The Josh and Kat Trilogy: A Bundle of Books 1-3

by Lauren Rowe

  I take a long swig of my drink.

  “No, son, they don’t let kids go to the morgue,” my father said. “You’ll just have to say goodbye to her in your prayers, son.”

  “But I wanna say goodbye to her face and kiss her lips and tell her I love her. Not like in a prayer. For real.”

  “You can’t do it to her face—you have to do it in a prayer.”

  “But I wanna see her face when I say it. Not like talking on the phone.”

  “Fine. Shit. I dunno. Then say it to her photo, then.”

  “But I don’t have a photo of her.”

  “Well, Jesus Fucking Christ, Joshua William. Fine... Take this one. Your mother always loved this photo of the three of you. Say everything to her face in the photo and stop talking about it. I’ve got my own goodbyes to say, son—we’re all hurting, not just you. I’m sorry but I can’t talk about this anymore.”

  My eyes are stinging. I rub them and take another long gulp of my whiskey.

  Kat wants me to promise her fifty-two days? Shit. I can’t even promise her tomorrow.

  Because a guy might go to school one morning and then return home that afternoon to find out his dad had shipped his brother off to a “treatment center” without even letting him say goodbye. And just to add insult to injury, the guy’s dad might even say his brother will “never come home again” because “that boy’s fucking crazy” and “we’re better off without him” and “you need to stop crying about him like a little fucking baby.”

  Motherfucker.

  I drain the last of my drink, refill my glass, and settle into my chair again.

  What’s the point in putting anything on the calendar at all when a guy could get called at a football game because his dad’s brains have unexpectedly exploded all over the carpet in the study? And not only that, his brother’s lying in a hospital bed, not talking or responding to anyone, after driving himself off a fucking bridge? When a guy could sit in his big, empty house in the dark, right after the cleaning crew’s finished scraping his dad’s brains off the ceiling, and fight tooth and nail to convince himself that marching into his father’s bathroom and taking every fucking pill in the medicine cabinet is a terrible idea rather than the best fucking idea he’s ever had?

  I swallow hard, keeping my emotions at bay, and take another long sip of my whiskey.

  Kat wanted to hear those three little words tonight—I know she did. But those are words I simply can’t deliver to her. Not yet, anyway. If only she’d give me more time. If only she’d understand. I said those loaded words to Emma and look what happened—the relief of saying them for the first time lulled me into saying other things, too—things I shouldn’t have said—and only a month after I’d first said the magic words, Emma was long gone. I love you, I told her. Please don’t leave me. Please.

  But she left.

  I bought myself a fucking Lamborghini after Emma left me—so what am I gonna buy myself this time when the girl doing the leaving is my fantasy sprung to life? A jumbo jet?

  Fuck me.

  I look down at the glass of whiskey in my hand and, suddenly, a rage wells up inside me like a fucking tsunami. Fuck overcoming. Fuck this shit.

  Fuck me.

  Without a conscious thought in my head, I hurl my glass against the wall, shattering it into a million tiny pieces and spraying glass and whiskey all over the white fluffy bed.

  My chest is heaving. My eyes are stinging. I rub them and force down my emotion. Fuck you, Adele, you fucking bitch. No, I won’t find someone like Kat. I’ll never find someone like her again as long as I fucking live. I’ll be alone and lonely and fucked up and worthless—just like I’ve always been. Just like I’ll always be.

  Forever.

  Eighty-Two

  Kat

  Whitney’s sitting in her private jet, a scarf wrapped demurely around her head, looking out the airplane window at Kevin standing out on the tarmac, his arm in a sling.

  Why is Kevin’s arm in a sling? Because he took a bullet for Whitney. Because he loves her. And she loves him, too. But the horrible tragedy is that, despite their love, even though he took a freaking bullet for her, they simply can’t be together. And they both know it. Because they’re from different worlds, after all. And life isn’t always fair, motherfucker. But the injustice of it all only makes their love more intense—harder to give up.

  Whitney yells to the pilot to stop.

