This Turbulence is Beautiful.

“Bloody hell, Rosie, how did you do that?” Aaron peered over my shoulder, “Looks like that pan is actually safe to cook on now.”

Jamie laughed, “Simple things, eh Aaron,” I twisted to smile at Aaron for noticing, but he had already turned his back in embarrassment. “Maybe we should have used that pan to cook the food for the rotten couple out in the bar, eh Rosie?” he winked at me. I immediately turned back to the sink to continue on my journey through the Fairy Liquid bubbles.

Ahh, yes, and how could I forget the rotten couple out in the bar. As John came in to collect their meals- the cheapest meals on the menu, I might add- and take them out, I was almost tempted to turn around and spit in them. But I held back, bit my lip, and focused my energy on the frying pan that I was cleaning the grease from.

So this is how far I’ve come? I went from a cushty office job to a basic teenage career in waitressing- and apparently I was a brilliant cleaner. My trust in any form of relationship had just about run dry, and whilst I was lucky that the friends I had were amazing in every sense of the word, I was also a bit miffed that the only thing I seemed to have left was friendship. What struck me as odd was that, really, three months ago that was all I had. So, my time with Taylor had officially been a relationship, but we spent our ‘alone time’ playing games consoles anyway- it wasn’t a particularly passionate thing we had going on, or particularly exciting in many ways, but we always seemed to see eye to eye. Except for, it would seem, the issue of fidelity. I spent the next half hour elbow deep in the washing up water and managed to clean all of the pots and pans the chefs had asked me to. Job done- and seeing as all I had done was some washing up, job satisfaction rates pretty high.

Until I walked out and came face to face with Josh, waiting at the bar to be served. Immediately, my brain went into addressing-a-customer mode, and my mouth took over before I really had a chance to think, “Hi, can I help you?”

Josh frowned, and his mouth dropped open slightly, before John whipped his head round from talking to Charlie and started moving towards us, “I’ve got this one Rosie- another orange juice, mate?”

I scoffed before I could help myself, “Orange juice? Josh, you never drink juice.”

“I, um,” Josh cleared his throat whilst John stood awkwardly, surveying the scene beside him, “I just wanted to keep a clear head, I guess?” The intonation at the end of his sentence made it obvious he was questioning himself and he was clearly trying to come up with an excuse, or at least unsure as to why, when forced to produce an excuse, his brain had offered that. I frowned and moved back up the bar, to return to my former position- elbows leant against the counter, watching Josh move back up to his date and flash her a smile. One of his killer smiles as well.

Charlie coughed, keeping his eyes focused on his crossword that he should have finished long ago, “That Josh fellow; he must be something special- you’ve gone bright red from one little encounter.”

I forced a smile, “I don’t know what you’re on about, Charlie.”

“I may be old, Rosie,” he finally looked up from his paper, “but I do know a thing or two about love- or what is it you people call it nowadays? Fancying. Yes. I think you, Rosie Harper, are in a pickle. I think,” he took a deep breath, a warm smile edging its way onto his cheeks; “I think that he has quite taken your fancy.”

I flushed bright red, and resorted to folding my arms atop the bar, and pushing my head down onto my arms to cover my cheeks, “What does it matter anyway?” I mumbled, unsure of whether Charlie could even hear me, “He’s quite happy flaunting it about that he doesn’t even want me.”

“Hmm,” Charlie considered my point out loud- because I guess hearing aids did pick up on lame sulky mumbles better than I thought they did- as he sipped his whiskey, “I don’t know about that one, love.”

I kept my head down on the bar, but soon heard the door opening. I looked up quickly to see the girl Josh was with pulling on her coat hurriedly, “Bye then, thanks,” she cheered, and rushed out of the door as it slowly closed behind her.

