Reboot

Author's note: If cursing offends you, this one's not for you.

"You really won't come?" Steph whined as they waited for the elevator, jutting her lower lip out for extra petulance.

Chloe laughed. "After a day like today, going to Chester's sounds like the worst."

"Half priced appetizers? $3 margaritas? Tons of hot guys looking to score for the long weekend?" Steph flung out each proffered incentive as if they were confetti, hoping to lure Chloe in.

But Chloe just shook her head, smiling and knowing full well that there was no way in hell she was going to the bar right now. All she wanted was to collapse on the couch with a pint of ice cream and watch trash TV.

"You're no fun!" Steph moaned, elbowing her. "

One

hookup goes sour and now, what, that whole place is off limits? Think he's just lurking there like some kind of bottom dwelling shark?"

Chloe stifled another laugh. "Shut up. I'm just tired, aren't you freaking tired?"

"Of

course

I'm tired! It's a special kind of hell to be here pulling 12 hour days in-between Christmas and New Year's, when everyone with half a brain is out skiing in the Poconos."

Chloe couldn't argue with that. It was one thing to have to come in over the holidays when the building was desolate, but to have a last minute campaign shoved down their throats with a pitch in less than a week, that was just cruel.

"At least we're finally going home," Chloe offered mildly, thinking already of the piping hot bath and terry cloth robe that awaited her.

"

You

are going home, loser.

I

am going to eat a hundred jalapeño poppers and then find myself a stallion to ride all night long." Chloe was laughing again as the elevator bell dinged, the heavy metal door slowly opening to let them in.

"Speak of the

devil

," Steph whispered with a saucy expression, elbowing her again as they went into the elevator. Chloe's heart gave a great thud as she surveyed the cramped space, seeing to her chagrin the infamous Hairy along with two others, a blonde guy their age who looked vaguely familiar, and a gangly teen.

The elevator door swung shut, and dipped a little as they descended. Chloe glanced at the panel of buttons, checking to make sure the lower level parking garage was already lit.

"You going to Chester's, Steph?" A masculine voice asked in a cheerful voice, and Steph turned to the blonde, to the narrow degree that space permitted.

"Hell yeah. You?"

"Hell yeah," the man echoed, grinning broadly at Steph. "If we have to be downtown today, we may as well be drunk."

"See, he gets it!" Steph tried to elbow Chloe again, but she shifted away in anticipation.

"Yeah, you two have fun," Chloe murmured, feeling zero envy.

Steph and the other reveler chatted amiably during the long ride down. Chloe fixed her eyes on the patch of floor between her feet and would not look anywhere else. She heard Hairy's voice vaguely as he joined the conversation, but she didn't move a muscle. Instead, she did what she did every time she saw him. She pulled the cap off a giant black Sharpie in her mind and drew his name in script, plucking the brim of the hat of the 'r' and plopping it on top, making an 'i' instead. Harry becomes Hairy, and no one's the wiser. Hey how's it going

Hairy

? Nice weather we're having,

Hairy

. It was juvenile and she knew it and she loved it anyways. He was an ass, a hairy ass to be specific, and calling him that in her mind took away a bit of the power he somehow still had to unnerve her every time their paths crossed. Chloe only wished he

was

hairy, a veritable Sasquatch. Then the joke would be funnier.

A ding sounded and shuffling in the elevator brought her out of her reverie, as bodies shifted.

Thank God

, she thought. Almost everybody would get off here, to walk to Chester's. Just her and maybe this intern-looking guy going down to the garage. Less than 5 minutes and she'd be alone in her car, the day finally done.

Chloe waved a friendly goodbye to Steph and her first victim of the night, ducking back into a corner of the elevator to lean against the wall. When the door slowly slid shut, she let out a soft sigh of relief.

"No Chester's for you then?" a voice asked, and Chloe frowned, praying that she wasn't going to have to dodge the freaking intern now. She glanced over and jumped, surprised to see Hairy in the opposite corner.

Damn it

.

"Nope," she said briskly, hoping he'd take the hint.

And apparently he did, because they were silent as the elevator dropped a single floor to the garage. The bell chimed to announce their arrival, and Chloe waited for the door to open.

And waited.

Chloe blinked.

She stared at the elevator door, waiting.

She blinked again.

Frowning, she glared at the junction between the sliding door and the frame of the elevator, willing it to open like she had Jedi mind powers.

