by Jackie Lau
A growl nearly escaped his lips, but he managed to hold it back. He didn’t want her to hear him.
He padded to the washroom, leaned back against the counter, and ran his hand over his forehead again. More sweat. There was no way he’d be able to sleep if he didn’t get himself off. He fisted his cock and thought of...not her.
Just another woman, maybe in her thirties, who had dark hair and lots of curves and looked very good in red. No resemblance to the woman next door, of course; that would be wrong. She was riding him, her hair curled over her naked breasts. This woman was an expert in her own pleasure. Gloried in it.
He came in his hand and stayed there for a minute, catching his breath. Then he cleaned himself up and ran a damp washcloth over his face before returning to his bedroom, which was now quiet. He checked on his rock collection before turning out the lights and falling asleep.
But at four in the morning, he was awoken from his dream about primordial soup by a thump—perhaps she should consider moving her headboard farther from the wall?—and he was immediately hard again.
God, he was too old for this.
* * *
Anil (last name: unknown) had been an excellent sex partner, but unfortunately for Nicole, he didn’t live in Toronto. No, he lived in the US and was just in town visiting friends, so it was unlikely she’d see him again. Next time she wanted sex, she’d have to find someone new.
Too bad.
Tuesday was her birthday, and Nicole headed home alone after work. Thus far, it hadn’t been a very good thirty-fourth birthday. She’d gone to a restaurant in the PATH for lunch—one she’d discovered not long after starting this job several years back, when she’d been lost. Because everyone got lost in the PATH at some point. Anyway, the food had been good today, as usual, but she’d gotten hot sauce on her blouse, which she was now hiding with a scarf.
It was terribly cold outside—the coldest day of the year, apparently. She wrapped her arms around her as she walked home from the subway station. Her teeth chattered, and snow crunched under her boots. She passed her favorite ramen restaurant, but she just wanted to go home and have a bath. Then maybe eat instant ramen.
Yes, it would be a rather sad birthday, but she reminded herself that she had plans on the weekend, and thirty-seven people had written on her Facebook wall, not that she was counting.
Five years ago, staying in on her birthday would have been unthinkable, but now...well. So it went.
Once inside her building, she checked her mail. There was a bill—she should switch this one to electronic—as well as a bright purple envelope, which made her smile. Her sibling always sent her a birthday card. Last year, to Cam’s distress, it had arrived two days late.
She texted Cam. You timed Canada Post perfectly this year!
By the elevators, Nicole saw her new neighbor. He wore a gray wool coat and what she thought of as a dad beret, since her dad had owned something similar in her childhood. Except this beret had super cool ear flaps.
He gave her a slight smile and a nod, which she returned.
She tapped her foot as she waited for the elevator, impatient to take off these boots and drink wine in the bath. She had modest wishes for her birthday this year. No ponies or unicorns or knights in shining armor. Or a trip to Disneyland, which she’d wished for when she was six.
Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her purse.
Guess what? Cam said. Po Po went viral on Twitter.
Nicole read those words again. They didn’t make sense. She hadn’t been aware that her grandmother even knew what Twitter was.
A second later, Cam sent a link just as the elevator arrived. Nicole stepped onto the elevator, her neighbor following, then clicked the link. It might not load in the elevator, but dammit, she wanted to know what was going on.
Her neighbor pushed the button for the seventeenth floor, the doors closed, and they were off. Just a few more seconds until she could find out what Po Po was doing on Twitter and then get out of these clothes and—
The elevator jerked to a halt.
Chapter 3
When the elevator stopped suddenly before the thirteenth floor, the lights went out. A moment later, another set of lights—emergency lights, David presumed—came on.
The woman standing next to him let out a hysterical laugh and muttered, “Fuck me.”
The first words she’d said in his presence and they were those words.
She didn’t mean it like that, of course, but his cheeks heated.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Claustrophobic?”
“No, I’m fine. This just wasn’t what I needed today.”
David was a pro at being stuck in an elevator. Most of those times had been back in grad school. He really should have stopped taking those old elevators, but his lab had been on the top floor.
He pressed the emergency call button and recognized the voice of the man who had the evening shift at the front desk. The man said there was a power outage in the building, then mentioned something about a generator or a battery backup...
But David was having trouble paying attention because the woman had stepped closer to him. He’d never been so close to her before, and she was scrambling his brain. How embarrassing.
He managed—sort of—to get his brain cells in working order, just in time for the concierge to tell them to sit tight for a few minutes.
The woman beside him took off her jacket, set it down on the floor, and then sat on top of it, her booted feet to one side. She wore a black skirt suit and a colorful scarf. Fancier than she’d been dressed when he’d seen her the other day. He wondered what she did for work.
David wasn’t sure whether or not he should speak. What would she prefer? Was it worse to be stuck in an elevator in silence, or...? He didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable.
He decided to start with sitting down beside her. She was in the process of opening a purple envelope, and when she pulled out a greeting card, she snickered. She held it up so he could see.
