The Revelation (31 page)

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.”

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.

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, too,” 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.”

I’m blown away. “Not once?”

He shakes his head. “I think there might be
something wrong with me.”

I make a sad face.

“So, anyway, I got sidetracked. I was supposed to be
telling you how Miss Westbrook got Jonas to talk, right?” He shifts
his body underneath me and I’m treated to the unmistakable
sensation of his hard-on poking me in the crotch.

“
Oh
,” I say. “Hello.”

“Hello.” He grins.

“What’s that for?”

“You’re sitting on my lap.”

“That’s all it takes?”

“Apparently.”

I grin at him. “That’s all it takes for me, too,” I
say.

“I’m addicted to you,” he whispers.

“I’m addicted to you,” I whisper back, my heart
racing.

He nuzzles his nose into mine. We kiss gently for a
few minutes, listening to the music. My crotch is absolutely
burning.