Page 12 of Consummation (The Josh & Kat Trilogy #3)

Ten

Josh

I wrap Kat in a tight embrace and hold her to me for several minutes, kissing her hair, rubbing her back, my heart pounding in my ears, dreading whatever’s about to come out of her mouth.

Finally, Kat breaks away from me, wiping her eyes. “Sorry,” she says. She pulls me down to sitting. “I’ve been holding it together pretty well for my mom, but seeing your face made me lose—” She suddenly clamps her hand over her mouth.

“Kat?” Holy shit. She seriously looks like she’s about to hurl. “ Kat ?” I ask again, my skin prickling. I’ve never seen someone react to grief by throwing up before.

Kat takes a few deep breaths and groans like she’s eaten a piece of rancid meat.

“Are you okay?” I ask, the hairs on my arms standing on end.

Kat makes a face I can’t interpret and takes another deep breath. “I’m okay,” she mumbles.

Typhoid Joe across the room lets out a hacking cough and Kat grimaces.

“How’s Colby?”

“The tests came back and it was pretty much all good news, relatively speaking. Broken leg, ribs, and collarbone. Ruptured spleen. Smoke inhalation—but not too bad, thank God. He suffered some burns to his left side where the beam was crushing him, but his turnout gear protected him pretty well. Could have been a whole lot worse. No head trauma at all, thank God.” She takes a deep breath.

“It’s gonna be a long road to recovery—lots of physical therapy. But he’s gonna pull through.”

I exhale with relief .

“But the baby Colby went back in to save?” Kat says, tears flooding her eyes. “She just died in her mother’s arms in the pediatric unit.”

“Oh no,” I say softly, my heart dropping into my toes.

“Her parents came to Colby’s room to thank him for what he did to try to save her.

He wasn’t conscious so they thanked my parents.

” Tears are streaming out of Kat’s eyes and down her cheeks.

“They said they were grateful to my brother for giving them the chance to hold their little angel one last time and say goodbye. Oh my God, it ripped everyone’s heart out, Josh.

All of us were crying, even Ryan, and he never cries. ”

I nod, incapable of speaking.

Kat inhales sharply again and suddenly clamps her hand to her mouth. “Shit,” she mumbles. She leaps out of her chair and sprints to the bathroom across the hall, her body jerking with loud heaves as she runs.

What the fuck? Kat’s puking again ? I’ve never seen someone react to grief by puking before—and this is the second time today (the first time being in the locker room immediately after Kat talked to her mom about Colby). Does she have food poisoning?

Typhoid Joe coughs loudly again on the far side of the waiting room, jerking me out of my thoughts, and I share a “this guy’s gonna infect us all” look with the young woman sitting across from me.

After a few minutes, Kat returns from the bathroom, her face pale. “Sorry about that,” she says.

“Do you always react this way to extreme stress?” I ask.

“What way—by crying?”

“No, by barfing.”

Kat twists her mouth.

“Do you think maybe you have the stomach flu or something?” I ask.

There’s a long beat. Kat takes a deep breath and flaps her lips on her exhale.

“Shit,” she says. She shakes her head like she knows she’s about to say something highly regrettable.

“Life is so funny. Before today, I thought I had the weight of the world on my shoulders—I really did—or, I guess, on my uterus .” She snorts to herself.

“And now, all of a sudden, my supposedly huge problem doesn’t seem like that big a deal. ”

Wait. Did Kat just say she thought she had the weight of the world on her uterus? I open and close my mouth, but I’m too freaked out to link coherent words together. Does that mean . . ?

Kat levels me with a firm gaze. “Yeah, I’m pregnant, Josh,” she says evenly.

The room warps. I can’t breathe. No . Blood rushes into my ears in a loud whoosh.

“I’m sorry to tell you so bluntly, but there’s really no other way.” She clears her throat. “I’m pregnant with your accidental Faraday.” She shakes both fists in the air in mocking celebration. “ Yay .”

There’s got to be some mistake. Kat said she was on the pill. Holy fucking shit, Kat said she was on the fucking pill !

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Kat continues calmly. “I swear to God, Josh, this isn’t a case of a ‘gold digger’ trying to ‘trap’ you. It was a complete accident—an honest mistake.”

My heart is palpitating wildly. I clutch my chest. I feel like I’m having a heart attack.

“I missed a pill one of the days we were in Vegas,” she continues, “but only because the days and nights blurred together so much while we were there—remember that? And the minute I realized I’d messed up, I immediately took the missing pill.

