The Revelation (19 page)

Jonas shrugs. “I just know. I’ve never been more
sure of anything in my whole life.”

“But
how
are you so sure? What
exactly
do you feel about Sarah that makes you so sure you don’t just
love
her—because I totally get
that
—but that you
also
wanna spend the rest of your life with this
one
girl and not keep searching for some other girl who might be a
teeny-tiny bit more perfect?”

Jonas sips his beer slowly, apparently pondering the
question. “When you find what you’re looking for, you know,” he
finally says. “We’re the greatest love story ever told—our love is
the wonder of the wise, the joy of the good, the amazement of the
gods.”

There’s an exceptionally long pause during which I
have to keep myself from rolling my eyes. “Oh, well,” I say evenly.
“That explains everything. Thanks.” I take a long swig of my beer
and look out at the river. “That reminds me, I like your new ink.
In English, I notice. That’s something new for you.”

Jonas looks down at the tattoo newly inscribed on
the outside of his left forearm and his platinum bracelet glints in
the moonlight. “Thanks. Yeah, I wanted the whole world to be able
to read my words and understand their meaning. It’s my declaration
of love for Sarah. I’m shouting about my love for her from the top
of the highest mountain.”

I chuckle to myself. Oh man, Kat’s list of
“prohibited” tattoos is the gift that just keeps on giving. “So you
got a
girlfriend
tattoo, huh?” I say, trying to stifle my
laughter. “So, so awesome, bro.”

“Soon to be a
wife
tattoo,” Jonas says
proudly, his excitement palpable. “Why are you laughing,
motherfucker? What’s so funny?”

“I’m not laughing at you, I swear to God. Kat’s got
this stupid list of tattoos that she says are uncool or whatever.
And girlfriend tattoos are on the list.”

Jonas shrugs. “Like I’ve ever given two shits about
being cool?” He swigs his beer, still looking out at the river.
“And, anyway, it won’t be a
girlfriend
tattoo for much
longer.” He’s obviously bursting with excitement about that last
statement.

“Hey, don’t feel bad about having a tattoo on Kat’s
list—dragons and YOLO are on the list, too—both supremely uncool,
it turns out,” I say.

Jonas chuckles. “Well, I could have told you
that.”

“No, but get this: Kat came up with her list
before
she saw any of my tattoos.”

Jonas bursts out laughing. “Really? Oh my God.
That’s pretty funny.”

“Yeah, Reed and I raked her over the coals pretty
good the other night at dinner, along with this hip-hop guy signed
to Reed’s label. Cool dude. You’d like him. He’s a deep thinker,
just like you. Anyway, this rapper-dude had an ex-girlfriend tattoo
and a dragon.” I laugh at the memory. “Kat looked like she was
gonna hurl the whole dinner. So fucking funny. I think we made her
pay for her sins pretty well.”

“Wow, you should see your face when you’re talking
about Kat,” Jonas says. “You
really
like her, huh?”

I can’t hide my huge smile. “Yeah, bro, I like her a
lot.” The image of Kat in her skimpy white tank top and G-string,
her eyes drunk with arousal, and her hair tousled pops into my
head. “So back to my question, bro,” I say. “Do you think you
could, maybe, explain things in a way that’s not”—I grab his
forearm roughly and read his brand new tattoo—“our ‘love is the joy
of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods’? I
know it’s hard for you, Jonas, but can you just
try
to talk
like a normal person, just once?”

Jonas swigs his beer, apparently thinking. “Okay,
how about this: Sarah’s holding my hand and leading me outside a
dark cave toward the light that is the divine original form of
myself.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, gee, thanks. That’s
so
much better.”

Jonas laughs. “I was just fucking with you—although
that’s all true, just to be clear.” He laughs to himself for a good
long minute. “Okay. The bottom line is that I’d rather be with
Sarah than anywhere else in the world. I’d go to fucking IKEA with
her if it meant being with her.”

My skin suddenly erupts with goose bumps. “
Wish
you were here,
” Kat’s napkin said—and what thought popped into
my head when I saw it? “
So do I.
”

Jonas exhales loudly. “It’s just so easy with Sarah.
I’m
completely
myself with her, you know? I never have to
worry I’m saying the wrong thing. I’ve shown her everything—good,
bad, ugly, silly, crazy, creepy—and she accepts it all. And she’s
kind.
And nonjudgmental.” He sighs happily. “And so
smart
.”

