Elite (3 page)

“What? I thought coming here in Chicago was a special thing for you! All this time there’s been one in Indianapolis?” Daniel confessed, in slight disbelief.

“Yeah,” she responded with a chuckle. “There’s one in Greenwood too, so…not that special.” As she said it she took a bite of her food and smiled at him. God, she was beautiful.

After pausing a moment to soak in her splendor, Daniel came back with, “Well I wish you would have said something. We could have gone over to Ditka’s or something. Something more exclusive to Chicago.”

“No, no,” she said.  “I was just joking. This is really nice. I’m having a really good time.”

And he knew that she meant it. That’s why he decided not to give it anymore thought. But he knew that next time she came to town. That’s when he realized that he actually had no idea why Jordan had come to Chicago in the first place. He had just been so excited that she was coming at all that over the past week he hadn’t even thought to ask why. She hadn’t told him, had she? No, he would remember that. He remembered almost everything, especially when it came to Jordan.

But there would be plenty of time to ask about that later. At the moment there were more urgent issues at hand. The meal was over, and now it was time for his favorite part – dessert.

“Should we share one?” Jordan asked, referring to the piece of cheesecake she already knew was about to be ordered.

“
Ummm, yeah. I’m pretty full so that sounds like a plan,” Daniel replied, diverting the majority of his attention to the cheesecake section of the menu.

“What should we get?” Jordan asked, also nose deep in the menu.

“Oooo, Reese’s peanut butter cup sounds amazing,” Daniel responded. But wait, he hadn’t taken the time to look at the very next flavor on the menu. “Oh, or pina colada. That’s probably awesome.” The truth was that they all sounded pretty amazing. How to pick just one?

“That does sound really good,” Jordan said, looking up from her menu at him. “They both do.”

He could tell by the second part of her response that she really wanted to Reese’s.

“But I think we should go for some chocolate,” he suggested.

“Yeah, definitely,” she responded with a smile and a nod.

“Reese’s it is,” he concluded.

They ordered their slice of cheesecake and a few minutes later an enormous wedge was laid on the table before them. They both made comments about both the size and pleasing appearance of the creamy wedge, and without hesitation dug in.

“So I never asked why you’re even in Chicago,” Daniel said before biting into his first forkful.

Jordan swallowed her mouthful and responded. “Well, I wanted it to be a surprise. I have some big news.”

This was an interesting development. Either this news wasn’t really as big as she was making it out to be, or she had managed to keep something inside for the almost three hours since her arrival, not to mention the week leading up to it.

He guessed it was the prior, as Jordan was terrible at keeping her mouth shut when it came to big surprises.

“I’m moving to Chicago,” she finally blurted.

It took Daniel a minute to fully absorb what Jordan had just told him. Boy, could he not have been more wrong. When it finally settled in, he had to conjure up all of the self-control he possibly could to keep from jumping clear out of his seat. He was ecstatic.

“Really?”
He asked anxiously, praying that she wasn’t pulling his leg clear out of its socket.

“Really, really,” she answered excitedly. “I got a teaching job at a really good private school in the city. I start next fall.”

Daniel felt like he was going to burst at the seams with excitement. This was it! He and Jordan were finally going to be able to be together. His dream had come true. This was the be-all, end-all. He and his soul mate had finally found their way into each other’s lives for good. Deep down he had always believed this day would come, but now that it was actually here there were no words to describe his elation.

“I didn’t even know you were looking for jobs in Chicago!” He didn’t mean to yell, but his mouth seemed to be the only release valve for all of his excitement. Although, after receiving this news he hoped there would be another option for that release later on.

He was a bit surprised she hadn’t told him though. If she was making an attempt to be near him, he felt as though that was news she would have told him sooner, especially if she had come to interview.

Then again, she had kept this news to herself all week. Maybe she had her interview over Skype and was keeping it all under wraps until now so she could really blow his mind. She had succeeded.

But he was also surprised that she wanted to leave the school she was at. After graduating and receiving her teaching certificate from Purdue, Jordan had received a job teaching 4
th
grade in Indianapolis. From what she had told him she loved the school she was at and all of her students. It had discouraged him a little because it seemed like she might never leave. He had always figured that he would have to give up his dream of spending the rest of his days in Chicago and move to her. Thankfully being wrong was a theme for him today.

“Well actually I wasn’t,” Jordan explained. “It was just offered to me, and the school seemed so great, and the money was so good, I just couldn’t say no.”

Daniel was confused. Jordan was a superb teacher, he knew, but generally private schools in big cities like Chicago weren’t going out and recruiting young teachers from public schools in Indiana.

“So, the school just sought you out and offered you a job?” He inquired.

“Not exactly,” she responded. Then she paused. She paused a pause that Daniel knew meant he wasn’t going to like the next words to come out of her mouth. “Gordon hooked me up.”

Ouch.
There it was. The reason she was able to keep this surprise a secret for so long. Gordon Demérs was the reason she was moving to Chicago. That French fuck.

“Really?”
Daniel instinctively blurted out, not needing to give the response any real thought. It appeared Jordan had discovered the most effective way to relieve him of his overwhelming excitement. “How’d he do that?”

“Well, you know how he’s been giving money to the Indianapolis public school system?” She asked, trying to navigate her way through this minefield.

And in fact he hadn’t known about that. That was some information she had conveniently left out in their many conversations.

“I had no idea. You never told me and I don’t really read the IPS newsletter,” he answered sarcastically.

