Chapter 3: Josh Nickleson

Chapter 3: Josh Nickleson

That Wednesday, I was calmly working at my desk when a stranger approached the desk. He was tall, had bright green eyes and tossled black hair and instantly reminded me of Gerard Butler, or at least what he looked like at the age of twenty two. "Hey, it's Jenna, right?" he asked me. I'm pretty sure I have a nameplate on my desk and as far as I can remember, it was still there that day.

"Yes, I'm Jenna," I replied.

"Hey, I'm Josh, Josh Nickleson. I'm the new sports journalist," Josh said, extending a hand.

I shook his hand and said, "Hi Josh, congratulations on earning the job. I hope you don't think I'm trying to take your job away from you since I have to cover the playoff games on Sunday. Trust me, I would really rather just let you write it but the circumstances being what they are, I have no choice," I explained.

"No, it's no problem, I heard that Joe Kingman suggested you especially to write the column and, to be quite honest, I don't blame him after the interview with him that you wrote," Josh responded. That was unexpected. How many people knew that Joe had suggested that I write the article?

"To tell you the truth, I have no idea how I wrote that article as well as I did, Josh, but I can definitely tell you for a fact that I did not want to do it and I am not into sports whatsoever," I answered simply.

"Well I think you're a wonderful writer," he smiled. Ooh, he had a crooked smile. It was cute. Much nicer than other smiles – other perfect smiles belonging to other perfect people who I shall not name.

"Thank you," I blushed and looked down at my keyboard. I began wonder if he could help me write my article on the playoff games when I remembered that Joe had given me two tickets to the game – one for me and one for a friend! He never said I couldn't bring a guy. "How would you like to come with me to the playoff games and help me write the article?" I asked him.

"I would love that," Josh replied, seeming surprised, "but don't you only have one ticket?"

"Nope, Joe gave me two tickets," I answered him, grinning.

"In that case, I'd be more than happy to accompany you to the game," Josh said and smiled his cute, crooked smile. I liked Josh. He was cute. And nice. And not a big, mean, arrogant, stupid, perfect-teethed football player.

"Excellent. So how about you pick me up at my apartment on Sunday around two o'clock? The game starts at three but it would be good to leave early just incase there's traffic," I suggested. I gave him directions to my place and my phone number in case he got lost.

"Thanks for helping me with this," I said at the end and I really was thankful to have a sports expert coming with me and helping me write the article.

"My pleasure," Josh replied and asked me, "would you like to join me for lunch?"

"I'd love to," I answered.

"Cool, when's your lunch break?"

"In a half an hour," I replied.

"Okay, I'll come by in a half an hour and we can go get something to eat," Josh said, "See you then." He smiled again and winked at me. Oooh, that was cute!

"Bye," I managed to murmur, my face turning red. Well put that in your pipe and smoke it, Joe Kingman, I thought.

The half hour before lunch seemed to drag on longer than usual and I watched the clock with my foot tapping. Eventually, as the clock made it to my exact lunch time, Josh came up to my desk with that cute crooked smile on his face. "Ready to go?" he asked me.

"Absolutely," I answered, threw my coat on, grabbed my purse and left my desk.

As we were walking out the door of my office, Josh said, "So how long have you been writing for the Boston Press?"

"I've been writing for them for almost a year," I answered, "What about you? Have you written for any other papers before you came to Boston?"

"Nope, I applied for jobs in a couple of different newspapers but all of their positions were already filled. So I came here," Josh replied.

"Have you always wanted to be a journalist?" I asked him.

"No, I wanted to be a professional football player, actually, but I never made it on the team in high school or college so I decided to settle for writing about it instead," Josh seemed sad about his atheletic incapabilities.

"Well, at least it's safer this way," I said.

"Yeah I guess."

We didn't say anything for a minute as we walked until he asked me, "Where do you want to eat?"

"I don't care, anywhere is fine with me," I said.

We decided to go to a little Chinese restaurant a block away from the building. As we waited for our food to come, Josh spotted my Harry Potter purse and asked if he could see it. Remembering Joe's scoffing words, I cautiously laid it on the table.

"This is the most awesome purse I've ever seen," Josh smiled. "Did you make it?"

I explained for the millionth time where the purse came from and was happy to see that he liked my purse a lot unlike big mean stupid Joe.

We talked for a long time. I told him how I love horses and writing and he immediately recognized me as the author of the Niveus books. He said he had read them and enjoyed each and every one and thought it was fantastic that I could write such books when I was only eleven. He also said that his favorite part of my books was the message that God is stronger than any human, magical and non alike. Apparently, he was a strong Christain and not afraid to express it.

He told me how he loved football and basketball but had never been very good at either. He also said that he loved reading, especially Harry Potter and my books and that he was in two reading clubs and the choir when he was in high school. He enjoyed going to movies or plays depending on which one and loved staying out late at night. He was my type of guy.

The nicest thing was, every time I told him something about myself that was slightly unusual, he wouldn't stare at me like I was from another planet, but thought it fantastic that I had a personality and wasn't afraid to express it.

By the end of lunch, I really liked Josh, not just because he was cute but because he was a normal, humble person with a normal, humble life and he could carry on a conversation with other normal people and not think of himself as being the best of the best.

I told Lindsey about Josh when I got home and she seemed absolutely overjoyed that I had found someone that I liked so much better than stupid Joe Kingman.

However, when I fell asleep that night, thoughts of Joe creeped back into my head. I didn't think about how arrogant and self-centered he was but about the times when he was incredibly sweet, and held my coat out for me and walked me to the door unnecessarily. I fell asleep, not picturing Josh's face, no why would I do that? That would be normal. I fell asleep with the picture of Joe Kingman flashing his perfect smile at me and the picture of Joe Kingman asking me to come see him again, and the picture of Joe Kingman giving me that strange I-don't-understand-you-look. And for some reason, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.