The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2)(41)

Leah narrowed her gaze at him. “Don’t use any, like, science equations either.”

“Excuse me?”

She waved her hand in a circle. “Don’t be like, ‘When the mass of my affection encountered the catalyst of alcohol intoxication, the stimuli of our proximity caused a reaction in my—’” She stopped at the look on his face. “Get it, ’cause you love science? Aw, come on, that was funny.”

“I’m gonna go talk to Morey about this.”

“I forgot how high-strung you are.” Leah offered him a hand and helped him to his feet. “This isn’t complicated. Just tell her the truth. You got scared because she’s extremely hot, and you didn’t wanna mess up the relationship you have with her, but if she’s open to it, you’d like to take her to dinner sometime.”

Ethan stared at the ceiling. “That actually sounds reasonable.”

“Ah yes. Well, I am the smart one. Everyone says so.”

“Wait. Then which one am I?”

“Hmm.” Leah tapped a finger against her mouth. “The hairy one?”

“When do you go back to Maui again?” Ethan started on the next row of boxes with a frown.

Leah tossed his cell phone on top of the box he was carrying. “Call her.”

“Did you go through my stuff?” He changed his mind. Free labor wasn’t worth it.

“Oh, relax, prom king.”

He lowered the box carefully so his phone wouldn’t slide off the top. “Even if I was going to call her, I’m not doing it now in front of you.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense.” Leah grabbed his cell while he was still holding the box.

He really needed one of those lock codes. “Don’t—”

“Oops. It’s ringing.” She shoved the phone at his chest.

“Are you kidding me?” Ethan scrambled to check the number on the screen. Sure enough . . .

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi. This is Ethan.” Of course Naomi knew that. They’d exchanged numbers. Ugh.

Leah covered her mouth and shook her head.

He mouthed something unbecoming of a rabbi at her.

“Hey there. How’s your face?” Naomi’s voice on the other end of the line was unusually light.

“It’s okay.” It definitely didn’t hurt as much as his pride right now. Just go for it. Rip off the Band-Aid. “I was wondering if I could, um, speak to you after the next seminar.”

“Oh.” A long pause on the line. “Sure. I mean, do you wanna just talk now?”

“Er . . . no.” Ethan scrambled for rationale. “I can’t because I’m . . . on a boat.”

“On a boat?”

Leah threw her arms in the air like he was a lost cause.

Ethan covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “You caused this. Help me.”

To Naomi he said, “Yeah. Sorry. Gotta go, it’s—um—blustery—but let’s catch up Tuesday.”

“Okay . . .” Naomi sounded skeptical. “See you then.”

Hopefully she’d blame his odd behavior on his recent head injury. The whole I-have-feelings-for-you thing just didn’t feel like it could happen over the phone.

“You’re a mess,” Leah said when he finally hung up.

Ethan shook his head. “I really am.”





Chapter Fourteen


    MODERN INTIMACY—LECTURE 3:


   Let’s talk about text, baby


ETHAN HAD NO idea there was so much subtext involved in texting.

Over the course of the last hour and a half, Naomi and the seminar participants had discussed the timing of messages sent and received—For better or for worse, anything that comes in between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 5:59 a.m. is a booty call. Proper meme etiquette—No, Jaime, listen, if you send him an objectively hilarious meme and all he says back is “lol nice” he’s not trying hard enough. The perils of screenshotting a message from a woman you’d gone on three dates with for peer analysis and then accidentally sending said screenshots, along with She’s joking, right? I can’t tell, to the aforementioned woman. There’s not much you can do but be honest. Just tell her you’re into her and that all of your friends are going to make fun of you for at least a week when they hear about this. The bigger test is how she responds. If she makes you feel weird about it, that’s a red flag.

Ethan found himself both intrigued and slightly terrified by the potential make-or-break impact that texting held in modern courtship. He thumbed open his message thread with Naomi on his phone, but there was nothing flirty or even intriguing. Just stark, professional coordination. Ethan told himself he didn’t mind.

“Okay, that’s it for tonight.” Naomi closed her notebook. “Thanks for coming, everyone. See you next week.”

Ethan got to his feet but lingered against the back wall until most of the participants headed for the exit, chattering among themselves, a few lingering to exchange what looked like flirty banter.

Luckily, Clara had organized an online sign-up form for the remaining lectures (to collect email addresses for follow-up recruitment efforts). While the lectures did build on one another, each module could stand alone, so newcomers shouldn’t have too much trouble joining in midseries. The email replies helped Ethan and Naomi anticipate a head count for the week. Thus, they’d moved to an auditorium instead of a classroom at the JCC when they’d received over seventy submissions for week three.