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“I want to do the things. I’m trying really hard not to freak you out with how much I want to do the things. That’s all,” she said, cutting him off, because she knew he was going to say something else that was reassuring and she appreciated it, but he didn’t need to bother.
“Ah,” He sat back on the sofa, bit his own lip, then ducked his head, catching her eye. The sly humor in his eyes made it impossible for her not to laugh. After a moment, he took her hand, turning it over to trace the lines in her palm.
He considered her hand for a long moment before speaking. What he said made her breath catch.
“You know there’s a list of things that I want us to do too, right?”
* * *
She’d called him perfect.
He was pretty sure she’d been joking, and it was obvious that she was nervous, but she’d called him perfect.
And it made himfeelperfect.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so affected by someone else’s words. He was also a little surprised that the voice of Reb Moshe was mostly silent in his head at the moment, because if nothing else, this moment definitely called for all kinds of recollections from the mystic scholars.
“Just to be clear,” he said, his thumb pressing gently into her hand. He was kneading her palm, his fingers working to loosen the tension running through her. “I didn’t come over here with the intention of a one-night stand. I absolutely want to spend the night, but what I feel for you--it doesn’t feel like I’d be done after just once.”
“Is there any chance you would be the kind of person who would be open to a casual thing, Rabbi Freedman?” she said, her voice sounding thick in her throat, though he suspected that was because of what he was doing to her hand. She’d relaxed more into the sofa, and her eyes were languid. In this light they were bottle green.
“Probably not,” he admitted, but raised an eyebrow to make his point, “though that’s not because of my job. That’s just not a thing I have a great track record with.”
“No? What’s your record look like?” she said, shifting. He realized she was moving her legs, no longer sitting on them. Then they were across his lap and he was that much closer to her. He grinned, one arm wrapping around her legs to position her more comfortably. This was definitely more like it. She lifted her head, inclining her chin in a playful challenge.
“Well,” he laughed, surprised at himself that it hadn’t occurred to him that this would come up, “the last person I had a casual relationship with ended up marrying me.”
Shoshana’s laugh was husky, and her hand flexed under his, her fingers wrapping around his wrist. He was working his way from her palm to her forearm. She made a sound in her throat for him to continue and he nodded his head to show he understood. She meant keep doing what he was doing with his fingers as much as she meant she wanted more of the story.
“Mariam and I were friends--like, we’d met at Hillel in undergrad. They were doing this--I don’t know, some kind of multicultural/interfaith mixer. We were good friends and we were both really focused on school, right? Neither of us had time for a relationship on top of everything else that was going on, but we were both horny teenagers, so, you know…”
“Did you know then you were going to go to rabbi school?”
“No,” he said, then laughed, “back then I actually thought med school, so Mariam and I were on a similarly intense track. We graduated, I went to grad school, some stuff happened, then there was rabbi school. We ended up in different areas. When I got my first pulpit, she was working in the same town. We sort of picked up where we left off.”
“That’s allowed?”
“Well, I’m not a priest,” he pointed out. Having reached her elbow, he placed her hand gently in her lap and picked up her other hand from its position curled around a pillow, “Our jobs have always been the most important things for both of us. I think that’s why we were so good together.”
“You don’t talk like someone who was passionately in love with this person.”
“It was casual, remember?” he said, beginning to work on the palm of her left hand. Shoshana’s foot twitched and he wondered if he was close to a knot or if she was ticklish. “She found out she was pregnant and getting married seemed like the next logical step. We’d already been athingfor so long, you know?”
“Very admirable. What happened?” she said, and something in her tone made him wonder what she was thinking. He looked at her and she shook her head, hair flying around her shoulders.
“Life happened,” he said, then turned a bit so that he was looking at her more completely. “We realized we were just friends. And if we kept cohabitating that wasn’t going to last. We are both committed to making sure Dani has the best life we can give her, so we talk a lot. Mariam is still my closest friend. But we didn’t work as a couple, so now we’re not one.”
Shoshana’s laughter was husky again. She shifted on the sofa, sitting up just a bit and using the hand he wasn’t working on to shove a pillow behind her back. This meant they were so close her breast was brushing his sleeve. If she noticed she gave no indication.
“I don’t get how to do that--stay friends, I mean. My ex, her name was Kirstie, and I--we… well. When we broke up I lost most of my friends because they were her friends first and everybody thought I was being silly. Like, we’d been together for ages, and she wanted the marriage and the family so badly I should just go with it, because we’re in our thirties and marriage and families are what grownups do, right? Everybody wants to have kids eventually and I would come around when we had an actual living, breathing, tiny person we were responsible for. Never mind that it sucks to grow up knowing that one of your parents doesn’t want you. Because that is definitely a thing kids notice. I didn’t want to put that on a child. Or on her for that matter. She deserved better and I told her so, but it didn’t end well at all.”
“That’s awful,” he said, because it was. Shoshana made a noise that could have been a snort and shrugged her shoulders to show it didn’t matter.
“My world has been a lot smaller for the last little bit. I’ve been thinking about things and working with my therapist on a lot of stuff I won’t bore you with. I’m in a much better headspace now, and that’s great, but like, vulnerability isn’t my best skill,” she said quietly, and he was certain he caught a shine that could have been tears in her eyes. His hand tightened on hers and he was sure he wasn’t imagining that her fingers squeezed back.
“I hadn’t noticed,” he said, hoping to lighten the mood and this time she huffed a laugh.
“You were right earlier,” she said after a moment, wiping under her eyes with her other hand, even though they were clearly dry, “what you said. About this not feeling casual. I want it to be casual, because it would be easier, but that feels like a lie, right? And I would like to see what happens, but what does that even look like? You’ve got akid--”
