“Thought you’d never ask,” he said.
“Maybe the candlelight will improve things in here. You know I’m not in the fancy section of the inn where all the movie stars get to stay.”
“Hey, it’s really nice in here, what are you talking about? And it smells—” He spun a slow circle and sniffed the air. “It smellsamazing. I mean,youalways smell amazing, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
He walked across the room to the table where the menorah sat. The room spray she had purchased from June’s was on the table, too, along with the little bottle of perfume oil “potion.” He picked it up.
“Is this your secret?” he asked, removing the lid and taking a deep sniff. “Ahh. Yes. It is.” He read the label. “Potion number 9, the key to Anna Gibson’s irresistibility.”
Anna was blushing furiously now. Was he going to figure out that she’d been wearing a love potion? Was that why he was in here? Had she somehow charmed him?
No. That was ridiculous. Totally absurd. She smelled nice; that was all. June’s perfume oil had a pleasant smell.
He was watching her intensely, the way he often seemed to. “You have that look on your face again.”
“Which look is that?”
“The one where I feel sure you have at least a dozen thoughts in your head, all at once, and I don’t have a hope of knowing what you’re thinking.”
“I’m just—I realized we don’t have a lighter or matches,” she ad-libbed.
“Thought of that already.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a lighter. It was red with little miniature Santas all over it. “Obviously, I borrowed this from Kath,” he said. “Perhaps not the most Jewish lighter in the world, but it will do.”
“A lighter is a lighter,” Anna said with a smile. “Thanks for planning ahead.” She felt a little buzz inside her chest at the idea that he had been thinking of this—of her, and the promise they had made.
“I’m really grateful to you for this, Anna. It can be so hard to feel grounded when I’m always traveling, always working, these days. This year has been so busy. I’ve started to feel like I’m floating above myself sometimes...” He trailed off and looked embarrassed. “Sorry. That sounds weird. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. There are a lot of people who would kill for the life I have.”
“You don’t have to edit yourself with me. It actually doesn’t sound weird at all,” Anna said. “I completely understand. I’m not a movie star, as my hotel room will attest, but my life has changed recently, too. A lot of things have happened that I think are supposed to feel like dreams coming true. But mostly I just feel...” She stared up into his dark eyes. So much for reining in her racing heart; it was out of the gate now and going for broke, and it clearly had lost the plot on the “just friends” concept now that she was alone in a hotel room withJosh. “A little lost,” she concluded.Though not when I’m with you, she wanted to add.
Instead, he said it for her. His voice was husky. “I don’t feel that way when I’m with you. I feel like I can be myself.”
Anna blushed and tried to change the subject. “So, I guess we should...”
“Right. The menorah.” He held up the lighter “Care to do the honors tonight?”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I can light it tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.Anna turned to the small menorah on the table and tried to stay in the moment rather than wondering if it could ever be possible that she and Josh could have a tomorrow.
“When you were a kid, did you think these candles were magic?” Josh asked softly. “They never went out accidentally, we always allowed them to burn down. And that meant we had to arrange our schedules around them. When my cousins and I got old enough to stay home alone, our parents would tell us, if they had to go out somewhere after they’d lit the menorah, that we were in charge of staying home and ‘watching the light.’ This felt like such an important task. I took it so seriously.”
Anna smiled at the idea of Josh as a serious little boy in charge of an important task. “I love that,” she said. “And yes, I totally thought it was all magic. Then my stepmom got tired of my millions of questions about it, so she took me to the synagogue and let me ask the rabbi myself. I remember he said”—she turned the lighter over in her palm, trying to get the memory right—“that it was about the miracle of the light, yes, but it was also about hope. Hope that in the world we live in, light will triumph over darkness. Good over bad. I found thatreally comforting because I was—and still am—a bit of a worrier. So, knowing there was this whole holiday that was about light and good—in addition to the one I already celebrated, which, at least in our interpretation of it, was all about giving and generosity, about family and love—just made me feel really good about the world. And celebrating both together made me feel so happy and secure. It was all about family and togetherness. Being with the people you loved.” She felt her mouth go dry as she stared into his eyes. “Okay, are you ready?”
He stood close beside her, his shoulder grazing hers as she lit theshamash—the raised candle in the center of the menorah—then breathed in deeply before she began to recite the blessing. “Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam.” Josh’s deeper voice joined hers. “She-asah nisim la’avoteinu bayamim hahem bazman hazeh.”
She then used the shamash to light two of the candles from left to right, leaving the rest unlit because it was the second night of Hanukkah. Six more to go. She tried not to wonder where she and Josh would be when it was time to light the final candle. All this would be a memory—and that was going to have to be enough.
She gazed down at the little pinpoints of light, then turned to Josh. His eyes were on her. He stepped closer.
“This feels like home,” he said. The candlelight danced across his cheekbones and jaw and made his eyes even more beautiful than they already were. She felt a sense of calm—as if she was exactly where she was meant to be. Home. He was right.
“I’m glad we met, Josh.”
“I like it so much when you call me by my real name. Itmakes this all seem more real.” He was very, very close to her now. “I really like you, Anna,” he said. “I liked you from the moment I laid eyes on you. It sort of felt like—like I was actually living in and not justactingin one of my movies. It almost felt too good to be true, to have you just... fall into my life.”
Anna’s mind was racing. By all appearances, he had a girlfriend, and she had just taken a break from Nick. They should definitely not be standing as close to each other as they were—and yet she felt as if she had no choice. She had to be close to him. It was a requirement of her existence.He’s going to kiss me, she realized.And I want him to. I’ve wanted him to since the moment we met.
