Chapter Seven

“OKAY.” NAOMI TIGHTENED her hands on the steering wheel of her Prius. “I’m allowing you to grant me this favor, but only under the strict stipulation that you make a conscious effort not to embarrass me.”

“Turn right up here.” Clara held up her phone to the windshield, as if that would make Google Maps more accurate.

They’d arranged to meet Ethan at a coffee shop downtown, and as the passenger, it was Clara’s responsibility to navigate.

“Also”—Clara lowered her phone and fiddled with the A/C, sending a blast of frigid air directly at Naomi’s face, making her eyes water—“since when do favors come with qualifiers?”

“Since you’re doing one for me, Connecticut.” Naomi’s favorite and most benign nickname for Clara was the one in reference to her home state. You could take the girl out of Greenwich, but you couldn’t stop her from crossing her legs at the ankles and referring to Manhattan as “the city” even though she’d lived in L.A. for almost three years now.

“I’ve spent my entire life trying to minimize embarrassment,” Clara bristled. “I think I can make it through forty-five minutes of coffee without saying anything uncouth.”

Naomi grimaced at the reminder of Clara’s family—bluebloods with enough scandals to rival the Kennedys, though with fewer political aspirations.

“He’s not a normal rabbi.” Sure, Ethan had all of the qualities rabbis were supposed to possess; he was kind and smart, a good listener, thoughtful. But he was also— “You’ll have to check that impulse you have to literally run from the room when confronted with an extremely hot person.”

Clara tipped up her nose. “I have gotten much better at that in the last three years. As you know, I am, in fact, set to marry an extremely hot person.”

“Obviously, after a steady diet of vitamin D”—she shot Clara a knowing look—“you’ve built up an immunity.”

Covering her eyes with her hand, Clara groaned. “Sometimes you are a true nightmare.”

Mood considerably brightened by torturing her friend, Naomi adjusted her sunglasses. “But seriously, Ethan is hot in a different way than Josh.”

Clara squirmed, adjusting her seat belt where it bit into her neck because she was so short. “Okay. So describe it.”

“He’s disarming.” Naomi never brought the right armor into battle against him.

“Disarming how?” Clara lowered her sunglasses and peered at Naomi over the top of them.

“He’s sexy when he shouldn’t be.”

Sexy was a word Naomi heard thrown around a lot, and like any word used too often, it had started to lose meaning. Because of the nature of her work, she usually heard it describing something orchestrated and deliberate, built with the singular intention to tantalize.

Ethan wasn’t like that.

He was like a current. Powerful and fluid in ways that had nothing to do with wanting her but that pulled her in all the same.

“Oh.” Clara slid the seat forward and back in tiny increments. “Is that all?”

Naomi should have insisted they take separate cars from the office.

She flicked the side of Clara’s thigh. “What do you mean, is that all?”

“Ow.” Clara reached over to pinch her arm in retaliation, but Naomi warned, “I’m driving,” and Clara sat back with a huff.

“You think everyone is sexy,” the brunette said simply.

“Not everyone,” Naomi protested. She didn’t think her current mail carrier was sexy. Now his predecessor, on the other hand . . .

“That’s true,” Clara said, thoughtful as she wiped the lens of her sunglasses on her skirt. “Lately it’s narrowed down to everyone mean.”

Well, sure. It was easier to keep mean people at arm’s length.

“That’s just it, though.” Naomi smacked the steering wheel with her palm and accidentally hit the horn. She waved in apology at the car in front of her until he flipped her the bird. Rolling down her window, she yelled, “Well, fuck you too, buddy,” before turning back to Clara. “That’s the thing about this guy. He’s not mean. He’s nice, like aggressively nice, and kinda funny, but not really on purpose, and . . . it’s confusing.”

Obviously, Clara didn’t understand why Ethan was so dangerous. How could she explain that he possessed near-lethal levels of persuasive powers? There was something about his shoulder-to-waist ratio. Despite his average height—maybe below average, honestly—he was so broad. Actually, what was a bigger word than broad? Expansive?

“Wait a second.” Clara sat straighter in her seat, which frankly shouldn’t have been possible since she had like finishing school posture already.

Naomi pulled up to a stop sign. “What?”

“You really like this guy.” An annoying singsong quality permeated Clara’s voice.

“On a professional level.” With Naomi’s résumé, it was reasonable to use professional to mean she wanted to fuck him.

“No,” Clara chewed her bottom lip. “On a . . . hand-holding, picnic-in-the-park, do-his-whole-astrological-chart-to-see-if-you’re-compatible level.”

“That’s the grossest thing you’ve ever said to me.”