The Culmination (24 page)

Oh, how my hunky-monkey husband loves his metaphors. I nod.

“Would a Judo combatant use a shotgun to subdue his opponent?”

There’s a long pause. Oh, is he waiting for me to actually respond? “No,” I finally say. “He would not.”

“No, he would not. Would a Judo master haul off on his opponent’s head with a baseball bat?”

“Hell no.”

“Hell no. Because weapons of any kind are antithetical to the basic tenets of the art form—an affront to the
purity
of it.”

I nod.

“Sarah, I want your orgasms to come from
me
and only me—my cock, my fingers, my tongue. My voice. The forces of balance, power, and movement.
And not a fucking little white pill.
” His eyes are blazing. “God help me if I would have
finally
succeeded in making you squirt last night for the first time while you were on fucking
Ecstasy
. Or, regardless of that, what if I’d given you some other new experience—the best orgasm of your entire life? What glory would there have been in that? How could I have duplicated it and built on it from there?”

I shrug.

“I want to give you
sexcellence
with nothing but my power, balance and movement, like a true Judo master. I want to subdue you with my bare fucking hands.”

Oh man. Even through my queasy stomach and throbbing head, Jonas is beginning to turn me on right now.

“Last night, you robbed me of my art, my greatest passion.” His eyes are blazing. “You leveled my favorite mountain to climb.”

This man’s mind never ceases to surprise me. “I’m sorry,” I say simply. “Oh, God, my head hurts.”

He takes a deep, steadying breath. “So now let’s talk about the next item on the long list of the ways last night was a fucking shit-show.”

I take a deep breath. “Sure.”

“You told that motherfucker something that was only supposed to be known by you and me, forever.”

My heart drops into my toes. This was the one I was dreading the most.

“Your OAP tattoo—and what it stands for and why you got it—is my special little secret to know—it’s for no one but me.” He glares at me. “You let another man into our cocoon built for two.”

My entire body jolts with anxiety. “Jonas, please believe me, there wasn’t a single minute last night when I wasn’t one hundred percent devoted and faithful to you. Not a single minute.”

“I don’t doubt that for a minute.”

I breathe a sigh of relief.

“But clearly you don’t understand something important about me.” He twists his mouth for a long, unsettling beat. “The intensity of my feelings for you isn’t normal. But there’s no other way for me to love you. This is me. This is how I love. This is non-negotiable. Take it or leave it.”

“I take it.”

“No matter how harmless or innocuous or
normal
you think it might be to flirt with another man, I can’t fucking handle it. I’m not normal. I simply cannot handle it. And I especially can’t handle you talking to another man about what we do together in the Jonas Faraday Club.”

“Jonas,” I begin, but I don’t know what to say.

“If normal women in normal marriages talk about sex and orgasms with other men and it means absolutely nothing, and their husbands don’t bat an eyelash, then good for them. But that’s not the way our marriage works. Because
I’m
the husband in this marriage—Jonas Faraday—
and I cannot fucking handle it.”
He clenches his jaw. “Thinking about that motherfucker getting hard while listening to you talk about having your first orgasm—thinking about him promising to give you a better orgasm than what I can deliver to you—makes me feel fucking homicidal, and that’s not a figure of speech.”

Whoa.

“Sarah, I love you in a way that transcends mortal love. What I realized last night is that loving you the way I do makes me completely
vulnerable
. And you need to understand and respect that important fact—because the flipside of that kind of love, if you don’t handle it with care, is that I can go to a very, very dark place.”

My heart is beating out of my chest.

“The way I love you means you’ve got the power to devastate me and I can’t do anything about it.” He exhales. “It means you could utterly destroy me when you think you’re just having a little fun with some hip-hop megastar. And you’ve got to be respectful of that.”

“Oh, Jonas.” I feel like I’m going to burst into tears. “I’m sorry. I’ll never, ever hurt you again. I didn’t understand. But I do now. I’m so, so sorry. I was an idiot. Please, please forgive me.”

“I know you didn’t understand. That’s obvious.” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “That’s why I’m explaining it to you.” His jaw muscles pulse yet again.

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” He runs his hand through his hair and shakes it off. “There’s just one last thing.”

