The Revelation (3 page)

And now back to my actual mission. I click into the
folder marked “Club Application Photos” and open the first of three
images. It’s a headshot. Josh is smiling and looking as charismatic
and confident as ever. Oh man, those eyes. I could sit and stare at
them all day long. He’s gorgeous.

I click on the next photo. It’s classic Josh
Faraday. He’s in a perfectly tailored, blue designer suit, looking
like an ad for Hugo Boss or cologne
.
Yummy.

I click on the third photo and...
ka-boom
. My
ovaries explode like two little nuclear bombs. Josh is completely
nude in this third shot, every inch of his ripped and
muscled—
and erect
—body on full display—and, oh my fuck, the
shit-eating grin on his face is so unapologetic, it instantly makes
my blood boil with desire. Holy crappola, as Sarah would say, I’m
short-circuiting at the sight of him.

Without even thinking about it, I click into Josh’s
email account, address an email to myself attaching Josh’s
smoking-hot-bad-boy-with-a-gigantic-boner-selfie, and press send.
Zowie, as Sarah also likes to say, that sucker’s definitely gonna
inspire countless future orgasms.

Hey, as long as I’m sending myself stuff from Josh’s
computer, I figure I might as well send myself his application,
too, right? That way, if he distracts me again when he gets up
here, I’ll be able to read it later from the comfort of my own
bed.

Just as I press “send” on my second email to myself,
a notification message flashes across the upper right corner of
Josh’s screen: he’s got an email from someone named “Jennifer
LeMonde” with the subject line “Hey, Cutie!”

My stomach clenches.

My lip snarls involuntarily.

Jen
.

Oh, God, I shouldn’t do it—I know I shouldn’t. But
show me a woman in my exact shoes who wouldn’t read that goddamned
email and I’ll show you a woman with no pulse or vagina—or, at the
very least, no balls.

I open the email.

“Josh!” Jennifer LeMonde writes. “OMFG! I’m so
bummed you didn’t come to NYC with me. My mom’s show was
amaaaaaaaaaazing. You would have looooooooooved it. Critics are
saying she’s a shoo-in for a Tony. And the party afterwards was
REDONK. You should have seen the A-listers who showed up! I’ve
attached a pic of Mom and me at the after-party. (Mom says hi,
btw—she totally remembers you from that time we all stayed at our
house in Aspen.)

“I wanted to send you a quick note to thank you for
calling me after Reed’s party. I was pretty bummed at how
everything went down that night, to be honest. I’m really glad we
had a chance to talk so you could clear everything up for me.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said and I
totally understand where you’re coming from. I feel the exact same
way. So if you’re ready to chill with someone who’s not gonna
explode like a fricking grenade all over you like The Jealous Bitch
(can you say drama?? OMG!), then let’s hang out again. I’m totally
up for what you suggested. We’ll just hang out and have some fun
and see where it leads. No pressure. Nothing serious.

“So, anyway, next weekend is my birthday (the big
2-9!) and my mom’s letting me use our house in the Hamptons to
celebrate. I’m gonna invite a bunch of friends and I really want
you to come. No drama. Just FUN FUN FUN! It would be the best
birthday present EVER if you’d come and hang out (and hopefully
make me scream again!! Heehee!).

“I know how much you like my ‘pretty titties’ (LOL!)
so I’m attaching a special pic just for you. It’s just a little
something to tide you over ’til you can come see them in person
(and motorboat them again if you want! LMFAO!). Thanks again for
explaining everything to me when we talked. We’re defo on the same
page. No relationship. Nothing serious. I’m totally down with that
plan. XOXOXOXO Jen.”

I have never felt this capable of murder in my
entire life.

Holy I Wanna Beat the Living Shit Out of Her,
Batman.

And Then I Wanna Cut Off His Balls and Roast Them
Over the Burning Embers of His Fucking House, Batman. And Then I
Want To Eat Them In Between Two Graham Crackers.

I’m gritting my teeth so hard, they’re about to
crumble like shards of bleu cheese in my mouth. I’m ‘The Jealous
Bitch,’ huh? Did Jen coin that cute little nickname for me, or did
Josh help her come up with it—perhaps during their after-party
phone conversation? Was that phone conversation when Josh
“suggested” they get together again so he could “motorboat” Jen’s
“pretty titties”
again
?

