Chapter Sixteen
“. . . irresponsible . . . could’ve gotten seriously hurt . . . concussions are not a joke, Ashira . . .”
He is in a mood. It’s been a full ten minutes since we’ve gotten into his car and he’s still ranting and raving about how I shouldn’t have gotten inside the ring, and how lucky I am that I didn’t wind up paralyzed.
I decide to cut him off at the twelve-minute mark with the question that I’ve wondered for fifteen years. “Why did you stop being Orthodox?”
He glances at me, clearly caught off guard, and his chest rises and falls as he draws a long breath. “I suppose you want the long version?”
“I’ll settle for both.”
He smirks and shakes his head. “The short version is that I wanted to give back to the country that took my mother in as a citizen, and it was nearly impossible to be Orthodox in that setting.”
“Okay.” I nod. “And the long version?”
“Is a lot more complicated.” He sighs. “You know I had a hard time in school being a Jew of Color.”
“Yes.”
“And that definitely laid some of the groundwork for wanting to explore a different world. I wanted to feel that sense of belonging.”
I gaze at his strong, chiseled profile. “And did it?”
“Yes and no. On one hand, there’s a tight brotherhood when it comes to your team members and in the SEAL community. But on the other hand, I was still the only Jew. I was still . . . ‘other’.”
“What’s that like?” Growing up in Brooklyn, surrounded by people who look like me, I don’t know how that feels.
My mother used to describe her childhood in Minnesota, saying how Jews stood out like sore thumbs, how her brother had pennies thrown at him in public school, how she’d been cursed at walking beside her family outside the synagogue, and so forth. But I never experienced that.
“Being ‘other’?” he says, to which I nod.
“It’s like walking into a room and having all eyes turn on you, judging your every move.
Your every action is dissected through the lens of what you look like rather than the content of your character.
And ultimately no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be enough for either the Black community or the Jewish one. ”
My heart breaks. It’s almost incomprehensible to me. How could one of the most—no, the most decent person never feel enough?
I blink. When did I realize that Caleb is the most decent person I know?
“I haven’t walked in your shoes, so I know it’s easy of me to say this.” I pause. “But maybe the acceptance and the sense of belonging that you need, that we all need, isn’t necessarily found in one community or the other, but in the handful of people who love you best.”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “You’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
“No, that would be me.”
I laugh and accidentally snort. “Anyway. Would you like to know more about Rivka?”
“Who?”
“Rivka Stareshefsky. Your date for Saturday night.”
“Jesus,” he says, punching the defroster button. “Not this again. I told you I’m not interested in dating a child.”
“Anyone over eighteen is a legal adult,” I protest.
“Anyone under thirty is a child to me.”
“That seems extreme.” I cross my arms. “I’m the matchmaker here. Where’s your trust?”
“Non-existent. Speaking of which, how’s your diet and exercising coming along?” he says.
“A lot better than your dating life. Some of us take our commitments seriously.” Much of it has to do with the fact that he rings my doorbell five days a week to help train me for the marathon.
He also texts every other day asking what I had for breakfast, or how much sleep had I gotten, and sends the most boring articles relating to health.
I tend to read those at bedtime since they put me to sleep.
He smirks a little and rubs his jaw. “I guess that’s fair.”
Does he hate dating so much? Or is it really because of the age gap? For all he knows, she could be twenty-eight or twenty-nine. I don’t understand why he’s being so difficult.
Then an image of the night we were in his bedroom flashes across my mind. The way his eyes pierced into mine, and how the space between us shrunk into almost nothingness.
But then I think of my mother and the company we built together.
The matches we made, the happiness we brought to so many people.
The countless hours of coaching and therapy.
Blue Moon Basherts is my mother’s legacy and I’m not going to throw that down the drain because I have a little chemistry between my VIP client.
I clear my throat. “Caleb, you’re my only hope. Without you, I lose my mother’s business.”
“No pressure or anything,” he mutters under his breath.
“It’s okay, I understand.” I heave a dramatic sigh and lean on the center console. I inhale his scent of shampoo and bodywash. “I’m used to men letting me down. My father, as you know, abandoned me as a child.”
“Stop it,” he says, glancing at me. “I know what you’re doing.”
“My mother is dead,” I continue, “and I’m all alone in the world.”
He shakes his head. “Not falling for it.”
“I’m a sad, poor orphan girl,” I say as he breaks at a red light. He turns to me and I gaze into his eyes, channeling sad, poor orphan girl energy.
