Chapter 14
As the maintenance technician led them toward a glowing red EXIT sign, Scottie peered back toward the elevator. The doors remained open, so she caught a glimpse of its interior.
It was just an empty metal box now, sterile and impersonal. The wrappers on the floor and any signs of their mini picnic were gone. Already, everything that had happened in there was starting to feel surreal, as if part of a dream.
Dazed, Scottie followed Willow through the staircase and down to the lobby, while the elevator technician wished them a good night and headed back.
Neither of them spoke as they pushed through the glass doors and stepped out onto the slick brick-paved plaza in front of the building.
The power still seemed to be out on the entire block, and the MAX stop across the street was nearly deserted, so the plaza lay in silence. A light drizzle fell, but Scottie didn’t mind. It felt refreshing after being stuck in the stuffy elevator for so long. The scent of wet leaves hung in the air.
The streetlights were off, and no glow came from the office windows above them, but otherwise, everything looked the way it always did when Scottie left work late.
How weird that the world outside was nearly unchanged when Scottie didn’t feel the same at all.
They both paused and turned toward each other.
An hour or two ago, Scottie had been frantic to get out of the elevator and go home, but now she found herself strangely reluctant to leave.
Would the connection that she’d felt with Willow in the elevator still be there when they went their separate ways?
They stood facing each other in the near dark.
Willow shifted from foot to foot, both hands wrapped around the strap of her purse. After revealing so much about herself in the elevator, she didn’t seem to know what to say to Scottie anymore. “My sister is probably worried sick about me. I’d better get home.”
Seriously? Willow wanted to rush off without even addressing the kiss? No way! “Wait! Shouldn’t we talk about—”
“Can we talk another time?” Willow asked. “I really need a shower, some real food, and a bathroom that isn’t a pee corner before I can process any of this.” She flashed a wry grin.
But after nearly two hours of being trapped together in a confined space, Scottie knew the way a real smile lit up Willow’s eyes. This one didn’t.
“All right,” Scottie said—because what else was she supposed to do? She couldn’t force her to talk if she wasn’t ready.
Willow gave her another smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “See you on Monday.”
Then she was gone, rushing across the dimly lit parking lot toward a boxy little hatchback. The creak of the car door sounded unbearably loud in the stillness of the night. A few seconds later, the engine coughed to life, and the headlights came on.
Scottie stood in the rain, rooted to the spot, and watched the taillights disappear down the street.
~ ~ ~
It was after nine by the time Willow unlocked the front door and drudged to the living room.
Fiona was curled up on the couch with both cats and a huge bowl of what smelled like popcorn, but as soon as Willow entered, her head snapped up, and she hit pause on the remote. “Willow! Finally! I was about to call your boss and tell her to stop working you to death!”
Willow dropped her purse on an armchair and plopped down at the other end of the sofa. “You don’t even have Celeste’s number, and I wasn’t working that late. I left work at seven.”
“Seven?” Fiona frowned. “It’s a quarter past nine! Did your car break down? Why didn’t you call me? Wait, don’t tell me… Both of your phones died?”
“No. The elevator did. I was stuck between floors for nearly two hours.”
Fiona’s blanket slipped to the floor as she sat bolt upright.
Spice hissed, jumped off the couch, and stalked out of the room.
“What?” Fiona stared at her. “Oh my God! You were stuck in an elevator for two hours? No wonder you look so dazed!”
Dazed was right, but it wasn’t because of the elevator ordeal. Being trapped in that steel box hadn’t rattled her nearly as much as Scottie’s lips on her own. Willow still couldn’t believe she had kissed Scottie! Why the hell had she done that? She really should have known better.
She managed a shrug. “It wasn’t as bad as you might think, even though it took maintenance quite some time to get to us.”
“Us?” Fiona asked. “Who’s us?”
“Scottie and I. She was working late too and got trapped in there with me.” Willow aimed for a casual tone, but she couldn’t even say her name without blushing. Thankfully, the only light came from the TV and a lamp in the corner, so Fiona probably didn’t notice.
“Ooh, your sexy IT lady?” Fiona put the popcorn bowl on the coffee table and slid closer. “Did she manage to get you out?”
The heat in Willow’s cheeks intensified. “No. She’s an IT support person, not an elevator mechanic. We had to wait for maintenance to come rescue us.”
“Well, could have been worse, right? You could have been stuck with your boss or with some sweaty guy who kept hitting on you. Right?”
