by Lauren Rowe
“Bummer.” Sad-face emoji. “Saw you and your brother on the cover of some magazine the other day, creamed my panties just looking at you. Talk about the Wonder Twins. Day-am. You boys should be in movies.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, okay. Text me if something changes. I’ll be crossing my fingers you change your mind.”
“Family emergency, like I say,” I type. “Sorry.”
“Well, if France isn’t gonna work out, we’ll have to get together another time really soon. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. About how much fun we used to have.” She adds a lips emoji. “I’d make it worth your effort if you come see me, Josh.” Another winking emoji.
I roll my eyes. Was she always this annoying? I just told the girl I’ve got a family emergency and that my brother needs me—and she invites me to fuck her rather than ask me if everything’s okay? Not to mention I told her I’ve been working hard to build my family’s business and she didn’t ask me for any details? Par for the course, though. Our “relationship,” such as it was, certainly wasn’t based on anything deep.
The limo stops and I glance up from my phone. I’m in Jonas’ driveway. Damn. For a second there, I’d actually forgotten where I was headed.
I exhale audibly. Whatever’s waiting for me on the other side of Jonas’ front door isn’t gonna be good—I can feel it in my bones.
Two
Josh
The minute I walk through Jonas’ front door, my brother bounds toward me like a Labrador retriever, dragging his new chew toy (Sarah) with him as he goes.
“Hey,” I say, putting down my duffel bag and giving Jonas a big hug. “Well, hello, Sarah Cruz.” I give her a hug, too. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Get used to it,” Jonas says, obviously thrilled to be saying those words.
“So what the hell’s going on?” I ask, steeling myself for whatever fucked up shit’s about to come my way.
Jonas moans. “It’s so fucked up, man.”
My stomach twists. I sit down on the couch, readying myself. “Tell me.”
Jonas sits down next to me and runs his hand through his hair, obviously getting ready to launch into some sort of monologue, but before he gets a word out, the bathroom door on the far side of the spacious room opens abruptly and a blur of golden blondeness moves into my peripheral vision. My eyes dart toward the movement—I wasn’t aware there was anyone else here besides Jonas, Sarah, and me—and then I absentmindedly look back toward Jonas.
But all of a sudden, my brain processes the startling golden perfection my eyes just beheld and my eyes dart back to the astonishing figure striding toward me. Oh my fucking God. Who the fuck is this creature?
The girl walking toward me is literally the most spectacularly beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on in my entire life, without exception (and this is coming from a guy who briefly dated Miss Universe and currently fucks a Victoria’s Secret model whenever we both happen to be in L.A.). This girl’s... oh my God. She’s the precise sum of parts I’d order at the Build-a-Girl store if there were such a thing. Holy fuck. And she’s headed right toward me, smiling at me like she can read my exact thoughts.
She’s got to be a model. Or an actress. Of course, she is. What else could she be, looking the way she does? Shit. Damn. Fuck. Oh my God. Holy fucking Christ.
Miss Perfect sashays right up to me, without hesitation. “I’m Kat,” she says, putting out her hand. “Sarah’s best friend.”
She’s got sky-blue eyes. Her long hair is a heart-stopping shade of golden blonde—and it’s obviously totally natural. And, oh my God, this can’t be happening—she’s got a subtle little indentation in her chin, too—the slightest cleft. That’s always been my Achilles’ heel—ever since I made out with Jessica Simpson at Reed’s twenty-first birthday party so many years ago.
“Josh,” I say, taking her hand. “Jonas’ brother.”
“I know,” she says, smirking. “I read the article.” She motions in the direction of the coffee table.
I glance down to see which article she’s referring to, and I’m bummed to discover it’s the one that made Jonas out to be some kind of deep-thinking poet with a Midas touch with investments and me out to be nothing but a giant, throbbing dick with cotton between my ears.
“I sure hope you’re more complicated than that article makes you out to be,” Kat says, her blue eyes sparkling.
