Page 13 of The Dating Contract

“I’m hosting a party in a few weeks,” Liam said. “It’s fun. Actually, it’s for Oliver.”

“Really,” Samuel said. “You’re hosting a party for Oliver?”

“Yep.” He could hear Liam move papers around in the background. “Isaac brought his wife to one of these shindigs before she married him. She bought me some cool notebooks.”

Now it was Samuel’s turn to laugh. “So you take credit for the matchmaking?”

“I take credit for making it clear to her what she was getting into with Isaac’s friends,” Liam clarified, sounding proud, as if he actually had done the matchmaking.

But all Samuel could say was, “Interesting. When is it?”

“I’ll let you know. But that’s not the reason I called.”

“Oh? What’s going on?”

“You have more space on your schedule for me? This time, slightly more professional?”

He laughed. “I always have space for you. What do you need?”

There was a long pause, and Samuel wondered what was going on. “A friend of mine asked me for a favor, so this one I owe you for if you’re going to agree to do it.”

Which sounded more interesting by the second; a commission possibly? But all he said was, “Okay?”

“Evan Lefkowitz is an old friend of mine.”

He paused. He knew Liam was from Jersey but not much else. Connections were connections, worlds were small and people knew tons of people, but he wanted to make sure. “The Evan Lefkowitz who’s runs Tzedakah Exchange?”

“Yes,” Liam said with a laugh. “That Evan Lefkowitz. He had a wonderful phase where he picked grass while he was supposed to play goalie on our soccer team.”

Having had a similar phase when he was about six, Samuel snorted. “That is amazing. So what’s going on?”

“Evan is apparently involved with raising a charity event from the dead, and yes I’m dragging you with me. He needs some kind of design for the logo.”

“Right,” he managed, desperately trying to erase the image of a zombie charity gala from his head, attempting to focus on the most important part of what Liam was saying. “So you’re taking me to a gala that needs a logo you want me to letter. Okay. So what’s it for?”

“Women and girls and kids in sports,” Liam began. “The thing was supposed to happen this past May, but the whole thing fell apart before Evan’s girlfriend got involved. She was supposed to be honored, but as everything fell apart and she intervened, what she wanted was to honor an organization that was important to her.”

Evan Lefkowitz’s girlfriend was a hockey player. Did she know Leah? Was Leah her agent? Was this an organization that Leah was involved in? Was it a gala she’d go to?

Which meant he had to ask. “What’s the organization?”

“The one being honored?”

He nodded, then remembered Liam couldn’t see him. “Yeah. What organization is being honored?”

“It’s this program out of an ice rink in Westchester? It’s registered as a 4U girls’ program, but they’re not too tight about who signs up as long as they play by the program rules, you know? There are tutus and unicorn horns used apparently? So there needs to be some kind of unicorn with a formal tutu in the gala graphic.”

All he could hear was a program for young kids playing hockey with unicorn horns. It sounded like something Leah would have loved when they were younger, and he’d bet she knew about it now. “That sounds great.”

“Good to hear,” Liam said “Because the plan is that I’m going to sketch it out and Oliver’s going to color, of course, and then I want you to letter.”

As he listened to Liam’s particular ideas for lettering, he definitely thought something was at work. Something he couldn’t quite figure out.

It was too early to say whether he thought it was bashert, but either way, he was going to have to figure out how to contact Leah without getting her deeper into the web they were weaving.

*

As Leah preppedher notes for the early morning meeting, she turned on one of her dramas as a bit of background noise.

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