The Infatuation (Josh and Kat #1 , The Club #5) (38 page)

“No.”

“Honesty-game.”

“Screw that. So far, the honesty-game has been me
spilling my guts to you and getting nothing from you in
return.”

He grins. “Now you see how it feels.”

I roll my eyes.

“Come on, PG. Gimme a little dirt about your
lesbo-encounter. Look how hard you’re making me.” He motions to the
bulge behind his briefs.

I feel myself blushing like crazy. “My friend was
just trying to drive her boyfriend crazy. They’d had a fight and he
was being an ass and she was trying to make him lose his shit. We
were just being, you know, naughty, trying to get him riled up. It
was pretty hot, actually. He sat there and watched us.”

“Ah, so that’s what turned you on, huh? Having him
watch?”

My cheeks are absolutely blazing. “Yeah. I guess
so.”

Josh’s boner is absolutely huge behind his
briefs—and the look of arousal on his face is unmistakable.

“Did the boyfriend join in after a bit?”

My heart is racing. “I think I’ll wait to answer
that question ’til after I’ve seen your application. The
honesty-game only gets you so much when it’s a one-way street.
Speaking of which, I do believe it’s time you gimme that damned
application.”

“I kiss you; I fuck you; I give you my application—I
told you. We’re still in the I-fuck-you portion of our program.” He
lies back onto the pillows on the bed, smirking, and puts his arms
behind his head—revealing tattoos on the undersides of his biceps
that say “Welcome to” on one arm and “the Gun Show” on the
other.

“Oh, Jesus, Josh, no,” I say, rolling my eyes. “No,
no, no. Those are even worse than freaking ‘YOLO’!”

He laughs.

“You’re hopeless.” I hit my forehead with my palm.
“Oh my God. What am I gonna do with you?”

He’s laughing his ass off. “I told you. Drunken
tattoos are kind of my
thing
. These bad boys were a dare.”
He flexes his bicep and kisses it.

“Josh.
No
.”

“Kat.
Yes
. I had to—I had no choice. Reed
‘double-dared’ me, Kat. What else was I supposed to do?”

I laugh. “Holy hell. From here on out, you’re gonna
check with me before you even walk past a tattoo parlor. Do you
understand me?”

He laughs. “Thanks, Mom.”

I twist my mouth. “You’re joking, but that shit
wouldn’t have happened if you’d had an ounce of fucking parental
supervision in your life. You’re just an overgrown child.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, probably. I haven’t had a parent
since I was seventeen.”

“You’ve never had anyone tell you to stop acting
like an idiot, have you? Everyone around you just double-dares you
and goads you on.”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, jeez.” I shake my head. “Call me before you
do anything else involving ink on your body. Do you hear me? You’re
a freakin’ train wreck, Josh Faraday. You need someone to slap you
occasionally.”

He belly laughs. “I know—I totally do.” He’s beaming
at me.

I roll my eyes. “That shit would so not fly in my
house. My mom would have whipped you the fuck into shape. Jesus
God.”

He laughs.

“So what’s the deal with your other tattoos? What
other monstrosities am I gonna find on you?”

“No other monstrosities. Everything else is
meaningful.”

“What’s the story of ‘OVERCOME’?”

He takes a long sip of his drink. “Sorry, I don’t
tell anyone the truth about that one.”

“No?”

He shakes his head.

“What do you say when people ask you?”

“I just say it means, you know, ‘keep your chin up’
or ‘rise above’ or some other inspirational sound-bite like
that.”

“But that’s not true?”

“Well, yeah, it’s
true
. But that’s too
simplistic to be the whole truth.”

“What’s the whole truth, then?” My heart is suddenly
clanging wildly.

He looks at me with hard eyes for so long, I’m not
sure if he’s ever going to answer my question. “I never tell anyone
the whole truth about that particular tattoo.”

I bite my lip. “Well, gosh, I never tell anyone my
initials spell
KUM
.” I flash him my most charming smile.
“
And
I never tell anyone I made out with a woman.
Or
about Garrett Asshole Bennett calling me a slut.” I feel my cheeks
burning. “And I
never
tell anyone about poor, sweet Nate and
how I broke his heart.” I frown. Even saying his name makes me feel
literally sick with guilt.

Josh looks unimpressed.