I look at Jonas, hoping maybe he’ll step in and say something to help a brother out, like, oh, I dunno, how ’bout, “Oh, that reporter was just trying to sell magazines.” Or, maybe, “We thought we were doing a serious interview about Faraday & Sons and it turned into a fluff piece for Tiger Beat.” But Jonas doesn’t say a damned thing on my behalf. Of course, he doesn’t, the motherfucker. I guess now that he’s got his dream girl all locked up he’s content to let me twist in the wind in front of a woman who looks like mine?
“If the article is to be believed,” Kat goes on, smirking at me, “Jonas is the ‘enigmatic loner-investment-wunderkind’ twin—and you’re just the simple playboy.”
I laugh. So this girl’s not only gorgeous, she’s sassy, too? Oh, how I like me a sassy woman.
“That’s what the article said?” I ask, even though I know that’s exactly what the article said.
“In so many words,” she says, arching one of her bold eyebrows.
“Hmm,” I say, returning her raised-eyebrow gesture. “Interesting. And if someone were writing a magazine article about you, what gross over-simplification would they use?”
She bites her lip. “I’d be ‘a party girl with a heart of gold.’” She glances at Sarah and they share a smile.
Oh man. This girl’s too much. My skin is buzzing like I’ve just downed a double shot of Patron. “How come I only get a one-word description—playboy—and you get a whole phrase?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Okay, party girl, then.”
“That’s two words,” I say.
Kat raises her eyebrow, yet again. “In this hypothetical magazine article about me,” she purrs, “they’d spell it with a hyphen.”
Oh, well, fuck. My dick just stretched and yawned and said, “Do I smell coffee and doughnuts?”
She smirks. She knows she’s caught a fly in her web. But then again, I’m guessing flies in her web are just par for the course for her.
“So what’s going on here, Party Girl with a Hyphen?” I ask. “I take it we didn’t all congregate here to party?”
“No, unfortunately,” Kat says breezily. “Though, hey, we did have some of your tequila earlier, so thanks for that.” Her mouth tilts up, and I have the palpable urge to kiss it. “No, I’m just here to support Sarah,” she says, “and, well, I think I might be some kind of refugee in all this, too.” She looks at Jonas and frowns. “Although I think maybe Jonas is being slightly overprotective having me stay here. I’m not sure yet.”
“You’re a refugee in all this?” I ask, suddenly on full alert. “What the fuck’s going on, Jonas?”
Jonas grunts. “Sit down,” he says.
I sit down, my stomach churning. I can’t for the life of me guess what he’s about to tell me. How are Sarah and Kat involved in whatever the fuck’s going on? I can’t even fathom the connection.
Jonas takes a deep breath and launches into a story that immediately makes my brain hurt. Sarah worked for The Club? And she was Jonas’ intake agent—the one who reviewed his application? Holy shit! Well, well, well, Little Miss Sarah Cruz isn’t quite the naive little law student I thought she was, after all. But, hang on, Jonas is still yammering. There’s more? Sarah emailed Jonas after reading his application? And that’s when he got a boner to find her? Oh my God. This is too much. What the fuck did little Miss Cruz say to Jonas in that email of hers? And what the hell did he say in his application that caught Sarah’s attention in the first place?
Oh my God. There’s even more to the story. Jonas is still talking. I can’t fucking believe it. Some woman in a pu
rple bracelet showed up to meet Jonas at a check-in before he’d ever met Sarah and—hang on, I thought Jonas said he never actually became a member of The Club—and then that same woman turned up at another guy’s check-in wearing a yellow bracelet?—and Jonas knows all this because Sarah and Kat went to spy at both check-ins! Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sarah went to spy on Jonas at a check-in with a woman in The Club? Holy shit. And, even after that, she’s nonetheless sitting here right now, looking at Jonas like he walks on water? Now that’s an open-minded woman. I wonder if Kat’s as open-minded as her kinky little law-student friend.
I glance at Sarah and she flashes me an endearing look that could only be described as “adorkable.” I laugh out loud. Well, shit. If this girl’s kinky, then I must be shy and intellectual. Oh man, Sarah’s a total dork, through and through, God love her—no wonder my dork of a brother digs her.
“. . . so I was thinking we could try to trace The Club through emails,” Jonas is saying. “Do you still have any of the emails from when you were a member?” he asks.
