Chapter 1
LYRA
Trapped in a Lift with a Naked Butler
As I take the last of my bags from the boot of my car and push it shut, I’m still humming to the tune of The Hand Me Downs’ song that I was playing on my drive into the city. It always reminds me of nights out at uni with Cami. I miss her.
Sighing, I gather my camera, a handbag, a half-eaten box of tacos and a hen-party gift. Who even hires a professional photographer for their hen party? Isn’t there some kind of rule; what happens on the hen stays on the hen?
There were no parking spaces on the street outside Charlotte’s apartment building, so I’m going to have to lug everything down to the Quayside from Deansgate Car Park, ten minutes away.
Charlotte is my older sister’s best friend. She used to be mine, when we went to school together, but now that my sister and Charlotte are both doctors at the same hospital and I’m just a wedding photographer, things have changed.
When I step out of the multi-storey car park, I’m hit by wind whipping up from the River Tyne, dragging my hair loose from my long braid.
It’s Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the north-bloody-east of England, and it’s freezing outside, yet I’m a flushed and windswept mess by the time I reach the old stone conversion.
Great – dishevelled is precisely the impression I’m going for.
To add insult to injury, I’m not even being paid for tonight. My sister is Charlotte’s bridesmaid for her wedding in May and has organised tonight, roping me in for free. I guess she’s hoping that Charlotte will similarly do something nice for her when she gets married in September.
Honestly, I would much rather be at home, in my loungewear, writing articles about people I’ve made up, that will never be published, drowning in thick, creamy hot chocolate.
Instead, I struggle through the main entrance of Phoenix House, fighting the weather and the heavy door as I nudge, kick and bump my way inside.
Irritated that I even agreed to be here at all.
I’ll do just about anything to avoid conflict and oft times, that means doing things I have zero desire to do.
As the door closes, I’m assaulted by a potent smell of fresh paint in the foyer and can see multiple WET PAINT signs. One of which is covering the door to the staircase, not that I had any intention of carrying this stuff up to Charlotte’s duplex penthouse.
‘Could you hold that, please?’ I call as the doors to the lift are just about closing across a man I can barely make out, except to note he has a significant dark beard and he’s dressed entirely in black.
The doors close and I’m about to mutter how I feel about that when they reopen and he comes my way.
‘Let me help you,’ he says. Voice deep, raspy and smooth all at once. Such a distinct combination, it makes me look from my baggage to him, briefly finding dark-blue eyes on me.
Then he relieves me of my tacos takeaway box and my heavy over-shoulder camera case.
‘Thank you so much. You don’t have to help,’ I tell him, a little discombobulated by that voice. Or maybe just the wind. The walk. The very fact of being at the hen party of an ex-friend of mine, in the capacity of no one important.
‘I’m going up in the lift anyway, it’s no hardship.’
I consider my alternative and, though I hate to put people out, I tell him, ‘Okay, thank you.’
Inside the elevator, I notice two one-litre bottles of liquor – gold flecked tequila, I think – resting on the floor.
Simultaneously, I realise that, despite the really quite nice woody, peppery aftershave the bearded man is wearing, there’s a resounding stench of fish and chipotle coming from my food box.
We both reach for the elevator buttons at the same time – him probably keen to get away from the smell as quickly as possible.
If it wasn’t for the fact he looks a little untidy and like a potential alcoholic, I wouldn’t mind hanging around his voice and scent. It would be a nice way to procrastinate.
‘Sorry, you go,’ I tell him.
He nods, pressing the button for the fourth floor. ‘Where’re you headed?’
‘Fourth, too, actually. Thank you.’
He hesitates, scrutinising me from head to toe; at least, it feels as if he is. As he does so, I stare back, finding that beneath the bushy beard, he could be quite handsome, actually. But I’m pretty sure that he’s not having similar thoughts about me as a line forms between his eyebrows.
In fact, his reaction makes me check myself in the mirrored walls surrounding us. Oh God, I don’t blame him for staring. I quickly run my fingers through my frizzy hair that was blow-dried smooth when I left home. My cheeks are rosy and I have panda eyes from the bit of eye make-up I’m wearing.
As I’m frantically wiping my face, the lift doors close but it stutters and chugs into action so hard that it rocks me back against the wall.
‘Whoa,’ the stranger says, casting his arms out wide and gripping on to the handrail.
As the movement of the carriage smooths out, the stranger’s hold doesn’t let up. He’s rigid. My camera bag still slung across his shoulder. My unprofessional guess is he’s claustrophobic.
