Accidentally Amy(3)
He looked just as surprised to see her, but then his mouth turned up into one of those toe-curling, genuinely happy smiles that bumped an exceptionally-handsome man right up to a work of art. He said in that ridiculously deep voice, “Talk about your small worlds.”
The elevator doors slid closed, and he gestured with his thumb to the floor buttons.
Izzy managed, “Oh. Yeah. Lobby, please,” even though she was so shocked she could barely remember how to form words. All morning, she'd been forcing herself not to think about Mr. Chest because not only did she need to focus on the new job, but there was also no way in hell a Starbucks meet-cute would ever pan out into something real.
But now - here he was.
Dun-Dun-Duuuun.
“So, um,” he asked, “Do you work around here, or do you belong to this gym?”
“I was working out,” she started, but then he nodded and cut her off with--
“Okay, I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but someone’s going to get on this elevator any minute now so I have to talk fast.”
His face was purposeful and intense, but his mouth was relaxed, like he was slightly amused by the situation. Izzy watched the numbers lighting up on the display over the doors as they descended.
11-10-9…
Please don’t stop, please don’t stop.
“I know we’re strangers,” he said, his eyes so focused on her that she felt like fixing her hair or fidgeting with her lip gloss. “But--”
8-7-6…
Izzy reached out and hit the emergency button behind him, making the elevator car jolt to a stop.
Mr. Chest stopped talking as she stumbled in her pumps, which propelled her a little closer to him, and his eyes narrowed just a fraction. A wrinkle appeared in-between his brows and Izzy shook her head.
“No, no - I’m not stopping for creepy reasons. I swear I’m not that bunny-boiler from Silence of the Lambs, trying to seduce you in an elevator or something. I just--”
“Fatal Attraction.”
“What?”
“The bunny boiling was in Fatal Attraction,” he said, and the wrinkle of concern that’d been between his brows disappeared as his mouth twitched into a tiny smirk.
“Oh, yeah - Fatal Attraction; duh.” She rolled her eyes and said, “I just want to hear what you have to say without reaching the ground floor first. That’s all this little stoppage is about.”
“What I have to say.” He stepped a little closer, but not in an intimidating way. It was more…intimate. It reminded her of the way Darcy said Mr. Wickham? and stepped closer to Elizabeth during his rain proposal in the hand-flex version of P&P, and Izzy thought she might faint dead away for the first time in her life. He put his hands in the pockets of his suit pants and said, “Is. I have meetings all afternoon, but can I please call you later?”
“On the telephone?” Izzy noticed he had perfect eyebrows as she said, “Like a psycho?”
“Well, I’m shit with the emojis,” he said, looking half-serious and a little boyish.
“Send a lot of accidental eggplants?”
“No,” he laughed.
“Use the same tired cry-laughing smiley for everything like a total wank?”
“Is that a wank thing to do?”
“Absolutely it is.”
“Well, then, um, yes.” He cleared his throat and said, “But my absolute wankiness aside--”
“Wankitude. Or is it wankery?”
“Wankiness,” he said, rolling his eyes as he continued, “I rather like hearing the voice of the person I’m talking to.”
Izzy made a noise in her throat and felt like she needed garlic or some type of dagger she could plunge into Mr. Chest’s chest as protection, because statements like that were a straight-up assault on her ovaries. He rather liked hearing the person’s voice?
Just take my heart now, you gorgeous wank.
“I’ll give you my number,” she said, trying not to seem too eager. “But I make no promises on the whole phone-talk thing. I fear I may start mashing the numerical keypad and shouting emoji names at random out of confusion.”
“Eggplant, eggplant?” he said, with an absolute straight face.
“Our conversation will have to take a pretty wild turn for that to be my emoji-shout of choice, but you never know.” Izzy looked down at his shirt. “Do you have a closet full of fresh shirts at your office, or did you have to go home after I drenched your Calvin Klein?”
“I ran home.”
She still felt bad about that. “Please tell me you live close to Starbucks.”
“You seem pretty interested in my personal information," he said, his eyes getting a teasing glint that made her want to ruffle his hair. "You sure you’re not a bunny boiler?”
Izzy tilted her head and wondered if he had pets. “Do you have a bunny?”
An eyebrow went up. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m fascinated by the pets people keep,” she said, her eyes wandering all over his face, “And if you told me you had a bunny, I think I’d find you to be the most interesting man in this elevator.”
He smiled a little more and his dimples popped.
Fucking dimples.
I’m going to need that dagger STAT.
He said, “Words cannot express how much I regret to inform you that I am not one in possession of a rabbit.”
Izzy bit down on her lower lip to hold in the laugh. She looked up at him and said, “It is tragic, but perhaps you might consider adopting one…?”
He leaned a little closer and just like that, there was white-hot electricity in that elevator. Their faces were close, and Izzy was very aware all of a sudden that they were alone in a stopped elevator car. Her oxygen was now his freshly-showered scent and she wanted to breathe it in until she hyperventilated. His voice was quieter, huskier, when he said, “Swear to God if I didn’t already have a cat, I’d be begging you to go with me to the shelter to pick out a bunny this very minute.”