Page 183 of One More Kiss

“My brother never recognized what the rest of the world saw in him. He was incredibly intelligent—which likely led to a lot of the depression. He was an overthinker which never goes well. But God, he was so funny and charismatic. Women were drawn to him like a moth to a flame. He had this sarcastic wit that rivaled any comedian, and he could execute without ever cracking a smile. It was priceless. And he had this uncanny ability to carry on entire conversations using nothing but lines from movies.” I smiled at the memory. It was one of my favorite things about my brother. “Alex was so protective of me, so caring, so loving—he was the greatest brother a girl could ask for. That spark was snuffed out far too soon.

“I just hate that he’ll never realize any of that. He’ll never have an ah-ha moment, an epiphany where he recognizes what the rest of us always knew. And that makes my heart hurt as much as losing him.”

Ryan stroked my cheek with his thumb, again moving my hair from my face and tucking it behind my ear. He opened his mouth to say something, but before a sound came out, the jackass came back over the speaker.

“Are you still there?”

Ryan rolled his eyes as he turned his head toward the speaker. “Where would we have gone?”

“Made a heroic escape through the roof hatch? Pried open the doors and shimmied up to another floor. God, I don’t know. People do stupid things all the time, especially in crisis situations. You’d be amazed…or maybe you wouldn’t. This is New York, after all.”

Ryan and I exchanged glances but said nothing as we waited for the dispatcher to impart information, which apparently, he wasn’t going to do unless we asked. “Any idea when you might get us out of this crackerjack box?”

“It’s really more of a tin can, but as I said before, I’m just a dispatcher.”

“Then what are you doing? Just checking on us? Making sure you don’t need to cross a job off the list if we’ve escaped on our own?” Ryan didn’t mean it to be funny, but it kind of was.

The guy snorted as if this were comic relief. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Alas, no. It would just move the job to the bottom of the list. As it is, you’re near the top and still breathing, so I have to send another message to the elevator company.”

“So, you have no idea when we might actually get out of here?”

The shuffling of papers resonated before the speaker crackled. “Again, no, but now that the power has been restored, things should start moving. But I won’t lie and say quickly because nothing moves quickly when recovering from a power outage—or when you’re dealing with a union, which both the power company and the elevator crews are.”

We heard the telltale click of the dispatcher disconnecting before we slumped against the wall, sitting next to each other instead of me wrapped up in Ryan’s arms. The moment had been lost, but I appreciated it for what it was—comfort in a time of need.

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