15He's known Rory for almost three years. Two years of being friends and one year of being lovers. And she's wonderful.
He can't get over how in love he is with Rory Gilmore. He loves the smell of her hair and the way she can eat just as much as he can and the way she rambles on about nonsense when she's frustrated. He loves how she dresses and how she dances like an idiot and how she can't stop talking during all of his favourite movies. He loves it when she uses the toothbrushes as fake drumsticks and how she sends his phone bill through the month whenever she's sent on assignment. He wants to marry her – simple and plain.
He wants to make her Mrs. Rory Bradshaw. Like several pre teen girls, he has a strong desire to doodle Mr and Mrs Josh Bradshaw all over his briefings. He figures that probably wouldn't go over well with the senior partners, though. Also, he rejects it on the principle of that is so not manly.
He's been seriously considering it for a while – proposing to Rory, not doodling on his briefings. But something keeps holding him back.
He's gone to Stars Hollow with Rory maybe seven times. He's met her eccentric mother, and he adores Lorelai because only a person with such energy and excitement could have raised a girl as amazing as Rory. He's met Rory's stepfather Luke, and tried the infamous coffee his diner provides, along with the bitter sarcasm that is traditionally served with it. He's met the town gossips, been hit on by Miss Patty and approved by Lane Kim, her husband Zach and acclaimed one of the best jungle gyms in town by their twins. He's been scolded by Taylor and the only person who doesn't seem to like him is Paul Anka (for reasons that no one can fathom, but Lorelai suggests it was that he once tried to pet the dog with his watch hand, God forbid).
He notices things, though, when they go to Stars Hollow. She does these things that don't seem to have an explanation – even if he asks for one. Rory will abruptly change the subject or make up something that is entirely logical (which isn't possibly true, she is after all, a Gilmore girl). But these little things have started to bother him.
She goes to the market three times a day. She almost never buys anything, but her head swivels around the store like she's looking for something (or someone, the Iago in his head will interject). She pauses in the isle with the aspirin at one end and the sodas against the wall at the other, and sighs softly. Afterwards, usually after the first or second time, she likes to take a long walk around town – and her primary destinations tend to include the baseball diamonds and the junkyard, for reasons he has yet to fathom.
Josh has tried really hard to chalk this up to trailing down memory lane. But it's the look on her face when she goes these places – and that look is there whether he's there or not, he's sure of it – screams like there's something she's not letting go of.
And he's starting to notice that look on her face more and more.
Rory doesn't cry at movies – she laughs when Jack dies in Titanic, Ladder 49 makes her crave waffles, and a Walk to Remember starts her on a rant as to how one person could possibly wear the same sweater every day. So he finds himself shocked when of all movies, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is the first one he ever sees her cry during.
He doesn't understand – it's got to be some crazy explanation, but she bites her lip and tears stream down her cheeks as soon as she hears 'Candy man'. She fights it, but the second the shop owner pulls out the new 'Scrum-diddly-umptious' bar, she's gone. And it's not the movie – he knows, because she does the same thing if she hears the Sammy Davis Jr. version of the song, but it seems she sobs a little harder for Sammy.
The only other movie he's ever seen her cry at was the Notebook – and it wasn't even the part that everybody cries at, but rather the scene where Noah yells 'it's still not over' and thus launches the sex portion of the movie – Rory bawled. She claimed it was PMS and that she just really loves those two Canadians – but he's not so sure.
So they're in Stars Hollow for the weekend, and on the second Doose's run of the day. He's in the fresh fruit section, when Miss Patty turns him to discuss the quality of the bananas, fully laced with not so subtle innuendo. And when he turns around to look for Rory and he sees her there. Exactly where he knew she would be.
She' standing in front of the soda cooler that they sell loose cans out of, but she isn't alone. She doesn't have that sad, wistful look on her face that he's expecting, and she's not staring at the floor. Instead, she's smiling – a smile he's never seen before – and talking animatedly to a really tall guy. A tall guy who Josh has to admit – is good looking with the tall muscular package to boot.
So Josh completely ignores whatever Patty is saying behind him, and watches as this tall guy with shaggy hair makes her laugh with a casual ease that he's not sure he could ever imitate.
"Oh, honey," he hears and he gulps, knowing that whatever he's seeing is the reason for that stupid lump in his gut that wouldn't let him propose to Rory.
"Who is that guy, Patty?" He asked, barely managed to let it squeak past his lips – surprised that he got it out.
"That's just Dean, sweetie." She answered. But he flicked his eyes over, and she wouldn't meet his gaze – she was watching Rory with Dean, too.
"Just…tell me the truth? Is it over?" Patty sighed and finally looked at him, then placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Sugar, I don't think that one is ever gonna be over."
Josh sighed. I bet Paul Anka likes Dean, he thought. And for the first time, he was finally glad for the aching lump in his stomach that wouldn't let him ask Rory Gilmore to be his wife.