“Judah.” She was vaguely aware of sounding like a broken record, but that one word was all she could manage. It was so much that she could barely breathe around it. “You’re saying… serious things. Do you understand that you’re saying serious things?”
“I do. And I have more serious things to say, but first I want to know that I’m not sending you running for the hills.”
“I’m not running,” she assured him quietly.
“You’re… not.” His voice was tinged with wonder. “I mentioned settling down, and you are not panicking.”
She tugged gently on his bow tie, rubbing her thumb over the silk. “I’ve had a little time to think about it, and I think maybe settling down doesn’t sound so bad if it’s with you.”
He froze. “Really?”
“I mean, in the spirit of being in Liana Radinsky’s bridal suite, this is where she’d be jabbing me with her razor-sharp elbows if Ididn’t admit that I had maybe planned to ask you out for real when you got back from Mexico.” Her voice came out in a mumble, and her gaze was focused about a full foot below his, tracking her fingers on his tie, but she knew he hadn’t missed her confession.
“Arielle.” His hand covered hers, stilling it.
“I really hate the way you use my full name.”
“No, you don’t.”
No, she didn’t.
“Arielle.” She looked up and met his wide-open gaze. “I’ve been completely in love with you since that first kiss. You have to know that.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. “I did not, in fact, know that. I mean, you remember why I didn’t—couldn’t—ask you out then, right?”
“I do, and trust me when I say I wish I’d done things so differently. I was trying to have everything, trying to find a path that made sense for me.”
“And now you have?” she asked with an arch of her brow.
He squeezed her hands. “And now I understand there is no ‘everything’ without you, and there is no path for me that I want to walk without you. You’re not the only one still learning how to be an adult, Ari. Just because I have a sponge organizer doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. But I want to learn with you, and I really hope you want to learn with me.”
“I do,” she said quietly, “but the haters aren’t gonna go away. I don’t want to be responsible for ruining your career.”
“First of all,youwouldn’t be the one responsible,” he said firmly, “but second of all, screw anyone trying to control my professional life through my personal life, or vice versa. I’ve spent way too much time thinking I need other people’s approval to succeed, and I’m not doing that anymore. This past trip to LA involved alotof talks about my next album and where my career is going, and I feel really good about the possibilities. Regardless,youarethe nonnegotiable part. I will figure the rest out. I just need you to give us a shot.”
“It would maybe help if you kissed me again.”
“Do not need to ask me twice,” he said, bending to brush his lips over hers. The soft touches quickly deepened, the kiss turning hungry and wild. God, she’d missed this—the seamless way they fit together, the way his thumb stroked her pulse at the base of her throat. A desperate noise escaped her, and he responded to it immediately, his hand fisting in her hair.
A banging knock on the door startled them both. “You two better be decent in there!” Akiva hollered through the doors.
“What a shame that we are,” Arielle murmured, smoothing down her hair as Judah groaned and pushed away.
“I’ll make it up to you later,” he promised, straightening his bow tie and smoothing down his jacket before unlocking and pulling open the door. “Kivi! Thanks so much for the subtle alarm.”
Akiva grinned widely as he looked back and forth between Judah and Arielle. “Anytime. Something you’d like to tell me?”
“Never,” said Judah, earning himself an elbow jab to the ribs hard enough to make him cough up a lung. “By which I mean, you already know my girlfriend.”
“He hasn’t actually asked me to be his girlfriend,” Arielle told Akiva. “He’s just making assumptions.”
“He does that a lot,” Akiva said conspiratorially. “So rude, isn’t it?”
“Sorude.”
Judah looked back and forth between them. “I think I hate that the two of you are friends.”
“You love us though,” Arielle pointed out.
