[email protected]
MY GUESTBOOK
Josh smiled softly. �We can try the whole first morning after thing again, if you want. Without the staff dropping by.�
I shook my head. �It wouldn�t be us if something like that hadn�t happened,� I said.
�I hate that that�s true,� Josh said, groaning softly. �So� we�re really going to do this, huh?�
�Looks that way,� I said with a smile.
�Leo would be happy,� Josh decided. I looked at him oddly. �He knew how I felt about you� probably before I did. Actually, I think everyone knew how I felt about you before I did, but I�m pretty sure that Leo figured it out first.�
�He knew you when you were still in the womb, Joshua. Odds were pretty good that he would figure things like that out before, say, Toby,� I said.
Josh smiled softly, his eyes getting misty with memories and emotion. �When Lou hired you he told me that I had to get over myself because you were damned good at your job and I was lucky as hell that you stuck around for as long as you did so I had no reason to be pissed at you for leaving.�
�If I hadn�t left Vinick would be President-Elect right now and we�d be working for a lame duck administration that is about to start a Transition to a Republican administration,� I pointed out. �Russell would never have been able to beat Vinick and you know it. And you would have never left President Bartlet if I had stayed.�
�I�d argue with that if it wasn�t so pathetically true,� Josh said. �I guess the country has you to thank, then. Or me, for being such an ass to you for eight years.�
�You weren�t always an ass,� I said. �Though, admittedly, you ass-ish tendencies are a little easier to point to.� Josh swatted at my arm, smiling a true Josh Lyman smile, dimples and all. I smiled back, and then I quickly grew serious again. What I was about to tell him was not something to be joked about. �You wiped the slate clean when you came to Germany. You didn�t stop for anything. You looked like crap and I�m still sure that it was your breath that woke me up, but you didn�t stop for anything and that meant the world to me. It still does.�
�There was nowhere else I could be,� Josh said emphatically before pressing his lips to my temple and looping his arm around my shoulders. The move surprised me, but what surprised me more was that I didn�t care about the public display of affection. I had never been good with them, never been comfortable with them. But with Josh it was different.
With Josh everything was different.