  The jet engines abruptly stop and the airplane-steps come down. Whitney runs out of the private plane to Kevin and throws her arms around him. They kiss passionately.

  And the most gigantic ugly cry ever released in the history of ugly cries leaves my mouth. “Josh!” I sob, throwing my head back onto the throw pillow on my couch. “Jooooossssshhhhhh!”

  Oh, I talked such a good game in front of the karaoke bar, didn’t I? “From here on out,” I said, “we’re gonna do things Josh-Faraday-style. The future doesn’t exist. There are no expectations, no commitments.”

  But I was full of shit.

  I love him. With all my heart and soul. I don’t want anyone but him.

  I know he’s ‘crazy about me.’ And that he’s done a million amazing things for me, just like Richard did for Julia in Pretty Woman. Yes, just like Julia, I’ve been showered with gifts and money and offers to help me in countless ways—and, I suppose, for most women, all of that would be more than enough. But I’m not most women. I’m just like Julia—I want it all. I want a commitment. I want true love. I want a knight in shining armor on a white horse. Goddammit, I want more than florebblaaaaah. And I simply can’t pretend I don’t.

  I clutch my stomach and put the pint of Ben & Jerry’s I’ve been scarfing down onto the coffee table. I’m so worked up about all this, I feel physically ill. Queasy. And my nipples are sore, too, by the way, which is really weird. I know Josh pinched my nipples pretty hard yesterday when he fucked me in the bathroom at The Pine Box, but did he really pinch them that hard? Jeez. They still hurt.

  Whitney’s glowing face appears onscreen in close-up, her teeth a spectacular shade of computer-paper-white, her mocha skin flawless.

  She begins singing The Song—the most famous song in the world.

  Oh, God, she’s an angel. My beautiful Whitney.

  And I’m a sobbing mess. Again.

  This song was written for Josh and me and no one else. I love him and he doesn’t love me back. He’s crazy about me, sure—addicted to me. But he can’t promise me tomorrow, he says. Which is a telltale sign he’s not in love with me. Because when you love someone, you’re willing to promise forever, even though you intellectually know you can’t make that promise. You don’t not promise forever to the one you love simply because we’re objectively mortal—you promise it, regardless, and hope forever turns out to be more than fifty-two days.

  No one knows what life might bring or what might happen two months from now, I get that, but the point is that when you’re in love, you’re stupid enough to think you can promise forever. You wanna believe it so badly, you’re willing to tell that little white lie. And if you’re not willing to tell it, well then, that’s the surest way to know you’re not really in love, after all.

  Whitney’s done singing.

  I grab the remote control, and just that sudden movement makes my stomach flip over violently, almost like I’m gonna barf. But that’s ridiculous. I hardly drank a drop tonight.

  Out of nowhere, my body dry heaves.

  What the hell? I cock my head to the side, totally perplexed. What the heck was that? My body heaves again—only this time, holy shit, fluid has gushed into my mouth.

  I sprint off the couch into the bathroom, my palm clamped over my mouth, and only semi-make it to the toilet before another, violent heave makes me vomit up every drop of fluid and Cherry Garcia in my stomach, not to mention the chicken wings and guacamole I ate at the bar.

  Oh, jeez. Not pretty. Not pretty at all.

  What the hell? I barely drank tonight.


  I barf again.

  Damn, I feel horrible.

  Were the chicken wings bad? I wonder if anyone else is feeling sick, too?

  I rinse out my mouth and clean the barf off the toilet seat and floor and shuffle back to my couch.

  Damn, my nipples are hurting.

  I can’t imagine bad chicken wings would make my nipples extra sensitive.

  I begin to nestle back onto the couch and grab the remote, but then all of a sudden, I sit up, tilting my head like a cockatiel. An alarming thought just skittered across my brain like a cockroach after the kitchen lights have been turned on.

  No.

  It couldn’t be that.

  I took a pregnancy test ten days ago and it was negative—and I haven’t missed any pills since then. Have I? I don’t think so. I didn’t take them at the exact same time every day like you’re supposed to, granted, but close enough.

