Elevator Music: A Romantic Holiday Story Read online

I chuckle. Elevator Girl has me pegged, which should impress me, but I can’t stop looking at her green eyes and creamy lipstick. “Lot of good it does me,” I huff, without really thinking about what I’m saying, or who I’m saying it to, or even how it makes me sound.

  She arches one eyebrow, red, the color of the long, straight hair spilling down from under her off white ski cap. It looks like she’d gotten dressed for the cold winter’s night before stepping into the elevator, only to get stuck… with me.

  Lucky her, I think sarcastically.

  “Care to expand on that?” she asks, licking those creamy lips absently.

  I chuckle. “I’m self-editing, remember.”

  She sighs, fiddling with the knitted scarf that matches her stylish cap. “Up to you,” she teases, pushing red glasses up her pert nose and sending off major hot librarian vibes. “Phil’s about 120-years-old, so… this could take awhile.”

  Fine with me, I think.

  I sigh. “I’m just saying, all the time I took picking out funny cards and nice cards and sweet cards and touching cards and flowers and dark chocolate because that was her favorite, not milk chocolate… three years of that and she breaks up with me over Thanksgiving weekend?”

  My voice has been rising, as have her auburn brows. “Wound’s still a little deep, huh?” she asks, and though her tone is sarcastic her expression is kind.

  Almost… empathetic.

  “That obvious?”

  She nods and leans back against the wall of the elevator. Most girls, you figure, would be freaking out over being stuck in an elevator with some strange dude. Not this one. Then again, I’m not the most imposing guy on the planet.

  She’s nearly my height, slim in her fashionable outfit, sleek and sexy with the glasses and the ski cap and the valise at her feet.

  “Just a little,” she says, nodding.

  I grunt. “I guess it’s true what they say about good guys finishing last. Not that I’m all that great, you know, I’m not bragging but… the guy she left me for? Greasy, stupid, skater dude, tattoos everywhere, not that that’s bad but these are stupid ones, unemployed…”

  She clucks a tongue and nods my way. “Aren’t you here on a job interview?” she asks.

  I laugh out loud. She must be some kind of an editor because most girls wouldn’t pay that much attention, especially not to me. “He’s unemployed on purpose,” I protest. “I’m just looking for a better job.”

  Her face colors a little and she rushes to say, “I was just kidding.”

  I wave her apology off. “Forget that, I should be over her by now anyway. It’s not his stupid, tattooed, unemployed skater fault she cheated on me, it’s hers.”

  She nods, then I think of something. “You’re not, I mean… you don’t have tattoos or anything, do you?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she sasses, but without much bite.

  “No, I mean, I don’t want to offend if you have like a butterfly on your butt or something.”

  She snorts, loudly, a little masculine but it only makes my heart pound a little faster to make her do it again. “Even if I was covered in tattoos,” she says, “I wouldn’t be offended because it’s not his tattoos you’re mad at.”

  I nod, because she’s right, and the silence stretches for a moment or two, maybe a minute or two. The music gets louder and she’s making that “I know this song but don’t know it” face. I smile because I recognize it right off and say, “White Christmas.”

  She snaps her fingers – literally, snaps her fingers – and says, “That’s right! I would have never gotten that one…”

  I shake my head, looking at the flickering numbers on the elevator switchboard, feeling stupid, feeling lame, feeling sorry for myself, mostly. “I can’t believe I’m stuck in an elevator with someone like you and all I can do is whine about my stupid ex…”

  I look up, to see if I’ve hurt her feelings, but she’s quiet. “I’ve been there,” she says when she feels my eyes on her, raising them from the floor to meet mine.

  “Bullshit.” I can’t help it. It’s the first thing I blurt. Looking at her, fine as she is, smart and sexy and professional with the glasses and the lipstick and the eyes and the hair and… I repeat myself. “Bullshit you have.”

  She’s laughing, thankfully. “Okay, but… how do you really feel?”

  I shake my head. “I really feel like if you have been there, if you’ve had a break up, it was your own choice because… who would break up with you?”

  She clucks her tongue. “Plenty of guys, trust me. I know from scientific evidence. And by the way, buttering me up isn’t getting you out of this elevator any sooner.”

  I blush and look away for a minute, then back at her. She’s still studying me. “I don’t mean to get personal, I just… like I said, rough year.”

  She nods, and pauses a little longer than she normally does, something foggy and compelling behind those green eyes, like maybe her year hasn’t been any bed of roses, either.

  “I could say the same about you,” she says, eyes meeting mine, apropos of nothing.

  “You could say I’ve had a rough year, too?” I joke.

  She blushes and snorts again. I never thought a snort could sound so good. “No,” she waves a hand, maroon polish on her nails. “I mean, why would a girl ever break up with you?”

  “My point exactly,” I joke. “When you’ve already got perfection,” I wave my hands up and down my borrowed interview suit like a floor model at an auto show, heavy on the sarcasm, “how could you leave all this?”

  “I’m serious,” she says. “Some girls, some girls… just don’t know what they have until—”

  Suddenly, the elevator jolts and we’re moving, down, down, and I’m panicking. I was just starting to like this!

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