3. Closer
three
Just as I had predicted, the power went out and suddenly, we were in the dark. A second later, the emergency light came on. It was dim, but better than nothing. The rattling of the old windows made the wind sound more dramatic, while I knew that soon it was going to get a lot colder.
“Great!” I heard him holler from the meeting room before he walked out, carefully so as to not bump into anything. “Is this all we’ve got?” He pointed at the emergency light.
“It’s better than nothing.” I stood up and slipped my arms into the sleeves of my coat, zipping it up at the front. “How’s your phone?”
“Five percent.” He shook his hand with the device, gesturing at how useless it would soon become.
Sitting back down, I scrolled to the next page of my document and resumed writing. “Would you like something to read? Alex has some magazines in his office.”
“Alex? Oh, Nichols.” He shook his head. “Nah, I’m good.”
I glanced at him as he paced around the space. “You sure?”
“Eh.” He shrugged, leaning over my colleagues’ desks, one by one, examining the little knick-knacks here and there. “How long have you worked here?”
“Who’s counting?” I tried to focus on my work.
He must have gotten the message, because he didn’t follow up with another question. Instead, he picked up a charity flier from the table in the waiting area and sat on the couch, reading it.
An hour passed, and just as my laptop warned me that the battery was critically low, I realized that it was quarter-to-nine already. Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I’d done more than enough for the day and folded the laptop shut.
When I turned to look at the unhappy prisoner, I saw a pile of all the flyers next to him. It appeared as though he were reading the last one.
“Hey.” Taking pity on the rich man’s boredom, I stood up, contemplating an idea. “Do you get high?”
“What?” He lifted his head and looked at me from the other end of the room. The dark and shade rendered the structure of his face dramatically more appealing. Especially his cheekbones that curved down at the cheeks. He chuckled, “Can you even smoke in here?”
“Are we talking legally?” I pulled the bottom drawer of my desk and grabbed my emergency pack of pre-rolled joints. Lifting one up, I tilted my head. “This counts as force majeure.”
Tossing aside the flier, he uncrossed his legs and smiled. “How many times did you practice saying it so perfectly?”
“What?” I grabbed my lighter and lit up. “Force majeure?”
“Come here with that!” His laugh came out boyish as he leaped up, coming toward me.
“Parle fran?ais?” I took a drag, and as he covered the distance between us, handed him the joint.
“Juste un peu.” He gestured ‘little’ with his index and thumb while with the other hand, took the joint and placed it between his lips. He drew a long drag and for some reason, my gaze remained on his mouth before slowly creeping up to his eyes. He was watching me watch him. “This is good.”
It took some extra effort for me to break our gaze, so I spun on my heel, and as an escape, pulled out my small notepad from the purse and picked up a pen. I jotted down, The magnetism in his eyes startled me. I hadn’t experienced it since Carl Bollock in junior high.
“What are you writing? A record of our misdemeanor?” He extended his hand with the joint.
I took it and walked away, mumbling as I placed it between my lips. “Just something I’m working on.”
“Ah. Personal project?” He followed me as I walked toward my boss’ office. “And… now we’re breaking into someone’s office.”
“Relax.” I chortled, pushing myself up on the tips of my toes to reach Alexander’s magazines. “Alex has nothing to hide in here. It’s communal.”
“Everyone’s got something to hide.” I turned around, and he was standing awfully close so that my hands nearly bumped into his chest. When I scowled, he immediately shuffled back. “Reader”s Digest? How old are these?”
I took a brief drag and gave him the joint, dying to get out of the dark room as quickly as possible. “Why don’t we find out?”
Like a puppy, he followed me out again. It was cute how he scrambled for any form of entertainment. To me, his boredom sounded like an alien emotion. Were all rich people this restless? I turned around and handed him one, then headed back to the couch in the waiting area.
As I sat down, I heard him audibly puff out the smoke. “So, what are you working on?” He sat down next to me, opening an issue without looking at it.
“Do all lawyers persistently repeat their questions?”
“It’s our job to get the answers.”
“It’s a novel.” I looked at the pages in my hands before taking the joint from him, inhaling deeply.
“What kind?”
“You mean the genre?”
“Describe it to me. I don’t believe in labels.”
“They’re imperative to your job.”
“But not to my life and the things I enjoy.” Smiling, he took a drag and held it in.
“Fair enough.” I shrugged. “It’s a thriller with a touch of romance… some psychobabble.”
“Can you narrow it down? Are we talking Body Heat? Bed and Board?”
“More like Violent City… are all your references from films?” I stared at the joint remaining between his fingers. “Don’t hog it.”
“Oh, sorry.” He held it to me. “Well, after books came case records. Now I barely have the time, so two or three hours are the only luxury I can afford.”
I let the smoke slowly escape my lips. “Yet, here we are.”
“The irony isn”t lost on me.”
“Who do you think makes the best films?”
“Who—Directors? Countries? Producers?”
“If you give me options, I’ll say: all of the above.”
“Ahh.” He sighed, seemingly beginning to relax as he bent up his legs, crossing them on the couch while he leaned back. “Let’s see… I’ve always respected the Italian and the French for their honesty.”