  I sprint back into my bathroom. The box of pregnancy tests I bought the other day had three pee-sticks in it, and I’ve only used one.

  I pull out one of the unused pee-sticks, sit on the toilet, and pee on it, my heart racing. There’s no effing way. That would be ridiculous. Unthinkable. I just quit my job with medical benefits today. Ha! No. God doesn’t have that mean a sense of humor.

  I sit and stare at the stick, waiting. One line means I’m in the clear. Two lines means I’m fucked six ways from Sunday.

  I sit and wait.

  I thought it was weird I almost barfed in the sex dungeon, but when I Googled “vomiting from intense orgasm,” the Internet was littered with countless women who’d experienced the exact same thing. So I didn’t sweat it.

  “Don’t you dare let me catch either of you ever making an accidental Faraday with a woman unworthy of our name or I’ll get the last laugh on that gold digger’s ass and disown the fuck out of you faster than she can demand a paternity test.” That’s what Josh said his father told him when he was barely a teenager.

  The faintest second pink line begins to appear on the pee stick and my eyes pop out of my head.

  “No,” I say out loud. “Go away. Go away!”

  The line is getting darker.

  “No,” I say, pulling at my hair. “Please, God, no.”

  This has to be a mistake. A false positive. Yes, that’s what it is. A false positive. Of course. I run into the living room and grab my laptop. I Google “false positive pregnancy test” and it turns out there’s no such thing, basically—except in cases of certain medication (no), defective test (maybe?), or, rarely, certain kinds of cancer. Is it wrong to be wishing I have cancer right now?

  Okay, maybe the test was defective. That’s my only hope.

  I drink a couple glasses of water and sit on the couch, Googling like a madwoman for at least thirty minutes, trying to find a reasonable explanation for those two pink lines that doesn’t involve a little Faraday growing inside me, and when I feel the tiniest hint of pee in my bladder, I run back into the bathroom and pee on the third pee-stick.

  I would never try to trap you, I assured Josh. I’m a millionaire now, Josh—I don’t need your stinkin’ Faraday money.

  Oh, I know you’d never do that to me, he assured me. Of course, not.

  I look up at the ceiling, another massive wave of nausea slamming into me.

  Within a minute, a second pink line appears on the new pee-stick. I stare at the two positive pregnancy tests lined up on my counter, my eyes bugging out of my head, my recent conversation with Josh echoing in my head. Oh God, Josh is gonna shit. He’s gonna kill me, and then he’s gonna shit.

  And then he’s gonna call me a gold digger.

  And then he’s gonna run away, his arms flailing.

  And then he’s gonna shit again.

  My heart is aching.

  This is a complete disaster.

  Worst-case scenario.

  “Shit,” I say out loud.

  I amble into my living room in a daze, clutching the two positive pregnancy tests.

  I sit down on my couch, my eyes wide, my head spinning.

  “Shit,” I say again.

  From the minute I laid eyes on Josh, I felt like I’d hopped aboard a bullet train.

  Well, it looks like our train just jumped the tracks.

  And now there’s only one possible outcome.

  Crash.

  Consummation

  Eighty-Three

  Josh

  I stumble out of Walmart (the only place open at eleven-forty-five that sells electronics) and cross the parking lot toward my waiting town car. I open the door of the black Sedan and hurl myself into the backseat. “Thanks for waiting, man,” I mumble.

  “Did they have what you were looking for?” the driver asks.

  I hold up a plastic Walmart bag containing my new purchases.

  “Where to now?”

  I give the guy the address of Kat’s apartment and he starts the engine.

  As the car pulls out of the parking lot, I surreptitiously dig into my plastic bag and pull out one of my three Walmart-purchases: a bottle of Jack.

  The driver’s eyes flicker at me in the rearview mirror, but, thankfully, the guy doesn’t say jack about my Jack. I lean back in my seat, the bottle of booze perched against my lips.

  Man, I fucked up tonight. I had no idea not telling Kat about my upcoming move to Seattle would play out like fucking Armageddon. Watching Kat cry big ol’ soggy tears, especially on account of something I did (or, technically, didn’t do), ripped my heart the fuck out of my chest. Each tear that streamed down Kat’s beautiful face felt like a knife stabbing me in the heart.

