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Dorothea damn near collapses against the back wall of the elevator, hitting the button for the sixth floor and kicking her heels off.
She crouches to pick them up, and then never rises, instead sinking to the floor in a pool of her own embarrassment. What a shitty date. What an absolutely nightmarish date.
Well, it's over now. Blessedly over. And she can go back to her apartment and her cat to pour herself a glass of wine and draw a bath. Maybe she'll even break out those new bath salts she just bought. The idea makes her smile, just a little. When the doors start to slide shut, she breathes a sigh, but then someone calls, "Hold the elevator!"
She's on the floor and the doors are almost closed, so she shoves her stockinged foot through them and they close around her ankle instead. Just because she's had a dreadful night doesn't mean she can't hold the elevator for somebody else.
A man jogs up to the door, disheveled, a loose tie hanging around his neck and his blazer wrinkled, and he looks down at her, then at her foot wedged between the doors.
"...Thanks," he mutters, and Dorothea frowns and pulls her foot back.
He joins her in the elevator with a sigh of his own, hitting the button for the eighth floor and side-eyeing her again like she's some sort of dangerous animal. Sure, maybe she should get off the floor now that a strange man is locking himself in a box with her for the next few minutes but that doesn't mean he has to be rude.
Fine. She'll have to break the ice, then, if only to make sure this guy doesn't try anything.
"Rough night?" she asks. He looks down at her, hand halfway through his hair, and drops his arm to his side.
"I could ask you the same," he replies. "You look like a raccoon."
Of course she does. She cried all the way home because she had to walk and her heels were high. Because she can't drive and she only brought enough money to cover food so she couldn't afford the bus fare and she thought this guy would at least be gentlemanly enough to drop her at the door. Dorothea tries for a smile. "A pretty raccoon, though, right?"
He turns away, watching the number on the screen go up. "I don't particularly find raccoons pretty, no."
It's so stupid that her eyes start to fill. It's so stupid. Why should she let this guy—this random fucking guy who lives in her building who she's never even seen before today—get to her? It's stupid enough that she chokes on a sob and presses the back of her hand to her mouth and it comes away stained with her favorite lipstick—she'd only just found it again since it went out of stock a few weeks ago and she'd been so excited in the store that she bought two—and then a drop of mascara joins it and all she can think is, This mascara is fantastic to cry in.
Something thuds against the ground and Dorothea looks up to find it was his bag—he dropped it, and there's something like panic in his eyes, like fear.
"Shit," he whispers. "I, uh... I didn't mean to... upset you, I just—"
Dorothea sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, smearing the lipstick around and staining it black. "No, it's fine, I'm just—"
With a whoosh, all the lights go out and the elevator stops dead.
"Ohhh no," he moans. "Nnoo no no. Um, fuck, where—" A rustle comes from the darkness, and then there's blinding light in Dorothea's eyes.
She throws a hand up, crying, "Dude!" and he goes "Sorry, sorry," and turns it away, to face the closed doors in front of them.
"Of course I get stuck in an elevator," she sniffles, rummaging through her purse for her own phone to add to the measly light his provides them. "Worst possible end to the worst possible day."
In the light of their phones, he shrugs a shoulder and the hulking shadow on the wall beside him does the same. "Could be worse. You could be stuck in the elevator alone."
Dorothea rolls her eyes, even though he probably can't even see it. "How lucky I am to be stuck with you instead."
"You know what?" he starts, taking an angry step forward that makes the elevator creak. He freezes in place, then mutters "Whatever," and leans against the wall with his arms crossed.
Silence reigns for a while, and Dorothea takes to checking her texts—mostly to block the asshole who walked out on her—and respond to her friends. Bernadetta seems especially concerned when she says she's stuck in the elevator, but she stops fretting when Dorothea tells her she isn't alone.
The back of her neck prickles, so she looks up to find him staring at her. Of course—the screen illuminates her face, and she must look like even more of a raccoon than she did earlier.
"What happened?" is what he asks, and it surprises her into blinking.
Dorothea opens her mouth to lie, and then closes it with a frustrated huff, dropping her forehead against her clasped hands where they dangle over her knees. "Bad date. Terrible date. Potentially the worst date ever."
"What'd he do, try to kill you?" At her glare, the sarcastic smile leaves his face. "Alright, fine. So if he didn't attempt first-degree murder, then... what happened?"
Dorothea shakes her head, her chin digging into the backs of her hands. "It's not worth talking about him anymore. Clearly I have very poor judgment, and I will not be making the same mistake again."
He takes a step closer, then pauses like he's nervous. He seems to make up his mind, though, and sits beside her, his legs straight out in front of him and crossed at the ankles.
