Chapter Twenty-Four
“Lee!” Arielle looked around Aliza’s dining room in awe at how thoroughly the space had been transformed for Liana’s engagement party before descending upon her best friend with a hug. “Wow, Aliza seriously outdid herself.”
“I know, right?” Liana fiddled with one of the diamond studs in her ear and smiled at a group of guests.
“I swear, only my sister could go from bed rest to throwing a stunning engagement party three weeks postpartum.” Aliza had ended up giving birth the day after Lag Ba’Omer to a beautiful little preemie named Emilia Jade (Amalia Yocheved in Hebrew).
Liana was, predictably, utterly obsessed, and declared that delaying their engagement party by several months had been totally worth it, even though it was now so close to the wedding that it had to double as her bridal shower.
Her gaze shifted to the bag in Ari’s hand. “Ooh, is that a gift for me?”
Ari snorted. “First of all, you know exactly what it is because you specifically begged me to get the asparagus steamer from your registry. But as it happens, yes, there is also a shower gift in there for you, and you can tell Gideon I say, ‘You’re welcome.’ Make sure you give a really obnoxious wink when you do it.
Or maybe I’ll just do it myself. Where is your fiancé, anyway?
Isn’t he supposed to be glued to your side at this thing? ”
“The idea of being the center of attention was giving him hives, so I sent him on a mission to help Ollie put on a tie. He’s so freaking cute with him, it makes me want to pop out his babies immediately.”
“Everything makes you want to pop out his babies immediately.”
Liana grinned. “So true.” Then her face grew serious. “Speaking of which—and remember that you can’t get mad at me because I’m the bride—I should probably tell you that I invited Judah.”
“Liana! What the hell?”
Liana shrugged helplessly. “He and Gideon have really clicked, he’s Akiva’s brother, he’s singing at my wedding, and my idiot best friend is in love with him, so I figured he might as well eat some Caesar salad and listen to our sappy speeches.”
She whacked Liana on the arm. “Can you not be so loud?” she whispered fiercely, her face filling with heat. “Especially if you’re gonna put words in my mouth? I have never used the L-word.”
“You don’t have to,” said Liana, rubbing her sleeve where Ari hit her. “And no smacking the bride. Now go talk to him.”
“No.”
“Okay, well, then stay and talk to him.”
“Wha—”
“Hey, Liana, Ari. Mazel tov.”
Ari spun slowly on her heel, and suddenly, there he was, looking obnoxiously handsome in a thin navy sweater that made his eyes look even bluer than usual, the collar of a white button-up peeking out the neckline.
He even smelled good, an unfamiliar scent she couldn’t help wondering if Mira had picked out.
“So glad you could make it,” Liana said, giving him a warm smile that made Ari scowl. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find my fiancé.”
“Subtle,” Ari muttered.
“Not really trying to be,” Liana sang back as she disappeared into the crowd of well-wishers.
And then it was the two of them, alone in the crowd. Ari waited for him to make an excuse to disappear, maybe to reclaim Mira from wherever she’d gone off to, but instead he said, “Get a drink with me?”
She shrugged and followed, because a drink sounded pretty good right then.
The room off the kitchen that held the drink table was quieter, but Ari wasn’t sure it was a positive that she could finally hear herself think. Mercifully, Judah broke the silence first.
“Seems shortsighted that there’s no grenadine. I thought she was your best friend.”
“You know brides—always thinking of themselves.”
The quirk of Judah’s mouth calmed her a little, and he poured them both plastic cups of moscato. “To Gideon and Liana,” he said as they clinked cups, and she didn’t think she was imagining that he was watching her lips as she drank. Lord knew she was watching his. And his throat. And his—
“Where’s Mira?” she blurted.
“Probably leaving me bad reviews on Yelp,” Judah said with a shrug. He cocked his head. “News travels slowly, huh?”
She blinked. “You broke up?”
“We did.” He took another sip of wine.
“When?” She cringed at the sharpness of her voice. “I mean, sorry, that’s none of my—”
“Lag Ba’Omer.”
“Lag Ba’Omer?”
“Yep.” He smiled grimly down into his glass as he swirled the wine around. “So it is, in fact, kinda your business.”
“Oh.” Judah Klein had been single for three weeks. She had no idea what to say to that. “Why?”
He looked up and pinned her with his midnight blue eyes. “Because five weeks wasn’t enough, as it turns out.”
The affection and desire mingling in his gaze made her breath catch in her throat, but she swallowed it down, letting her anger take center stage. “And yet somehow two days were?”
Judah winced, and it felt good, after everything, to finally land a hit. At least until he said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the one who specifically suggested we get with other people?”
Okay, so she had said that, but it had been at the beginning of the week, when neither of them had any idea how it would go.
It was the kind of naive thing you said when you were sure you’d get bored after a couple of days, or you expected the entire week to be nothing but making out and heavy petting.
