Driving in Neutral

by Sandra Antonelli

  Nearly choking on the last of his own spit, he whipped off his jacket and dropped it on the floor. He mopped moisture drizzling over his eyebrows with his cornflower blue shirtsleeve. In two minutes, he was going to be as wet as Miss Kitty was there in the corner.

  He fished out his phone and quickly dialed the glowing touch pads. A moment later he hollered, “Finn? Can you hear me over this buzzing? Finn? Yeah… Is the power out up there too? Uh-huh… Is he up there yet? Great… When he does, ask him if he’d mind waiting an hour… Why? Oh you’ll love this. I’m trapped in the fucking elevator! Quit laughing. I said… Finn? Finn?” Maxwell coughed as his cell lost reception. His mouth went as dry as Peru’s Atacama Desert. “Oh, bloody wonderful,” he mumbled and covered his eyes with one hand.

  Olivia’s nose began to run. She rubbed it, dabbing gently with the back of her hand. The smiles the man had given her might have been bogus as hell, but it had removed some shadow from his now-shielded eyes, which she noticed were a dark, speckled green that made her think of late summer leaves. Those eyes moved him toward the high end of the handsome scale. It was a pity his personality wasn’t as appealing, but she’d met and spent time with worse men, in spaces smaller than this, and she was grateful he didn’t have BO, bad breath, or a hacking smoker’s cough.

  Without power, the overhead fan had ceased circulating the chilly air, but the elevator still felt like the inside of a sub-zero freezer. Olivia hugged herself and eyed Maxwell’s back and the phone he’d shoved into his pants pocket. She wanted to contact Pete. Not that Pete was going to send sunshiny warmth down through the shaft or make the elevator move, but she could be courteous, explain the delay, and tell him she was trapped with Maxwell: Duke of Grouch. Sadly, her cell phone had no signal.

  The Duke of Grouch’s cell phone seemed just fine.

  Odds were, if she asked to use his phone he’d swear at her, glower and expect her to shrink back the same way his employees probably did. Fortunately, she wasn’t easily intimidated. Larger, more physically menacing men who believed women had no business involving themselves in male pursuits had tried to dissuade her in the past. This blustery man was full of hot air and full of himself just like they’d been. However, in this instance, if she engaged him and asked for his phone, she’d do it in a way that would preclude further shouting inside this confined space. The fact was Lord Crankypants was loud, not homicidal. The worst he could do if she asked to borrow his phone was snap no, so she eased into the request with a bit of friendly chitchat. “It’s Maxwell, isn’t it?” she asked, hoping she sounded affable.

  “Uh, yeah.” With his back planted against the paneled wall, he slid down until he sat, one knee bent, one leg stretched out, his eyes covered by his palms. “Yeah. I’m Maxwell.”

  “What is it you do, Maxwell?”

  “What do I do?”

  “M-hm. Conducting all that important business with your phone, what do you do?”

  “I work here.”

  “I see.” Olivia gave a little laugh and sat on the floor beside him, her teeth chattering.

  The heat his body radiated was noticeable and welcome. The subtle cologne he wore emanated from his heated skin and, for an odd instant, she had the outrageous idea of burrowing against him for warmth and nuzzling into his neck. In the dim light she could make out he was sweating. Perspiration curled the hair around his ears and deepened the silver-shot black tendrils hanging over his fingertips. Wet beads glistened above his hard, compressed mouth.

  How hilarious. He was on fire and she was a North Atlantic iceberg.

  “If it’s not going to interrupt your work, may I use your phone?” she said, careful not to shade the question with any tinge of sarcasm.

  Again, Maxwell tried to inhale deeply. He drew his hands away from his eyes, and he glanced at her darkly, tossing her the phone with a grumbled, “Fine, fine. Go ahead, but you’re wasting your time. The storm’s knocked out the landlines and who knows what else.”

  With a nod of thanks, Olivia dialed and waited for Pete to answer. After a few crackling rings, she was connected to the E&P receptionist.

  “Good morning, Emerson and Pete Animation, this is Michelle,” a woman said with well-honed, professional bubbliness.