“So you told her everything?” I ask.

“
Everything
. Absolutely nothing left out.
And, hey, that’s reason enough right there to marry the girl. I
only wanna do that shit once, man. Baring your entire soul to
another person is fucking exhausting.”

All of a sudden, I’m thinking about how Kat led me
into her bed after reading my application and then fell asleep in
my arms.

“I dunno, Josh—I just
know,
” Jonas continues.
“It’s really not all that complicated. For once in my life, it’s
not about what I think—it’s about what I feel. I’ll never want
anyone besides Sarah, ever, ’til the end of time, and I’m sure of
it. It’s literally impossible for me to want someone else. Sarah’s
the divine original form of woman-ness. She’s the ideal form of
beauty—the pinnacle of perfection that all other women aspire
to—the goddess and the muse—so what the fuck else could I possibly
want?”

“Shit, I was totally with you until that last bit.
‘The goddess and muse,’ Jonas? Come on, man. What does that shit
even mean?”

He shrugs. “If you don’t understand it, then I can’t
explain it to you.”

“Jonas,” I say, “I’m serious, man. Please, just
break it down for me. If you had to pick one thing that makes you
know for sure Sarah’s The One, what would it be? Not ‘goddess and
muse’ shit, but, like, something tangible? Something concrete?”

“I can’t pick only one thing. It’d be
impossible.”

I continue to look at him earnestly.

“But, okay, I’ll try my best to dumb it down for
you, Josh-Faraday style.”

“Thank you. Not everyone’s a fucking genius about
relationships like the wise and powerful Jonas Faraday.”

Jonas smiles and his eyes sparkle in the moonlight.
“Sarah Cruz,
the goddess and the muse
”—he flashes me a
snarky look—“makes me laugh like no other woman ever has—like no
other
person
ever has, even
you
. She laughs at almost
all of my jokes, even the really lame ones—and she’s being totally
sincere when she does.” He smiles and his white teeth gleam in the
moonlight. “Looking at that woman gives me a boner the size of the
Space Needle, even when she’s just sitting there reading one of her
law books and scrunching up her nose.” I can see his face suddenly
light up, even in the dim light. “And on top of all that, sex with
her is akin to a religious experience.” He lets out a happy sigh.
“If a guy needs more than all that to be eternally happy with one
woman, then he’s either crazier than me or just a greedy-ass
motherfucker.”

As if on cue, the door behind us opens and Sarah
appears.

“Hey, boys,” Sarah says.

“Hi, baby.”

“Hi, Sarah Cruz,” I say.

“
Hola,
Josh Faraday.”

She sits on Jonas’ lap and throws her arms around
his neck. “I had to come find you.” She kisses his cheek. “I
started to feel lonely.”

“Oh no. You were feeling lonely, baby?”

“Mmm hmm.” She kisses his lips.

Jonas puts down his beer and stands, holding Sarah
in his arms like he’s about to cross a threshold with his bride.
“Well, I know exactly what to do to cure my baby’s loneliness. See
you in the morning, Josh. Nice chatting with you.”

With that, Jonas is gone, taking the woman of his
dreams with him.

I return my gaze to the slow-moving lights on the
dark river in the distance, a certain loneliness I’m well
acquainted with descending upon me. Almost immediately, my thoughts
turn to Kat. To the awesome photos she sent me from Las Vegas. To
the way she fell asleep in my arms after reading my application. To
the way she laughs like a dude—and fucks like one, too. To the long
list of porno-fantasies she shared with me last night after we got
back from our night out with Henn and Hannah. To the way she
stomped down that hallway, soaking wet in her G-string, after
Reed’s party. To the way she kicked ass in each and every one of
those banks. To the way she called me “babe” in front of Henn after
he woke us up.

I take a long swig of my beer and stare at the dark
river, Jonas’ words echoing in my head:
If a guy needs more than
all that to be eternally happy with one woman, then he’s either
crazier than me or just a greedy-ass motherfucker.

Kat

I look out the window of the taxi at the driving
rain pelting the car window. My phone buzzes with an incoming text
and I look at the screen.

“Hey, PG,” Josh’s text says. “I’m about to board a
flight from JFK to LAX. Just wanted to say hi real quick.”

