Take a Chance on Me (8 page)

I agreed to everything he suggested.

“Hey, I’m leaning toward the pad thai—beef or, maybe, pork. What do you think?”

“Either sounds good,” I said.

“What about splitting an order of spring rolls?”

“Sure.”

I realized now that it had been much the same way at the other restaurants we’d dined at together. Grant always took the lead. Always made a splashy show out of getting us a collection of interesting dishes to try. Always turned the date into a “happening.”

I’d never complained about it, and it would be disingenuous to do that—he had been trying to make every event more fun, more memorable, somewhat larger than life—but I was aware that this might also be a distancing device. While it gave the appearance to the outside world that Grant and I were doing things together, we weren’t really getting to know each other deeply. We were chatting, but we weren’t conversing.

And although we’d been going out for a couple of months, we’d been on just seven or eight actual dates. Given Grant’s work schedule, we only managed to get together once during each weekend. Certainly some people expected that we knew each other better by now. That we were sleeping together. But we weren’t even close to a step like that. We’d kissed at the end of every date and it was really nice, but he wasn’t pushing for more than that. For the first time, I wondered,
Why?

“So, it looks like it was a busy week,” I observed. “Any particularly big projects going on?”

Grant looked up guiltily from his phone, which he’d been sneaking looks at whenever he thought my attention was elsewhere.

“Nia, yeah. Please forgive me for not being totally with it tonight.” He reached across the table and placed his hand over mine. It wasn’t as large or as warm as Chance’s hand, but I liked Grant’s touch. It was gentle without being at all effeminate. “There’s a merger in progress, and it has me kind of distracted.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I understand. Can you talk about the merger or the different projects you have going on? I’d like to understand more about what you do.”

He smiled at me. “The merger, no. I can’t say anything about that until it’s been finalized. But I do have a new charity project I can share with you. It’s the Lake Geneva Fund.”

He talked about that at length. Grant was a dedicated supporter of several good causes like this one—a rehabilitation center for children who’d sustained serious injuries in accidents. And I listened.

But even though I’d asked the question, my mind had a hard time staying on the topic. Just like when I was at the bookstore. Even when I was trying to focus on Grant, my brain would start fixating on Chance instead.

On things like the way Chance didn’t
talk
about any charity work he might be doing, he just
did
it. If he saw someone in need—the young widow by the grocery store, Julia Crane, or the older gentleman at the gym, Mr. Alleghany—Chance would just jump in and help them.

And my personal trainer’s appearance at the Thai restaurant was, I knew, not remotely coincidental. I’d told him the exact time we’d be here, never dreaming that he’d show up under any pretext at all. As quiet as Chance could be, he seemed to be giving me a signal that was loud, direct, and very clear:
I’ve got my eyes on you.

Grant was still talking about his company and other work-related things when my phone buzzed, alerting me to a new text.

My initial reaction was one of annoyance. I’d had enough of Grant’s phone calls, texts, and messages. I didn’t need the people in
my
life interrupting us, too.

I didn’t recognize the phone number, but was stunned to see Chance’s name once I clicked to read the text.

Hey, Nia. Glad to see you at the restaurant. In the event that you need an early out tonight, just let me know. I can call you with an “urgent” message, if a getaway excuse is desired. ~Chance

Holy moly. What was this?

I immediately reached for my wine and drank about half the glass.

Grant was looking at me strangely. “Everything okay?”

I nodded. “Just thirsty. And, um, this riesling is excellent.”

He smiled. Grant prided himself on his knowledge of wines. “Glad you like it.” And then he launched into a new story about the Jordan-Luccio Corporation and some plans that he and his business partner Patrick had to expand the company to London.

I pretended to listen, but my head was reeling. How had Chance gotten my cell number?

Then, answering my own question, I remembered I’d written it on my initial sign-up form. The one I’d filled out before my first training session at Harbor Fitness.

However, that meant Chance had either written it down during the past week or he’d returned to the gym to look it up. Some work had gone into getting ahold of it, in any case, and his text to me wasn’t a spontaneous, casual act. Maybe I was imagining things, but Chance didn’t give off an air of recklessness. I got the sense that he didn’t do anything that wasn’t carefully planned, well considered, premeditated.

Which was why this sort of freaked me out.

Chance Michaelsen wasn’t just flirting with me over fitness equipment anymore. He seemed to be suggesting that he was available. Now. If I wanted to ditch Grant.

Or, maybe, he just thought he was being helpful to a…friend or client or fellow Mirabelle Harbor citizen or something. Could that be?

When Grant got yet another phone call five minutes later and excused himself to answer it in the lobby, I took this opportunity to respond to Chance’s mystifying text:

Thanks for asking, Chance. That’s very thoughtful of you, but I’m okay for now. Hope you’re having fun evening, too.

I sent it but then wondered if, perhaps, it sounded a bit too dismissive, especially if he thought he was just being helpful. I decided to add this post script:

So, what are you doing tonight?

Grant came back to the table and, for the longest time, there was no reply from Chance. I was still mulling over his text in my mind. Pondering the reason for it. I mean, I appreciated the option he’d given me, but I was puzzled by the offer. What made Chance, after just a brief meeting with Grant, think I needed rescuing from my handsome and successful businessman boyfriend?

Maybe I was a little bored tonight, sure, but I was perfectly safe. And it wasn’t as though my friends and family didn’t know where I was and who I was with.

Grant and I were just getting ready to order coffee and dessert when my phone buzzed with Chance’s reply. It came in list form, and I smothered a gasp of surprise when I snuck a glance at it:

1. Eating spring rolls.

2. Watching either a baseball game…or
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
. (The Cubs are losing. Might learn something more interesting from the movie.)