“Aw, come on, Josh. I already know the truth about
your ‘Grace’ and ‘YOLO’ tattoos, so why not go balls-deep and tell
me about the rest of them, too?”

Josh exhales. “Yeah, but I never would have told you
the true meaning of ‘Grace.’ Sarah spilled the beans for me,
against my will.”

I purse my lips. What more can I do? I can’t force
the guy to open up to me.

Josh takes a deep breath. “Shit.” He looks up at the
ceiling like he’s trying to make a decision.

I wait, my skin buzzing.

Josh looks at me with sparkling eyes. “Goddamn you,
Kat. I really can’t resist a woman who uses the phrase
‘balls-deep.’”

I grin.

He sighs audibly. “I got my ‘OVERCOME’ tattoo so I’d
see it every single day and feel inspired to keep going, no matter
how much I sometimes just wanna lie down and say ‘I can’t fucking
do it anymore.’”

I wait again.

“You sure you wanna hear the whole fucking
thing?”

I nod. “Honesty-game.”

“Okay. Here it is. Honesty-game.” He exhales loudly.
“I got it because sometimes, it’s all too much. Sometimes, I wanna
just... you know... escape.”

I nod, encouraging him to keep talking.

“I got it because my mom was slaughtered while I was
sitting at a fucking football game with my dad. Because my poor
brother was so traumatized by what he witnessed that day, he still
hasn’t recovered.” His voice cracks.

He pauses, collecting himself.

I nod again.

“I got it because my dad killed himself by blowing
his brains out, and made sure poor Jonas would find him.” His voice
cracks again. “I got it because my dad offed himself without saying
goodbye to me or leaving me even a goddamned fucking note.” He
swallows hard. “I got it because Jonas drove himself off a fucking
bridge that same day, and if he’d succeeded in offing himself, I
would have joined him at the bottom of that bridge.” He looks at me
with blazing eyes.

I nod again. My skin is electrified.

“You want more? Because I got more.”

I don’t even hesitate in my reply. “I want it all,
Josh.”

His eyes are on fire. His chest is heaving. “I got
it because, after the thing with my dad, my brother was in a
fucking mental institution for almost a full year, totally and
completely losing his shit—he didn’t even look like himself, Kat.
There was nothing I could do to help him. No joke I could tell to
make him laugh. No words of wisdom to make it all better. So I went
away to college or else I was gonna fucking kill myself, I swear to
God—I was right on the verge—and I joined a fraternity and lived in
the loudest, most chaotic house I could fucking find and got
shit-faced half the time and high the other half and made friends
who saved my fucking life. And from there on out, I’ve been Happy
Josh all the live-long fucking day.”

My heart is racing. I swallow hard.

His voice becomes low and quiet. “I got it because
sometimes I get so fucking tired of being the sane brother, the one
who always rises above, the one you can always count on, the
happy
one, I just lose my fucking shit, Kat. I lose it. And
then I go on a bender of one kind or another until I get whatever
crazy fucking shit out of my system—and then I go back to being
Happy Fucking Josh just like I always am—just like Jonas needs me
to be.”

I swallow hard, trying to alleviate the lump in my
throat.

I wait, but Josh doesn’t say anything else.

He clears his throat. “Will you excuse me for a
minute?” he says abruptly.

Without waiting for my reply, Josh gets off the bed,
beelines to the bathroom, and disappears.

I sit for about a minute, staring at the closed
door, trembling, swallowing hard.

And then a dam breaks inside me and I burst into
tears.

Kat

For ten minutes, I sit and wait for Josh to come out
of the bathroom. And in that time, I manage to regain control of my
emotions. I’m calm again. My eyes are dry.

I switch the song on Josh’s laptop to Audra Mae (my
new favorite) singing “The River.” And then, I sit and wait.

Josh comes out of the bathroom and sits back down on
the bed, positioning himself exactly the way he was before he left
the room.

I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off.

“So, PG, I have yet to discover a single tattoo on
you,” he says, his voice light and bright. “And, believe me, I’ve
conducted an extremely thorough search.”

I shift my position on the bed. My heart feels like
it’s gonna hurtle out of my chest. I put my hands over my face,
collecting myself. I didn’t expect him to come back in here and
pretend he never said any of that stuff to me. I was steeling
myself to hold back my tears while he continued pouring his heart
out to me. I didn’t expect him to come back in here like nothing
happened.

