The Escape Room

by Alexa Land

  The Escape Room

  A Firsts & Forever Short Story

  Alexa Land

  Contents

  Also by Alexa Land

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  This 11,000-word short story first appeared in the charity anthology Heart2Heart, Volume 2. It is a stand-alone and is set in the world of Alexa Land’s Firsts and Forever Series.

  * * *

  U.S. Copyright 2019 by Alexa Land.

  All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission in whole or in part of this publication is permitted without express written consent from the author.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either used fictitiously or are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments or locales is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  This gay romance contains adult language and sexually explicit material.

  It is intended for ADULTS ONLY.

  Cover Photo by Dan Skinner

  Cover Design by Alexa Land

  Also by Alexa Land

  * * *

  The California Obscura Series:

  Feral (prequel to Tinder)

  The Tinder Chronicles

  More Than This

  * * *

  The Firsts & Forever Series:

  1 Way Off Plan

  2 All In

  3 In Pieces

  4 Gathering Storm

  5 Salvation

  6 Skye Blue

  7 Against the Wall

  8 Belonging

  9 Coming Home

  10 All I Believe

  10.5 Hitman’s Holiday (novella)

  11 The Distance

  12 Who I Used to Be

  13 Worlds Away

  13.5 Armor (novella)

  14 All I Ever Wanted

  15 Take a Chance on Me

  15.5 Once Burned (novella)

  16 The Rest of Forever

  * * *

  The Castaways Series

  1 Kindred Spirits

  2 Starting Over

  3 Keeping Secrets

  * * *

  Firsts & Forever/Castaways Crossover

  Making Merry

  Chapter 1

  “I haven’t been this uncomfortable since my dad and his third wife showed me photos of their summer vacation.” Skye glanced at me, and I explained, “They went on a clothing-optional yoga retreat. I still get twitchy whenever anyone utters the phrase ‘downward dog’ around me.”

  My friend looked sympathetic. “I know you really didn’t want to come here,” he said, as he waved his hand to indicate the crowded nightclub, “but I’m proud of you for giving it a shot.”

  I slid off the barstool and called, over the relentlessly upbeat music, “So since I have, in fact, given it a shot, can we go now? If we hurry, we can still make the nine o’clock screening of Aliens at the Piedmont.”

  “You know you own that on Blu-ray, right?”

  “What’s your point?”

  Just then, a skinny guy with a mustache worthy of a 1980s porn star swooped in and asked, “Wanna dance, hottie?”

  “No thanks.”

  Pornstache got up in my personal space and ran his gaze down the length of me. “You’re cute. What are you, black? Asian?”

  “Yes.”

  That threw him off his game for a moment. “Yes to what part of that?”

  “Yes, I’m black and Asian, and no, I don’t want to dance.”

  “Come on, sexy. Just one spin around the dance floor.”

  “You know, I would,” I told him, as I scratched my chest, “but my full-body herpes is flaring up, and dancing makes me itch something fierce.”

  He couldn’t get away from me fast enough after that. Skye raised a brow and asked me, “Is full-body herpes even a thing?”

  “God, I hope not. So, we can still make the movie if we leave right now.”

  I’d started to inch toward the exit, but my escape route was cut off by my friend Dare, who intercepted me while juggling a trio of huge, over-the-top cocktails. “Oh, come on.” He sounded exasperated. “We’ve only been here fourteen minutes, and you’re already trying to leave? You haven’t even had a drink yet. Grab the blue one in the center, before I drop these.”

  The beverage in question had several items jutting from it, including a massive fruit skewer, a swizzle stick in the shape of a merman, and a purple bendy straw. I shot him a look and said, “Really?”

  Dare handed his husband a frozen drink layered to form a rainbow, then brushed his dark hair out of his eyes and told me, “Skye has a thing for touristy cocktails, the kitschier the better. I figured you and I should join in, because why not?”

  “Um, because I already don’t blend in, and now I look like my turnip truck is parked out front?”

  “Speaking of blending in,” Skye said, “can I just—”

  “Fix me?”

  “You don’t need to be fixed. I was just going to suggest a few minor adjustments.”

  I took a sip from the bendy straw, then set aside my drink and said, “Knock yourself out.”

  Predictably, the first thing he did was take off my tie. Skye was a metal sculptor with blue hair, and he’d actually worn a pair of overalls to the bar, along with a T-shirt that featured a picture of a Smurf. No wonder my necktie was at the top of his hit list. Meanwhile, Dare had come straight from his dance studio and was wearing an oversized black sweater with warm-up pants, so neither of them qualified as fashion experts.

  Skye unfastened the top three buttons on my light blue Oxford shirt and suggested rolling back my cuffs, so I’d seem more relaxed and approachable. I did as he asked, then refastened two of the three buttons. He and Dare leaned back in unison and assessed my look, and Skye swooped back in and tried to fluff my slicked-down hair. “Dude, there’s a shitload of gel in there,” he muttered. He wiped his hands on his overalls before declaring my new look “better overall.”