Nothing.

She

wouldn't

look at Hairy, she wouldn't. She would wait, and it would open.

She waited.

Hairy took a step forward and pressed the button with two triangles pointing outwards. For a moment Chloe wondered what it was, till she realized it was the "open door" button. Those fucking buttons with their triangles and lines never made any kind of sense. Even though he pressed it, it wouldn't light up.

They waited.

He pressed it again.

"Why won't it open?" she asked.

He turned to look at her, his face withering.

"Do I look like an elevator mechanic?"

Chloe said nothing.

Fucking Hairy. What a prick.

"Be my guest," he said scornfully, inviting her to the button panel with a grandiose wave of his hand.

She approached it, pressing the "open door" button, then the button for the first floor. Neither would stay lit. She pressed a random higher floor, nothing. Chloe felt her heart thump into overdrive.

"It's . . . it's not working."

"Shocker, that when you press the same buttons I just pressed, they still don't work."

Chloe's lip pursed at his sarcasm. "What do we do?"

Hairy moved forward again, and Chloe shrunk back into the corner to avoid even the merest brush of their arms. He glanced over at her, annoyed. She watched as he crouched, examining the "emergency" section of buttons. He eventually chose one that looked like a bell, and Chloe cringed, waiting for some shrill sound to fill the small space. But that button too, did nothing.

"Jesus Christ," she swore, feeling her heart race. Not even the emergency buttons were working. How bad of an emergency was it when not even the emergency buttons were working?

"Relax," he demanded, still crouched.

"Hello? Anybody there?" he said loudly, mouth close to the panel as he pressed and held a button with the image of a telephone receiver.

When he released the intercom button, it stayed lit, but there was no response.

Chloe told herself to calm the

fuck

down, and count to 10.

1.

She looked at him, squatting next to the panel, the fabric of his trousers taut against the outline of his ass.

2.

She shut her eyes tight, pressing herself flat against the elevator wall.

3.

She remembered the feel of his body pressed upright against hers, the scratchy brick wall digging into her back.

4.

She clenched her hands into fists.

5.

His hands on the small of her back, inching downward, cupping, squeezing.

6.

She exhaled shakily, telling herself to take a deep breath.

7.

The scent of whisky on his breath, the scratch of his stubble in stark contrast to his silken lips.

8.

Chloe gnawed on her lower lip, sensing panic on the horizon.

9.

The hardness of his erection as it pressed into the softness of her belly. How she welcomed its tantalizing promise. The feel of it had been so electric.

10.

Chloe let out a frustrated sound, her eyes flying open to see the status of the elevator door. Everything looked the same as before, except now Hairy was looking at her strangely, a crease in-between his eyes. His gaze darted down before darting back up, and she looked down at herself, seeing her nipples peaked beneath the silk of her blouse. She let out a despairing moan and turned around, pressing her face into the corner crevice of the elevator.

"You . . . okay?"

Chloe let out a whimper. She was most definitely not okay. Nothing about this was okay. She crouched a little, letting her bag and jacket drop to the floor so she could wrap her arms around herself, pressing her forehead further in.

"Look, Chloe, we're going to be fine," his voice came, softer now.

"You don't know that," she moaned.

"It's just a malfunction. This kind of stuff happens all the time. We'll call the guys and they'll get us out."

"But the alarm isn't working," she insisted, her voice wavering.

He said nothing, and she took his silence as a confirmation. She felt herself begin to unravel, and didn't even try to stop the flow of panicked words from spilling out of her mouth.

"The alarm isn't working, and no one answered the intercom, and none of the buttons are even lighting up because the elevator is like

broken

and we are

trapped

down here and it's . . . it's like 8 o'clock on a fucking holiday weekend and

no one

is on the other end of that intercom so

no one

is going to answer and I've been here every day since Christmas and now I'm stuck in this goddamn elevator with

you

of all the fucking people in the entire

fucking

building, and of course it had to be you, of

everyone

, of every single person it could possibly have been, of all--"

"Hello?" A loud voice interrupted her, and Chloe shrieked, whirling around expecting a bellowing person to have suddenly materialized in the elevator.

"You folks ok in there?" the voice went on, and Chloe's eyes darted, trying to locate the source of the sound.

Hairy moved slowly away from her to crouch again by the panel. He pressed the intercom button down as he replied.

