Page 48 of The Dreidl Disaster

“Do you have priorities?” Sarah asked, clearly focusing on the event. Unlike Liv, who was sneaking glances at Artur. “Do you want competing events, or do you want the town solely focused on one event at a time?”

Liv tapped her fingers on the table before looking back up at Sarah. “Let’s figure out two different event schedules, one on each side.”

Sarah nodded, and took the papers Liv passed over, the list of events and spaces as well as timing. “Give me a few minutes,” Sarah said with a smile. “I’ll take a look.”

And as they stepped away from the table, Artur looked up at her before turning back to Sarah. “Do you want us to grab lunch?”

She couldn’t help but smile…even as her stomach chimed in and added its opinion.

“Oh, that would be lovely,” Sarah said. “Get whatever. I mean, if you meant to include me.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. And,” Artur continued, “of course I mean to include you. Liv, do you want to come with me?”

She nodded, grinned back at him. “Sounds good.”

And after a quick second of conversation where Artur confirmed Sarah’s number and food tastes, she followed him outside.

“How do you know her again?”

He nodded, and the smile made his face as bright as the sun. “Her best friend is my best friend’s wife, and her husband is part of an art crew in Brooklyn that includes a sofer.”

She blinked. “There’s an art crew in Brooklyn who knows a sofer?”

He laughed. “You’d think they’d be in style.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. “But that means her husband knows my cousin’s boyfriend.”

“Your cousin…?”

“Leah,” she replied, remembering that he didn’t know the ins and outs of her family. Which meant she had to be specific and clarify. “Leah’s boyfriend is a sofer in Brooklyn.”

“Does he trade under the name ‘the hot sofer’?”

In any other circumstance, it would be weird, but at the same time, she knew that Samuel’s brother started the whole thing as a marketing strategy. Granted, that strategy was partially responsible for the fact that Leah was dating Samuel again, but it was still somewhat ridiculous.

All the same, Liv laughed. “He does. My cousin won’t admit, but she hates it.”

“Hates the name? Hates…”

“The way it was managed, initially,” Liv replied, knowing that he’d get it. “It created crowds that he wasn’t able to handle.”

“I see,” he replied, and she could see the gears running through his head. “Yeah. Something like that in the circumstances he was most likely appearing in would probably be a crowd control hazard without some kind of protection. And now?”

“Now she just hates it because she thinks it belittles him.” Which if nothing else was the best way of describing Leah and Samuel’s relationship. But that was for later, not now.

Now? Now was the time for her to bask in the sun of Artur’s smile and the way it made her feel. Hand in hand, sharing a bit of herself, and maybe, building something with a foundation for a shoulder to cry on.

The man was an enigma wrapped in a riddle, and if she took the time to think about it, Livvy had no idea whether she or her heart were going to survive him.

*

The next morning,Artur received a text.

Meet us at the JHPA headquarters.

The GPS said he was heading to an office building in Briarwood, in a new development area that Artur had sneaking suspicions he’d recognize the second he pulled in. There were cars in the parking lot, but he didn’t take the second to look at them, though he did head upstairs to the building.

It was a short elevator ride as he ran through the items he expected to discuss with Asher, knowing there were a bunch of them. JHPA participation, some local mentorship events. And probably Liv, considering Asher was dating her cousin.

---