Page 22 of Absolute Certainty
“Oh, shit. Yeah, his work is fucking deep. Ethan, Dec, and I watchedCutstogether, and all three of us were in tears.”
Sahar agreed. “Mate, I watched it Sunday night and straight up wept.”
“He’s a really good guy, too. I’ve hung out with him a few times, in large gatherings, sure, but he’s down-to-earth and mellow. There’s not a pretentious or fake bone in his body. Plus, Patrick, the other guy who wroteCutsis a fucking ace. I know him a bit better, and he and Jay have been best friends since they were really young.”
These very words coming from Sam made something flurry inside of Sahar’s chest. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but it mattered to her that both Sam and Ethan respected Jay. It was important for her to hear that he was indeed a good person because it meant that maybe she wasn’t awful at reading people.
Plus, she liked Jay a lot. She was growing to care about his friendship, his opinion, and his company, too. Something else poked her heart—a barely there hint of an emotion she couldn’t quite translate, but she liked it. Whatever it was, it felt…safe.
Sahar brushed her fingers along her jeans and then rose from the chair she’d been sitting on. “It makes me happy to hear that. That’s the vibe I get from him as well.”
Sam smiled. “I’ll see you out there.”
Sahar left the room and went back to the dressing room she shared with Willa. Ethan was leaning against the vanity, eyes fixed on his girl, who was fully in costume now.
He spotted Sahar, smiled, pressed a kiss on Willa’s head, then walked out, patting Sahar’s shoulder on his way out.
“How’d the live go? I meant to watch, but Anna called me, so I got sidetracked talking to her, and then Ethan came in.” Anna was Willa’s sister-in-law.
Sahar shut their door and then moved to the wardrobe. She took her first costume for Jane out. “Delightful. Dec got into the chat. He called Ethan out about missing you,” she said, wiggling out of her jeans to change into the first layer of pantyhose.
“Ha! Ethan was just telling me.”
“I can’t stand how adorable you two are.”
Willa scrunched her nose. “He’s the best.”
Sahar proceeded to add another layer of pantyhose. “You deserve it all, babe.”
“So do you,” Willa returned. “Please tell me you know that?”
Sahar shrugged, reaching for the third pair of pantyhose after aligning the second. She wasn’t sure what she deserved these days. But she wanted it. All the romance novels she read, the attempts she’d made at finding love—she wanted it more than anything. She was a bloody hopeless romantic through and through, but too damn unlucky to experience it for herself.
Was she solely meant to read about it?
She’d told Willa that she was swearing off men, and this time, she meant it. Sahar could no longer dive deep into something she wasn’t one thousand percent sure about. She couldn’t give her heart freely anymore—it was too fragile and fractured now—the next person could be her undoing.
She couldn’t survive another heartbreak, andthatshe was sure about.
6
SAHAR
The Tony Awards were here, and the most exciting part of the day was sharing the experience with her favorite people: the brilliant cast that had become her chosen family, and her older sister, Amina, visiting from London.
They’d just finished the day’s show, where their performance of the titular “Midnights at Pemberley” track was recorded to air during the awards.
Back in their dressing room with some time to kill, Willa and Amina were talking about how they both sworn they’d never date someone they worked with, but their self-made rules went down the drain the second they fell in love with their current partners.
Sahar looked at her phone, staring at the text that had come in from Jay earlier in the day.Good luck today!
Since it was Father’s Day, she assumed that he’d be with his daughter, and she wouldn’t be seeing him at the coffee shop. What she hadn’t considered was that he’d take the time to acknowledge her Tony nomination.
Sighing, she looked up at Amina and Willa. “Do you sayHappy Father’s Day to someone who isn’t your dad but does have a kid?”
“We said it to Sam,” Willa said.
“Yeah, but that’s Sam.”
