“Because then what, right?”
“Exactly,” I whispered.
We were quiet so long, we made the waitress nervous when she showed up, asked how everything was, and we both mutteredfine.
“I’m sorry my mother made everything weird for you.”
“Oh no, it wasn’t her. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. She just asked me questions no one else has the balls to. She’s not afraid of me like everybody else.”
“Who’s afraid of you?”
I laughed then. “Clearly not you or your mother.”
“Why would we be?”
“I mean specifically you. You’re not afraid of offending me and of us not being friends anymore.”
“We’ll always be friends,” he muttered, going back to his food. “I don’t try with people I don’t plan on annoying for years.”
Somehow, in that moment, it was too much, and I had to turn away, looking across the room at the view of downtown.
“And you’d really not see my mother anymore? You?”
“What?” I gasped, turning back to him. “Even if we’re done, I would never stop seeing your mother.”
“Of course you would. If we break up, you can’t see her anymore.”
Break up. He had no idea about the words that tumbled out of his mouth. “I have news for you. She and I talked about this already, and she said she’s keeping me no matter what. So even if you hate me, you’re stuck with me.”
Eli grinned. “I knew she was keeping you. It’s how she looks at you and introduces you to people at the synagogue.”
“Well, there you have it.”
He scoffed then. “Like this matters. We’ll always be friends.”
In that moment I wanted to say,I want to be more, but I swallowed it down and waited for my feelings to ebb as they always did.
There were highs, when I wanted to be the one who held his hand, whom he kissed and, of course, took to bed. I’d found myself standing in the doorway to his room on many occasions, wanting to be there, in his life, and have him all to myself. I didn’t want to share him with the parade of women I knew would never stay because he made zero effort, and for whom he never felt, he told me, anything beyond fleeting passion. But still, they got to hold his hand, at least for a day, maybe a week, and I couldn’t. It wasn’t something he wanted.
And then there were lows, when his friendship was enough and I counted myself lucky. We’d meet some Sunday mornings, both of us doing the walk of shame, both in clothes from the previous evening, squinting if we had to take off our sunglasses, and having Bloody Marys for breakfast. That was perfect. What was even better was when his mother met us and shook her head and lectured us both about our futures. I adored her.
The thing was, someday it might be too painful to bear. When him being mine became the only option, there would need to be a change. I hadn’t hit that wall yet, and I was terrified of it happening. When you built your life around another person because they were your tether, it was scary to think of that going away.
3
ELI
Ihad to process, because I wasn’t altogether certain I’d heard Kage right.
“You heard me right,” my boss assured me, as though reading my mind, his scowl deepening with every passing second.
“Okay…” I said, playing for time. I knew he didn’t like waiting, but I seriously needed another second—or more—to wrap my brain around what I was being told.
“Kohn.”
This was insane.
First, before anything else, I was a deputy US marshal, not an event planner. I was not the cruise director on a large ocean-faring vessel. What he was directing me to do was decidedlynotmy job. And even though, technically, I wasn’t in charge of puttingonthe event, I did have to be there throughout the planning, as the security for the gala fell to me. I was in charge.