Stuck with You (The STEMinist Novellas, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

When the elevator I’m riding stopped on the thirteenth floor, and Erik Nowak, the last person I ever wanted to see, appeared in all his blond, massive, Viking-like glory.

It was Erik Nowak, all right. With his massive, colossal presence. Erik Nowak, who spent the entirety of our five-floor ride staring at me with those ruthless, icy blue eyes of his.

Nor since that string of messages he left on my phone before I blocked his number. The ones that I never bothered answering but also couldn’t quite bring myself to delete. The ones I could not stop myself from listening to, over and over.

It’s still a stupid voice. Stupid and insidious, rich and precise and clipped and low, with acoustic properties all its own.

A few what? A few hours? In an elevator that is smaller than my already-minuscule bathroom? With Erik Nowak, the broodiest of Scandinavian mountains? Erik Nowak, the man who I . . . No. No way.

I am a little superstitious. Just a tad. Just a little stitious.

The way I’d love to claw at this place because it’s so small and Erik takes up so much room inside my head and I can smell his soap and I just want to forget everything about him and maybe I thought I had but now he’s here and it’s all coming back and I—

“I like to think of it as . . . more of a way to bind myself and celebrate the traditions of my previous successes, you know? And less as establishing an empirical causal connection between the color of my underwear and future events.”

“So, what’s the lucky color?” “What?” “Of underwear.” “Oh. Um . . . lavender.”

At baseline, Erik is not exactly a warm, convivial guy, but I had no idea he could sound like this. Deceptively calm, but furiously, icily livid.

But tonight, right now . . . the possibility that Erik might find me beautiful uncurls warmly at the base of my stomach.

Unfortunately, I’m not positive my gut isn’t lying to me. I think it might just want to make out with the most attractive man in the world during the halftime of soccer games.

I think about Erik’s hand closing around my arm in the lobby. About the way he kept looking at me when the elevator restarted: focused, intent, like the world could spin twice as fast as normal and he still wouldn’t have cared, not if I were nearby.

I look up. Erik is standing in my open door. Erik, in all his tall, unsmiling, Corporate-Thorship splendor.