“That’s rather distinctive,” he said, his eyes still closed and his smile spreading.
I shrugged and studied his short beard scruff. It was cute, and it softened the line of his jaw in a way that made fuzziness seem wholly sophisticated.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I like that I can Google myself and not find anyone else out there with my exact, full name.”
If I had to guess, this boy could grow one hell of a lumberjack beard in no time at all. It wouldn’t go with the preppy look, but I got the impression he could pull off anything. Underwear models were gifted like that.
And wouldn’t that be a sight? Skivvies, scruff, and smile.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s your full name?”
“Tiel Kalogeropoulos-Desai. But I dropped the Kalogeropoulos bit a long time ago. No one has time for all those vowels.”
“That’s amazing,” he laughed. His breathing was a bit more regular, the pulse in his throat jumping a little less. Glancing at his device, I saw his glucose readings leveling off into safer ranges. “It’s like the entire United Nations was crammed into one person.”
“You know, muffin, instead of busting my balls, you could tell meyourname. It seems like we’re hanging together for a bit.”
“Or dying together,” he said, and then he laughed. “Sorry. I’m Sam. Samuel Aidan Walsh, if that’s what we’re doing.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sam, despite these,” I glanced around the elevator, “circumstances.”
He opened his eyes, all slate blue and serious, and he nodded toward the insulin pump and iPhone in my hands. “Thanks for sorting me out.” I smiled, and he gave me a lopsided grin. “I’m sorry you had to see all that, Tiel.”
And somehow, that was all it took. I was full-tilt smitten with this beautiful boy, from the inside out. I felt like a cartoon character with my heart swelling to ten times its normal size and thumping right out of my chest for all to see.
But before I allowed myself to think about that, the elevator shook, and metal-on-metal shrieked around us.
Everything went dark, and then we were falling.
DEEP BREATH IN, deep breath out. Deep breath in, deep breath out.
Breathing means we’re alive. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Just keep breathing.
“Hey there, folks,” a voice boomed from the intercom. “Captain MacNamara here, Boston Fire Department. Is everyone still with me?”
At first, I didn’t understand the words over Tiel’s screams.
We were huddled together in the corner where we’d landed, Tiel’s arms around my waist, our legs tangled, my hand holding her head to my chest. It was an involuntary reaction to the jolt, my personal space compulsions temporarily suspended, and neither of us were ready to let go yet.
“Shh. It’s okay,” I murmured against her hair, then spoke toward the intercom. “This situation appears to be getting worse, Captain.”
“I know you’ve had one hell of a fall, and we’re workin’ on getting you out, but I’m going to need you to be patient with me.”
“How muchmorepatient?” I asked.
This building, despite all its Brutalistic splendor, was off my short-term investment list.
“We’ve got a lady trapped in the other car, and she’s in labor. As long as everyone’s all right in there, we’re going to work on getting to her first.”
Tiel looked up at me in the hazy darkness, giving me and my device a purposeful glance, but I shook my head. I had enough insulin to last me two days, and enough glucose tablets for the month. I was more concerned about sitting on the goddamn floor in a malfunctioning elevator. If anything, going into a diabetic coma would be preferable to picking up the flesh-eating bacteria that was certain to be crawling all over this death trap.
“Do you have an engineer looking at the mechanics?” I asked. “A power outage should stop an elevator, not cause it to free fall. Twice. This is a larger system failure, not just an electrical issue.”
“I can assure you, sir, we’ve got our best guys on it.” He cleared his throat. “Get comfortable. This is gonna take some time.”
The intercom’s connection clicked off, and Tiel shifted to face me, her lips pursed, eyes wide. “Okay then,” she murmured. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “I’m fine. You?”
