She was kidding, but hewasgetting a lot more airtime since publicity had started for his new album, a collection of love songs in both Hebrew and English. While his new “Im Eshkachech” was, as he predicted, the most popular, she had a soft spot for his slowed-down, almost disconcertingly sexy “Eshet Chayil.”
After all, thanks to several viral videos—including the one from Liana’s wedding (with the comments shut off, thank you very much)—a number of interviews about the inspiration for his new direction, and a follow-up article inNoted, everyone in the world seemed to know exactly who he was singing to these days. And while there’d been some backlash—fewer invitations with certain singers, enough creeps ranting on social media for Ari to make all her accounts private—there was also a contingent of weirdos who shipped them hard and seemed happy to see Judah happy.
It’d been a strange time, but it’d also been really, really good.
Good enough that tonight she missed him deeply.
At least this year, Gideon and Liana actually showed up on time. He was filling the fridge with the beer he’d brought while she dished out applesauce, and Ari prepared the coffee table for SevivOhNo while Akiva and Noah hung up terrible homemade decorations. Everything was as it should’ve been. Almost.
The door flew open and banged against the back wall, and Hannah barreled in with what looked like two jugs of moonshine. “Good news!” she declared, raising them in the air. “I think this batch worked!”
Everyone else muttered feigned enthusiasm and got back to their tasks, while a laughing Ari went to help relieve her sister of the ridiculous drinks. She did, in fact, end up letting Hannah move in with her after Liana’s wedding; even with a promotion, her salary was nowhere near enough to carry a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side by herself. It was every bit as exhausting as she’d expected, especially when Hannah’d decided to take up amateur mixology in their kitchen, but at least the brothers Klein generally found her amusing.
The party finally kicked into high gear when Bella and Zach showed up with the doughnuts, and Emily—now Noah’s fiancée—rolled in after her last final and proceeded to kick all their asses at drunken dreidel. They lit candles and took silly pictures and sang along to Judah’s album at the top of their lungs.
“I can’t believe Judah’s missing this,” Ari grumbled to Liana, squinting into her empty bottle of hard cider. “We’ve done every freaking holiday separately because we’re not married, and then the first one we can finally do together, he has to bail. I can’t even text him.”
To her annoyance, a slow smile spread over Liana’s face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound like a woman who wants to get married.”
“Oh, shut up. You think everyone wants to get married and have babies.”
“Yeah, well, you—”
Akiva clapped his hands together and drew everyone’s attention. “Mystery Maccabee time!”
“Wait, you were serious about that?” Danny asked with a snort as he looked around the room, somehow only just noticing the pile of presents resting on a table by the door. “Shit. I, uh, gotta go find something in my room.”
“Do you wanna take wrapping paper with you?” Noah called after him.
“What do you think we’re gonna get?” Akiva asked. “An old sefer he never uses, or a shirt he’s gonna yank out of his closet and toss in a shopping bag?”
“Well, thankfully,” Bella said, perching over the pile, “someone gotyoua real present.” She handed a gift to Akiva wrapped in festive blue-and-white paper. “So I guess you’ll kick us off.”
Akiva waggled his eyebrows as he ripped open the paper. “And what’s this?” He turned it around and broke into a wide grin as he lifted up the pair of sriracha bottles on keychains. “Yesss, sriracha everywhere!”
“I figured this was better than hearing you annoyingly flag a server down every single time we go out to eat,” Noah said dryly.
“Still gonna do that just to annoy you,” Akiva informed him. “All right, this means it’s Noah’s turn. What do we got?”
Bella handed Noah his gift, which turned out to be a book from Liana that he’d borrowed from the library three times already—“Figured I’d save you the trip for read number four”—and then Liana received a hideously bedazzled “Mrs. Levy” shirt from Bella that made her squeal in delight while Gideon groaned.
One by one, everyone received their gifts, laughing and showing them off, and Ari realized that the cookbook she’d bought Emily wasn’t there. “Hannah, didn’t you bring up the gifts? The one I bought isn’t here.”
“Is it not?” Hannah scrunched her brow. “Crap, I’m sorry. I think it’s still on the table downstairs. Do you want me to get it?”
Ari knew full well Hannah’s “Do you want me to” was code for “I don’t want to, but I’ll do it if you make me, and I will bedeeplywhiny about it.” She sighed. “No, I’ll get it. Sorry, Em. I’ll be right back.”
She slipped out of the apartment and headed down the stairwell, but when she entered her apartment and flipped the light switch, nothing happened. “Oh, are you fucking kidding me?” she muttered. “Howis the—”
It was then she realized the room was not as pitch black as it should’ve been. It took a moment for her to register the dim light as flickering candles, and then Ari saw a gift on the table, exactly where Hannah had said it would be.
But it wasn’t big enough to be a cookbook.
And the name on the tag wasn’t Emily’s.
She picked it up, a lightheaded feeling hitting her just as the opening chords of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” filled the air—not a recording but a live performance. She whirled around, and sure enough, there was Ein Klein Hotmusic himself, serenading her in what looked to be a brand-new three-piece suit.
He looked so unbearably sexy that she didn’t know whether to open the gift or tear off his clothes, so instead she sat, watching him until he laughed and put down the guitar. “It’s not actually a romantic song,” he pointed out. “I was going for a throwback. I thought you’d have opened the box by now.”
