The elevator stopped between floors

The elevator stopped between the eleventh and twelfth floor at 11pm, the alarm wasn't working, and the only other person in there with me was a man I'd met roughly ninety seconds earlier.

For the first ten minutes we did the polite stranger dance. Introductions. Jokes about the building. He pressed the button a few more times, like the universe might reconsider.

The lights were half-dead and flickering, and in that low light I caught him looking at my mouth when he thought I wasn't watching. Twice.

By minute twenty we'd run out of small talk, which is a dangerous thing to run out of in a small metal box. He asked what I did, and I answered, and then he asked something real — like, actually real — and I found myself telling a stranger the truth at 11pm between floors.

Then the lights went fully out for a second, and when they came back he was closer. He said, "I'm going to do something and you can blame the elevator," and kissed me against the mirrored wall.

Forty minutes is a long time if you use it properly. When the doors finally opened at the twelfth floor, my lipstick was a memory and he walked out first and held the door and said, "Same time tomorrow?"

It was not the same time tomorrow. It was better.