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“Oh, god, that fucking meeting,” she said, moaning as she swallowed the pudding.
“That bad?” Ilan was circling the counter. She wondered if she should have this conversation with him when he was about to start chopping vegetables.
“Kinda,” she reached down to tug her shoes off, annoyed with herself that she was wearing jeans so she couldn’t curl up into the chair the way she really wanted to. She gave him the highlights of what her last few days had been like between bites. With her free hand, she worked her belt free and let it fall to the floor with the shoes. Then she worked on the tight, French braid.
He knew some of the details already, they’d been together Sunday morning when the first few calls came into her cell phone, but at the time she’d only thought it was the usual annoyance, not the targeted campaign it had become. Ilan’s jaw tightened and Abi felt the urge to put her arms around him. She made herself get up, take the bowl with her because she was no fool, and walk over to the counter. If Ilan thought this was strange, he didn’t say anything.
“This is getting out of hand,” he said, chopping an onion with more force than was strictly necessary. “I should get it over with and just have it out with Simcha. You shouldn’t have to put up with this.”
“Well that’s the thing,” Abi said, carefully putting the bowl down across from him. She fiddled with the spoon, not sure how to lay all of this out without offending him. “Rachel came by the preschool today, and we had a talk.”
The knife stopped moving. Abi made a point not to break eye contact.
“To be honest, I did most of the talking. I wasn’t as kind as I probably could have been.”
She wasn’t sure he was even breathing.
“Actually, I was pretty prickly,” she said, but it didn’t get the hint of a smile she was hoping for, so she rushed on. “Okay, fine, I was bitchy.”
Ilan said nothing. Abi waited for another beat, knowing that she was only putting off the inevitable.
“Anyway, I told her this whole situation was shitty, it was partly her fault—not that she can control Simcha, nobody really can. But I said she had no business treating you like a piece of meat, and Simcha’s a bully who can’t take no for an answer, and Simcha was using the situation at the preschool as an excuse to prove she’s the baddest bitch and that I wasn’t going to put up with it. Also, I may have said she owes you a big fat apology and she’s a coward because you’re worth ten of her.”
“Abi,” he said, his voice low.
“Okay, I mostly implied that last part, but I definitely said you were my boyfriend, and she did harm and she needs to be a grown-up and fix it.”
“Abi—”
“Oh, and then David showed up and said we needed to figure out how to ask the Board to request Simcha’s resignation, and then it was basically a war meeting,” she was speaking quickly now, saying it all in a rush because she was worried he would lose it. He looked like he was going to lose it. Also, she was pretty sure he had every right to lose it. She would, if someone told her they’d gone behind her back and talked about her to a person who hurt her like Rachel hurt him. “So, anyway, we had the board meeting, and I told them all the stuff I’d been prepared to tell the parents if they’d listen for five seconds, including a lot of stuff Simon gave me about copyright infringement and how that works for educational purposes, and nobody wants to get sued, so that’s good. Then David said a bunch of stuff about how he was concerned about some of the appropriateness of decisions and how board members had to appear to be above reproach, and he must have called in a favor because someone that wasn’t even one of us, that is, wasn’t even me or David, moved to have Simcha resign and three other people agreed—she’s way less popular than I realized. And look--”
“Abigail,” Ilan said, he’d give up on chopping vegetables and was looking at her, askance.
“I know I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said, putting her hands up as though to ward off an attack. “I wasn’t planning to. I wasn’t even expecting to see her. But she just showed up, and she was acting like the only problem I was having was Simcha when I knew damn well Simcha had probably told her all about seeing us at the Co-op because that’s what she does, and I just—”
“Abigail Meyer,” he said, and she wasn’t sure how it happened but he was around the counter and so close to her that she could smell his cologne and the laundry detergent he used on his shirt, “I need you to shut up for five seconds.”
“I was only—”
He was kissing her. Abi wasn’t sure why he was kissing her, but he tasted good, and his hands were in her hair, and his lips and teeth and tongue were doing things to her mouth that should come with a warning label. She moaned, her fingers going to his face, holding him to her as she let herself kiss him back. She’d been berating herself all afternoon for the way she’d gone off on Rachel.
Part of her was sure Rachel didn’t deserve it, but it was a small part, because even if Rachel was in an untenable situation that didn’t give her the right to treat other people like her own personal windup toys. Abi was worried about her though, and she hoped David would be able to speak with her. But none of that mattered now, when Ilan’s mouth tasted like heaven and his fingers were plucking at the buttons on her sweater, and his tongue was doing things she didn’t think were even possible until right this moment.
He broke the kiss, his mouth trailing fire down her jaw, to the delicate skin at her neck, and Abi sucked in a heavy breath when he palmed her breast through the lace camisole.
“Also, I told the board I was seeing someone,” she said, her voice breaking when his teeth grazed her collarbones. “It seemed like a good idea, since Simcha was going nuclear, I didn’t want to make it a thing—”
“I keep thinking I can’t be any more crazy about you,” he said, lifting his head long enough to look her in the eye, his fingers tangled in her hair so that he could angle her face, his lips grazing her forehead, her nose, her lips.
“It’s—this is what you wanted, right? What you said, I mean?” She realized then that it was the first time in a long time she’d been truly unsure of what she was doing. She was usually so driven. There was a goal, and there were steps to take to reach it. But she’d never even considered this could be a possible outcome, so how could she work out the steps to get to this place? To this person?
“What I want…” he said, looking at her as though she were something precious, as though this was a place he had never imagined he would be in either. He laughed, and the sound was filled with wonder. With true, real joy. “Of course, you’re what I want.”
“Oh,” she said, realizing that he was still holding her breast, and it was possible that was the case because she was holding his handtoher breast. Maybe he wanted his hand back? She bit her lip, “Oh, that’s good.”
“But first,” he said, and before he could say anything else her stomach growled loudly. Abi made a face, abashed, and he laughed that wondrous laugh again, making a show of gently disentangling his hands from her body, “I want you to eat something.”
EPILOGUE
