He slid into his seat and proceeded to completely ignore her. His attention centered solely on entertaining his date. He sat so that if Amanda glanced over, his back was presented to her. There would be no cat-and-mouse game of him trying to catch her eye, no drama played out from behind the scenes. He didn’t use a trip to the men’s room as an excuse to exchange a few words with her. He never looked over, not even once. Chase appeared to be enthralled with whatever was going on at his table, which from what Amanda could tell, was a great deal of laughter and waify giggling.
Amanda found out through Nicki that both women requested specially prepared salmon, grilled and basted in olive oil and lemon, with steamed vegetables, no carrots.
Figures, Amanda thought, as she saw to it that the order was expertly prepared. Within fifteen minutes, interest had passed into pique. It was unexpected and startling. She had no justification; she had told Chase all along he didn’t stand a chance. And it wasn’t necessarily the presence of the woman that irked her. Amanda wasn’t even sure she saw her as a threat. It was the pure, unadulterated snub from the man who’d spent every spare minute he could until tonight catching her eye from wherever he was seated. Who wrapped her up in his unabashed affection and delighted in it. She hated having to admit she was hurt because Chase Walker wasn’t showering her with his attention. And even though she really was flustered, there no way in hell she was going to show it. She wanted him to get back to living the high life, she told herself. She was just having second thoughts about seeing him do it in her restaurant.
As Chase and his companions dined, and the more she tried to ignore them being there, the more Amanda couldn’t refrain from looking over. He wasn’t touching his date, hadn’t moved in too close, but he was fully engaged in his tête-à-tête with the woman. It was all very proper and genial, and by the time they ordered coffee and one dessert, Chase’s favorite, Amanda was fighting off a full-blown snit.
Amanda didn’t check on his table as she would’ve normally done with most guests, mostly because she didn’t think she could trust herself. What she did, in her opinion, was the next best thing: Anybody who showed the slightest interest in the celebrity dining in the back of the room, she sent them right over to his table. Normally, when Chase was eating, she would smoothly point fanatics over to the bar, telling them that Chase hung out there after he ate and loved a good conversation. But tonight, Amanda told a dozen people in the most encouraging voice she had that, yes indeed, that was Chase Walker, and he loved meeting his fans, even when having dinner. Half of the people she told shied away and left him alone. The other half paraded right up to him and, if nothing else, momentarily broke up his love-fest. And she quietly enjoyed the small vindication from afar, until she got what she wanted: He looked at her. After getting out of the booth to stand at the table and accommodate a picture, he faced her direction. He smiled for the picture and then scanned the room, instantly finding her. It was brief, and it was perceptive. Or maybe she just felt guilty for the immature way she’d resorted to rattling his cage while still keeping her distance. He gave her a tiny smile before returning to his seat.
They finished their coffee, Chase paid the bill, and then they got up to leave, passing by Amanda on the way out.
“Thanks for a wonderful meal,” Chase said brusquely, taking his date by the elbow to escort her out the door.
“Thank you for dining with us, Mr. Walker,” Amanda replied with the same sass she employed every time she used his formal name. “Please consider coming back again.”
Logan and his date followed in Chase’s wake. Logan was shaking his head, with a small knowing smile of his own. “It was nice to meet you, Amanda. Sorry about the mix-up.”
And then he was gone. All that remained were her unjustifiable wounded feelings and an exorbitant bouquet. She sullenly got back to work while business slowed down and, nearing the end of the night, she went back to the roses, dejectedly touching the petals and rearranging the stems.
“FOR PETE’S SAKE,” ERIC EVENTUALLY said from the other end of the bar before approaching her. “How much longer are you going to let this go on? He’s starting to tell people he’s eaten everything on the menu twice. The guy is really starting to get the sympathy vote. If you don’t say yes soon, you’re going to look like you’re shooting him down to build your clientele.”
Eric wasn’t far off. It was starting to feel like saying no to him was akin to burning the American flag.
“He’s got you batting for him now?” Amanda asked, still concentrating on the flowers. She had started to find all the good-natured teasing a bit intimidating. She never expected him to make good on his threat of becoming a pest, but she had gotten used to it. She couldn’t throw him out now. From the sound of it, her entire staff would start a mutiny if she did. And when all was said and done, after the evening’s events, she didn’t want to. She had started looking forward to his arrival, more than she would’ve wanted to admit. She felt a spike in her heart rate every time he came through the door, a sudden hitch in her breathing that she attributed to his charisma sucking all the air out of the room.
“Yeah, what are you waiting for?” Nicki chimed in, having been his waitress and witnessing the whole bizarre evening from both sides. “He’s not perfect enough for you?”
