Chance Encounters

by Jessica Prince

  “Yeah. You too, Chase.”

  Asshole. “It’s Chance,” I managed to speak through my grinding teeth.

  He blew me off with a quick, “Yeah, whatever,” before turning his attention back to Melany. “So you know that real estate friend I told you about earlier? He just so happens to be here tonight, and I’d love to introduce you.”

  She cast me a quick look and stammered, “Oh… but I—”

  Logan’s features shifted. He smiled in my direction, but there wasn’t any kindness behind it. It screamed game on as he interrupted with, “I know you said you had help, but it couldn’t hurt to talk to a professional, right?”

  “Um… well, I-I…”

  It was official; I hated this guy. Not only had he just landed his blow, but he’d also managed to put Melany in an awkward position while doing it. I couldn’t stand to see her revert back to that uncomfortable, uncertain woman she’d come so far from, so instead of pissing a circle around her like I wanted, I placed my hand on her back and smiled down at her.

  “It’s okay. Why don’t you go talk to him while I get us some drinks?”

  Her shoulders fell with visible relief, but her eyes still held a hint of trepidation. I immediately understood why, and fuck if that didn’t make me feel like I was ten feet tall. I leaned in and assured her in a soothing voice, “I’ll come find you as soon as I get our drinks. Promise.”

  “Okay.” The smile she graced me with was positively stunning. That was exactly what she needed to hear, confirmation that she’d have someone she trusted with her as she stepped out of her comfort zone to meet new people. I was that person for her, not the jackass standing beside her. That was all I needed to calm the feral possessiveness that was clawing at my insides. The knowledge that I already gave her something that Logan hadn’t—and never would, if I had anything to say about it—helped soothe the beast, especially when he put his hand on the small of her back to lead her away. Instead of ripping his fingers from his body the way I wanted, I turned to the bar and waded through the heavy crowd to get my girl her drink. I had a promise to keep, after all.

  Melany

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG with me.

  Like seriously wrong. There was a strong possibility I was losing my mind, because not only wasn’t I over the moon to be sitting beside the man I’d been in love with for the past half-decade, but I was so focused on watching a woman at the bar flirt with Chance, I wasn’t even paying attention to a word Logan was saying.

  Over the past hour and a half, I’d finished off two cosmos—thanks to Tomas I was now obsessed with them—and was working my way through my third. I wasn’t drunk, but I had a good enough buzz that, coupled with the security I felt with Chance around, I was actually able to loosen up and have a good time. I met some new people, laughed, and even told a few jokes that didn’t go over like a lead weight. The night had been a success.

  Or so I thought.

  Enter the redhead in a skintight black dress.

  Chance had gone to get himself another beer, and my gaze followed him through the bar unconsciously. I didn’t have the first clue who she was, had never seen her in my life, but when she sauntered up and started flirting, I immediately hated her.

  My stomach twisted into knots, only this time they weren’t from nerves or anxiety. It was like witnessing a train wreck. I watched with a mixture of horror and fascination, unable to look away as she giggled at something he’d just said and batted her long eyelashes at him. He smiled in return and she reached up to brush her fingertips over his bicep. My chest tightened like someone had reached inside and wrapped their fingers around my heart, squeezing it painfully.

  “Melany? Hey, Melany.”

  Logan’s voice snatched my attention away from the scene I was quickly becoming fixated on. Smiling apologetically, I picked up my drink and took a large sip. “Sorry. I must have spaced out. What did you say?”

  He peered back and forth between Chance and me. A look I couldn’t quite decipher skated across his face. “What’s the deal with you two?”

  My head tipped to the side, my eyelids narrowing in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  Taking one last sip of his beer, he set the empty bottle on the table between us and leaned forward on his elbows. “Are you two together?”

  “You mean like, dating?”

  “Dating, sleeping together, have general feeling of the romantic variety… however you want to put it.”