“Uh-huh?”
“But these days, I find Nordic films more… intriguing?”
“Nordic?”
“Yeah, like last weekend? I watched this Swedish film—uh… shit, I can’t remember what it was called in English.”
“Was it new?”
“Yes, and won several awards last year.”
“What was it about?”
“Just this woman… struggling.”
I sat back and felt my muscles relax. Shifting slightly, I adjusted my position to face him while leaning against the back of the couch with my arm on top. My eyes were enchanted by the look on his face, so serene as he carried on.
“There was this scene where everyone around her froze in place and she kept running. No stress. Normal people on a bike or crossing the street. Something about the way her body moved… I wanted to be her for a minute.”
“Running while everybody else stands still?”
“I—I don’t know.” He lowered his head backward, resting it on the couch. The curve of his neck, a silhouette with the throbbing of life and an Adam’s apple. It held my gaze hostage. “I guess I like the clever way in which a director glorifies something as simple as—”
“Running in the street?”
“Yeah.” He softly chuckled.
This weed must have been good indeed, since I was starting to genuinely enjoy Nathan Wright’s company. “My problem is that it’s easy to romanticize something to audiences, who are light-years away from it. To tell you the truth, I’d be terrified if everyone around me suddenly froze.”
“What if they all disappeared instead?”
“Was it a zombie apocalypse?”
His laugh shook his whole body and wrinkled three curved lines at the corners of his eyes. In the faint light, his blue irises seemed darker and more inviting. His brown hair, messy at the junction where his head met the couch, made me want to run my fingers through it. “Are you always thinking of the worst scenario?” he whispered.
“That’s because it’s always there.”
“In the back of your head?”
“In the realm of possibility.”
“It’s possible that we die in here.”
“There are worse ways to go.” I didn’t intend for it to sound romantic, but the smile on his face let me know, without a doubt, that I had missed the mark. In an attempt to change the subject, I turned to the growing sense of hunger stirring up within. “Are you hungry?”
His smile transformed into a boyish grin. “Starving. And before you think of the worst-case scenario, I’m not into human meat.”
I giggled, pushing myself up. “No, silly! There’s a storage closet next to the kitchenette.” Marching over there, I silently wished that he wouldn’t follow me.
“What’s in it?” he hollered without getting up, answering my prayer.
“Um…” I opened it and studied the shelves from the top down. “You have your classic crackers, string cheese, salted peanuts, dried fruit—”
“Oh, grab that!”
“Rice crispers, cheese puffs and… a box of cereal.”
“What kind?”
“Honey?”
“Yuck! Just the dried fruit for me.”
I started grabbing everything I could carry, causing the bags to crackle. “Want a soda with that? We have cherry, diet, root beer—”
“How are you so skinny?”
“Who you calling skinny?” I chuckled, grabbing a cherry soda. “Besides, I didn’t buy all of this.”
“From what I’m hearing, you’re eating all of it!”
I giggled, walking back toward him as I hugged my treasure close to my chest. “Damn right I am. It’s freezing, and I haven’t had any lunch.”
“What was for breakfast?”
Throwing my weight on the couch—which now felt like a cloud—I handed him the bag of fruit and pooled everything else in the space between us. “Uh—a bagel?”
“Too late for lies.” He tore the bag open, and it popped, spilling its contents all over his lap. “Uh-oh!” He chuckled. “I’m officially high.”
I studied him, stifling a laugh as he slowly started eating the sweet bits one by one. “Surprisingly.” Opening the can, I took a sip and reveled in the sweet-sour cherry flavor.
“What—Because I’m… like, tall?”
“No?” I giggled, extending my hand with the can to offer him a sip. “But also, now that you mention it—”
“I don’t do it often.”
“Why not?”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and as he took a sip, slightly grimaced before handing it back to me. “Jesus, it’s all sugar.”
I nodded, raising my eyebrows and taking another sip. “It is possible that we die in here. C’mon, Wright. Live a little.”
“Oh—Look at you being all wise.”
“Don’t be fooled. It’s the herb.”
“Yeah? I don’t think so. What are you—twenty-one, twenty-two? You’re very mature for your age.”
I chuckled, slapping my hand on my thigh as I threw back my head. This always happened. When I was done laughing, I opened the bag of string cheese and the box of crackers. “Flattered as I am? I hate to tell you that I’m a fool, a fool!” I paused, turning to face him. “I’m twenty-six.”
“Yeah?” His eyes slowly and studiously gazed at my face, making me self-conscious. He then looked away, whispering, “Well, it’s dark. There’s a margin for error,” before popping a piece of fruit into his mouth.
He couldn’t be that much older. My eyes studied his hands, this time up close, yet in the dark. I didn’t know why I was taken with them, trying to guess his chosen sport to stay in shape. Did he use his hands at all? It couldn’t be boxing. “So, roomie.” I clicked my tongue. “We’re gonna have to sleep, eventually. Do you want this couch or the one in Alex’s office?”
When he turned to look at me, his fingers froze near his mouth, and his stare remained blank.