The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2)(96)

“Hey,” she repeated, smiling, and then there was a long moment in which they gazed at each other, goofy. “Aren’t you in the middle of something?”

“Oh.” Ethan shook his head while people in the audience laughed and wolf-whistled. “Yeah.”

“Something about how your life is worse without me,” Naomi supplied gently.

“Right.” He wanted to drink her in. Every inch, every detail. Ethan wanted to get drunk on her.

“You can’t end a lecture in the middle. Not on my watch.” She pushed him back with a light hand, letting herself fade back into the first row of the audience. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I hope you find the courage to start again when you need it,” he told the seminar participants. “Whether it’s with someone new or the one who got away. It’s always going to be easier to stand still than to move forward. An object at rest and all that. If you decide to go back to something you’ve lost, you may have to humble yourself—in a dive bar, perhaps.” He grinned ruefully. “You might have to admit that you wish you’d fought harder. You’ll have to prove that you’re ready to fight now.”

A grin split across Naomi’s face.

“One of the best things about love, real love, is that it doesn’t demand perfection. It simply invites us to live up to our potential.”

Ethan took in the crowd again, their expectant eyes and the energy of the moment they shared.

“I’m a mess right now,” he told them, trusting them to share in this truth. “I’m afraid of not being worthy of what I want. I don’t . . . I don’t know how to be this happy and also devastated at the same time. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet that I’m not going back to Beth Elohim.”

Naomi’s grin faded. “Wait a minute, yes you are.”

He cleared his throat and tried to ignore the fact that the entire room hung on their every word.

“I’m not”—he placed his hand over the lapel mic—“I want to build a life with you, and I’m not looking for anyone’s opinion on the matter except yours.”

Naomi shook her head and then stepped forward, reaching into his pocket and switching the mic off entirely. With a hand on his forearm, she steered him back into a corner, blocking the crowd with her body.

Their spectators booed accordingly until Morey climbed on a chair and told them that in his day, all good shows came with an intermission, and if they didn’t like it, they could go home and miss the finale.

With surprisingly minimal groans, they settled—looking at their phones or lining up for the bathroom.

“I owe you an apology,” Naomi said to Ethan, voice lowered but still firm. “I was selfish. When you told me you left the synagogue, I knew that you wouldn’t be able to stay away. Not for long. I wanted to be the one who ended things. Wanted to leave you before you left me for your congregation. But I’ve been thinking about it, and loving me and loving Beth Elohim aren’t mutually exclusive values.” Something soft lit her dark eyes. “What if we could convince the board to change their minds?”

But Ethan had seen the anger, the fear in Jonathan during that last meeting.

“The board made it clear they don’t want me there. Not in any way that I can abide.”

Naomi arched a brow. “Look, I’m the queen of not asking for approval. I could write a book about carving out a home for yourself outside the norm. But even on the outskirts, there’s community. There’s accountability. And there’s trust. I don’t know if you heard that whole speech you just gave—not bad, by the way, for a first time—but if you thought you were just talking about our breakup, you’re out of your mind. I’m great, don’t get me wrong. But ours is not the only relationship in your life worth fighting for.”

He should have known Naomi wouldn’t be easily deterred.

“You really think I should go back?”

Naomi had her hands on her hips, full warrior pose. “The real question is, do you want to?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I’m still hurt. Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” she conceded. “I am. But I’ve realized that life allows for those multitudes. Our actions, the future we choose—more often than not, it all comes down to one simple question. What are you gonna let win—your love or your pain?”

Like so much else, Naomi made something so complicated, so fraught, effortlessly clear.

Ethan nodded. Whatever it took, he would find a way to convince the board to trust him again.

“That’s what I thought.” Naomi wound her arms around his waist, bringing their bodies together. Her smell, warm and lush, surrounded him—soothed him.

She spoke quietly in his ear. “No less. No more.”

He brushed her hair back from her face. Ethan would have given her anything in that moment.

“Okay,” he said, voice artificially amplified, as Naomi stepped back and ushered him toward the crowd. She’d switched his mic on again. Minx.

The bar’s occupants graciously returned their attention, eager for Morey’s promised conclusion.

“I’m sure most of you had a lot of questions the first time you heard about a Modern Intimacy lecture series sponsored by a synagogue. Maybe it didn’t make sense to you—the overlap between ancient practice and contemporary courtship. Honestly, maybe even after seven lectures it still doesn’t make sense to you. But for me, the connection has always been clear: I wanted us to learn, together, how to be good to one another. The course isn’t called Modern Love or Modern Sex, though I know some of you—Craig—occasionally forget that.”