  I’d made the mistake of taking a large gulp a second earlier. Logan’s question caused the liquid to go down the wrong pipe, and I proceeded to choke on my drink so bad my eyes watered and tears ran down my face.

  “What?” I croaked, once the coughing lessened enough for me to speak. “No! It’s like I told you, we’re just friends. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  Logan smirked, handing me a few napkins to dab at the mascara streaks on my cheeks. “Maybe because he looked like he wanted to rip my head off for touching you when you guys first walked in?”

  “He looked at you like that?” I asked before my brain could catch up with my mouth.

  He studied me closely. “He’s looked at me like that the entire time you guys have been here.” My body suddenly felt light as air, but Logan wasn’t finished yet. “And I can’t help but notice that you keep staring over there at him.”

  I couldn’t control the heat that crept up my neck to my cheeks, but there was no stopping my eyes from trailing over toward Chance and his redhead. I wished I hadn’t looked, because just as I did, she slid a napkin across the bar top, a sultry look on her face as he picked it up, grinned, and pocketed it. She gave him her number, and he didn’t hesitate in taking it. I didn’t know what Logan thought he saw with Chance and me, but whatever it was, he was so clearly off base. Chance would never look at me twice when he could get a woman who looked like that. I was so far out of the redhead’s league, I wasn’t even in the same ballpark. He was just protective of me… as a friend.

  “It’s not… I don’t… W-we aren’t…” Clenching my eyes closed, I slowed my breathing and tried to get better control of my words. “It’s not like that,” I finally said once the fear of uncontrollable stuttering abated. “There isn’t anything going on. We really are just friends.” Why did saying that out loud suddenly make my stomach hurt?

  “You sure about that?”

  Maybe I could chalk the riot of emotions rushing through me just then to hormones and too much vodka. Chance was one of my closest friends. I’d grown to depend on him, to trust him with everything I was. Maybe it was just PMS. I wasn’t falling for him. I wasn’t. It was PMS. It was making me think crazy things. That’s all it was. Just PMS.

  “I’m sure,” I answered with a smile, much calmer now that I had a reasonable explanation for my temporary bout of insanity.

  The skepticism written on Logan’s face slowly started to melt away, as if I’d just put his mind as ease. “That’s good to know,” he said softly. Then he gave me the exact same smile he’d given Katy Gilroy from Accounting during the company Christmas party three years ago. I remembered because I’d memorized that smile, cataloging it away as one of my favorites. I also remembered because it was the very same smile he gave her fifteen minutes before I walked into the women’s bathroom and heard them going at it in one of the stalls. They dated for a few months after that, and I thought those were some of the worst months of my life. At the time, knowing he’d given it to another woman right before they’d had sex, crushed me.

  Now… well, now I didn’t really feel much of anything.

  Damn PMS was making me all kinds of crazy.

  “I THINK I’M PMSing really bad,” I informed Constance.

  It was the second weekend in a row she’d been able to get away and meet me for brunch. These past two times she’d used guilt to con Frank into keeping the boys on his own for a few hours. She claimed that she planned on using sex once the guilt stopped being effective.

  One of her eyebrows hoo
ked up as she took a drink of her mimosa. “But you’re not due for like, another two weeks. We’re on the same schedule.”

  That couldn’t have been right. My face scrunched in concentration as I mentally calculated the dates. “But… wait. That can’t be right.” I calculated three more times just to be sure.

  “Oh, it’s right. Trust me.” She waved her empty glass in the air for a refill. During our brunches, she downed mimosas like a champ. She said they helped turn her into the Nice Mommy. “I have three little hellions at home. The rhythm method alone is a joke, but you combine it with condoms, the Pill, and a diaphragm when you’re not feeling too lazy, and it’s foolproof. No way in hell those little swimmers are getting through all of that.”

  I let out a giggle as I took a bite of my frittata. “Sex with you must be so fun. You sure you don’t want to start wrapping Frank’s junk in saran wrap also?”