Gee, thanks, Jonas. Is my brother trying to keep me from getting laid by the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen?
I glance at Kat, my cheeks instantly turning red, and I’m surprised to find her eyes blazing at me. Oh. Nice. Kat’s not grossed out by the revelation that I’m a past member of The Club, she’s intrigued. Lovely.
I clear my throat. “I don’t know if I kept any of their emails,” I say. “It’s been about seven months since my membership and I don’t typically keep emails past three months.”
“Shit,” Jonas says. “Would have been nice to have something to trace.”
Jonas goes on to explain that he and Sarah came home from Belize to find Sarah’s and Kat’s apartments trashed and their computers stolen—which proves, according to Jonas, that The Club will stop at nothing, including physical violence, to keep both women from divulging the supposedly indisputable fact that The Club is actually nothing more than a global prostitution ring.
I don’t reply, partly because I’m simply trying to process Jonas’ reasoning, but also because Kat is so fucking hot, it’s hard for me to think straight in her presence.
I wonder if Kat’s got a boyfriend. Please, God, don’t let her have a boyfriend. Oh shit, what if she’s married? I glance at her finger. No wedding ring. Thank God. Does she live here in Seattle? Yeah, she must—Jonas said she and Sarah spied on Jonas and that other guy at their check-ins in town. Huh. If Kat lives here, the odds are slim she’s a model. I wonder what she does for a living, then. Does she—
Oh.
Jonas is staring at me like he expects me to say something. Shit. I have no idea what he’s been saying for the past few minutes.
“Huh,” I finally say, trying to look deep in thought. “Interesting.”
Jonas exhales a shaky breath, clearly containing some sort of rage at my response. But what the fuck does he expect? I can’t track each and every one of his ramblings under the best of circumstances, let alone when a woman like Kat is sitting fifteen feet away from me, looking at me like she’s thinking about sucking my dick.
And, anyway, it’s obvious to me Jonas is probably grossly misinterpreting the situation or, at the very least, overreacting to it (shocker!). Even if Sarah and Kat saw some chick wearing a yellow bracelet after she’d fucked Jonas a few nights earlier wearing a purple one, that doesn’t necessarily mean the sky is falling, does it? It could simply mean some women in The Club are assigned more than one color. Why is that such a fucking revelation? Some people have extremely varied tastes, after all.
Or maybe one of Jonas’ exes found out he’s been dating Sarah and went ballistic, trashing Sarah’s apartment in a fit of jealous rage (and then doing the same thing to Sarah’s best friend’s place, too)? Even if that seems like a far-fetched scenario, it’s probably no crazier an idea than some hitman coming after Sarah and Kat simply because they happened to observe some woman wearing two different colored bracelets.
Jonas is glaring at me again, obviously waiting for me to say something.
I clear my throat. “Wow,” I say. But he’s still waiting, and so are Sarah and Kat. “I’m not sure, bro,” I add. “I met some really great girls.” It’s a true statement—I honestly did meet some really great girls in The Club—but, nonetheless, even as I say it, I cringe at how douche-y it sounds.
I glance at Kat and, yep, she’s put off.
Oh, really? So she’s intrigued when she finds out I joined a high-priced sex club, but put off to learn I actually enjoyed my short time in it? Ha! This one’s a handful, I can already tell.
“How long was your membership, Josh?” Sarah asks.
“A month,” I reply.
“And you... completed your entire membership period... successfully?”
Oh my God. Sarah can barely get the words out. This girl really is adorable—and, yep, clearly, there’s not a kinky bone in her body. A total goody-two-shoes, through and through, which is funny considering she processed sex club applications for a living.
“Oh, yeah. Definitely,” I say, looking at Kat and smiling broadly. Maybe I shouldn’t smile, but I can’t help it—I’m enjoying how every little thing I say about The Club pulls an animated reaction from Kat of one kind or another.
