Take a Chance on Me (7 page)

“Fine,” I said. “My back is slowly improving, and he’s got me doing a bunch of exercises to strengthen my abdom—”

“Oh, good,” she said, cutting me off. “As long as the prick is doing his job. Didn’t I tell you that he was totally focused on fitness? He probably doesn’t even realize you’re a living, breathing woman.” She laughed.

“Um—” I began, but then I stopped. I didn’t know how to defend Chance without simultaneously insulting Donna and her lack of perception. As much as I wished I could deny it, I was envious that she’d gotten to kiss him. Maybe even sleep with him. (Oh, boy…what must that have been like?!) But it didn’t seem as though she’d gotten to
know
him very well, and I didn’t appreciate the things she said about him now. It felt as if we were talking about two different men. One of us must have misread Chance. And maybe I was deceiving myself, but I didn’t think it was me. “How long did you two date again?” I asked.

“Less than a month. Why?” she replied, her voice suspicious. “Did he say anything about me?”

“No, no,” I said quickly. “Not even once. I was just curious.”

“Not even once? Hmm.”

There was an awkward pause, and I realized my mistake. For some reason, Donna must still be emotionally invested in the relationship. She didn’t necessarily
like
Chance, but there was a part of her that still wanted him to like
her
.

“I just meant that he never gossiped about you, Donna.”

“Well, that’s good,” she said. Then, “Did he make a pass at you or something?”

“Oh, no.” She didn’t need to know about our flirting. Or my sexual fantasies about the guy. For all I knew, they could be completely one-sided daydreams anyway. My intuition told me otherwise, though. “I actually have a date with someone else tonight, so I’d better get ready for—”

“Who?”

I winced. She was probably going to keep me on the phone for another hour once she heard the name. “Grant Jordan.”

“The plastics CEO? Oh. My. Gawd. Nia! You’re so lucky,” she gushed. “How did you meet him? Tell me everything!”

I didn’t have time for “everything,” but I gave her the highlights. How one of the Jordan-Luccio Corporation execs was Greek and his parents were friends with my parents. That the exec had gotten The Gala a catering gig at the office. I went downtown one Thursday morning to bring them some samples for tasting and to finalize the agreement, and Grant was there. He claimed to love the samples. (A sure way to win over a Greek girl’s heart.) And the moment the two of us were alone in the conference room, Grant had asked me out on the spot for the following evening.

“Yes, I’d like that,” I’d said to him.

He’d winked and replied, “Good. In that case, I’ll double the order. One for the office, and one for a party at my house next weekend. Maybe, if you enjoy our date tomorrow, you can join me at that gathering, too.”

That was a couple of months ago, and we’d been going out almost every weekend since then.

Donna sighed heavily on the line. “I’m so jealous! How come I never meet rich and sexy men like that? I only find duds like Chance Michaelsen.”

I swallowed back my anger at her words. She’d misunderstood and misrepresented Chance, and I knew it, but I didn’t have time to argue with her or listen to her self-pitying refrains about never finding a good man. It just got old. Sometimes I sensed that Donna was stuck in that same immature teen-girl phase from high school. Eight years ago, that was annoying but age-appropriate. Now, it was a lot of the former and none of the latter.

When I finally was able to hang up, I jumped into high gear. Grant was going to be at The Gala in just thirty-five minutes! I had to get dressed, put on makeup, do at least a decade’s worth of Zen meditation… Good thing I didn’t have a long commute.

“Not bad,” Dimitri said, eyeing my outfit, once I came downstairs. Our family home was connected to the restaurant, which was extremely convenient for events like this.

“Thanks, I think,” I said to my brother.

“So, am I gonna like this hotshot business guy of yours?” he asked.

“I don’t care whether you like him or not,” I lied. “But you’d better be very polite to him.”

