Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“Not disappointed yet,” she said, and he watched the line of her throat as she swallowed the drink. “But that’s the easy stuff. Pretty much every Modern Orthodox Jew I know wants those things, or already has those things, including your brother.”
“But not you.”
“I never said that.” She plucked a breadstick from the basket between them but didn’t take a bite, and his gaze dropped to her hands as she fiddled and twirled.
“I don’t want it right now. But I want to want it.
” Those beautiful eyes fixed on some faraway point in the room.
“I think I will want it someday. With the right person.”
It wasn’t a confession of love and commitment, but it was more than Judah’d dared hope for, and it warmed him like whiskey. He didn’t want to spook her by dwelling on it, though, so he casually returned to their previous conversation instead.
“Makes sense. I also want someone who has her own hobbies and passions, but it’d be nice if she liked music.
Maybe even someone who understands what it’s like to have an unconventional job but still want a relatively conventional life.
” He looked down at the ice in his glass.
“Someone who wants to travel, who’d actually enjoy going where I go, at least some of the time. ”
“Ah, yes, a free trip to—where is it you’re going for Sukkot again?”
“Amalfi Coast.”
“Such a hardship.” She shook her head. “What woman could possibly bear it?”
“You’d be surprised,” he murmured. “But I do want someone challenging. Someone who makes me think. Maybe even keeps me humble occasionally.”
“Impossible.”
“I know, but she should at least try.” He spotted the server walking their way again and suggested they actually look at their menus. Once they’d placed their orders—short rib tacos to share as an appetizer, then steak frites for him and duck gnocchi for her—he turned the tables. “What about you?”
She took another drink. “I don’t really know.
Which has always been my problem. What if you get it wrong?
What if you’re so focused on the ways you thought were important to match that you miss the ways you never thought of?
What if things seem perfect, and then you change them with a wedding and a family, and it turns out you don’t know how to be bridal and wifely and motherly?
And the guy just assumes that everyone can be those things, so he takes for granted that you will be too, and then everything falls apart because you don’t know how to clean a toilet or change a diaper or make a Shabbos lunch for eight? ”
His hand reached across the table to squeeze hers before she’d even finished her sentence, startling him at the ease with which he’d touched her in public.
But she squeezed back, her face blooming in a pretty blush, and nothing in the world could’ve made him retrieve his hand right then.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “That was kind of an absurd overshare. It’s just been on my mind a lot for some reason. ”
“I think a lot of the fun of it is learning that stuff together,” he said, aching with how badly he wanted to learn it all with her.
There was so much that even a week of sharing a bed couldn’t teach you about a person.
“How many people know how to do those things before they get married and have kids?”
“Liana does.” She took back her hand and fiddled with her fork, her pretty lilac nails catching the light. “God, I am going to be so lost without her.”
“You’re not,” Judah said firmly. “And you’re not going to be without her just because you’re not roommates anymore. She’s always going to need her best friend.”
Ari snorted. “Nothing’s bonded us like the speed with which we drifted from our married friends. And now she’s going to be my married friend, and Bella’s already my married friend, and I’m just…”
“On a date?” He waggled his eyebrows, and his chest twinged when she laughed.
“On a date,” she confirmed with a soft smile and nod.
“See? You’re—oh, hell.”
“What? What is it?”
Judah exhaled sharply as he glanced away from the brunette who’d caught his eye at a nearby table. “Nothing. Just someone it might be a little awkward to bump into. Speaking of girls’ best friends…”
“Mira’s?”
Judah nodded. “I’m sure it’s fine. But she’s not someone I particularly wanted to bump into my first time out with you.”
Ari’s lips twisted into a smirk. “First time, huh? Implying a second?”
“I couldn’t possibly miss out on the pizza-on-the-couch experience.”
“Okay, seriously though, I—” The sound of a loud vibration cut her off, and they quickly realized his phone was buzzing. A lot.
“I’m just gonna ignore that,” Judah said, though a prickling sensation stole over his skin.
“I have a feeling you should look.”
Judah took a deep breath, pulled it out of his pocket, and placed it on the table.
His notifications were a mess. A moment later, her phone started buzzing too, and as she grabbed it from her purse, Judah looked back up at Mira’s friend, Naomi.
She glared daggers back, telling him everything he needed to know.
Sure enough, she’d taken a picture of them and tagged him on social media, a throwback to the same chaos that ensued when some creepers did this on Pesach with stalkerish video compilations of him and Mira. But those were exactly as innocent as anyone would expect videos of Judah Klein to be.
They didn’t have him holding a girl’s hand in public, making clear to one and all that he wasn’t shomer negiah.
Mira hadn’t been wearing a knockout dress with a neckline he greatly appreciated but that would definitely have plenty of tongues wagging.
And the comments, while still creepy on the pictures and videos of him and Mira, hadn’t been anything like what he was seeing now.
@dontwantcoffee: Daaaamn, Klein moves fast
@Hurricanegx: Looks like she does too lollllllll
@SecretSmile: Is he touching her?? Tell me he’s not touching her I will cry
@witk2001: Yo I know that girl! My cousin hooked up w/her!
@Adammaniac: Dude, that’s Bend Her Like Becker. *Everyone* hooked up w/her.
@OncewasTAG: She could hook up w me anyday
@itsmesarag: Lolol they both look so horny
@JustChani: Fr, I thought he was superfrum
@CurlyHairedSheDevil: Wow, what a downgrade
He made the mistake of looking up at Arielle just as that last comment landed and regretted it immediately. “I gotta go,” she said, her words barely a whisper but rocking him like thunder.
“Our food’s not even here yet,” he said inanely, as if she could give a damn about that as the internet tore her apart.
She didn’t even dignify him with an answer, just shoved her phone back in her bag and jumped up, then froze when she realized how many eyes in the restaurant were watching her.
On the table, his screen continued to light up—texts from Lev and his manager and God only knew who else.
It was so bad, and it was so stupid that it was so bad, but it was still bad, and it was his career, and—
She was leaving. God, she was really leaving.
He jumped out of his chair and followed her out, hoping not to make a bigger scene.
“Ari, please don’t go.” He wanted to reach for her, but the last thing they needed was more commentary, and Naomi probably wasn’t the only one filming them anymore. “They’re just idiots on the internet—”
“Newsflash, Ein Klein Hotmusic,” she snapped, whirling around, her eyes red with angry, unshed tears, “your whole life is idiots on the internet. You have to impress them and all your adoring fans, and I am not the right kind of impressive. Cool, I get that; it’s kind of what I’ve been telling you from the very beginning. ”
“I’m impressed by you. Doesn’t that matter for anything?”
“Does it look like it matters for anything?”
His gut twinged. “Ari…”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She turned back to the door, and he was dying to follow her out, but he’d left his phone on the table and there was still the bill …
“Please wait for me. Let me just pay, and I’ll take you home. At least let me do that.”
“Good night, Judah,” she said firmly, but as she walked out the door, he was pained with the certainty that she meant goodbye.