Part 3
Disclaimers, etc. in Part 1.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When I finally stir, I open my eyes reluctantly and look over at the
clock. Good God, it's nearly midnight. The sounds of rustling
papers tell me that Josh is still working - as I think that I feel
him shift so he can turn a page. Okay, I really need to get up now.
Damn.
I sit up slowly away from him, feeling rather awkward about the whole
thing. He turns to look at me as if nothing at all is out of the
ordinary. "Hey," he says. "I didn't wake you and send you home
because I didn't think you should be driving that tired."
I scrub my face with one hand. "I think I'll be okay now."
"Good."
We look at each other. What am I supposed to say now? Thank you for
holding me while I slept? Um. . .
"Thanks," I say noncommittally, leaving it up to him to decide what
I'm talking about.
He gives me a one-sided grin, which I find hopelessly endearing.
"Sure," he says. He reaches up and pushes back the hair on one side
of my face, brushing his hand against my cheek in the process. "I
have a couple things to finish up. Go home and get some rest."
I have no idea what else to say here. Throwing myself into his arms
seems a bad idea, as does asking him to come with me. I really don't
feel that at this point I should be telling him that I have a hard
time sleeping lately and that I think he might help. No, no, no.
No, no. Big no.
"Okay," I say, getting to my feet. "Goodnight."
He gives me a distracted wave as I gather my coat, and I stare at him
in wonder for a minute. To me it seemed like our relationship just
crossed some giant imaginary line, but to him everything seems to be
exactly the same. Unchanged. He's just as casual about me as ever.
Hmm. Maybe I like it that way. After all, I wouldn't want our
relationship to change all that much. Not at work, anyway.
Where do thoughts like that come from? I'm a bad girl. Really. I
definitely should not be entertaining thoughts of dating my boss.
Uh-uh.
I can't help myself, though. Before I leave I stop and brush a kiss
across his forehead. For a millisecond I freeze, thinking I've gone
too far. But he is completely unfazed. He reaches up to squeeze my
arm for a second, barely looking up from the brief in his lap, and
says, "See you tomorrow."
Well, that was easy.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I actually manage to sleep some - probably because all that melatonin
is still rushing around my body - and make it to work this morning
vaguely alert and awake. Thank you, early morning coffee. My
morning is not destined to be peaceful, though - not by a long shot.
As I start up my computer outside Josh's still dark and uninhabited
office (at least I hope it's uninhabited - he could be asleep on the
floor) I feel someone behind me, and with that weird radar we all
have at times I can tell the person towers over me. "Hey, CJ," I
say, before turning to greet her.
"Hey, Donna." I look up to give her a better greeting and from the
look on her face I know immediately that she was in Josh's office
last night after I fell asleep. I mean, while I was - right. Oh,
this could be bad.
She sits on the edge of my desk, then apparently decides not to
intimidate me with her height and slides gracefully into a visitor's
chair instead. "How are you?" she asks.
Okay, hello, loaded question. "I'm good, CJ, how are you?" Play
dumb, Donna, that's it.
"I'm good." She takes a deep breath. She's deciding how to approach
this. "Donna, about that conversation we had last weekend. . ."
"Yes," I say, doing a hideously bad job of concealing my nervousness.
"Did you and Josh. . ."
"He sent me home at 11:48!" I interrupt excitedly.
CJ looks at me in confusion for a moment. "Okay."
I can feel my face turning beet red. Darned alabaster skin. "I
mean, nothing - um - oh, hell." I realize that I've just confirmed
any suspicions she might be harboring by being nervous about what
could have been completely innocuous. In fact, Josh seems to think
it was completely innocuous. Oh, oh, I can use that. "I woke up on
the couch, Josh was reading - I'm not even sure he noticed when I
left." I force myself to sound casual.
She's not buying it for a second, but all of a sudden her face
softens and that suspicious look goes away. "Look, Donna," she says
much more gently, "I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong -
hell, he and I do stuff like that all the time. I'm just worried
about you."
"About me?" Okay, she's officially lost me.
"It's just. . ." She's uncomfortable talking about this with me,
that much is clear. "I know you're lonely sometimes - cause God
knows I am too - and it would be really easy. . ."
I decide to have mercy on her. "You're worried that I'm in love with
Josh and I'm taking the fact that he let me sleep on his couch as
some kind of encouragement?"
CJ's eyebrows lift. "Well, when you say it that way it just sounds
stupid."
I like her enough that I'm not mad at her interfering. "There's
nothing to worry about," I reassure her.
She gets to her feet, then stops, making sure there's no one around.
"He does love you, Donna," she says sincerely. "Very much. But I'm
not quite sure in what way."
I meet her eyes. "Neither am I."
She nods. There's nothing more to say.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
(about a week later, give or take)
So today I wasn't expecting any more Josh lessons. Really, I thought
we'd about covered them. It seems I was wrong.
