Page 17 of Lucky Night

But she can’t deny they’re handy to have around sometimes.

They execute.

And how long do you expect that to take? he asks.

Yes, he executes. And what does she do? She cedes. She asked him to call down earlier, when she’d rushed to the door like a loon. Why hadn’t she called? Reached for the phone, taking action to calm her own spastic worries, instead of deferring to, relying on, him? You can’t sayspasticanymore. She had no idea until Charles’s assistant corrected her one day.It’s just, I have a cousin with cerebral palsy? And that word is really triggering.She was mortified! She never wants to be unkind. Though compared to some of the things they used to call each other when she was a kid…but of course, times change. For the better, mostly.

Well, maybe not mostly. Somewhat.

Somewhat for the better.

All right, he says. We’ll wait to hear more.

He hangs up. It’s a false alarm.

It is? They’re positive?

She can breathe again. They’re safe. Everything’s fine!

Almost positive, he says. False alarms have been popping up on different floors since they opened last week—an electrical glitch of some kind. They thought the problem had been fixed, but apparently not.

Almost? Apparently? She doesn’t like these words. They’re wishy-washy. Invertebrate.

They’re checking it out though, right? Investigating?

Absolutely, he says. But the woman I just spoke with said there’s no need to worry.

He comes back around the bed and takes her hands. Not a master of the universe, not an entitled jerk—he’s still the patient, generous guy who showed up a few minutes ago. Who clasped her head and kissed her and said,Where are you, Jenny? Where’d you go?Who chose to indulge her worries over his own pleasure.

It’s okay, he says.

He brushes her hair back, tucks a lock of it behind her ear, and she feels the pull. She wants to bite his hand, grab his ass and press herself against him, feel his tongue in her mouth. She’s fritzing with anxiety but still wants him to bend her over the arm of the sofa and—

Did the alarm come from inside a room or from a hallway? she asks.

The desk clerk didn’t say. Does it matter?

It might. A fire inside a room would be behind a door made to withstand heat and flames, I forget for how long. It’s in the fire code, the, you know, rules for building buildings? Are there even guest rooms on the fifth floor, or is it something else, like a parking garage? In bigger spaces a fire would have more oxygen to feed on, which would makeit—

Hey. He puts a hand on her shoulder, gives her a little shake. Fireman Phil. We’re safe. Whatever the configuration of the fifthfloor is, it’s thirty-seven stories below us. The typical floor height of a high-rise is, what, nine feet? That means this nonexistent problem is at least three hundred and thirty-three feet away.

Did you just multiply that in your head? That fast?

I’m a genius, what can I say? So you can trust me and quit worrying.

Wait, she says. The fifth floor? We heard the alarms earlier. We couldn’t have if they were all the way down on the fifth floor.

Jenny…

But she’s moved away. She picks her skirt up from the floor.

We need to leave, Nick.

Look at her, taking her due. Executing. It feels good!

They asked us to sit tight, he points out. They wouldn’t have done that if there was a real problem.

What if they don’t know? she says. What if they’re wrong?

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