Dimitri rolled his eyes. “As long as he treats you well, Nia.” Then he shot me a warm and genuine grin. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll behave.” He lowered his voice. “I make no promises for Mama and Papa, though. And you know Aunt Helen…”

We both laughed. Aunt Helen was on the talkative side, and she usually just blurted the first thing that popped into her carefully coiffed head. She was my mom’s older sister and the mother of my Wisconsin cousins, Nick and Jason. Nick, the younger of the two, was the one who now worked at The Playbook, a fancy sports-themed restaurant in Chicago, so I saw him there every once in a while. In fact, that was where Grant and I had gone for our third date.

Tonight, though, we had seven-thirty reservations at one of the nicest and quietest restaurants in Mirabelle Harbor—my favorite Thai place, Bangkok Gardens. I figured that would give Grant and me an excuse to leave the family inquisition at The Gala after no more than forty-five minutes of questioning. If my level of anxiety was any indication, that was about forty minutes too long.

Enjoy having a reason to be nervous.

I thought about Chance’s words again. He was right. I needed to enjoy tonight. This was a happy occasion, getting to introduce my family to a guy I liked. Maybe even the man I’d marry. I was lucky I could share this with my parents, my brother, and my other relatives. I knew they were going to keep loving me no matter what happened, so I just had to relax. Go with the flow.

Aunt Helen and Uncle Theo were sitting with my parents at a large circular table. My cousin Jason had stayed up in Wisconsin to tend to the business, but his brother Nick drove up to see us all. He and Dimitri were talking sports, my dad and my uncle were talking politics, and my mom and her sister were talking recipes…when Grant Jordan walked into The Gala.

He was dressed like he’d just stepped out of a men’s clothing catalog—an expensive one. Dark Italian suit. Red silk tie. Leather shoes so polished that they gleamed. He grinned at me from across the room, and my aunt whispered some kind of Greek blessing under her breath.

“Hi, Nia,” he said, his eyes sweeping the restaurant and taking in the collection of relatives. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting everyone.”

Aunt Helen murmured another prayer, something that evoked the spirit of the blessed Virgin Mary and requested a forthcoming marriage and a multitude of children.

My mother just nodded.

“Grant,” I said, “I’m so glad you could stop by. Let me introduce you to my family.”

As I went around the table, one by one, and made the official introductions, Grant looked so completely in his element that I had to remind myself that he wasn’t Greek. He easily slipped into the conversation the men were having about new international trade laws and the state of the euro, but when my mother brought out the
mezethes
—the hot and cold appetizers, including a platter of
triopita
triangles,
spanakopita
squares, skillet-fried
saganaki
cheese,
dolmades
, and some olives, cucumbers, and sliced tomatoes—Grant gratefully accepted a bit of everything. He made a show of enjoying every bite, and praised my mom’s handiwork until she blushed. He was impressively good at this.

Nick, who was openly gay and in a happy partnership, had met Grant once before at The Playbook. My cousin gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up behind Grant’s back, while Dimitri just raised his eyebrows and grinned. “He’s in,” he whispered in my ear before Grant and I left on our dinner date.

And my brother was right. Even our father, who could be less than welcoming of “outsiders,” was slapping Grant on the back and offering him “just a little ouzo” before we walked out the door.

Grant seemed pleased to oblige. “Good thing Nia and I can walk to Bangkok Gardens from here,” he said to my delighted relatives, as he downed his second small glass of the licorice-flavored alcohol.

“Opa!” Uncle Theo said.

“Opa!” everyone else chorused.

Yeah. At this rate, it was probably going to be a couple of hours before it would be safe for Grant to drive anywhere.

He held my hand as we left my parents’ restaurant, knowing we were being observed by my family. “How’d I do?” he murmured, once we were halfway down Main Street.

“You were brilliant,” I had to admit. “They loved you.”

“Good.” There was pride in his voice, and I was grateful for the respectful way he’d interacted with my relatives, but as soon as we were out of sight from The Gala, he let go of my hand and reached for his phone.

