“Yeah. You’re enjoying this a little too much, I think,” he said, his tone thicker than he would have liked. He reached for his water glass, but it was on the other side of the table and he didn’t want to put the fork down to get it. Shoshana laughed. It was a low, husky sound that thrilled him at the base of his spine, and handed him her own glass. He sipped quickly and put it back on the table.
“How can you tell?” Her smirk said it all. She was absolutely enjoying this. She was magnificent. He shrugged to show it wasn’t a problem and lifted the fork again. She cocked her head and gave him a look that was purely feminine.
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“My mistake, I’m sure,” he said, lowering the fork and sitting back in his chair, waiting as politely as he could. His other hand was finding its way back down to her knee. It seemed once he’d given himself permission to touch her, he couldn’t stop finding small reasons to do it.
Because you are not a schmendrick,Moshe muttered in the back of his mind. David almost rolled his eyes but caught himself. The last thing he needed was Shoshana to think he was reacting to her. It was probably too early to tell her about the anthropomorphized rebbe that was his conscience.
“I want to spend an entire afternoon kissing you,” she said seriously, the look in her eyes telling him she was absolutely not kidding. “I want to use my tongue. I want you to kiss me back. I want us to kiss each other. I want it to be the kind of awkward, fumbling exploratories teenagers do in backseats. But I don’t want it to be in a back seat because that’s uncomfortable. We have furniture for that now.”
“That sounds like… quite an afternoon,” he said, because he had to fill the charged silence with something, and it was probably too soon for a declaration. He lifted the fork to her lips, and she took the bite, breaking eye contact only long enough to close her eyes in perfect delight at the things she was tasting. He wanted to lean over and capture that mouth so that he could taste her and feel that same abandon.
“If we do it right, it will be,” she said after she swallowed. She shifted in the seat and looked at him. Her energy shifted and suddenly she was very serious. “David, I need you to know something about me.”
“You’re a vegetarian?” he guessed, because he was pretty sure it wasn’t true, but also because he wanted to see her laugh. She smiled briefly, but then she was somber again.
“I haven’t been in a serious relationship for a while.”
“No?” he said, partly because he was flattered, she thought she should tell him this, but also because it felt right that they would be having this conversation. Thisdidfeel serious.
“No. She wanted to get married and have a kid. I wasn’t ready for that.”
“Yeah?” he said because he wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to her statement.
“I mean, I don’t have a problem with kids, I like kids. I just--babies.” She shivered, making a face that would have been comical under other circumstances. “Babies are a lot.”
“They are,” he agreed, then one corner of his mouth lifted. “Of course, we figured out what causes them, so--”
“David,” she said shaking her head, “I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” he answered, putting down the fork and touching her face. Shoshana leaned into the touch like a cat and his heart lurched. She was so beautiful, this woman. “How long ago?”
“Last year, actually almost two years now, it’s not like a recent thing. I just… thought you should know, you know?”
“That you haven’t been in a relationship for a while, or that your last relationship was with a woman?” He wasn’t sure if he should be offended that she thought the latter would bother him or not. But he supposed he got it; people had weird perceptions about clergy.
“The second thing,” she said. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and rolled her eyes.
“Huh, so your last ex was a woman,” he said, then tapped her shoulder lightly with the back of his hand as though a thought just occurred to him, “Mine too, how about that?”
“Dork,” she said, but she was laughing now, the uncertain energy gone. “I know there’s still food on that plate, but I sort of want to kiss you until your kippah falls off, is that okay?”
David opened his mouth, then promptly closed it, because if he wasn’t careful, he was going to agree with her and then they would be making out in the middle of an--okay admittedly not-crowded restaurant. But still, he wasn’t interested in other people witnessing something like that.
“No?” There was definitely a hint of disappointment in her voice. She sat back just the tiniest bit. He had to do something fast to salvage the situation. His mind raced to come up with something, anything to say that would be helpful.
“I’m definitely into it,” he said, and for a moment he felt like an over-eager twelve-year-old boy. “Just… maybe not here?”
“Oh, okay,” she said, her smile positively beatific. She twisted in her seat to look over her shoulder. “I bet we could get the check if you--”
“Yeah, check. Check is good.”
Fourteen
Shoshana had no memory of the three-mile drive from the restaurant to her house.
Of course, she knew she’d driven it.