The rules changed when you’d touched and kissed and tasted every inch of someone’s body, when you’d cooked them dinner and sung to them during a storm and held them in your arms all night.
Didn’t they?
“Yeah, well, you did it, so congratulations. Or not, I guess.” Suddenly she felt very, very tired. “Look, I don’t know what you want from me, but booty call week is over. These legs are closed until further notice.”
“For God’s sake, Arielle. I’m not soliciting you.”
“Then what do you want from me, Judah?”
“I don’t know!” Heads turned in their direction, and Judah took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Ari sighed and led him out the side door and into the yard, where they dropped into the grass. “I’m sorry if I hurt you by dating Mira,” he said quietly. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“You were, I guess.” She plucked a blade of grass and rubbed it between her fingers.
“She’s The Girl, right? Perfect on paper.
Young and skinny, pretty, probably childbearing hips—whatever the fuck those are.
Guessing she wants marriage and kids and to be the perfect social media and Pesach program wife. And she even puts out.”
“I didn’t—we didn’t do…” His cheeks flushed with color. “It wasn’t the same.”
“But you kissed her.” The memory of hearing their first was still seared into her brain.
“I did.”
“You did more than kiss her,” Ari guessed.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “No, I didn’t. For whatever that’s worth.”
“I have no idea what it’s worth,” she muttered.
She hated that he did any of it. She hated that their first kiss was in her apartment.
She hated that she couldn’t take her eyes off his beautiful hands, couldn’t stop thinking about how elegant they looked on his guitar, how good they felt on her skin, how well he’d mastered using them to—
“Arielle.”
She tore her eyes off his hands and looked up into his soft gaze.
“I’m sorry. I am. I met her and she was nice, and she wanted all the things I want and I thought maybe I could want those things with her.
I was so excited to finally know what it was all supposed to feel like, and I thought …
I don’t know. Like I’d become someone different, maybe.
That it’d be different if I tried again with someone who actually wanted to date me. But it just … didn’t work.”
Someone who actually wanted to date me. Meaning that in his mind, she wasn’t that. And that was fair, she supposed, since she’d told him exactly that the night he’d cooked for her.
But again, it’d been so early. Surely he could tell things had changed over the course of the week, couldn’t he? Hell, she’d called him in Mexico. Did he really think that meant nothing?
Yeah, she was still pissed.
“So you broke up with her because you got horny and she wouldn’t put out?”
He sighed. “No, Ari, I broke up with her because it turns out it doesn’t matter how much you want the same things if you want them with somebody else.”
Her heart flipped in her chest, the last of her anger deflating. “Oh.”
“I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to say that.”
If she were smarter, she might tell him not to. “It’s okay to say that, I think.”
His eyes flickered over her from head to toe. “Is it okay to say that you look beautiful?”
“I guess that’s okay to say too,” she said, her lips twitching.
“Good.” Now it was his turn to fiddle with the grass, sliding his fingers slowly up and down a blade. “So you haven’t been with anyone? I just figured, when I was in Mexico…”
She snorted. “You thought my hometown shul was a hotbed of sexy single thirtysomething men?”
“I don’t know what I thought,” he said with a laugh. “I think I just like torturing myself. I’ve done a lot of that lately.”
“Does talking to me right now count?”
The corner of his mouth curved up. “What do you think?”
Heat prickled her skin. “I think—”
The door behind them flew open, and Liana’s sister, Aliza, stuck her head out. “There you are. Liana’s about to make her speech. Come on.” Then she glanced between them, smiled knowingly, and slipped back inside.
Judah stood up and dusted himself off, then held out his hands for Arielle, who reluctantly took them to pull herself to her feet.
They reentered the house wordlessly, and Ari made her way to the living room, to the front of the crowd, where Liana was standing with Gideon at her side, her eyes so full of love that it made Ari’s heart ache.
When she caught sight of Ari, a flash of relief flitted across Liana’s expression, and she nudged Gideon to begin.
They’d waited for her. The thought warmed Ari, the idea that even with Liana getting married, the two of them were still a team.
But as Gideon and Liana thanked everyone for coming, sharing the adorable story of how they met and got together over Chanukah with the help of Liana’s friends and tenacity, the tenderness slowly melted, leaving her feeling empty. Lonely.
She’d gone so long without wanting this that she had no idea how to fight for it.
She shouldn’t have walked ahead of him into the house. She should’ve taken his hand and pulled him to the front of the crowd with her. For all she knew, he’d slipped back out that same door and disappeared—
A warmth at her back, radiating from a familiar, solid chest, silenced her brain. “Hey,” a familiar, solid voice whispered in her ear.
She didn’t reply, not wanting to talk during Liana’s speech, but she did twine her fingers with his and squeeze.
Judah squeezed back, and maybe it was the warm strength of his hands or his woodsy scent or just the romantic atmosphere in the air, but when he leaned forward again to say huskily, “Go out with me” in her ear, she whispered, “Okay.”