“I’ve got it,” I said quietly, putting my hand on top of hers for just a second. I reached for my wallet at the same time she tried to argue.

  “No way,” she replied. “You don’t need to pay for mine.”

  The couple across the table completely ignored our interaction.

  “I know I don’t have to,” I said to Sarai as I caught the waitress’s eye. I pulled out some bills and handed them to the waitress when she walked over to us. “Keep the change.” I’d given her a fat tip. It was the least I could do after spending so long at her table during one of their busiest nights of the week.

  “Really,” Sarai said, pulling some cash from her wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

  Sean and Hailey were still talking to each other like they had no idea that I’d just paid for their goddamn dinner. No one was that oblivious. I was pissed, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to make Sarai pay for her own meal. I’d had a good time, and I’d probably be thanking Sean later for setting this double date up, but it was the principle of the thing. The bill was his responsibility.

  “Nothing,” I said to Sarai, shaking my head. “Seriously, this one’s on me.”

  “It’s not like this was a real date,” she said softly, her lips tipping up at the edges.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I replied, standing up from my seat. I pulled her chair out as she finally put away her wallet and stood up, too.

  “You guys leaving?” Hailey asked, suddenly out of the Sean-fog she’d seemed to be lost in.

  “I still need to get the check,” Sean said jovially. The prick.

  “Alex already got it,” Sarai said drily. “I’ll see you Wednesday in class, Hailey?”

  “I’ll be there,” Hailey said. She made no move to get up, so I guessed that was our cue to leave without them.

  I followed Sarai out of the restaurant, still completely annoyed. That dipshit was going to pay me back. It wasn’t as if I was hurting for money, but I definitely hadn’t budgeted for paying for four expensive dinners this week.

  “It was nice meeting you,” Sarai said as we stepped out into the cold night. She was holding her sweater tightly around her.

  “You too,” I said, smiling. The night had been complete shit from beginning to end, but now that we were ready to leave, I was kind of disappointed. “Where’d you park?”

  “Right over there.” She nodded to her left.

  “I’ll walk you.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, then tilted her head and snapped her mouth shut again.

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t have been able to talk me out of it,” I said jokingly. She rolled her eyes, and I knew that I’d guessed her unsaid words correctly. “My dad would kill me if he knew I let a woman walk alone in the dark to her car.”

  “Yeah, but how would he know?” she asked, pulling her keys out of her purse as we walked.

  “I’m a terrible liar,” I replied.

  “Do you think he’ll ask if you’ve let any women walk to their cars alone lately?”

  “It’s possible,” I joked, nodding my head. “But even if he didn’t”—I sighed—“the minute he answered the phone, I’d probably blurt out the truth. Guilty conscience, you know?”

  “It must have sucked to be your friend when you were a kid,” she said, chuckling.

  “It did,” I replied in mock seriousness. We’d arrived at her car, and I searched for a way to buy myself some time. I hadn’t wanted to come, but now that the date was over, I didn’t want to leave.

  “Well, thanks for the escort,” she said, smiling politely.

  “You want to get dinner sometime?” I asked, grinning down at her.

  “I’m really busy,” she hedged.

  “I could work around your schedule—”

  Before I could say anything else, she shook her head.

  “Thank you, but no.” She unlocked her car door.

  “Really?” I said, unable to hide the surprise in my voice.

  She looked at me and snorted. “Yes. Really.”

  “Uh, okay.” I stepped back, completely unsure of myself now.

  Opening her car door, she turned to look back at me. “I’m focusing on school right now, but thank you for the invitation. Besides, I don’t date men prettier than me,” she said with a teasing smile.

  After that parting shot, she climbed into her car and drove away, leaving me standing there on the pavement, a dazed look on my face. As I watched her taillights disappear, I started to laugh.

  I was still laughing while I walked to my truck and climbed inside. Jesus. Getting completely shot down because I was too pretty was a fitting end to the hellish day I’d had. I mean, with the way the entire day had gone down, had I really expected that it would end any differently?

  My phone rang as soon as I’d stepped through my front door, and I groaned when my brother’s name flashed on the screen.

  “Abraham,” I answered.

  “It’s Ani,” my foster sister, sister-in-law, and best friend whispered.

  “Why are you calling from Bram’s phone?” I whispered back, grinning.

  “Because my phone is in the bedroom with my sweet little demon, who is currently asleep for the first time in twenty-four hours,” she replied, still whispering.

  “Damn, woman. Go get some sleep!”

  “I am,” she hissed. “I was just calling you to make sure you didn’t call me.”

  “I wasn’t planning on calling you.”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know that?”

  “You need some sleep,” I said, dropping onto my couch with a sigh. “You’re acting crazy.”

  “Do you think Bram would find me if I slept in the bathtub?” she asked seriously. “I could put some towels in there, and—”

  “Yes, he would notice. You have his phone,” I replied with a laugh. “Go get in bed.”

  “If he asks for sex, he’s coming to live with you.”

  “That’s a little extreme,” I said. “Make him live with the parents.”

