Chapter Six Elevators and Emotional Backlash
Linda
IT STARTED WITH a ding.
The elevator, not her brain. Her brain had started dinging about twenty minutes earlier, when she realized she’d probably danced with a man who moisturized and meant it.
Now? Now the actual elevator had arrived. She stepped in, trying to look like someone who hadn’t slept in full eyeliner and then tried to salvage it with desperation and tinted lip balm.
She pressed the button for the fifth floor .
A hand shot in before the doors could close.
Rhys.
He looked too good for a Monday. Hair tousled in a way that said I don’t try, women just get disappointed later, and a dark gray sweater that confirmed her suspicion: he had an unfair jawline and the wardrobe to match.
“Morning,” he said, stepping in.
Linda made a noise that may have once been part of the English language.
Then: “Hey.” Cool. Calm. Probably audible.
The elevator doors closed.
Silence.
And then—because the universe hated her and so did Rhys’s face—he looked over at her and said, too casually,
“I had a good time Friday.”
Linda blinked. “With the dog?”
He laughed. “With you.”
Her brain did a triple backflip and forgot how words worked.
Then he added—quickly, too quickly— “Not that it meant anything. I mean—it was fun, but like, office party fun. Not like, real fun. Obviously.”
Linda stared .
Rhys’s face went pale. “Wait. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant it was definitely real fun, I just meant—”
“Got it.”
“No, I just—”
“It’s fine.”
He looked like he wanted to eat his sweater. “I’m going to stop talking now.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
A ding. The fourth floor.
She considered getting off there. Just walking out and flinging herself down the stairwell in a show of pure emotional flair. But instead, she looked straight ahead, chin up, pride barely intact.
And then.
The worst idea she’d ever had emerged fully formed from the ash heap of her dignity.
“We should get brunch sometime.”
She didn’t plan it. She didn’t even think it. It just escaped , like her brain had short-circuited and decided to take her down with it.
Rhys blinked. “Brunch?”
“You know,” she said, hands flying to the emergency buttons like she could slap the words back into her mouth. “ As friends. Or colleagues. Or enemies. Frenemies? Friendly enemies with breakfast meats?”
Rhys blinked again, clearly buffering.
“Sure,” he said, slowly. “I like brunch.”
Linda nodded too fast. “Cool. Normal. Casual brunch. With food. That we eat. Great.”
The elevator dinged again. Fifth floor.
They stepped out.
She didn’t look at him.
She walked straight into the hallway, dignity trailing behind her like a broken shoelace—the last word echoing in her chest: brunch. Why had she said brunch? Why was brunch her emotional Hail Mary?