Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best choice of ammunition. “I’m sorry I didn’t speak up about those posts, but I’d do it in a second if I knew you wanted me to. I thought it’d be better for you if I ignored them, but if you want me to respond, you tell me what you’re comfortable with me saying, and I’ll say it.”
“I’malsonot interested in fucking up your career, and I’mdefinitelynot interested in your inevitable resentment over it.”
Her aqua eyes flashed, primed for war. Wearily, he stood, somehow feeling like he was losing a battle he never even knew they were having. “Can you please stop deciding the future before we even try to have one?”
“We can’t make a future out of the fact that I’m the first person ever to give you head, Judah.”
A muffled but still audible “Oh, shit” sounded from Liana’s room, and Ari pulled off one of her slippers and threw it at the closed door.
“Stop eavesdropping!” she yelled.
“Be less interesting!” Liana called back.
“Can we please have this conversation in your room?” Judah asked with a sigh.
Ari huffed but led the way and pointedly closed the door behind him.
“It’s not just physical between us, Ari. You know it’s not,” he said as she took a seat on her bed, crossing her legs. She didn’t invite him to join, and he didn’t expect her to. He leaned against the dresser instead.
“Comeon, Judah. You think it’s a coincidence that the one girl you can’t stop pursuing is the only one who took off her clothes for you?”
Judah tried to choose his next words very, very carefully, and he knew the instant he was too slow to respond, because Arielle’s entire expression changed.
“I’mnotthe ‘only one,’ am I.” The anger in her eyes was replaced with a flash of pain that had him missing the fire, even as he could still feel it singeing his skin. “Wow. No wonder she hates you.”
“Mira has every right to hate me,” he admitted, his throat raw at the admission, “but she and I never—it was after I broke up with her. A last-ditch effort to save something that never had a chance to begin with.” God, how he’d tried to forget that day, and he was still trying now, shaking his head at the memory. “I guess she thought that’s what I wanted… but I didn’t touch her. I promise you, I didn’t. And I didn’t want to. It wasn’t even a temptation; the only hard part of walking out was hurting a nice girl. But there just isn’t anyone else for me, Ari.”
Her expression stayed cool, but he’d learned to read her body language in other ways—the way her fingers grasped at her blanket, the way her delicate throat worked as she swallowed. “That was just one girl.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “You’ve only been with one girl since me, Judah. That isn’t enough to know.”
“Except that there wereten yearsof girls before you, Ari! Ten years of girls whose favorite cake flavors I couldn’t tell you under pain of death. Ten years of girls who made me feel nothing, and then one girl who makes me feeleverything. It isn’t just that five weeks apart wasn’t enough to get you out of my head; it’s that no other girl has ever beeninthere for five weeks. And I’ve been trying not to read into that, but Gideon’s right—whyhave I been trying not to read into that when it’s telling me every damn thing I need to know?”
“Because I’m the one girl out of those apparent millions who led you into a life of sin and debauchery?”
Judah pushed off the dresser and walked slowly up to the bed,his gaze laser-focused on hers. “Let’s get something straight, Arielle. When I kissed you, it was because I was dying to kiss you. And when I waited around to kiss you a second time, it’s because I couldn’t even conceive of going home without kissing you again.” He stood over her, tracking the guarded set of her jaw, the way her teeth nibbled at her lower lip. “When we took things past kissing, that was me—Iput my hand up your skirt. I showed up at your apartment. That week wasmyidea.Itook off your shirt, andIasked to see you naked, andIasked to go down on you, andIasked you on a date after everything.
“I know you think you’ve turned me into something I’ll regret, but make no mistake—I’ve made these choices again and again because Iwantto. Because I wantyou. Because Ilikeyou. Because you’re honest and funny and bold and brave, and you have such a softer heart than you want people to know. Because you never try to turn me into somebody else, or tell me I can’t be all these different pieces. You’ve never made me feel like I can’t be the guy who davens three times a day and has a chavrusa every morning just because I’ve discovered I quite like ‘sin and debauchery’ too.”
“Maybe I should.”
He was pretty sure she meant it to sting, but it didn’t, not even a little bit. “Yeah, maybe. But I think you like all those things about me, actually. I think you like me the way I am. But maybe I am just seeing what I want to see, so I’m gonna ask you point-blank—is it just physical foryou?”
“And if I said yes?”
“Then I’d be ninety percent sure you’re lying, but I’d accept it.”
She scowled but said nothing, and his mouth quirked up at the silence he took for confirmation. “That’s what I thought.”
“So maybe we’re both trying to make it more than it is.”
“Ari, you can’t convince me there’s nothing to the fact that I don’t share my personal space with anyone but didn’t hesitate for a second about asking you to stay the night.”
“There was a storm,” she said weakly.
“That night, yes, but I have never stopped wanting you to stay the night. My bed has never stopped feeling empty without you in it. That isn’t about fooling around. And if you don’t believe me, then tell me this—how many guys haveyoubeen with since we first kissed?”
She opened her mouth and shut it, her eyes narrowing. “That’s none of your business.”
“No, it isn’t, and I don’t need the answer, but we both know it. There’s something real here, Ari. Something involving actual feelings. Are you really telling me you don’t feel it too?”
