The Revelation (18 page)

“He sure can.”

“Even a fish would get sick of Uncle William’s
stories about fish,” I say. “They’d be like, ‘Dude. Talk about
humans
occasionally.
Please
. You’re hurting my
fish-ears.’”

Jonas chuckles. “The man loves his fish.”

“Do fish have ears?” I ask.

“Sort of,” Jonas says. “Fish don’t have
traditional
ears, but they have ear parts inside their heads
that pick up sounds in the water. Functionally, they’re ears, even
if not technically so.”

I laugh. “You’re a fount of useless knowledge, Jonas
Patrick Faraday.”

He swigs his beer, smiling. “I really am.”

There’s a long beat as we both drink our beers and
look out at the spectacular view of the river.

“Uncle William sure handled the news of our
double-departure awfully well,” I say. “He shocked the fuck out of
me.”

“I know. I thought it’d be like jumping off a cliff
to tell him, and it was more like stepping off a curb.”

“It almost seemed like he was expecting it, didn’t
it?”

“Totally,” Jonas agrees. “I had that exact same
thought.”

We gaze out at the lights on the Hudson forty floors
below for another long moment, drinking our beers.

“I can’t wait to get started building our baby,”
Jonas finally says. “I have so many ideas for Climb & Conquer,
my head’s been going a mile a minute.”

“As opposed to when?”

Jonas laughs.

“I’m pumped, too,” I say, laughing. “Telling Uncle
William felt like getting freed from a lifelong cage.”

“That’s
exactly
how I felt,” Jonas says. “I
feel like I’m floating.”

“Me, too.
Exactly
. To Climb & Conquer,” I
say, holding up my beer. “And to the Faraday twins—two fucking
beasts among men.”

“Hear, hear,” Jonas says, clinking my beer with his.
“Fuck yeah.”

“Fuck yeah,” I agree.

“I’ll finalize the press release on my flight home.
We can release it on Monday.”

“Awesome,” I say.

“Fuck yeah,” Jonas says.

“Fuck yeah.”

We look out at the river for a moment, drinking our
beers, each of us apparently lost in our excited thoughts.

“So Uncle William sure took to Sarah right off the
bat,” I say.

“Oh my God. You should have seen him when we first
got here last night,” Jonas says. “I kept warning Sarah before we
arrived not to take it personally if Uncle William was kinda
standoffish or super formal, you know?—but he acted like she was
his long-lost daughter the minute he laid eyes on her. Just fell
totally and completely in love with her.”

I chuckle. “Just like you,” I say.

Jonas grins. “Just like me.”

“Congrats, by the way,” I say. “She’s perfect for
you. I don’t know how you managed to find her. She’s a needle in a
haystack.”

Jonas beams a smile at me but doesn’t reply.

“So you told her?”

Jonas looks at me funny, obviously not catching my
meaning.

“The three little words?” I clarify.

“Oh.” Jonas’ grin broadens. “Yeah. I told her.” I
can tell he’s blushing, even in the moonlight.

“First time ever saying it?”

“Yeah.” His smile broadens yet again.

“Did it freak you out to say it?”

“Not in the slightest. It just felt good—really,
really
good.”

I ponder that for a minute. “You were never tempted
to say it before Sarah?”

Jonas crinkles his nose like I’ve said something
distasteful. “No.”

“Not even to Amanda?”

Jonas shrugs. “Well, I knew I was ‘supposed’ to say
it to Amanda based on the passage of time—I knew she
wanted
me to say it to her. But, no, I was never even tempted. Did you
ever say it to Emma?”

I nod. “It took me three years, but yeah.”

“Three years? Wow, and here I thought I was the
emotionally stunted asshole of the two of us.”

I shrug and sip my beer. “Not something to say
lightly.”

Jonas makes a sound that tells me he agrees with my
statement. “Emma’s the only girl you’ve ever said it to?” he
asks.

I nod.

“Damn. She hung in there for three fucking years,
waiting for you to say it?”

I shrug. “Yeah. But we had the whole long-distance
thing, you know—three years wasn’t really three years if you add up
the time we were actually in the same room.”

“How’d it feel when you said it to her?” Jonas asks.
“Did it feel good or did it freak you out?”

“Both.”

“Did she say it back?”

