“Should I answer?” he breathes.
“I don’t know, Jay. It’s up to you.”
He holds my gaze for a moment and takes a deep breath. I see him swipe his finger across. “Hello,” he says into the receiver.
“Jay?” His mom sounds surprised he picked up, and I am too.
“Yeah. It’s me,” he confirms.
There’s a slight pause. “I just wanted to say happy birthday.”
Jay glances up at me, wide-eyed, then lets out another deep sigh. “I’m surprised you remembered.”
“Of course I did. Thank you for calling Uncle Leo, he told me. Look, I won’t keep you, I just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you and I hope we can meet one day soon. There’s things to say.”
“We’ll see,” he finally says.
“I do love you, Jay. I always have, I’m so sorry I showed it so poorly, or not even at all.”
He glances at me, tears rim his eyes as I hold my hands over my mouth. “I appreciate that. This is gonna take me a bit to work through, though.”
“I understand. Take all the time you need. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Happy birthday.”
She hangs up and Jay stares at me, it takes a few solid moments before he says anything. “Did that just happen?”
I squeeze him tight and kiss the side of his head as we share a long embrace. “Jay, I’m so proud of you. Oh, my god.”
He blows out an even bigger breath than before. “I can’t believe she said any of that.”
“It was nice of her to call, not knowing if you’d answer or even talk to her.”
“I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but I agree.”
“Time will tell,” I say. “Like you’ve said before. It really will. Baby steps.”
He pauses. “Do you have any more of those cake sparklers?” he asks as I clear up our plates and put the cake back in the box and store it safely again so we can have more later.
“A whole box,” I reply. “Why?”
“They were kinda fun. I’ve never had those before, how about we light one up each and make a toast to us? I think I need one after that phone call.”
“That sounds perfect.” I find a sparkler each and sit back down, striking a match as I light them up and we watchthe flicker of each stick as they ignite. We both wave them around watching them glow like we’re kids, our laughter echoing through the air as the snow lightly falls once more.
The sparklers kind of reminds me of our love. It started with a spark and slowly grew to so much more. And now here we are. I smile at Jay as he holds his out front while he leans in to kiss me.
“You and me, for keeps,” he whispers against my mouth. I reach up to touch his chin, the gentle hiss and spark of our candles lighting the way in our little celebration.
“For keeps,” I whisper back.
EPILOGUE B
Jay
Three months later
