The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2) - Rosie Danan Page 0,41

we do.” He brought his fingers up to his face and winced. “Maybe if they did, I’d get punched less.”

“Should I be recording this for your next sermon?” Even three sheets to the wind, he found ways to be poetic. Despicable.

“Sorry,” Ethan said, eyes drooping. “I told you I couldn’t hold my alcohol.”

“You sure did.” Naomi batted away another wave of guilt. “Here, drink some more water.” She handed him a plastic bottle from her cup holder.

“I usually drink the grape juice on Shabbat.” Ethan guzzled the drink.

“Hard to resist grape juice.” Especially when it tasted better than most kosher wine anyway.

He’d tilted his head to an almost perpendicular angle on his neck.

“How are you so beautiful?”

Pleasure shot through her spine. She liked the way he said beautiful, like it was powerful instead of just aesthetically pleasing.

She took the water back before he managed to drown himself. “I didn’t realize you were a chatty drunk.”

“Everything about you is . . . more,” he continued, obviously not deterred by her attempted deflection. “You’re like . . . da Vinci.”

“Now that is a new one.” Just when she thought she’d heard every line in the book . . .

“No. Listen.” He pushed himself up from where he’d gradually slumped down in the seat. “You’re exactly the person you were born to be, and you’re not even afraid of it. Do you know how hard that is? How rare?”

“I think I’ve got an idea.” Sometimes it felt like it took all her energy just to keep her body from flying in a million directions at once.

Naomi had received a lot of compliments in her life, but never one that acknowledged the work she’d done on herself. How hard she tried to be a good person. The way she strived, even when it was exhausting, which was most of the time. She lowered her own window a crack, out of necessity. It figured that in a lifetime of compliments, the best one she’d ever received came from someone who could never make good on it.

“I’m sorry that man hurt you tonight,” Ethan said, his tone stony and quiet.

She knew he wasn’t fishing for her story, the reason she’d lost her composure. Her past, especially that past, belonged to Hannah, and she hardly ever gave it up. But . . .

Maybe it was because he was drunk, or because he’d taken a punch for her earlier tonight. Maybe it was because he was a rabbi, and lots of people dropped their problems in his lap. Maybe it was because he’d just compared her to one of the most brilliant artists who’d ever lived. In any case, telling him didn’t seem like the worst idea she’d ever had.

“Normally, I can let that stuff roll off my back. Occupational hazard, you know?”

“I hate that.” His jaw snapped on the word hate, turning the sound into the way the emotion felt.

“I try to anticipate people being terrible,” she said. “So I won’t be caught unaware again.”

Ethan tipped his head back. Naomi could feel his gaze on her, sweet and inquisitive.

“Again?”

She swallowed around her tongue. No matter how much time had passed, it was still hard to let the words out.

“When I was eighteen, my boyfriend shared naked pictures I’d sent him with my entire high school. He was pissed I didn’t want to sleep with him.” Sleep with him again, actually. He’d convinced her to try it once. Whether it was the guy or the timing or just starting to discover she was queer, she hadn’t been ready to continue.

“Naomi, I’m so sorry. What a horrible betrayal of your trust and privacy.”

He had a good voice for sympathy, smooth and warm and rich.

She let it wrap around her. Wished she could keep it.

“Yeah. It was awful,” she said, the word only a little hollow. “Everyone turned on me. My friends, my teachers, they all looked at me like I’d done the bad thing. Like I’d offended them by making myself vulnerable.” The email on her phone had felt like it weighed down her pocket. “That was the first time that I realized my body could be both desirable and disgusting to people at the same time. That those two emotions could twist inside a person, mixed with their own shame, and turn venomous.” She couldn’t even count the number of times she’d been told she should have known better.

“But in the end, I wouldn’t take any of it back. That moment is pretty much the catalyst for my