“You been to Chicago before?” the driver asked, his curious gaze more on them than the road ahead of him.
“I have, with my parents, a long time ago.” It’d been before he’d started playing professionally. He’d met a girl that trip, a little older than he was, whom he’d had a holiday romance with. She’d been so sweet and kind. “I liked it here. The girls were nice.”
“They still are.” The driver stopped at a red light. This time he twisted his body to look over his shoulder at them. “I came out here from Jersey to visit a cousin twenty-five years ago and met a nice girl and stayed. Now I have four daughters, sweet as can be. Here’s their picture.”
Jamie leaned forward to look at the picture on the screen of the driver’s mobile: four girls with blond hair, all arranged in size with identical smiles that reflected their obviously sunny outlooks. “They’re beautiful.”
“They are.” The driver put his mobile away as the light turned green and he began forward again. “You single?”
“Yes, but it’s our friend who’s looking for a girl.”
The man looked at him in the rearview mirror. “He as good-looking as you?”
Jamie grinned, thinking about Erik’s Nordic good looks. Tall, with a chiseled face and long blond hair, Erik Nilsen was a Viking god come to life. “He’s better-looking.”
The taxi driver whistled. “Hard to imagine.”
“Imagine it,” Didier interjected.
The man snorted. He changed lanes with a sudden jerk of the wheel, passing a slower car. “Your friend make a good living?”
“Yes.” Erik wasn’t the highest paid player in Europe, but for only being in the league for a couple years, he made an incredible salary—a testament to how he played the game. And that wasn’t counting endorsements, which usually exceeded salary. Jamie was one of the higher paid players in the league, and he made twenty times more money a year on the few endorsements he accepted.
“He make his money legally?” the man asked, spearing him with a blunt look.
“Yes.” Though the underwear ad Erik had just been featured in should have been illegal, they had the kid show so much skin.
“Take my card.” The man reached behind, a business card between his fingers. “Your friend needs a date, you call me. I’ll set him up with one of my daughters.”
They’d been in town for half an hour and already they had candidates lined up for Erik. This was going to be easy. They’d have him settled with a nice girl by the end of the weekend. “Thank you,” Jamie said, taking the card and tucking it inside his coat pocket.
“It’s win-win,” the driver said, his wrist propped on top of the steering wheel. “You can’t get better than that.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes before Didier leaned in. “This taxi smells like the first time I had sex,” his friend said quietly.
“It smells like onions and cigarettes,” he pointed out.
“Oui, exactement.” Didier sighed, his expression almost wistful. “I was fourteen, and we were at the house of my father’s friend for dinner. He had a daughter my age, and her room was next to the kitchen. It was delicious.”
“Dinner or the girl?”
“Both.” Didier flashed him a grin.
He’d known Didier for a long time, but he never talked about his youth in Marseille. It was as strange as him suddenly deciding to come to Chicago to help Erik find a girl. “Feeling nostalgic?”
“Bof.” Didier shrugged dismissively and turned to stare out the window once more.
They turned off the main street onto a quieter one. The brick and cement buildings gave way to apartment buildings and rows of houses that looked divided into flats. The neighborhood was called Hyde Park, which amused him, given he was from London originally.
Finally, the taxi rolled to a stop. “Here we are,” the driver said as he hopped out of the car.
Jamie got out, staring at the building in front of them. It looked like a squat version of the Tate Britain, with columns along the stone façade. In front there was a black gate, open, that separated the building from the street. A small patch of well-maintained grass and some flowers tried to add charm to the imposing Greek architecture.
Didier came to stand next to him, his football tucked under his arm. “Are we staying in a museum?”
Jamie turned to the driver, who was getting their bags out of the boot. “It’s this one and not the house over there?”
The driver looked at the red brick house he pointed at, hidden in the shadow of this building. “The address you gave me is definitely this one.”