  “Hi. I’m supposed to be there at nine-thirty, but I’m—”

  “You must be Ms. Regen. Pete’s been asking about you. I’m afraid you’ll have to take the stairs. The elevators are out of order at the moment.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. I’m actually stuck in one right now, and I’m not so sure we’ll be moving any time soon.”

  “Oh my goodness! I’ll let Pete know.”

  Olivia switched off the phone with a sigh and a shiver. Ignoring the deep freeze that had slithered clear to her bones, she tapped Maxwell and offered back his phone.

  He snatched it the same way he had the penlight and stuffed it into his pocket.

  With another small laugh, she tried to ease the tension and make light of their situation. “This guy’s in the rear of a full elevator,” she said, “and he shouts, ‘Ballroom please.’ The lady standing in front of him turns around and says, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was crowding you.’”

  The woman had said something but Maxwell hadn’t listened, hadn’t heard more than a murmur. Shutting his eyes, he swallowed hard, trying to picture himself on a sunny, empty beach, inhaling lovely salt-scented sea air.

  All that did was make him think of sand and how sweaty he was.

  He dragged his hands down his face with a gasp and opened his eyes to find her sitting close, way too close. “Jesus Christ! Do you have to be here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you have to sit right there?” Disregarding the pain of his knee, and breathing a little too rapidly, he got to his feet and began to hobble about in the tiny space, rolling up his sleeves. “Why do you have to be right there? There’s already too little room as it is!”

  “You’re claustrophobic, aren’t you?”

  “Congratulations on your PhD in observational skills!”

  Olivia stifled a laugh and shook her head. He was acting just like her sister in the throes of a panic attack, except Maxwell was twice Julia’s size and his anxiety was rapidly escalating. Her old coach, Glenn Holland, dealt with Julia’s angst in a straightforward manner. She decided to try the same rational approach he’d also taught his driving team. “Don’t tell me I’m breathing in all your oxygen or something. That’s not very logical. Is it?”

  Maxwell glared at her.

  “Think about it. Do you believe this elevator is hermetically sealed? It was put together in the twenties, wasn’t it? Did they do that sort of thing back then? Did they have that sort of advanced technology for elevators back then?”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Just think about it, Maxwell, and look at me. I haven’t stopped breathing, have I? My face isn’t turning blue from lack of oxygen.”

  “Your lips are bluish,” he said, out of breath.

  “That’s because I’m freezing. Come on, Maxwell. Take a deep breath. I’ll do it with you.”

  “Would you just…shut up?”

  She sneezed again.

  “God bless you!” he snarled.

  Her shivering was uncontrollable now, her teeth chattered. “Could you say that like you mean it?”

  “Look…just…keep quiet, will you?”

  The corners of her mouth briefly twitched. Then she sneezed four times in a row.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake! Here!” Maxwell kicked his jacket over to her.

  “All my life I’ve hoped to meet someone as unpleasant and unhappy as you. Please don’t spoil it for me by suddenly being nice.”

  “I’m not…unhappy.” Maxwell was beginning to pant, his breath shallow and harsh. He knew it was ridiculous, but everything was being compacted. It wasn’t as if the walls were closing in; it was more like his entire body was being incrementally stuffed into a torpedo tube. Where the hell was his bac
kbone? Had it siphoned out through his pores along with every ounce of moisture in his body? “You…don’t know…me. I’m not…unhappy,” he said, trying to catch his breath.

  “I’m sorry. That’s right. You’re not unhappy. You’re just ill-mannered.”

  “Well, do you want it or not, you wet little rodent?” he choked.

  “Wet little rodent? Is that the best you could come up with?”

  “Listen, you soggy chipmunk,” he panted, “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “Oh, I’m just on edge waiting for you to tell me what that is,” Olivia said, looking at him through narrowed eyes as she dragged his jacket over her shoulders. It smelled wonderful, like nutmeg and cardamom and autumn leaves.

  “You’re trying to…” he gulped in air, but it only seemed to go halfway into his lungs before he could continue. Maxwell yanked at his tie again and began unbuttoning his shirt. His galloping heart was on the verge of exploding beneath his ribcage, the pulse racing in his temple, in his neck, in his wrists and groin. His hoarse exasperation shot through his clenched teeth. “You’re trying to disarm me!”

