LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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