He was quiet again for a moment and I thought he may not do it. "Do you have any siblings?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I don't need to talk, I need you to talk."
"Why?"
"I can't explain," I said. "It just helps."
He blew out a breath. "Okay… well, you know I have two siblings. I'm the youngest. Obviously the most interesting and attractive."
I snorted. If I was talking, I would deny it, even if I thought he was right, secretly.
“Once my brother's and I went to LA when I was a teenager. I was there for a contract thing, and dad was there on business, so the whole family went. I was out with some people. Samuel came because, by then, I had way cooler friends than him.”
I let out a small huff of a laugh.
He continued, “I thought I was so cool back then, so we decided to go to a skate park.”
“You used to skateboard?” I asked.
He nodded. “The girls loved it.”
“Of course that was why.”
“I thought you wanted to hear the story,” he chided.
I rolled my eyes but gestured for him to continue.
“My agent insisted I stopped skating when she found out. She didn’t need one of her best clients ending up with a broken nose. I didn’t listen, but that’s exactly what happened.”
“You broke your nose?”
“Yeah, I had to have reconstruction surgery. But I still blame Samuel. He called me a pussy for not wanting to do the large ramp, so I did it anyway. What was I supposed to do, prove him right?”
“And you fell?” I asked.
“Like a pound of bricks. My parents were pissed, but it turned out, I’d been so distracted I was late to the shoot anyway, so that didn’t matter.”
“That is a good story,” I said. “You know, if you had PlanD, you might have remembered your meeting.”
“Maybe.”
As he began telling me another story, the elevator rumbled. The rumble soon turned into a full on shake.
"W-what's happening?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said calmly. "But I'm sure it's fine."
This was it. We were going to die. The elevator was going to fall and the walls were gonna close in, and the oxygen was going to run out.
It shook again and Ellery pulled me to his chest. I clung to him, hoping for everything to just stop. For me to wake up at home, in bed, and out of this hellscape.
My face was pressed to his chest. His signature scent filled my nose, and the cologne was so quintessentially him, it was somehow comforting. His hands rubbed up and down my back. I could feel the tears streaking down my face, wetting the front of his sweater.
I wasn't sure what happened, but there was a ding and suddenly light. When I peered to the side I saw the doors were open. A man in a firefighting uniform stood there, along with one of the employees.
"You folks all right?" The man asked.
"We're fine, thank you," Ellery said.
