The Walsh Brothers

by Kate Canterbary

  "Do you have an engineer looking at the mechanics?" I asked. "A power outage should stop an elevator, not cause it to free fall. Twice. This is a larger system failure, not just an electrical issue."

  "I can assure you, sir, we've got our best guys on it." He cleared his throat. "Get comfortable. This is gonna take some time."

  The intercom's connection clicked off, and Tiel shifted to face me, her lips pursed, eyes wide. "Okay then," she murmured. "Are you sure you're all right?"

  "Yeah," I murmured. "I'm fine. You?"

  She rolled her shoulders, wincing. "I've used a few of my nine lives today, but I'll survive. You seem to know a lot about elevators."

  "My brother." I waved toward the doors. "He's a structural engineer. We work together. He babbles a lot."

  "What do you do?"

  "Architect," I said. "You?"

  "Mmm, well, a bit of everything. I'm in grad school at Berklee, and teach a few undergrad classes. Give music lessons."

  I returned my device to my pocket, and the movement edged me away from Tiel. Gaining some space was necessary and appropriate and healthy, but without thinking, I shifted back immediately. I wanted to crawl into the opposite corner, wrap my arms around myself and breathe—alone—for several minutes, and I couldn't explain why I didn't. She'd already seen me fall apart. She knew about the thin tubing that snaked from my abdomen to the device in my pocket, and had a sense of how it worked. I could think of fewer than ten people on this planet with that much information about me.

  "And don't forget about band camp," I said.

  Grinning, she handed me an earbud and shuffled her playlist. We sat in the stifling heat, our backs to the wall and shoulders pressed together, enjoying the most random compilation of songs ever conceived. She hummed along with most, and sang with the others.

  And it wasn't awkward.

  It should have been awkward.

  We were strangers in an admittedly perilous situation, but I was getting the sense Tiel was immune to the awkward.

  Perhaps she was immune to me, and that was rather intriguing. No one was immune to me. Even my elderly office assistant, Theresa, would cheerily dissect the mess that was my calendar when I asked with a hot, lingering smile.

  Nine songs slipped by, and my attention shifted from controlling my breathing to the pins and needles in my leg. When the emergency lights flashed on again, I rotated my foot tentatively, and groaned at the sensation coursing through my muscles.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  Squeezing my upper thigh, I hissed at the discomfort. "My leg's asleep."

  Tiel shifted, baring a long swatch of inner thigh before righting her skirt and kneeling beside me. Black panties. Maybe navy.

  Panties were my concern only when I was in the process of tearing them off, and I was too busy keeping my crazy in check to acknowledge Tiel's panties. But I did find that expanse of skin fascinating.

  She wrapped her hands around my leg and kneaded, gradually restoring the circulation. It was kind, and it seemed Tiel was unabashedly generous, but her hands were vigorously rubbing less than four inches from my cock. I didn't think she intended that type of blood flow.

  "Hey," she said. "Look at that."

  Oh, Jesus. Please don't call out the tent in my pants.

  I opened my eyes, and glanced to my lap. She pointed to my left hand and her right, and the birthmarks just below our thumbs. They were fingerprint-sized and nearly the same coffee shade.

  "Huh," I murmured.

  "You're my freckle twin," she said. The pad of her thumb swept over my hand, touching the dark spot. "I've never met anyone with my exact same birthmark."

  "And I've never been stuck in an elevator before. Seems like we're murdering statistics this afternoon."

  In that position, I could see straight down her shirt and admire the full breasts gazing back at me.

  Pink. A pink, lacy bra that made me wonder whether her nipples would be the same shade.

  I could spot silicone from across a busy street, but these were as organic as they came. They were lovely, all golden and ripe, and bursting out of that lace. There was some sort of ripened fruit metaphor waiting to be made but I was too preoccupied to think that far ahead.

  "Ahem." I glanced up to meet her bent eyebrow. "See something you like?"

  The smile came to me easily, reflexively. "You have sensational tits."