  “Disarm you?”

  “Yes, you waterlogged hamster, you’re trying to get my mind off the fact I’m trapped in a godforsaken elevator with a half-drowned rabbit! It’s not going to work!”

  “You were going along pretty well there with the whole rodent thing, but rabbits are not rodents. They belong to a different order, Lagomorpha, not Rodentia, and why would it be so bad if you were distracted from feeling uncomfortable?”

  “It’s not going to work, so…so…just…quit it,” he puffed.

  “Okay, so then stand there covered in flop sweat and let fear get the better of you.”

  “Shut…up…shut…up…shut up!” Maxwell couldn’t breathe. Well, he could, but it felt as if the air was being squashed back out of his chest as soon as it went in.

  “You’re going to take me down with you, aren’t you? When you pass out—and you’re going to if you keep hyperventilating—you’re going to fall on top of me.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he wheezed, bending forward at the waist to snatch his breath back as if he’d just sprinted 800 meters. Shit, he was hyperventilating.

  No, he was hyper-hyperventilating.

  This was ludicrous. He was nearly forty-eight years old and terrified of being in a very small room simply because it had no window and…his mind suddenly zeroed in on that important point.

  There was no window.

  What if the emergency light died?

  What if the storm outside made the Chicago River flood into the basement of the building like it did back in ’92?

  What if the rubber-coated elevator cables, the cables suspending them in mid-air above nothingness, snapped?

  Any way he looked at it they were locked in this box…trapped in this vault…enclosed in this coffin…sealed in this tomb.

  Instantly, his rapid, shallow breathing picked up speed and he began to twitch involuntarily. His shaking fingers started to curl in toward his wrists, and he sank to the floor heavily. His head slumped toward his bent knee. Camera flash splotches of bluish-white appeared to mar his sight, his peripheral vision compressing into tunneled lines of black. His body capitulated to the oncoming blackout with an incremental steadiness, his hands and feet fizzing into numbness, and he moaned.

  The woman’s cool, faintly clammy hand settled on the back of his neck and her knee brushed against his shoulder as she crouched beside him. Gentle fingers slipped beneath his chin, and she tipped his face up to wipe away the perspiration dripping from his brow and hairline. She held his dim gaze with the kindest brown eyes he had ever seen.

  “Okay, Maxwell. Slow down and we’ll do it together. Keep your eyes on mine. Just look at me. I’ll count to four and we’ll breathe together, in and out. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four and rest for four. Okay? It will be easy. Watch me. Here we go,” she said, her voice low and soothing. She began to count to four then inhaled, nodding at him to do the same while she tallied the seconds with her fingers.

  He struggled to concentrate on her face and wrangled with his breath for a moment, desperate to quash the panic, to get a rhythm, but the air still hitched in his throat.

  With a soft, encouraging smile she began again and he tried one more time as she counted, but his breath snagged halfway down as if caught in a rising bubble.

  He moaned again and she looked at him with a funny expression behind her kind eyes.

  Olivia saw his fear was absolute, his panic an obstacle he wasn’t about to overcome with controlled breathing exercises and calm reassurance. The old paper bag trick was still a handy method to ease hyperventilation. If she’d had one tucked inside her purse she would have whipped it out, but the man was beyond the relaxation techniques she knew and used. There were two obvious solutions, each of them clichéd. The entire elevator situation was a hackneyed scenario straight out of a romantic comedy starring some twenty-something actress and a guy twenty years her senior, but trite predictability was on her side here. Regardless of what she did, he wasn’t going to be happy and Olivia figured she could count on Maxwell’s anger. Anger was easier to deal with than unconscious or an ongoing circle of fear and panic.

  Prepared for a heated reaction, she braced herself on both knees, placed her fingers along the stubble on his cheek and kissed him.

  Chapter 2

  Stunned, his respiration automatically found a rhythm. Without thinking, Maxwell’s hand slid over the wet fabric at her waist. She smelled like rain and spring lavender. His lower lip delicately wedged between hers, delightful warmth telegraphed through his body, and he answered the gentle communication before she had a chance to pull away.