Why the hell did Josh call Jen after Reed’s
party?
He told me he wasn’t the least bit interested in her.
Did he rush back to his room for a little phone sex after washing
the barf off his shoes and my hair and putting me to bed?

I should click out of this email, I really
should—that would be the self-preserving thing to do—but instead I
torture myself and click on the first photo attached to Jen’s
email.

I shriek.

What the holy hell? Jen’s mom is
Gabrielle
LeMonde
? I blink rapidly, my brain overloading. Gabrielle
LeMonde is a national treasure—an icon! I’ve seen every one of her
frickin’ movies—and not just the comedies, either!—the really
boring ones in which she spoke in a spot-on British accent, too!
What. The.
Hell
?

Well, this sure sheds light on why Josh hooked up
with Jen in the first place. If I were a twenty-three-year-old guy
with a huge dick, I’d have fucked Gabrielle LeMonde’s daughter too,
just to be able to say I did—especially if she had a body like
Jen’s. And Jesus, now it makes total sense that Jen pals around
with movie stars like Isabel Randolph. Good lord, Jen’s entire
contacts list must be a who’s-who of Hollywood’s young elite.

My head is spinning. I feel like I’m gonna barf.
It’s suddenly hitting me like a ton of bricks that Josh is
literally one of the world’s most eligible bachelors—like
literally.
Holy shit. Before this moment, Josh was Sarah’s
boyfriend’s brother—his gorgeous and rich brother—his hilarious and
well-dressed brother—his smoking hot and sexy brother—his brother
who arranged for me to stay in Vegas
and
keep my job,
too—his brother who fucked me so brilliantly, I blacked out there
for a minute—but, still, just a human-brother-dude who presumably
puts his pants on one leg at a time (and who presumably stows his
donkey-dick in one of those pant legs before zipping up).

But now, out of nowhere, it turns out Josh is some
quasi-celebrity-god among men who lives in an alternate universe
populated by world-famous actresses and their spawn? And Victoria’s
Secret supermodels? Oh, and freaking Red Card Riot, too? What the
heck? Who is this Most Interesting Man in the World who could hop a
cross-country flight on a whim for no other reason than to attend
the birthday party of a fuck-buddy who happens to be the daughter
of Gabrielle LeMonde? Gah! Insanity.

My stomach flips over.

I’m usually a confident girl—probably more so than
the average Jane, if I’m being honest—but how could I ever be so
cocky as to think a guy like that would ever pick
me
out of
literally
anyone
on the planet to choose from? I roll my
eyes even though I’m sitting here alone. I’ve always had a pretty
high opinion of myself, truthfully (which isn’t something I usually
admit out loud), but all of a sudden, in comparison to the women
who populate Josh’s rarified world, I feel shockingly average. Not
to mention, quite possibly, really
gullible
, too. Has Josh
just been selling me a line of bullshit? Does he make
every
girl feel special the way I’ve been feeling with him? Have I been a
fool?

Oh, jeez, my eyes are filling with tears. Why do I
suddenly feel like I’m standing at Garrett Bennett’s door all over
again, about to get annihilated? I take a deep breath to steady
myself.

The healthy choice would be to click out of Jen’s
email right now. It’s making me doubt Josh and I don’t want to do
that. He’s been nothing but incredible toward me. Generous.
Attentive. Affectionate. Passionate. I’m acting crazy right now. So
what if Jen’s mom is Gabrielle LeMonde? That doesn’t change
anything. Why is that sending me into a tailspin? I should shut
Josh’s laptop and stop this right now.

But I don’t.

In fact, I do the opposite: I open the second
picture attached to Jen’s email.

Holy Oh-No-She-Didn’t, Batman.

If I felt sick after seeing the picture of Jen with
her movie-star mom, then I feel terminally ill after seeing this
second photo.

It’s a naked selfie of Jen. She’s smiling broadly
and pushing her “pretty titties” up toward the camera—obviously
inviting Josh to “motorboat” them “again
.
”

My eyes prick with tears. Is Jen a pathetically
desperate girl who’s pursuing a hot guy after he’s clearly told her
to get lost? Or, to the contrary, is she a girl who’s merely going
after a guy who slept with her and then continued
encouraging
her? Josh told me he’s not interested in Jen—and
yet he called her after Reed’s party. Why’d he do that? And what
did he “suggest” to her when they spoke? Suddenly, I don’t know
what’s what anymore.

