intonations in general I might have missed it, but it's there.

Something's wrong.

He's hurt.

"Switch the damn lights on." I don't need the see his face to know he's probably smiling right now.

I take about five minutes to convince my body that it needs to get out of the comfort of my bed.

The things I do for my little brother...

Finally I drag my feet out of bed after putting sweat pants on and grabbing an afghan to wrap myself in it.

Blake leads the way and I follow him out of my room.

Even half awake, I have to admit, I love my place.

My apartment looks like a warehouse. I have the entire floor to myself. I let the first floor open for people in need of a place to stay. But this floor is all mine.

My dad says it looks like the kind of place a bum would hide in from the cops after a drug deal gone wrong. I told him it's the place the bum would get for himself after a drug deal has gone right. Unfortunately, he didn't find me funny.

When we finally reach the main room, the central place in my apartment I stop dead in my tracks.

We'd been working on a mural for the central wall in the open room for a little while now. It was nowhere near ready, I wasn't even sure what we were doing to be completely honest, but it was still a project of mine and I liked it.

And it now has a huge hole in the middle of it.

I ask very calmly, "Why is there a hole in my mural Blake?"

He plays the innocent. "What hole?"

I point right at it. "That huge ass hole right in the middle of it."

He makes a face. "Miss Puss is trying tricks for America's Funniest Home Videos?"

"Why is there a hole in my mural Blake?" I repeat.

He looks sheepish. He better damn be. "Okay, so I might have gotten here earlier and I might have started to paint a bit to take my minds off things and I might have punched the wall."

"My mural. You punched my mural."

"Well technically, our mural. You know. I worked on it too."

"Alright then. My wall."

"Sorry."

I sigh, staring at the ceiling. "I'll go get the plaster."

"Sooooorry," Blake calls after me.

"You're lucky I made a blood pack with Jayden to never kill you," I say loudly.

"Why did you need to make a blood pack for that?"

I don't answer that, I let it stew with that thought for a while.

One of the things I adore most about Jayden, even now is the way he can still mess with his brother, even after his death. When Blake showed me the little contract he had made with Lexi to convince her to stick around, I naturally asked him about the whole screaming spinach thing and he told me about how spinach is asperge in French and that's funny to him.

Spinach is épinard in French. When his family stayed in France when they were younger I was there. They lived in a villa for a little while and they had a garden. Jayden had taught him the names in French of the vegetables they were growing. He'd mixed a couple of them up just for the heck of it.

So here he was, Jayden still messing with his brother beyond the grave. Even now after all these years, the guy was still my hero. I could only wish to be that much of a little bastard even after death.

When I get into my art studio, I grab a bucket, fill it with the granulated mix and then add my water and mix and mix and mix until I get the right consistency.

I drag it back to the main room and drop in on the plastic covering the floor in front of the mural.

"Get to work," I tell Blake, pointing to the bucket and then the wall.

"You're not helping?"

"I need cuddles with Miss Puss first if you don't want me to murder you," I tell him and head straight to my cat that's sitting by the edge of the plastic tarp. I reach for her and she jumps in my arms.

"Who's the prettiest snugglekitty in the whole wide world?" I croon and head for the couch, nuzzling into her fur. She doesn't fight me. I think she's just as tired and confused as I am. We watched a marathon of The Bachelorette before I went to sleep earlier. We should both be resting.

I might be obsessing a little with the girl from the flea market lately, but my one true love will always be Miss Puss. She's never judge me, she's never deceived me, she's never disappointed me. She's always acted accordingly to what I would expect from a cat. Technically, she's more often than not exceeded those expectations. People who don't love cats just don't understand the complexity of their character. They're like adolescents. They can be little assholes that want space and to scratch your face off, but they can also be the best support group you'll ever need.

I fall back asleep on the couch with Miss Puss laying on my chest.

I wake up what feel like a couple of minutes later to Blake's stupid voice again. "You've reach Blake's voice hatemails, scream at him after the beep anyway he doesn't give a shit. Beep!" he's saying.

Ugh. What is this? More Lexi drama I can only assume. I don't want to look like a snoop so I go grab a bottle of sparkling water from my kitchen.

When I get back in the room he's saying "Sorry I can't, I just woke my whore up. Gotta use her up till she's knock out again."

I flip him off. He smirks at me. He says a few other things  while I inspect his work. I've slept for about an hour and he's made good progress. I assumed he would have just filled the whole but now he's doing a whole other thing, adding layers to the wall.

I gotta give it to him, he's an amazing artist. He has so much imagination and ingenuity. It's a shame he's wasting most of it.

Wheh he finally hangs up the phone, I turn and look at him. "Can I ask what all of this is about?" I ask, gesturing to the wall and to his phone.

He shrugs. "I had a fight with Lexi. It's fine now. We're good."

Seriously? "You had a fight with her and the proper response was to punch a wall?"

"When you put it like that," he answers, rolling his eyes.

I should sick Miss Puss on him and not in her sexy way. "You'll make a marvellous boyfriend."

"Come on, it's just that everything was going well, I mean you saw it the other night, but then she lashed out at me and I sort of panicked and yeah, I freaked out and sorry about the wall, but we're all good now," he answers a little bit in a rush.

"Don't worry about the wall," I tell him. "I actually like what you're doing. It was sloppy to just do a painting. Adding texture makes sense."

"What's the problem then?"

I don't know if I should say it. I don't want to hurt him but I'm just not sure I trust the girl. She's been fickle so far. His relationship with her just feels unhealthy. It's always felt unhealthy. Blake puts her on a pedestal too much. I can't exactly judge though because I'm doing the same thing with the girl in the bathroom. Still, it's a recipe for disaster. For the both of us. I can see it. I'm just worry Blake doesn't.

"No problem, I just wished you stopped getting hurt all the time," I admit.

"What's love without a little pain?" he tells me with a little smile.

I don't say anything to that.

Isn't he kind of right? What's love without a little pain?