of making contact with his body clashes through me.
He looks at me strangely. “Why’d you do all that?”
“Gee, thanks.” I hold my hand out and he hooks my bag onto it. He holds on to my coat and pushes the elevator button.
“So I get to see your car.” I try to break the silence. That thought is more nerve-racking than seeing Danny. It’s such an enclosed space. Have Joshua and I ever even sat next to each other before? I doubt it.
“I’ve been imagining it for so long. I’ve been thinking it’s a Volkswagen beetle. A rusty white one, like Herbie.”
“Guess again.” He is hugging my coat idly. His fingers twiddle the cuff. Against his body it looks like a kid’s jacket. I feel sorry for this poor coat. I hold my hand out but he ignores me.
“MINI Cooper, early 1980s. Kermit green. The seat won’t go back so your knees are on either side of the steering wheel.”
“Your imagination is quite vivid. You drive a 2003 Honda Accord. Silver. Filthy messy inside. Chronic gearbox issues. If it were a horse, you’d shoot it.” The elevator arrives and I step in cautiously.
“You’re a way better stalker than I am.” I feel a chill of fear when I see his big thumb push the B button.
He looks down at me, his eyes dark and intense. He’s clearly deliberating something.
Maybe he’ll murder me down there. I’ll end up dead in a Dumpster. The investigators will see my fishnets and heavy eye makeup and assume I’m a hooker. They’ll follow all the wrong leads. Meanwhile, Joshua will be calmly bleaching all my DNA off his shoes and making himself a sandwich.
“Serial killer eyes.” I wish I didn’t sound so scared. He looks over my shoulder at his reflection in the shiny wall of the elevator.
“I see what you mean. You’ve got your horny eyes on.” He spirals his finger dramatically over the elevator button panel.
“Nope, these are my serial killer eyes too.”
He lets out a deep breath and pushes the emergency stop button and we judder to a halt.
“Please don’t kill me. There’s probably a camera.” I take a step backward in fright.
“I doubt it.” He looms over me. He raises his hands and I start to lift my arms to shield my face like I’m in some awful schlocky drive-in horror movie. This is it. He’s going to strangle me. He’s lost his sanity.
He scoops me off the floor by my waist and balances my ass on the handrail I’ve never noticed before.
My arms drop to his shoulders and my dress slides to the top of my thighs. When he glances down he lets out a rough breath which sounds like I’m strangling him.
“Put me down. This isn’t funny.” My feet make little ineffectual spirals. This isn’t the first time a big kid’s thrown his weight around with me. Marcus DuShay in third grade once slung me onto the hood of the principal’s car and ran off laughing. The plight of the little humans. There is no dignity for us in this oversize world.
“Visit me up here for a sec.”
“What on earth for?” I try to slide down but he spans his hands on my waist and presses me against the wall. I squeeze his shoulders until I come to the informed conclusion that his body is extravagant muscle under these Clark Kent shirts.
“Holy shit.” His collarbone is like a crowbar under my palms. I say the only idiotic thing I can think of.
“Muscles. Bones.”
“Thanks.”
We are both desperately out of breath. When I press my leg against him for balance, his hand wraps around my calf.
When he puts one hand on my jaw and tilts my head back, I wait for the squeeze to start. At any moment, his warm palm will snap tight