John coughed, and I turned my head towards him. He was carrying two severely unfinished plates of food, and nodded towards Josh. I looked up to see him with his arms folded on the table, and his head resting on them- much as I had been thirty seconds ago. “His date ran out because he practically bored her to tears- he was barely even talking. Go see him,” John mumbled in hushed tones.

I looked at Charlie almost pleadingly. He looked over his shoulder at Josh, who hadn’t moved apart from to budge his chair back and make himself more comfy. Charlie turned back to me and smiled- it was enough to give me a little burst of confidence. I grabbed a pint glass from below the bar and filled it with orange juice from pump, putting in ice and a straw as an after thought, although I wasn’t really sure why. I made my way over to Josh’s table slowly, careful not to spill any liquid down the front of my very new and very stainable dress.

I pulled the seat out and sat down on it, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. Josh looked up instantly, and gave me a tiny smile. He looked down at the orange juice, and then glanced at the already full glass he had sitting on the table, as if to say, “Why do I need that, you daft cow?” He said nothing, however, just looked.

“It’s on the house?” I offered, bowled over by my own stupidity because that was the only conversation starter I could come up with.

“Cheers,” he mumbled, his voice kind of croaky, “you can have the one I paid for, and then at least I’ve bought you a drink.” He swapped the two drinks over, and flicked the straw around the cup, smiling slightly as he did so. I sat, waiting for him to carry on speaking, before I realised: my conversation starter had failed, and our attempt at said conversation had already run dry. I took a gulp of the orange juice in front of me.

“Alright?” I attempted. He looked up from the drink, and then instantly back down to it, his eyes lingering on me for less than a second. He nodded.

“You alright?” he asked. I returned the nod. “I like your nail varnish,” he looked up at me, smiling.

“You had better not be being sarcastic, Franceschi.” And just like that, the tension that was drifting around us was gone, if only for a moment. He only had to flash one cheeky grin my way and, boom, I was instantly smiling back. That bloody grin was going to be the death of me.

“Me? Never,” he feigned shock, “Maybe I’m just not a festive person.”

“Liar. I’ve seen that photo of you in your reindeer antlers. It’s taped to the wall at your flat- and there’s the Polaroid of you in a festive jumper and not a lot else that you signed and taped to Matt’s wall. You can’t fool me.”

His smile faded slightly, to a small one. It looked slightly forced, but I never could tell with Josh. I guess that’s what made him so intriguing, “Well maybe this year is different.” He took a sip of his drink through the straw, before twirling it around in his fingers.

“What’s different about this year?”

“Everything is different about this year. We’ve got a new record to write, my sister is away with her boyfriend, and for once, I can’t sit down and relax.”

“There’s nothing stopping you from relaxing?” I questioned. He looked up at me, and pushed his chair back, almost standing up and walking away. I could see it in his eyes, as he tugged his coat slightly from the chair, and looked towards the door, his eyes clearly begging for an escape. He collapsed back into the chair and pushed it forward again, almost pretending like nothing had happened.

“Yes, there is,” he said simply. There was no edge of anger in his voice- he wasn’t annoyed at me. He didn’t even sound particularly miserable. I thought my next sentence through carefully, trying to be safe about it.

I was never one to be careful about my wording. Normally I just said and didn’t think. Josh, however, required a different approach. He was just different all around, and I didn’t ever want to say the wrong thing around him. He seemed to be so good with words; it almost wasn’t fair that I was stuck talking to someone who could take my breath away with a small selection of his vocabulary, where as if I were to try and do the same to him I would be sat for thirty minutes, considering how to go about it. In a flash, I remembered one of the pieces of paper blue-tacked to his wall- why say something safe when I can blow you away? So that was how he did it. Fuck safe. Just say it, Rosie.

“You can talk to me, Josh.”

He looked up at me, his eyes sparkling. I forced myself to keep eye contact, but still shuffled in my seat.

“Well, ditto to you.”

I laughed uncomfortably, “So are you going to?”

