by Lauren Rowe
“More so? Really? How do you figure?”
“Because you must have stayed with a woman like that for a reason. You must have known deep down she was every bit as incapable of emotional intimacy as you are. You liked that she never required you to reveal a goddamned honest thing about yourself in three freakin’ years.”
He looks shocked.
I press my lips together. Oh shit. I just dropped another one of my atomic bombs, didn’t I? Oh fuck. That was harsh. Honest, but harsh.
I just can’t help myself. Ever since reading Josh’s application (and seeing Emma’s beautiful, shy photo in Josh’s Sick Fuck folder), I’ve had somewhat of a fixation on this Emma bitch. On the one hand, I’ve felt the primal urge to rip her limb from limb for hurting Josh. And, on the other hand, I’ve honestly been a bit obsessed with trying to figure out why the heck he stayed so long with a woman who was so obviously his total mismatch in every way (other than the fact that she’s literally the most stunningly beautiful creature I’ve ever seen).
Josh looks floored. Pissed, I’d even say.
“Damn, that drink you made me was really, really strong,” I say, my face turning hot.
Josh’s jaw muscles are pulsing like crazy.
Shit. Maybe I’ve totally misjudged this. Maybe he can commit. Hell, maybe he was on the verge of asking Emma to marry him, for all I know. Oh, jeez, yes. Maybe that’s why he now says marriage isn’t in the cards for him? Is Josh just a case study of a man with a shattered heart? But, clearly, I can’t ask him if he was about to propose. It’s too sensitive. I opt for something slightly more innocuous. “So did you and Emma live together?”
Josh makes a face I’m not expecting, like he’s embarrassed about what he’s about to say. “No. It was a long-distance relationship. She lives in New York.”
Oh, Sweet Jesus. Is he frickin’ kidding me? “It was a long-distance relationship?” I boom, totally shocked.
“Yeah. So?” he says, clearly defensive. “I get out to New York all the time for work. I saw her a lot.”
There’s a very long silence.
Josh’s face is bright red.
I’m sure mine is, too.
James Bay is singing to us about scars.
I feel like I’ve said way, way, way too much. My inner-bitch just came out full-force. God, I suck sometimes. “So... what’s your favorite movie of all time?” I ask brightly. “If you could be anyone from *NSync other than Justin Timberlake, who would you be? Do you have a spirit animal?”
“You’re not what I’d call the world’s foremost expert on relationships,” Josh says, his voice low and intense. “I wouldn’t exactly hire you to write the definitive textbook on How to Have a Healthy, Lasting Relationship.”
I part my lips, speechless.
His jaw is clenched.
I squint at him for a long moment, trying to look like a badass—but then, goddammit, tears prick my eyes. “You’re right,” I finally say. “I pretty much suck at relationships.” I wipe my eyes. “I’m sorry for saying all that stuff. I shouldn’t have said it.”
He twists his mouth and exhales. “If you hadn’t said it, you’d still be thinking it.”
I don’t correct him. He’s right.
He shakes his head. “I must say, you have quite a knack for not kissing my ass, Kat.”
I smash my lips together.
“I’m not used to it,” he says.
“Sorry,” I say.
Josh shakes his head like he’s chastising me. “No apology required.”
I bite my lip.
He grazes his fingertips up the length of my arm and my skin electrifies under his touch.
“You get really sassy when you’re buzzed, you know that?” he says.
I nod. My crotch is suddenly burning.
“But you know what?”
I wait.
“I really like sassy.”
I bite my lip. My heart is racing at his simple touch.
“Did I hurt your feelings?” he asks softly. His fingers move up my arm and drift along my jawline. “When I said you’re a flop-dick when it comes to relationships?”
I smile. “Oh, is that what you said? Jeez, that’s a whole lot meaner than what I thought you said. All I thought you said was you wouldn’t hire me to write some textbook.”
He chuckles. His fingertips skim the length of my hairline.
“I’m not mad at you,” I say softly. “I’m the opposite of mad at you.”
