Imaginary Lines (New York Leopards 3)

Rachael hosted a party on the first night, a Tuesday—convenient for the team. We arrived early, weighed down with four challahs I’d made from scratch and two bottles of wine.

Abe picked me up at work again. The receptionist came around the corner, glee etched across his face. “Abe Krasner’s downstairs. He told security he’s here to see Tamar.” He looked at me.

In fact, everyone looked at me.

I cleared my throat. “I have mentioned to everyone by now that we’re friends, right? That we grew up together?”

Tanya pinned me with her fierce glare. “Rosenfeld, I’m not an idiot.”

Uh-oh. I’d better roll over and expose the underside of my neck. “Of course not.”

The glare intensified. “Nor am I a rookie reporter.”

Oh.

“You hum,” Jin said unexpectedly.

I looked at him.

“Tunelessly,” Mduduzi added, which I did not find helpful.

Tanya just cocked her head. “You’re seeing Krasner.”

I thought about protesting that that was my personal life, but given the strange lines we were blurring, I gave it up for a lost cause. “Worse, I’m going to a holiday party at Ryan Carter’s tonight.”

They all started choking on surprise, except for Tanya, who actually smiled and shook her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

My dad sometimes asked that same question. The answer was usually, “Love me unconditionally and feed me, please.”

With Tanya, I expected the answer was drastically different and not nearly as sweet.

* * *

Snow fell lightly as we left the subway and walked to Rachael and Ryan’s Central West apartment. I couldn’t get a handle on this weather; some days a bitter cold descended on the city, and on others everything seemed light and puffy, like winter in a Thomas Kinkade painting. Today the breeze almost qualified as balmy. Abe looked like he’d strolled right out of a winter photo shoot, with snow twinkling in his hair like diamonds on gold threads.

Rachael opened the door, a flurry of energy wrapped in a blue dress. “Hi! Come in. We’re not totally together yet, but we’re getting there.”

I glanced around the huge apartment as we entered. Rachael was Jewish but Ryan wasn’t, so it was no surprise to see a tree over by the wall of windows. But it made me smile to notice the Star of David perched atop it.

The apartment smelled like sizzling oil. Ryan stood over a frying pan, flipping latkes. He raised the spatula in greeting. “Hey, guys.”

I hefted one of the bags we’d brought with us. “Should we put these on the table?”

Rachael nodded, and I followed her over into the dining area where we arranged the challah evenly throughout the table. She placed each loaf on a white plate and examined their golden brown sheen from the egg yolks brushed over the dough. “These look delicious.”

Abe poked his head out of the kitchen. “Tamar made them.”

Rachael raised her brows. “Impressive.”

I smiled my gratitude. I actually did think challah was one of my more impressive recipes, because even if it wasn’t particularly difficult, it was time-consuming and contained more steps than most of my baked goods. “I find braiding dough very relaxing.”

“Don’t most people say that about kneading dough?”

I laughed. “I actually find kneading a pain in the ass.”

The crowd that evening was small—I supposed because there weren’t actually that many Jews running around the NFL. “It’s really just an excuse to make latkes,” Rachael admitted.

Abe smiled. “I noticed you weren’t the one making latkes.”