Plus, shit, I’m just being honest here: My month in The Club was fucking awesome—just what the doctor ordered after Emma ripped my heart and stuck it into a blender. Fucking yourself back to happy truly shouldn’t be underrated, I gotta say—it was exactly what I needed at the time. Plus, in an unexpected twist, a handful of the women I hooked up with that month stayed with me in my hotel room for hours after we’d fucked and listened to me pour my guts out about my shattered heart. I normally never would have been such a blathering pussy-ass, of course—I’m not Jonas, for fuck’s sake—but I guess there was freedom in knowing I’d never see any of those women again. And so, I let my guard down completely and let it flow—and at the end of that whirlwind month of fucking and fantasy-fulfillment and unexpected gut-spilling, I actually felt like myself again, ready to move on and stop acting like a brokenhearted little pussy.
I’ve never told anyone about my month in The Club, except to suggest to Jonas that he join—(if anyone needs to fuck himself to happy, it’s my brother, that’s for fucking sure)—but now that it’s out in the open in front of Sarah and Kat (and especially Kat), I’m not gonna crawl into a hole and act like I’m embarrassed by it. I was single. It was fun and uniquely cathartic. As far as I’m concerned, I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to my time in The Club. Might some of those girls have been hookers? Well, now that I think about it, sure—how else could The Club have supplied everything I asked for in my application, to the letter? But I can’t believe all of them were straight-up hookers. Some of them might just have been looking for a very wealthy boyfriend with a big ol’ dick.
“There’s no way all those girls were prostitutes,” I say, but even as the words come out of my mouth, I realize I don’t actually believe them. The truth is, even as I filled out my application, I didn’t care how The Club supplied what I asked for—just as long as they did. So, okay, if it turns out the women I fucked in The Club were all prostitutes, then fine, they were well worth the money, and then some. Clearly, I needed to do something to move on from Emma—and fucking my way back to beastliness with a bunch of super cool, nonjudgmental, hot-as-hell women was a helluva lot cheaper (and a lot more fun) than a month’s worth of therapy. “They were super cool, all of them,” I say, matter-of-factly. Fuck it.
Sarah crinkles her nose. “They were all super cool, huh?” she asks. “Well, Julia Roberts was ‘super cool’ in Pretty Woman, too.”
I chuckle. Oh my God, I absolutely love this girl. “True,” I say. I flash Jonas a look that says, “She’s a cutie, bro,” but his eyes are as hard as fucking flint right now.
Shit. Here we go. I know that look. It means my brother’s about to lose his fucking shit.
“How
many women could you possibly have gone through in a month?” Kat suddenly blurts from across the room.
Oh, hello. I lock eyes with Kat and, yup, it’s written all over her gorgeous face: she wants me. Oh, fuck yes, she does. I can’t help but smile as my cock begins tingling at the blatant desire on her face.
“I mean . . .” Kat says, but she doesn’t continue.
I keep staring at her, making her squirm, daring her to say more and show her cards, but she doesn’t.
She bites her lip.
“A couple,” I finally say slowly. Oh yeah, this is gonna be fun.
Sarah lets out a little moan that wrenches my attention away from Kat’s gorgeous face. “Josh, did you ever use your membership to meet a ‘super cool’ girl in the Seattle area?” she asks, her face darkening with anticipatory horror.
I wanna laugh at the expression on Sarah’s face. Oh my God, she’s so fucking cute, this woman.
I nod. “Once,” I say. I scowl, but my scowl is for Sarah’s benefit—mainly to match her look of obvious horror at the thought of Jonas and me having been unwitting Eskimo brothers with some random, nameless woman in Seattle. As far as I know, Jonas and I have never fucked the same woman, and I’m certainly not fond of the idea, but if it happened by sheer chance with a woman neither of us cares about or intended to pursue for something more serious than a one-night stand, it really wouldn’t be the end of the fucking world.
“Brunette. Piercing blue eyes—like the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen—fair skin,” Jonas says, rattling off the description of his Seattle girl like he’s doing the play-by-play at a Seahawks game. “C-cup. Perfect teeth. Smokin’ hot body—” He looks at Sarah apologetically. “Sorry, baby.”
“It’s okay.” Sarah says—and, damn, it sure sounds like she means it. Well, that settles it: Sarah’s totally awesome in my book. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a jealous woman.