He smiles wickedly. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Josh touches my chin and my body ignites. He leans in and kisses me gently.
We sit and stare at each other for a moment. A legion of butterflies has unleashed inside my stomach.
His eyes drift to my empty glass. “Would you like another one, Party Girl? The night is still young.”
“Yes, thank you. But not nearly as strong this time, Playboy. I wanna be fully conscious for whatever might happen next. Something tells me it’s gonna be good.”
He smirks. “Good idea.” He stands, grabs my glass, and heads toward the kitchen—but before he turns the corner, he turns back around. “Hey, Kat. Thanks for always playing the honesty-game with me. So few people do that with me—most people just kiss my ass.”
“Well, you can hardly blame ‘most people,’ Josh—you’ve got a truly kissable ass.”
He grins. “Thanks to the ‘YOLO’ stamped on it—which, I’m telling you is gonna be all the rage one of these days, mark my words.”
I laugh. “Keep telling yourself that, Playboy, if it helps you look yourself in the eye every day.”
His blue eyes are positively sparkling at me right now. “Your drink is coming right up, Party Girl.”
“Thanks.”
“My extreme pleasure.”
Sixty-Six
Kat
I feel myself literally swoon as Joshua William Faraday exits the living room to fetch us another round of drinks. That man is so freaking charming, and so freaking hot, and so freaking funny and adorable and sweet and generous and sexy (and I could go on and on), it’s just not fair. I feel like I’m playing tennis against Roger Federer armed with nothing but a fly swatter.
I can’t remember the last time I felt like this—so gooey and heart-fluttery and fairytale-believe-y and emotional. I’ve got to get a grip on myself, slow my shit the fuck down. Tap into Classic Kat for a while. Jeez. My feelings are moving too effing fast, especially considering whom I’m dealing with here.
Oh my God, I’m losing it. Falling hard.
This is so unlike me. I’m never the one chasing the guy—I’m always the one being chased. I’m the one who says, “I’m not sure I’m feeling it, sorry,” and then he says, “Well, then, baby, lemme try to convince you.” Isn’t that exactly what Cameron said? Yep. After one date, he was ready to chase me to the ends of the earth, God knows why.
And that’s the way I like it. I like being chased. What the hell did Josh tell Henn when he was being “Hitch” and teaching Henn to “dick it up”? I scoff out loud at the memory, even though I’m sitting here alone in this room. “Women think they wanna be chased,” Josh said, “that’s what all the movies and books tell ’em they want—but they don’t. Not really. If you do the equivalent of driving to her house and holding a boom box over your head, you might as well hand her your dick and balls in a Ziplock baggie, too, ’cause you’re not gonna need ’em any more.”
What a big ol’ bunch of bullshit. Of course, we wanna be chased. Idiot.
And, yet, here I am, aching for him, ready to hand him my whole heart and soul, aren’t I? And he’s the one who always pulls back.
I look up at the ceiling. What the hell have I gotten myself into with this man? Is he even capable of giving his heart to me—at least at some point? If I break down and make the depths of my feelings known to him, would he be thrilled or scared to death?
I lean back on the couch and squeeze my cheeks, pondering the situation.
&
nbsp; Oh damn. I can’t feel my face.
My gut tells me he’d be scared to fucking death. Maybe thrilled, too—but his fight or flight instinct would surely kick in. It’s just too soon. A guy like him needs more time. Heck, a girl like me needs more time. Usually. I truly don’t know what the fuck is happening to me. Where the hell is shallow, hedonistic, meaningless-sex-seeker Classic Kat when I need her?
As I glance around the room, lost in my thoughts, a small, framed photo on a table catches my eye. I can’t make out the image from this distance, so I get up to take a closer look.
When I pick the photo up, I can see it’s a faded shot of a stunningly beautiful blonde woman sitting in a wicker love seat with two tousled little boys—all three of them tanned and windswept and bursting with what appears to be authentic joy. The smiles on their glowing faces aren’t canned “say cheese” grins—these people are bursting with genuine down-to-their-bones happiness. I can almost hear their ghostly peals of laughter rising up from the image.