  I was familiar with only two reactions to that comment: insult and interest. Either I was being slapped across the face or dragged to a private corner, and years of experience taught me the odds always ran close to fifty-fifty.

  Tiel's response was neither.

  She sat back, howling with laughter until tears streamed down her cheeks and she hugged her sides. She bunched her skirt above her knees, exposing her legs and ankle bracelet. I stared at her golden skin, but I couldn't explain what I found so interesting.

  "Normal people don't say shit like that," she said. "It's rude, Sam. Rude. And pervy. You're a perv. But thank you. It's nice to know they can still bring the boys to the yard."

  She didn't take to any of my usual charms, but she didn't meet me with outrage or disinterest either. The challenge to find and test her boundaries spurred me forward.

  "Please. You're a little pervy, too. You just gave my upper thigh a deep tissue massage like it was nothing, and beneath all that bullshit, you like me staring at your tits. You'd probably like sucking my cock, too."

  "Do you hear yourself right now?" she asked. "Very rude. Very pervy."

  I shrugged, working hard to disguise my growing fascination with her. "You like it."

  Tiel rolled her eyes and busied herself with untangling the earbuds. "I'm not responding to that."

  "Because you know I'm right."

  I studied her, taking in her pouty lips, rounded curves, and toenails polished orange. I smiled and met her eyes. Who was this girl and why did I want to learn everything about her?

  "Oh honey, your dimple game is fierce." She handed me an earbud. "Here. Put this in and stop being so pervy."

  "Wait," I said, gesturing to her phone and pulling mine from my pocket. "Are you getting a signal?"

  She shook her head. "No, I never get any reception in this building. I download everything. I don't trust the cloud with my tunes." She watched as I toggled through my phone's screens but couldn't find a connection. "Is someone going to be wondering where you are? Your girlfriend, or wife, or…someone else?"

  "Uh, no." I laughed. "The only people who give a shit where I am at any point are my siblings, and they've all taken off for the long weekend. Some earlier than others. You?"

  "No, not really." Her forehead crinkled and she looked back at me. "That's a little unpleasant, yeah? We could be in here for days, and no one would notice we're missing?"

  "We could just as easily be out there," I started, gesturing to the elevator doors. "We could be out there for days, and no one would notice us either. People do an incredible job at ignoring each other."

  She touched her hand to my thigh. "That's a really sad thing to say, Sam."

  I didn't want my face to register the bitterness I felt, not right now, and I looked away.

  Hours passed while we listened to music, and we tried to disregard the firefighters' shouts echoing through the elevator shaft as they worked to secure the cars.

  It seemed like a reasonable path to follow. Better than imagining how many pieces my body would break into on impact.

  I grew accustomed to Tiel's incessant humming and jingling, the way her fingers tapped along with the song. To say Tiel listened to a song was a gross understatement; the music moved through her, and it was overflowing onto me. If I saw her, out at a club or in line at a coffee shop, I'd roll my eyes. Her whole vibe—the bright clothes, ankle bracelets, and nonstop grooving with the beat—I had no patience for that shit. I didn't believe people could be that happy. But here, beside me, it was different. Tiel was authentic, and though I couldn't explain how, I liked
it.

  Eventually, a crew pried the doors open, and informed us we'd be squeezing through the narrow crevice as the car had stopped between floors on its last free fall.

  "I'm gonna need you to hustle," the firefighter said.

  Tiel and I turned to each other, and at once we said, "You first."

  Rolling my eyes, I said, "Would you just fucking go?"

  We quickly collected our things, but as we stood, the elevator wobbled and creaked. We held onto each other to keep our bearings, instinctively moving back to the corner.

  The doors slammed shut and the car dropped, cutting us off from the rescue team.

  "I am going to require a very large drink after this," Tiel cried, her voice losing its light cadence. "And then I'm never getting in another goddamn elevator again. I'll only take the stairs, and then I'm going to have an onion ass."

  "'Onion ass'?" I asked. I glanced to my phone again, willing the service to return. I rarely gave Matt credit for much, but he would have managed the shit out of this situation, and thrown some solar panels on the roof while he was at it.