  Maybe it was the rush of adrenaline from his fear, maybe it was her perfume or the fact she tasted faintly of sweet coffee, but something encouraged him to pull her into his lap. Her mouth was warm, but her skin was cold, her chilled bottom damp, and the cool moisture soaked into the thighs of his trousers as her arm went around his neck.

  From the age of sixteen, car racing had given Olivia a rush, but she’d waited until she was several years past forty to do something as stupid, thrilling, and…overwhelmingly erotic as kissing a complete stranger. It didn’t register that she was no longer in complete control of the situation, or her actions. Her lips had parted slightly in enticing discovery, and she was completely lost to the exploration and sensation of kissing. Olivia sighed against his mouth, and that tiny noise seemed to give him incentive to draw her a little closer.

  She was cold, he was warm, and smelled so nice. The fingers she once had on his cheek had traveled around into his hair and her mouth lingered a little longer than intended. He’d relaxed and she was so busy congratulating herself for being so cleverly disarming, that she hadn’t been prepared for how speedily Maxwell recovered his equilibrium or for how suddenly she lost hers.

  She shifted, nuzzling against him. The sweet tip of his tongue met hers and a chill of a different sort sketched tiny lines of delight over her rain-cooled skin. One hand slipped into his unbuttoned shirt and her fingers ran through the sheen of perspiration on his skin to clasp his shoulder.

  Yes, oh, yes, oh, yes. She heard it then, the ’70s disco beat, the high-pitched you kin ring mah bell-ell-ell ring mah bell.

  She nestled into his lap and felt the heat from his thighs and erection pressing into the back of her legs. Olivia realized Maxwell was a completely different breathless powerhouse of nerves to the kind he was before, and ring-a-ling-a-ling she liked it.

  She liked it a lot.

  Yet liking something along these lines wasn’t part of the plan she had mapped out for living her life. In racing, a low center of gravity was key to keeping a car gripped to the track, but Olivia’s center of gravity was slipping, she was losing adhesion and was about to fly off the circuit with a late 70s disco hit stuck in her head.

  Quickly downshifting, and irritated she likened kissi
ng him to racing, she drew her mouth away, pulled his hands from her head and slipped from his lap. Aware of every inch of her own feminine skin, her body was a jumbled mess of surging adrenaline, desire, persistent dampness, and utter disbelief. She pulled the jacket across her chest. The fabric smelled of him with that hint of autumn, nutmeg, and cardamom.

  For a moment, Maxwell chuckled at himself, at her, and the bizarre experience, dabbing at his mouth with a knuckle. “That was pretty disarming,” he muttered. Sheepish self-consciousness tempered his rush of exhilaration. “Can you come up with anything to alleviate my stupendous embarrassment?”

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” she said, rising with a smile and casual shrug, trying to rearrange her dress beneath the blazer. “We all have our irrational fears.”

  “So when do I get to see yours?” His mouth twitched, his grin a little devilish since her dress was twisted, rumpled, and sticking to her. She pulled at it to cover the expanse of stocking she’d exposed as she sat in his lap. He didn’t take his eyes off her.

  Of course, Maxwell didn’t want to take his eyes off her, because then he’d have to acknowledge he was still in an elevator. It felt a hell of a lot better to focus on her with his pulse quickening for a different reason than fear.

  He went on looking, drinking her in the same way he’d tried to suck in the oxygen he’d lacked earlier. The rain had drenched her completely, and her green dress clung to her shape as she moved. He caught a glimpse of the soft curve of her breasts in the v-neckline of her dress, and, when she moved again, he could see a lacy outline of bra and panties, the pink color of skin showing through the translucent wet material.

  Captivated, he shifted again and felt the tightness return to his injured knee and trouser-covered crotch. His jacket hit her mid-thigh and accentuated the sloping curve of her hips as she tried to adjust her dress. Despite the dim light, he’d seen her close up, and very personal. She wasn’t an ingénue, but she was a woman who liked to laugh. He guessed she was close to his age because her small face held the sort of wisdom younger women didn’t typically have. She wore a minimal amount of make-up. Rain had smeared mascara under her eyes, but it looked more red carpet style than raccoon. Her top lip had a Cupid’s bow that made him think of actresses of the ’30s, and there were remnants of lipstick, which he could still taste, on her pink mouth.