8. Chapter 8
Chapter eight
The world goes quiet. The soft red glow of the emergency lights give the stalled elevator an almost romantic feel.
Romance, well, sex may be why I came here. But the reason I’m on this elevator now, the reason my heart rate is skyrocketing, and my breathing is about to become rapid and shallow. The reason the panic attack is about to set in has nothing to do with the gorgeous man next to me.
The elevator may be quiet. Nandy is quiet. The voices in my head are screaming. And those voices sound remarkably like my father.
“How long?” I ask. A complete sentence already out of reach. Does this happen often? Has he been stuck in here before? Will they need to come pull us out of the top like they do in the movies? I look up at the tiles in the ceiling in the elevator. No way either of us will fit through the tiny square. I look back at Nandy. Nandy shrugs. His eyes never leave me. There is sympathy there.
Does he know what this is? How bad this could get? Of course not. He probably thinks I’m claustrophobic and I’m okay with that.
Nobody has ever witnessed one of these attacks before. Nobody knows they happen. Nobody knows the frequency is increasing. But I can usually tamp them down quickly. But I’m usually alone, or able to get to a place where I can be alone. This isn’t exactly a moment I’d like to share with anyone.
I’m not alone now, though.
I’m with a man I ran to Chicago to see. A man who isn’t super fond of me and my actions. I came here to play with him. To experiment, see what a man feels like. I came here despite his insistence that he never intends to give in to me.
Now I’m stuck in an elevator with that man and sex is the last thing on my mind.
I’m stuck in Chicago in a fucking ice storm.
Unless there is some drastic change in the weather, I’m going to miss practice tomorrow.
I’m going to pay dearly for that. Weather is not an excuse when pulling a stunt like this. I didn’t pay attention to the weather—not here, anyway. I paid attention to the conditions that would impact my return to Colorado in Colorado, not my ability to actually leave Chicago. I had calculated everything time wise. I gain an hour returning…so even if I spent the entire night…I could get off the ground and back for our 11:00 am drills.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’m just coming off an injury. I’ve only played a few games since.
I feel the sweat trickling down my back. Looking down at my hands, I see Nandy’s eyes follow mine and he catches the shaking before I can wring my hands together and hide it.
Claustrophobic. Yep, let’s go with that.
“Sit,” he whispers.
I stare at him. My ears are ringing now. I heard him. But the voices, the panic, it all makes it hard to act on the simple request.
He gestures to the floor and then he puts his violin case down and sits across from me. He’s so calm. So quiet.
I don’t know if that makes things better or worse. It’s all horrible. Someone is actually with me, witnessing this meltdown. Judging me…the elevator is feeling very, very small.
Maybe I am claustrophobic. Maybe it won’t be such a stretch to explain this away as that.
I exhale and sit on the floor of the elevator. At least this is a fancy building. This elevator is carpeted. Rough, old, filthy carpet…but carpet, nonetheless. Focus on that TJ . Count the little paisley scrolls. How many types are there?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5…. I reach 27 when the row I’m counting reaches Nandy’s violin case. He picked this one up from the security desk when we walked into the building. Where is the one from the concert? How many does he have?
“Is that one new?”
He furrows his brow. And then reaches for the black case.
“You picked it up when we walked in…”
He nods. “Nope, this is the first one my parents bought me. It was out being restrung. I don’t let it out of my sight for long, usually.”
He opens the case and pulls out the instrument. His face lights up as he looks at it and strokes the strings lovingly. I don’t know if his sentimentality is about the violin or his parents, maybe a bit of both? I’m pretty sure his parents are still alive. His adoptive ones. He’s done a good job of keeping them out of the media glare. I couldn’t find much info out there. Is that for their benefit or his?
I know they are wealthy and white. Nandy is a Jr. though? So, his real father…?
