The Culmination (28 page)

Sarah twists her mouth and extends her hand, beckoning me closer.

“Would it be possible for us to be alone for a couple minutes?” I ask the nurse.

“Well, the doctor’s on her way,” the nurse says, looking at her watch. “She’s definitely gonna want to see her right away.”

“Just like two minutes? One minute? Half a minute?”

The nurse smiles. “Yeah, okay. I can do that. Two minutes.” She looks at Sarah. “Your vitals have taken a giant leap for the better, Sarah. Really, really good sign.”

The minute the nurse leaves, I kiss every inch of Sarah’s face. “I’ve got something to show you,” I mumble into her lips.

She looks at me expectantly. God, she looks so tired.

Wordlessly, I stand and pull off my T-shirt, revealing my new tattoo.

“Whoa,” she says. She surveys the tattoo inked across my chest, shoulder and bicep for a long beat, her eyes wide. “Wow,” she says simply.

I stare down at her, my heart leaping out of my chest, my chest heaving.

There’s a long beat as the Coldplay song fills the room and tells her exactly what I’m feeling—and exactly what my tattoo means.

“Closer,” she whispers.

I sit on the side of her bed, adrenaline coursing through me.

Sarah touches my chest with her fingertips, and my skin electrifies under her touch. I close my eyes as her fingers slowly trace the path of my entire tattoo—beginning over my heart and meandering to my left shoulder and down to my bicep. She strokes the tattooed bulge of my bicep for a long moment, fingering every tiny twinkling star.

“Beautiful,” she says. Her fingers return to my chest, where she pointedly touches the sun and moon inked over my heart. “Sunny and Luna,” she says, smiling weakly.

I pause, expecting her to say something more—expecting her to comment on the galaxy of stars Coldplay is singing about right now—the galaxy of stars shooting across my flesh. But she just keeps looking at the sun and moon, seemingly in awe.

She doesn’t understand? Even with the Coldplay song explaining it to her?

I grab her hand and kiss it and then press it firmly onto my bare chest, right over my heart. “The sun and moon and
stars.
The sun and moon are surrounded by
a sky full of stars
, baby—and that means
you.
Because you’re my universe.” I send her hand skimming along the newly inked stars spraying out from my chest to my shoulder. “You’re the
stars
, Sarah. You’re the galaxy.” I send her hand down to my bicep, and around, letting her fingers touch every twinkling star that whispers her name. “Listen to the words of the song, baby. You’re my
everything
.”

Chapter 24

Jonas

This right here, sitting with Sarah in the NICU, holding our babies, is all I’ve been dreaming of doing since the first moment I laid eyes on my daughters five days ago. I’m holding tiny, naked Luna against my bare chest, right against my new tattoo, and Sarah’s sitting in her wheelchair two feet away from me, singing “You Are My Sunshine,” holding tiny, naked Sunny against her bare chest, a soft blanket covering them both for modesty’s sake.

I wish I could freeze time and stay in this moment forever.

Sarah stops singing and grins at me through impending tears. “This is amazing.”

“You make a much prettier mommy than Josh,” I say.

She wipes her eyes. “Oh, I dunno. Josh is awfully pretty.”

“Don’t let Josh hear you say that. His ego is big enough.”

“Josh has been coming down here a lot, huh?”

I nod. “He’s practically lived down here, along with your mom. I’m sure the girls think their parents are Josh and Gloria.”

“My mom was in rare form last night, wasn’t she?”

Shortly after I showed Sarah my new tattoo yesterday, she drifted off to sleep again—and I thought Gloria was going to hurl an axe into my back for keeping her out of the room while Sarah was fully conscious. But, thankfully for my health, about three hours later, Sarah awoke again, that time even stronger and rosier than before, and it was clear to everyone she was on the mend for good.

“I didn’t know there was yet another level to your mom’s ugly cry. I thought I’d seen the highest level after the bathroom incident.”

Sarah shrugs. “The woman’s passionate.”

There’s a beat as Sarah and I canoodle our respective babies.

“What about middle names? Did you decide those yet?” Sarah asks.

“No, I was waiting for you. What do you think?”

She purses her lips. “Maybe Sunshine Glory—in honor of my mom? Total hippie name. Might as well go full-on Seattle hippie-dippie.”

