She refused to recognize it as a metaphor and only accepted because her heels were slippery on the concrete floor.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and they both knew she wasn’t just talking about the work. They’d done a lot for each other over the years, and yeah, he definitely owed her for the whole falling-in-love-with-their-financier-after-promising-not-to thing, but he’d also always believed in her, even when she didn’t return the favor.
What was more, Josh didn’t just believe in her ability to conquer worlds, he’d always believed in her humanity. He’d never seen her mistakes as fatal—never seen them as more than glancing blows.
“Two apologies from Naomi Grant in one hour? Quit it before I get smug.” Josh smiled at her, dimples and all.Fucking show-off.
He reached for the door handle, but she caught his wrist, using it to turn him toward her.
“What are you—”
And Naomi did something she should have done a long time ago.
She hugged him.
His arms came around her waist tentatively. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Are you sick?”
“Shhh,” she said, her chin on his shoulder. “I’m trying this new thing.”
The door opened behind them.
“Oh,” Clara said, obviously surprised to find her business partner and her fiancé embracing.
But the next thing Naomi knew, Clara had folded herself around Naomi’s back, cheek pressing into her shoulder blades, completing the hug like they were cartoon kittens on some kind of deranged greeting card.
“It’s about time,” Clara said, sighing happily.
“You two really are the worst,” Naomi muttered under her breath. But she didn’t mean it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
MODERN INTIMACY—LECTURE 5:
Get more naked
NAOMI’S MUSCLES COMPLAINEDas she pulled herself out of her car in the parking lot of the JCC on Tuesday night. She’d expected the discomfort, having finally made it to the gym that morning for the first time in a while. Her brain read the ache as achievement. As conquering herself. Bending her form to match her will. The sharp edge of each step reminded her of progress. As it turned out, the sensation of falling in love with Ethan Cohen was very similar.
Except, of course, that it was her mind changing. Her brain instead of her body working to transform. The promise in the sweet burn of this new kind of work was comforting in its familiarity and heady with potential. It was hard to explain. She just felt... full when she was with him, satisfied in a way she hadn’t realized she’d been craving.
Naomi had lain in bed last night and given her ceiling all the sappy smiles she’d tried to hide during the day, asking herself what it was about him that made her softer and stronger at the same time.
The best articulation Naomi could come up with was that he made her tender. Which was... not a word that anyone had ever used to describe her.
Tender like petals pressed between pages of a book. Tender like arelease of poison from her bloodstream. Tender, a cousin to weak, but with a quiet power she couldn’t deny.
Naomi had built Shameless. She knew what it felt like to take a theory you held about what the world needed and make it real. For the entire duration of her twenties, she’d rioted in art and business both. But this lecture series with Ethan was different.
It still held notes of rebellion, of steering social change, but while Shameless had operated outside of established systems, in open defiance of them even, the Modern Intimacy series was designed to build a bridge between a synagogue that had existed for a hundred years and people searching for belonging in an increasingly distant culture. And it was Naomi’s job to see them safely across.
She hoped she was up to the task.
Something about the parking lot was weird tonight. She shoved her keys in her bag. There were too many cars. Too many people lingering by the entrance, their voices kicking up as she passed.
“Is that her?”
“No way. That’s not her.”
Naomi ignored them and the warning crawling down her spine. She had somewhere to be. Her lecture started in ten minutes. Those people weren’t her problem. She had a class waiting.