Page 7 of The Dating Pact

We’re still on for tonight, right?

I texted him back immediately.

Of course!

Meet you at 7 at your place?

Jude

See you then.

THREE

JUDE

Ididn’t remember exactly when I’d met Brooke, but it was a few years ago, when she started appearing at the farmers market, selling veggies from her co-op. Mira had actually met her first, striking up a friendship, but it was only after my wife had died that Brooke and I grew close.

She’d found me one day, crying in my car—couldn’t recall why or when, though obviously, it was not a good day for me—and without asking, she hopped into my passenger seat and sat with me for a while in silence, handing me tissues, lending me strength simply by being there. Once I’d settled, she’d informed me about how one of her coping strategies during her cancer treatment was marijuana. Then she’d aimed her charmingly crooked Drew Barrymore smile at me and asked, “Wanna get high?”

We’d been meeting regularly since then, talking about everything and nothing. Mira, my kids, Brooke’s journey with cancer and her terrible ex, our families, our childhoods, our hopes and dreams—we talked about it all as we shared a joint or two. And then we ate our faces off.

It was a pretty great little friendship we had.

Since it was my birthday, my in-laws insisted they take the kids so I could enjoy myself, and I easily agreed. It was important that Sebastian and Amelia remained close to Mira’s family and they grew up knowing their Syrian side. I wanted to make sure they were fluent in Arabic and could cook all of Mira’s favorite foods, because I knew she would want that if she were still here.

So, after Imagination, I dropped the kids off with Youmna and George and returned home to do all kinds of boring stuff like flipping the laundry and emptying the dishwasher. But I did it without the kids arguing and Fortnight or Peppa Pig blaring.

It was in quiet moments like this I talked out loud to Mira. I would tell her about my day, about how I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I was doing it, right?

Right, albi?

She’d first called me that nickname when we were kids. Junior year, I’d earned my license and promised George I would drive below the speed limit and never dream of touching my cell phone with his daughter in the car. I’d cruised at an even twenty-five miles per hour to a drive-thru, where we’d ordered milkshakes and fries. I’d parked in a random Staples parking lot, and we’d listened to Dave Matthews while we ate. She had a bit of chocolate on her lip, and after I kissed it off, she had called me albi.

“What’s that mean?” I’d asked.

“My heart,” she’d responded with a shy smile, and my own heart had exited my chest cavity, finding a new home in Mira’s.

I couldn’t help what came out of my idiot sixteen-year-old mouth next. I’d blurted, “I love you.”

She had merely laughed and flung her arms around my neck, whispering, “I love you too, albi.”

Then I’d buried my face in my heart’s neck and inhaled her familiar rosewater scent. I’d learned it was a perfume she borrowed from her mother, one Youmna had brought from Syria. But ever since I’d had my first whiff, I’d been addicted.

Sometimes I still smelled it.

Even four years after my heart had left me, I occasionally caught a bit of rosewater in the air, and my chest cavity ached.

Every single time.

Finished with housework, I stepped outside to the back porch, opening up a new bag of chips and homemade hummus, courtesy of Youmna. The kids and I had gone out to breakfast before Imagination, but my mother-in-law never let me in her house without feeding me. So, I really wasn’t hungry after her late lunch, although I didn’t know what else to do with myself.

A common conundrum these last few years.

I played on my phone for a while, scrolling social media, counting down the minutes until Brooke showed up.

Which, apparently, was not that long since I accidentally fell asleep on the lounger.

I woke with a start when my chair was jostled. “Huh? What?”

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