Chapter 20
Chance
Ironworks Pub is busy on a Saturday evening at six o’clock. Patrons hover on the sidewalk and inside the waiting area, everyone coupled up. I scan them for a single woman with blonde hair and gray eyes. My quick perusal comes up short.
Savannah never texted me back after I told her I wanted to cancel. We’d already set the day and time, so here I am, too polite to stand someone up, but still reeling from my kiss with Danni last night. My first kiss. That I initiated.
I think it went well. For me anyway. All I can think about is kissing Danni again. And again. Unfortunately, she made a quick exit, ignoring my apology, tripping over things. She held tight to my arms as we kissed, offered no resistance whatsoever. And then she left abruptly, mixing her signals.
After fifteen minutes of waiting, Savannah hasn’t shown up and I’m still thinking about that kiss, Danni’s quick exit, and our trip to Chai World on Monday. What if we find another opportunity to kiss while we’re in Atlanta? I don’t know whether I’m nervous or ecstatic.
Both. Definitely both. I need to get this date over with so I can go home and pack.
At twenty after six, a blonde-haired, gray-eyed woman in revealing clothing approaches me. Her tight red dress exists to show everything off, including several inches of cleavage.
“Are you Chance?”
I warned Savannah over text that I’m not Thor but quite the opposite, on several counts.
“Savannah?”
Her wide smile reveals perfectly aligned teeth. Too perfect. I’m not asking dental hygiene questions tonight or any of the questions on my list. Kissing Danni made me forget most of them anyway.
Savannah bends a knee and adjusts her strappy black heels, her muscular calf balling up as she flexes. My phone buzzes at the same time telling me our table is ready.
We follow the hostess to a table next to the stage, where a band is setting up their equipment. I’m not sure I want to sit this close to the speakers. But if Savannah and I have nothing to say to each other, it could work to my advantage.
“You picked a great restaurant,” Savannah says. “I love their spinach artichoke dip.”
When the waiter stops at our table, we order our food, and then Savannah says, “I’ll have a gin and tonic.”
I don’t think anything of it. My dates often order a drink. It’s perfectly normal. Until Savannah orders drinks three and four before we’ve received our food. To be fair, the food takes forever.
While we’re waiting, Savannah tells me all about her job as an events coordinator for the City of Charleston. She tells me about several of her projects, including the jazz festival, Carifest, the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, The Charleston Moonwalk Parade where everyone moonwalks backward through the city, and the Bubble Wrap Stomp-a-thon.
“We lay out this huge field of bubble wrap and everyone goes wild stomping on it. And then people throw paint on us and we belly flop onto our stomachs and push ourselves around like penguins. Have you seen penguins push themselves around on their bellies? It’s soooo adorable. Oh! I went to Antarctica once. We snorkeled for potbelly pigs. You should go sometime!”
She’s drunk.
By now, the band is doing a sound check. My meal is in front of me, and the chicken could double as a hockey puck. It’s so tough I nearly chip a tooth, so I move on to my al dente baked potato while Savannah jabbers about her pet peanut named Nutty Buddy that hides in her pocket whenever she’s on a date.
“Here, let me show you.” She starts patting herself down. Her dress doesn’t have any pockets.
The band starts up and it is so loud, but I’m distracted by Savannah. She climbs onto the table before I can stop her and starts pulling down the straps on her dress. I spring into action, grab her by the waist, and yank her down.
“Ooo,” she says, liking it too much.
When I try to shake her off, she pulls me in tight, pressing every inch of her voluptuous body against mine. I jerk my head away before she lands a sloppy kiss. She keeps trying. I keep turning my head left, then right. Left, then right.
“I love a man who plays hard to get,” she purrs, her alcohol breath pouring from her mouth like dragon flames.
“That’s it,” I say, after I manage to extract myself from her clutches. The band is still the main attraction, but Savannah and I are a close second.
“She’s had too much to drink,” I say apologetically to anyone who will listen, which is no one because the band is too loud for anyone to hear.
I grab Savannah’s slim wallet and drag her outside.
“Where did you park?” I ask.
“Where do you want to park?” she slurs.
“No. I’m asking you where you parked.” Which doesn’t matter. I’m so flustered I forgot she probably won’t be able to drive for forty-eight hours.
I’ll call her an Uber. That’s what I’ll do. Uber drivers are trustworthy. They file background checks. She’ll be in good hands. Or I’ll just take her home myself. Whatever. I need to get this woman in her own home in her own bed.
I rifle through her wallet and find her driver’s license. Google Maps shows me the quickest route to her home address. Twenty minutes later, I’m pounding on Apartment 406 in Leeward Pointe. A guy in a beanie cap and a robe answers the door.
As soon as he sees Savannah on my arm, he sneers. “She doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Do you know her?” I ask, desperately.
“I wish I didn’t.”