  When I turned on the camera and held out my phone so I could see myself on the screen, a guy with pink hair and sparkly gold eyeshadow bounced into the frame. He yelled, “Photobomb,” tapped the button to take a picture, and flashed me a huge smile before disappearing into the crowd.

  “He was cute,” Dare said. “You should go ask him to dance.”

  I returned the phone to my pocket and shook my head. “He was obnoxious, and I don’t dance.”

  Dare stared at me like I was insane and pointed out, “You’re literally a dancer, Rick.”

  “That’s totally different. Just because I moonlight with your dance troupe doesn’t mean I want to go out there and do what the rest of those guys are doing. Most of them aren’t even dancing. They’re either wiggling or dry-humping, sometimes both simultaneously. A choreographed routine is one thing. But I’m not going to wedge myself into that sweaty mass of bodies and improvise.” I noticed the pink-haired guy had gotten himself into a bear sandwich, right in the center of the packed dance floor.

  Dare asked, “What’s the one thing I keep telling you, over and over again?”

  “That I don’t always have to be technically perfect, and that it’s okay to loosen up a bit and have fun.”

  “Right!” The song changed, and Pinky started dancing by himself. Dare tilted his head toward the dance floor and told me, “Now’s your chance.”

  A moment later, the guy climbed onto one of the tables and started twerking, and I frowned and muttered, “He’s the very last thing I need.”

  “So, pick someone else,” Skye said. “Since this is a singles event, everybody’s here to meet people, aside from your pit crew.” He gri
nned at Dare and leaned against him.

  “I appreciate the fact that you’re both trying to help, and that you gave up your Saturday night to try to ease me back into the dating world. But now that we’re here, I just…I don’t know….”

  Skye’s expression turned sympathetic. “It’s been over two years, Ricky. I know you were devastated by the way your last relationship ended, but don’t you think dating again might help put it behind you?”

  I said, “I thought we were clear on what was supposed to happen with that subject.”

  “We were never to speak of it again.”

  “Right.” I pulled a raffle ticket from my shirt pocket and said, “Just to prove I’m not a hopeless case, I’m going to turn this in. I’ll even finish this concoction.” I raised the neon blue cocktail in a toast. We all clinked our glasses together and took a drink, and then I turned to Dare and asked, “But then, can we please be done? I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I know these tickets were expensive, and I really appreciate the fact that you guys did this for me. But this is just….”

  “Too much.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I knew as soon as we walked in that this was going to make you uncomfortable. Go turn in the ticket, and then let’s get out of here,” Dare said. I hurried away before he changed his mind.

  The singles event was sponsored by a dating app called Heart2Heart, and it was a fundraiser for charity. Dozens of bars worldwide were hosting similar events, and each location featured a raffle with various events, activities, and excursions as the prizes. Two names would be drawn at random for each prize. Then both winners would show up at the designated time and place to enjoy loads of awkwardness with a whiff of stranger danger. Or a blind date. Same thing.

  It seemed like a terrible idea on multiple levels, but some of the prizes were pretty sweet. There was a wine tasting trip to the Napa Valley, dinner and a night at the theater in San Francisco, and a sunset picnic on a sailboat in the Monterey Bay, among others. But they all involved being paired with someone totally random, and what were the chances that would go well?

  Still though, my friends had spent a fair amount of money on my ticket, and I’d promised them I’d give it a shot. I assessed my choices carefully as I sipped my cocktail. Most of the dates lasted several hours, and a few were all-day events. If I actually won a prize and ended up with someone horrible, I really wouldn’t want to be stuck with them for a huge chunk of time. Hell, even if I ended up with someone nice, they probably wouldn’t like me anyway, so the shortest date possible was clearly the right call. At least we wouldn’t have to prolong our agony.

  One of the prizes was a session in an escape room, and it was located right here in Oakland. The idea was that you and your companion got locked in together and had to find clues and solve puzzles to set yourselves free before the time ran out. I figured I was smart enough to barrel through it quickly, if and when my date and I proved to be less than compatible.

  I dropped my ticket into the escape room’s sealed box and decided I’d given that way too much thought. There were probably three hundred people at the singles event and a total of fourteen dates. Statistically speaking, my odds of winning were slim, and that was fine with me. Even though I’d agreed to show up and participate, I really wasn’t ready to jump back into the dating pool. But now I could say I’d made an effort, and hopefully my friends would stop worrying about me, at least temporarily.

  Before I left the prize display, curiosity compelled me to use my phone’s flashlight and peer through the slot at the top of each box. The more lavish dates, like the trip to Napa, had garnered dozens of raffle tickets. Even low-key outings, like dinner at a nice restaurant, had netted a fair amount of entries. I returned to the box for the escape room and looked inside.

  There were exactly two tickets at the bottom of the otherwise empty container.

  Well, shit.

  The raffle was set to run until midnight, so there was still time for more people to enter, but that didn’t bode well. I should have thrown out my ticket. At the very least, I should’ve had the sense to check the boxes ahead of time and not pick the one where I was almost guaranteed to end up on a blind date.

