Page 144 of Absolute Certainty
Eloise nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! And in the morning, can you teach me how to playZelda? Daddy says you’re better than him.”
“I sure can! I’ve played both games all the way through twice.”
“Twice?” Eloise asked.
Sahar nodded, taking another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “Twice,” she confirmed.
“Whoa.”
“Told you she was the oneto help,” Jay repeated.
Eloise slid her empty ice cream bowl in front of him. “All done!”
“Put it in the dishwasher, please. Then go get ready for bed, and I’ll come give you my phone, so you can talk to your mom.”
Eloise hopped off the stool and took the bowl with her.
“Goodnight, Sahar,” she said.
Sahar gave her a big smile. “Sweet dreams. See you tomorrow.”
“I’m so excited I don’t know how I’m going to sleep,” she muttered on her way out of the kitchen.
“I’m going to die. I can’t handle how cute she is,” Sahar added.
Moving across the island, Jay stood next to her and leaned against the marble countertop. She took a spoonful of ice cream and brought it to his mouth. He licked.
“Would you mind getting me a towel, so I can quickly shower while you tuck her in?”
“The only thing I’d mind is if you said you wanted to leave.”
“Nope,” she confirmed, kissing the tip of his nose, her lips cool from the dessert.
Sahar gave her last bite of ice cream to him, pressed her lips to his mouth, then got off the stool. She placed her bowl right next to Eloise’s in the dishwasher, and his heart fucking levitated again.
It was the little things—two bowls next to each other, Sahar’s sneakers right next to his by the front door, his zip-up black hoodie draped over her shoulders—that was what his world would look like from now on. Pieces of her fusing with parts of him.
Jay walked over to Eloise’s room, where she was sitting up in her bed, FaceTiming Maya, and then stepped out to give Sahar a clean towel. He lingered in the bathroom for a bit and kissed her, trying to grasp that this was indeed his new reality and not a perfect dream he refused to wake up from.
When he went back into Eloise’s room, she was already underneath the covers. “Mommy says she’s happy I like your pretty friend.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed enthusiastically.
Smiling at her, Jay kneeled beside her bed. “Wanna talk to me about why you got upset earlier today as I was leaving grandma’s?”
“It’s okay, Daddy. I feel better now.”
He brushed the back of his fingers along her cheek. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, but I don’t like knowing that something was bothering you. Did you really think I’d go to the beach without you?”
She released a somber little sigh. “Yeah, and um, I heard Aunt Lexie say that it was August, and I got sad because I’m leaving soon.”
“Sweetheart, I need you to first know that I would never break my promises to you.”
Nodding, she whispered, “The summer’s almost over.”
Jay sighed, everything in him twisted and coiled. “I know.”