Amanda didn’t take what Nicki said personally. Nicki had tried her best to hide her disappointment when it became apparent Chase was indeed interested with someone at the Cold Creek, and it wasn’t her. It was a tough pill to swallow. Rejection was rejection, no matter how you look at it. Amanda knew that pill, and the current pill didn’t taste much different. She continued to study the flowers. She had just been rejected, by a guy slick enough to believe he could honestly play both ends against the middle, with a swankier consolation prize.
“No one is perfect,” Amanda stated, hoping she was effectively downplaying his actions and that using the word wouldn’t set off a chain of events ending up with her in the hospital. “There’s always that fatal flaw and I’ll bet his is a doozy.”
“Fatal flaw?” Nicki repeated with interest.
“Yeah,” Amanda explained. “It’s a theory we figured out back in college. When you first start dating a guy, he’s busy saying all the right words and acting like Prince Charming, trying to get you naked. Then if he likes the outcome, it’s all about trying to get you to stay naked, but the flaw is there, lying dormant, until you’re hooked. By then it’s usually too late; you’re all wrapped up in the memory of when you first met and everyone was on their best behavior. Then you ride the breakup-makeup carousel until you both can’t stand yourselves. Our final analysis was, until you find the fatal flaw in your potential partner, the relationship can’t ever be real.”
“That’s stupid,” Eric remarked, free to speak his mind. There were times when Amanda was a boss and there were times when Amanda was a friend. Most of the time, she was both. “People are always changing. What’s a flaw in someone who’s twenty-five could be a nonissue five years later.”
“So what happens when you find it?” Nicki asked curiously, ignoring Eric. Boys knew nothing of the sisterhood.
“Then you decide if it’s something you can live with, and if the good makes the flaw worth it,” Amanda continued. “For instance, you can take a guy who enjoys his free time with the boys, but one who spends every weekend drunk is a no-go. Maybe he’s a real cheapskate when it comes to showering you with gifts and expensive dates, but he’s all about you when you hit the sheets. Or you don’t mind that he doesn’t have a really great job, as long as while you’re working he’s not at home cheating on you.”
“You realize that every situation you just described has nothing to do with the guy who’s trying to get your attention,” Eric pointed out. “For crying out loud, talk about an overreaction. He just wants to take you for dinner.”
“Guys like that don’t just want dinner,” Amanda said, thinking Chase was not just any guy. He was more of a stalker who just happened to
win everybody over, a drop-dead sexy stalker with electric eyes, a teen-idol smile, and a butt worthy of an underwear model—and those were just the parts of him she could see. “I’m telling you, he’s only pushing because I had the nerve not to melt in his presence. And how do you know he isn’t a cheater? For all we know, he’s the biggest philanderer on the planet.”
“Oh sure,” Eric snorted, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, “ ’Cause all the best womanizers sit alone at a bar being shot down for nights on end.”
“Need I remind you, he just left with a contestant from America’s Next Top Model?”
“Hard to forget; we’re all still looking at the flowers he didn’t need to send you,” Eric retorted.
“He’s like your own personal Norm from Cheers,” Nicki said, giggling, “except he’s gorgeous.”
“And he has a job,” Eric added.
“And a million women want to have his baby,” Amanda concluded, not needing Eric and Nicki’s sudden bustling to tell her that Chase had reentered the bar. She could feel him.
Chase came in and sat down in the seat next to her after the failed attempt at sneaking up on her. Eric and Nicki said their hellos, and Eric handed him his usual Heineken before returning to continue closing up.
They spent a few moments in silence while Amanda tried to decide if she was still peeved or elated that he was back.
“Thanks for the flowers. Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere unhooking a bra and rounding second base?”
“Do I detect a hint of snark?” Chase smiled with relief. “ ’Cause if I do, it just made my night. I was starting to wonder if you really didn’t care.”
“You mean these aren’t your way of inviting me into a threesome?”
“I don’t share,” he told her seriously. “Thanks for being such a good sport. I know it was awkward.”
“But that didn’t stop you from doing it,” she said snippily. “The least you can do is give me your motive.”
“I told you, I’m going to keep coming back here until you let me take you out,” Chase said with single-minded determination. “Logan is my best friend, and I wanted him to meet you. He’d just gotten back from vacation, and when I sent the text that I wanted to have dinner, I couldn’t bring myself to type the part about the girl who was still giving me the brush.”
Amanda’s giggle bubbled up and overflowed. The most famous man she could think of went trolling for chicks with the handsomest. “Logan is your choice for a wingman? That’s got to be risky.”
Chase laughed along. “Not in this case. It was the other way around. Logan really wanted to impress his date. When he brought her to my game, she called her friend, and they saw to the details while I was warming up on the field.” He didn’t tell Amanda about the mad rush he sent Jack and the boys on to make the roses happen or that Logan was hopelessly stuck on blondes.
“So your solution to the problem was to bring everyone here to taunt me?”
