BEN HAD MET Amanda at the nursing home to light the menorah and spin the dreidel with Norma and her family. They’d stayed for homemade jelly doughnuts brought by Norma’s son and his wife. Now, outside in the parking lot, Amanda was getting ready to give him a ride home.
It was starting to snow.
“Oh,” she said, tipping her face up to the night sky and catching a few flakes on her tongue. “I love the snow.”
“We’re supposed to get about a foot,” he told her.
Her eyes widened. “Shut the front door! No way.”
“That’s what I heard at work.” Laughing, he watched her spin, arms stretched out wide. “You’re so different from any woman I’ve ever known.”
She stopped spinning, her eyes alight. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s not good or bad,” he said. “It just . . . is.”
The falling snow shifted in that moment, turning from spare and floating flakes to thicker, heavier ones. Amanda looked at the ground, where the snow had started to accumulate. “We should head home, before the roads get bad.”
Both of them were quiet in the short car ride, the radio playing softly to cover up the silence. He glanced at her now and then, tracing the outline of her face with his gaze. Knowing she could feel him looking at her by the way she’d every so often smile, even as she kept her eyes on the road.
In the Valencia lobby, both of them hesitated. The short walk from the car to the building had covered them both with swiftly melting snow. It glistened in her dark red hair, and moisture clung to her eyelashes. Her cheeks had pinked from the cold. She was laughing at the joke he’d told her, something simple and silly, a play on words he’d thought up at work but had obviously struck her as funny enough that even several minutes later she was still chuckling.
He wanted to tell her, then, everything. About his past, Galya and Levi, about leaving home and why he worked Friday night shifts at a coffee shop instead of for his father. He wanted her to know him, Ben realized, and he wanted to know her.
“Well,” Amanda said, when he hadn’t gathered the courage to speak. “Good night.”
“Night.” He paused at his door to watch her climb the first few stairs.
She looked over her shoulder, then turned slowly on her heel, one hand on the railing. “So, tomorrow night, I was going to make latkes. I usually invite everyone in the building. That includes you.”
“That sounds great.”
She grinned and hopped up the next couple of stairs with a wave. “See you tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
Inside his apartment, Ben stripped out of his damp coat and hung it on the hook by the door. He shed his jeans and flannel shirt, noting that it would be time to do laundry soon. Another chore he’d never had to think about when he lived at home. He took a long hot shower, letting the water pound away some of the tension in his neck and shoulders, and then he slipped into a bed with chilly sheets.
He thought about Amanda the entire time.
He thought about her until he fell asleep.
He was still thinking about her when he woke up.
BEN HAD BEEN wrong about the snow. Instead of a foot, just over eighteen inches had come down in the night. It sent the city into a flurry of plows and salt and cancellations. As nonessential personnel, Amanda had the choice of not reporting in for work, and she took the snow day without a second thought. She had two bags of potatoes and one of onions, a jar of minced garlic, and a jug of oil. She was ready.
She thumbed the number he’d given her into her phone. “Ben. Tell me you’re not going in to work today.”
“I’m definitely not,” he told her. “Tesla closed the Mocha.”
“Come upstairs with me and help cook the latkes for the party. We can watch Interflix and play cards. If you want,” she added after a second.
She could hear the grin in his voice. “Sure. That sounds great. I’ll be up in about ten minutes. Want me to bring anything?”
“What do you have to bring?”
“Nothing,” he said after a second.
She laughed. “Just yourself, then. See you.”
Humming, she slipped on an apron and pulled out all the ingredients she’d need, then streamed some tunes to the speakers she’d set up around the apartment. By the time Ben knocked, she’d already launched into an enthusiastic, if off-tune, rendition of “Sweet Caroline” that she was still singing as she flung open the door. “ . . . ba-da-da . . . hi!”
To her delight, Ben came through the door to join her in the song, both of them doing a little shuffle step together in her living room just as the tune ended. “Neil Diamond. My mom was a huge fan, even if he did make those Christmas albums. Here.”
Grinning, he handed her a small paper sack emblazoned with the Morningstar Mocha logo. Inside were a couple lemon scones.
“Yum, thanks.” Without thinking, she pushed up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, but she caught him turning and her lips brushed his.
Amanda hadn’t meant it to be anything more than friendly, at least not on the surface, but Ben pulled her close. The kiss deepened, but ended when he pulled back without letting go of her. Blinking, Amanda focused on his gaze, which looked cloudy.
“Sorry,” he told her.
“No, don’t . . . it’s not . . .”
