by Meg Maguire
“Oh yeah. I’m sure I’ll have it fixed in five.” Mentally, he crossed his fingers. She didn’t strike him as a woman who liked to be kept waiting. “Your nose looks better,” he offered. Not as swollen as yesterday. And she seemed less intent on murdering him, if only by a fraction.
“Just be quick, please.”
“I probably connected the wrong wire or something simple like that. The electrics in this place are ancient. Half the wiring’s still knob and tube, and all the old labels have flaked off.” He smiled hopefully, but she headed back toward the locker room.
Too bad he’d bashed her in the face and tripped her. He’d totally have asked her out if he didn’t suspect she hated him. Although maybe if he fixed this stupid system, she’d change her mind about him. Yeah. Save the day at the very last minute, and she’d forget all about the injuries.
He turned back to the panel, spurred by this mission. Where could he invite her to go? What did lady-ninjas enjoy doing, off the clock? He could just let her pick and go along for the ride. He’d overheard the fighter guys teasing her about a blind date. Those never panned out. She was as good as single. And she was really pretty and different, and it was sexy, the way she looked at him, all...skeptical. He’d gone out with a couple girls since his divorce, but he’d found the process frustrating. Women were so polite on first dates, then you got your hopes up and called the next day, only to find out they weren’t into you...?
A woman like this one wouldn’t bother with the cheery agreeableness. She’d tell him point-blank that walking along the beach in the dead of winter was a terrible idea, unlike that woman he’d met the other week. Alicia? Alyssa? Didn’t matter now. She’d dodged his call asking about a second date, texting a tardy, Not into it. Sorry.
Damn. You spent six years off the market and when you rejoined the dating world, everything was different. You had to treat your Facebook page like a police report and learn how to text. You had to find yourself on Google and try to guess what a stranger would make of the results.
Patrick shook his head, singling out the last connection still to test. He swapped its wire with another, holding his breath.
With a bleep, the security panel’s Satanic little red light turned...green!
“Yes, you beautiful bastard.” Just tighten that screw and—
The lights went out with a crackle. “Uh oh.”
He loosened the screw. Nothing.
Steph’s voice came through the darkness. “Hello?”
“Yeah,” he called. He headed toward the locker room, guided by the scant glow of the streetlights coming through the high windows. “I’m still here.”
“What happened to the lights?”
“I’m not exactly sure. But good news! The locks are working.”
“That’s great, but it’s ten degrees out and I need to dry my hair. Could you get the power back on? I’m in a hurry, here.”
“Hang on.”
He fumbled for his Maglite, illuminating the space between them. Steph was dressed in her towel again, her long wet hair plastered to her neck and shoulders. Quite without meaning to, he let the beam drift down to her chest.
“Can I help you find something?” she demanded.
He hoisted his gaze to her face, along with the beam.
“Oh Jesus.” Her hands flew up to block the blinding light, an elbow clutching the towel in place.
He aimed the flashlight at the ground. “Sorry.” He sure wound up using that word a lot around her. “My bad. And sorry about, you know. Your chest. It’s... That wasn’t my fault. That was just biology. You know. Because you’re in a towel. Sorry.”
He wished she’d just go and get dressed. His attention was being dragged down, down, from her chin to her neck to her collarbone, her freckled skin dotted with water, hair dripping. He hauled his eyes back up. “Maybe you should...you know. Put some clothes on?”
“I’m not done with my shower. Maybe you should fix whatever you broke so I can get on with what I need to.”
Again, his gaze dropped to her breasts, utterly by accident.
She gaped at him. “Oh my God.” And with a mighty glare, she flashed him.
Patrick blinked, barely registering the glimpse of full-frontal female.
She reknotted her towel. “Curiosity satisfied? I’m a natural redhead. I’m sure you were wondering. Now fix. This.”
Never mind the wiring he’d botched—Patrick was more worried about the stuff short-circuiting in his head. “Uh...”