And I really thought everything was okay—I really did, Josh—but just to be sure, I took a pregnancy test a few days after I got home and it was negative, so I figured we were in the clear.

” She grimaces. “But then I started feeling sick and my nipples were sore and then I barfed out of nowhere so I took another test, and lo and behold...” She exhales loudly and shrugs.

“I’m rambling—sorry. The bottom line is I’m pregnant with your mighty spawn and I didn’t do it on purpose—I swear to God on a stack of bibles—and I’m really, really sorry. ”

I feel like I’m gonna hurl. This seriously can’t be happening.

“I’m not looking to trap you into anything,” Kat says, her blue eyes flickering with obvious anxiety. “Nothing needs to change between us. We’ll just, you know, keep doing what we’re doing—and, at some point, we’ll, you know, happen to have a baby together.”

I open and shut my mouth, willing myself to speak, but nothing comes out. That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say in my life. Nothing needs to change? We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing and one day we’ll happen to have a baby? Did she really just say that to me? Is she high?

Typhoid Joe begins coughing and sniffling loudly and I look at the guy, willing him to keel over and fucking die.

Shit. This can’t be happening.

I stare at the toddler sitting across from me for a moment.

Kat’s growing one of those inside her body—and it’s a Faraday ?

I run my hands through my hair. This is a fucking nightmare—the one thing I was never supposed to do.

Oh my God. How many times did Dad tell me not to make a Faraday unworthy of my name and bank account?

A Faraday has to be planned . A Faraday has to be on purpose .

“If you’re not careful, you’ll wind up having a crazy-ass kid like Jonas with some gold digger you don’t give two shits about,” my father used to say.

Kat clears her throat. “So are you gonna say something or what?”

The room is closing in on me. I can’t breathe.

I open my mouth and close it, yet again.

Fuck . How many times did my dad make me swear I’d never bring an accidental Faraday into the world?

How many times did he fill me with the fear of God about some scheming gold digger using a baby to trap me into making her a part of our “empire”?

Kat shakes her head, obviously annoyed by my silence. “Say something,” she says softly. But when I don’t speak, her entire body stiffens with defiance. “I’m not gonna get an abortion, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I don’t know what in my facial expression made Kat think I was about to ask her for an abortion—because I wasn’t. I went to St. Francis Academy growing up, for fuck’s sake. Some things are just too deeply ingrained to change.

“Say something, Josh,” Kat pleads, her eyes glistening. “You’re killing me, Smalls.”

“I...” I stammer. “I would never ask you to... get rid of it. That’s not at all what I’m thinking.”

“Then what are you thinking?”

Fuck me. I have no idea what I’m thinking, other than “How the fuck did this happen to me?” Every single fuck of my life, without exception, from minute one, I’ve practiced safe sex. Kat’s the first woman I’ve ever fucked without a rubber— ever —and now she’s pregnant ?

“Hey, look on the bright side,” Kat says. “It’s still early yet. The pregnancy might not stick.”

“What do you mean?” I ask dumbly.

“There’s a relatively high chance of miscarriage during the first trimester,” she says, shrugging her drooping shoulders. “Especially, I’d assume, when you ply the poor little thing with booze, pot, and blinding orgasms on a Sybian.”

I put my head in my hands. Holy shit. This is a nightmare.

I can’t believe she forgot to take her pill.

I trusted her and she totally blew it. All of a sudden, I can hear my dad’s voice as surely as if he were standing an inch away from me, pressing his lips against my ear.

I’ll get the last laugh on that gold digger’s ass and disown you faster than she can demand a paternity test.

“You’re sure it’s mine?” I blurt.

Kat clenches her jaw. “I’m sure.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just meant... how far along are you? That’s what I meant to ask. I know you were with Cameron the week before me, so...” I abruptly shut my mouth. Oh shit. She looks like she’s about to stab me.

“It’s yours, Josh.” Her eye twitches. “That was a low blow.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, my heart exploding. “That came out wrong.” I cover my ears with my palms. I can’t stop hearing my father’s voice screaming at me.

The toddler in the waiting room shouts something to his mother about wanting a box of raisins and she gently shushes him. Oh shit. I’m gonna have a kid who screams about raisins in a hospital waiting room?

When my gaze returns to Kat, she’s looking at me with steely eyes. “Your father really did a number on you, didn’t he?” she says.

I can’t reply.

“So are you gonna say something besides asking me if it’s yours?” Kat asks. “Because if not, I’m gonna head back into Colby’s room and be with my family.”

I swallow hard. “How far along are you?” I ask. “That’s all I meant to ask, Kat. I wasn’t implying...” I trail off.