He laughed gruffly. “You did. Congratulations on standing on two feet like a human adult.”
“Smartass. I can’t believe I thought you were married. What woman could tolerate you full time?”
Judah blinked. Of all the things he’d expected her to say, it was not that. “Did you think I was married when you asked me to pose as your boyfriend at the Weiler-Katz wedding?”
“No, but I thought you were married when I told the bridesmaids we were together.” Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink as she laughed. “I really thought I’d shock them for a second and then they’d call me on it and I’d say ‘gotcha!’ or whatever. But they didn’t, and then you didn’t want to know which bridesmaid it was and you said—”
“‘I don’t date where I work,’” he recalled. Oh, how instantly he’d regretted that.
“That’s when I was sure—when you mentioned dating.”
Huh.He’d felt like his single status had been publicized even more widely than his music lately. She mustreallynot have been interested in him to have missed that tidbit. He held up his ring-free left hand. “Lack of a ring didn’t clarify for you?”
“I just figured you were one of those tools who’s too insecure to wear jewelry for fear it’ll sap all your fragile masculinity.” She drained the last of her drink and set it down on a side table. “But I could swear I’ve seen you in a tallis.”
“Yekke,” he explained. People were always surprised to see him in the fringed prayer shawl even though he wasn’t married. They didn’t know a lot of German Jews, he guessed. “I’ve been wearing one since my bar mitzvah.”
She was quiet for a moment, and he realized she was probably contemplating whether she’d ever seen Akiva in a tallis, since he’d theoretically be abiding by the same custom. But it was their father who was big into their roots and all that went with them, and it wouldn’t entirely shock him if Akiva had dropped every one of their father’s rules right when their father had dropped them.
Her lips twisted into a smile. “Yekke, huh? Yeah, I should’ve guessed.”
“I get that a lot,” he said dryly, and she snorted. Given the Yekke stereotype of being uptight and fastidious, it wasn’tentirelyunearned.
“Still, a wife just seems like something that goes with the whole wedding singer thing.” Arielle hopped up on the table, carefully smoothing the raspberry satin underneath her. “Wow, you must get set up constantly.”
Judah smiled ruefully. “Clearly hasn’t gone that great, but I do, yeah. I imagine you do too.”
Arielle raised an eyebrow, tossing her long, dirty-blond ringlets over her shoulder. The gold rings in her ears flashed in the light. “You’re joking, right?”
He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not exactly the kind of girl people are rushing to pair with their nephews or neighbors’ sons or whatever. I have a filthy mouth, a scandalous job, and a slutty reputation. Plus, I’m nearing thirty and don’t want kids yet, I’m not skinny—”
“Oh, come on.” He rolled his eyes. “You cannot tell me your body is getting in the way of anything.”
“Guys only want skinny girls—haven’t you heard?” She picked at an invisible loose thread on her dress, her voice dripping with derision. “The last woman my mom asked to set me up told me I’d have a better chance if I lost twenty pounds.”
“That’s… the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Guys do not all want skinny girls. I guarantee you most guys are not looking at you and thinking, ‘Ew, gross, she’s built like—’” He promptly cut himself off, his face flaming. “Anyway, just. That’s stupid.”
She bit her lips from the inside, holding back a laugh. “What were you gonna say? Built like what?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Liar.”
He shook his head. “Shut up. You know how you look.”
“I do know how I look,” she agreed, her lush pink mouth curving in a one-sided smile. “But now I’m very curious howyouthink I look, because it sounds like it is not a way I thought you looked at girls. At all.”
“Did you think wedding singers had to be monks? Judaism isn’t exactly a celibate religion.”
“No, but I thoughtyouwere, kinda. I mean, I thought you had a wife and five kids, but outside of that.”
He snorted, and it struck him just how infrequently that happened, how rare it was to feel genuine amusement to the point where even his body recognized it. But Arielle Becker seemed to have been born without a filter, and it suited her. So much so that he let words slip that he definitely should not have let slip. “Your body is… definitely not a turnoff.”
Now it was her turn to burst into a peal of laughter. “That’s the best you’ve got? ‘Definitely not a turnoff’?”
Regrets. He had regrets. And he felt every one of them in the heat suffusing his skin. “It’s not like I’m trying to pick you up.”