“Listen, Patrick McFlan O’Shanahan or whatever your last name is—”
“It’s Doherty.”
She tossed her arms heavenward. “Of course! Of course it is.”
Never piss off a redhead, his dad’s voice echoed. Too late. “You realize you’re the most Irish-looking thing that ever was, right?”
“I’ve got a date in forty-five minutes. I haven’t had an excuse to smell nice in over six months, let alone one that involves a hot doctor, and I am not missing this. So whatever you messed up, fix it.”
“What’s the magic word?”
“Do you want to stay employed?”
Right. Close enough. He could let the rudeness slide in light of him invading her privacy, clocking her in the face, tripping her, trapping her at work late, ogling her, blinding her, and endangering her chances with some fancy doctor.
“It’s probably just a tripped fuse or something.” Or something. Patrick’s electrical chops were suspect under the best of circumstances. He’d been certified by a buddy he’d graduated high school with, and landed this contract through his cousin. So no, Patrick wasn’t the most qualified guy for the gig, but hey—a job was a job. And he goddamn needed this one.
“If for some reason I couldn’t fix it...”
Her brow rose.
“What about what’s his name? The manager? He said he lives upstairs. He could at least come down and maybe take over, so you can go on your—”
“He’s in California ’til Tuesday.”
“Oh.”
“We’re probably the only people in the entire building.”
“Hang on. Let me check the fuse box—could be a totally simple solution.”
Her eyes were blazing hot, burning his back as he crossed to the panel in the far corner. He stole a backward glance as he swung the metal door open. She hadn’t budged. She was just standing there, glaring daggers at him, arms locked over her chest—her modest but perfectly feminine chest. He fiddled with the connections by the shaky beam of the flashlight, but nothing. Not so much as a flicker. Frowning his apology, he returned to the seething statue formerly known as...Sara? No, that wasn’t it.
“I’ll just run up to my truck and grab a book. It’s got, like, every electrical issue there is and how to fix it.”
Her narrowed eyes said he’d better be literally running.
“Hang on.” He jogged for the front exit. He fairly slammed bodily into one of the double doors—the bar depressed but the lock didn’t budge. “Ow. Damn.” He shook his aching wrist. He gave the other side a fruitless push. “It’s fine,” he called as he hurried toward the rear emergency exit. “Just some glitch with the new system.”
He grabbed the handle and twisted it down—nothing. Twisted it up, another big heap of nothing. “Oh come on.”
“No,” she said, striding over by the light of her phone and elbowing him aside. “No, no, no.” She grasped the handle, twisting and tugging and pushing and pulling in every possible combination. “Oh, you are kidding me.” She checked her screen, her sigh rattling with frustration and despair.
“Let me just disarm the system.” He ran for the front.
“No need to rush,” she called. “There’s no way I’m making it on time now.”
But there was also no way Patrick was giving her any more reasons to think he was useless. If he was going to screw all this up, the least he could do was be speedy about it.
He flipped the security system’s plastic panel up, but something was wrong. No red
light, but no green light, either. The screen was black. That shouldn’t be. It was supposed to connect to the same power supply the emergency lights ran off—
What emergency lights? he had to wonder. They hadn’t come on when he’d blown the main ones. “Oh crap.”
“No,” she said, stalking over. “No ‘oh crap.’ Why ‘oh crap’?”
“Listen, I’m sorry, but I can’t fix this. I don’t even know what I did.”
She blinked at him. “But that’s your job. You’re the guy we’d call to come and fix this.”
“If I could get at my book, maybe I’d stand a chance. But this thing’s as dead as the lights.” He tapped the security console with his flashlight.
She rubbed her temples. “You are a terrible electrician.”
“I know. But I’m an amazing carpenter.”
She gaped. “Then what are you doing here, botching a job you’re not even qualified for?”
Keeping a roof over my head? “Don’t worry, I’m licensed.”
“Somehow that doesn’t comfort me.” She wandered a few paces away, face lit by her phone’s screen. She put it to her ear, staring at Patrick as it dialed.
