“I thought he wasn’t singing ‘Eshet Chayil’?” Ari murmured to Liana, distinctly recalling her friend having been a little sad about it.
“They worked something out,” Liana said cryptically as Gideon took the mic.
“As many of you know,” he began, “I’m still pretty new to learning Hebrew, and I’mdefinitelynew to standing in the spotlight—something I absolutely never thought I’d do until I met a woman who makes me feel like I can do anything.”
The room broke out in “Awwws,” and Ari squeezed Liana’s hand.
“That said,” Gideon continued, “one thing I unfortunately can’t do is sing ‘Eshet Chayil’ to my wife, and you’re welcome for not subjecting you all to an attempt.” He waited until the polite laughter ebbed. “However, Liana has always wanted to hear it at her wedding, so we decided on a very happy compromise. I’m grateful to have a pinch hitter here to help me out while I take a seat with my own Eshet Chayil—woman of valor.” He nodded at Judah, and then joined Liana in the middle of the floor, both sitting on chairs Ari hadn’t even seen someone bring.
The room went silent as everyone waited for Judah to begin. And he did.
But not before fixing his gaze fully, completely, and unmistakably on Arielle, freezing her like a deer in headlights.
Is everyone else seeing this?her mind screamed. She looked down at Gideon and Liana, who were holding hands and swaying as if this show was entirely for their entertainment, and then back at Judah.
He was still looking at her—no, not just looking at her, butsinging to her, his feet actually carrying him in her direction. She could feel eyes shifting over to her, enough to know this wasn’t entirely in her head, enough to suspect that maybe Judah’d had too much to drink or maybe there was something in that Shirley Temple he’d bought her because itreallylooked and sounded and felt as if he was singing one of Judaism’s most romantic songs—the song one sings to a wife—to her in front of approximately three hundred people.
And there was no way people weren’t getting this on video.
The song was twenty-two lines—one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet—and as it built to its climax, Ari’s entire body flashed hot and cold. When the entire room joined in for the last two lines, she could only mouth along quietly, her heart caught inher throat. It was only when Judah finished, his gaze locked firmly on hers, and the entire room erupted into cheers that the spell over Arielle broke.
And before she could do a thing about it, the photographer promptly called all the friends over to take a huge group photo with the bride and groom.
Arielle’s mouth stretched into the biggest smile she could manage as she crouched down, her arm wrapped around Liana’s lace-covered shoulders. The photographers took what must have been four thousand pictures, and when they were finally done, Ari dropped her arm and straightened, scanning the floor for Judah, determined to get her explanation.
But he wasn’t by the mic. He wasn’t in the picture. He wasn’t anywhere, as far as she could tell.
He was gone.
A tug on her dress diverted her attention, and she turned to see the bride, who was gesturing for Ari to bend down. “Listen to me, you romantic Chernobyl,” Liana growled. “You have ten minutes in the bridal suite. If you don’t use them wiselyandreturn punctually, I am demoting you, and also murdering you. Got it?” Ari nodded stiffly, too stunned to speak, and Liana released her dress. “Good. Get out of here. Now.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Arielle walked into the bridal suite to see Judah pacing, muttering to himself as if he was practicing a speech. It was tempting to stand in the doorway and simply watch him, a lion both proud and caged, but then he looked up and saw her, and she became the one feeling dangerously trapped.
“You came.”
“I did.” She twisted Liana’s ring on her finger, grateful to have something to fidget with until she remembered what it was. “I was hoping you could explain to me what the fuck that was, Judah.”
He swallowed. “That was Eshet Chayil. ‘A Woman of Valor’? Traditional to sing at weddings and on Friday ni—”
“Judah. What. The fuck. Was that.”
He walked purposefully toward her, and her breath hitched in her throat when he stopped a kiss’s distance away. “Ask me again what I want in a partner.”
“Judah—”
“Ask me. Please.”
The desperation in his voice pierced her heart, and she cracked. “What do you want in a partner?”
He tipped her chin up so she had no choice but to hold his gaze as he responded. “I want someone who listens to me share the scariest parts of myself without judgment. I want someone who lets me discover new things about myself and embrace them. I want someone who lets me be a hypocrite when I need to be, when I want to be, without ever invalidating who I am as a person or as a Jew. I want someone who makes me feel at home no matter where we are, who makes the loneliness that’s plagued my entireadult life feel like a distant concept. And yeah, I will take the bonus of a partner who’s so terrifyingly beautiful I can’t think straight in her presence. And I never thought to say those things alongside the others because I never knew it was possible to have them.”
She swallowed hard. “Judah—”
“There are three hundred and twenty-seven people at this wedding who just watched me sing to you, and if you give me the okay, a video of it with a very clear caption is going to go out to my half a million followers. I hope that makes it clear that you’re not my dirty little secret. You’re not a liability or a passing occupation, and the only regret I have is that I ever convinced myself we weren’t meant to be, because I don’t believe that for a second.
“You are the most incredible woman I have ever met, and I would rather turn my life upside down than cease to have you in it. There is no one on earth I like being with as much as you, and no version of myself I like as much as the one I am with you, and when I say you’re my future, I don’t mean ‘until the next time we face some pushback’; I mean that you areitfor me.”