I side-eye him. He looks tired in that way people do when they have small children or otherwise carry the world on their shoulders – figuratively, obviously. I know because it’s how I’ve often seen my reflection. I don’t have kids.
But… and not that I’m staring, because that would make what is already one of the most hideously uncomfortable activities in life – riding in a confined space with a stranger – even more awkward…
but this tired man is really quite attractive in a rugged, sort of unkempt but maybe intentionally messed-up dark hair, masculine kind of way.
This, despite the stiffness in his shoulders and the fact he’s holding his breath, either because he’s terrified of small confined spaces or because my fish tacos stink.
As I’m wondering whether to explain the stench, the stuttering of the lift car returns and morphs into something more like chugging. With a creak and a loud crack, the lift jolts to a stop. The lights go out for a split second and there’s a click before they come back on, dimmer than before.
I glance up to the dial above the door and see that we’re at the third floor, yet the doors aren’t opening.
‘What the—?’ The man unfreezes, dropping my camera bag – thankfully padded. He darts forwards, fiercely fingering the OPEN DOOR button. ‘Are we stuck? Is the lift stuck?’
He shifts to face me, as if I have the answer.
‘I don’t know,’ I offer unhelpfully. ‘Try pressing the numbers.’
We end up both pressing the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4. Nothing happens.
Even through his thick coat, I can see his chest rising and falling. He’s freaking out.
‘I’m sure it’s just a glitch in the mechanics,’ I say, trying to sound calm.
‘Let’s hit the bell.’ There isn’t one. ‘Or the emergency button.’ I press it and an alarm rings, though in my unqualified lift-handling opinion, not nearly loud enough.
Certainly not loud enough for a hen party with music playing to hear.
Then it goes off. Just like that, the noise stops and as I’m thinking O-Oh! the stranger I’m trapped with says, ‘I don’t have any phone signal. D’you?’
I fumble through my bag on the floor, knowing I won’t have but not wanting to seem impolite. ‘Not even a bar,’ I tell him when I locate my own device.
As I glance up from my crouched position, I notice the man’s skin looks grey and clammy. His breathing is faster than Usain Bolt’s after a record-breaking sprint.
‘It won’t be long before someone comes,’ I reason. ‘Those alarms route through to the emergency services, so the fire brigade will be here soon.’ I genuinely have no idea if this is a thing. ‘Plus, I’m on my way to a hen party; someone is bound to try to use the lift any minute.’
I take off my thick-knit cardigan and place it on the floor, coming to sit, watching the man and hoping he’ll do the same. It might help him relax.
Thankfully, he follows my lead, dropping to his bum opposite me. I lean forwards and hold out my hand. ‘I’m Lyra.’
He scrutinises my gesture, then frowns at me but shakes my hand anyway. ‘Guy.’
‘Nice to meet you, Guy.’ I decide to waive the grumpy tone on account of his anxiety.
We fall into an uncomfortable silence. One that simultaneously reminds me of my stinky food box and gives me time to determine that, unluckily, given the smell of fish, this man isn’t just handsome, he’s really bloody hot.
And familiar. Oddly familiar, though I can’t place him.
Maybe I’ve photographed him before. I surreptitiously glance at his ring finger – not married, or doesn’t wear a band.
Sweat beads are forming on his brow and his grey pallor has shifted to rosy cheeks. I want to state the obvious, take off your coat, but I don’t know Guy, so I refrain.
Instead, I try to distract him. ‘Do you live here, or are you visiting?’
‘Visiting.’
‘Great. Lovely.’
We fall silent again. Tough crowd.
Then Guy pulls out the stop on one of his liquor bottles and takes a long swig. Whoa there, cowboy.
‘Drink?’ he asks, holding out the bottle, allowing me to see the tequila label on the front.
I’ve only ever seen one other person drink tequila like that and not since Cami at university. Not until tonight.
‘I’m good, thank you. I’m driving.’ I reach for my food box.
‘But this is a serendipitous false imprisonment, because nothing goes better with tequila than tacos.’ I lift the lid on the food, which has been two-thirds consumed, with four empty taco holders to show for it.
‘I have two fish tacos looking for a good home. Would you like them?’
He scrutinises the offering, nose twitching. ‘That’s the smell.’
Now my cheeks are rosy. ‘Yes. My dinner, rather than… me.’ I titter awkwardly.
‘I can’t eat your dinner,’ he says, simply frowning in the face of my discomfort.
I shrug, trying not to seem like a teenage girl in front of the first boy she ever found cute. ‘Fine. But it would benefit us both and the planet.’