I Am Not Uptight!

Daniel part 7

There was a lack of boundaries in that household that Josh should have known and expected. There had already been a few hints that the people he was living with were lax with rules—very much unlike him—with the glaring red sign being the fact that he was allowed to move in after a simple phone call and no real background check.

This became all so clear to him that morning when the door to his bathroom—which was supposed to be his own, private bathroom—opened and revealed a dripping-wet and half-naked Daniel, clothed only by a towel from the waist to his knees. Josh had never sat up so fast, but the owner of the house only nodded at him like they were in the most casual and normal scenario.

“Oh hey, the hot water in my shower isn’t working again,” Daniel said as he used another towel to dry his hair—a towel that Josh recognized to be the one of those that they had chipped in to buy him as a welcoming present. They were right. Daniel really was a towel thief. “Been like that for a while so I usually come here to take a bath. I didn’t want to wake you,” he continued, just as Josh's bedroom door opened. In popped Gary's head, wearing an innocent smile until he saw Daniel standing by the bathroom.

“Daniel,” Gary gasped as he swung the door wide open, “did you guys sleep together?”

Josh opened his mouth to speak, knowing how it must have looked and not knowing how to explain, but Daniel beat him to it with two simple words, “Water heater.”

That explanation was quickly bought by Gary who made a face and said, “Still? You’ve got to get that fixed, mate. You can’t keep taking baths here anymore because you might disturb Joshy's sleep.” Then as if he remembered his reason for being there, he sat on the edge of the bed with a bounce and smiled sweetly at the room's owner. Josh moved his legs just in time as Gary lied down on his side at the foot of the bed and propped his upper body with a hand on the side of his face. “By the way, Joshy, can you make breakfast? You inspired Jane to cook again last night so she got up early today and bought a bunch of breakfast food and real coffee shit.”

Josh, whose brain had just been jostled awake, didn’t know which to address first—the half-naked man or the one on his bed.

“Can’t she cook, then?” he ended up saying.

“She tends to burn things,” Daniel answered with a wrinkle of his nose. “Something to do with multitasking.”

Gary was nodding in agreement when Dustin appeared into the room, only to stop abruptly when he saw the other two. “Oh, why are you guys here?” he asked, even though he should have had no business being in there as well.

“Water heater,” Daniel simply replied.

“Breakfast,” Gary said before returning the question. “Why are you here?’

“I,” Dustin replied as his eyes searched the room. They landed on the bedside table on Josh's phone, which was charging, “am borrowing Josh's charger. Mine’s lost and I saw we have the same phone.” Without asking for permission, he sat on the bed beside Josh—causing the man to inch away once more—and unplugged Josh's phone and the charger from the outlet. Once he got what he came for, he stood up and turned around, waving the charger towards its owner. “I’ll give it back to you later, okay? Or should I just charge my phone here? I just need it to be a hundred so I can leave,” he said.

Before Josh can reply, Gary crawled next to him and clung onto his arm. “Let him have the charger, Joshy. Come on, before the house burns because of my lovely wife,” he lovingly pleaded.

Before Josh could reply again, Daniel spoke up, “No, don’t let the kid borrow anything. He’s misplaced my charger twice now.”

“I did not! And I’m not a kid!” Dustin shot back.

“Oh, that’s right!” Gary piped in. “You lost my charger, too!”

That riled Dustin up even more, which riled up Gary, which riled up Daniel. Having just woken up, Josh's brain had yet to process what exactly was happening and how he ended up sitting in the middle of all that shouting. He was used to quiet mornings with a cup of coffee after his routine jog, not this… whatever it was.

“Can everyone,” Josh found himself shouting above all of their voices, “please shut the hell up and leave my room?”

That outburst effectively rendered everyone quiet as they all stared at a seething Josh with widened eyes. No one probably expected the new, quiet guy to do that, but he did and he immediately felt bad about it.

“Oops, now we’ve done it,” Gary was the first to make a sound as he got up from the bed and smoothed the covers from where he once was. “Sorry, Joshy,” he said with a regretful smile before he left the room.

“Sorry, Josh,” Daniel was the next to speak. He took his towels and dirty clothes with him then followed Gary out, which left Dustin.

“Sorry,” the younger guy muttered, “but can I still…” he held the charger up.

“Just take it and go,” Josh said before he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.