Chapter Four #2
“Yeah, she—” Mikey cut himself off and clapped a hand on Judah’s shoulder, jolting him out of the conversation. “Hold up. We’re probably scaring poor, pure Judah here. He’s a good yeshiva boy. He doesn’t wanna hear about hot girls or your wannabe glory days.”
“Sorry, man.” Dave’s grin suggested he was anything but. “Speaking of, how come you’re still single? I’d think girls’d be all over you.”
“No one’s good enough for this man.” Mikey wrapped his arm around Judah’s neck and pulled him into the briefest of bro hugs. He smelled cloyingly sweet, like cherry cough drops. “He needs a good girl. Let’s find him a good girl.”
“That’s really not necessary,” Judah said wryly, rubbing his fingers together in the habitual way he’d done ever since the Kellerman-Kahn wedding. It was a most annoying tic, and it was a relief no one ever asked him about it, because he still hadn’t come up with a good cover story.
“Oh, come on. There’s gotta be some eligible bachelorettes here. There are a ton of bridesmaids. Are they all married?”
“Definitely not all,” Dave said with a waggle of his bushy eyebrows, and Mikey burst out laughing.
“Oh, shit, can you imagine? Picture trying to introduce her to all the rabbis on a Pesach program.” Mikey poked Judah’s ribs with his elbow.
“God, or Tani Silver. I’ve heard he barely looks at his own wife,” Dave added with a snort.
“Okay, I think all the points have been taken.” Judah’s voice came out far stiffer than he meant for it to, and he forced himself to take a deep breath.
They were being jerks, yes, but they were right.
Physical attraction—even if it was incredibly rare for him—wasn’t a reason to pursue a girl who was clearly wrong for him in a million different ways.
How could he expect people to take him seriously professionally if they were all whispering about the woman at his side?
Who would want to hire him to lead services if they associated him with promiscuity?
Anyway, he was shomer negiah, and had been since his bar mitzvah; in what world did not touching women pair well with a woman who played Jewish Geography via her hookup history?
It didn’t. “Now, can we get to practicing or what?”
Arielle had never seen so many tears at a wedding.
First, there was that shitshow of a photo session.
Then Lauren lost it at the kabbalat panim, when Harvey came to see her and gently laid her veil over her face—not out of emotion, as Ari’d first assumed, but because she’d gotten lip gloss on her veil.
Then there was Lauren’s mom blubbering under the chuppah.
And now, Hodaya was crying because Lauren had pulled her cousin into the innermost dancing circle before pulling her.
“I did everything for her!” Hodaya sobbed as Arielle and Kira, another high school friend and somehow the only bridesmaid Ari had known beforehand, exchanged a look over her head.
They were crowded into the marble anteroom of the bathroom, where Ari and Kira had stumbled upon her only by accident when they’d snuck off to debrief the absurdity of the wedding thus far.
“I can’t believe she’d embarrass me like this! ”
“Didn’t she pull you in, like, two seconds after Noa?”
Hodaya stopped bawling long enough to give Arielle a disgusted look. “That’s not the point.”
Arielle exhaled sharply, glancing at her wrist as if there were a watch there. “Okay, well, I think we should probably get back, because the second set of dancing is about to start, and—”
“I am not going back out there,” snapped Hodaya.
Ari and Kira exchanged another look. “I hear you,” Kira said slowly, as if speaking to a fussing toddler, “but we should probably go.” They’d actually been the last two to dance with Lauren, and she’d been so tired that they’d simply dragged over a chair and done a quick cancan for her before running off to the ladies’ room.
“We’ll see you later!” Ari called back as they pushed their way out.
“Or not!” added Kira.
They burst into laughter as soon as the door closed behind them. “You know,” said Ari as they made their way back to the ballroom, “I really thought getting a head injury at a wedding while trying to save the bride from falling off a chair was the worst it got, but this one is something special.”
“Oh my God,” Kira said, eyes widening, “that was you? I’d heard Judah Klein collided with a bridesmaid at a wedding. Does he smell good? He looks like he smells good.”
“I did not sniff Judah Klein,” Ari lied. He did, in fact, smell faintly like a spring day. “And he collided into—”
A raucous cheer rose up in the crowd, cutting Ari off as a train of groomsmen ran past, reeking of alcohol.
She and Kira jumped back before they could get stomped on, then hurried back to their table for their drinks—and for Kira to drop into her husband’s lap and accept a kiss on the cheek while he scrolled through sports scores on his phone.
“What’d we miss?” Ari asked Joanna, the only other single bridesmaid, who’d grabbed a seat at their table, even though she was technically supposed to be at the next one over.
Joanna ignored her, and Ari followed her gaze to the stage and, more specifically, to Judah Klein.
She huffed out a sigh. “Not much, I guess? Just lots of Judah singing.”
To her surprise, Joanna whipped her head around and narrowed her eyes at Ari. “I saw you flirting with him. After the pictures.”
“I…” Ari blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You were flirting with him,” Joanna said matter-of-factly, “and I really don’t think that’s cool to do at your friend’s wedding. Lauren doesn’t think so either.”
Ari wished she had a Q-tip right then, because clearly something was wrong with her ears. “I’m sorry, Lauren doesn’t—”
“Lauren doesn’t what?”
Ari looked up to see the bride coming toward them, a slightly pained smile on her face.
Her dress clearly weighed about a zillion pounds, and Ari couldn’t even imagine the torture of walking around in it to greet all the guests, let alone dancing in it.
“Nothing,” Ari said quickly, moving in to give Lauren a hug, then thinking better of it; if they really had been talking shit about her, the last thing she wanted to do was cozy up.
This wedding was turning into a Survival Mode kind of situation, and she just had to keep her head down and stick it out for another hour or two.
“I was just telling Arielle that some people are off-limits for flirting during weddings,” Joanna reported, beaming as if she’d aced a pop quiz. “I mean, right? Judah’s here to focus on the bride and groom.”
“Okay, first of all,” Ari snapped, then stopped because she literally had no idea where to begin in this batshit conversation. Suddenly, a delightfully wicked thought came to mind, and she went with it instead. “I’m allowed to flirt with my boyfriend anywhere.”
“Your what?” Joanna and Lauren demanded in a chorus. It was an incredibly satisfying moment, and she waited for one of them to point out that he was married so she could laugh and say she was only kidding, but the shock didn’t abate from either of their faces.
Either it was a well-kept secret, or he really was as single as she was.
Weird.
Well, that would make this even more fun.
“Yeah, for a couple of months now,” she lied casually, recalling how Kira had heard about the collision at Bella’s wedding and likely wasn’t the only one. “We literally crashed into each other at a wedding, and it was love at first bump. Isn’t that cute?”
The looks on their faces were priceless, especially when Ari caught Judah’s eye and waved.
He was so utterly confused that he actually waved back.
Ari was so surprised she nearly burst out laughing right then and there, but she held it in long enough to blow him a kiss …
and let it out when his eyes widened and he stumbled over a cord.
She was definitely gonna pay for that the next time they bumped into each other—literally or otherwise—but for now? Totally worth it.
Joanna and Lauren muttered something about distractions and spotlight stealing as they moved away from her toward the stage, and Ari pulled out her phone and opened a text to Liana.
Ari: Trust me, Lee. I am not winning bridesmaid of the year.