Page 25 of Consummation

Kat’s lip curls with blatant disgust. “Nooooooo,” she says, forming the long “O” sound like she’s falling down a thirty-foot well.

“What the fuck?” I say. I still can’t believe I’m hearing her right. “No?”

“No.” She squints her eyes like she’s taking aim with a shotgun. “Nooooooooooooooooo,” she says again, this time emphasizing the “O” sound like she’s falling down afifty-foot well. “Thank you very much for being such a duty-bound gentleman, good sir,” she says through gritted teeth. “Believe me, I know you’re doing me ahugefrickin’ favor—amassive fucking favor—especially since you’re aFaradayand my family is but an assemblage of lowly commoners without a noble title to our shameful name. Goodness, I really, really appreciate your infinitegenerositygood sir.” She rolls her eyes. “But no fucking thank you, Sir J.W. Faraday. This isn’t 1815. I’d rather just figure my shit out on my own and roll the dice that even a harlot from a simple family ofserfsmight one day get to marry forloveinstead of motherfuckingobligation.”

I make a face registering my disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”

Kat shakes her head. “No, sir. I am not.”

I leap up again, pulling at my hair in frustration, and immediately sit back down. Goddamn, this woman. When that nurse said I couldn’t accompany Kat to Colby’s room because I’m not fuckingfamily, Kat looked at me in that moment like she would have givenanythingin the worldto call me her husband—I’m positive I didn’t imagine those puppy-dog eyes she flashed at me—and now that I’ve asked her to marry me only sixty minutes later, she’s turning me the fuck down? The woman’s deranged. Whatsanewoman would ever dream of turning me down?

For fuck’s sake, I’m a thirty-year-old with over six hundred million dollars to my personal name—I’m talkingpersonallyhere—and that’s not even including unvested shares in Faraday & Sons that will soon be coming my way to the tune of half a billion bucks if we play our cards right—or the eight hundred million bucks my uncle has told Jonas and me he’s earmarked for us in his will. And on top of all that, I’m not exactly Quasimodo to look at, either, let’s just be real—not to mention the fact that I’ve got a magic cock and I make the woman come like a fucking freight train every time I fuckingglanceat her.And she’s turning me the fuck down?

“Kat, don’t be a fucking terrorist right now,” I say, my voice filled with barely contained rage. “Think about what you’re doing.”

“Oh, you want me tothink?” she says. “Am I having troublethinking—perhaps due to the pregnancy hormones, good sir?”

I throw up my hands. “Would you stop calling me ‘good sir’? You’re annoying the shit out of me. Look, the bottom line is you’re having my baby, Kat, and it should have my name.”

Kat crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “Fine. The baby can have your name. Happy?”

I’m stunned. “Well, no. I mean the baby should have my name and so should you—the mother of my child. We should be, you know, a unit—a legal unit.”

“Aw, you think so? You think ‘the mother’ should take your name because that’s the way we ‘should’ do it so we can be a ‘legal unit’?” She scoffs. “How sweet.”

I nod, not understanding her reaction in the slightest. “That’s right.”

“You really think so?”

I nod again. Why the fuck is she reacting like this? If anyone should be mad it’sme.Kat’s the one who didn’t take her goddamned pill. And now we both have to pay for her mistake for the rest of our lives. Under the circumstances, I think I’m behaving exceedingly well.

“You think weshould,Josh?” She glares at me like she’s laced my iced tea with arsenic and she’s waiting for me to keel over. “Golly gosh, Joshua, I truly appreciate your incredible sense ofduty. You’re a man of endless integrity, through and through (and, actually, I’m serious about that, even though I’m pissed at you—you reallyarea man of integrity). But I’m not gonna marry any man out of sheer obligation, not even my filthy-rich-hot-as-fucking-sin-baby-daddy.” Her eyes prick with tears. “Not even if he’s you.”

“Kat,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Stop acting like a fucking lunatic. I’m the one who should be pissed, not you.”

Kat raises an eyebrow. “Why should you bepissed?”

“Because you’re the one who fucked up and didn’t take your pill.”

Kat doesn’t speak for a long beat. “I’m really sorry about that,” she finally says. “You’re right—I totally fucked up.” Her eyes catch fire. “But I’m sure as hell not gonna compound one mistake with another. I’ll be your baby-momma, Josh, and I’ll certainly expect you to step up and be a father to this kid, financially and otherwise (which, by the way, I have no doubt you’ll do—again, I know you’rea man of integrity). But I’m most certainly not gonnamarryyou for no other reason than I’m gestating your accidental Faraday. Now, if you actuallywantto marry me, that’s a different story...” She pauses, her eyebrows raised, obviously expecting me to say something. “If that’s something youwant, regardless of the baby...?”

I stare at her blankly. She’s got to be kidding. Why the fuck would I want to get married, other than the fact that she’s gestating my accidental Faraday? She knows I have no interest in marriage—I’ve told her so, as plain as day. There’s literally no other circumstance when I’d eventhinkof asking Kat, or any woman, to be my wife, sorry-not-sorry. “Kat,” I say, emotion suddenly rising up inside me. “You’re asking too much of me. Stop being a terrorist and be rational.”

Kat’s eyes soften with sudden and surprising sympathy. “Josh, I’m not being a terrorist, though if I were, you’d certainly deserve it. I’m being kind to you in the long run, though you obviously can’t see it now. This baby was an accident, plain and simple. We both made it, but you’re right, I’m the one who flubbed taking my pill. You were relying on me to have my shit together and I blew it—so I hereby release you. You’ve made it clear how you feel about marriage—you don’t see the point in it.” She adopts a deep voice obviously intended as an impression of mine: “‘If you wanna go, go—if you wanna stay, stay.’ I haven’t forgotten what you said. Just because I’ve got an accidental Faraday in my uterus doesn’t mean you suddenly want to marry me in your heart. And I deserve to marry a man who loves me—not a guy who’s asking me to marry him to appease the ghost of his asshole-father.”

A lump rises in my throat. Is Kat right? Is my fatherstillcontrolling me, even after all these years, even from the grave?

There’s a long beat, during which Typhoid Joe hacks up his tenth lung of the night.

“Josh,” Kat says softly after Typhoid Joe quiets down. She puts her hand on mine in a gesture of tenderness, making my heart pang. “If it weren’t for this baby growing inside me, you wouldn’t even bethinkingof asking me to marry you. Today when you introduced me to your friends at flag football was the first time you ever called me your girlfriend—which I really liked, by the way.”

“Kat, please just say yes,” I whisper, despair overtaking me. She’s pregnant and I’m proposing. Why won’t she say yes?

“Thank you, Josh. I really appreciate the offer,” Kat says, hertone surprisingly sweet. “But how are you gonna vow to be my husband ’til death do us part when you haven’t even told me something as simple as ‘I love you’?” She looks at me pointedly, like she’s willing those three words to come out of my mouth right this very minute.

I run my hand through my hair. Shit. I should say it. I’ve never felt this way about any woman before. I’m addicted to her in every way. I’m ninety-nine percent sure what I’m feeling for Kat is what normal people call love—which means I should say the goddamned words. I open my mouth and close it again. Fuck.

Kat scoffs. “I know turnabout is fair play and all, but please don’t barf on me.”

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