  “Nah,” she waved me off. “That stuff never works. How do you think Deacon happened?”

  I nearly spat my food across the table. “Gross,” I laughed. “That was an image I didn’t want in my head while I ate.”

  Constance smiled and shrugged. “You started it. Anyway, what’s all this stuff about PMS?”

  With a heavy sigh, I picked up my own glass and downed the orange juice and sparkling wine. The waitress swung by the table and prepared to refill our glasses.

  “Less OJ, more booze,” Constance told her. Once we were properly topped off, I went about explaining why I felt I’d been a wreck the past few days.

  “Maybe it’s like pre-PMS,” I tried to reason.

  My friend gave me a dry look. “So you think you’re suffered from pre-premenstrual syndrome? Really?”

  “Well, that’s the only logical explanation for why I’ve been so… emotional these past few days. I thought it was just the hormones.”

  “Hate to break it to you, babe, but you aren’t due for a good crying jag and chocolate cravings for at least another week. What’s been going on?”

  “Well…” I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to get into it with her. Connie could be like a dog with a bone when it came to me. But, while I’d been growing closer to Devon and all her friends, I still didn’t feel comfortable enough to talk with them about what was going on. Tomas would probably suggest I do something that would make me blush so badly I’d stain my entire face red permanently, so he was definitely out of the question. I couldn’t talk to Chance for obvious reasons, so that left Constance as my only confidant. “Things have been weird with me and Chance lately.”

  “Weird how?” she asked, setting her drink down as concern enveloped her pretty face.

  “Not bad weird,” I amended, hoping to put her mine at ease. “Or… maybe it’s bad. I don’t know! I’m a mess!”

  I dropped my face into my hands and lowered my head so my hair could form a protective curtain between me and everyone else in the restaurant. That was something I hadn’t felt the need to do in weeks.

  “Hey, hey. What’s going on, babe?” She reached across the table to pull my hands away, using that soothing mother tone she’d perfected after her first kid. “Talk to me. You know you can tell me anything.”

  “I think I might… IthinkIhaveacrushonChance,” I finished on a loud rush of words.

  Her eyes got big at the same time her mouth dropped open. “I’m sorry,” she started, once she composed herself after the initial shock. “I think I blacked out for a minute because I could have sworn I just asked you if there was something between you guys last weekend.”

  “Well, there wasn’t then,” I defended petulantly.

  “And you just told me you had feelings for another man other than the one you’ve been saying you wanted to marry for the past five years!”

  “Shh!” I hissed, my head jerking around to see if anyone was listening in. “Will you lower your damn voice?”

  “Oh, well excuse me. You’ll forgive me for being surprised that my best friend just told me she was crushing on the guy she asked to help her land a different guy.”

  I frowned and looked down at my now cold frittata. “When you say it like that, it sounds kind of messed up.”

  The table jostled as Constance reached across it, taking one of my hands in hers. “I don’t think it’s messed up at all, honey.”

  My head shot up. “You don’t?”

  Her snort drew the attention of the women next to us, but she just ignored them and kept talking. “You kidding? I think this is great! You’ve been hung up on a dude who didn’t even notice you until you got all sexified—not that you haven’t always been beautiful, but that loser didn’t even realize it until you gave yourself a makeover. I haven’t personally met this Chance guy yet, but I will very soon, if I have a say in the matter.” She gave me the stink eye with that one. “And to hear you talk, he’s seen the awesomeness that is you underneath all those baggy clothes from day one. He’s sweet, you said he makes you laugh, and I totally Facebook stalked the guy, so I know he’s smokin’ hot!”

  “You Facebook stalked him?” I squeaked.

  “Uh… of course!” she answered like it was a completely normal thing to do. “My BFF informed me she was moving in with a dude I didn’t know. You think I didn’t stalk his social media? Come on, you know me better than that.”

  I lost some of my ire at that. She really was a good friend. “That makes sense, I guess. In a kind of crazy stalker way.”