  “I would have been bursting at the seams to tell you if the situation were reversed,” Kat said in front of the karaoke bar, her eyes glistening. “You would have been the first person I would have called.”

  Up until that moment, I’d been thinking my tempestuous little terrorist was simply overreacting—letting her emotions and temper run wild, as she’s been known to do a time or two. But the minute those daggers left Kat’s mouth, I knew they were cutting me so deep because they were the God’s truth—and that if Kat were to buy a house in L.A. and not bother to mention it to me, I’d be crushed.

  Which is exactly how Kat seems to be feeling right now: crushed. In fact, it seems like Kat might be thinking she’s done with me for good, though that’s not what she said when I dropped her off at her apartment. All she said before slipping inside her place was that she “needed a couple days to think and regroup” so she could “figure out if she was overreacting or not”—but the look on Kat’s face as she closed her door made it clear she wasn’t even close to deciding she’d overreacted.

  “Okay,” I said softly, even though all I wanted to do was plant a deep kiss on her mouth that would somehow erase her short-term memory from her brain. “Take your time,” I said. “I’ll call you in a few days.” And I wasn’t bullshitting her when I said that—I really wasn’t—I truly planned to leave her alone. I mean, shit, God knows groveling never has been my style. But, fuck me, after only an hour alone in my hotel room, drinking whiskey and staring at the Space Needle—not to mention getting my ass chewed by fucking Adele—I just couldn’t sit there like a flop-dick anymore. I had to do something to make her forgive me.

  So I texted Kat a couple times, asking her to call me—but she didn’t respond. So I bit the bullet and called her—let the groveling begin!—but my call went straight to voicemail. So, finally, I tucked my dick and balls firmly between my legs and left Kat a rambling voicemail that can only be described as “vaginal.” But, still, I didn’t hear a goddamned peep from her. Which is when a panic started descending upon me, a thumping need to make Kat understand I’m genuinely crazy about her, addicted, insatiable. And that’s when I got my brilliant idea.

  I pull my new portable CD player out of my Walmart bag and remove it from its packaging. It’s quite a bit smaller and way more modern looking than the old-school boom box I’d envisioned when I stumbled into the electronics
aisle at Walmart, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers, especially at just before midnight on a Friday night.

  The sedan pulls up to the front of Kat’s apartment complex.

  “Just park in the driveway,” I say to the driver. I hand him my phone. “Connect this to your stereo—I’ve got a song all cued up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Blast the song I’ve got cued up on my phone.”

  The driver looks incredulous, not to mention annoyed. “It’s past midnight, sir. We can’t be blasting music in a residential area.”

  I shove a couple hundred bucks at the guy. “Come on, man, I’ve got a girl to win back. I fucked up and now I gotta make her forgive me.”

  The driver takes my cash. “The song’s cued up?”

  “Yep. Just press play at my signal—and then blast the motherfucker at full volume, as high as your speakers will go.”

  “Full volume? Sir, I really can’t—”

  I throw a bunch more bills at the guy. “Just do it,” I bark. “I’ll handle any complaints.”

  Without waiting for the driver’s reply, I stagger out of the car with my CD player in one hand and my brand new Walmart-issued trench coat in the other.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. Was there an exact moment when I handed Kat my dick and balls, or did I give her my manhood in bite-sized pieces, the same way I fed her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the sex dungeon? Well, either way, the woman’s definitely got my crown jewels in a Ziploc baggie now.

  I place the CD player on the ground so I can put on my spiffy new trench coat, and when I’m positive I’m sufficiently John-Cusack-ified, I take a deep breath, lift my makeshift boom box over my head, and signal to the driver to start the music.

  Peter Gabriel’s song “In Your Eyes” begins blaring loudly from the car.

  I stand stock still, holding the boom box over my head. And I wait.

  But no Kat. What the hell? Surely, she can hear the loud music—her apartment is one of the units closest to the street.