“Hello, Dylan...? Yes, it is. Um, I’ve been better. I’m really sorry about this, but I have to miss our date. I’m sorry it’s so last minute, but I’m trapped at work...No, I’m actually trapped at work. We’re having a new security system installed and the electrician’s managed to lock us in with no power...Yes, I’m looking at him right now. I’ll tell him.” She put the phone to her shoulder and told Patrick, “He says you owe him a date.”
“I’m not really into doctors.”
She spoke to her phone. “I’m so sorry about this. Want to touch base when you’re back in town...? Okay. Great.”
Patrick whispered loudly, “Tell him I said you look great naked, and he’s totally missing out.”
For a breath she beamed poison at him, then returned to her call. “No, thank you, really. I was looking forward to tonight...What are the chances, right? Yeah, you, too. Good night.” She hung up looking defeated, but calmer.
“Won’t it be cute,” Patrick said, “when you guys get married, and you get to tell this story during the toast?”
It didn’t look as though cute were quite the word she’d have picked to describe this situation. “You have a half hour to get us out of here before I call the fire department.” She turned to head back to the locker room.
“Wait, wait, wait.” He tailed her, stumbling over a gym mat. “Don’t do that.”
She wheeled around. “Why on earth not? We’re trapped in a building with no power, with no working exits and no way to fix it. How is this not fire department–worthy?”
“Because whatever comes after that is probably going to cost an arm and a leg—getting some emergency electrician out here, or whatever they’d do. And whatever comes after that will definitely get me fired.”
“No offense, but you ought to be fired.”
“Listen...” He dredged his memory for her name, but the image of her naked body seemed to have crowded it out. “Sorry—what’s your name again?”
“Steph.”
“Right, right. Listen, Steph, I’ve got a mortgage to pay and—” The flashlight beam had dropped to her chest again. He raised it enough to register the murder in her eyes. “Sorry. I can’t lose this job.”
“You can’t perform this job.” She snatched the flashlight from him, illuminating her chin ghost-story style, the more seductive parts of her mercifully lost in the shadows.
“Let me call my cousin. He owns the company and he’s a way better electrician than me. I’ll get him to help me figure out what I messed up, and maybe you, me and him are the only people who’ll ever need to know about any of this...?” He let her see how desperate he felt, gave her the shifty hound-dog eyebrows and everything.
“Do you have any concept of how unprofessional this is?”
He ignored the temptation to suggest that flashing strange men in your place of work wasn’t exactly Employee of the Year material, either. “I do.”
“If there was a fire, we would die in here. And given how great my evening’s going so far, that’s the obvious next step.”
“Please. Let me call my cousin, and if he can’t walk me through it...” What, then? He didn’t have the first clue, but he really couldn’t lose this job. If he did, his house would go next, an idea too awful to contemplate. “Lemme call him, okay? Please, Steph?”
Her shoulders dropped. “Fine. I’m going to finish my shower, and if you still don’t have a clue by the time I’m dressed, I will call 9-1-1. I’m not sleeping in here all night.”
“Great. I’ll need my flashlight back, though.”
She slapped it onto his palm, hard enough to sting, and relit her phone, illuminating her way into the locker room.
3
STEPH TOWELED OFF by her phone’s scant glow and pulled on her date clothes.
Any second now, she chanted in her head. Any second now, the lights would come back on. Please, let them come back on. She didn’t want to spend the night here. Her evening had sucked hard enough already.
But she also didn’t want to get Patrick fired. Technically he probably deserved it, but he reminded her too much of her younger brother, Tim. Sweet guy, but so clueless. She’d be angry to hear about anybody getting Tim fired for screwing something up—which he probably did every single day at the auto shop where he worked—and it made the idea of doing the same to Patrick feel gross. Though she would firmly suggest he look into a third vocation.
She found him in the back corner of the gym before the open fuse box, talking on his phone, flashlight gripped between his arm and ribs.