Chase reacted unfavorably to her accusation and adopted a more weighty tone. “I didn’t do it to tease you. I’m on a mission. There was no way I wasn’t seeing you tonight, even if you are starting to make me look like a chump with your phony-baloney reluctance. But it’s the height of bad manners to make a lady feel uncomfortable. Like it or not, I was on a date and she deserved my full attention.”
Amanda pursed her lips together. She was the one who was supposed to be offended, yet it felt more like she’d just been given a lecture on etiquette.
“And none of this would’ve happened if you didn’t insist on stringing me along with this game you’re playing,” he continued, chiding her.
He wasn’t angry with her, but there was a definite switch in his approach. His easygoing, valiantly persistent persona was now overshadowed with a strength that hadn’t been there previously. It created a new, different sort of rush and she didn’t mind he was about to force her hand.
“Come on, angel,” he said, his eyes as deep as his voice. “Give me my shot.”
Amanda hesitated and debated the pros and cons one more time of the word that, once out there, she wouldn’t be able to take back and would probably end up regretting.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
Chase shook his head dramatically, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard, then broke out into a full-blown grin.
“See?” he asked happily. “Was that so hard?”
CHAPTER 5
AMANDA SAT ON her couch, wringing her hands and lecturing herself. It was just a date. There was no need to be so nervous. Then why did she feel like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs? Because while her date was known for playing first base, he could’ve been a pitcher, given the way he knew how to throw curveballs, starting with his departure from the Cold Creek as soon as she’d accepted his invitation.
She had thought she was so cunning, feigning ignorance to the prior knowledge of his schedule. After saying yes, she figured she had bought herself some more time and gave him one more chance to get permanently distracted. Chase already knew the Cold Creek was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, the only days she would consider accepting a date. She had had the foresight to agree to an invitation that fell when he had to leave for a road trip to Cleveland. She never expected him to phone both his coach and the Kings’ general manager immediately from the bar. He informed them that something important had come up and he would not be flying out with the team on the designated travel day, but flying out independently, and assured them he would arrive in plenty of time before Tuesday’s game. He apologized for deviating from the normal practice, but gave no excuses or explanations and none were asked for. Then he called his own pilot and told him to be ready Tuesday morning to take him to Cleveland. The moment he pushed the Off button on his phone after making his final call, Chase asked for her address and told her he would pick her up Monday at seven. Then, with what Eric described as a “shit-eating grin,” Chase abruptly left the Cold Creek and didn’t return in the interim. Four days of her watching the door, only for him to suddenly become a noticeable no-show.
She should’ve figured he had his own plane. She would’ve never guessed he was a master at how to create buildup and tension.
So now Amanda waited, glancing at the clock again. The five-minute countdown to seven was in motion. Maybe he would be late, and she could be righteously ticked off at his discourtesy. At five minutes after seven she would grab her keys and take a powder.
But she knew he wouldn’t be late; he ran like clockwork. For the past three weeks, whenever he had a home game, he arrived to occupy his barstool or table exactly an hour and twenty minutes after the last pitch was thrown, even if it was near midnight when he arrived, as had occurred when a night game went into extra innings. Of course, her entire staff was more than willing to stay past their usual closing time of one A.M. to accommodate him, and not just because he was such a generous tipper. He had won them all over after his third night there.
He probably owned a helicopter, too, although she hadn’t heard any reports of one landing on the street. He could be the speedboat type. Or maybe he just made use of a phone booth, Superman-style.
She considered quickly changing her clothes again, for the third time. He told her to wear whatever made her comfortable. She finally settled on a burgundy Anne Klein dot flared sweater dress with three-quarter sleeves. Something about the spin-worthy flared skirt called out to her and against Nicki’s choice of the standard little black dress.
There was a knock at her door. He was three minutes early, curse him. Amanda took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.
The charisma blew in like a wind gust as soon as she opened the door. The good looks, polish, and impeccable fashion sense were hard enough to handle, but the charisma got her every time. She could blame his clean, expensive cologne, but she knew she’d only be fooling herself. And this was no time to take a departure from reality. It didn’t help that his absence had made her heart grow fonder, which in turn was ca
use for more worry.
“Hi,” she squeaked, then gulped for air.
Chase smiled at her as if he hadn’t seen her in months and she was a sight for sore eyes.
“Hi, beautiful,” he said. “You ready to go?”
“I already agreed to this,” Amanda said, regrouping and irritated by her own greeting. She reached for her purse. “You don’t need to keep flattering me.”
“I’m not flattering,” he responded easily. “It’s more like an observation. And you better get used to it, because I’m very observant and fully appreciate the finer things.”
Boy, is this guy smooth, Amanda thought as they left her apartment and she locked her dead bolt. Finding his flaw was going to be a challenge. Stop it, she told herself, there is no flaw to find. This one just isn’t for you. Together they made their way down the hall to exit her building.
“No security guards tonight?” she asked dryly.
The Sweet Spot Page 4