Page 103 of Absolute Certainty
His mind raced around the words she’d said, fighting tooth and nail with him tojust fucking tell her. Tell her you can’t hold it anymore. Tell her you want her.“Bottled up secrets,” Jay repeated, sweeping his thumb gently across her cheek. The words left his mouth before he could lasso them back in. Better this than anything else, he thought.
Her lips opened then closed again before she said, “I know the feeling.”
He was about to lose his fucking mind.What feeling? Tell me. Please.Choosing his response carefully, Jay settled on, “What are you bottling up, sunshine?”
Sahar tried to smile, but the light in her eyes was still switched off.
“At the moment? Or in general?”
Jay wanted all of it—every part of her, every secret, every confession. He’d give anything. “Let’s go with ‘at the moment.’ Start small.”
She let out a low, honest laugh. It wasn’t the reaction he was expecting, but he’d take it. Bottle it up. Sanctify it. With her other hand, she traced idle circles around her knee. Jay’s eyes trailed there, aching to touch her. She had a bruise right underneath, and another he could see near the inside of her thigh. He wanted to press his mouth to them. He wanted to relieve all her aches.
If only she hadn’t been injured. If only she still wanted him.
“What I’m bottling up at the moment might be even bigger than the general. I don’t know why I asked forthe specificity. I made it worse for myself.”
He stayed quiet, trailing his fingers to her jaw.
You do it then,his heart begged.Tell her everything.
“What if I tell you something?”
Sahar moved her head up and down. “I’d like that.”
“I’ve felt what he has. Every time you’ve walked into the coffee shop,” Jay confessed. “Every time I see you. Every message you send. I didn’t before, but I know how Henry feels now.”
There, it was out there.He’d already told her that he’d wanted her for a long time, but this confession felt bigger, more intimate.
Jay couldn’t read the expression on her face.
“You say that now,” she uttered suddenly.
He blinked, unsure of what to say.No, fuck that.He’d already done the hard part.“Now, tomorrow, the next day,” he countered.
She looked like she wanted to cry. He blamed himself for it, his heartbeat waging a war inside his chest.
Time slowed for an instant, the fan from the AC unit turned back on, and white noise dispersed, filling the space between them.
Closing her eyes, he could see her fight against something—the reason for the walls bricked in front of her. The explanation for the bridges she wouldn’t let him walk over.
Sahar released a heavy sigh. “If this were a year ago, I would’ve jumped headfirst. But I can’t let myself do that now. What happened the other night, Jay, I—” An inhale, an exhale. “I like you.A lot.I’m growing to trust you in ways I’ve never trusted anybody else, and that scares me, but I… I don’t know how to move forward without mucking it all up.”
He understood her. Fully. No matter how fiercely his body demanded or how intensely he craved to know moreabout her, he would give her all that she asked for. He’d back away.
Moving his hand away from her face, he set it down against his thigh.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Sahar added. “I just…I think if anything is going to happen between us, it shouldn’t be impulsive.”
He managed to smile. “You didn’t upset me. I get it. Completely.”
Her lips curled up slowly. “Can you…can you keep holding my hand? And tell me something else about the story. Something that won’t make me feel as much?”
Jay squeezed the hand he was holding onto and thought of what he could tell her.
Shifting in his seat, he tried to get more comfortable.
“Hmm, okay, so honest to God, other thanCuts,which both Pat and I drew inspiration from our dads, I’ve never really modeled a character after someone I know in real life. Not inBeneath the Sun,definitely not inFraudulent Causes—the movie that was cut from the studio recently—and nothing in any of the stuff I’ve worked on with other friends. But you know Ramona? The woman who works at the Spirit Halloween store they go to in episode eight?”
