From their first meeting well into summer, the boys had been meeting and playing with each quite frequently. This was due to their mothers wanting each other to spend more time with each other and setting them up for lots of play dates. Tom's mother had practically begged Josh's to let her son play with Joshua more, as he was Tom's only real friend. However, it was unnecessary, as Josh's mother had been happy to oblige and had even been the one to plan most of and pick up Tom and his mother when the boy's had gone to hang out and play together.
Joshua and Tom had gotten quite a bit closer due to all the time they had spent together playing with lots of different things, when they were hanging out they had gone to new places and tried new things. Tom had even had his birthday celebrated with a friend for the first time.
Tom had been so happy to finally have a friend who knew and cared about him that he accidentally ignored the gift Josh had brought with him. He had only noticed it the days following his birthday when his mother had forced him to tidy up his bedroom, as the toys he had received from his parents were all scattered around on the ground.
When Tom had finally opened it his eyes had shone brightly and his smile widened. He was extremely happy with the gift and ever so thankful towards Josh, which he expressed the next time they met.
The first time they had seen each other after their first meeting was when they had both gone to the park to play with their parents. It was an unexpected coincidence, it hadn't been planned and both families had been quite surprised. The parents had begun an extremely long conversation whilst both of the boys had smiled at each other almost shyly without saying a word.
After a brief moment, Josh gently grabbed hold of the other boy's small hand and dragged him along to ho and play with the equipment in the park.
He had first pulled him over to the swing set and had let go of Tom's hand to sit on one of the swings. He then noticed Tom just standing in front of him without moving, Josh looked at him quizzically.
"You don't wanna go on the swings with me?" He asked whilst furrowing his brows slightly.
"Oh, Oh I do…" he forced out before taking a shallow breath and continuing, "I didn't know… push you"
"Sorry what'd you say…" Josh asked with his brows still furrowed.
Tom took another breath, this time a deeper one before repeating himself, "I said that I thought maybe you might have perhaps wanted me to… push you…" he said with his voice getting quieter and quieter as his sentence went on.
"Ah, no. Just go on the one next to me and we can play together!" Josh said with a smile replacing the somewhat worried expression rat had just been on his face.
"Oh, okay." Tom said as he walked hurriedly over to the swing next to Josh with a smile on his face.
He was just about to reach for the swing when another person rushed over and jumped onto the open swing.
"Losers weepers, I was here first! Suck it!" Called out the girl who was perhaps a year or two older than both of the boys.
Tom was too shocked to respond for a moment, his expression unchanging, before he realised what had happened and he moved out of the way so that they could both play on the swings as he had an upset expression plastered onto his face.
"Josh let's play together-" the girl had began saying, before realising that Tom didn't care and wasn't listening.
Instead, Josh had been focused on Tom and the saddened expression on his face, seeing him walk away Josh immediately jumped off from the swing he was on and ran over to where Tom had walked off to. He gently tugged at his arm, making Tom turn towards him.
"If you really wanted to have a go on the swings we can just take turns! Or you can sit on that swing and I can push you! So don't be sad, okay?" Josh said, a slightly worried expression on his face, somewhat masked with his warm smile.
Tom looked at Josh's face and then back at the swings. He shook his head slightly and pulled on the arm that Josh was holding slightly.
"No… s'okay." He mumbled.
Joshua tapped his leg gently with his free hand, and looked around quickly. An idea struck him and he pulled on Tom's arm again, dragging him in the opposite direction of the swings. He ran backwards whilst holding his arm, he then looked at the swings and realised the girl who had sat on the swings was looking at them, he frowned at her then stuck his tongue out and turned around, continuously pulling Tom along.
The girl was startled by the action and pouted at him, however Josh didn't look back at her, this caused her brows to furrow and an angry expression appeared on her small face.
Josh was bringing Tom, who was being willingly dragged along, over to the other side of the park which had a slide. Once they had reached the slide they climbed up to the top.
"You go first." Josh told Tom whilst gently pushing him towards the slide.
"Ok…" replied Tom who looked back at the boy pushing him.
They continued playing with the equipment in the park for a couple of hours until their parents had finished their long discussion about everything and nothing in particular.
Their parents had come looking for them when Josh and Tom had started playing on a rope swing, Josh was slightly reluctant to leave and pouted slightly before his mother called him again and said that they were going to go and get ice cream.
Josh instantly rushed over and jumped into his mothers arms and she gave him a piggyback. When both families had reached the ice cream truck Josh had ordered two scoops of chocolate ice cream with sprinkles and chocolate sauce, and Tom had a scoop of strawberry ice cream and another of vanilla, with a flake. They were both happily munching down on their ice creams respectively.