  “He’d be too close,” she said, groaning. “If I had to see his face, I’d kill him.”

  “He’s probably already asleep,” I assured her, trying and failing to take her seriously. “Just go get in bed and get some rest while you can.”

  “Fine.” She hung up without saying good-bye, and I grinned as I dropped my phone on the couch beside me.

  Ani was one of the best people I’d ever known. She’d also been right. I would have called her once I’d had a few beers. I wanted to bitch about Sean not paying for dinner, and I still couldn’t get over the way Sarai had shot me down so easily, and I wanted to tell Ani about it. She’d laugh her ass off.

  I knew that I wasn’t God’s gift to women or anything like that, but I did pretty well with the fairer sex. I’d never in my life been told no flat out when I’d asked a woman to have dinner with me. I’d heard excuses and had women give me the brush-off, sure, but never gotten a plain “No.” If I was being honest, that had burned a little.

  I stripped down to my boxers and grabbed a six-pack from the fridge before settling back down on the couch again. Since I didn’t have anything going on the next day, I was going to drink every single one of those beers and burn off some frustration by killing some video game zombies.

  Before I turned on the TV, I flipped through my text messages until I found one from Sean and replied to it, You owe me for dinner, fuckface.

  Chapter 2

  SARAI

  School was going to kill me. I’d been working all day on a paper, and I finally had the rough draft written, but I still had to outline the next paper before I could go to sleep. Neither of them was due until Monday, but I had plans tomorrow that I really couldn’t cancel. I rubbed at my forehead, where a headache was forming.

  “I know, Auntie,” I muttered, staring at her through the computer screen. She was complaining again about the distance between us. She didn’t understand why I’d gone all the way to Missouri for school when there were plenty of good schools in New York. Why couldn’t I live at home and go to school? Was I trying to get away from her? How was she supposed to check on me? I was twenty-six—wasn’t it time for me to settle down and give her some babies to hold?

  It drove me crazy, but I also kind of loved that she forced me to Skype her at least once a week to make sure that my cheeks hadn’t thinned out. I hadn’t been back home in over a year, because the tickets were so expensive and I couldn’t afford to take any time off from the accounting office where I worked. I missed New York, though, and my aunt and uncle’s little apartment. I missed the smells and the sounds and the food and the family that was always around when I needed them.

  I’d grown up in Missouri, and it wasn’t until my parents died in a car accident when I was fourteen that I moved to New York to live with my uncle and aunt. I’d expected the old familiar landmarks to feel like home when I came back to Missouri, but they hadn’t.

  When I decided to return to Missouri for school, I’d been so confident. I’d rolled my eyes when family and friends had told me how homesick I’d feel. After all, I’d grown up in Missouri. It was as familiar to me as New York was. Sure, I’d miss the people I’d left in New York, but it was an adventure. I’d settle easily into my old hometown.

  How wrong I’d been. I hated thinking of those first two years at school. The isolation I’d felt. The homesickness. It had only been pure stubbornness that had kept me there. Sheer force of will. Everything was so spread out. I had to drive if I wanted to go anywhere, and walking to the corner store was a thing of the past. Neighbors didn’t stop me to say hello and ask how my studies were going. No one cared what I was doing or where I was going. The very things I’d looked forward to when planning to move so far away were the things that depressed me.

  Eventually, I’d grown comfortable again, but I still missed home, especially on days when my aunt was being nosy, and I could hear my uncle in the background telling her how I’d never call again if she kept asking me questions.

  “I’m going to a party,” I told her when she grilled me about my plans for that weekend.

  “What kind of party?”

  “Housewarming. My friend is moving in with her boyfriend.”

  My aunt made a noise in her throat. “Stupid. Moving in with a guy before marriage is a bad idea. You try to do that, I’ll come drag you home by your hair.”

  She was dramatic, but I had a feeling her words weren’t far from the truth. If she found out that Hailey and Sean had been dating for less than a month, she’d have even more to say, and I wouldn’t even be able to argue with her, since I thought the whole thing was insane. My aunt and uncle were young. They’d been newly married when I’d gone to live with them, and in a lot of ways we’d grown up together. They were the fun parents, the ones who’d pretended they didn’t know when my friends and I sneaked cigarettes and wine or spent hours discussing boys instead of doing our homework. However, underneath the surface, they’d always taken their duties as my surrogate parents very seriously.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend, and I like my apartment,” I said seriously.

  “Good. Wait until you come home before you find a man,” she replied. She’d said the same thing more than a few times before. “Easier that way.” It would be easier for her, she meant. If I met my future husband in New York, she could be as nosy as she wanted and meddle until she drove me completely crazy, and she wouldn’t have to worry that I’d stay in Missouri forever.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, searching in my closet for something to wear. “I have to go—I have a million things to do tonight.”

  After I promised I’d call again on Sunday, and dodged her questions about when I’d last set foot in a synagogue, we hung up. I didn’t know why she still asked if I was going to temple when she knew the answer. I’d lost my faith when I was fourteen, and no nagging from her would change that.