"Yeah. Yeah, we're ok," he looked at her warily for a moment, his frown deeper.

"How many of you are in there?"

"Two," Hairy answered.

"You been in there a long time?"

"Just a few minutes."

Had it really only been a few minutes?

Surely it had been at least a half hour. Chloe glanced down at her smartwatch, seeing that somehow yes, not even ten minutes had passed since she and Steph were dozens of floors higher, discussing the merits of mozzarella sticks and Modelo. Looking at her watch made her think of her phone, and she bent, rummaging in her bag for it.

"Well, folks, I've got some good news and some bad news," the voice droned on, and Chloe cursed aloud when her hopes for an internet signal were dashed.

"Good news is there's nothing wrong with the lift, per se, it's just rebooting off cycle. Bad news is, the reboot takes like 90 minutes."

"Wait, wait, wait, what does that mean?" Chloe broke in, leaving her corner to kneel next to Hairy.

When the answer didn't immediately come, Chloe swatted Hairy's hands away, pressing the intercom button down as she repeated her question, lifting off as she waited for the reply.

"Uh, it means that you're gonna have to wait in there till the reboot is finished, then the commands will work again. It's on auto pilot right now and I can't override it."

"Reboot?" she asked weakly.

"It's set to shut down all functionality and test all systems twice a year, but it wasn't supposed to be for a couple of days and it isn't supposed to do it when it senses weight in the box, so I'm guessing that sensor is broken."

Chloe struggled to process the man's words amidst the swirling fear roaring in her brain. Hairy brushed her hand away from the intercom, and Chloe scooted away from him.

"So, like an hour and it will open?"

"Yeah, give or take."

"But we're not . . . we're in the lower level, right?"

Chloe suddenly had a vision of them suspended hundreds of feet in the air, the elevator's weight sensor broken, plummeting downward, downward, downward.

"Yeah, you're parked at the garage. It always reboots at the garage. It's just the door won't open."

"Hear that, Chloe?" Hairy's voice called to her and she looked at him, eyes wide. "We're right there in the garage," he said, as if she hadn't heard the guy on the intercom, and she nodded.

"I'm Ben, by the way, in security. Who am I speaking to?"

"Hey Ben. It's Harry, and in here is also Chloe. She works in the building."

"Harry!" Ben exclaimed, and Chloe searched through her vague memory of the security guys. Did she know a Ben? Was she supposed to know all the guards by name? Did it make her a jerk that she didn't?

"Shit man, you're gonna sue the fuck out of these motherfuckers, aren't you?" Ben guffawed, clearly delighted at the happenstance.

"Damn right," Hairy growled, his finger jabbing angrily on the intercom button.

He'd probably be able to sue for severe emotional distress after being trapped in here with

her

, she thought, hating herself and her stupid mouth.

"Well, shit man, yeah, it's gonna be like an hour," Ben said. "But I know these reboots, man, it's just gonna cycle all its systems off and on, one by one."

"What kind of systems? Will the intercom go out?"

"Probably, for like a few minutes. So if it doesn't work when you try it don't freak, just wait. But, like, shit man, it's gonna cycle through everything as it gets its data for the report. So not just the intercom. The heat's gonna go off for a minute, and the lights too. When the--"

"The

lights

?" Chloe hissed, feeling the bile rise in her throat.

"But the lights will come right back on again, right?" Hairy asked loudly, interrupting Ben.

A moment of silence passed, as both men ensured the other wasn't using the intercom.

"Yeah," Ben said finally. "It'll be like five, ten minutes tops."

"

Fuck

," Chloe moaned, feeling utterly horrified at the thought of being trapped in an elevator for ten minutes in the pitch dark with the one man she dreaded encountering at all costs.

Ben went on, listing some other systems, and Chloe tuned him out, her gaze drifting as she tried to regulate her heartbeat. The full length zipper of her pencil skirt was digging into her ass sitting on the floor like this, and her feet were aching after wearing pumps for a full day and then some. Hairy caught her attention and was miming what she thought for a moment was filming on a phone until she realized he was saying they could use their phone flashlights when the lights cut. She nodded miserably, wondering why the universe was so spiteful. Suddenly drunken insurance guys and mai tais sounded like pure bliss.

"We'll call if we need you," Hairy was saying.

"Yeah, man, cause I can't hear you unless you use the intercom."

"There's a camera in here?"