  "Yes," she replied, squeezing my hand for emphasis. "An ass so round and tight that it makes guys cry."

  Before I could check out her backside or respond, the doors opened.

  "On my count, dive through the opening. Don't think, just do it," the firefighter ordered.

  "Put this in your body right now."

  Tiel handed me a drink, and considering we were in a grad-student-infested part of Cambridge, I didn't bother asking about the brand of gin.

  "Okay, but I'm warning you," I said with a smirk. "I will get ruder and pervier."

  "Good," she yelled over the thumping music, and held up her vodka martini in salute. "I was beginning to think you were a nice boy."

  Tiel pointed to the black eye I earned when shielding her from the impact of our elevator escape. It wasn't entirely chivalrous. I had been headed straight for that marble column regardless, and I happened to break her collision with it.

  "Shit," she hissed after her first sip. "This drink is brinier than a ball sack!"

  I leaned close, my lips hovering over her ear. "Normal people don't say things like that."

  She looked up, her eyes locked on me while she drained her drink. "Okay, Freckle Twin, so we're not normal. There's no fun in normal anyway."

  "Right," I laughed. Her sarcasm curled around me, shrouding us in a quiet world of our inside jokes bred from heat and apprehension, and the unexpected thrill of finding ourselves alive in the end. "Of course not."

  She elbowed her way to the end of the bar and propped herself on a stool while I ordered another round. I opted to open a tab and handed my credit card to the busty bartender sporting a trio of lip rings. This wasn't a quick drink followed by bidding my partner in elevator captivity goodbye. Evidently, we weren't finished with our codependency yet.

  I spent only a moment stressing over the objectively gross condition of this establishment. On a different night, I would have required a cocktail of pharmaceuticals to even walk through the doors of this joint without flying into obsessive-compulsive fits and there was no way I could have managed the wall-to-wall bodies. But tonight, something else was occupying my brain to the extent that I wasn't subject to all of my crazy.

  I didn't know what it was, and thinking about my anxiety was also a fantastic way to invite it to return. Save for some bumps and bruises, we were alive, and I wanted to enjoy that.

  With fresh drinks in hand, I settled beside Tiel.

  "Can we just acknowledge that we survived some crazy shit today? I mean, we are the people who survived eight hours in a freaking elevator!"

  "We are," I said, lifting my glass to hers. "We're the people who lived."

  "That is perhaps the best reason to play Never Have I Ever."

  "Oh God help me, you want to go there?" Tiel was random like that, and though I'd left the drinking games at the frat house, I was down for whatever she threw at me. "Is your objective to drink me under the table?"

  "I'm sure you'd have plenty of fun under that table." She pressed her knee into my thigh, and it was like she was beating me at the game I'd invented. This was bold-faced flirting, and she was ready to outpace me. "You first."

  I rubbed my brow with a chuckle. "Never had sex in an elevator."

  Her eyes twinkled and she glanced around with a tight grin. "Somehow that surprises me," she murmured. "Never had sex in public."

  She wanted my best offense, and I was giving it to her. Even if it ended with her slapping me and storming off. "But you'd like to."

  We stared at each other for a minute until she offered a wiggle-shake-shrug.

  "And you have?" Tiel asked.

  I thought about shocking her, telling her that my hook-ups existed only in VIP lounge bathrooms, coatrooms, and the occasional private booth. But I held that card, sipped my drink without comment instead. I had a better play up my sleeve. "Never have I ever had sex in a bed."

  "Oh come on! That's bullshit, everyone's had sex in a bed, Sam. Not even once? I don't believe you." I held up my hands, shrugging, and she shook her head. Shit, it was fun to see her stunned. "Explain that to me."

  "Not much to explain. I don't date and I've never run out of women interested in blowing me. Beds are superfluous when there are private booths."

  "So…what?" She gestured, trying to generate some meaning from the air between us. "You don't have regular, normal sex?"