3. Thinking of you.

Well, alrighty then. Nothing subtle about that, eh, Chance?

Chapter Six

~ Chance ~

One of the shitty downsides of being so attuned to your own body and familiar with things like your resting heart rate was that, when there was the slightest change in your respiratory, circulatory, muscular, or nervous systems, you were immediately aware of it.

When Nia Pappayiannis walked into Harbor Fitness on Monday afternoon, my pulse suddenly kicked it up to the level of a decent jog. I could feel the blood pumping through my arteries like crazy, even though I was standing still. Every muscle in my body tensed. And my neurotransmitters were having a field day sending signals to receptors in my brain. All of them seemed to be shouting, “Look at her!”

And I was looking. And feeling. I couldn’t remember having a physiological reaction like this in years. Not since I danced with cute Claudia Mazur at prom more than a decade ago. I’d had such an intense crush on her.

But this thing with Nia was even more intense. And I sure as hell wasn’t seventeen anymore.

When she waved at me from across the gym, just knowing I was going to get to stand near her, be engulfed in her soft scent, maybe get to touch a few parts of her—her shoulders, her back, her hands—made me uncomfortably aware of how my blood pressure was skyrocketing.

“Hey, Chance,” Nia said, slightly out of breath as she reached me near the free weights. She warily eyed the three-pound hand weights I was holding. “Are we doing that swan thing again?”

“The swan dive,” I said. “And, yes.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Hmm.”

“And the reverse fly, too, which I know is your favorite.” She
hated
the reverse fly.

“Ugh,” she said, grimacing.

I almost laughed. She was adorable.

But we immediately got to work on her strengthening routine, and she did all of the reps and sets I told her to do without further complaint.

If this had been any other session, any day before seeing her and that boyfriend of hers on Friday night, I would have been pleased by our easy rapport. But it wasn’t. And I wasn’t.

She didn’t look a fraction as nervous as I felt. Not remotely as affected by me as I was by her. She didn’t behave toward me like I thought she would, especially after my last text on Friday when I said I was thinking about her.

No.

She looked at me as if I hadn’t said anything at all.

So, maybe she hadn’t gotten that text. Or she thought I didn’t mean it. Or she was hoping I didn’t. No matter which way it fell, I didn’t like it.

Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” started to play on LOVE FM, and I was sorely tempted to call out to Gillian at the front desk to turn off the radio. I’d have some words with my brother about his damn playlist later.

Just when I was starting to think that any attraction that Nia and I had between us was all in my head, we did the hand press exercise again.

For the first time since she came into the gym today, I got the sense that she was finally noticing me. That she was aware of my skin touching her skin. My breath mingling with her breath. She kept staring at me with those huge dark eyes of hers, but then looking away. It was all I could do not to trail a row of kisses down her cheek, along the side of her neck, across her shoulders, and then lower.

I swallowed and heard her take a shaky breath, but she still said nothing. Finished her exercises without a sound. Gave me no encouragement. No sign that my wanting her was welcome.

Why not? Did she really like that poser Grant Jordan? Or worse, did she
love
him? Just the thought of him touching her—
in bed with her!—
made me kind of nuts.

“It’s 2:34,” she said, watching me as I set up one last exercise, this time using the pull-down bar on a lat machine. It would bring us face to face for two sets of ten reps.

“So?”

“So, my half hour is up.”

I shrugged. “I don’t have another client until three o’clock today.” I motioned for her to sit down and reach upward toward the bar. Anger and wanting mixed together, and I just had the overwhelming urge to test her somehow. Make her pay attention to me. Get her to show her cards to me the way I had to her.

“What if I need to leave?” she asked.

“Do you?”

She gazed at me for a long moment, probably trying to formulate some sort of an argument. But, in the end, she only said, “I guess not.”

I considered it a weird kind of triumph.

We’d done this exercise only once before. She had to pull down on the bar and I’d provide extra resistance, facing her and holding it steady. It had been an uncomfortable one for her when we’d tried it previously, but she’d gotten stronger over the past several sessions. I knew she could handle it now.

We’d barely done six reps of the first set when the Berlin song “Take My Breath Away” came on.

I heard her laugh lightly and, when she reached the tenth rep, she stopped and shook her head. “I think one set is going to do it, Chance.”

She let go of the bar, abruptly stood up, and took several steps away from me, like I was a walking contagion.

“Gotta run,” she whispered. “See you on Wednesday, though.” And then she bolted out of the building.

I wiped down the equipment, put the hand weights back on the rack and then, when I was sure no one would connect what I was doing with what I was feeling, I went a couple of rounds—just me against the punching bag—until my three o’clock client walked in the door.

~*~

The next day, when I was positive I had a little more control, I called Blake and told him we were going out for lunch.

“I’ll drive. Pick you up in fifteen minutes,” I informed him. I didn’t leave him any choice in the matter.

He seemed a little surprised by the demand, but I knew his work schedule and he couldn’t argue. He had an hour before he needed to get to the radio station. And any idle time Blake had on his hands might as well be the devil’s playground.

“So, what’s on your mind, little brother?” he asked me when we’d gotten our deli sandwiches and were seated on our favorite rock by the lake. We’d come here as a family when our parents were still alive. A part of me could still feel their presence.

“I can’t talk to Derek about this because, once he met Olivia, it was like he’d never dated anyone else in his life. Chandler is wandering around somewhere in the southeastern United States and is lost until he wants to be found. And Sharlene is a girl.”