My heart is racing. I wipe my eyes. I never cry and
I’m not gonna start now. Hell no. It’s so unlike me to feel this
jealous and insecure. God, I hate myself right now. I’m acting like
a freak and a puss and a lunatic. I need to detach. I need to stop
caring. Josh Faraday isn’t my boyfriend (though I admit I want him
to be), and I’m not his girlfriend. I’ve got no right to feel this
way. The man can do what he wants.

No, he can’t. He’s mine, goddammit.
Mine.

I slam Josh’s laptop shut and set it on the table.
I’ve got to get the hell out of here. Josh will be here any minute
to “distract” me from his application and I need to pull my shit
together before then—because right now I feel like I’m going to fly
completely off the handle and say a million things I’m gonna
regret.

I stand to leave—just as the door of the suite
bursts open.

Josh bounds into the room. “Hey, Party Girl with a
Hyphen,” he says, holding up a condom packet playfully. “Can I
interest you in a little
distraction
from your reading?”

I stalk straight past Josh toward the front door, my
eyes burning and my mouth clamped shut.

“Kat?”

I march to the door and fling it open like I’m
trying to take the damned thing off its hinges.

“Oh shit,” Josh says. “You read my application
without me?” His voice is pure anguish. “Goddammit, Kat. Lemme
explain. This is exactly why I didn’t want you to read that stupid
thing in the first place.”

Josh

“Kat, come on!” I shout at her back, but she keeps
marching down the hallway toward the penthouse’s private elevator,
her arms swinging wildly.
Déjà fucking vu.
How many times am
I gonna have to chase this goddamned terrorist down a fucking
hallway? “Oh, come on, Kat. It wasn’t
that
bad.”

But she just keeps on marching. She pounds on the
call button for the private elevator and crosses her arms, her back
to me.

“You can’t possibly be
this
upset. What the
hell?”

She whirls around and I’m shocked to see hot tears
streaming down her cheeks.

Panic floods me. My application made her
cry
?
Shit. I’ve obviously grossly miscalculated the situation. I’m
floored. “Kat,” I blurt, my chest tightening. “I know everything I
wrote in that application came off as douche-y and angry and
fucked-up, but the truth is I was just heartbroken when I wrote all
that shit.” Oh God, the words are tumbling out of my mouth. “I’d
just gotten out of a three-year relationship that didn’t end well,”
I ramble, “and I won’t go into detail about everything that
happened, but trust me, I had some shit to work out.” I take a deep
breath. “I was devastated, to be perfectly honest—I felt like there
was something deeply wrong with me, and...” My heart is racing. I
swallow hard
.
“For reasons I don’t wanna go into, there was
no way for me to do any of that stuff I wrote about with my
girlfriend. And that was okay,
of course
, because I never
would have pushed her to do anything she wasn’t comfortable
with—
never
—but when we broke up—well, actually, when she
cheated
on me instead of doing me the courtesy of actually
breaking up with me—I figured, ‘Well, fuck it. YOLO. Life throws
you lemons, make lemonade.’ So I joined The Club and rode a month’s
worth of Mickey Mouse roller coasters so I could pull my shit
together and move on. And I don’t regret any of it because it
actually worked—I totally moved on and now I’m perfectly fine.”
Shit. I’m rambling. I’m incoherent. I’m out of breath. Fuck. I
force myself to stop talking.

Kat’s tears have dried up. She’s stone-faced and
looking at me like I’ve got fingers growing out of my head.

“To be perfectly honest,” I continue, even though I
know I should shut the fuck up, “I didn’t expect you to be so upset
by what I wrote. I admit I didn’t wanna give you my application,
but it wasn’t because I was
ashamed
of what I asked
for
,
it was because I didn’t wanna have to explain all this
shit about Emma to you. I’m not ashamed about The Club, Kat. I was
single
. It was one month of my life. No one was hurt—far
from it.” I shift my weight. Shit, I think I’m digging myself an
even deeper hole. “Frankly,” I continue, deciding the best defense
is a good offense, “I’m shocked you’re so upset. Now that I’ve
gotten to know you—or at least I
thought
I’d gotten to know
you—I actually thought you’d be pretty understanding about
everything I wrote—or, at least, about most of it.” My voice
cracks, despite my best efforts to sound calm and collected. I rub
my forehead. “I honestly thought you’d maybe even get off on some
of it.”