“Where does she li–”
The door slams in my face. I knock again. No answer. I keep knocking. And then I hear, “She’s all yours, buddy,” through the door.
Score: 0
I realize I’m not looking at JustInCase.xlsx, but I already know. This date is a big fat zero.
I drag Savannah back to my car. The instant she hits the seat, she passes out and starts snoring. I get back out, swing over to her side, and strap her in while wondering what to do with her.
There aren’t many options. I could drop her off at a homeless shelter, or I could take her back to my apartment. Neither choice sounds good, but the latter sounds less cruel–for her anyway.
I’ve never spent the night with a girl and this isn’t how I want to start. But I have to make sure she’s safe, so I head home to the sound of her irregular snores and occasional mutterings about Nutty Buddy and her pet cat, Thomas the Tank Engine.
While I’m carrying her up the stairs, she pukes all over me, finding it rather funny, unlike me. I lay her on the couch and assess the damage. Her hair is vomit-y. Her clothes were spared. Me, not so much.
I set a puke bucket next to the couch and tell her where to aim if her stomach turns inside out again. She murmurs something so I feel pretty confident that she didn’t understand a word I said. I’ll take my chances.
After carefully peeling off my clothes, I jump in the shower. While I’m drying my hair with a towel, I check on her, find her snoring peacefully, and then my computer dings.
My mom and dad are calling on Zoom.
“Adi, you seem tired,” Mom says.
Mom looks perky, always the morning person, and a little too happy. I don’t trust it. Dad, on the other hand, must have pulled another late night. After saying hello, he closes his eyes.
“I am tired.”
“Why?” Mom asks.
Because after carrying Savannah out of the bar, I carried her to her ex-boyfriend’s, and then up the stairs to my apartment, and then from my couch to my bed where she’s currently passed out.
I’m not moving her again, which means I get the couch tonight. Lucky me. I can hear her snoring through the bedroom door. Hopefully my parents won’t notice.
“I carried something heavy up the stairs,” I say, telling the truth without the unnecessary details.
Dad’s head lulls over. He falls forward like a felled tree, slowly at first, and then gaining momentum, his forehead landing against the webcam.
“Hey, Dad.”
My voice wakes him up. His left eyeball blinks at me. “What happened?”
“You fell asleep.”
He grunts and then rights himself.
“Maybe you should go back to bed,” I say.
“Yeah, honey, maybe you should.”
Dad shakes out his arms and straightens. “I’m fine. What did I miss?”
“Jyotiraditya.” Dadi’s distant, singsongy voice rings through the speakers.
“What’s that noise?” Mom asks.
“Which noise?”
“The snoring.”
It’s definitely not the drunk woman I brought home tonight. “It’s…my dog.”
Dad perks up. “You bought a dog?”
“Yeah. A puppy.”
“That doesn’t sound like a puppy,” Mom says.
“It’s a big puppy.”
“Your landlord lets you have pets?” Mom says.
“Yep.”
“And you have carpet?” she adds.
“Yep.”
Mom prefers hard surfaces that she can thoroughly sanitize with her homemade citrus spray, including her furniture, opting for expensive vegan leather. Because animal rights. Also Dadi’s vegetarian and a devoted Hindu. She won’t sit anywhere near cow leather. The point: Mom’s not into mixing pet dander and nylon plies.
“Jyotiraditya,” Dadi sings again, sounding exceedingly chipper. Metal legs shriek against tile as she pulls her chair over. She plops it between Mom and Dad, forcing them apart, and adjusts the embroidered neck of her purple and gold saree.
“Hey, Dadi. Are you keeping Mom and Dad in line?”
“They only listen to me when they want me to cook them something.”
“Not true,” Dad mutters.
“I’m joking.” Dadi swats Dad’s arm, and then she scowls at the wall behind me. “What’s that noise?”
“It’s his dog,” Mom says.
“You have a dog, Adi?”
“Yep.” I feel guilty lying but if I tell Dadi the truth she’ll holler at me in Kannada for an hour and I’m too tired for that.
“I adopted him to keep me company during the lonely nights I spend at home alone.”
“How is that supposed to work?” Dadi asks.
“I feed him twice a day, make sure he has water, and let him out whenever he wiggles his butt by the door.”
“I know how to take care of a dog,” Dadi says sternly, “but what do you plan to do with him when you move back to India?”
I’m not dumb enough to tell her I don’t know if I’m moving back to India. “I’ll put him in a crate and he’ll go wherever they put animals on airplanes.” This lie is already getting too complicated.
“And what if your wife does not want this dog?”
“Don’t worry about tomorrow when there’s enough trouble today,” I say.
“Now you’re quoting the Bible?” Mom says.
“I am?”
“Son,” Dadi says to Dad, “tell your boy he needs to come home.”
“I lived half my life in America,” I say, testing the waters. Maybe this conversation would go better if I told the truth. And maybe lying takes too much energy. Yes, it definitely does.
