She picks at a thread on her sleeve. “My ex came into the bakery yesterday.”
My ears perk. I remember passing an old couch in the hallway and hearing something about her breakup not too long ago. Small-town, small building. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She sighs. “He was picking up a cake. To propose to his new girlfriend.”
I raise a brow. “That’s fucked up.”
“We’ve only been broken up for three months.” Her voice is steady, but there’s hurt underneath. “He said he needed space to figure things out. Guess he figured them out.” She laughs, but it’s bitter. “I should’ve known something was wrong before he ended it. He was always flipping his phone upside down anytime I entered the room. Telltale signs, and all that.” She waves a hand dismissively.
I think about the crumpled invitation in my trash, about how I took my anger out on her when she was having just as shitty of a day. “I’m sorry…about yesterday. I was—”
“An asshole?”
Her smile is light, easy.
And it’s all mine.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, you weren’ttotallywrong about the amateur cupid thing. Danny did hand me a stack of invites and said,Spread the love, Molly!” She does a perfect impression of him and I find myself chuckling.
“Better than being one of his targets. He’s been trying to set me up with every single woman in the building since I moved in.”
“Only the women?” she teases.
“Well, there was that one time with the UPS guy…”
She laughs at that, a real laugh that echoes in the small space and spreads a warmth in my chest I’m not at all capable of stopping.
The elevator groans ominously, and she tenses, ending the moment far too soon.
Worried blue eyes meet mine. “You’re an electrician. Can you… I don’t know, do something? Fix it?”
I stare at her for a moment, then at the control panel, and feel like an absolute idiot. “I… Fuck. Yeah, I didn’t even think—”
“You didn’t think to use your electrical expertise to save us?” Her tone is teasing but her breathing is rapid, smile tight.
“I was distracted by—” I cut myself off before I say something stupid like ‘you’ or worse, ‘your shampoo.’ “By…making sure you were okay.”
Her gaze softens and I turn away quickly.
I pull out a multitool from my work bag, flipping it open to find the right tool. “These old elevators usually have an access panel.”I run my hands along the wall beneath the controls until I find the seam. “Hold my phone?” I prompt, handing it to her. “I need the flashlight.”
She scrambles to her feet, taking my phone and angling the light where I’m working. The panel pops open easier than expected, revealing a mess of wiring and components.
“That looks complicated,” she says, peering over my shoulder. She’s close enough that I can feel her warmth, smell those damn strawberries.
I find myself inhaling deeply once again before shaking my head and focusing on the task at hand. “It’s not bad. See this?” I point to a row of switches. “These are the safety controls. Sometimes they trip for no reason in old systems. And this—” I indicate a separate button. “—is the manual reset.”
“Have you worked on a lot of elevators?”
“Did a stint working on them when I was an apprentice. Elevators are essentially big electrical boxes that move.” I flip one of the safety switches, checking the connections. “The real question is, why didn’t I think of this twenty minutes ago?”
“Because you were too busy making sure I didn’t have a meltdown,” she says with a hint of guilt.
I turn to her, words—of comfort?—clogging my throat.What the hell is wrong with me?Must be the stale air… “Something like that.” I try the reset button, but nothing happens. “Hold the light a little higher.”
She adjusts, pressing against my side to get the angle right and I freeze. Her free hand rests firmly on my shoulder for balance, and I have to focusveryfuckin’ hard on the wiring in front of me.