“Right,” Willow murmured. Spending two hours in a confined space with anyone else would have been a nightmare, while Scottie had made it more than bearable. But then again, with anyone else, it wouldn’t have ended in a way that made her heart race.
Fiona slid even closer and nudged her with an elbow. “So? How was it? What did you do for two hours?”
“We had a little picnic, sharing the snacks from my purse.” Willow tried not to think of the other things they had done.
“A picnic in an elevator?” Fiona let out a disbelieving laugh. “Sounds cozy! Weren’t you freaking out?”
“Scottie was panicking a little at first, but I managed to distract her with a game.”
“I Spy?” Fiona asked. “That must have been a very short game. Not much to see in an elevator.”
Willow took a handful of popcorn, just to have a reason to look away. “No, not I Spy. We played Truth or Drink with a bottle of water.”
“Let me guess. You ended up emptying the bottle because you didn’t want to tell her anything?”
Under normal circumstances, that would have been exactly how it went. “I…” Willow rolled an unpopped kernel of corn between her fingers. “I didn’t drink even once.”
Fiona let out a whistle. “You actually told her stuff about yourself? You never do that!”
“I know. It was the weirdest experience I ever had in my life, Fi.” Willow didn’t look up from the kernel.
“Weirder than your effect on tech?”
“Okay, maybe the second-weirdest.” Willow threw the kernel back into the bowl and crunched on a piece of popcorn instead, giving herself some time to think about how to explain it.
“When the maintenance guy said we might have to wait for two hours, it sounded like a lifetime. But then the time just seemed to fly by…or maybe it actually expanded. Like we were in outer space, the only two people in an escape capsule or something. I can’t describe it.
It was intense. Like getting to know someone at warp speed.
” The Star Trek reference made her think of Scottie again.
“After a while, she didn’t feel like a stranger anymore, and the elevator felt less like a trap and more like a safe bubble where we could let our guard down and share personal stuff without fear of being judged.
I told her things that I’d never told anyone before. ”
Fiona went uncharacteristically quiet.
Willow peered over.
Her sister was gaping at her. “That really wasn’t what I expected when you didn’t make it home on time. I thought you were working late, not revealing all your secrets in an elevator.”
“Trust me, it wasn’t how I expected the day to end either,” Willow murmured.
Fiona kept studying her. “So is that why you look so shell-shocked?”
“More or less.”
“There’s more?” Fiona wrapped her fingers around Willow’s arm. Her brow furrowed. “Are you worried that you said too much? Like she’ll go and tell your colleagues?”
“No!” The answer shot out of Willow. She didn’t want Fiona to think Scottie wasn’t trustworthy for even one second. “She’d never do that.”
“Okay. Good. But there is something else, isn’t there?” Fiona asked. “Did you tell her why you keep having to submit tickets, and she didn’t believe you?”
“No, I didn’t tell her that.” That was the one thing she would never reveal, even to Scottie. Especially to Scottie. The thought of Scottie laughing or, worse, looking at her as if she was broken made Willow’s stomach twist.
“Then what is it?”
Willow licked a bit of melted butter off her fingers and hesitated.
Part of her wanted to keep it to herself and forget it ever happened.
But a bigger part felt as if she’d explode if she didn’t tell anyone.
“She kissed me,” she finally blurted out.
“Or I kissed her. I don’t even know who started it.
I think she did, and then I…” She pressed her fingers to her lips, where she could still feel Scottie’s warm mouth.
Fiona let out a loud screech that made the second cat jump off the couch too. “What? You kissed her? You actually kissed her?”
Willow pressed her lips together, as if that would stop her from reliving it, and nodded.
“And? How was it?” Fiona waved her hands. “Come on, give me all the details!”
How could she sum up that kiss in a few words? Gentle? Full of warmth? Not long enough? It never should have happened? Finally, she said, “Electrifying.”
“Don’t tell me you zapped her?”
“Hm? Oh. Yeah. That too.” It had been electrifying in every sense, even though it had lasted for only the length of a heartbeat.
Fiona half groaned, half laughed. “Oh shit. Poor Scottie. She probably didn’t know what hit her—literally! But still, you kissed her! Woo-hoo!” She hopped up and down on the couch, grabbed Willow’s hand, and raised it in the air as if she were declaring her the winner of a boxing match.
Willow pulled her hand away. She didn’t feel like a winner at all. “Shh! Please don’t make a big deal out of it.”