This is good. Keep focusing on him. My hands have stopped shaking. Sweat is still oozing out of every pore, dripping behind my ear. I can feel my hair damp against the back of my neck. I swipe it back from my forehead, my hand wet with sweat. I rub it along my pants and exhale.
Nandy. Think more about him. Ask questions. I try to conjure up something simple. He opened the door to a discussion of his parents…but that may lead to a discussion about mine. And that will not calm me down. That will do the exact opposite. That, or rather, him, my father, is one reason I am sitting here in a panic sweating through my clothes.
Before I can think of a question, Nandy places the violin under his chin and plays. Every care in the world. Every worry I have. Everything stops. Everything softens. His hands cradle the instrument so lightly. His hands are large and strong. Fingers so long. They dance across the strings and the sounds . How the hell do so many sounds come from such tiny movements of a pair of strings being touched together?
“You didn’t play that tonight.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Correct.” There is a long pause. “I’ve never played that for anyone.”
“You wrote it?”
He nods. “It’s unfinished.”
“Is that the title or a state of being?”
Nandy chuckles softly. “Possibly both.”
“Maybe it never needs to be finished to be complete,” I say. “It’s beautiful.”
The silence is comfortable now. I inhale and exhale deeply again. I rest my head against the back of the elevator.
“How did you pick the violin?” I ask. “It doesn’t seem like the first choice a kid from the Dominican Republic would make.”
He smiles and looks down at the violin, now lying across his lap.
“It was a dare.”
His eyes meet mine and twinkle at the shock he must see there.
“There was a girl in the orchestra. She played the cello and my friends dared me to join the orchestra to get close to her.” He chuckles and I watch him. What did he look like as a kid? Certainly, he’s always been beautiful. “I took the dare, but not because of the girl.” He looks at me, waggles his eyebrows, and tips his head to the side. “There was a boy then.”
He already knew he was gay.
He reads my expression correctly and nods.
“The boy who dared me is the one I had the crush on, but there was also a boy who played the violin,” he smiles. “Turns out I also really liked playing the violin, and I was good at it.”
“And the boy who played?”
“We’re still friends.”
Are they more than friends? Were they then? I look at him. A brown kid from the Dominican Republic with rich white parents at a predominantly white school and he already knew he was gay. Was he out? That would be brave as hell. As I stare at his caramel skin and he turns those gold eyes on me, I notice my heart rate has calmed. My hands are no longer shaking.
Sweat has stopped running down my back.
“What about the girl?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I think she went to one of the formals with one of my friends, but I really don’t remember. Once I held the violin…that’s all I cared about.”
“Was hockey that way for you?” He asks.
The simple answer is yes, of course it was. Every kid who puts on skates dreams of playing in the NHL. Every kid but this one. This was my father’s dream. But I don’t tell him any of that. My pulse quickens at the mere thought of dear old dad.
I just nod. “Would you keep playing?”
He doesn’t hesitate to tuck the violin back under his chin. As he does, the elevator lurches, drops some and stops again. We both look at the ceiling and then each other. Down. The elevator shouldn’t be going down.
Fuck.
Another whirring sound comes from outside. The power is trying to return. But with each whir, the elevator drops. Nandy reaches for my thigh and digs his fingers in. I place my hand across his and hold it there. His smooth skin hot against my palm. Another dip. Another whir. Another dip.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Finally, the whir settles into a rumble. The elevator stops again. The regular lights come on. The buttons relight. I stand and my fingers hover over the button for the penthouse. I look at Nandy. He stands. “Just push the one to the next floor.”
“What floor are we on?”
Nandy shrugs and reaches past me and pushes 27.
We wait, and in a split second, the elevator is moving…. moving up. Just a few seconds more and it stops, and the doors open on 27. We step out and let the elevator carry on.
Penthouse. Nandy lives on the top floor. I remember that. Over 30 floors above us. He looks down the hall toward the emergency exit. Then back at me.
“Your call…we hoof it up…or get back in the elevator.”
I take less than five seconds to walk toward the door to the stairs.