The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2)(82)

He didn’t know how to make them see all the intangible gains. Like the way the audience had rallied around Naomi. So many of them had volunteered to walk her to her car that she’d ended up fenced in like a pop star. Or how week after week her vulnerability made them brave enough to reach out for connection themselves. He had at least five new members a week coming to his office, saying things like, “I didn’t think shul was a place for me, but if this synagogue is open enough to host a seminar like that, I guess I was wrong.”

But . . . for how long could Ethan keep putting her in difficult situations? She’d said she used her given name here because it made things easier. Well, she deserved easier. Deserved the chance to walk around unguarded for once. Secure in the knowledge she was welcome.

As long as she continued to date him, both the people who respected their relationship and the ones who resented it would want a piece of her. Would demand attention and access.

There are certain expectations of a rabbi, Mira had told him when he first confessed to his mentor that he’d enrolled at the rabbinate. It’s hard, and even though people tell you, you won’t believe them. The hours are impossible. You’ll never feel like you’re doing enough. You sign up, and your life is no longer just yours. Your first duty becomes service. Half the time you’re acting on behalf of people who don’t even want to be helped, and that’s not even the hardest part. The hardest part is, you can’t simply make the people you love okay with the life you’ve chosen. Either they’re along for the ride, or you have to let them go.

Ethan’s insides twisted, his body rejecting even the idea of losing Naomi. But there was one truth he couldn’t deny: no matter how much he wanted to, an easier life wasn’t something he could offer her.





Chapter Thirty


RUNNING OUT OF road was the latest problem Naomi had discovered with using the Modern Intimacy syllabus as an outline for her relationship with Ethan. Tonight would be their penultimate lecture. The milestone was how to talk about having a future together, which was apt, to say the least.

“Where do you keep your spices?”

Ethan had offered to make her scrambled eggs before work—had gone out to the corner deli this morning while she stayed in bed, even—but at twenty to seven, various bangs and curses said he was finding the task more difficult to accomplish than anticipated.

“I don’t have spices,” she called from down the hall. She was trying to do a smoky eye, but the bathroom was still hot and humid from her shower, and the shadow kept sliding down her eyelid.

He popped into the doorway, his gaze following the way she bent over the sink, trying to get close enough to make use of the still-foggy mirror. “You don’t have salt?”

She wiggled her ass at him, for fun, until he stepped behind her and put both hands on her hips, bending to kiss her neck, light and maddening.

“I might have, like, a packet from a takeout order lying around in a drawer somewhere?” She hunted through her makeup bag. Where the hell was her eyeliner? “If it’s part of the recipe or whatever, why didn’t you pick it up at the store?”

“Why didn’t I pick up salt?” He stood up and made a face at her in the mirror. “Because salt is a standby. It never crossed my mind that you might not own such an incredibly”—he bit her shoulder a little—“basic ingredient.”

Naomi turned and looped her arms around his neck, leaning back to better admire the way the humidity had curled his hair against his cheeks. “I have hot sauce.”

“Not a valid substitution.” The words fell against her lips, chased by his mouth. “How do you cook anything?”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She loved the minty toothpaste morningness of his breath, how it led to the kind of kiss you could only get from waking up in the same place as someone else. “I don’t.”

Ethan pulled back. “Wait, ever?”

She tilted her head, considering. “I order takeout or I make a salad or cereal or something. Maybe a sandwich. I have cold cuts, I think.” Ethan didn’t need to know that they’d probably passed their expiration date a while ago.

He wrinkled his nose.

“What? It’s fine. Usually we’re at your house, and you put on that cute little apron”—she threaded her fingers through the belt loops of his jeans, pulling his hips toward hers—“and I get to watch your hands move while you chop things.” They probably didn’t have time for sex before work, but maybe she could get him to—

“I’m buying you salt,” he said, extracting himself from her grip with surprising stealth and walking backward out of the bathroom.

She batted her eyelashes at him. “Are you sure it isn’t too soon for a grand gesture like that?”

“And pepper,” he shouted from somewhere down the hall.

“Stop.” Naomi picked up her mascara, noticed her reflection was grinning, and didn’t mind so much. “You’ll spoil me.”

When she’d gotten her makeup to behave, she headed to the kitchen.

“Can we run though the plan for tonight’s seminar?” She grabbed her cell phone and thumbed to her notes app.

Ethan worked a fork in sharp circles around a mixing bowl Naomi couldn’t remember ever purchasing. “Yeah, of course.”