  “And you’ll be happy to know he’s got no criminal record.”

  The ire returned. “How in God’s name do you know that?”

  “Frank called his cop friend to run a check. You know he’s just as protective of you as I am. If we both die in a fiery crash, you’re literally the only one who’d be willing to take in the boys. We have to make sure you stay healthy and safe.” I couldn’t deny she had a point there. “All I’m saying is, the guy is prime-A spank bank material.”

  I wrinkled my face up in disgust and threw a chopped piece of tomato at her. “Stop being gross.”

  She laughed and picked her glass back up. “Fine, I’ll stop. But I really think this is a good thing. And I expect the two of you will be coming over for dinner. Very soon.” She spoke those last two words in a way that indicated I’d get a ration of shit if I didn’t make it happen.

  We spent the rest of our time together talking and laughing about other stuff, but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but think about my new roommate.

  Chapter 17

  Melany

  A LITTLE OVER a month had passed since I moved in with Chance and my professional and personal lives were flowing with relative ease. Logan was even friendlier at work since that night at the bar. He’d taken to seeking me out if we didn’t happen to run into each other. He was a sweet guy, and he made me laugh, but my stomach didn’t flutter the way it used to. It still did a little flip, but the hummingbirds that had taken up residence for the past five years seemed to have closed up shop and moved.

  Constance finally got her wish and met Chance when the four of us met up for dinner one night. She’d lucked out with finding a babysitter, so she insisted we go somewhere where she didn’t have to cook and could have other people wait on her.

  Frank and Chance took to each other instantly. He even managed to charm Connie within the first five minutes of us sitting down. The night had gone great, which, in a way, was kind of terrible. It had only caused my crush to grow that much more. But the silver lining was that I’d learned to keep it pushed back to the far recesses of my mind. It was just a silly crush. It wasn’t anything to get all worked up about. Chance and I were friends and always would be.

  Of course, there were times we fought, but even those times weren’t all that bad. Most fights started over something stupid, like how he was still holding firm on his refusal to let me contribute financially to our current living arrangement. We’d argue and, within a few minutes, he’d make a joke, I’d forget what I was mad about, and the world would continue spinning. But
in the time I’d been there, I discovered a way to help out without suspicion, while easing my guilt at the same time, at least a little bit.

  I cooked dinner most nights and had started tidying up when he wasn’t looking—which didn’t count for much, seeing as he was obsessively clean for a man. I wasn’t one to not pull my weight, so if he wouldn’t let me pay, then I’d be his glorified housekeeper whether he liked it or not.

  After looking in my closet and seeing I was running low on clothes, I’d decided it was time to do laundry. I was so used to having to trek to the laundromat since the washer and dryer at my mother’s house had broken years ago and I didn’t have the money to replace them, that I was pretty excited about the fact Chance had a laundry room of his very own just a few feet from my bedroom.

  Gathering up the last of my dirty clothes and tossing them in the hamper, I went to set it on top of the washer and decided to see if Chance needed me to wash anything of his since I was doing laundry anyway.

  “Hey, Chance?” I called, pushing the door to his bedroom open. He wasn’t anywhere in the room, but I could hear the sound of the shower running, and his bathroom door was partially cracked, so I decided to move closer and call out, “I’m doing laundry. Want me to wash your stuff while I’m at it?”

  He didn’t answer. “Chance?” I repeated, stepping toward the door when something from the corner of my eye caught my attention. The door was opened just enough for me to see his reflection in the bathroom mirror clearly, and what I’d just walked in on had me frozen in place. The air whooshed from my lungs and my entire body caught fire as I stood immobile, watching Chance’s solid, naked body as water sloshed over each defined muscle. He was standing in profile, his eyes squeezed closed, one hand propped on the tile wall as his head dropped back. The look on his face was a mixture of agony and bliss, and I couldn’t have looked away if I wanted to—which I most certainly didn’t.