Sleep Talking

Ring. I jump in bed as my cell phone, which was sitting on the night stand next to my bed, went off.

Ring. Turning over, I try to grab the phone but my right hand is half asleep.

Ring. Groaning, I lie on my back and try reaching with my left hand.

Ri-. “Hello?” I groaned into the phone, actually it was probably more like “mmlo?” There was silence for a moment, which made me think I actually did say the last one.

“Anna?” Josh’s voice came over the line with a hint of uncertainness.

“Mmmm, hey Josh.” I mumbled, trying to shake myself awake.

“Were you sleeping?” He asked I could hear confusion in his voice. “I thought you worked tonight?”

I groaned and glanced at the time, it was 10:30 and I had told him to call because I’d be just getting home. “Yes and yes.” After Mike and I brought home the food, I ate a little then excused myself and went to lie down.

“Honey, is everything ok?” Concern had replaced the confusion in his voice.

“No,” I sighed, remembering why I was home in the first place. “Everything isn’t ok, we need to talk.” When he didn’t say anything for a while I got worried. “Josh? You ok?”

He sighed; I could picture him running his hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m ok. Nothing good normally comes after someone says ‘we need to talk’.”

I thought about that and had to agree. I didn’t know what I was going to do at this point, I mean I wanted to talk to him about what happened with Carol but I didn’t want to have things end between us, I can handle being the other woman, can’t I? I know it’s crazy but there was something about Josh that made me throw all reason and logic out the window. It was then that I knew there was no way I could do this over the phone, I needed to see his face and his reactions when I told him, they would give me some idea how to proceed or how to end it. “Josh,” I took a deep breath and let it out before I continued. “I think we need to slow down, I’m finding that I’m confused and unsure of myself lately, like I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

I waited for him to say something, anything. He kept me waiting for a couple minutes then finally he said. “Anna, I need you to be honest with me. If don’t want a relationship with me, I need to know now instead of finding out a week or two down the road.”

I frowned, “Josh that’s not it, I have no doubts that I’m interested in you, it’s just…” I sighed, unsure how to end that.

“Jordan?” He asked.

“Somewhat, I never expected him to tell me something like that. Hell he’s been my friend forever, I don’t know if it can be anything else but I don’t want to hurt him either. I know he’s said he’d step back and let he try and figure out my feelings for you but he hasn’t really.” I was rambling I knew it but I couldn’t help myself, I wanted Josh to know how I was feeling, how hard this really was on me.

He scoffed, “How generous of him.”

“Josh!”

“I’m sorry, I just…” He paused and took a deep breath. “Anna do whatever you have to do to be sure of what you want, I don’t want you to rush into a relationship with either of us if your heart’s not truly in it. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone.”

I smiled; maybe it’ll be ok after all. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes honey I’m sure.” He went quiet again; I could hear him breathing so I knew he was still on the phone. We didn’t say anything for a good five minutes; I was lying in bed on my side with the blankets pulled up to my chin, wishing he was there next to me. “Anna, I should probably go.”

No! I screamed silently, I found that I never wanted him to go, is that weird? “Do you have too?”

“No, I don’t have anything I have to do. We just weren’t saying anything, so I thought you might want to go back to sleep?” The questioning concern in his voice made me smile.

“No, I was just lying here listening to you breath.” I wanted to smack myself the moment I said that, oh yeah, like that won’t creep him out!

He laughed, “Well, I…ummm…”

“Did I make you uncomfortable?” I asked, biting my lip.

“No, it was just unexpected. Hold on for a minute?” I said ok and heard him put down the phone. Moments later I heard some rustling, the phone being dropped and then he came back on the line. “Ok, that’s better.”

I raised a brow, “Ok? What did you do?”

“Oh, I got into bed,” He replied nonchalantly.

I grinned, “So, ummm how are you laying?”

“I’m in the middle of the bed on my left side.” He answered, and when he heard me giggled, he asked, “Why? How are you laying?”

“I’m laying the same way, just more towards the edge of the bed.” I wondered if he would understand what I was thinking, without going into anymore details.

He chuckled, “So if we were together, I’d be holding you tight as we drifted off to sleep?”

I nodded and smiled before I realized that he couldn’t see me. “Sounds about right.” I replied.

“Anna, I…” He groaned, “Ummm, maybe we should talk about something else?”

“Mmmm?” I groaned and then chuckled, “Having some issues there?”

He laughed, “Wouldn’t you love to know but I’m not going to tell you.”

I smiled, “That’s ok, I have a great imagination and oh! My!”

“Trouble, that’s what you are.” He laughed, but his voice was deeper than before.

A shiver went through my body and I could feel myself getting warmer. “Ok, maybe we should talk about something else.”

“I see I’m not the only one having issues.” He teased and then continued, “So what would you like to talk about?”

I thought for a moment, “Oh! So because of the snow today Chad decided that they weren’t going back until Sunday. If you want, and Jesse wants too also, Conner would love to get together and play with him again.”

“I’ll don’t see where that would be a problem, in fact, I know it won’t be, Jesse kept asking me today if he could play with Conner tomorrow.” Josh paused, “Yeah, I’ll call your brother tomorrow and make arrangements. Thanks honey, Jess will be excited when I tell him.”

“So will Conner. He doesn’t have anyone his own age to play with, so he gets lonely. The closest to his age is Natalie, who’s eight and don’t want to play with ‘boys toys’.” I laughed, “Which is funny to me because that’s all I played with when I was growing up.”

“Hey me too!” Josh joked. “But seriously Jess has kind of the same problem, although Megan, my nephew’s little girl, is about the same age, she only wants to play with dolls. I think that’s why Jess carries around Mister Bear all the time, he can play with him instead of the dolls when Megan is around. Karen has twin boys; they are 6 and think that playing with their little cousin is punishment. And Rob’s daughter is only 5 months old, Jess don’t understand that she can’t play like he does.”

“Wait, Robbie has a kid?” I was shocked to say the least. “Wow, I never would’ve expected that seeing his attitude towards children when I knew him.”

“Yeah,” Josh chuckled. “We were too shocked to be surprised, he showed up one day with a very pregnant Sandy in tow, telling us that they just gotten married and they were moving back here. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in two years, I barely recognized him.”

“Wow,” I repeated, “Amazing how people can change, I guess. So that’s all your family back in town again?” It was weird knowing his family, but not really knowing them.

“Yeah neither Tim nor Liz had left. Mom and dad are happy, family gatherings keep growing bigger every year.” You could hear the pride in his voice when he talked about his family, and who could blame him? His family was admired in this town; they were always giving back to the community or volunteering in some way. It was strange to not see one of the Bakers at any of the many fundraisers or community events that happened every year.

We talked a while longer and then my cell phone started to die. Saying good night, I told him I’d call him later.

I hung up the phone and snuggled down in my bed, realizing as I had gotten warm and comfortable that I had to use the bathroom. Crawling out of bed, I plugged my cell in and headed out of my room. Jordan came out of his room as I reached the bathroom door, “Hey,” I gave him smile. He glared at me, turned and disappeared back into his room. What was that about? I wondered as I closed the bathroom door.