He let her go and she stepped back, embarrassed, uncertain. She hadn’t meant to overstep but clearly had, that seemed obvious. At least until Ben pulled her into his arms and kissed her again. Harder, this time, one hand on the small of her back and one between her shoulder blades. Their lips parted and she caught the sweetest, briefest taste of his tongue before he withdrew again.
Amanda put her fingertips to her mouth. “Mmmm.”
Ben ducked his head, his turn to look embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“I’m not sorry,” she told him. “So don’t you apologize unless you wish that hadn’t happened, and if that’s true, then you can say you’re sorry again, and we can just pretend it didn’t. It’ll only be a little awkward, but I’m sure we can get past it.”
She’d spoken lightly, a touch of sarcasm tinting her words, but Ben must’ve learned her sense of humor, because he took her hands in his, the fingers linking. His thumbs stroked her palms briefly, that swift touch enough to send warmth trickling all through her. Him, too, she thought by the gleam in his eyes, no matter how many times he apologized.
“Okay. Not sorry.”
Stories, everyone had stories, Amanda reminded herself as she studied him but couldn’t figure him out. “C’mon. I told everyone to come around four, if they could make it. We have time to make the latkes and still watch a movie or something . . . if you want.”
He nodded, following her into the narrow galley kitchen. “I want.”
“Good.” She glanced at him over her shoulder as he let go of her hand. “Do you want to shred the potatoes or cut the onions?”
AN HOUR LATER, interrupted by laughter and a pause to sample the scones he’d brought, they had a giant mixing bowl of shredded potatoes and onions mixed with some garlic, salt, and pepper. The oil was heating. Neil Diamond had shuffled off to be replaced by Kenny Rogers, who, as it turned out, Ben did not know how to sing along with.
“Neil Diamond is Jewish,” he explained when Amanda asked. He was washing the bowls and utensils while she set out a platter for the finished latkes. At her look, he laughed. “Yes, even with the Christmas albums. We didn’t listen to pop music, unless it was somehow Jewish. Or classic rock. My dad had a vinyl collection that was out of this world. Original Stones, Zeppelin, The Who . . . He’d listen to them in the basement den only, and we weren’t supposed to know. But I’d sneak down sometimes and listen at the door. Great music.”
“He had to hide the fact he listened to it?”
“He didn’t have to, I guess. But he did. He didn’t want anyone outside the family knowing, because there would’ve been talk. Just like he’d sometimes put on jeans and an old concert T-shirt while he was down there, but you’d never have seen him in public that way. Ever.”
Amanda pressed her lips together, trying to think of what to say. Ben’s mysterious past was being revealed to her one tidbit at a time, and she didn’t want to come off sounding judgmental. “I’m not sure I get it.”
Ben set the final bowl in the drying rack and faced her, leaning against her counter with his arms crossed. “My parents met in Israel when they were doing a year course program before college. Neither of them had been Orthodox growing up, but somewhere along the way they decided they wanted to be frum. Observant.”
“I know what it means,” Amanda said.
Ben gave her a small smile. “Do you?”
“I know what the word means,” Amanda said. “If you’re asking me what being observant means, I have a good idea. Maybe not every detail, but yeah.”
“There are a lot of rules.”
Amanda nodded. “My dad says that some people thrive on making rules, and some people thrive on breaking them.”
“I believe that. Anyway, they thought about making aliyah and staying in Israel, but decided to move home so my dad could come back and take over his dad’s store. He made it kosher, opened another in the next town over, then another sometime after that. The family business had been pretty small, but he’s made it into something a lot bigger. More successful.” Ben frowned, then shrugged and looked past her to the stove. “The oil looks hot.”
It sounded like he was trying to deflect the conversation, so Amanda didn’t push. Instead, she took heaping spoons of the potato/onion mixture and settled them into the sizzling oil, smooshing them flat so they could fry. Behind her, she felt Ben looking at her.
“He always assumed I would simply jump right in. He never asked me if I wanted to.”
She nodded, concentrating on flipping the frying latkes. Spatula in hand, she turned to him. “And you don’t want to.”
“No. I don’t.”
“And you don’t want to be observant,” she said quietly, thinking of the Friday nights she knew he worked and the sandwich he’d eaten from the gas station.
Ben didn’t say anything at first. He hitched a breath, shoulders rising and falling. He covered his eyes for a moment with the palm of his hand, but when he looked at her, his gaze was clear.
“To be honest with you, Amanda, I have no idea what I want.”
