Page 33 of Meet Hate Love
“Or maybe I should have used the word tidsoptimist,” he said.
Tidsoptimist. Be still my vocabulary-loving heart. It was such a good word, even if he was using it to insult me for being perpetually late. “Look at you and your growing vocabulary.”—And my lessening hatred.
Passengers continued to cram inside the elevator. I glanced around, hoping to locate a weight limit sign. Between my getting stuck in the Macy’s elevator and my mishap in New Orleans back in October, I felt I had a knack for getting trapped in things. At least this elevator was spacious.
“This is more the size of a mausoleum than a coffin,” I mumbled, not expecting Vance to actually hear me.
Based on the disturbed look he’d shot down at me, he evidently had.“What is it with you and things that house corpses?”
“They’re good measures of size.”
“Cups and grams are good measures of size. Coffins are not.”
“Look, you spend the night in a creepy, dank New Orleans mausoleum and see if you don’t start judging things you could get trapped in the same way. It’s life-altering, Vance.”It was true. It had been one of the single most horrifying experiences of my life.
Passengers continued to cram inside, pressing Vance and me against the side window.
“How did you end up locked in a mausoleum in the first place?”
The root cause of it: bad luck and a desecrated voodoo shrine, but the man already thought I was crazy enough. Cables creaked and groaned as the illuminated crisscross design of the iron structure slowly passed by the window.
“I made it a few feet inside before I noticed a cauldron of bats hanging from the ceiling and—”
“A cauldron?”
“Yes, that’s what a group of bats is called, Vance, a cauldron, and my presence evidently pissed them off. They started shrieking and swarming, and I can assure you, there is nothing as terrifying as screaming, flying rats flapping their leathery rabies-tainted wings at you in a mausoleum.”
Vance pressed his lips together while a twinkle of pure amusement danced in his eyes. “So, the cauldron of bats locked you in?”
“Do bats have opposable thumbs?” I could only hope the scowl I gave him said he was an idiot. “I knocked myself out when I attempted to escape, but instead of sprinting through the small gap in the doorway, I ran into the corner of the stone door. I guess the groundskeeper had closed it up while I was unconscious.” Luckily for me, the first tour group that came through the cemetery the next morning heard me screaming and banging on the door.
A deep laugh rumbled from his chest just as the elevator stopped on the first floor. “How in the hell do you get yourself into these situations?”
“Because I’ve been cursed since birth.”
“There’s no such thing as being cursed, Blake.”
“Give it until the end of the week and see if you still believe that nonsense.”
The elevator shook when it resumed its ascent.
“Give it to the end of the week and see if you don’t,” I said.
I’d given it my whole life. A week wouldn’t change a thing. I stared out across the gray rooftops and candelabra-style lamppost-lined streets as we rose higher and higher. As much as I hated to admit it, I was really enjoying the banter with Vance.
We changed elevators on the second floor, taking a smaller one to the top. And when we stepped off, the view of Paris at night was breathtaking. The brightly lit lawn of the Champ de Mars seemed to stretch on forever. The well-known monuments of Notre Dame, Napoléon’s tomb, the Arc de Triomphe—all illuminated—stood out amongst the rest of the uniform city.
Vance stood beside me, phone in hand, as he panned the camera over the horizon. I’d fully expected to hear his Vagabond Vance introduction, so imagine my shock when I heard him follow up the statement of how beautiful Paris was with “Grandma, wish you were here.”
A warm breeze blew through my hair as an unsettling feeling budded in my chest, probably the same uncomfortably tight squeeze the Grinch felt when his heart grew ten times its size. Vance was making a video for his grandma. Biting the inside of my cheek, I made my way to the other side of the tower to avoid overhearing anything else that would make me a little weak in the knees.
Margot’s best friend instincts must have sensed my wavering hormones all the way in New York because the second I told myself maybe I’d been too quick to say a one-night stand was a no-go, the sci-fi sounding chime of her text notification came from my purse.
How are things with Cock-a-Doodle?
Questionably unstable.
We’re both still alive.