Hap-pea birthday to you! it said. There was a picture of three smiling green peas in a pod, each wearing a party hat.
“It’s my birthday today,” she said.
“Is getting stuck in an elevator interrupting any plans?” He imagined someone coming over later tonight and the noises he’d hear from next door.
“No plans, except a warm bath, wine, and instant ramen.”
“Sounds better than my last birthday. It was a Friday, and I spent the evening marking midterms. And my birthday is Valentine’s Day.”
Even as he spoke the words, he was thinking of her in a bathtub. His brain couldn’t seem to help itself where she was concerned.
No! Stop it!
It had been a while since he’d been this affected by a woman.
When she laughed, it pleased him a rather stupid amount. All he’d done was reveal the unfortunate timing of his birthday. He couldn’t help wishing she’d make a subtle movement closer to him as they sat on the floor of the dim elevator. Give him a suggestive wink, a seductive tilt of her head. But he certainly didn’t expect it.
“Midterms?” she said.
“I’m a professor. It was a first-year geology course.”
“I had to take geology in my first year of engineering.”
“Are you an engineer?”
“No. I did a degree in engineering physics, then a master’s in financial math. I work on Bay Street now.”
Ah. That explained the nice work clothes.
“I’m Nicole.” She held out her hand, and he shook it.
“David.”
“You live next door to me, I think.”
“I do.” We share a very thin wall.
* * *
When the elevator had halted and Nicole had sworn, David had turned somewhat pink, and she’d figured there were a few possibilities.
First of all, he could be one of those men who thought it was wrong to be alone with any woman but his wife or girlfriend, even if nothing
was happening between them.
Second of all, he could be uncomfortable with swearing.
But being stuck in an elevator was definitely a situation that merited swearing, wasn’t it?
The third option was that the color in his face had something to do with being stuck, like he was about to freak out. But he’d been pretty calm about the situation so far.
The fourth possibility was that she’d simply been seeing things in the crappy emergency lighting of the elevator.
Now, that seemed the most likely.
Because David—whose name she’d learned a mere five minutes ago—had been friendly, and there were certainly worse people with whom she could be stuck in an elevator. Her boss, for example, who’d have a total freak out about his time being wasted.
For a few seconds, Nicole had felt uneasy about being stuck with a man she didn’t know, but David had, thus far, fit her initial impressions of him, when she’d seen him in the hallway a few days ago. The kindly husband type.
“Some birthday I’m having.” She let out a rueful chuckle and looked at her phone. “I never get a signal in these elevators. I wouldn’t normally care, but my grandma went viral on Twitter, and I want to see why. The link goes to a TikTok video, and dammit, I want it to load!”
He laughed, and it sounded loud in the confined space. “Your grandma’s on TikTok?”
“Apparently? I feel like the whole world’s been turned upside down. But come to think of it, it must have something to do with Kelsey. That’s my cousin. My grandma used to live alone, but she’s getting old. She refuses to go to a retirement home, though, nor will she move in with either of her daughters. So now my younger cousin is living with her. Kelsey doesn’t have to pay rent, but she does have to put up with my grandma, so...who knows if it’s worth it.”
“Is she in Toronto?”
“Yep. My whole family is in Toronto. Well, the family I actually talk to.” Some parts of her family were a mess, but she didn’t need to tell the man she’d just met about that.
She adjusted her position on the floor and stared at the elevator buttons. They’d been stuck for close to ten minutes. She hadn’t been worried before, but now she remembered watching a movie about three teenagers stuck in an elevator during a thunderstorm. The elevator phone was broken and nobody could hear them call for help. It had ended badly.
Next, she recalled a movie in which two people had gotten stuck in an elevator during a storm, it had flooded, and they’d nearly drowned.
But they’d managed to escape just in the nick of time...only to be eaten by a shark. Yes, they were eaten by a shark in a parking garage.
Then there was the TV show about someone who’d fallen down an elevator shaft and lost their memory...
Don’t be ridiculous, Nicole.
But wasn’t it already ridiculous to be trapped in an elevator on her birthday? Not as ridiculous as being eaten by a shark in a Toronto high-rise, but still.
“You okay?” David asked.
“Just thinking of various horror movies involving elevators. Normal stuff like that.”
“Well, in other movies, good stuff happens in elevators. Like, babies are born.”
“Giving birth in an elevator sounds like a nightmare.”
“That’s fair. I’ll think of something else... Sometimes people kiss in elevators, too.”
It was very, very quiet.
Nicole’s skin prickled, and she tried not to think of kissing David.
His cheeks turned pink again. “I’m not saying that...you know. It’s just the first thing that came to mind. After giving birth. Do you want me to call the front desk again?”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”
There was something about him that she found reassuring. Aside from those few uncomfortable seconds, he put her at ease. The sort of person who came across as stable and dependable. The sort of husband who’d come home when he said he would, who’d never fail to send a text if he was running late.
She found it hard to believe this man wasn’t married.
