Page 110 of Absolute Certainty
“I wanted you to be the one to choose the ending. It wouldn’t feel right to me if it wasn’t exactly how you pictured it. It’s why I kept lagging. Why I wanted us to talk.”
A loud guffaw burst from her lips. “So, you lured me here under false pretenses?”
“I lured you here to give you the ending you want.”
The amusement onher face was coupled with another look he couldn’t quite place.
Fuck.He wanted to hold her again, envelope her in his arms, and stay like that for a few hours, letting the sweet, citrusy scent of her perfume permeate itself into his skin. What if he just did it? She said she wasn’t ready, though. The fact that she still might want more of him at some point needed to be enough for the moment.
Blinking, Jay tried to unfocus his gaze from her, but their eyes were locked in a conversation his mind hadn’t caught up to yet.
She handed him his laptop; he took it, shut it off, and set it down beside him on the couch.
Divert. Keep talking about Henry and Katherine. Concentrate on them.
He had to tell her how much all of this meant to him, how her vision had been his saving grace—the lifeline to this story. “I don’t know if anything will come from these rewrites. Quite frankly, I don’t have much hope in me that it’ll go far. But the last few weeks of working on this with you—the whole writing process,” he paused, eyes still holding hers. “It’s been rewarding again because ofyou. I don’t know how I would’ve pulled myself out of this rut if you didn’t care about these characters the way that you do.”
Sahar swallowed. Inching her hand forward, she slid her fingers toward his and laced them together. “I like your words, Jay, and your vision,” she added softly. “I know I joke about how they make me sad, but I think we need to feel the heavier emotions to appreciate the happier ones more intimately. I think—no, Iknow—that people will resonate with these characters. They’ll remember them.”
Without thinking, he brought her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her knuckles, entranced by the softness of her skin.
Maybe someday he’d experience the crushing weight of burnout robbing him of his breath again. He knew that this industry only ever gave in small measures. He once had a teacher tell the whole class that when you love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life. But what she’d failed to understand was that when your passion morphed into deadlines and expectations, love was sometimes left on the back burner.
Jay loved writing, and he loved directing, but he was so fucking tired of fighting to make a name for himself. It was a lie to say that creative labor was for one’s own amusement because while that notion was certainly true to some degree, art was also meant to be shared. It was meant to exist outside of a single person’s mind so the world could feel a little less lonely.
A heavy downpour hit the ceiling, echoing the sound of rain throughout his entire apartment and breaking him out of his thoughts.
Lightning flashed through his living room window, and a booming roar of thunder followed. Sahar jerked in her seat. “Fuck, that was loud.”
The storm grew harsher and heavier. Reaching for his phone from the coffee table, Jay checked the weather app. It had been updated to reflect the current forecast, showing nonstop rain until three in the morning.Shit.He flipped his phone in Sahar’s direction to alert her.
She grimaced. “Oh, hell.”
He drew closer, taking her hand in his again. “Sahar, stay.Please. I’d hate for you to leave like this unless you’ll let me drive you.”
“I absolutely will not. I’d worry about you driving back.”
Taking a breath, she looked around his apartment. Her eyes landed back on his and then flicked down to where their hands rested.
“Then stay. I’ll make us dinner. We can write a bonus episode for your eyes only. Whatever you want,” he whispered.
“I can’t,” she whispered back, her voice so low he barely heard it.
“Why not?” he asked.
She didn’t respond; she merely stared at him.
He wasn’t sure how many seconds passed as the sounds of their breathing mingled with the rainfall.
A heartbeat. And then her lips parted, the words “fuck it” spilling out. In one fell swoop, Sahar’s mouth was on his. He thought he was imagining it. Soft and stunning, but no, this was real. Sahar was kissing him again. Incapable of holding back how desperately he’d wanted this, Jay kissed her right back.
He palmed her cheek, and her hands landed on his shoulders. Sahar deepened the kiss until his glasses slid down his nose, killing the frenzy.
“What happened tonot right now?” he asked, his breath still caught somewhere in his throat.
Sahar curled her lips inward. “You’ll laugh at me if I tell you.”
“Never,” he affirmed, skating his hand up and down along the thin fabric of her dress.
