I Am Not Uptight!

The House part 5

Josh could feel his head spin for a second. He dropped the mop and briskly walked towards Daniel, who was getting a glass of water. “Tell me you’re kidding,” he said with a nervous laugh, but Daniel only turned to him with a guilty look on his face.

“I honestly don’t know what he does for a living,” he admitted. “He's been here a month but we only know he dresses fancy, he comes home whenever he likes, and sometimes an expensive black car comes and picks him up. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s part of the mob, does it? He could just be… I don’t know, but don’t worry,” he patted Josh's shoulder as he passed by him to get to the kettle. “He may look like a scary guy, but he’s harmless. He actually attends most of the house events we have when he can. I just wish he’d talk more, though,” he said the last part with dismay as he set the kettle onto the stove, not really inspiring much confidence for Josh; but then again, he shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he was allowed to move in the next day after a short chaotic phone call. Background checks obviously weren’t a thing in that household.

Daniel grabbed a container of instant coffee and sugar from the cabinet then glanced curiously at the troubled Josh and his gloves. “What are you doing cleaning anyway?” he asked, scooping a good spoonful of dissolvable coffee that Josh was sure would just taste bitter and acidic.

“I wasn’t cleaning,” he answered rather defensively. “I just picked up a bottle because it was on the ground, but going back to—"

“Can’t stand the mess, Josh?” Daniel knowingly asked as his eyes flickered to the organized stack of pizza boxes and bottles of beer, and Josh knew he had no excuse. “You better not come into my room then,” he said.

Josh didn’t really know how to respond to that but thankfully, Daniel didn’t seem to be expecting him to. He simply lightly chuckled then crouched down to get a large trash bag from under the sink, asking, “Did you enjoy the party last night?”

“It was loud,” Josh honestly answered as Daniel opened up the bag for him to begin putting the boxes inside. “You said no more noises by 10 o’clock,” he said, trying not to sound too much like he was blaming the man.

“On a normal day without an occasion,” Daniel said.

“A half birthday isn’t a real occasion, though,” Josh muttered as he placed the last of the boxes inside.

“Well, here it is. Jane is like family and since she wanted to celebrate it, then we do. They're young, you know,” Daniel shrugged as he tightly tied up the bag. “I think it's nice that the kids are making the best out of life with all these little events.”

Josh's eyebrows met in the middle. “Kids?” he repeated, stifling a laugh at how ancient Daniel had sounded. “How old are you?”

“28. I sounded like an old guy just then, didn’t I? Talking about the youth,” Daniel chuckled as he opened up another trash bag for the beer bottles this time. “Sometimes I feel like the dad here, you know? Jane is 23, Gary is 22, Dustin is 20, and Wells is 25. I’m basically the only one nearing 30,” he said with a crinkle of his nose. “How about you? Your face looks kind of young but all that frowning makes you look more… mature.”

“I’m 26,” Josh replied as he began to carefully place the bottles into the plastic.

“When’s your birthday?”

“Far from today.”

“Again with the mystery,” Daniel shook his head and smiled. “You’re going to give us a hard time getting to know you, huh? Anyway, let’s see. Pisces… So that’s around February to March.” His eyes narrowed as he thought, then as if he had made up his mind, he shrugged and added, “We’re just going to have to greet you happy birthday every day for two months, then.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Josh replied. He didn’t know him well enough to be sure if he was joking around or not.

“That’s debatable,” Daniel argued. “By the way, jot us into your sched tonight. We are having a dinner—all of us in the house—to officially welcome you.”

Josh stopped putting in the bottles in his surprise. “You don’t have to—"

“No way!” Daniel was quick to say, taking the one in Josh's hand and pointing its mouth towards him. “You’re part of the team, now. I'm guessing this is your first time living in a shared house, and I’m not going to force you into spending some quality time with us, but you've got to get to know the people you'll be living with, as we need to get to know you,” he said, placing the bottle into the bag himself. He stood up straight and smiled at Josh. “So, what do you say? 6 PM, dinner and chatting?”

Josh considered his options for a second. On one hand, he wasn’t really the type to be sociable, and he didn’t exactly have the best of first impressions with all of the housemates—what with being grabbed by his shirt, being forced to eat pizza and drink beer, and being unsure whether one of them was involved in organized crime. On the other, Daniel was right. It would do him well to get to know them a little better—even if he was planning to stay there for only a few months. Besides, it was just dinner, not like he was being expected to be best of friends with everyone.

“Alright,” Josh sighed, letting it be obvious that he wasn’t too enthusiastic about it; but his lack of excitement did not hamper Daniel’s.

“Great,” the man nodded, trying to seem nonchalant about it even though he had to purse his lips just to prevent himself from smiling too widely. Seeing how weirdly Josh looked at him, Daniel cleared his throat and checked the time. “Now, don’t you have to prepare for work? I’ll finish up down here.”

He was right. Josh had unwittingly spent the time he should have been using to make breakfast to clean up the mess that wasn’t his own, but as much as he’d like to regret it, he couldn’t help but feel a lot more relieved seeing the place with less clutter.

“I better go. Here are the gloves from the laundry room,” he said, taking them off then handing them over to Daniel who muttered something along the lines of “oh, I didn’t know we had these here,” as he examined them curiously.

“Oh, we got dinner later, okay? So no need to worry about anything except bringing yourself,” Daniel called out after him as he headed towards the stairs. “See you later, Josh!”