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Due to its historic significance, the bank had been forced to keep the structure largely as-is, which meant trying your luck every time you stepped inside.
Doors often randomly locked people in and out, the acoustics were either fantastic or awful (depending on who was asked), and if a hanging wire was spotted, no, it wasn’t, because building maintenance got caught up in so much red tape, it would be easier for corporate to deal with a workplace accident than a flickering lightbulb.
Still.
Sophie liked it. Settled in the eastern-most corner of the third floor was the Vault, her quiet — and dusty — domain, with a population of one.
A belated yawn caught up to her as she logged in, cradling her coffee and flicking off her daily good morning text to her mom.
“Late night?”
Levi materialized beside her in his signature khaki pants and jovial grin. When he’d first appeared to her, Sophie was a child and hadn’t questioned it. Her home life had been a turd sandwich, so there was no way in hell she would have turned away an imaginary friend. But she certainly hadn’t expected him to still be hanging around after this long.
“At thirty? Please. I fell asleep listening toSmall Town Murder.”
“Don’t you dare listen to that without me. Do you know how hard it is to catch up on a podcast when you don’t have a corporeal body?”
“As if that stops you.”
Levi smiled, as she’d known he would. The guy was always weirdly up to date on the latest shows. He blamed his wards, but Sophie suspected Levi was addicted to the CW. Shameful, honestly.
If he was going to enjoy things without her, he could at least have better taste.
“How’d your mom’s date go?”
Sophie sighed. Her mom could make politicians piss themselves but couldn’t catch a break when it came to dating. “Awful. He insulted her cooking and spent the rest of the night talking about his bank balance. I wish she’d realize that relationships are a waste of time and just have fun.”
“Are you? Having fun?”He levied a searching look at her, one straight brow raised, with far too much attitude for eight a.m.
“Why shouldn’t I be? I’m healthy, this shirt makes my tits look amazing, and I’m drinking the best coffee in the city.”
Sophie could handle a lot of things, but bad coffee was not one of them.
Then she opened her emails.
Welcome to our new starter in records archiving: Mitch Langford
“Shit.”
* * *
MITCH
First order of business, be cool. Just because he was stuck between floors in an ancient box dangling on what was likely fraying rope didn’t mean he had reason to panic. He could be chill about this. Chill was his middle name. Right after danger. Mitch Danger Chill Langford.
Danger Chill would be a great name for a band.
Focus, dumbass.
Okay. So the beginning ofSpeedhad scarred him when he was a kid; that didn’t mean he had to freak out now.
It was like the guy at security had said — it was an old building. This happened all the time, just hang in there.
He could hang.
He could totally hang.
It wasn’t an omen. It was only a coincidence that this was happening on his first day.
