Black shirt. Silver chain. Broad shoulders. Heavy ink. And a voice that sounded like trouble wearing cologne. A chill slid down my spine.
He owns the building. He’s calm in a power outage like he’s lived through worse.
Ohfuck.
I wasn’t trapped with a stranger. I was trapped with aCrow.My blood went cold. Actually fucking cold.
I sat up so fast I got dizzy. My brain immediately began sprinting through every single thing I’d said to him, the dramatics, the dessert rant, the accusations about dying, grabbing his shirt like a lunatic.
Oh God.
Oh no.
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. Why does the universe hate me?
“Are you okay?” he asked after a moment. “You’ve gone real quiet.”
“Completely fine. Thank you,” I squeezed my eyes shut.
“My name’s Vince,” he stretched his arm out over his bent knee. “And I’m guessing, by the sudden politeness, you’ve worked out the last name.”
My eyes flew open.
“Oh God,” I gasped. “Ididinsult you, didn’t I? I can’t actually remember what. I might’ve insulted your building, which is… honestly probably worse. Either way, I’m sorry. I’m so, so?—”
“Calm down.”
I nodded so fast I looked like one of those dashboard toys that jiggle during turbulence. “Right. Yes. Calm. Very calm.”
Silence.
Then the lights flickered again. A groan vibrated through the elevator. I squeezed my eyes shut so hard it hurt. Don’t scream. Don’t yell. Don’t say anything you’ll regret when your obituary is published.
The elevator let out another noise, but my body reacted like I’d felt the floor drop. I spun and slid straight across the floor until I was sitting right beside him.
If I was dying, I was dying next to the calmest human I’d ever met.
He let out a soft exhale. “Thought you were staying on the other side.”
“I was. But you’re very… soothing. And I figured if we’re going to die, maybe sitting near you will stop me from saying something stupid.” I paused. “Or I’ll say something stupid anyway. But then we’ll die, so what does it matter?”
He made a low sound in his throat, somewhere between a laugh and disbelief.
“You know I can’t actually stop the elevator from dropping. If it was going to, it would.”
“Obviously,” I muttered, tucking my legs under me. “Which is exactly why I’m sitting here. Very comforting.”
Another loud noise. God. Then his hand dropped gently to my knee, not making a move just, grounding.
“Breathe.”
I inhaled shakily, the air catching, then let it out slow. Again. His hand didn’t move, just stayed there, warm and steady while my heart slowly stopped trying to escape my rib cage.
“I had a bad day,” my voice dropped, “A really bad day. Meetings, traffic, everything went wrong. And then this.”
A moment passed.
I sighed. “How was your day?”