“Your mom will have herself another ugly cry over that, I’m sure. And Luna?”

“That one’s easy. Luna Graciela. After your mom.”

I bite my lip and nod. She’s right. That’s an easy one.

“Have you been okay, Jonas? I mean, I know you haven’t been
okay.
But have you been really, really bad while I’ve been out?”

Of course, I’ve been really, really bad—wrecked beyond anything she could possibly imagine—but she doesn’t need to know that. “Yeah, I’ve been okay. I had the girls. They helped keep me strong.” Actually, now that I just said that, I think it’s true.

She nods. “Did you come down to the NICU a lot?”

I shake my head. “Not nearly as much as Josh and Kat and your mom. I’ve been sitting by your beside probably, oh, twenty-two hours a day.”

She makes a sympathetic face.

“They only let one visitor in the SICU at a time, so, occasionally, I had to give up my seat to your mom or Kat. And that’s when I’d come down here with Josh. Or to the tattoo parlor down the street.” I grin.

She gazes at Luna, curled up in a little ball over my chest, right over the sun and moon emblazoned on my skin. “You’re an amazing person, Jonas. A lesser man would have been broken by everything you’ve been through.”

I pause. “I
was
broken.”

“No, you weren’t. You were
sprained.
That’s the thing that amazes me. You never break. You’re so strong.” She bites her lip. “And sweet. And good.” Her face contorts with emotion. “All I’ve ever wanted is to make you happy, Jonas—to make your life
easier
.” Her eyes well with tears. “To fix that incredible sadness in your eyes.”

“You did.”

She’s overcome. She doesn’t reply.

“See?” I widen my eyes. “Happy eyes.”

She grins, but a lone tear tracks down her cheek.

“As long as you’re healthy and by my side and our girls are okay, I’ll never have sad eyes again. I promise.”

Her face is turning red with emotion. “I just wish things didn’t have to be so hard for you all the time.”

I scoff. “Nothing worth having is easy.”

“Plato?”

“No. Josh Faraday.”

She chuckles. “Your brother really is a wise and powerful man, isn’t he?”

“Ssh. You never know when he might be lurking somewhere.”

Her face turns earnest. “So you’re good, then? You don’t need to talk about anything?”

I look down at Luna. “I’m good.”

“Nothing at all you need to work through? Get out of your system? That night was pretty freaking horrible.”

I exhale and shake my head. “I don’t want to think about that night ever again—except to remind myself, if I’m ever stupid enough to need reminding, that I’m the luckiest bastard in the whole world.”

She nods and looks back down at Sunny in her arms.

A lump is rising in my throat, but I swallow it down.

I thought I knew what love was before this moment.

I thought I knew what happiness was.

But I was a fucking fool.

“Let’s switch, love,” Sarah says. “I wanna hold Luna for a bit.”

I call a nurse over and she helps us make the switch.

I sit back down in my chair with Sunny nuzzled up to my bare chest.

“Gracie never felt quite like this,” Sarah says. “Gracie always felt
human
. These two feel like monkeys. Literally. Hairless monkeys.” She touches the top of Luna’s head. “Oooo ooo eee eee,” she says softly.

I raise my eyebrows. “What’s that?”

“I’m speaking to her in her native tongue.” She grins.

That lump rises in my throat again, but I stuff it down. This right here is the ultimate peak of happiness—the divine original form of love-ness.

“What are you thinking about, love? Your face is priceless right now.”

I bite my lip. My thoughts are too big for words.

“Man, I’d love to be inside your head right now, love. I bet it’s like the Fourth of July in there right now—all philosophical and shit.”

“Hey, language.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m sure Kat will whip us both into shape.”

“Who knew the Party Girl would become such a butt-kicker? You know what Kat told me the other day? She and Josh want to have
four
kids.”

“
Four
?”

“Yep. Crazy. As long as I’ve known her, Kat’s always said she didn’t want kids at all. And now look at her. She’s a barfing, baby-makin’ machine.”

We’re both quiet for a moment.

“You just never know where life’s gonna take you, huh?” I finally say.

“True dat,” Sarah says. She looks down at Luna against her chest. “I feel this overwhelming maternal instinct kicking in. It’s the craziest feeling. Like if anyone ever tries to hurt my two little baby-monkeys, this momma bear would go Latina on their ass so fast, they wouldn’t even have time to notice all the mixed metaphors in that sentence.”