“You’re a thorn in my side is what you are.”
“Yes, I understand.” I emit a pretty little sigh and blink my eyelashes at him. Maybe this is the cute thing?
“Stop looking at me like that,” he groans, turning away.
Yup. Definitely the cute thing.
“Like what?” I say innocently.
“Like a cute, poor orphan girl.”
“Oh.” I nod. “I’m sorry.” The light turns green and Caleb lets out a long breath. “You can drop me off anywhere around here,” I say.
“Here?” He glances at me. “Why?”
“This is as good a place as any to practice being homeless. I need to know what to expect, after all.”
“Tinsel, I swear . . .” He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying not to laugh.
“I hope you’ll come and visit me sometime. Provided, of course, that I find a cardboard box large enough to entertain.”
He snorts a laugh, and then exhales a long, resigned sigh. “Okay, okay. I’ll go on the date.” He glances at me. “Happy now?”
“Hey, you’re the one who signed up to do this in the first place, remember?”
“I know,” he mutters, switching lanes. “It’s my own doing. I can’t help myself. When you look at me with those big blue eyes of yours, I turn into a raging idiot.”
Something like sunshine fills my body, and a giant, goofy grin spreads across my face.
The idea that I have the capacity to turn Caleb Kahn—one the most powerful, not to mention, desired men in Brooklyn—into a “raging idiot” seems utterly ridiculous.
And yet, the evidence is there. I start to tally it up like a prosecutor convincing a jury.
First, he agreed to this matchmaking scheme.
Then he woke up early one Sunday morning to drop off groceries for me.
He gave me a key to his house to set up the Chanukah mixer and he’s yet to ask for it back.
The email printout of our conversation that he keeps in his nightstand.
The “cute” thing. And he did once call me gorgeous.
But he also said I was like a little sister to him.
I think back to the night of the Chanukah party when we were in his bedroom again. He didn’t look at me like I was a little sister to him then. He looked at me like I was a woman. Like I was a woman and he was a man, and that he wanted nothing more in that moment than to consume me.
I shiver.
“Are you cold?” he says, and promptly raises the heat.
“No,” I squeal, and feel my face turn red. Something is seriously wrong with me.
I stare straight ahead as he drives. People tend to see what they want to see. After eight years of matchmaking and counseling couples, there’s no doubt in my mind about that. So the real question is, do I want Caleb to desire me?
I blush. The answer is resoundingly—though shamefully—yes.
Let’s suppose for a moment that he does desire me—is that why he’s dragging his feet when it comes to going on dates? But if he did like me, wouldn’t he have said something by now? I’m so confused. I wish I could just give him a truth serum and ask him.
I wish my mother was here. She’d know what to do. And thinking of her brings me back to the present and the stakes that are involved. No man is worth losing my mother’s legacy.
I give myself a mental slap and clear my throat. I am Caleb’s matchmaker, his dating handler, and nothing more. Speaking of which. “Give me your phone,” I say, holding out my hand.
“What for?”
“I need to put the date in your calendar.”
He sighs and removes his phone from his coat pocket. I try to take it, but he moves it out of my reach. “Hold on,” he says, glancing at me. “I have to do face recognition.”
“That’s dangerous to do when you’re driving. Just tell me the code.”
“No,” he says tightly, keeping a firm grip on his phone. Why is he acting so weird?
“Do you actually think I’m going to steal from you?” I ask, slightly horrified.
“Of course not.” His eyebrows pinch together. “Besides, I want you to take my money.”
I roll my eyes. “Your phone, sir.”
“Patience. I’ll do it at the next red light.”
“You literally just merged onto the interstate,” I point out.
“Do you want music or radio?”
“Neither, I want your phone.”
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“I could ask the same of you. Now hand it over.”
“If I give you my phone,” he says slowly, staring straight ahead, “and tell you the code, you have to promise me not to talk about it.”
“The code?” I ask, confused.
He nods. “Promise me you won’t ask questions.”
I glance at him, somewhat concerned. Could he have had a concussion from all those hits? Because I can’t for the life of me understand why a row of numbers would be something I’d have to promise not to talk about.
“You have my word.”
“Okay.” He hands the phone to me, then takes a deep breath as if to compose himself.
“Ready whenever you are,” I say.
He nods. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
After another long pause, I say, “Caleb—”
“060295.”