God, it pains me to think what happened to this poor woman shortly after this photo was taken. Oh, and her poor little boys. I scrutinize the boys’ faces in the photo, tears welling up in my eyes. I know Josh and Jonas are fraternal twins, but they look virtually identical in this shot. It’d be impossible to tell them apart if it weren’t for Josh’s slightly darker hair.
Tears blur my vision.
It kills me to think about how devastated those boys must have been when their mommy was so unexpectedly and savagely ripped from their young lives.
I wipe my eyes, but it’s no use. I can’t seem to stop my emotions from overflowing out of me. I take a deep breath and try to stuff my emotions down. It’s suddenly hitting me full-force that the cute little boy in this picture—the one with the slightly darker hair—is standing in the next room, mixing me a drink, trying his earnest best on a daily basis to “overcome” everything he’s had to endure.
Ice cubes rattle on the far side of the room and I snap my head up toward the sound.
Josh is standing at the entrance of the living room, his facial expression the same as when I opened my door to him in Las Vegas after reading his application.
His eyes dart to the photo in my hand and then back to my face.
The music swirls around us for a long moment. Finally, I hold up the photo and try to grin. “Your mom was stunning.”
Josh doesn’t reply.
I walk across the room with the photo and sit on the couch. “Tell me about her.” I pat the couch next to me.
He looks torn.
James Bay is serenading us, singing about scars.
“Come on, Josh,” I say. I pat the couch again.
He crosses the room and nestles himself onto the couch next to me, his lips pressed tightly together.
“She was beautiful,” I say.
“You’re her spitting image,” he says softly.
I look down at the photo in my hand. Well, I can certainly see that I bear a resemblance to his mother, maybe even a striking one, but calling me her ‘spitting image’ is pretty far-fetched. For one thing, from what I can see from this photo, Josh’s mother radiated pure kindness—a quality I’m certain I don’t possess, unfortunately. Plus, her features are literally perfect. It’s like she was concocted by mad scientists in some sort of government-sponsored lab. No one would ever say that about me, I don’t think.
Josh takes the photo from my hand and looks down at it wistfully.
“Poor Jonas,” he says.
“Poor Josh,” I add.
Josh sighs like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. “No, I got off easy. I was at a football game with my dad when she died. Poor Jonas saw the whole fucking thing.” He shakes his head mournfully. “Poor little dude was so traumatized, he didn’t say a word for a year afterwards.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. Literally. Not a word.”
“For a whole year?”
“For a whole year. I did all his talking for him.”
“How’d you know what to say?”
“I just knew. Later, after he’d started talking again, he told me I’d always gotten it right. It was like we shared a brain.”
“What did Jonas say when he started talking again?”
Josh smiles. “We were sitting in the car with our nanny, listening to the radio, and I was singing along to a song—whatever it was, I can’t remember—and after not saying a single fucking word for a year, my bizarre, hilarious, crazy brother said, and I quote, ‘Shut the fuck up, Josh. You’re singing so goddamned loud, I can’t hear the fucking music.’”
I burst out laughing and Josh does, too.
“What made him talk again all of a sudden?”
“Not what—who. Jonas talked again thanks to one very special and extremely attractive woman: our third-grade teacher, Miss Westbrook. If it hadn’t been for her, Jonas wouldn’t be here right now, I’m sure of it. Which, of course, means neither would I.”
My stomach turns over. “What do you mean ‘neither would I’?”
Josh pauses a long time before speaking again, apparently choosing his words carefully. “If it weren’t for Miss Westbrook, there’s no doubt in my mind Jonas would have methodically figured out a way to kill himself before his thirteenth birthday. Granted, fun fact, Jonas actually did fling himself off a bridge when he was seventeen, right after my dad shot himself, but that’s a whole other story. But if it weren’t for Miss Westbrook, he would have done it much more precisely than driving off a bridge, and he would have succeeded.” His eyes glisten. “And if Jonas had succeeded in killing himself when I was still a little kid, if he’d left me alone with my dad in that big house for years and years...” He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t have been able to overcome it.”