My stomach flip-flops yet again. “Okay,” I say evenly, but I’m literally trembling. I can’t believe how badly I fucked up. I had no idea how Jonas would perceive the events of last night. And now that I know, it makes perfect sense to me, given who he is and how he thinks.

“Don’t worry, baby, this next item isn’t another fuck-up. This is something I need to confess to you, in all fairness.”

“A confession?”

“Well, an admission.” He grins. “I must admit you were
amazing
on that stage last night,” he says. “Absolutely amazing. And sexy as hell. Even while I was pissed as hell at you and plotting Will’s murder, you still turned me the fuck on.”

I exhale and smile broadly. “Really?”

“Really. Every single person in that club fell head over heels in love with you, OAP Cruz, including me, all over again.”

“Oh my God. Thank God.” Relief floods every muscle of my body. “I had so much fun, Jonas. I was on cloud nine.”

“I could tell. Everyone could tell. It was pure magic watching you have so much fun.”

“Reed said he sent a video of the whole thing to Josh. Can you ask Josh to send it to you? I’m dying to see it.”

“You don’t need to wait for Reed’s video. Someone in the audience already put the whole damned thing up on YouTube.”

“Oh my God. Really?”

He gets up to retrieve his laptop from the small desk across the hotel room. “I watched it this morning—it’s already got over a million hits.” He brings his laptop to the bed, opens it, and immediately navigates to a video link. “Holy shit, Sarah. Make that well over
four
million hits. Oh my God. It was at a million views just a little while ago.”

“Holy crappola.”

Jonas presses play on the video and I shriek at the sight of myself bouncing around the stage acting like I own the place. Oh my God, I’m mortified. I cover my face with my hands, and Jonas laughs.

When the video ends, Jonas peels my hands off my face and tortures me by pressing play again. And then again. And again. And by the fourth time through, I must admit I’m not mortified watching it anymore; in fact, I’m kind of proud of myself. I’m actually kind of a badass up there. Or, at the very least, I’m pretty freaking hilarious. By the sixth time through, Jonas and I are screaming with laughter together throughout the whole thing, all prior tension between us completely evaporated.

Jonas puts the computer down and kisses me. “OAP Cruz.” He shakes his head and smiles. “There’s no one like you, baby. You’re a true original.”

I laugh. “Thank you.”

“My wife the hip-hop star.” He shakes his head again. “What the hell.”

I laugh.

He takes my face in his hands again. “Just don’t crush me, Sarah. Okay? If you remember nothing else from this conversation, remember two things: one, say no to drugs, and, two, always remember that your very sensitive and jealous and abnormally devoted husband’s heart is in the palm of your hands. Be very, very careful with it.”

I melt into him on the bed. “I understand. I’ll never, ever do anything to hurt you again, my love. I promise. I didn’t fully understand before, but I do now.”

He exhales with relief.

I pepper his face with soft kisses, exactly the way he likes it, and when I pull away, his sad eyes look utterly relieved. “There’s something you need to remember from this conversation, too, Jonas,” I say. “Something about me you apparently don’t fully understand.”

He raises his eyebrows, inviting me to enlighten him.

“My love for you isn’t
normal
either, Jonas.” I stare into his beautiful eyes. “You’re my everything—my sun and moon and stars.
Todo mi mundo
. I love you with a ferocity and depth and magnitude that transcends mortal love, too.” I pause. “And that means you have the power to crush me, too, Jonas—with one look of those beautiful, sad eyes. With one word. I’m completely at your mercy, baby. Trust me.”

He blinks slowly, emotion apparently descending upon him. “Madness,” he finally says.

I bite my lip. “Madness.”

He nods again.

“There’s something I’d like to do today, hunky-monkey husband. Something I wanna give you to show you just how much I understand everything you’ve explained to me.”

“Does it involve rolling around in a pile of feathers?”

“What?”

“That’s what you said you wanted to do last night: roll around with me in a pile of feathers.”

We both burst out laughing.

“No. It involves me getting a tattoo. Smack on my ass cheek.”

“Oh. “ He raises his eyebrows. “What would this ass-tattoo be?”

“That’s a surprise. The only question is whether you’d like your
albóndigas
with ink or without—because as my ass’s registered owner, it’s your call.”