“Do you live alone?” she asked, just in case Mrs. Kim’s intel had been incorrect. “Anyone waiting upstairs who will worry about you?”
He shook his head. “It’s just me.”
Even though she wasn’t interested in a relationship—and he seemed like a relationship sort of guy—there was some part of her that perked up at the confirmation that he wasn’t living with anyone.
At that moment, the regular elevator lights came back on and the elevator jerked to life.
“Excellent,” David said, standing up and picking up his coat. “Not, of course, that you were bad company but...”
She waved this off. “Don’t worry, I understand.”
It wasn’t long before they reached their floor. Nicole stepped off the elevator and walked down the hallway with David behind her. All the lights were on, so it appeared the power outage was over.
“Happy birthday,” he said as he put his key in the lock. “I hope it improves from here.”
“You, too. I mean... Goodbye. It’s not actually your birthday. Your birthday’s in February. You told me that. But happy birthday if I don’t see you again before then.”
Dear God, what was wrong with her? She wasn’t usually so awkward.
Well, she was having A Day.
She walked into her apartment, glad to be out of the cold weather and out of the elevator at last, and immediately looked at the link that Cam had sent her.
It was a video of her eighty-six-year-old grandmother killing a spider with a wok.
Chapter 4
As David ate his leftover gamjatang for dinner, he kept thinking of Nicole and that birthday card with three peas in a pod. He wanted her to have a nice birthday, but he didn’t want to impose.
Perhaps he could get her a cake?
After dinner, he put on his winter jacket and locked his door. At the elevators, he paused. He lived on the seventeenth floor, so taking the stairs was a little annoying, but since he didn’t want to risk being stuck in an elevator again, he opened the door to the stairwell.
When he reached the street, he looked in the direction of the grocery store, but for some reason, he wanted something more special than a grocery store cake. Even though he was simply being friendly; it wasn’t like he was trying to impress her and ask her on a date.
There was a Filipino bakery around the corner. He’d been in there once before, and they had lots of different things, including a selection of small cakes. That would be perfect.
When he stepped inside, the lady behind the counter scowled. “Closing in five minutes.”
Right. It was nearly seven o’clock.
There was only one small cake left. It was bright purple, similar to the color of the envelope containing Nicole’s birthday card.
“I’ll take this one,” he said.
The lady nodded, still scowling, and efficiently boxed it up and handed it over.
He returned to his building, hesitating again at the elevators before heading for the stairs. By the time he reached his floor, David was huffing. He waited for a moment, until he was breathing less heavily, before knocking on her door.
Nicole opened it right away. She’d taken off her work clothes and was now wearing flannel plaid pajama pants as well as a long-sleeved black T-shirt. It felt a little intimate to see her in such clothes, and he swallowed hard.
“I got you a birthday cake.” He passed it to her. “To make up for being stuck in the elevator.”
“It’s not like you caused the elevator to stop. But thank you.” Her face lit up as she opened the box. “Ube? From the place around the corner?”
He nodded.
“My favorite.”
He was excessively pleased about that.
“You want to come in and help me with it?” she asked.
“Oh, I really shouldn’t.”
She took his hand and pulled him in. “I know the term just started, so you can’t possibly have
midterms to mark yet.”
He wasn’t going to decline now, and when she gestured him toward the breakfast bar, he sat down. Her unit was the mirror image of his. While he wouldn’t say his place was drab, hers had bolder colors, like those red throw pillows on the couch. The décor felt a bit more modern, somehow.
She passed over her phone. “While I cut the cake, you can watch the video of my grandmother.”
He started the video. It showed an elderly Asian woman hobbling toward a spider on the wall. With a wok, she gave the spider a whack—an impressively big whack for someone her size.
The end.
Nicole smiled. “Too bad there’s no video of the time my grandma killed a garter snake in the backyard with a shovel. I was six years old, and it traumatized me. She was trying to tell me that snakes could be very dangerous, and then my dad came outside and explained that garter snakes were harmless. We saw one in the woods later, and he picked it up and tried to get me to hold it, but I refused.”
She handed David a small plate with a quarter of the purple cake, then sat next to him with her own piece of cake.
She slid a forkful into her mouth. “Mmm.”
Nicole probably didn’t intend to be seductive when she ate, but he couldn’t help being a little turned on.
He focused on his own slice of cake and had a bite.
It was, indeed, a good cake.
“Sweet enough for you?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and winked at him.
Before he could formulate a reply, there was a knock at the door.
* * *
Who on earth could be at Nicole’s door at seven thirty on a Tuesday night?
She hopped up from the stool, frankly rather pleased to get away from David. For some reason, she’d started flirting with him, even though she definitely didn’t think of him in that way.
She opened the door cautiously, revealing Po Po and Kelsey.
“Ah, Nicole!” Po Po said. “Guess what? I got virus on the internet.”
Kelsey put a hand to her forehead and shook her head. “No, Po Po. We went over this. The video went viral.”
Po Po waved this away. “Same thing.”
“Cam told me,” Nicole said. “I just watched it.”