  But at least I could go home, now that I’d completed my mission and turned in the ticket. I left my glass on the bar and headed to the restroom. It was nearly as crowded as the club itself, with newly formed couples getting busy in the corners and some of the stalls. How romantic.

  I sidestepped two guys grinding on each other beside the sinks and checked my reflection in the mirror. My half-Korean, half-African American heritage had bestowed me with dark eyes, a slightly tan complexion, and black hair that had no damn idea what it was supposed to be doing. Skye’s attempts at fluffing it made me look like I’d lost a fight with a leaf blower, and I tried to tamp it down a bit before stepping into one of the stalls.

  Just then, my phone buzzed. The message from Dare said he’d requested a Lyft, and he and Skye were going to wait for me out front. In the next instant, the stall door slammed open. Two people stuffed themselves through it and knocked my phone into the toilet as they bounced off me. I yelled, “What the actual fuck!”

  The couple had been making out wildly, and they seemed startled as they came up for air and looked around. The fact that one of them was the guy with pink hair didn’t surprise me. His partner, a beefy jock type, muttered, “Sorry, dude.”

  Pinky said, “Oops,” before dragging jock boy out of the stall, and I cringed as I plunged my hand into the toilet.

  After I mummified the phone in paper towels and washed my hands six times, I left the restroom and headed for the exit. Along the way, a cute guy flashed me a flirtatious smile and called, “Leaving already?”

  There was a time when I would have taken the bait and struck up a conversation. That was back when I was still optimistic enough to take chances and put myself out there. But now, I just nodded and kept walking.

  Chapter 2

  The following Friday, I rode a rumbling, historic streetcar down to Jack London Square. Normally, the quaint collection of shops and restaurants near the waterfront would have been bustling with activity, but not that day. After I got off at my stop, I walked three blocks to a business called The Great Escape, in weather I would have described as blustery, if I lived in the Hundred Acre Wood.

  Not surprisingly, I’d gotten the news on Monday that I’d won the blind date. When I asked the caller about it, he’d confirmed that particular prize had only received two entries. I’d spent the rest of the week working on that whole mustering enthusiasm thing, but had failed pretty spectacularly. I just couldn’t shake the gray cloud that seemed to follow me everywhere.

  Ironically, literal gray clouds were following me that September afternoon. What looked like a pretty major storm was brewing over the nearby estuary, and it was just a matter of time before the sky opened up. Wind tugged at my coat as I paused on the sidewalk and took a look at the place where I’d be spending the next hour or so.

  The business was housed in an elegant Victorian that had probably been built at the turn of the last century. It looked a lot like the house I’d grown up in, except that this one had recently received a snazzy new paint job in five or six shades of green. That brought out the period details and called attention to several attractive stained glass windows.

  A banner above the front porch read “Grand Opening,” and it fluttered in the ever-increasing wind. As I jogged up the steps, the banner broke free at one end and started whipping around wildly. I had to fight it off on my way into the building, and in the next instant, it sailed off down the waterfront. If I was someone who believed in omens, that would have been a bad one.

  Once inside, I took off my coat and looked down at myself. I was wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, and a gray hoodie, which sent a pretty clear message about how invested I was in this date. A short, red-haired kid of about twenty rushed over to me with a big smile and took my coat as he exclaimed, “Welcome! Ar
e you Patrick or Ryan?”

  “Patrick. Rick, actually. Only my dad uses my full name.”

  “Well, come on in, Rick. I’ve got you all set up in the library on the top floor. I just need you to sign a waiver and turn in your phone, and then you can head upstairs and make yourself comfortable. By the way, somebody from Heart2Heart dropped off a few goodies for you and your date. You’ll see them when you get up there.”

  “Great. So, two questions: why am I signing a waiver, and why are you taking my phone?”

  The red-haired kid stepped behind a desk to the left of a curving staircase and hung my coat on a hook as he explained, “The waiver is just a formality. My uncle, who owns this place, is afraid of getting sued in case someone twists an ankle or, you know, freaks out about getting locked in or something. And I’m supposed to take your phone so you can’t look up the answers to the puzzles. You have two hours to escape, and the week’s best times win prizes.” He gestured at a chalkboard behind him, which was labeled “The Greatest Escapees” and included a list of names and times. The fastest was a group of three, who’d solved the puzzles in fifty-seven minutes. I felt sure I could beat that.

  I skimmed the fairly standard form and signed it, and before I handed over my phone, I sent Dare a quick text, which read: I’m here. My date hasn’t arrived yet, so there’s nothing to report. I have to turn in my phone, so I’ll message you when it’s over. My friend replied with “have fun” and way too many exclamation points, and when I handed the phone to the kid, he locked it in the top drawer of his desk.

  “My name’s Benji,” he said. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. There’s an intercom to the left of the door, you’ll see it when you’re in the library. There’s also a timer directly above it, which will be counting down your two hours. The doors will unlock automatically if you don’t solve the puzzles before the time runs out. And if you need to leave early, just call me. I’ll send the code to the keypad on your door and the locks will disengage. Any questions?”