“Ever thought of getting a tattoo?” he asks, his
voice tight, his eyes pleading with me to play along.

I can’t concentrate. I don’t know what to do—how to
react. “Um,” I stutter, “I have one, actually.”

“You do? Where?” His eyes are warming, reverting to
the way they always look.

I pivot my body and lift my hair, revealing a tiny
scorpion on the nape of my neck. “I’m a Scorpio.”

“Whoa. Sexy. Can’t believe I missed that. So are you
into astrology? Or you just really like being a Scorpio?”

“Yeah, I love astrology. I’ve read a bunch of books
on it.”

There’s a beat. His chest is rising and falling
visibly. He bites his lip.

“Um, I wanna get a second one,” I say, still not
sure how I’m supposed to proceed here. “But I’ve just never been
able to decide on something that would be meaningful
enough—something I’d want ’til the end of time.”

“Well, that’s silly. There’s no such thing as ‘’til
the end of time.’ Just get what you like right now. That’s all we
have, no matter what story we tell ourselves to make us feel
better.”

There’s a long beat. Damn. He’s kinda dark.

His eyes flicker. “I don’t wanna sit here and talk
about my fucking feelings all night long, okay? Just forget I ever
said all that shit to you, okay? Don’t ask me about it—just put it
out of your head, okay? Please.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“For... I dunno. Forcing you to spill your guts if
you didn’t want to.”

“You didn’t force anything. I’m a grown-ass man.” He
pauses a long time. “I shouldn’t have told you all that. I’m
sorry.”

“No need to apologize. I’m a grown-ass woman. I told
you in my application—I want to know the real you. I don’t want
Happy Josh. I want Real Josh.”

He stares at me for a long beat. “So, as far as a
second tattoo for you goes, my advice is don’t overthink it. My
brother always thinks his ink has to make some earth-shattering
statement about the meaning of life.” He scoffs. “But you can waste
half your life trying to be all deep and profound all the time. The
bottom line is we’re all gonna die—so who gives a shit if you die
with ‘YOLO’ stamped on your ass or not?”

My stomach is somersaulting. This is not the
fun-loving Josh I’ve come to know.

He motions to my half-eaten plate of food. “You done
with that, PG?”

I nod.

He grabs the half-eaten burger off my plate and
polishes it off and then clears my plate of all leftover French
fries, too. “You want another drink?”

“Thanks.”

He gets up and puts our empty plates on a table and
then moves behind the bar, his glorious body on full, dazzling
display. “So, okay,” he says, opening a bottle. “Where the fuck can
I find this Garrett Bennett fuckwad? Because I swear to God I wanna
hunt him down and beat the fucking shit out of him.”

I don’t reply. He suddenly looks different to
me.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Josh says, his jaw
pulsing. “See? This is exactly why I don’t talk about any of this
shit. Now you’re looking at me funny. I don’t like it.”

“I’m not looking at you funny.”

He scoffs. “This is the real me, Kat.” He motions to
his bare torso. “What you see is what you get—a wise and powerful
man with a huge cock.”

There’s a long beat.

Josh clenches his jaw. “So, back to Garrett Asshole
Bennett. Why do you care if that guy said you aren’t ‘marriage
material,’ Kat? He was obviously a total prick.”

I swallow hard. I’ve never talked about Garrett
Asshole Bennett with anyone. I’ve always been too ashamed at what
an idiot I was. I open and close my mouth, struggling to find
words.

“What does it matter what some total douchebag said
about you?” Josh persists. He pours something into two glasses on
the bar. “You’re awesome, Kat. A beast. He was obviously dead wrong
about you.”

My heart is pounding in my ears. Did Josh just
indirectly call me
marriage
material
?

“It just freaks me out how utterly
clueless
I
was. I was ready to give my heart to a guy who thought I was a
slut.”

“That reflects poorly on him—not on you. You trusted
him. He took advantage of you. He was a shit. A cruel, heartless,
self-loathing, small-minded, small-dicked little shit.”

“It’s okay. In the end, it was probably a good life
lesson.”

“What was the lesson?”

I consider my words. “I think Garrett Bennett is my
‘YOLO’ tattoo. I was one hundred percent sure of something, and I
turned out to be dead wrong.” I shrug, trying to come across like
it’s no big deal. “Good thing to remember.”