The image of Josh’s “overcome” tattoo flickers across my mind.
“Do you think that’s why you never envision yourself in the future?” I ask.
Josh looks at me blankly.
“At dinner with Reed, you said when you were twenty, you couldn’t imagine yourself at thirty—and now that you’re thirty, you can’t picture yourself at forty. Do you think your brain has trouble imagining the future because you’re subconsciously not convinced you’ll have one? Because you’re not sure what Jonas might... do?”
He shakes his head like I just gave him mental whiplash. “Wow.” He makes a face that says “holy fuck.” “Well, shit. I guess that’s as good a theory as any. Whoa.” He smiles. “Deep thoughts by Katherine Ulla Morgan.”
I shrug. “Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
“Can’t we just talk about The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? How ’bout that Raphael?”
I wince. “Sorry.”
“No, no, don’t apologize. I’m just kidding.” He sighs. “I guess I’m just not used to talking about this stuff.”
“Sorry. We don’t have to.”
“No, it’s good. It feels good.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
I bite my lip. “So how did Miss Westbrook get Jonas to talk?”
“Well, to tell you about Miss Westbrook, I kinda have to give you a little primer on Jonas first.”
“Okay,” I say, leaning back. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He pulls me close to him and wraps his arm around my shoulder.
“I know Jonas seems like some kind of gorilla-robot, but he’s actually really sensitive. Always has been, especially when it comes to women.” He shakes his head. “Like, take my mom, for instance. Even when he was little, Jonas didn’t just love her, he worshipped her. I loved her, too, of course. With all my heart. And yet, even I could see Jonas loved her differently than I did. As far as he was concerned, Mom was literally an angel.”
I feel the sudden urge to get even closer to him. I slide myself onto his lap and wrap my arms around his neck.
He wraps his arms around my back in reply.
“He was the same way with Mariela, to
o,” Josh continues. “Our housekeeper before my mom died. I used to beg Jonas to come outside to climb a tree with me and he’d be like, ‘No, I’m gonna clean pots with Mariela.’” Josh laughs and shakes his head at the memory. “Right after my mom died, it’s a long story, but my dad blamed Mariela for my mom’s death and sent her away—and Jonas just completely melted down. I guess losing them both was just too much for the little guy.” Emotion threatens to overtake Josh’s face. He looks down and composes himself.
“You lost them, too,” I say softly, touching his arm.
Josh looks back up, his face earnest. “Yeah, but I’m not Jonas.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shakes his head. “I’m Josh. The fixer. The closer. Life throws shit at me, I just deal with it. I solve problems. I fix things. I’m coated in Teflon, baby—shit slides right off me and doesn’t leave a mark. But not Jonas. Even Mariela told me, ‘Take care of your brother, Josh. You know he’s the sensitive one.’”
“So you thought it was your job to take care of Jonas, even though you were so little, too?”
“It’s always been my job to take care of Jonas, and it always will be. I’m sure in the womb Jonas was trying to understand the functionality of the umbilical cord or articulate the meaning of life, and I was like, ‘Dude, chill the fuck out—doesn’t this amniotic fluid feel awesome? It’s like a Jacuzzi!’”
I know Josh’s words are funny, but the expression on his face isn’t. My heart’s suddenly aching for him. I push myself even closer into him, run my hands through his hair, and kiss him gently. When we break apart, tears are streaming down my cheeks, but Josh’s eyes are bone-dry.
“When was the last time you cried?” I ask softly.
He shrugs. “Probably not since I was about ten. I cried like a baby when my mom died and Mariela got sent away, and I used to cry a ton the first few years whenever Jonas got sent away. But then one day when Jonas was gone, my dad found me sitting on the grass, crying my eyes out, and he reamed me for being a ‘fucking cry-baby-pussy-ass.’” He shrugs. “And that was that. I never cried again. I’ve come very, very close many times since then, but I’ve never actually shed a tear.”