Match Me If You Can, page 27
“Because of your strength. You’re not letting your past d-dictate your future. And I ammmm,” I sob. I lay my head against his suit.
“Tinsel, baby,” he whispers, rubbing my back in soothing circular motions, “life isn’t a race.”
“Th-that’s r-rich coming f-from you,” I cry. “You’re the m-most compet-t-ive person I know.”
His laughter vibrates through his body. “Okay, point taken. But it’s not like the demons went away. It wasn’t some epic battle that I won and took them all down. I think our experiences always stay with us, but they don’t need to control us.”
“You’re actually . . . really,” I sniff, “amazing.”
“Me?” His earnest eyes are hypnotizing. “Do you have any idea how fucking incredible you are? How intelligent and insightful and strong you are? And so resilient. You kept your mom’s legacy alive even though it came at a huge cost. You’ve been through so much, and you’ve done it with humor and grace, and you haven’t given up, you haven’t lost hope. And when you walk into a room,” he adds, “everything becomes somehow brighter and warmer, simply because you’re there. You have so much love to give, if you’d only let yourself.”
My chest heaves with emotion. I see it all so clearly—the husband, the kids, the white picket fence. Except when I envision it, it isn’t with someone like Alex. It’s not with someone who might be an okay father and an average husband.
It’s with Caleb. Only Caleb.
“And you’re so incredibly sexy that I feel like exploding just by looking at you,” he whispers, threading his fingers through my hair.
My eyes widen. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” He gazes at my lips hungrily, and I, in turn, gaze at his.
“I’m thinking about kissing you, to be honest.”
His Adam’s apple visibly jumps as he swallows. “Oh?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything I can do to help you decide?” he says huskily.
“Well,” I say, “I was just going through your list.”
His eyes scan my face. “My list?”
“Of all the things you said you wanted in a woman. And I realized that I’m the exact opposite.”
“No.” He brings his hand to my jaw and cradles it gently. “That was me acting out like a child.”
“But why . . .” I shiver as his thumb brushes over my bottom lip.
“Because,” he says, pulling back, his eyes stormy, “it felt like a cruel joke. To be in love with a woman whose biggest goal in life was to marry me to someone else. When all I’ve ever wanted, the only person I’ve ever wanted, was right in front of me all along.”
And then he kisses me. Softly, reverently, and when I open my mouth and welcome his tongue, he releases a sigh as if to say, finally, I’ve come home.
Chapter Thirty-Two
My entire body melts. Melts and turns to a piddly, liquid mess and if Caleb weren’t holding onto me, I’d fall. He kisses the same way he banters, a little teasing here, a little nip there. A gentle sparring of our lips and tongues, a back and forth that causes electricity to race up and down my body.
I didn’t know that kissing could be so all-consuming. That it could ignite a fire deep within you and drive you crazy with a need. A need to be closer, a need for more, a need that’s much too intense for an amateur like me because no way in hell am I ever stopping.
I drag my nails across his scalp and he slides his hand behind my head, angling my face to deepen the kiss. I didn’t think it was possible, but the kiss turns even hotter. Hungrier. As if he hasn’t eaten in days and I’m an all-you-can-eat buffet.
But my body still demands more, even though I don’t know what more is. All I know is that this feels like so much more than a kiss. It’s a trading of secrets, an exchange of souls.
This can’t be normal. How do people function and go to work and concentrate on anything at all when this exists? Are they doing it wrong? They must be.
When we finally pull back, we grin at each other for a long moment. Then he cradles my neck and looks at me so tenderly that it steals my breath away. How insane is this? The boy who once taught the girl how to build a campfire and ride a bike is now the man giving the woman a lesson in love.
In a public restroom, no less.
“Is it always this amazing?” I pant, searching his eyes.
“No,” he says, breathes heavily. “Never like this. Never this good. If you only knew the things I’ve thought about doing to you . . .” he says huskily, then rains kisses down my neck. I pull my hair back to grant him easier access because I’m helpful like that. His hands glide deliciously lower, gently pressing the space between by tailbone and butt.
“You’ve thought about doing things to me?” I grin.
“Only every day for the last ten years,” he says, and I can’t help but laugh. “I’m pretty sure your body was designed to drive me crazy.”
“Really?” I’m not sure why this makes me feel so giddy, but it does.
“Why do you think I work out so much?” His lips press against the skin below my collar bone. “I need an outlet for all my frustration.”
“I could always, um, help you with that,” I gasp as he kisses the valley of my cleavage.
“Thank fuck,” he murmurs.
It feels so incredibly good that I barely notice when the door opens and an older woman in an electric wheelchair starts making her way inside. She makes a startled “Oh!” and then I shriek, and then we both stare at each with a combination of horror and embarrassment while she switches into the reverse gear, and the automatic door slowly, slowly, swishes shut.
“You didn’t lock it?” I say to Caleb, mortified.
“I thought I did, but I might’ve been distracted.” He gives me a wolfish grin. “Maybe we should find a more comfortable place to continue this conversation. Or not,” he adds a moment later, when he sees my face. He drops his hands and steps away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed—”
“No no,” I say quickly. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Caleb, because I do. I really, really do. It’s just that—” Everything is moving so fast. Too fast. The fear that’s been my constant companion for the last twenty-five years is rearing its ugly head again.