“Yeah, she said it back—and for a brief moment in
time, I felt kind of like, ‘Phew. That’s a relief. I’m normal.’” I
shake my head. “But in retrospect, exchanging those words just
lulled me into a false sense of security. Once I said them, I
started thinking it was safe to say some other shit too—and, as I
found out pretty damned quick, it wasn’t.”

I can feel Jonas’ eyes on me, but he doesn’t
speak.

“As it turns out, saying the words doesn’t make the
feelings real.” I pause. “It was like Emma was signing a software
licensing agreement—she just scrolled to the bottom and pressed ‘I
agree.’”

Jonas makes a sympathetic sound.

“In fact, come to think of it, Emma didn’t actually
say the words back to me. She just said, ‘Me, too.’”

“Ooph.”

“Yeah.” I pause. “Ooph.”

There’s a beat.

“I thought I loved her—I really did,” I say. “But
now that I’m watching you and Sarah, I realize I probably didn’t. I
mean can you really love someone if they don’t love you back?”

My question is rhetorical, but Jonas answers me,
anyway. “I like to think I’d love Sarah even if she didn’t love me
back. And yet I can’t imagine I would have been
able
to love
her like I do if she didn’t love me. The way Sarah loves me makes
me feel like it’s safe to love her all the way.”

There’s another beat during which we both look out
at the sprawling view of the river. This has to be the most
unexpected conversation of my entire life.

“Emma never looked at me the way Sarah looks at you,
bro,” I say softly. “Not once.” My heart squeezes painfully in my
chest at the admission. “Seeing you and Sarah together makes me
realize Emma never loved me.”

Jonas makes a sympathetic noise. “Then she wasn’t
The One.”

I swallow hard, swig my beer, and look out at the
Hudson again. A light from some sort of boat is skimming slowly
across the black water in the distance.

“Josh, you’re better off,” Jonas says. “If a woman
doesn’t look at you the way Sarah looks at me, then she’s not
worthy of you.”

I nod, but I don’t say anything. When the fuck did
Jonas become the wise and powerful brother in this duo? The guy
falls in love with the greatest girl in the world, and suddenly
he’s some kind of love guru?

“So, on a related topic,” Jonas says, “how’s it
going with Kat?”

A huge smile involuntarily bursts across my face at
the mere mention of Kat’s name. “Good.”

“You like her?”

I bite my lip, but I can’t control the goofy grin
that’s taken over my face. “Yeah, I like her. She’s a handful,
though. Kinda crazy.”

“Oh, well, that’s good, right?—you like crazy.”

“I sure do.”

Jonas chuckles.

“Which is a good thing,” I say, “because she’s
batshit crazy. And stubborn as shit. But she’s also super cool and
sweet and funny and smoking hot, too. A handful, like I say.”

“Sounds fun.”

“She’s the most fun I’ve ever had, if you know what
I mean. Oh my God, the woman’s like a dude in the best possible
way.” I snicker despite myself. “She doesn’t... hold back.”

“
Excellent
.”

“I didn’t even know a woman like Kat existed. She’s
like a whole new species of freaky-ass fish that washes to shore
after a nuclear disaster.”

Jonas laughs.

“That’s what I told her, actually. I told her she’s
a freaky-ass fish.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Jonas bursts out laughing. “Now there’s some
Valentine’s Day bullshit if I ever heard it.” Oh, man, he’s
laughing his ass off, which, in turn, makes me laugh, too. “You
told her that? And here I thought
I
was the dumb Faraday
twin,” Jonas says, still laughing.

We laugh our asses off together for quite some time.
Finally, Jonas wipes his eyes and takes a sip of his beer. “That’s
hilarious, Josh.”

“I’m a charming son of a bitch, what can I say?”

Jonas shakes his head. “A woman like that, you
better make sure you deliver what she expects—don’t fuck it
up.”

I shoot him a look that says he’s a moron. “I
can’t
fuck it up—I just told you, she’s like a dude. She’s a
slam-dunk, every time. She’s amazing—a unicorn.”

“Oh, ho, ho. That’s what you might
think
with
a girl like that. Just be careful—a unicorn will lull you into a
false sense of confidence. Don’t start getting lazy.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“If you don’t know then I can’t explain it to
you.”

“Try.”