  I stuffed my phone into the pocket of my robe and stared into my closet. I should have asked my aunt’s opinion on what I should wear; she’d seen nearly every item of clothing I owned. And she’d definitely have an opinion.

  Jeans were always a good choice. Casual, so I didn’t look like I was trying too hard, and I had a pair that made my ass look really good. I didn’t know why I was so concerned with how my ass looked. Okay, no, that was a lie. I knew exactly why I had to look amazing at Hailey and Sean’s party tomorrow afternoon.

  Alex Evans.

  I hadn’t been lying when I told him that I was trying to focus on school instead of dating. But damn, it had been hard to tell him no. The man was gorgeous. Charming, too, when he tried to be.

  I’d told him that he was prettier than I was, but that had been a lie. He wasn’t pretty; he was beautiful in a way that only a man could be. Muscular, commanding, confident. If I were looking for someone to spend time with, he’d be my exact type.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t looking. I was busy every day of the week and most nights. Working full-time and finishing graduate school pretty much took up every waking minute I had.

  That didn’t mean that I was willing to look less than spectacular when I saw him again, though. There would be a lot of people at that party, plenty of women to catch his eye, but I wanted to be the one he couldn’t look away from.

  I grabbed my favorite black sweater from the closet. It hung off my shoulder and gave the impression that I didn’t have anything on underneath. Sexy, but not trashy. There was something incredibly provocative about a bare shoulder or a high-necked dress that showed off a woman’s legs but nothing else.

  As soon as I had my clothes laid out for the next day, I grabbed a cup of tea and climbed into bed with my planner. The next week was already full of reminders and timelines, but I still found a few spaces to make notes. I didn’t have much to add, because I always filled the little date boxes weeks in advance, but scheduling my time and making lists calmed me. Before long, my nervousness about seeing Alex again was gone.

  * * *

  The next morning I allowed myself to sleep in. Since I worked full-time and took classes at night, weekends were usually filled with homework and household chores. I’d known before I’d fallen asleep that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on schoolwork before the party, though, so I hadn’t set an alarm. I’d needed the sleep so badly that by the time I woke up, it was already noon.

  Funny, handsome Alex Evans filled my thoughts as soon as I opened my eyes. It was ridiculous, and I knew that I had to stay on course and not get distracted by a guy, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. It had been a few weeks since the awkward double date when we’d met, and I still thought about him on almost a daily basis. It was a little pathetic, really. I smiled as I remembered how he’d been so impressed by the chopsticks trick that he’d brought them home with him.

  For all I knew, he had a girlfriend now. Maybe he’d show up with her this afternoon, and my outfit would go unnoticed. That would probably be for the best.

  I climbed out of bed and shuffled toward the shower, stretching my arms above my head as I glanced at the sweater and jeans I’d hung over the back of my chair. Smiling to myself, I continued into the bathroom. I was definitely wearing the outfit.

  It took me a little over an hour to get ready. Blow-drying my thick head of hair took almost half that time. I thought about cutting it all the time but couldn’t quite make myself go through with it. My mom had loved my long hair, and she’d never let me cut more than a few inches off when I was a child. I couldn’t even count the number of hours that she’d spent brushing and braiding it, telling me stories about the neighborhood in New York where she and my dad had grown up.

  I checked the clock as I got dressed, but I still had plenty of time before I had to be at Hailey’s new place. They were renting a house the size of a postage stamp, so it seemed a little silly to have a bunch of people over, but what did I know? I’d been in the same apartment since I’d moved to Missouri, and I rarely ever had people over.

  Hailey wanted me to help her set up the food, so at three o’clock I headed over to her house. It wasn’t a very long drive, but it was raining so hard that it felt like it took forever. Driving in the rain always made me nervous. I’d much rather be holed up in my apartment with a good book, wrapped in a blanket, and drinking warm soup than be out in that kind of weather.

  “You’re here,” she yelled excitedly as I ran from my car to the front door of her house. “I’ve been running around like a maniac trying to get everything ready, and I’m so behind!”

  “Why doesn’t this surprise me?” I teased as I hurried inside. Hailey was a notorious procrastinator.

  “Okay, so I mostly got stuff from the freezer section at the store,” she said, taking my jacket from me and throwing it on her bed as I followed her around the house. “You know, the little pizza bites and egg rolls? But I also got chips and salsa. Oh, and some fruit and vegetables. I figured we could cut those up and put them on trays.”

  “How many people are coming over?” I asked as we reached the kitchen. The place was trashed. It looked like she’d been trying to prepare all the food at once, and my upbringing had me cringing at the sight. Kosher foods were carefully prepared. Meat and dairy never mixed; you couldn’t even wash the dishes that held them at the same time, though most people I knew didn’t follow that rule very closely.

  “I’m not sure. I tried to get a head count, but nobody freaking RSVP’s anymore. Especially Sean’s friends. They’ll probably all stop by at some point, though. I don’t even know what I’m doing.” She threw her hands up in the air.

  “Let’s start with the frozen things,” I said as she glanced around the kitchen helplessly. “Where are your baking dishes?”