Because what I'm seeing right now is Josh, sprawled on his couch,
rubbing tiredly at his eyes. "Big night?" I joke, seeing as how he
really shouldn't be this tired already at eight AM.
"I was up late," he replies without looking at me.
Wait a sec. We weren't working late last night. I saw him leave.
"Have you developed a social life, Joshua?" I ask, straining to keep
my voice light. Please, please say no.
He grins, eyes still closed. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"No, not really," I say, stung. "You have a meeting with Leo in
nineteen seconds."
"What about?"
"Make that seventeen. The education thing." He doesn't move.
"Fourteen seconds, Josh."
"I was with CJ," he says, sitting up and trying to straighten his
jacket. I don't know why he bothers.
"CJ?" I repeat dumbly. Please don't tell me - no, that seems highly
unlikely.
"Yeah, she came over and we sat outside and talked for a couple
hours, about work and life and Danny and stuff. It was nice." I'm
not sure why he's telling me this - relieved, yes, but still
confused. He grabs a folder and heads for Leo's office, leaving me to
my thoughts.
By the time we're ready to check out tonight, it's already nine. I
have got to get him to quit earlier. This schedule is leaving me with
permanent circles under my eyes and absolutely no life. Not that I
really had one before all this working late. But now I'm missing ER
much more frequently.
As I'm gathering my things together, CJ comes in. I pray she doesn't
have something that Josh or I need to handle.
She doesn't. She gives me an intense look, which I completely don't
understand, and says, "Hey."
"Hey," I reply. She goes into his office and starts to close the
door, but changes her mind and leaves it open.
"Just coming to say goodnight," I hear her say. Well, all right.
"Donna?" Josh calls. "Just a sec," he tells CJ. "Can you come and
find the 916 folder for me?"
As I dig through the piles on his desk, I try to be as unobtrusive as
possible in case she had something she wanted to talk about.
Evidently she didn't. Only now I get Lesson 3. I'm not sure what it
means yet, but it sure is interesting.
"Okay, goodnight," Josh tells CJ. Then, completely ignoring the fact
that I'm right there, he breaks Unwritten Cardinal Rule Number One -
No displays of affection in front of other people. He leans over and
kisses her goodnight - a small, chaste kiss on the cheek, but still
something he's never allowed anyone at work to see before. CJ smiles
and says, "Goodnight, mi amor." Then she looks straight at me, and I
don't know what I'm expecting - embarrassment, maybe? - but she just
smiles and says, "See you tomorrow, Donna."
"Yeah," I say idiotically. What is going on here? Has Josh suddenly
become the Love Fairy and I didn't know about it? All of a sudden
it's okay to be affectionate in front of anyone and everyone?
Wait.
I get it.
The click you hear is the pieces falling into place.
They're not being affectionate in front of anyone and everyone. Just
me.
Follow me here for a second, this is a bit of a leap in logic, but it
makes sense.
The evidence? Tonight, for starters. The fact that Josh willingly
told me CJ was at his house late last night talking to him about
their personal lives. Plus the fact that when I feel asleep on Josh
last week, I woke up in the exact same position despite the fact that
CJ had been in there. No, follow my thought here. That means that
he didn't move when she came in. That for however long she was in
his office he simply let her see us like that. He held me in front of
her. And now he's kissing her in front of me.
Get it?
I do.
No, this is not some kind of psychopathic plan to make us both
insanely jealous. All three of us know their relationship is
platonic, and ours is, well, undefined.
That's just it. Don't you see? After at least three years of being
such intimate friends in private and keeping up the façade of
professionalism in public, for whatever reason, Josh and CJ have
clearly decided between them to let me in. They're letting me into
their circle of two, letting me see and understand their
relationship. And Josh isn't keeping whatever affection he might have
for me (please God!) from her, either. They're sharing something
beautiful and private with me, and that means a lot of things. A
lot. It means they both trust me. It means they see me as a friend,
not just a coworker.
So here's the grand question. What makes me, not a member of the
senior staff and distinctly out of the loop, on a different level
here than Sam or Toby?
That's when Lesson 3 hits me hard. And it's so unbelievable that I
nearly drop the 916 folder and Josh looks at me like I've lost it.
I'm not ever going to be their friend the way they are each other's.
They have age, experience, and a deep, non-replicable bond going for
them. So in what capacity am I being introduced to this equation?
Oh, yeah. That's what I thought. See, the only possible role I can
see for another person here is that of significant other to one of
the parties involved. For one glorious, heart-stopping second I
think, yes, they're letting me in because I'm going to be the person
he. . .
Then I realize I'm an idiot. I still don't understand my role in all
this, but it can't be that. Josh might, indeed, love me very much,
as CJ said, but I can't quite make myself believe that he's prepping
me to be his lover by letting me get to know his best friend.
But I'd really like to believe it.