He sighs. “She’s
really
good at getting
herself off, right?”

I don’t reply. I’m a gentleman, after all.

“So that means she doesn’t actually
need
you,” he continues. “You’re nothing but a luxury item to her—a
Lamborghini, if you will. And as you of all people should know, no
one buys a Lamborghini for basic transportation. They get the
Lamborghini because they want all the stupid bells and whistles
(and because they’re an idiot with their money).”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Jonas shrugs. “I’m just sayin’ a girl can get
dissatisfied pretty damn quick with her ridiculously expensive
Lamborghini if it doesn’t deliver everything that’s been promised
in the brochure.”

My heart is racing. I don’t know how it’s possible,
but my idiot brother is actually making a shit-ton of sense.

“
So
as your girl’s designated Lamborghini,”
Jonas says, “you need to make it your sacred mission to give her
everything she expects from a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car.” He
swigs his beer. “You gotta convince that woman she actually
needs
a goddamned Lamborghini.”

Shit. He’s right. “So what do I need to do?” I
ask.

“You gotta be able to do stuff for her she can’t do
for herself. Make her come so hard, she’s literally addicted to
you.”

“Oh, well,
that
I can do. Believe me, I know
how to make a woman come hard.”

“One way? Two ways?”

“All ways. Fuck off.”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Fuck you. I’m good.”

“But are you
great
? Do you aspire to
excellence every single time?”

“What the
fuck
are you talking about? Do I
aspire...
? Just to be clear, we
are
talking about
fucking, right? Or is this conversation about something completely
different and I’ve been totally confused the whole time?”

“Ah, grasshopper. Fucking is never just
fucking.”

I roll my eyes.

“You said she’s a unicorn. I’m just saying you gotta
bring your ‘A’ game every time with a unicorn. There are no free
passes. You gotta study up—continuously improve your skills—keep
ratcheting it up for her. You can never,
ever
just ‘wet your
dick.’”

I cringe. “
Jonas
.”

He shrugs.

There’s a beat.

“Study up?” I finally ask.

“A man catches himself a unicorn, then he best study
up so he can feed her the right kind of unicorn-food.”

“
What the fuck are you talking about
?”

Jonas rolls his eyes, pulls out his phone, and taps
something out on it.

I lean over, trying to get a glimpse of his screen.
“What are you doing?”

“I’m ordering some books for you. They’ll be at your
house when you get home. Read ’em before you see Kat again. You’re
welcome.”

“Fuck you,” I say.

“No, fuck
her—
with supreme devotion and
expertly calibrated skill.” The light from his phone illuminates
the huge grin on his face. “I know you think you’re the wise and
powerful Faraday twin—and you
are
about most things—but
about this one thing, I’m nothing short of godly. Just trust
me.”

“Whatever, bro,” I mumble. Of course, I’m beyond
excited to read whatever books Jonas just sent to my house, but I’d
never tell him that. “Hey, bro, can I ask you something?”

“It’s called a G-spot,” Jonas says. “And it’s the
key to the kingdom.”

“Fuck you,” I say. “I know about the G-spot,
fucktard. I’m not a moron.”

“Of course, you do. Sorry to insult you. What’s your
question?”

“What I’m about to say has nothing to do with me
doubting
your connection with Sarah, okay? So don’t flip out
on me. Just remain calm.”

“I would never, ever flip out on you, Josh. I’m
nothing if not an endless reservoir of calm contemplation.”

We both laugh.

“I’m just wondering...” I say. “Everything’s just
been so fast for you two—”

“A lot’s happened in a short amount of time—we’ve
already lived through a lifetime’s worth of shit together.”

“Oh, totally. I get that. I’m just wondering, you
know...” I clear my throat. “How do you
know
?”

“How do I know what? How to make her come? Read the
books I sent you, dumbshit.” He laughs, but I don’t. He tilts his
head, obviously realizing I’m asking him something in earnest. “How
do I know I
love
her?” he asks.

“No, not exactly. What I’m asking is different than
that—bigger than that.” I bite my lip, thinking. “How do you know
Sarah’s
The One
? How do you know she’s the last woman you
ever wanna be with—the last woman you ever wanna
sleep
with
for the rest of your whole fucking life? How do you know you can
promise Sarah
forever
and one hundred percent
mean
it
?”