Stuck in the Elevator

Alexa Monroe walked into the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco that Thursday night wearing her favorite red heels, feeling jittery from coffee, and carrying a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne in her purse. She took out her phone to text her sister, Olivia, upstairs in one of the guest rooms.

Getting on the elevator!!!

It was always good to give Olivia a little more advance warning than most people. It didn’t matter that Olivia had just made partner at her New York law firm; some things didn’t change.

Oh no, was just about to get in the shower.

Alexa got Olivia’s text just as she stepped into the elevator. She laughed out loud as she pushed the number of her sister’s floor, the laughter calming her nerves. Alexa couldn’t wait to celebrate with her older sister, despite . . . no, maybe because their relationship was still tricky after all these years.

The elevator glided in the air, in that smooth, noiseless way elevators in expensive hotels do, while Alexa checked her purse for the third time to make sure she’d tossed the fancy crackers and Brie in there. They would need a pre-dinner snack to soak up all of that champagne, after all. She wished she’d found the time to make brownies the night before. Olivia loved her brownies.

She spied the cheese and crackers in the corner of her purse, tucked away from the heavy champagne bottle. Just then, the elevator stopped with a jerk. A second later, the lights went out.

“What’s going on?” she said out loud to herself.

A few seconds later, a dim light came on, but the elevator stayed motionless. She looked up and around, and jumped to see a man with a suitcase in the opposite corner of the elevator.

“Were you here this whole time?” she asked.

“What am I, a genie?” He grinned back at her.

“I guess you don’t really look like a genie.” He was a tall white guy, with tanned skin, rumpled dark brown hair, and about a day’s worth of scruff where a beard would be. She had a sudden urge to rub her hand on his cheek to see how prickly it was. How exactly had she missed seeing this man get on the elevator with her?

“Thank you, I think. But isn’t that what a genie would say?” he asked. “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

“Um, I don’t think so. Why, were you going to bust us out of here with your genie powers if I said I was?”

He laughed.

“I guess you’ll never know if I’m a genie now,” he said.

“Well, there was that time I got an MRI,” she said. “Being inside that tiny machine wasn’t much fun. Maybe I am claustrophobic.”

“Sorry, you already lost your chance to see my powers.” He moved to the front of the elevator and picked up the emergency phone.

“Let’s see if they can give us an ETA on getting out of here.”

She tried not to stare at him in the dim lighting, but she couldn’t miss the opportunity to check out his butt in his perfectly fitted jeans. It was as good as the rest of him. She tried to wipe the grin off her face in case he turned around.

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