Kiss Me if You Can

Two weeks had passed since returning from the villa. In the meantime, Chase was diagnosed as okay, and Josh belatedly contacted his friends. Edna and Tommy must have been worried, because they kept yelling at him and asking if he was okay. It took a lot of creativity to just give them a vague answer without giving them a detailed answer. Anyway, Josh finished his explanation and hung up the phone with an indefinite promise to meet again later.

His return to the security team was still undecided. Mark, who had finally contacted him, said that Chase’s period had been extended again because he had to attend an event for the release of a movie.

“I heard they’re going to have you back next month.”

Mark hung up the phone without forgetting his encouragement. Before he went back to work, he had to decide with Chase how they would schedule their relationship going forward. The first thing Josh did was decide on a date for him and his mother to meet.

*

*

On the day Chase was supposed to visit, his mother woke up early in the morning and was busy. Even though he had hired a cleaning company the day before to do a thorough cleaning, he was running around the house again in the morning, vacuuming and dusting.

Josh woke up to his mother’s footsteps and the sound of the machine running, yawning and going down the stairs, but then stopped. His mother was walking around the kitchen, taking out all sorts of ingredients from the refrigerator and arranging them on the table.

“Mom, you don’t have to do this much.”

Chase had told his mother repeatedly the day before that he didn’t eat much, but his mother seemed to have a different opinion.

“But I still need to prepare a little. Oh, I’m so busy. Can you get the tapestry out of the garage? Hang it on the wall over there. Did you paint over the peeling paint on the back door? Josh, I told you. Oh, and mow the lawn and water it.”

Josh, unable to resist his mother’s nagging, ran around the house as she told him to. I checked that the paint I had applied the day before was completely dry, watered the lawn after mowing it, took out the tapestry my mother had saved, dusted it off, and hung it on the wall. I also didn’t forget to play with Pete, who had woken up in the meantime.

“What kind of clothes should I wear? I should have gone shopping yesterday. Is it okay since it’s our first day? Josh, I have some clothes on the bed. Take a look. What do you think would be good?”

“You look good in anything.”

Josh tried to say it sincerely, but it didn’t work.

“Josh, hurry up and go up.”

Josh had no choice but to go upstairs to his mother’s bedroom because of her firm order. There were three sets of clothes on the bed. Thinking about how she usually liked blue, he picked one and held it up. The yellow one-piece dress next to it also looked good.

Is this one brighter?

He thought about it for a moment, but it was still difficult. He asked Emma to do this, and after scratching his head, he eventually gave up and sent a message with pictures of each of the clothes. After a few anxious minutes, the long-awaited reply arrived.

[Green.]

With just one word, Emma’s message ended. Josh frowned and looked down at the two-piece he had put off. He half-heartedly carried it down, and his mother, who had been busy cleaning up the living room, looked up and her eyes sparkled.

“Oh, you thought so too. I’ll wear that today. You’re my son after all, Josh.”

His mother happily kissed his cheek and snatched the clothes back up to the room. Josh awkwardly squeezed his empty hand, then shrugged.

“Wait a minute, Pete.”

Josh turned on the TV after asking Pete, who was playing with the remote control, for permission. He had intended to watch a simple highway chase, but as he was changing channels, he stumbled upon an unexpected report.

[Chase Miller beat up the paparazzi again.]

Josh paused at the anchor's smoothly flowing words. The anchor continued talking with the guest in the still screen.

[Chase Miller's movie is about to be released, so this kind of scandal would be bad. Will it affect the movie's box office?]

[It depends on the degree. The critics' response was very good. But did that paparazzi go crazy? Why did he leave all the other stars alone and go crazy? Did he go crazy because he wanted to die?]

The guest deliberately chose provocative words and exaggerated his talk. They continued to list how cruelly Chase Miller had treated the paparazzi, and began a conversation that had no answer, such as how much the stars would reveal about their private lives and whether they would only view the paparazzi negatively. Josh, who was watching, was extremely anxious. If Pete hadn't been playing with the car at the foot of the stairs, he would have sworn at him right away.

Stop talking nonsense and show me the screen.

Josh, who had been holding back his anger with his fists clenched, quickly straightened up when the screen he had been waiting for finally appeared.