“What?”
“I think you would agree that, you know . . . this was fun—”
“Fun.”
Why is he looking at me like I just murdered a puppy? “Pleasurable?” I venture. “Hot? Titillating?”
“Is there a thesaurus stuck in your throat?”
I blink. “Huh?”
“You mean more to me than just a good time, Ashira.” He exhales a long breath and drags his hand down his face. “I guess I should’ve figured you’d freak out.”
My hackles instantly rise. “I’m not freaking out. I just want to unalive our kiss, okay?”
He gazes up at the ceiling. “Your turn of phrase is Freudianly poetic.”
“I.” I swallow and feel a surge of helplessness as I see the pain on his face. “Caleb, I’m sorry, I never meant to . . .” I shake my head. “Caleb—I couldn’t survive losing you.”
His eyes soften. “You wouldn’t have to. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You might.” I rub my chest, trying to steady my breaths as they grow uneven. “Something could happen. It always does. You’ll get run over by a car or fall in love with a waitress, or get struck by lightning—”
“Hey, hey. Shhh.” He reaches for me again, and tucks my head under his chin.
“Half of Americans get divorced and those are normal people,” I continue. “You could get sick. What if you already are?” I put a hand over my stomach to try to tamp down the queasiness. What if cancer cells are multiplying out of control somewhere in his body at this very moment? “We can’t touch each other ever again,” I say, pulling out of his embrace. “It comes at too high a price. I can’t lose you,” I repeat.
“But I’ll die if I can’t touch you again,” he says, snaking an arm around my waist. “I guess I’m screwed either way.”
“I’ll find you someone else.” I dance out of his arms, eliciting a loud groan of protest from him.
“Will she smell like you? Because she has to have your exact scent.”
I have to turn away because his smile is my weak spot. “Maybe we shouldn’t look at each other either.”
“You know this thing between us isn’t going to disappear,” he says.
I pull on my bottom lip with my teeth. I have a terrible suspicion that he’s right. How am I supposed to get over him now that I know that these feelings between us are mutual? Not to mention what an amazing kisser he is.
This is a disaster. No, it worse—it’s a catastrophe.
“Ashira.” He sighs. “You need to understand that the crap from your past happened to you, not because of you. I know you’re scared shitless about getting hurt. I know your heart has taken a lot of hits. I know that you don’t want to make yourself vulnerable because it feels safer to avoid risk than to take a huge leap of faith.”
There’s this feeling in my gut that I’m not meant to have the kind of happiness other people have. I can have bits and pieces of it, like slices of pie. But the moment I start getting greedy and wanting the whole pie, that’s when bad things start to happen.
Maybe I can have kids and be a mom, but there’s no way I could have all that and be married to the man I love.
The man I love.
I inhale sharply and lay a hand over my stomach. I love Caleb. I think I always have. Being with him is like being with your best friend who also happens to be wildly attractive and an amazing kisser.
It’s all too much.
“Maybe it’s best if we take some time off,” I say, backing away until I hit the bathroom wall. My pulse is beating unnaturally fast and it’s possible I’m dying of a heart attack. Or having a panic attack. “Date other people. Maybe even marry them.” Clearly, I’ve shocked Caleb because his jaw drops. He stares at me for a long moment.
“Is that really what you want?”
I nod. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. The pain in his eyes is too much to bear and I glance away.
“Me too,” he says.
And then like the coward, I open the door and escape, all the way back to Brooklyn.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“You’re a terrible businesswoman,” Sissel says to me, the following night at her apartment over Chinese takeout. “The number one rule of a matchmaker is to never make out with a client.”
“I know,” I sigh.
“And you literally only had one client.”
I actually have several, but I’m too depressed to correct her.
“And now you have zero.”
I frown and pick at the rice in my cardboard box. “Whatever.”
“No, that’s how math works, Ashira. You have one client,” she says, holding up a finger, “and then you kiss one, and then you end up with zero. That’s basic math.”
I told Miri what happened that very night, but Sissel isn’t exactly the most sensitive when it comes to matters of the heart. At the same time, she knew something had been bothering me, and I was too tired to lie.
Sissel pops another dumpling into her mouth. “You want to know what Mrs. Schwartz has been saying about you?”
“Not really.”
But Sissel being Sissel, tells me anyway. “You seduced your oncologist. Your married oncologist.”
A small whimper escapes me.
“Hey, hey!” Miri calls out as she returns to the living room. “Did I not just tell you to watch what you say to Ashira? She’s vulnerable right now.”
“I was giving her business advice. I think she found it very helpful,” Sissel says, wiping her mouth with a napkin, then turning to me. “Right?”
“You told me I need to disguise myself with plastic surgery and get a new identity,” I say, putting down the rice. Not only have I lost my best shot at saving my mother’s legacy, but I’m also too much of a coward to take a chance with the man I love. “I feel sick to my stomach.”
