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“Please, tell me you’re not reporting back every detail of Shoshana’s ex’s life to Shoshana, mom,” Abi said. This was one of those situations where Shoshana–who usually overshared everything–would say nothing. Abi made a mental note to follow up with Shoshana about it later. Though, perhaps now that she and David were so happy, it wouldn’t seem like such a gut-punch.
“Shoshana is a grown woman, Abigail,” Lisa said, giving her daughter a look that said she thought Abi was the one being ridiculous. “She can tell me if she wants to set a boundary.”
“Because that always goes well,” Abi muttered, rolling her eyes. She looked at her father, “My concern about going to Damasia would be going over Ilan’s head. I’m not trying to get the county to punish him for doing his job, even if I think his job is crap.”
“It's a delicate position,” Judah allowed. “If he hadn’t won the bid, someone else would have. You don’t need to create trouble with someone just because you disagree with what the county is doing.”
“Exactly, and Damasia’s at the mercy of the Council and the Mayor as much as anything, so calling up her office won’t solve anything either. I’ve got a feeling plenty of people on my street are already in her inbox complaining, anyway. So I won’t be telling her anything she doesn’t already know.”
“Choosing to be the adult in a situation is never as satisfying as cussing about it to the appropriate civil authority, is it?” Lisa said mildly, and Judah snorted. His wife had a reputation of her own down at City Hall.
“Honestly, if I sit and think about it, his company is just an easy target. It's really the Council I want to yell at. It just helps that there’s something about the guy personally that pisses me off,” Abi mused, feeling tired all of a sudden because she knew parsing out exactly what it was about Ilan Efrat that raised her hackles would take more energy than she had.
Lisa’s left eyebrow perked, and she gave her husband a long, long look.
“Shall we eat something?” Judah said, gesturing to the table.
“It’s about goddamn time.”
“Abigail. Tone.”
* * *
“You know this is a really bad idea,” Abi said, a hand catching his chest, her fingers pressing into his bare skin. Ilan’s mouth was dry, and he tried to remember how to swallow. He’d only come over to her house because he’d seen her on her deck, sipping from a mug as she looked out at the trees. He meant it as a courtesy: it would have been rude to ignore her after what had happened in the Co-op. Not that any of what had happened was his fault, per se. Or even her fault. He wished he’d followed Simcha out to the parking lot to tell her what he really thought of her and her snide comments.
But he hadn’t.
Instead, he’d awkwardly said something about how he should probably go, and she’d said something equally uncomfortable about how “it was her nightmare scenario anyway and that was the best thing he could do.” Running away was a coward move, he knew that. But Simcha showing up had put him in a positively foul mood because he knew what would happen next.
And he hadn’t been wrong.
For the rest of the week, every night like clockwork, he’d been inundated with text messages from Rachel, Simcha’s best friend. Ilan’s ex. It was too much to deal with. Especially since his brain was much happier reminding him of how good it felt to kiss Abigail Meyer.
Other things too, but the kissing was the most recent.
So when he’d seen her through the trees, he’d taken the opportunity as a sign from the universe that he wasn’t going to ignore. And she had answered the door, looking like a shockingly different person than the last time he’d seen her.
No prim, proper miss with her day planner to act as a shield against wickedness and indecision.
She looked as though she’d only been awake for about twenty minutes. Her brown hair was in sleep-tousled waves around her face and down her back. The glasses she wore were square this time, thick-framed and mint green. Not the delicate, flirting cat eyes from before. Her robe was thin, linen material, but it was belted tightly around her narrow waist, and the deep V showed that she wasn’t wearing any kind of bra beneath whatever might have been under that robe.
He found himself following her into the house, letting her offer him coffee, ignoring the rooms they passed on the way to the kitchen because he didn’t care what anything looked like when her body moved the way it did under that tantalizingly thin robe.
Ilan had a weakness for women in the morning. Or, rather, for women when they’d just been pulled awake. It had to do with the way they didn’t care. Wake her up, and for that first hour or so, sometimes more depending on the person, she absolutely didn’t give a shit. She wasn’t thinking about the way she looked, or how she sounded, or about right or wrong. She was herself in a way that she wasn’t once she’d had her coffee and was ready to brave the day.
He was unsurprised and delighted to find that Abigail Meyer was at her sexiest at this time of day. He also knew that he shouldn’t be noticing this about her. He reminded himself that starting a relationship with Rachel had been one of the worst ideas he’d ever had. It ended in problems, and it wasn’t something he wanted to see happen again.
Now, if only someone would remind his raging libido of this line of thinking.
Ilan almost groaned when they made it to the kitchen. The big, open space with all that natural light shining behind her meant that her robe was practically translucent. He could see the outline of her body beneath it, and the stray strands of her hair that weren’t laying perfectly flat as they would later in the day were shining like bits of bronze around her face.
If Abi had noticed, she chose not to comment. He heard her say something about coffee, and he made an agreeing noise. He watched her move through the kitchen, her movements fluid, languid in a way that made it seem as though she were moving through water. He told himself he should sit down at the table, he should ask her why she’d been so unsurprised when he let himself into her yard, he should do something, anything, because as of right now all he was doing was staring, and staring meant he was noticing things like the tiny, dark freckle on her neck, high enough to almost touch her jawline, just at the hollow beneath her ear.
Instead of sitting, he was stepping closer to her because the kitchen was so open and warm and inviting. Because she was smiling that easy, unfettered smile that said she wasn’t thinking of the thousand or so questions she would ask him if this were later in the day when she would be wearing her perfectly fitted cardigan and button-down shirt.
Abi was still speaking, and perhaps he should have been paying closer attention because he realized she was turning away from the sink, a carafe almost full of water in her hand. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be an issue because Ilan wouldn’t have been drawn into her orbit so closely. It was just the light in this kitchen.
In any case, the splash of water down his belly was a surprise. It was warm, but it was still wet. He gasped, and she gasped. Somehow the carafe was on the counter, and he had no idea what happened, but he was soaking, and instead of leaping out of the way, she was touching him. Her fingers brushed over his belly, trailing over the wet tee shirt. The look on her face was almost transfixed. Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and he wasn’t sure what the question she was asking was, but whatever it was he agreed. Or at least, she seemed to find agreement or acquiescence on his face because her lips were curving into a grin.