I laugh.

She sighs. “Oh, Jonas. Never in a million years did I think things would turn out this way when that cocky application of yours landed in my inbox.”

I smile at her.

“What are you thinking, love? Your face is just so damned adorable.”

I pause, considering. I’ve thought a thousand things since we first sat down to cuddle our babies together for the first time. But I think I can summarize my thoughts pretty succinctly, actually. “I’m thinking, ‘I’m so happy.’”

Sarah beams a smile at me. “That’s all any human could ever hope for.”

Chapter 25

Jonas

I squeeze Sarah’s hand. “Okay, no problem,” I say to Dr. Johnston, even though I want to blurt, “Motherfucker!”

We’re sitting in Sarah’s hospital room, getting instructions from Dr. Johnston before Sarah’s imminent discharge from the hospital, and the good doctor has just dropped an atomic bomb: there shall be no sex in the Faraday household for a solid six to eight weeks.

“There’s a serious risk of infection,” the doctor explains further. “And, of course, you need time to heal internally.”

“Okay, got it,” Sarah says.

I look at Sarah, expecting her to catch my eye and nonverbally acknowledge the horror of our shared plight, but she doesn’t. She just keeps looking at Dr. Johnston like they’re having a conversation about the weather.

“Okay,” the doctor says, looking down at Sarah’s medical file. “As far as pain meds, how has the Vicodin been working for you? Do you want to keep—”

“So, Doctor,” I interrupt. “Sorry. Excuse me. Can we just revisit the prior topic for a brief moment?”

The doctor raises her eyebrows. “Sure.”

“When you say ‘no sex,’ can you be a little bit more specific, please?”

There’s a beat.

“No intercourse.”

“No penetration?”

“Right.”

“Of any kind?”

The doctor nods.

“Including fingers?”

“
Jonas
,” Sarah says softly, her face turning bright red.

The doctor parts her lips, but she doesn’t speak for an awkward beat. “Correct. No penetration of any kind whatsoever.”

“But then oral sex is perfectly fine?”

“
Jonas
.”

“What? We’re all adults here, right, Doctor? I just want to be really clear on what’s allowed and what’s not. Gotta keep my baby safe... and
happy
at all times.”

The doctor’s trying her damnedest to maintain her professional demeanor, but there’s no mistaking the bloom rising in her cheeks. “Well, Jonas,” she says, clearing her throat, “I can honestly say no one has ever asked me this question before.” She tries unsuccessfully to stifle her smile. “With regard to oral sex, you can do as you please from a medical standpoint—there’s no risk of a complication—but you should know that Sarah’s gonna be bleeding pretty heavily for a solid six to seven weeks, so...”

I continue staring at Dr. Johnston, completely unfazed, waiting for her to finish her sentence. When she doesn’t, her implication becomes abundantly clear: any normal man would choose to wait six to eight weeks to perform oral sex on his smoking hot wife, rather than earn his red wings—
even when
no other form of sex is allowed for the entire six weeks.
Huh. Would that
really
be the preference of the average, normal man? Well, if so, then normal men are just a bunch of fucking pussies.

“So,” the doctor finally says, filling the awkward silence. “I suppose it would be up to you. There’s no medical reason why you couldn’t do it, if you really wanted to.”

“Excellent,” I say, relief and elation flooding me. “Glad I asked, then.”

I’m tempted to wink, but I resist. I might be an asshole, but I’m not a total douche. I look over at Sarah, expecting to share a secret, celebratory look with her, but she’s covering her face with her hands, utterly mortified.

Dr. Johnston laughs. “Oh, come on, Sarah. Buck up. I’d count myself a lucky girl if I were you.”

Chapter 26

Jonas

Two Weeks Without Any Form of Sex Whatsoever

(Unless You Count Jacking Off as a Form of Sex)

aka Oh My Fucking God

It’s the dark of night.

Sarah moans next to me in the bed.

I jolt upright, wrenched from a sex dream. “Sarah?” My heart is in my throat. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “I’ve just got to pump again. My boobs are rock hard. Ouch.”

A wave of relief floods me. Sarah’s made great strides in her healing since we came home from the hospital two weeks ago, but I still hold my breath every time she shows even the slightest hint of distress or discomfort.