Finally he said, "Can I ask you a question?"
“Yeah."
"Do you promise you’ll be honest?”
"No."
He laughed and I liked the feel of it against my cheek.
"It depends on what you ask,” I said.
"Do you really have a gambling problem?”
I sat up away from him, but not very far away. He still had his arm around my shoulders. I wanted to answer for me, but knew I had to answer for Kari. "I hope I don't anymore. I worked this whole week doing concerts to pay off debts. Really, that's the honest answer. I could show you my latest dance routine to ‘Two Hearts Apart' right now to prove it."
"I'll pass on that." His hand returned to my hair, flipping it lazily between his fingers. "Do you really have temper tantrums when you’re upset?"
He was asking about Kari. But with his arm around me and the smell of his cologne encircling me, I couldn't be Kari. I relaxed back into him. "I don't have tantrums. Well, I did push Theresa Davidson into a cafeteria garbage can when I was eleven. And there was an incident not too long ago involving some books that ended up on the floor. But I'm doing my best to reform. That's the honest answer.”
"One more question." His fingers were still intertwined in my hair. His gaze settled on my eyes. "Is there any chance the two of us could be more than friends?"
I didn't answer for a full minute. I just looked at the table and felt the heat of his arm draped around my shoulders. Finally I said, "I still consider Michael my boyfriend."
Grant didn’t move. Neither did I.
"You didn’t say that was the honest answer," he said.
"I know."
He shifted his weight to look at me better. His eyes were serious, smoldering. Then his gaze slid downward, stopping at my lips. He leaned forward, about to kiss me. I should have moved, turned away, said something. But I didn't.
Then the waiter came in. "Oh," he said, looking back and forth between us with obvious discomfort. "Do you need more time to order?”
Grant straightened up, picked up his menu, and glanced over it. “Porterhouse steak. Medium rare." He handed his menu to the waiter and turned his attention back to me.
"Do you know what you want?” Only the way he said it made me think he wasn’t talking about lunch.
I peered at the menu, but my heart was beating too fast and it made it hard to concentrate on the words. "Sorry,” I said to the waiter. "I'm searching for something that’s vegetarian.”
He rattled off a few items, which I also had a hard time concentrating on.
Grant made a pondering "hmmm” sound, and I glanced back at him. His eyes glinted wickedly. "Are you sure you don't want to cheat?” And that time for sure he wasn't talking about lunch.
"Cheating is bad,” I said.
"You're right.” He sent a killer smile in my direction. "I don’t want you to cheat. I want you to change your mind altogether. Choose something that's better for you.”
I handed the menu back to the waiter. "Sorry, I’m not going to cheat today. I’ll have the vegetable lasagna.”
Grant shook his head in mock disappointment—or maybe it was real disappointment; it was hard to tell since he was still smiling—but he didn’t bring the subject of us up again.
We spent the rest of lunch discussing things like where we’d like to travel. He had actual plans. I had dreams I passed off as plans. He asked me what my favorite natural wonder was, and I said, "The ocean.”
"I don't think that's technically a natural wonder.”
"It is to me. I love swimming in the waves.”
"I meant like the Grand Canyon.”
Without thinking about it, I said, "I've never been there.”
I realized this was a mistake when his eyes widened. "You’ve never been to the Grand Canyon?”
Kari probably had, but I couldn't take it back now, so I shrugged. "I’m too busy to take the time out for that sort of thing.”
He shook his head in disbelief. I knew I needed to change the topic of conversation. “So what were your favorite subjects in school?"
"School?" He leaned back in his chair as though he needed the extra space to think about it. "Probably math. It always made sense. Unlike English, economics, and girls."
"And exactly how do you plan on taking over the free world if you don’t understand economics?”
“I'll hire advisers. I'll hire you, in fact.”
"Okay. Let me know when your army of junior high zombies is ready."
I didn’t want lunch to end. I ordered a fudge brownie sundae for dessert, even though I wasn’t hungry anymore and Maren wouldn't approve of me eating something dripping with calories. I just wanted to prolong the time I spent with him.
But finally even that disappeared and then I didn’t have a reason to keep him any longer. We both stood up and he said, "I’ll walk you to your car.”
"I had my driver drop me off,” I said. "I’ll give him a call."
"Oh, then I'll take you home," Grant said.
In retrospect the problem was that being with Grant made it hard to think straight. When I asked if he knew how to get to my house and he said yes, I didn't think anything more of it. He’d already taken me to Maren's before, which of course was where I needed to go. I was so wrapped up in talking to him that I didn't realize he'd driven to Kari's house until we went up the drive and he asked for the gate code. Then he said, "Oh, never mind. It looks like we’re following the pool truck. Do you have a nice pool?"
Probably. Unless pool trucks came to houses for other reasons. I smiled over at him. “It’s okay.”
Then I took deep breaths, suddenly realizing that the next few minutes could go very bad in a lot of ways. “How did you know where I lived?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice at a normal pitch.
"When Lorna first came down to the hospital after you’d fired her, I drove her up here to talk to you. You weren't home, though.” He glanced over at me and smiled. "I wonder what would have happened if we’d met then? Do you think things would have turned out differently?”
Oh, yeah. They would have turned out very differently. The real Kari would have turned the hose on them. Then at the club, Grant would have seen that I was a fake from the start. But I shrugged like it was one of those unknowable mysteries and scanned the yard and trees to make sure Kari wasn't out for a stroll.
Thankfully, I didn’t see her.
The pool truck stopped by the house. Were they going to ring the doorbell? Would Kari come out to talk to them?
Grant pulled up near the garage and stopped the car. I didn’t move. I just stared at the yard trying to think of any plausible excuse for why we should leave immediately.
An older Latino man got out of the pool truck. He hefted a toolbox and a jug out of his truck bed, then walked around to the back of the house.
I couldn't even tell if Kari was home right now. Who knew whether her car was in the four-car garage. Really, her house had a four-car garage. Like maybe her Porsche wanted to have slumber parties. Grant got out of the car, but I still didn't move. My muscles had completely stopped working. What if she'd seen us pull up and came to one of the front windows to see who it was?
Apparently Grant thought I was waiting for him to open my door, because that’s what he did. I got out and scanned the house windows as we walked to the front door. Nothing. I opened my purse and fumbled through it until we reached the doorstep. "I, uh—this is really embarrassing. I don't have my house keys with me. But I know my assistant has an extra copy. I'll give her a call and she can—”