“Fuck yeah. Bring on the ink.”

“All right, then. Why don’t you look up a reputable tattoo place while I take a shower and wash the barf out of my hair.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

I get up slowly and haul my aching, throbbing, nauseated body toward the bathroom. Just before I reach the bathroom entrance, though, a song starts playing behind me from Jonas’ laptop: “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High” by Arctic Monkeys.

I wheel around to face Jonas and he’s beaming a smart-ass smile at me.

“Clever,” I say.

He bursts out laughing.

“I love you, Jonas,” I say, my entire body melting with relief. Thank God he can already laugh about last night.
Thank God
. “I’m really, really sorry I hurt you. I’ll never, ever do it again.”

He smiles. “I know for a fact you didn’t intend to hurt me, my precious baby. I forgive you. Completely. I love you.”

I smile.

“Okay, enough talking about our fucking feelings. Go wash the barf out of your hair, woman. You’re grossing me the fuck out.”

I stand for a beat, looking at his beautiful face. And then I slap my face, hard, making Jonas laugh with surprise, turn around, and drag my sorry ass into the bathroom.

Chapter 21

Sarah

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Gracie,” Kat says, holding twelve-month-old Gracie up so she can get a better view of the passengers arriving in the airport terminal. “Daddy’s gonna be here any minute, right through there.” She points at a nearby gateway in the terminal. “And so is Uncle Jo Jo.”

“Unkie Jo Jo?”

“Yep.”

I look at the airline app on my phone. “It says their flight landed two minutes ago.”

Kat squeals with anticipation.

“Dada, Dada, Dada,” Gracie babbles.

“Any minute now, Gracie,” I say, holding up my arm to Kat. “Look, Kat. Goose bumps.”

“I’m right there with you. Three weeks without Josh has felt like three years.”

“Thank God for you and Gracie. I wouldn’t have survived without you guys.”

Three weeks ago, Josh and Jonas left to climb the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca with a reporter from
Climbing Magazine
who’s writing an article on the boys and their rapidly growing empire, and if it weren’t for Kat and Gracie, I would have shriveled up and died of loneliness within mere days of Jonas’ departure.

Only a couple hours after the boys left for the airport, I was already missing Jonas so much, I packed a suitcase, drove myself to Josh and Kat’s house, and threw myself onto her doorstep. “Save me from myself,” I blurted when Kat opened the front door and saw my miserable face.

“Woohoo! Did someone say ‘slumber party’?” Kat said.

On the first night of our extended sleepover, Kat, Gracie and I snuggled together in Kat’s huge bed, watching movies (
Frozen
with Gracie and
Magic Mike
after Gracie had fallen asleep), and the next morning, I awoke to find Gracie’s arm draped over my chest, her rosebud lips pressed against my neck.
I want this,
I suddenly thought, surprising myself.

On the second night of the Faraday Girls’ Chick-a-Paloosa, Gracie handed me a book to read at bedtime and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like “Auntie Sarah read”—and my heart exploded in my chest like a cherry bomb.
I want this,
I thought. But I attributed my spiking maternal longings to how much I was missing Jonas. That had to be it, right?
Because working at Gloria’s House has been everything I’ve ever dreamed it would be,
I thought,
and I definitely want to keep working there for a few more years before I even think about starting a family.

But when I awoke the next morning with Gracie’s sleeping face an inch away from mine, my heart melted like a stick of butter in a microwave.
I want this,
I thought, yet again. I tried to shake it off, but it was no use. On the seventh day of Jonas’ absence, as I drove into work, I realized I’d missed starting a new cycle of birth control pills the prior night. But rather than turn around to retrieve the pill, or worry or feel anxious, I just parked my car and walked into the office, calm and happy at the thought that one of my eggs might, in the very near future, get to fly and be free from my ovary. And then fuse with one of Jonas’ ridiculously good-looking sperms.

And in that moment I knew with absolute clarity I had no desire to protect against pregnancy. To the contrary, I wanted nothing more than to make a beautiful, precious, salsa-and-Plato-infused Faraday. And since that realization thirteen days ago, the flame of my baby-yearning has only turned into a raging forest fire.