Savannah’s snoring reaches a fever pitch. I think she has sleep apnea. Or a bullfrog in her sinuses.
“You have so many reasons to be with us,” Mom says. “Your sister and Erish want to start a family. Your father needs your help at BTI. You can make more money here and your money will go farther.”
Dadi flutters her hands in excitement. “I can’t keep it a secret anymore. We won Navya back, Adi. The family has agreed. They would like you and Navya to marry.”
Her words are a gut punch. Navya was off my radar. I thought she was a done deal, as in done with me. And now I have Danni. Or, I’d like to have Danni. “I don’t want to marry Navya.” I spurt it out so fast my words mush together.
Mom, Dadi, and Dad regard me with varying levels of shock. I take their silence as an opportunity. “Yeah. I don’t want an arranged marriage. I already told Dad. I want a love match.”
Dadi rears back and scowls at my dad.
“I didn’t think he’d actually find someone.” Dad shrivels in the heat of Dadi’s anger.
“Did you find someone, Adi?” Mom asks.
“Yes. I mean, no. I don’t know. I just–I’m not sure what I want. I just know I don’t want to marry Navya. She’s a fine person, but I don’t want to be her husband.”
Dadi pales. Her lips move, but no sound comes out. Mom and Dad look at her and then goggle at me.
“Dadi?” I say.
Her mouth is still moving. Dad’s like a dynamite fuse, slowly sizzling toward the explosion, but he remains silent.
Finally, sound escapes Dadi’s lips. “That is just fine,” she says stiffly, “Just fine.” She gets up and walks out of the frame.
“Dadi,” I repeat.
“That was between you and me.” Dad’s lips barely move as he talks.
Mom looks past the camera, her brow knitted. “I need to console her.” She narrows her eyes at me. “We’ll talk about this later.”
That leaves Dad and me. His eyebrows are digging grooves into the bridge of his nose. I could have picked a better time to disrespect Dadi’s traditions. But it’s out now and there’s nothing I can do about it. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
He cuts through the niceties. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Fix it.”
Danni
The Sunday morning air is already hot and laden with moisture. I’m only ten minutes into my run, and I’ve lost half of my body weight in sweat, but I push myself onward.
After kissing Chance on Friday and making my hasty exit, I slept surprisingly well. So well, I became one with my mattress, sinking so deeply into the memory foam that I didn’t want to get up, and so I didn’t until noon. I spent Saturday preparing for tomorrow’s road trip, packing my clothes, buying snacks at the grocery store, trying not to think about how mortified I’ll be when I see Chance.
I haven’t told Morgan or Kayla about the kiss. I’m too busy sorting it out myself. Was it a onetime thing? A product of the fancy pool and the starlight and the heavy breathing? Is that why his glistening muscles and tantalizing lips diminished my resolve?
He’ll be wearing those same lips to Atlanta. And every day at JetAero. And I’ll have to work next to them, knowing what it’s like to kiss them, wondering if I’m ever going to kiss them again.
Chance is more than a pair of lips. He’s a big ego. A chain-chewing, alpine-mist-wearing player. Whose kisses are like cherry Tootsie Pops and habanero jelly beans combined.
My lungs are a five-alarm fire, but I quicken my pace. The more energy I exhaust, the less energy I have to think about what might happen if Chance and I have five minutes alone in Atlanta. I run along the edge of the marsh, occasionally gazing out over the swaying grass whenever a bird takes flight or the water gurgles as a frog snatches its prey.
Thirty minutes later, I’ve had all I can take. I make a loop toward home, desperate for a drink of water and a shower. When my apartment comes into view, my cheeks go from blazing hot to sub-zero in an instant. Chance is leaving his apartment and he’s not alone.
I dash behind a tree, my body hidden but my head peeking out. He’s with a woman. Their voices float toward me but I can’t make out words. However, I can make out his companion’s skintight red dress that’s hardly covering her unmentionables. I can also tell she has bedhead for days, like a lost sheep that is long overdue for its shearing.
Why does she have bedhead?
Because she was sleeping.
In Chance’s apartment.
With Chance!
My conversation with myself continues in words so garbled even I can’t make them out. Meanwhile, Chance helps the woman down the stairs, steadying her like she had a hard night of partying. With Chance!
If my knees hinged the other way, I’d kick myself in the teeth for thinking Chance was into me. And for thinking I might be into him. For some dumb reason, I let his shirtlessness and the cool water and the soft purple twilight lull me into complacency.
Chance and I absolutely cannot happen. I’m more sure of it now than I’ve ever been. We’re coworkers. That’s it. Coworkers who don’t even like each other.
As Chance struggles to stuff his latest conquest into his car, I remain hidden behind the tree, not about to let him know I figured out what a chump he is.
Tomorrow morning, I’m all business. Chance’s lips are off-limits. And so is my heart.