The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2)(64)

Had her outlook on dating always been so bleak? She needed to find the thermostat and crank up the A/C.

Okay, yes, she was nervous about introducing Ethan to her friends. Not because they weren’t wonderful. She loved them with her whole heart. But they were going to make fun of her mercilessly for throwing her well-loved independence manifesto out the window for a man with great hair and a decidedly squeaky-clean vocation.

She walked over and began to futz with the old-fashioned thermostat on the wall.

Ethan’s friends were easy. He spent most of his time with Morey and the other members who made up the core of his congregation. The softball team seemed to like her well enough after her crowd-pleasing bunt. Maybe they could count that and move on to the next milestone?

Except their next lecture was on sex. Her brain practically hummed the word.

She glared at the thermostat. She had no idea how this dial worked, but at least while she stood over here facing it, she could avoid making eye contact with Ethan.

She considered herself exceptionally well-versed in the erotic arts for obvious reasons, but still, last night had been an outlier. Sitting close to Ethan while he watched her perform, both of them fully clothed and not even touching on the couch, had given a whole new meaning to the word foreplay. It had been so perfectly Ethan—restrained and powerful and surprising and devastating in the best way.

Naomi wiped her palms on her pants and let her thumb brush just barely against her inner thigh.

Her first thought when she got home was Holy shit, having sex with him might actually kill me, and her second was We have got to shoot a piece of content about filming yourself masturbating and then watching it with your partner, forcing yourselves not to act until you achieve climax on screen.

Naomi finally gave up on adjusting the temperature and turned back to her class to see a hand up.

“Yes?”

“Ms. Grant,” Molly said, “we were wondering if you’re dating anyone?”

Naomi had told her a million times to quit calling her Ms. Grant.

A few nearby students stopped talking to listen. Ethan raised his head from his notebook as well.

Naomi chewed her bottom lip. She could hardly tell them to mind their own business. She and Ethan had built this seminar around the idea of radical transparency and a safe space for self-disclosure.

“Why do you ask?” When in doubt, answer a question with another question.

“Well, I guess we just wanted to know if you follow the course methodology yourself, or if it’s based more on theoretical concepts.”

Sheesh, what a question. Naomi supposed this was a common pitfall of academia. The gap between research and lived experience.

“I am dating someone, and we are currently employing several of the strategies and techniques developed for this seminar.” There, that was honest but opaque.

Molly leaned forward in her chair. “Will you tell us about the person you’re seeing?”

Naomi cleared her throat. “Excuse me?” She reached for her water bottle and took a long sip.

“I mean, if you’re comfortable opening up about your relationship, it would mean a lot to us. You’re so good at this stuff.” Molly’s dogged determination was another thing that reminded Naomi of her younger self.

“Are you dating someone famous?” Molly’s neighbor had her thumbs poised over her cell phone, no doubt ready to tweet about Naomi’s personal life.

“Uh . . .”

Jaime had their hand in the air now. “Is it someone we’ve heard of, at least?”

Naomi tried to make eye contact with Ethan, tried to say, without moving her mouth, Help me! You’re the one who thought this whole thing was a good idea. His frown had slipped completely into his beard.

This was a test neither of them had anticipated facing, at least not so soon. It was one thing to decide to date when they were the only two people who knew about it. Announcing they were dating in front of a room full of people seemed like far higher stakes.

Like so many other times since she’d met Ethan, she was torn between a choice that made her comfortable and a choice she thought was right. She held Ethan’s gaze for a long moment and then gave him a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

“Actually,” he said, loud enough to draw the attention of the room. “I’m the person Naomi’s dating.”

A pulsing silence filled the room as Naomi imagined the participants trying to figure out whether they’d been unknowingly cast in a televised social experiment.

They’d just entrusted a room full of people with a piece of information that could jeopardize Ethan’s career, not to mention their fragile relationship. Naomi had rules about arming people with information they could use against her. She’d had a lot of rules before she met him.

“Yeah, right.” Jaime waved them off.

“No. Seriously.” She gave the classroom her scariest look, the one Josh had once sworn caused a street harasser’s hairline to visibly recede. “Rabbi Cohen and I are dating.”

One of the students in the front row shook his head back and forth. “But . . . how?”

“What do you mean, how?” Naomi snapped. This dude’s tone implied that someone in this equation was out of the other’s league, and in either scenario, she was offended.

“You can’t date Rabbi Cohen, you’re not Jewish,” a girl toward the back said dismissively.