Page 4 of Almost Ours

"Oh yeah," Brooke scoffs, "because that doesn't make him sound like a sexist pig."

"How's it sexist?" Ewan fires back. "He's upfront and honest with the girls he sleeps with. If they get notions, that's on them."

"Ewan!"

"What? Don't act like he's the only man who fucks around."

"That's all he does—fuck around!"

No. I don't.

I don't talk about my sex life, so people assume I'm the worst kind of man. Have I kissed a few girls on nights out? Sure. Has anything ever gone further than that? Also yes. But only twice.

Listen, if people want to paint me as this stud who's had endless sex with hordes of beautiful women, why on Earth would I waste time correcting them? Let them believe what they want. I know the truth. And that's all that matters.

"Just ask him if he wants to come for coffee," Brooke hisses. "Do not tell him that I've invited a friend."

"You're not going to set him up, babe," Ewan’s got that voice on where he knows he’s right but also knows his girlfriend well enough to not put up too much of a fight. "He won't fall for it. He doesn't speak to girls. He doesn't care to."

Wrong again.

I'm a human, not the unfeeling robot everyone seems to think I am. I never express things well. I haven't since I was a kid. It means people can't get a good read on me, and because most people, like me, are riddled with self-loathing and insecurities, they assume my silence means I don't like them.

Any girl I've ever liked has taken my aloofness as either a challenge or a turn-off and if Bonnie Scott hadn't smashed my heart to smithereens, I might be a bit more receptive to generally getting to know people.

"Is she pretty?" Ewan questions, as if that’s an important factor here.

Being pretty doesn’t help me speak any easier. Looks have fuck all to do with a person’s goodness. Bonnie is proof of that.

"She's the prettiest girl I've ever seen," Brooke whispers, still loud enough to hear through the door. "She's his type too. Slim, brunette, golden brown skin, green eyes. She looks like a model."

Great. Fantastic. Exactly what I need. Brooke bringing around a model-looking stranger for me to awkwardly not speak to.

They don’t understand why I can’t just move on. Why I’m not normal.

This is Brooke’s ninth attempt to set me up with someone in the last year. You’d think that I bother her and Ewan to an almost pathological degree with how eager she is to hitch me to anyone who looks my way. I think she’d auction me off to her mother if she thought it would help cement a relationship for me, and Mrs Grant is loud enough that I’d probably hear the bidding from Louth.

I ache when I think about the fact this wouldn’t have been an issue for her if she met me three years ago.

“What is this weird thing you’ve got about getting him in a relationship?” My best friend presses.

“I don’t know, Ewie. He just seems so lonely.”

She pities me.

“I assure you, Josh is fine as he is.”

Brooke nosily huffs. “If that was the case then meeting one singular girl wouldn’t be met with such resistance, would it?”

“He’s not going to like this.”

“I don’t care. We’re not going to give him a choice.”

Better get it over with.

With a long sigh, I swing my bedroom door back.

Ewan jumps like I've thrown a bomb; Brooke slaps a hand to her chest.