“I just need to check for messages real quick,” he told me.

So, when we turned onto Crescent Lane, where the Thai place was located, even though it had only been a few minutes since we left The Gala, I already felt weirdly disconnected from him. Like the stage show part of the evening was over, and now it was back to business. Literally. He answered three texts and responded to one voicemail before we even reached the front doors of the restaurant.

I would have been more impressed with his multitasking ability if it didn’t seem to be in such sharp contrast to his incredibly attentive behavior when he was with my family. In retrospect, it cast a weirdly superficial light on that whole interaction.

But he smiled winningly when we got to Bangkok Gardens, and he opened the door for me. It was a nice spring evening, but it was always a little nippy by the lake in April, and tonight was no exception. I was glad to be inside.

“Hello, Nia,” a very recognizable voice in the lobby said to me.

“Chance?” He was sitting on one of the benches, not nearly as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He was dressed casually, but not in his fitness-instructor clothing for a change. He had on fitted blue jeans and a nice long-sleeved jersey. Maroon-colored and very silky. I realized I’d never seen him in anything but workout shirts, shorts, or sweats before. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

He eyed Grant with undisguised curiosity, but then turned his gaze on me. “It’s my favorite carryout place. They’ve got great spring rolls. Very healthy,” he added with a grin.

Grant, who had been scrolling through his texts again, finally put away his phone and glanced at me expectantly. Ah. I supposed a formal introduction was in order.

“Grant, this is my personal trainer, Chance Michaelsen. Chance, this is my…um, this is Grant Jordan.”

“I’m her boyfriend,” Grant filled in for me, which was the first time he’d used the term in public. It denoted a kind of relationship exclusivity that I wasn’t sure he’d felt until now. I glanced at him with interest as he reached out to shake Chance’s hand, full of his usual confidence.

Chance stood up to grasp it, which was when I realized that Chance was actually a couple of inches taller than Grant and, also, significantly more muscular. In the cavernous gym, Chance was completely in his element and seemed less imposing somehow, surrounded by all of those big pieces of exercise equipment and dwarfed, as we all were there, by the high ceilings. His physicality didn’t stand out quite so much at Harbor Fitness. In the compact lobby of a Thai restaurant, however, it did.

I saw Grant blink in surprise.

The two men sized each other up, and I caught an expression on Chance’s face that was different from any other look I’d witnessed on him before. It was like he’d just issued a challenge that he knew the illustrious Grant Jordan wouldn’t be able to refuse.

“Nice to meet you, Chance,” Grant said with the faux sincerity of a newscaster covering a natural disaster.

“Likewise, Grant,” Chance said with reciprocal sincerity and deliberate precision. The politeness between them was so forced I almost laughed aloud.

“Your order is ready,” one of the male servers informed my personal trainer, coming out from the kitchen and holding up a neatly packaged carryout bag.

Chance thanked the guy just as the hostess approached Grant and me, asking if we had a reservation.

Grant stepped forward to give our names while Chance moved closer to me.

“How’d it go with your family?” he whispered.

“Good,” I whispered back.

He looked like he didn’t quite believe me.

“No, it was fine. Really,” I said. “Only a little weird,” I admitted, almost under my breath.

But I knew Chance heard me.

“They’re ready for us, beautiful,” Grant said loudly to me.

“All right,” I said.

Chance nodded at Grant, then at me. “Have a nice evening.” Then, just to me, he added, “See you Monday, Nia.”

“Okay,” I murmured as Grant and the hostess led me away from him and to our table. I stole one quick look over my shoulder just as Chance was striding out the door with his carryout spring rolls. He looked back at me at the same time. That electrifying sizzle zipped between us once again. Then he was gone.

Grant and I were seated at our table, handed menus, and left on our own for a few minutes.

He asked me a few questions about what my favorite entrées and appetizers were (cashew chicken, massaman curry, shrimp satays…) and added a few of his own before ordering a mini feast for us.