Sissel trips over herself in her hurry to get off the couch. “Are you going to vomit?”
“Maybe.” I swallow. “I don’t know.”
“Can you go to the bathroom then while you figure that out?” Sissel says, looking panicked.
“No, vomit on the couch,” Miri says to me. “That’ll teach Sissel to watch her mouth.”
“Miri!” Sissel cries.
“You did this,” Miri tells her, gesturing at me. “So fix it.”
Sissel rubs her forehead and cringes, and I can practically see the wheels turning frantically in her brain. “Um—so, Ashira, you’ve been a matchmaker for eight years and you never kissed a client before. So that’s good of you. And besides,” she adds with a shrug, “Caleb was never a real client anyway.”
I frown. “Why not?”
Sissel and Miri exchange a look, as if this is a discussion they’ve had between themselves many times.
“I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you,” Miri says simply.
Sissel nods. “It’s true.”
“So this whole time I was being his matchmaker . . .” I trail off, and shake my head. “Were you guys laughing at me behind my back?”
“It was more like scoffing,” Sissel says, reaching for her Coke.
“It was not scoffing or laughing,” Miri says firmly. “We hardly ever talked about it, anyway.”
I gaze between her and Miri. “You could’ve said something.”
“It’s not like you would’ve believed us anyway,” Sissel says. “You’ve been in denial about your feelings for him for years.”
I frown because, well, she isn’t wrong.
“What am I going to do?” I start to sweat. “About the matchmaking, about Caleb—”
“Don’t make any decisions right now,” Miri says. “There’s no emergency.”
“What’s there to think about?” Sissel says, waving her chopstick. “Marry the poor man and put both yourselves out of misery.”
“But what if I’m cursed?”
“Yeah,” Sissel nods. “I could see that.”
“Sissel!” Miri hisses.
“Everyone that gets too close to me eventually leaves, one way or another.” I wave my finger at them. “You two could be next.”
Sissel recoils and gazes at me in what is either shock or fear.
“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” Miri says firmly.
“But if you had to guess,” Sissel says, glancing between Miri and me, “which one of us would go first?”
“Sissel.” Miri scowls at her.
“What? I’m not allowed to ask?”
“I’m not getting married,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not doing it.” Saying the words out loud gives me a rush of relief, like I’m back on safe territory after visiting a beautiful island that was also fraught with danger. “Caleb can find someone else.”
“And you’d be okay with that?” Miri asks, her voice laced with doubt.
“Yes,” I reply, my voice also laced with doubt.
Miri shakes her head and reaches for her water. “Well, I don’t think he would be.”
The air feels tight, like there’s not enough oxygen in the room to go around. I claw at my neck, feeling like I’m stuck on a slow-moving conveyor belt that’s going to plunge off a deep cliff.
“For the record,” Sissel says, “I think you’d have the cutest kids.”
“I know what you’re doing,” I say, turning to her. “And that’s not how a curse works. You can’t try to flatter me out of it because I don’t control it in the first place.”
“I wasn’t trying to flatter you,” Sissel says, looking offended. “It’s the truth.”
“It really is.” Miri smiles. “Can you imagine? They’d be too adorable.”
I’m suddenly transported back to my childhood, to being seven-years-old again and having people I’d never met before pat me on the head and call me adorable. Strangers would give me secondhand toys and books, even though it wasn’t my birthday or Chanukah. It was only when I was older that I realized the community had rallied together to try to help our family once my father left. But no amount of rugelach and babka, or dolls or Percy Jackson books, could remove the pain of losing the man I hero-worshipped.
Maybe I’d feel differently if my dad had been a jerk or just an average father. But he wasn’t, he was awesome. He was the one who regularly took me to the park and then afterwards, go out for ice cream. He was the one who comforted me if Leah made me cry, and he was the one who told me bedtime stories and tucked me in every night.
One minute, I was his special princess, and the next, I wasn’t even worthy of a goodbye.
In books and movies, people get closure. They eventually either reunite and talk, or they uncover the truth about someone after their death that can provide some sense of peace. But that’s not how it works in real life, or at least, not in my real life.
I imagine little children with light brown skin and dark eyes, Caleb’s lips and my dimples, and trying to comfort them if he were also to one day—
I stand up. “I have to go.”
“Now?” Miri asks, looking alarmed. “Where?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, grabbing my coat off the couch and thrusting my arms into it. “But I need air.”
“Do you want me to come?” Miri offers.
“Or me?” Sissel adds.
I shake my head and zip my coat. “No, thanks. I need to think. But thanks.” I give each of them and hug. “Love you, guys,” I say, stepping into the hallway.
“Say no to drugs,” Sissel says as her departing message, then shuts the door.
But it isn’t drugs that I have to say no to.
It’s Caleb.
Which is why I decide to do something that’s entirely out of character, and that I’ll very possibly end up regretting.
* * *
I slap my hand down on the counter and say, “Bruce, my man.”
Bruce startles and knocks his head against a display shelf. “What,” he says, whirling around, “are you doing here at,” he glances at the clock, “six in the evening?” He rubs his head and mutters, “I thought evenings were safe.”
