Just Throw It Out There

When Josh finished reading over my notes, he looked over his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Taking measurements,” I told him as he leapt to his feet.

“Get down from there,” he demanded as he gripped hold of the ladder I was using. “Are you trying to hurt yourself?”

Rolling my eyes, I ignored his overbearing, condescending tone as I turned back to what I was doing – trying to figure out the distance from the stage to the bottom of the foot long curtain border that ran the length of the ceiling.

“Anna!”

Glaring down at him, I told him to go away. “I was fine until you came over,” I snapped at him. “If I fall of this damn ladder it’ll be your fault for scaring me!”

I didn’t think he was going to back down; he just stood with his hands on the ladder staring up at me with that stubborn look on his face. “Just hurry up,” he looked away. “I want to talk about your notes before the kids show up.”

It took a couple minutes to get the tape to cooperate with me but when I finally had the measurement written on my rough sketch of the stage, I descended the ladder and went to move it to my next location but Josh wouldn’t release his grip on it. “Come on Josh, I don’t have all night, I need to get a couple more before I’m done.”

“We need to talk about the notes before the kids –”

“Well start talking,” I told him as I yanked the ladder from his hands. “I can talk and measure at the same time – I’m talented that way.”

So while I went around and finished up my measurements, Josh followed close behind me and asked questions or added his ideas to what Cassie and I had come up with. For the most part, everything was good, we didn’t have any conflicting issues with school policy and Josh was agreeable on most things except for…

“Who’s John?” He asked as I leaned over the top of the ladder to take my last measurement. When I asked him what he was talking about he turned my clipboard my way and pointed to something I wrote in the margin. “You have him penciled in here by the set build with a question.”

“Oh,” I picked up my pencil, wrote the last measurement on my sketch and sat down on the top of the ladder. “I thought I would ask him to help with the set build but now that we don’t have any parent volunteers, I think I should ask him to oversee it because we’ll be busy with everything else.”

“Ok but...” Josh glanced at the notes and then back at me. “Who is he?”

“Oh,” I flashed him a smile. “He’s Jordan’s dad.”

“No.” Josh snapped as he spun around to stalk back to where my stuff was still sitting on the stage.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” I hurried down the ladder and went after him.
Josh jumped off the stage, “He doesn’t have a kid in the show, and we don’t need his help.”

I stopped short at the edge of the stage, “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Ok then,” I jumped off the stage, shoved my stuff into my bag and then marched over to where he was standing, watching me. Snatching my clipboard from his hand, I told him I didn’t have a kid in the show either. As I walked away from him, I threw, “Have fun making this show happen on your own Josh.”

“God!” He growled as his fingers circled my elbow. “Why do you have to be so frustrating?”

Turning, I wrenched my arm from his grasp. “Why do you have to be so stubborn? We don’t have time to argue about this Josh, the show is in a month and we haven’t gotten anything started. Yeah, John doesn’t have a kid in the show and yeah, he is Jordan’s dad and you have a problem with that but you have to get over it or we can’t work together.”

“Get over it?”

“Yes,” I snapped. “Get over it!”

“Get over it?” He repeated as his hands shot out, gripped my wrists and yanked me forward, against his hard body. Lowering his head, he sighed against my ear. “Don’t think I haven’t tried to get over you.”

“We need him Josh,” I told him softly. “We need someone who knows how to build and –”

Shaking his head, he pulled back to stare down at me. “We don’t need him, my dad can do it.” His hands released my wrists and slid up my arms. “Anna,” he smiled. “We don’t need Jordan or his dad.”

“But you see,” I gazed into his bright blue eyes. “You may not need Jordan but I do.”

Closing his eyes, Josh turned away like I slapped him. “I’ll be back,” he mumbled as he brushed past me and stalked towards the doorway. Light streamed into the darken theatre as Josh busted through the doors and disappeared into the daylight.

After the doors had slammed shut, I slumped into a nearby chair and wondered if it would get any easier for him.

One….two…five…and then ten minutes went by. I heard the school bell ring in the distance but Josh still hadn’t come back. I would be surrounded by 60 or so kids, all chatting and waiting for something to happen before I would see Josh appear at the entrance.

He didn’t say a word to any one as he strode purposely across the room towards the stage and me. When he was in front of me on the stage, he met my eyes briefly before turning towards all the kids. Gripping the metal whistle that swung over his chest, he brought it to his lips and blew as hard as he should, causing most of the people in the room to flinch as they hurried to cover their ears.

“Ok, listen up everyone!” He shouted over the silent room. “We have a job to do here so let’s get started.” He turned to me but wouldn’t look at me. “Anna, please tell everyone what they have to do.”

I gave him a smile. "Good afternoon," I turned my attention to the kids. "As some of you know, I'm Anna, Cassie and Lindsay's aunt, and I-"

In the middle of what I was saying, Josh leaned in and whispered, “I still love you.”