"I'm sure it's not... entirely your fault," he mumbles, and it's so brutal it startles a laugh out of her. He blinks in surprise. "I'm just saying, sometimes men can be..."
"Assholes?" she supplies, still sort of smiling.
"Yeah, assholes," he agrees.
She snorts. "Believe me, I know." After a moment she turns, rests her cheek against her hands so she can look at him, and asks, "What about you?"
He raises an eyebrow. "What about me?"
She shrugs. "What was your night like?"
Suddenly he seems uncomfortable, if the way he jostles his leg is anything to go by. "Just a late night at work. Nothing special."
"What do you do?" she asks, and he glances at her quickly, briefly. "Orrr you don’t have to tell me, and we can just sit here in silence until the power comes back on."
He says nothing for a while, so she closes her eyes because they burn with fatigue, and then he says, "I work for my father. He—he wants me to take over when he retires but I just—I'm—"
She opens her eyes. "You don't want to?"
He sighs, like her saying it aloud has taken all the weight from his shoulders. "No, I don't. I'm not interested."
"Then don't," she says, and he glares at her as if to say It's not that easy, and she glares back to respond, Yes it is. "Or be miserable your whole life. It's none of my business."
"No, it isn't," he bites out, and then he sighs so hard his hair flutters. "It's complicated."
"Always is," she muses. "Do what makes you happy. If he cares about you at all, he'll understand."
He hums but doesn't say anything more. In the silence that follows, his phone rings. She catches a glimpse of the caller ID before he answers it—the contact name is Sylvain Gautier, and there's no picture attached.
"What," he answers. The person on the other end—Sylvain—talks for a second, then he says, "Yes, I am stuck in an elevator. Who told you that."
He answers him, and he says, "What's with the interrogation, Sylvain."
There's a long pause this time, and then he looks over to her and he studies her for a moment, and then he says, "You have a girlfriend."
She can hear Sylvain whining now, but she still can't make out what he's saying. He sighs, then says, "Yeah, I guess. I'm hanging up now. Don't call me again." And he does—he hangs up.
When he looks back at her, she raises an eyebrow. "Who was that?"
He leans his head back against the wall and pulls his legs up, his arms resting over his knees. "Some idiot." When she just looks at him expectantly, he looks skyward and continues, "My friend."
She copies him, the back of her head touching the cool metal wall behind her. "What did he want?"
"He wanted to know if—" he stops dead, his eyes everywhere but on her, and it's too dark to see much of his expression but in the meager light of their phones it almost looks like he's—
"Are you blushing?" she asks, incredulous. "My goodness, it must've been quite the phone call!"
He clenches his jaw, then looks at her and grinds out, "He wanted to know if you're... pretty."
Now she's the one blushing, and she knows he can tell because he flushes even redder and looks away. She fishes for something to say, something to cut the awkward tension before it cuts them, and she arrives at, "I suppose I'm the first raccoon you find pretty, then."
He keeps his head lowered, but his gaze flicks over to her just out of the corner of his eye, and he says, "You're strange."
Her jaw drops but the smile holds and she shoves him, hard. "You're the one who called me a raccoon in the first place!"
In the dim light, she can see he's smiling too, just a little. "And you're the one who brought it up again."
She draws a breath, a retort on the tip of her tongue when there's a buzzing sound, and then the lights come on all at once and she throws her hands up and closes her eyes to block it out.
"You'd think they'd give us a little warning," she grumbles, wobbling to her feet as the elevator starts up again.
He's oddly quiet, watching the numbers tick up up up until they stop on the sixth floor and the doors open and Dorothea steps forward, her purse in one hand and her shoes dangling in the other, and she steps out of the elevator and then she stops, and turns, and he's standing there like he's waiting for something, one foot forward like he was going to get off, too, even though it's not his floor.
"I, um," she starts, fiddling with the strap of her bag. "I never got your name."
"Felix," he says, too quickly. "It's Felix."
"Dorothea," she offers, and then she fumbles with her purse so she can extend a hand for him to shake. She only realizes how stupid it is after it's out, but when she tries to retract it, he takes it in his.
"Uh, I'll. I'll see you around, I guess," he says. "Since... we live in the same building."
"Yeah," she agrees. He's still holding her hand. Why is he still holding her hand? "It was nice meeting you, Felix."
He lets go of her hand, as if just noticing that he's still holding it, and nods, stepping back into the elevator. "Goodnight."
The doors close on him and he watches her until they do, and Dorothea walks back to her apartment and her keys jingle in her shaking hands. As soon as she gets inside, her cat meows forlornly and rubs against her ankle, the same ankle she held the elevator with, and she smiles to herself, blushing like a schoolgirl.
"It wasn't a total bust after all, Eponine," she murmurs, crouching down to scratch behind her ears. "Quite the opposite, actually."