Four days of phone calls can feel like four years if you time them wrong.
We’d started strong—night one on the dot, both of us pretending we weren’t counting seconds before picking up.
Night two, I closed early and ducked into the office, only for a delivery truck to back into the Stag’s loading dock and set off a chain reaction of righteous chaos.
I called late. She answered anyway. Night three, PTA ran late.
We made it happen, but the edges were frayed. Night four, I missed her call by ten minutes and she missed mine by twelve and the texts that followed felt like two ships tapping Morse code through fog:
You okay?
All good. You?
Fine. Sorry.
Me too.
Tomorrow?
Tomorrow.
We were trying. That mattered. It just didn’t always feel like enough. Somewhere between our voices and our calendars, something slipped. Not bad faith. Gravity. The kind that pulls you back into your own life whether you meant to or not.
Which is how I found myself pulling into a downtown parking garage in Seattle with a to-go box of gingerbread pancakes on the passenger seat, a paper bag from Riley in the back with two scones labeled BRAVE IDIOT in Sharpie, and a stomach making unhelpful choices about whether to be excited, nauseous, or both.
The garage was concrete and echo and the smell of metal. And something else. I stepped out and was hit by a scent that can only be described as Not Christmas. There was hot rubber, old coffee, and a sour smell.
Great.
“Jingle hell,” I muttered, slamming the door with my hip and grabbing the box and the bag. The elevator was an industrial steel box with a flickering overhead light and a floor that had seen things.
I hit “L” and it creaked into motion like it resented the request.
In Reckless River, I could’ve walked into anyone’s lobby with a nod and a “how’s your mom.”
Seattle had rules.
And attendants. And an intercom system that took one look at a guy in flannel and flagged me as someone who might ask where to tie his horse or pitch a tent.
The lobby was glass and marble, tasteful wreath, poinsettias lined up like soldiers. The attendant behind the desk wore a suit so sharp it should’ve come with a warning. He clocked me, the bag, the box, the flannel, and arranged his face into the kind of professional neutrality that saysplease be brief.
“Afternoon,” I said, turning on the version of me that calms holiday drunks and wedding parties with competing toasts. “I’m here to see Melanie Sauser. Apartment—”
“I’m afraid I can’t let visitors up without confirmation,” he said, pleasant in the way of people who enjoy rules the way I enjoy a perfectly poured pint.
His nametag said Tad. Of course it did.
“Totally get it,” I said. “I texted her, but she’s probably in the middle of an email. Any chance I could leave these at the desk?”
He eyed the box like it might contain anthrax pancakes. “Per policy, we can’t accept perishables.”
“They’re gingerbread. Practically immortal.”
“Perishables,” he repeated gently.
“Right,” I said, because being charming only gets you so far when a man has a manual. I pulled out my phone.
Surprise.I typed.In your lobby. Surprise element is gone, but I’m being held hostage. –D