  I had an abundance of "normal" sex. I just hadn't bothered with any of it this summer. There was something pleasant and utterly detached about some good head, and the idea of much more didn't appeal to me. These days, I couldn't generate any excitement for getting out of my little bubble and touching people more than necessary, and fucking counted as more than necessary.

  "I wouldn't say that. It just requires more work, and I'd rather relax while she finishes the job."

  Tiel laughed and slapped my leg. "I can't believe you said that, you actually said those words. You're such a manwhore."

  The music was loud, and even though we were sitting close together with Tiel's legs bracketed by mine, I had to lean toward her to speak. "You say that like it's a problem," I replied, eager to see the rise I got out of her. "This isn't about love or forever or any other bullshit notions. None of that exists. There are no illusions about what I'm looking for and we both know it ends when she swallows."

  "Maybe not, but it's completely one-sided. She's servicing you, and you aren't even returning the favor."

  It was fascinating that Tiel focused on all the fairness and none of the sluttiness, as if she didn't mind some highly casual sex as long as it ended favorably for everyone involved. Fascinating…but not the path I was pursuing tonight. I already knew too much about her for this to meet with the end I preferred.

  "I didn't sign up to get her off. If she wanted that, she shouldn't have gotten on her knees," I said.

  She shook her head quickly, and said, "So you only have oral sex? That seems…" She looked around the bar and waved her hand at me. "Unsatisfying? Inadequate?"

  "No," I said, scratching my jaw. She didn't need to know an entire season had passed since I'd been inside a woman. "Not really. There's always anal. I get plenty of that when I'm in the mood."

  She reared back and sent me a horrified glare. And there it was: her limit. "People are really into that these days, huh?" I shrugged and studied her cleavage. Her breasts were designed for fucking and licking and wasting entire days away. "You, sir, are operating in an entirely different league. That's wild."

  "Yeah, and while we could debate this for hours, it's your turn."

  "So you do understand reciprocity. Fascinating." She smirked. I didn't know what to do with a woman who both had the chops to spar with me and willingly elected to do so. "Never have I ever had a threesome."

  So I kept pushing. "Again—but you'd like to."

  "Is this some special gift you think you have? A random form of clairvoyance that y
ou peddle to innocent, unsuspecting women?" she asked. She smacked my leg, keeping her hand on my thigh, but didn't notice that I evaded the question. "And no, that's not what I'm suggesting at all."

  "It wouldn't be that difficult to guess what you are looking for," I said, my gaze moving over her body longer than necessary. This was entrapment. I was testing, baiting, willing her to kick me in the balls and tell me to fuck off, and I had no idea why I was doing it. "You want to make out with some girls and maybe get a little handsy, you want to get fucked somewhere not so private, you want two dicks in you at once, and you want to lie on a bed of rose petals and stare at the sky while someone eats your pussy. Throw in some kissing in the rain, and you're good."

  I couldn't tell whether she was blushing from my words, the alcohol, the heat, or some combination of the three. She gulped her drink and slammed her empty glass on the bar before meeting my eyes.

  "Do you enjoy poking at me with all these things you say? I know you're trying to make me laugh, but you're being rude, you perv."

  "Not poking. Just teasing you." I summoned the bartender for another round, appreciating her tits long enough to discern nipple rings under her t-shirt, and I felt every ounce of Tiel's censorious glare when I turned back to her. I was right up against her limits, and this time, the look in her eyes told me to ease back. "I think you'd like some teasing."

  Tiel patted my leg twice and nodded. "It's your turn."

  "Never have I ever been married. Not even close."

  Tiel looked away while she piled her hair on top of her head, securing a messy knot with the band on her wrist. Her silence was a gust of arctic air, and I wanted to pull her hands from her hair and search her fingers for rings. I might be a manwhore but I did not talk to another man's wife about blowjobs and threesomes.

  It didn't matter whether I was asking her to choke on my cock or not. And I wasn't—at least not right now—but it wasn't a line I'd willingly cross. "Are you…married?"