Nine o'clock on the Saturday morning, and Josh had already lost his tent, his phone and his shoes. In that order. Losing the phone before the shoes is the part I've never quite forgiven him for, because it meant the only way left of finding the phone was to walk.
He didn't find any of it that day. He found all three the next morning, at six, by setting off across a field towards the sound of his own ringtone. Barefoot. Apologising to strangers as he went, because it was six in the morning and he was walking past their tents and he felt he owed them something.
One story, told properly, start to finish.
Josh will tell you, sincerely, with a straight face, that he's not really a competitive person.
He told me this at half past one in the morning, at a table he would not let four of us leave, in a game of Monopoly he had no chance of winning. His argument, and he made it several times, was that it could still turn.
Who he is, with the story as evidence.
Josh came to us as a ringer. Somebody's cousin had promised he was basically semi-pro, and in his first game he scored an own goal. We kept him on out of pity. Fifteen years later he is comfortably the worst player we have, and he is the first name on the sheet every single week, and nobody has ever once suggested changing either of those two things.
That's been the arrangement between us ever since. He goes and does something. I stand fairly close by, taking notes. Fifteen years of notes. Today I'm finally getting some use out of them.
You and the groom. The room's in on it.
