I Fell For My Nemesis

"I think this deserves a celebration," Keith announced.  "Burgers on me."

"From that place in Queens we went to before? The food there was really good. I'm down if they're open this late," Joss said.

"They cater to night owls. I've shown up there at 2 AM before and they were still open."

"Cool."

They walked to a subway station that would take them out to Queens and Keith asked if her knee was bothering her at all. She shook her head and said she was fine since she was wearing her knee brace. She had put it on shortly before they left the shack.

They had gone out and done plenty of things involving walking around before their free time was swallowed up by the snow cone shack and she had always been fine as long as she had it on. He was relieved that the long-term consequences of her injury weren't too severe. Physical therapy had helped a lot and she was as close to full function as she was ever going to get.

Sometimes she seemed troubled by this because of how active she had been as a hero but she was retired now. She didn't need the same level of physical fitness she did before.

They made it to the restaurant without any issues and sat around chatting while waiting for their orders to be taken. Everything was going perfectly fine until someone called Joss's name. Who would she know out in Queens?

"Hey, Jocelyn. Fancy running into you here," a male voice sounded from their right.

Keith looked up and saw a tall man with glasses smiling at her. Unease washed over him. Who was this guy and why was Joss smiling back at him? She didn't usually smile at people!

"Christan! What a pleasant surprise. How are you?" she asked.

Christian shrugged. "Pretty good. What about you? It seems like your leg is doing better."

"It is. I'm able to move around fine as long as I wear a knee brace when I'm on my feet for too long. Being able to go somewhere other than work or my apartment again has been really nice."

Keith's head was spinning. He knew about her injury? How would he know about that? The only people who knew about that were ones who saw Joss regularly. Was this guy a client? Would she be so friendly to a client if she saw them in public? And why would someone who lived in Queens go to a therapist in Brooklyn?

"I bet! Being laid up is the worst. When it happened to me a few years ago I would have lost my mind if not for Avery," Christian said.

Joss looked around. "Where is Avery, anyway?"

"In the bathroom. We went to the movies and decided to get a late night snack afterward since we didn't get popcorn or anything. Movie theater prices are too inflated considering how cheap it is to make popcorn."

Avery? Who was Avery? Another guy? That was a unisex name but if Joss was friendly with one guy Keith didn't know about there could be another.

He got his answer a moment later as a tall albino woman came up beside Christian and smiled widely at Joss. "Jocelyn! I had no idea you lived in this part of town. It's good to see you."

"Oh, I don't. Keith introduced me to this restaurant a while back," Joss said.

Avery scrutinized him, likely trying to be subtle, but her violet eyes were piercing. Why was she looking at him like that? He had never met her before! Though now that he thought about it he was fairly certain that she was Nox.

Joss said Mercury's wife was unique-looking and that their children favored him more. You couldn't get much more unique than an albino.

Besides, now that his initial territorial reaction had passed he realized that Christian looked an awful lot like Mercury would without the mask if you ignored the fact that he had glasses. Tall and muscular with brown hair that was much neater than Mercury's would be because of all the flying.

So that was how Joss knew them. But what was with Avery's reaction? Had she talked about him with other people? What on earth had she said?

Avery smiled and stuck out her hand. "I'm Avery. Nice to meet you! You must be Jocelyn's best friend."

It would be so easy to say yes. That WAS all he was, after all. But that wasn't what came out of his mouth. No, he had to be an idiot and blurt, "Boyfriend! I'm her boyfriend. Nice to meet you too."

Keith wasn't her boyfriend. They kind of acted like it sometimes but they had never established that. Why was he so stupid? She probably wouldn't refute him now but he was definitely going to get questions about this later.

Avery's smile grew wider. "Aww, I'm so glad things worked out! What did I tell you?"

Thankfully, Joss managed to keep her cool. "That it would probably work out. You were right."

Christian laughed. "She usually is. Anyway, it was good to see you but we should probably get going. We need to pick up the kids from my parents' house."

"We should totally double sometime!" Avery added. "I'll text you to set something up."

"Sure," Joss agreed before saying her goodbyes and waving them off.

As soon as they were gone she turned her gaze on Keith and he felt distinctly like he was being x-rayed. Oh, why had he said that?! She didn't get the chance to say anything because the food arrived just then. They ate in a heavy silence and he could hardly enjoy the food because he was so worried about the inevitable conversation awaiting him when they left.

He didn't want to deal with this. He really, really didn't want to deal with this. He had put it off this long because he was afraid of what Joss would think and it came out because he felt threatened. He was an idiot.

Why did he need to clarify that he was more than friends with Joss in front of Mercury and Nox? He didn't even know Nox!

Was it some stupid sense of pride? To show Mercury that he could be on top of things and have his life together too even though he didn't really? Or was it because he had been jealous of Joss seeming so friendly with another guy even though he happened to be happily married? He had been too incensed to notice the wedding ring earlier in the conversation.

"So," Joss said once they were out on the street. "Since when are you my boyfriend? I wasn't aware we established that."

Keith sighed.  "We haven't. I'm sorry. But I figured that this point I'm more boyfriend than best friend so it was a more accurate label. If that isn't what you want I would completely understand'”"

"That isn't what I'm saying, Keith. Is that what you want? If so, why didn't you say anything? I was under the impression you didn't want to commit despite liking me."

"You were hurt! I didn't want you to have to worry about anything but recovering. I thought we had time to establish things later when you were less stressed."

Keith wanted to commit more than she did. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And he absolutely could not say that and freak her out because she hadn't confirmed whether or not she was interested in him fully.

"I've been fine for a while," Joss pointed out.

He rubbed his forehead in agitation. "I know. I'm just a coward. The timing never seemed right and it didn't come up. I didn't think you were interested in committing either. I can tell you care about me but it's hard to tell in what capacity. I know what I want but I don't know what you want so I was afraid to ask."

"What DO you want?"

"I want you. I would have thought that would be obvious by now."

"You already have me though."

Keith groaned. "Not really, Joss! You're a hard person to read so I can't tell if you're only keeping me around because you need a best friend or because you like me as man. I know you're still figuring things out in general so I didn't want to pressure you."

"Oh," Joss said, at a loss for a moment before recovering. "But I stand by my statement. I DO like you. I was wondering why you never did anything more since you were the one who supposedly liked me first so that answers that question. It wouldn't be pressuring me. I want you too."

His heart nearly stopped. "Seriously?!"

"Yes. If you want to be my boyfriend I would like that very much. But you're going to have to talk to me about things more because lack of communication is the number one reason relationships die. I see it happen every day at work and I don't want that.

"You said you would work with me before  but not telling me what's on your mind is NOT working with me. I need you to be honest about what you want.. If you can do that I would be very happy for you to be my boyfriend."