Stuck with You (The STEMinist Novellas, #2)(6)

“Sadie.” Erik is looking at me like he knows exactly what kind of spiral is currently unfolding in my brain. “Take a deep breath.”

“I know. I am. Taking deep breaths, that is.” Or maybe I wasn’t. Because now, with some air in my lungs, my brain is getting a tad quieter.

“Is it your first time?”

I blink at him. “Breathing?”

He smiles faintly. Like he doesn’t mind that we’re going to die in here. “Being stuck in an elevator.”

“Oh. Yes.” I think about it for a moment. “Wait, is it not yours?”

“Third.”

“Third?”

He nods.

“Are you . . . cursed, or something?”

“I see your superstitions are going strong,” he says, clearly teasing, and the idea that he thinks he knows me, the fact that after everything that happened he’d feel allowed to joke with me . . .

I stiffen.

And judging by his expression, Erik notices. “Sadie—”

“I’m fine,” I interrupt him. “I promise. But could we please just be quiet? For a little bit?” I hate how weak my voice sounds.

I set down the water bottle and hide my face back in my knees. I listen to his sharp exhale, to the tense, uncomfortable silence that falls between us, and try not to think about the last time I was with him.

When I never wanted to stop talking, not even for a second.





Chapter 4


Three weeks ago


I have my pitch meeting in one hour, a little mountain of gigabytes of files to review, and I’m pretty sure that my interns are currently eighteen floors above, trying to decide whether I abandoned them to join a cult or have been abducted by an urban Sasquatch. But I cannot help staring at Corporate Thor’s mouth as he tells me, matter-of-factly:

“Money laundering front.”

“No way!”

He shrugs. We are sitting right next to each other on a bench in a pocket park that, as it turns out, is just behind my building. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, I’ve spotted at least three butterflies, and yet I remain vaguely intimidated by his size. And his cheekbones. “It’s the only possible explanation.”

I bite my lip, trying to think it through. “Couldn’t Faye just be, you know . . . a really bad baker?”

“She certainly is. Her coffee is also questionable.”

“It is very reminiscent of brake fluid,” I concede.

“I always thought of plasma coolant. Point is, she was here ten years ago, when I started working in that building, and she’ll be here long after you and I are gone. Despite that.” He points at the croissant I’m still clutching. Honestly, I should just bite the bullet and choke it down. My hand sweat is not going to make it any tastier. “There is no valid entrepreneurial reason for her to still be in business.”

I nod thoughtfully. He might have a point. “Aside from money laundering operations and ties to organized crime?”

“Precisely.” Okay, his grammar might be perfect, but I’m starting to pick up a vague foreign accent. I want to ask a million and ten questions about it—a wish in direct competition with my desire to not come across as a weirdo. A lofty goal, as I am, in fact, a weirdo.

“I see your theory. But. Hear me out.” I blow my bangs out of my eyes. Erik’s expression doesn’t move a nanometer, but I know he’s listening. There is something about him, like his attention is something physically tangible, like he’s good at seeing and hearing and knowing. “So, remember how I talked about my . . . problem?”

“The magical-thinking one? Where you believe that your professional success relates to the items you ate for breakfast?”

I cannot believe I admitted to it. God, he already knows I’m a weirdo. Though, to his credit, he seems to be taking it in stride. “Okay, listen, I know it sounds like I’m foolishly clutching the atavistic remnants of ancient times.”

“Sounds?” His eyebrow lifts.

I might be flushing. “I like to think of it as . . . more of a way to bind myself and celebrate the traditions of my previous successes, you know? And less as establishing an empirical causal connection between the color of my underwear and future events.”

“I see.” The corner of his mouth twitches upward. Just barely, though—still not a smile. Maybe he’s not capable. Maybe he has a debilitating medical condition. Smilopathy: now with its very own ICD-10 code. “So, what’s the lucky color?”

“What?”

“Of underwear.”

“Oh. Um . . . lavender.”

He seems briefly stumped. “Purple?”

“Kind of, yeah.” I forgot that most men can’t name more than five colors. “A little lighter. Between purple and pink. Pastel-like.”

He nods slowly, like he’s trying to picture it. “Cute,” he says, and his tone is as simple and straightforward as it’s been in the last few minutes. There is absolutely no creepy lasciviousness, as though he’s complimenting a flower or a puppy. My heart skips a beat nonetheless.

Would he . . . ? If he saw me wearing my . . . would he still think that . . . ?

Oh my God. What is wrong with me? This poor man just gave me his croissant.