“I don’t know, Rosie,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair as he rested his forehead on his palm, and his elbow on the table in front of him. He looked down at his drink, playing with the straw in his other hand, “I don’t know anything anymore. I’ve got this clear mind normally- it’s all sorted and sectioned out and then you come along and blow it up like a bloody firework.”

I sat up straight, “Me?”

Josh scoffed, “Come off it, Rosie, you must know by now.”

My heart swelled, but I wrapped my arm around my stomach tightly, trying to tighten the feeling away, “No. So tell me.”

“I can’t,” He focused on the straw greatly, and I started regretting my decision to ever put it in there. I reached across and pulled it from his drink, and he looked up at me straight away, “Don’t make me do this, Rosie,” his eyes were still sparkling, but they were filling up too. He was trying his hardest to ignore this.

“I’ll give you the straw back if you tell me?” I tried. He smiled at me, and his eyes cleared with a couple of quick blinks that I would have barely noticed if I wasn’t watching him intently.

“I wish I could.”

“You can.”

“But I can’t. Because if I do, you’ll realise what a sap I am, and you’ll realise what’s wrong with me, and you’ll just sit back and think about this for more than ten seconds and realise that it would never work, because you want normal. You’ve told me over and over again that you just want something to take the edge off of the fact that you never had it when you were younger and you still haven’t got it now. This isn’t normal. What I do is so far from normal; it couldn’t be further away from what Taylor was, or what Hayden was.”

I bit my lip, and a lump formed in my throat. Josh looked down to his orange juice and played with the ice in it for a few moments, before looking back up at me.

“The thing is Rosie, you don’t get it, because I know, for sure, that no one has ever sat down and explained this too you. You don’t deserve normal; you deserve so much better. I know that you don’t want complicated but why should you settle for boring when it could be so much more exciting and surprising?”

“I don’t like surprises.”

Josh looked down and stared studying his juice again, “I know,” he sighed, and his voice was laced with sadness. He was going to give up before he’d even started.

“Well, not normally,” I added. It was a pathetic attempt, but it seemed to work.

Josh’s head snapped up, “Surprises can be good. I know you’ve had a lot of crap surprises but it isn’t all bad. For example,” he stood up from his chair, pushing it back. It scraped loudly along the floor and I looked over at John apologetically by default; him and Charlie looked away instantly- nosey buggers. Josh made his way around to my side of the table, pulling me up by my hand. I stood to face him and he wrapped his arms around my lower back after pulling my arms around his neck. He leant down and kissed me on the lips delicately, “that was a nice surprise.”

I laughed, looking up at him, “I guess,” I bit my lip and looked from his eyes down to his smile, a smirk playing on both of our lips.

“I can’t give you normal,” Josh mumbled, his head bent forward and his forehead resting on mine, “but I can at least try and give you exciting-”

I grinned again, my teeth still sunk into my lip, “I bet you can,” I added, cutting him off with a wink. He blushed slightly, his cheeks raised into a cheeky smile.

“And hopefully, all those weeks at a time away from me will only make you want me more,” he finished his sentence, starting to answer my already forming questions, “I’m fed up of safe, and I’m fed up of you thinking that boring is good enough, because it isn’t.”

“So, what now?” I looked down at his chest, trying to stop myself from grinning.

“Do you mean now and beyond, or right this second?”

“Both.”

“Now and beyond- we give up trying to think straight, and give up trying for normal, and give up trying to please anyone else, especially you, and go for this full throttle.”

I grinned, pushing my head into his chest as he wrapped his arms around me tighter, “And right this second?”

“Right this second, you stop trying to hide that ridiculously wide and breathtakingly beautiful smile from me, you tell your boss you’re going, and we proceed to walk out of here hand in hand, go back to my flat, and get on it.”

My cheeks felt instantly hot, but I raised my eyebrow and tried to look the tiniest bit intimidating, “Get on it?”

Josh flushed red as well, but his voice stayed strong as he laughed, “You heard me.”