CHATER #1
Alexa Monroe walked into the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco that Thursday night wearing her favorite red heels, feeling jittery from coffee, and carrying a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne in her purse. She took out her phone to text her sister, Olivia, upstairs in one of the guest rooms.
on the elevator!!!
It was always good to give Olivia a little more advance warning than most people. It didn’t matter that Olivia had just made partner at her New York law firm; some things didn’t change.
Oh no, was just about to get in the shower.
Alexa got Olivia’s text just as she stepped into the elevator. She laughed out loud as she pushed the number of her sister’s floor, the laughter calming her nerves. Alexa couldn’t wait to celebrate with her older sister, despite . . . no, maybe because their relationship was still tricky after all these years.
The elevator glided in the air, in that smooth, noiseless way elevators in expensive hotels do, while Alexa checked her purse for the third time to make sure she’d tossed the fancy crackers and Brie in there. They would need a pre-dinner snack to soak up all of that champagne, after all. She wished she’d found the time to make brownies the night before. Olivia loved her brownies.
She spied the cheese and crackers in the corner of her purse, tucked away from the heavy champagne bottle. Just then, the elevator stopped with a jerk. A second later, the lights went out.
“What’s going on?” she said out loud to herself.
A few seconds later, a dim light came on, but the elevator stayed motionless. She looked up and around, and jumped to see a man with a suitcase in the opposite corner of the elevator.
“Were you here this whole time?” she asked.
“What am I, a genie?” He grinned back at her.
“Stop, no, stop even thinking about it,” he said. “You know the answer is no. Cheese and crackers are objectively the perfect snack.”
She laughed and pried his fingers away from the box of crackers.
“Okay, fine, you’re right. But you didn’t manage to talk me into sharing Olivia’s you-made-partner cheese and crackers with you, you know.”
He stretched his legs out along the floor and took another glance into her purse.
“I was afraid of that. Well, I can only hope we’ll be here so long that you’ll take pity on me.”
She slipped her shoes halfway off, just enough to relieve the pressure on her toes.
“No offense, Drew, but my goal is not to be stuck in this elevator with you all night.” Although those abs . . . No, remember Olivia? Her sister? Right, Olivia, okay, yes, Olivia. Time to ask him another question so she’d stop staring. “Don’t you have plans tonight? What are you doing here in San Francisco for the weekend anyway?”
He made a face.
“Wedding.”
She made a face back at him.
“Don’t say it like it’s a prison sentence.”
He slumped against the wall.
“If prison sentences lasted for a weekend, this one would qualify. Okay, fine, a prison in a cushy hotel, but still.”
She looked around at the dim, still elevator.
