Imaginary Lines (New York Leopards 3)

He shoved a hand through his hair, causing a sinfully attractive disarray. “I didn’t expect you to say anything.”

What? “What does that mean?”

“Just—you’ve never brought it up before.”

I stared at him, dread slowly building in my chest, infringing on my lungs. “What, but you knew?”

His dead silence was a dead giveaway.

“You knew.” Each word came out with more certainty. “You knew I was in love with you.”

“Come on, Tammy. It was impossible not to know.”

I took a slow step back and blinked away tears. I repeated my words with heavy finality. “But you don’t feel the same way.”

He caught my arm. His expression was almost pleading, like he wanted me to understand the impossibility of us. “My whole family loves you.”

The tears were winning against my lashes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means—I don’t know, they’d be planning our wedding in twenty-four hours! We’d be under a chupah in a year.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “So you don’t want to date me because it would make your mom too happy?” I shook my head. Why was I still talking? Why had I even started? “Just forget it, okay? I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s pretend it never happened.”

I tried to wrench my arm away, but he wouldn’t let me. He reined me in closer. “I’m not going to forget.

“Why not?”

“Because...” He wouldn’t take his eyes off me, and they seared straight through my heart and the cat and my lungs. “Because this matters. Because you put yourself out there to tell me.”

Dammit, I couldn’t keep the tears back anymore, and I could feel two slipping through my lower lashes. “You don’t have to be so nice to me right now.”

Regret filled his face and he moved his arms as though to pull me into a hug. “Tammy—”

But that was all I needed, to be comforted by Abraham Krasner for being idiot enough to fall in love with him at first sight, and stay that way for close to a decade. He was too perfect, and I clearly was not, and I was in no shape to handle that.

So instead of collapsing against him, I stumbled back, unable to take his soulful, tragic eyes, and I ran.

Chapter Two

Now

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get away from Abraham Krasner.

I clutched my mug and smiled as the two women across from me prattled on about Abe’s record pass deflections. As though each and every person in Sharon Krasner’s living room didn’t know Abe’s score, stats, records and marital possibilities. (Single. Not looking).

After a few more minutes, I gave a polite excuse about seeing my mother beckoning. Abe and I had used that for years as kids—everyone understood a mother’s prior claim on her child’s time. I escaped to the kitchen, where I fiddled around with the tea bags, as though choosing the correct blend of leaves was the very best way to spend Rosh Hashanah.

At least he hadn’t bothered to come home for the holiday. While I’d found it easier to accept that Abraham and I would never work out after that painfully brutal day four years ago, it still left me with a twist of wistfulness that I preferred not to subject myself to. After all, no matter how accustomed you get to unrequited love, it never becomes one hundred percent comfortable.

Sharon waylaid me on my way out of the kitchen. “Oh, Tamar, there you are! What a pretty dress. You look so grown-up.”

I smiled at her. “Thanks. Mom always says all my friends look like adults, but she’s still surprised that I don’t always look like a little kid.”

She laughed. “It’s true enough. When I meet Abraham’s friends in New York I’m always so shocked by how they look like men. Oh, but you must be so excited to be going there! You’re flying out on Friday?”

“Eight in the morning.”

“Do you have a place to stay? Abe has plenty of room at his apartment—I was just there over the summer, and he has a guest room, and he’s right in the middle of everything—I’m sure you could stay there.”