He must be frightened too. No one wants to be burned alive.
“Will you be okay walking down the stairs?” he asks as he gently touches my arm. I didn’t even realize he was still holding it since I was so busy staring at him.
“Yes, I think I’ll take my shoes off so they won’t be ruined,” I manage to say.
“Excellent idea. I don’t mean to hurry you along, but in case the raging fire is below us, I’ll help you,” he tells me as he kneels down and unbuckles both my shoes in record time. His fingers brush against my skin as he loosens the final strap.
I rest my hand on his sturdy shoulder as I step out ofthem. Looking down at his head, I realize his hair is the same color as a dark rye whiskey.
If we don’t get out of here, I’ll never be able to try that new recipe I came up with, and I’ll never know if my own rye whiskey will be any good.
“This is just a fire drill, right?” I wiggle my feet, feeling the blood rush back to them now that I’m not in five-inch heels.
The man stands up, handing me my shoes. “No, this is real. We need to get out of here.”
He has a strong, chiseled jaw. He’s clean-shaven and has smile lines on his face with beginning crows’ feet at his eyes. His skin is tanned, showing that he spends a lot more time outside than I do. And he’s without a doubt the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.
He’s much taller than me now. I glance down at my bare feet, thankful that the red nail polish I painted on my toes two weeks ago still looks perfect. That would have been embarrassing. Toes have a magical ability to stay painted and never chip, thank goodness.
Several papers lie around my feet. These are the papers I promised my boss that I wouldn’t look at—yet now I’m staring down at them along with a stranger. Luckily, he seems preoccupied with picking up another folder from the ground.
“Oh dear, we’ve made a mess of it, haven’t we?” I say as if I didn’t just learn the building was actually on fire.
I don’t do well in tense situations. It’s easier to pretend like it’s not happening, so I bend down and scoop papers into my arms while keeping ahold of my shoes. I slide the papers into a neat stack. I hand the man a few of the papers that are closest to him. The folder that had been inhis hands is empty, so it would make sense that these loose papers are his.
“Thank you,” he says as he picks up his own stray folder.
He grasps my hand and tugs me toward the stairs, having enough of a sense of self-preservation for both of us.
He keeps a firm grip on me, his steps even and sure, as though he runs down ten flights of stairs every day. “I don’t know what floor set off the alarm, so we need to hurry.”
I’m holding a stranger’s hand and running down a flight of stairs. I realize in the moment that this is odd. But then again, the building is on fire, and maybe this man has a hero complex.
Who am I to take that away from him?
Besides, my legs are shaking, and he’s keeping me upright. I grip his hand a little tighter.
When we reach the landing below, he helps pick up the scattered papers that are waiting for us. Then he grabs my hand again, and we’re flying down the steps once more.
“Which floor do you work on?” I ask as I let my legs do the work of carrying me down the stairs, reminding myself to breathe while we run.
“I’m coming from the tenth,” he explains.
He doesn’t sound breathless enough to be coming from the tenth floor, and I tell him so—between gasps.
“Don’t worry, you’ve got this.” He flashes a grin over his shoulder. “It’s all downhill from here.”
If I could breathe, I would give him a sarcastic laugh, but we’ve reached the fifth floor and the time for laughing is over.
We stay silent as we descend another flight of stairs. Atthe rate sweat is accumulating under my shirt, the papers will be soaked soon.
“Where is the rest of your office?” he asks me.
“On the eighth floor,” I reply.
He snorts a laugh. “No, I mean the other employees.”
“Hopefully already outside. I had to pause to grab some papers for my boss.”
