Page 85 of The Dating Contract

“Good to see you too, Bryce, Thanks for coming.”

“Not a problem. And I’ve got a collaborator.”

Asher Mendel’s eyes turned onto him. “I see that.” He paused. “We’ll talk later, after class because I think you’ve got some planning to do.”

He wasn’t sure what Asher was talking about, but he nodded all the same.

“Good. Nephew’s here, and we’re ready to go. Come on in,” Asher continued, ushering them into the room.

The beginnings, the attendance and other organizational things went quickly and then it was their turn. Of course, nothing ever went perfectly, but Samuel was enjoying every second of this class.

Arguably, his favorite part was hearing the kids say phrases like “That was fascinating,” or “I’ve never thought of it that way before,” as he spoke about certain aspects of his career that reminded him of the things these kids must go through when they were on the ice. This kind of conversation, and this kind of direct impact, wasn’t usually part of his job description, at least not for longer than the five minutes he met people at expos or cons, but it was…nice.

Seeing their eyes widen when his points were expanded by listening to Bryce Emerson talk about what he did was simply icing on the cake.

“What are your future plans?” Bryce asked him as a way of continuing the conversation.

And of course, there were a bunch of kids who raised their hands.

“Are you going to do more posters?” one of the kids wondered.

“Are you going to make a Torah?” asked another.

He laughed, both lucky and thrilled that his future career choices mattered to these kids in some way. “Well,” he said. “Definitely some more posters, because I love working with the teams responsible for them. And I’m not going to do a Torah just yet, but later on down the line for sure.”

And that was that, the end of the class.

“Great job,” Bryce said as the kids left the room.

“Thanks for coming,” Asher added. “They really enjoyed themselves.”

“So did I,” Samuel replied. “Glad I came.”

“And,” Asher said with a laugh, “this is how we do things. This is how we bring people together, and try to make him realize what kind of gold he has in my future sister-in-law.”

It took him a second to realize what Asher had said. “Uh…”

“Family gossip,” Asher said with a grin. “My fiancée is invested.”

“So that’s why you were at the practice a few weeks ago,” Bryce said as if he was putting it all together.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s how I learned about the practice and why Leah drove me to the mechanics after the art session.”

“So,” Asher said. “What’s up with you and Leah?”

And now the question he wasn’t expecting, but figured he’d end up answering anyway. “We’re figuring things out.”

Which was a general statement, and could be interpreted a billion different ways. Hopefully the look exchanged between Bryce and Asher wasn’t exactly the strange thing he thought it was.

“What’s there to figure out?”

Of course. “I mean…”

“You need to figure out how you’re going to get to Shabbat dessert on Friday.”

“Shim…really?”

The kid, Shim, had to be Leah’s nephew, little Ramona’s big brother. “Said goodbye to everybody so I’m ready, Uncle Ash,” the kid continued. “And why is this a surprise?”

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