Carefully, so as not to splash burning oil, she slid the finished latkes onto the plate layered with paper towels to catch the grease. Though they were still hot, she took one and tore it in half, blowing on it before handing it to him. “The good news is, you don’t have to decide right this minute. Do you?”
Ben tossed the latke from hand to hand before biting into it with a happy sigh. “No. I guess I don’t. Wow, this is good. Really, really good.”
“Good.” She handed him the spatula with a grin. “You take over the frying. I’m going to make some brownies.”
BEN HAD MET a few of the neighbors before, but now with Amanda’s living room full to bursting with people, he was having a hard time keeping everyone’s names straight.
“Quite the party,” said the short guy with big dark glasses who’d introduced himself as Damien.
He shared the second floor apartment directly above Ben’s with the couple sitting on the couch. Mark and Tina, Ben remembered. They had a dog, which explained the occasional thumping and scratching that he heard overhead.
Ben nodded. “Yeah.”
“I love these lat-key things, man. Last year was the first time I ever tried them, and I’m hooked. I actually went out and bought some of that boxed mix from the ethnic aisle in the supermarket.” Damien lifted his plate of greasy latkes smothered in applesauce. “They can’t come close to this, you know what I mean?”
He sure did. Amanda and he had slaved over the frying pan for hours, taking turns flipping the latkes. They must’ve fried over a hundred, and most of them were already gone. “Good stuff.”
“So, Ben, what do you do?”
The conversation meandered that way, subject to subject, interrupted as other guests mingled. Ben talked about the snow, his job, New York City, applesauce versus sour cream, and his opinion on dogs—and all the while, no matter who he was talking to, he found his gaze wandering back to Amanda. Her cheeks flushed, that dark red hair pulled up into a messy bun, her brown eyes sparkling with laughter. She wore a loose fitting sweatshirt decorated with dancing dreidels and stars of David that said HAPPY CHALLAH DAYS, and she had to keep pushing the sleeves up her arms because they were too long.
He couldn’t get the taste of her out of his mouth.
After the latkes but before the party started, they’d turned on the TV to a movie the name of which he could not longer remember, because ten minutes into it he’d found himself pulling her onto his lap to kiss her. Long, slow kisses that had set him on fire, the feeling of her curves beneath his hands, the way her breathing had sighed into his ear when she tipped her head back so he could get to the smooth skin of her throat. It would’ve gone further had the first guest knocking at the door not interrupted them.
He didn’t know how to feel about that.
All he did know was that he couldn’t stop his gaze from finding her, or from smiling when she smiled at him from across the room. That was the problem, wasn’t it? he asked himself as he tried to drag his attention back to the conversation he was having with Gladys Barnes, who lived in the other ground floor apartment. He couldn’t stop himself from focusing on the sensual rather than what was right in front of him. He didn’t know what was worse—his inability to keep his mind from wandering to how it had felt to kiss Amanda, or that he couldn’t stop himself from figuring out how he was going to get to kiss her again.
“Excuse me,” he said to Mrs. Barnes. “It was nice meeting you.”
Without waiting for her to reply, Ben pushed through the crowd toward Amanda’s front door. The temperature in the room had grown too warm, or maybe it was the flush of embarrassment flooding him; either way, he needed to get out of there so he could catch his breath. She saw him leaving, she knew he did, so he stopped himself on the landing outside her front door.
She came out a few seconds later, her brow furrowed. “Hey. You okay?”
“I got too hot. I think I’m going to head down to my place. The party was great. Thanks for inviting me. And for . . . everything.” Great, cue the stumbling awkwardness. How could he explain that he’d been raised not even to shake a woman’s hand, much less kiss her until they both couldn’t breathe . . . at least not until they were married.
“Ben.”
He stopped in his tracks to turn, giving her the courtesy of meeting her gaze.
“Did I do something wrong? Or . . . Look, if you’re just not into me, that’s cool. But I wish you’d tell me.” Amanda shook her head, frowning, and he hated that he’d been the one to make her feel that way.
He hated that he’d made her doubt anything about herself at all, when this was him. All him. So instead of being honest, he messed up again by reacting without thinking. He pulled her against him and kissed her again. Then all at once she was up against the wall with his body pressing hers, and it was amazing and wonderful and he couldn’t get enough. He wanted more.
“Benyamin?” The deep male voice pulled Ben out of the kiss and he turned, heart already sinking, already knowing whom he’d see and what a disappointment he continued to be.
“Abba,” Ben said, aware Amanda’s fingers were still linked through his and his mouth was still half open and wet from her kisses. He let go of her hand, but gently, not moving away. He gestured toward the man in the black coat standing a few steps below them. “This is my father.”