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“And you honestly believe the news?”
“You don’t?” she asks and shakes her head. “You know what, forget I said anything.”
“With pleasure,” I say as we reach the employee hallway behind the front desk.
The control room is situated a few feet away, and we march over there. Kinsley opens the door, and we both step inside. The control room is immaculately kept, with everything labeled and perfectly arranged for easy access.
“Wow,” she whispers.
I scan through the equipment and approach a large control panel with rows and rows of buttons and switches. Luckily, all of them are also labeled, which makes everything easier. While I search for anything relating to the heating system, I feel Kinsley standing next to me, her arm grazing mine ever so slightly. It’s obviously unintentional, but I can’t help but feel the sparks between our bodies. The attraction towards her is undeniable, even though we can’t stand each other, and I know she feels it too. It’s just too intense to be one-sided.
“Here,” she says and points to a bunch of switches on the panel labeled heating system. The main light is flashing red, and Kinsley looks at me. “Why is it flashing?”
“Normally, when there’s a malfunction, the system will shut down, which is what I think happened in this case,” I tell her.
She looks at me with narrowed eyes. “You said you don’t know anything about heating systems.”
“I don’t. But I’ve been around enough machinery to know that’s what generally happens. My washer and dryer in my apartment do the same thing,” I say to her.
“You do your own laundry?” she asks.
“Don’t you?”
Of course, I do. You just don’t seem the type,” she stutters and looks down at the buttons and switches on the panel. “How do we fix it?”
“I think we need to override the system so that it can reboot. That could fix it,” I say.
“How sure are you?”
“Not as much as I want to be.”
“Oh, great. I’m going to freeze to death. My pilot will have a hell of a time loading a frozen me into that helicopter tomorrow afternoon.”
“Quit being so dramatic,” I scoff. “I’ll have the heating going on in no time.”
Honestly, I have no clue what I’m doing. But I keep myself composed to save face and not let Kinsley fly off into a hysterical panic. I flick the power switch off, and the red light disappears. I count to ten in my head before flicking the switch back on again, and I press the ‘scan all’ button. A few green lights begin to flicker on the panel, and hope rises inside me. Maybe I did it after all. As more and more buttons start to light up, a relieved expression appears on Kinsley’s face. Of course, the odds of me fixing it are staggeringly low, I know that, and within a few seconds, all the green lights turn red, and the big red light from before begins to flash again.
“Uhm…”
“I don’t like the looks of this,” she says and steps away.
“As I said, I’m not an expert.”
“Are you kidding me?” she asks and glares at me. “Oh my god, I reallyamgoing freeze to death.”
“It’s just one night. Plus, the cold shouldn’t bother you too much, with you being such a frigid bitch, and all,” I say with a wry grin.
“You are fucking unbelievable.”
“I know.”
“Urgh,” she growls and shoves me out of her way.
“Oh, come on. That was a joke,” I say and follow her out of the control room and into the lobby.
She spins around and glares at me angrily. “You think this is a joke? Having to spend the night in an empty hotel in the middle of the mountains with no heating and a blizzard on its way.”
“Calm down, okay? The blizzard isn’t due for a few days. Just relax,” I tell her.