I smile at my phone. I can’t believe how attentive
Josh has been these past few days during his trip to New York. What
a stark difference from his prior trip to New York right before Las
Vegas, when he sent me crap messages all week long like, “Hey,
Party Girl!” and “What’s up?” Looks like Josh is ready to move past
The Game Where We Pretend We Don’t Give a Shit. And that’s a damned
good thing, because I stopped playing that game a long time
ago.

“Hey there, Playboy,” I type. “I was just thinking
about you. I just landed at SEA from... Dang it. What’s the airport
code for Las Vegas? LVS?”

“LAS,” Josh writes.

“Well, aren’t you the airport-code guru.”

“Yeah, I know them all,” he writes. “My life is one
giant airport code.”

“LOL. (That’s not an airport code, btw—that’s just
me laughing.)”

“Thanks for the clarification,” he writes. “For a
second, I thought you were flying in from Derby Field in Lovelock,
Nevada.”

“Wow, you really DO know your airport codes. Why
have you been to Lovelock, Nevada?”

“I haven’t. I only know LOL because I once read an
article about funny airport codes. Other sidesplitting entries
include SUX in Sioux City and OMG in Namibia.”

“LOL.”

“Derby Field!” he writes.

“Hey, it’s an airport-code version of ‘Who’s on
First?’” I write.

“Totally. OMG.”

“Namibia!” I write.

“LOL.”

“Derby Field!” I write.

“Gah!” he writes. “Make it stop.”

I laugh out loud and the taxi driver’s eyes in the
rear view mirror glance back at me.

“Can you talk?” Josh writes. “I’ve got a few minutes
before boarding.”

“Yes, sir. Call me now.”

When his call comes in, I pick up immediately,
smiling broadly.

“Hi, Playboy,” I coo.

“Hi, Party Girl with a Hyphen,” he says. “How are
you, beautiful?”

Wow, he sounds incredibly chipper. “I’m great. I’m
sitting in a taxi on my way home. How are you?”

“Well, I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and feeling
fine as wine, thank you for asking. The world is my oyster.”

“Wow. You sound extremely perky today.”

“I am. Jonas and I told my uncle we’re leaving
Faraday & Sons the other night, and yesterday we mapped out the
transition with the board of directors. I’m so excited, I’m
bouncing off the walls.”

“Congratulations. Does this mean you can finally
tell me about what you and Jonas are planning?”

“Yeah, but I’d rather tell you in person in between
kissing every inch of your naked body. It’s too awesome to explain
in a brief phone call.” He makes a celebratory grunt. “I’m so
pumped.
”

Holy shitballs. He’s acting like that
“kissing-every-inch-of-your-naked-body” comment was a total
throwaway, but it took my breath away. “I’m so excited for you,
Josh,” I breathe.

“Thanks. Can’t wait to tell you about it when I see
you, which
by the way,
is the reason I wanted to talk to
you. When are you gonna come see me?”

“As soon as possible,” I say, though the words catch
in my throat. Josh and I were together in Las Vegas for only a
week, after all, though it certainly felt a whole lot longer than
that, and, now that I’m back in Seattle and returning to my real
life, I feel unsure of where things stand between us. “So, hey,
thank you so much for flying Hannah and me first class, by the
way—we geeked out the whole time. It was awesome, but totally
unnecessary.”

“Kat, please, you can’t fly
coach.
” He makes
a sound like he’s shuddering.

I laugh, but I’m not entirely sure he’s kidding.

“It was my first time, actually,” I say. “Wow, the
seats are so cushy and the flight attendants are so damned
nice.
”

“That was your
first
time out of steerage?
Oh, the humanity.”

“Yeah. Hannah’s too. She kept asking for extra
peanuts just to see if they’d bring ’em.”

“Well, get used to the idea of unlimited peanuts,
babe—I see lots and lots of peanuts in your future.”

My heart stops. What does that mean? Is he saying
that, since I’m about to become a
mill-i-on-aire
, I’ll be
able to book first-class tickets any time I please on my own—or is
he implying he’ll regularly be flying me first class...
to visit
him
?

“Oh, hey, guess what?” Josh says. “Henn has some
‘work’ in Seattle next week. What a coincidence, huh?”

“Yeah, Hannah told me. They’ve already got dinner
plans. We’re invited to join, if we can.”