Page 67 of The Dreidl Disaster

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Artur was usedto switching hats and roles like a swing on a Broadway stage, but he found himself at a loss halfway through the combination meeting and poker game. Bets and antes and ‘I got Bryce to make a mask and a few of the Empires are going to sign it, but also Melanie Gould is doing a dreidl and a few of her friends are going to sign it’ were going to make his head explode.

Thankfully, there was a break in the action, and he headed toward a bathroom.A bathroom.The fact that this palatial thing wasone ofhis friends’ houses was still extremely overwhelming. Granted, this friend had funded the organization he’d spent the last few years working for. But still.

He saw the view of the yard space and took a breath.

“Artur,” came a voice out of nowhere. It was Asher Mendel. He’d seen the man a few times during the evening, planning and organizing.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Be careful.”

Immediately he was on edge; what was going on? Was it a threat? A nerve? “What?”

“My future cousin-in-law,” Asher said by way of explanation.

All that did, however, was get him out of fight-or-flight mode. This was relationship- and family-related. But he was still confused. “What do you mean?”

“The family watches her like a hawk,” Asher said. “Not sure how useful that’ll be to you, but my fiancée told me to be careful around her mother in what I said about you.”

“What you said about me?”

“Yep. My guess is that after tonight, gossip is going to fly through that family of hers—I can already see Samuel staring, and Leah making notes. Which means her family members are going to be in search of information about you, if they haven’t been already. You should be prepared for invitations, and to treat things more seriously than you were going to.”

That was an easy question, if Asher was asking one. Because he didn’t take Liv lightly.

“She’s not someone you take lightly,” he replied, having pulled his words together in a way that made sense. “She’s someone who has too much to lose if something goes wrong. So, you take whatever’s happening with her seriously from the beginning.”

“And if she’s scared?”

The questions got easier and easier. “When she’s ready, she’ll know about my feelings and how deep they are.”

Asher nodded. “Just make sure that’s the only thing you’re keeping from her. Trust is important to her, and there are a lot of moving parts for both of you.”

Which confirmed his own suspicions after the conversation the night before and the one he’d had with his boss. He had to get some kind of plan in order to share information with her that he couldn’t tell her directly.

But Asher didn’t need to know that. “Thanks for the advice,” he said.

“Not a problem.”

And as they headed back to where everybody was gathered, thoughts ran through Artur’s mind. There was a great deal that was about to happen in the next few days, and he had to make sure he was ready for all of it.

Chapter Twenty-Two

After the planningmeeting, Liv found herself setting into a routine with Artur. Work got done; she would call him or he would call her and they’d have lunch together. Over lunch, they’d tackle some of the problems popping up for the festival and then made time to kiss more.

When the work day was over, they’d do the things that were required of both of them; first, they’d inspect the blueprints that had been pulled together based on the suggestions given by the residents, followed by a lovely make-out session where his hands found their way under her sweater.

As construction began on some of the vendor spaces and the artists began to turn the chess tables that sat by the stage space into dreidl tables, they went to inspect the work. And then made some time for more kissing, where she discovered he was ticklish in the middle of his back.

She was enjoying every second of this.

Every hour, which meant that she was entirely not surprised when she got the phone call from her mother.

“So,” her mother said, switching to video, not wasting any time. “I’ve heard from Debbie.”

Debbie was her aunt; Judith and Leah’s mother. Debbie gave her mother gossip when she was in town.

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