Jordan clearly knew he was upset, and had expected it, so she let the smarmy comment slide.

“Well he has – quite a bit actually – and it’s been very helpful,” Jordan began explaining. “Anyway, he would occasionally stop by our school, and when he was in town we would hang out. Well one time he told me he knew some people at Fox Harmon – the school here. He said he did some business with the Dean and that he might be able to get me a job teaching third grade. I told him not to worry about it, that I was very happy where I was, but he talked to him anyway. He must have given him a glowing recommendation because they called me a couple days later, gave me the sales pitch, and won me over. So I’m in town this weekend for an interview, but Gordon assures me that the job is already mine and the interview is just a formality. While I’m here I figured I’d do the interview and find an apartment. I’d like to move in as soon as this school year is over so that I can spend the summer getting more familiar with the city.
Whadd’ya think?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? What did he think? He was completely and utterly torn to pieces. On one hand, Jordan moving to Chicago was something he had desperately wanted ever since he had moved there himself. But to have to know that the reason she was there was all thanks to Gordon
Demérs – to have to compete for her time and attention with Gordon Demérs – he couldn’t think of anything worse.

Gordon Demérs was the first man Jordan had ever dated in college. When Jordan and Daniel arrived at Ball State their freshman year, Demérs had been an alumnus of the school for three years, and had already made himself into quite a success story. He was an economics major who as the story goes had made some very wise investments straight out of college that had panned out very well and made him a very rich man. After making his quick mini-fortune, Demérs started his own company based in Chicago that did something in the way of managing economic issues for large corporations in some very complicated manner that Daniel didn’t care to understand. Lucky for Demérs, he did know what he was doing and in about a year turned his mini-fortune into a full-sized fortune. Now, approximately seven years later, Gordon Demérs was one of the wealthiest men in the Midwest.

During their freshman year,
Demérs enjoyed returning to Ball State to receive what
he
clearly felt was well deserved admiration for his success. As the old, worn out cliché goes, “Women wanted him, and men want to be him.” He would pop up on campus from time to time to donate money to the Miller College of Business, always making sure there was an opportunity for a photo-op when he did so. Then he would go to the popular college bars at night, buying round after round for the house, or showing up at house parties with a truck full of free kegs. He was, in every sense of the term, “The Man.”

And Jordan had fallen for the allure of being the girlfriend of “The Man.” Who could blame her? She was a dumb, hot young freshman who was drawn to the older man who had so much life experience – not to mention so much money. He was a guy who knew how, and could afford to have fun. There were so many things a man like
Demérs could show a fresh blooded girl like freshman Jordan, and so she was drawn to the shiny object and he opened her up to a world of new experiences.

Many of those experiences Daniel did his best not to think about. Along with being her first college boyfriend, Gordon
Demérs was the first man Jordan had ever gotten drunk with; was the first man she had ever seen naked; was the first man to ever see her naked; the first man she had ever fooled around with; and naturally he was also the first man she’d ever had sex with. Yes, Gordon Demérs was that man, and it had always made Daniel green with envy.

Demérs
wasn’t the most attractive man on campus, but he still had plenty to work with. While he was attending Ball State he was the third-string quarterback on the football team. It wasn’t an achievement to write home about, but it left him with an athletic build that he has been able to maintain still to this day. That, plus the money, was more than enough to make up for the receding hairline and larger than average nose, though his strong jawline also helped to balance out the lesser features of his face.

Fortunately, once Jordan had a little life experience of her own, the thrill of dating “The Man” eventually wore off and her patience with his cocky personality wore thin. The two remained good friends, but there was no longer anything in the way of romance.

Except of course for a few random hookups that Daniel was regrettably able to convince Jordan to describe to him the details of. He knew the fact that Demérs had opened Jordan up to so many things had always stuck with her, and she told him as much. It seemed she would always have some sort of physical draw to him, and while Daniel believed those feelings would diminish once he and Jordan were together, as long as she was still single, that sexual tension still lingered. This was why it always bothered Daniel when Jordan and Demérs spent time together.

Let alone the fact that he had been visiting her in Indianapolis without Daniel’s knowledge, and was now setting her up with a job in Chicago. Gordon Demérs was moving the love of
Daniel’s
life to this city. Daniel felt as though he were going to choke on the thought of it.

“Wow,” was all he could say. There was something else eating away at his brain. It was something he didn’t want to confront, but he knew he had to otherwise it would devour his mind completely. “What do you mean you guys ‘hung out
?’ You never told me about that.”

Jordan took a deep breath. She knew Daniel well enough to know this line of questioning was inevitable, and Daniel knew Jordan well enough to
know she was hiding something.
              “Over the last…year-and-a-half I guess, he would come to Indianapolis about once a month and we would have drinks, maybe dinner, and talk about life and work. He would ask how the school was doing, just stuff like that.”

Once a month?
Daniel was lucky if he saw her three times in a year, and she told him about everything.

Daniel knew what he wanted to ask next, and Jordan was really hoping that he wouldn’t. He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, and on a night where he had been wrong about a lot of things, he was deathly afraid that he would be right about this.

He leaned back in his chair, and looked down at his lap, prepping himself to ask his next question, and worse, to receive the answer. After a few loud heartbeats, he looked up at Jordan…

She didn’t give him a chance to get the question out. “
He would come into town, we would go get drinks, then go back to his hotel and have sex.”