“No,” he was saying, “it doesn’t have one. This thing’s practically made of mammoth tusks. Half of it’s still K and T.”
Steph tugged the flashlight free, aiming it at the panel as he poked and fussed.
“Thanks,” he mouthed.
The fuse box was a massive thing, with rows and rows of toggle switches and several dead, frayed wires leading nowhere. This building was easily over a hundred years old, and not well maintained. Perhaps this would be a tricky puzzle for even a decent electrician to solve. Maybe he was a decent electrician. Maybe his evening was proving even more frustrating than hers. She felt embarrassed for bitching him out.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think so. Hang on.” He set his phone down and pulled on a pair of gloves from his tool belt. Steph stepped away a pace, watching his back flex as he messed with something or other. She could see the shapes of his lats and traps and the swell of his deltoid, and wondered how he’d gotten those. She’d always had a weakness for a man with a nice back. She pondered what he might look like, doing push-ups with his shirt off—
Suddenly, a miracle.
She gasped as the overhead lights flickered to life with buzzes and ticks. Patrick whooped and picked up his phone. “You hear that? You are a lifesaver. I owe you. Again. Okay, go back to sleep. Oh—who won tonight? Nice. Later, man.”
He turned to Steph, beaming and incredulous. Smiling this way, he made her forget how annoying he was in light of how handsome he was. Nothing flashy, just an honest sort of face, but that smile lit him up. It lit her up, too, in ways she’d sworn she was done feeling toward guys like Patrick Doherty.
“Okay,” he said. “Now all I have to do is make sure the security system’s working and we can get the hell out of here.”
They walked to the front of the gym.
“Green light!” he said as the panel came into view. But his smile drooped as they got closer. Not green—yellow.
“What does yellow mean?” Steph asked, pushing on the bar of the door. Still locked.
“I dunno.”
They peered at the little digital screen. Custom settings lost. Enter access PIN to reactivate default settings.
“That’s okay,” Patrick said. “It’ll only take a minute to re-program the hours.” He crouched for
the manual, finding the label printed with the device’s serial number and code.
“Four nine four, zero two two...” He hit Enter. The light turned red. PIN not recognized.
“Hmm.” He entered the digits again. PIN not recognized. 5 incorrect PINs will result in system lockdown. Two chances blown.
“Let me see.” Steph gave it a try, but he hadn’t misread the numbers. PIN not recognized. 5 incorrect PINs will result in system lockdown. “What the hell?”
“It worked earlier. Maybe there’s some other code in here, for this situation...” He flipped through the booklet. “Or I could look up troubleshooting tips on my phone.”
Dear God, the so-called expert they’d hired was going to Google his way out of this? Wilinski’s really did need all the help it could get.
“This is still an improvement,” he said.
“How?”
“We’ve got power again. And lucky for you, I got that new flat-screen all wired up. Why don’t you watch a movie or something? I’m sure I’ll figure this out in no time.”
Steph wished she believed him, but nothing he’d yet done had instilled her with even the tiniest speck of confidence. “Fine.”
She dried her hair in the locker room then grabbed a sports drink from the fridge in the office, jotting it on the lengthy I.O.U. list Mercer kept taped to the wall.
In the screening room there was a shelf lined with VHS tapes and DVDs—old boxing matches and MMA footage, plus a nice library of fight flicks. She picked The Karate Kid, her favorite from kindergarten. The movie had probably shaped the entire course of her life. She hit Play. Two recliners sat side by side, and she plopped into one with a weary huff.
She was supposed to be at a bar, nursing a vodka and tonic and hitting it off with Dr. Dylan. Yet here she was, drinking Powerade at work well after closing time. Story of her life. The past couple years, she’d often lamented feeling trapped in the gym. This was just sick—the first week of her fight retirement and here she was, literally trapped in one.
She was just nodding off, mouthing along with the movie dialogue, when a knock on the doorframe jerked her wide awake.
