And that, right there—that humiliating voice in my head—was the reason I hated Holden Whittaker.
I pushed to my feet. He held out a hand to help me up, but I ignored it. “Mina?” he said, his voice deep and shocked. A man’s voice, sexy and smooth. It made my stomach turn. “Mina Maple, is that you?”
“Leave me alone,” I snapped at him, standing and straightening my skirt. I picked up my bag and kicked the Snickers wrapper away with my nice strappy shoe, a shoe I’d thought was so pretty when I bought it on payday a week ago. “Don’t talk to me.”
“I didn’t know you were in New York,” he said.
“Well, I’m sure as hell not in Wisconsin. But apparently I didn’t go far enough to get away from you.”
He stepped toward me. “Let me help you.”
I jerked away from him. “Absolutely fucking not. What part of fuck off don’t you understand?”
Another male voice called down from the darkness at the top of the ladder. “Is, um, is everything okay down there?”
“Fine, thank you,” I shouted up, my voice sharp. I looked at Holden, trying not to look too closely at those gorgeous blue eyes. “I’m going to climb this ladder, and if you touch me, I’m going to scream. Is that clear?”
Now he looked alarmed, and sort of stricken. “Mina, let me explain.”
“Is that clear?”
His eyes met mine, and I’m not sure what he saw. Maybe he saw a woman who was barely keeping her shit together, because that’s what I was. Maybe he felt sorry for me. If he did, he could go to hell. Or he could go just long enough for me to get back to the privacy of my apartment so I could cry.
“It’s clear,” he said.
I turned, hefted my bag onto my shoulder, and climbed the ladder. On top of the humiliation of having Holden Whittaker see my disheveled clothes and definite belly, I now had the added humiliation of knowing he could see my wide, curved ass as I climbed. I’d learned to like my ass, but right now I hated it. Right now it felt huge and hideous, an embarrassment, and the reason it felt that way was Holden Whittaker.
I swallowed hard. At the top of the ladder were two other EMT’s, sitting on the roof of the stuck elevator. One of them held out his hand and I took it as I climbed the last few steps. Above us, at shoulder level, were the opened doors of the elevator shaft, leading out into the hallway. There were a couple of neighbors out there, hanging around to catch the excitement in case I died. For a second I paused in the dark, unwilling to face anyone.
“Are you okay?” one of the EMT’s asked. He was Asian, a few years older than me. He looked concerned. He’d likely heard me tell his colleague to fuck off.
I glanced at the other EMT, who was a black man with short dreads. There was a sound in the elevator below—Holden was starting to climb the ladder.
Oh, hell no.
I turned, found the opened panel door on the roof of the elevator, and slammed it shut, trapping Holden inside.
The two EMT’s exchanged a wide-eyed What the fuck was that? look. “Um, you okay?” the Asian one asked.
There was a knock on the panel below us. “Open the panel, guys,” Holden said. His voice was tired.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I said, ignoring Holden. “I’m Mina.”
They nodded.
“Eric,” the Asian one said.
The black EMT nodded. “Grim.”
“Grim?” I asked.
He shrugged. “My full name is Grimsby. No one calls me Grimsby.”
“Got it.”
“So what’s the deal with Whittaker?” Eric asked. “Since you just trapped him in the elevator and all.”
Holden knocked. “Hey.”
“Yeah, what’s the deal?” Grim said. “Because I have to admit, that was kind of badass. Also, scary.”
I looked at them, ignoring Holden knocking on the panel again. “I went to high school with him,” I said. I had no reason to tell them this, except that it felt good to get the words out. Like therapy. “I had a big crush on him. He was the popular one and I was the fat girl, you know?”
“Uh uh,” Grim said, his eyes going down and up me. “Hell no, honey. Not you.”
“Hell, yes,” I said. “Boys didn’t give me the time of day in high school. Then Holden asked me to be his prom date. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was so excited. My mother and I went out and bought a dress, and I got my hair and makeup done. It was going to be the best night of my life.”
Grim winced, as if dreading the end of this story. “And you two went to the prom, and it was great, and everyone lived happily ever after. Right?”
“No, sorry,” I said. “He stood me up.”
Both of them stared at me. “Stood you up?” Eric asked in shock.
I nodded, trying to shake off the painful memory. “I waited for him to pick me up, but he never did. He didn’t answer his phone and never called. He just… stood me up. Left me standing there in my hair and my makeup and my dress while my mom felt bad for me.”
There was a pause while both of them waited and I swallowed the lump in my throat. Damn it, it had been ten years ago, and it still hurt. Even Holden had gone quiet in the elevator below, as if he sensed this was a bad moment to interrupt.
“Well?” Grim asked into the silence. “What happened next?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I changed out of my dress and threw it in the garbage. A week later I left town and came to New York. I never saw or heard from Holden Whittaker again. Until today.” I glanced at the closed elevator panel. “So that’s the story,” I said. “Holden Whittaker can go to hell. I’m going home to drink. Thanks for helping me out of this elevator. Have a nice night, you two.”
I stood up and made my way to the open doors of the elevator. Without a word, Eric stood and interlaced his hands in a stirrup to boost me up. I got out of the elevator and brushed my skirt off.
“Well, damn,” I heard Grim say to his coworker as I walked off down the hall. “I don’t want to let him out of there. How long can we leave him?”
“A little while, I think,” Eric said. “Time for a dinner break. A long one. What do you say?”
Four
Mina
The next day I was out of sorts. I flaked on putting a supply order in before the 3 p.m. cutoff, and at 3:01 I had Helen standing in front of my desk, her lips pursed. “I sent you a reminder memo four hours ago,” she said.
I nodded. I didn’t want to admit to myself that I kept thinking back to yesterday’s elevator incident, to Holden Whittaker’s blue eyes. I’d been too shocked to notice it at the time, but something was different about Holden, except for the fact that he was ten years older than when I’d last seen him. Teenage Holden had been lanky and strong, but now he seemed to be more solid muscle. And there’d definitely been the edge of a tattoo just visible beneath the short sleeve on his bicep. Teenage Holden hadn’t had any tattoos—I knew, because one of the many athletics he’d been part of was swim team. A lot of us girls had really liked watching Holden at swim practice.