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But the light never comes, and the continued darkness inside this far-too-small elevator cart urges a wave of nausea to grab ahold of my body like a vise.
I try to breathe deeply, but before I know what’s happening, I’m heaving, and Remy is lowering me down to the floor and gently pushing my head between my legs. “It’s okay, Maria. Just breathe,” he coaches calmly, falling to his ass beside me and rubbing a reassuring hand up and down my back.
I nod, trying to put him at ease, but before I know it, I’m heaving again. I swear, if I throw up in this elevator, just kill me now. Seriously, God. Just yeet me into the universe because I’ll never make it back from that.
My hair is lifted off my neck then, and a breeze of cool air blows across my damp, overheated skin. Remy shifts slightly beside me, and then I feel the air again, tickling over the tiny hairs at the back of my neck. It’s not exactly the refreshing feel of air conditioning, but compared to the suffocating summer heat and darkness, it feels like an ice bath.
“Thank you,” I murmur carefully, not wanting to tempt vomit fate by opening my mouth for too long.
“Of course,” Remy whispers and leans closer to me once more to softly blow across my neck.
Holy hell in a handbasket, how didn’t I realize that’s where the cool air was coming from?
Panicked, I scoot away a little, but my rounded belly makes me have to reach back and squeeze his knee for stability. Please, let that be his knee.
Instantly, I remove my hand just as quickly as I put it there. “Uh…thank you so much, Remy, but I’m feeling better now.” I think.
“Are you sure?” he asks with concern, and I spin around to put my back to the wall on the opposite side of the elevator and face him.
An emergency light flickers at the top of the car—a little delayed, but I’ll take it—and I can just make out the crease between Remy’s eyebrows. Confident he’ll see it now, I nod. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Good,” he says with a small smile and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He taps the screen, and it comes to life, illuminating his handsome face. “Looks like I still have service. I’m going to call Ty.”
Phone to his ear, he waits while the faint sounds of ringing come from the receiver.
“Fucking answer, you bastard,” he mutters three rings deep, and I want to grin over the memories of the familiar banter that always occurred between him and his brothers.
And when he rolls his eyes heavenward, I can assume that Ty finally answered.
“What’s up?” Remy asks into the receiver on a harsh laugh. “Well, I’m stuck in your building’s fucking elevator.”
He pauses and furrows his brow at whatever his brother says.
“And Lloyd would be…?”
Ten seconds later, he pulls the phone away from his ear and looks at the screen. “Did he really just hang up on me?” he grumbles on a sigh and meets my eyes.
“Everything okay?”
His responding laugh is softer this time. “Well, if you were wondering if Ty is still a pain in my ass, I can tell you with certainty that he is. Though, he is calling the maintenance guy.”
“Okay. Okay. That’s good, right? It’s at least something?”
“Yeah.” He grins at me as he shoves his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “And…I guess that means we can use this time to catch up, huh?”
Time to catch up—time to explain—time to look at Remington Winslow and remember just how in love I was with him twenty years ago.
Oh boy. I’m not sure I’m prepared for that…
“But first, I guess I should see if this elevator’s phone works,” he says, standing to his feet. “Maybe I can get in touch with the fire department or something.”
“That sounds like a really good plan,” I answer, silently hopeful that it will take enough time to let me dodge the kind of conversation that would make it hard to avoid my truth.
The last thing I want to do is pull Remy into the complicated mess I call my life.
What the hell, New York? Couldn’t you have chosen a better time to throw a summer blackout my way?
Remy
After speaking with Ty briefly to explain the situation, I’m not confident he’s doing anything more than talking to the building maintenance man, and I’m even less assured that he’s doing it in a hurry. In fact, he sounded incredibly preoccupied… In the way that tends to make all the blood leave a man’s brain altogether. Ahem.
Luckily, the elevator emergency equipment is in good working order—not often the case in New York—and I’ve managed to get in touch with the fire department myself.
“It’s another summer blackout,” the dispatcher’s voice bounces from the red emergency phone receiver held close to my ear. “Pretty sure the ninety-degree heat and everyone using their air conditioners like goddamn fiends is to blame. How many are in the elevator, sir?”