"Shit man," Ben exclaimed, laughing again. "You think they forked out for a camera? No way."

Hairy said nothing, looking at Chloe as if he expected her to explode any second.

"Hope neither of y'all have to take a piss," Ben teased. "Over and out."

The two of them sat on the elevator floor, saying nothing. Chloe was glad for once that she never remembered to hydrate with anything but coffee.

"No signal?" Hairy asked finally, and Chloe shook her head.

"You gonna have like . . . a panic attack or something?"

Chloe closed her eyes, feeling the trembling just under the surface of her skin, and took a deep breath. "I hope not," she replied in all seriousness.

"It's not that big of a deal," he insisted, a sharp edge in his voice.

"Sure," she echoed dully.

"An hour stuck in an elevator with me, the worst person on the planet, right?"

"What?" She opened her eyes and Hairy was kicking off his shoes. Each one hit the elevator floor with a thud.

"Isn't that what you said? Of course it had to be

me

, right? Of all the people in the

fucking

building." Chloe recognized the words as her own and blinked, wondering why he cared. Of course she didn't want to be here with him, of all people. He was acting like his feelings were hurt, for Christ's sake.

Maybe he had awkward failed hookups turn into amiable friendships all the time, but she sure didn't.

When she said nothing, he scoffed, running his hand through his hair, tousling it wildly. "Cause you hate me that much."

"I don't

hate

you," she mumbled defensively.

"The thought of being in a room with me for an hour is enough to send you spiraling."

"Look, man, this is not a

room

, ok? This is a freaking elevator. A room has a door, and you can open the door and leave. So yes, I wouldn't want to be in a cage with anyone, but especially not you."

His eyes flew up and she was surprised at the woundedness she saw there.

"Come on," she protested, feeling her own anger rise. "As if you're overjoyed to see me."

"Whatever," he scoffed, shifting away from her to stare at the wall instead.

Chloe felt a strange mix of embarrassment and frustration at Hairy's weird reaction. Of course she didn't

hate

him, it was just humiliating to even see him, let alone have to talk to him. She had been so brazen, and he had clearly been turned off by it. So yeah, it was not insane that she didn't exactly look forward to encountering the guy who thought she was some office slut not even worth a date.

She took her own shoes off, stretching out her toes. As the minutes crawled by, excerpts of different music played off and on, and the elevator buttons flickered as Chloe scrolled through old photos on her phone. There wasn't much she could do to pass the time without internet, and she refused to pull work out of her bag. It was growing increasingly cold, and she pulled her jacket on and tugged her dark chestnut hair out of her chignon to cover her neck, suspecting the heating unit had been one of the first to reboot.

Merry freaking Christmas.

Occasionally she glanced over at Hairy, expecting him to be on his phone too, whiling away the time. But he just sat there, and more than once she caught him looking at her while she dawdled, though he'd quickly divert his attention elsewhere, as if the fake wood walls were fascinating.

Though her finger scrolled idly, Chloe found herself wondering what kind of car he drove. Would he turn on music, or make a call on his drive home? Call a girlfriend, perhaps? She pictured him apologizing for missing a date, the girlfriend sullen and suspicious. Who got stuck in an elevator these days? Good luck explaining that one.

Suddenly she was cast in utter, complete darkness.

"Ohhh," she groaned, feeling her pulse throb. She quickly turned on her phone's flashlight and set it facedown on the floor to cast its light. A moment later Hairy's phone lit up too, but the two phones together didn't do much to illuminate the pitch black.

"Oh, man," she whispered. "Oh, man."

"Chloe," she heard him say gently, but she felt the sudden urge to stand up, to reassure herself of the solid, stable borders of the elevator. Her hands found the nearest wall and glided over it.

"What are you doing?"

"Shut up," she whispered, her voice a weak plea. "I just . . . I just . . ."

"Relax," he crooned, and she felt a hand brush her upper arm. She shrieked, whirling around, finding him closer than she had expected.

"Chloe," he said again, now only a murmur. "You remember what he said. It's just cycling through. It's gonna come back on in a minute."

"In

ten

minutes, Harry.

Ten

minutes."

"That's nothing, ten minutes."

She whimpered, feeling the horror surge as she imagined them once again held high aloft, the elevator shaft dark and menacing, the power cut. They would plummet, dark into deeper dark. What a fucking way to die.

"You've got to breathe, Chloe. Take a deep breath."