it still feels like a dream

He was quiet, that was for sure. You lived right below him and hardly ever heard activity in his apartment. Music, sometimes, but only when it was warm enough to have the windows open; you’d be walking in or out of the building and hear the sounds of blues and rock and folk music drifting through the open blinds and screen. You heard him having friends over sometimes on those warm nights, too, and would look up and wonder what they were doing and what the inside of his apartment looked like.

What the problem really was, you realized for the first time in all these years, was that you had tried to be friendly. You’d lived there first; after he moved in, you introduced yourself, tried to be neighborly, kept up with saying hi when you saw him, tried to make chit-chat once in a while. Why not, right? He was your age and also living alone. Why not be friends, or at least cordial? 

But Jake had never given you that much. Not that he was mean or even distinctly rude, he was mostly just stand-offish. Cold. Stuck-up. Just wouldn’t give you the time of the day. That’s how it seemed, anyway, and you eventually managed to kick yourself for trying to be so nice to this self-involved dude who, apparently, didn’t give a damn.

Shutting the driver’s side door of your car, you huffed. It was so stupid to think about him at all. Just seeing his name on those packages had incited a river of emotion winding around someone who was basically a stranger.

For trying to be so nice, what bad karma had you cultivated to deserve a flat tire on the way to work? That was a really fun ordeal but, whatever, you managed to roll to a gas station with an air pump and deal with it. But then, of course, you got reprimanded for being twenty minutes late, as if that was the end of the world. And then, because why not, you discovered that your favorite coffee mug was missing and no one seemed to know where it went. Maybe one of the night custodians tossed it, one coworker theorized, which seemed nonsensical to you and you spent your morning seething, sure that someone in the vicinity had taken it for themselves.

When lunch came around, you learned that you’d forgotten to bring yours to work with you, so that was also great. But okay, at least you could pop over to the cafe a few blocks down and get something, although once you brought the take-out container back to work, you could have exploded upon seeing that they’d given you the wrong order entirely. It wasn’t as if that was the end of the world but my god, how many more things could get messed up in one day?

You resigned to just counting the minutes until you could go home and finally chill out, just try to forget about all of this nonsense, all the while struggling to focus on what you needed to do. When the end finally came around and you were packing your things up and trying not to be too bitter about your favorite coffee mug that still hadn’t popped up, your boss told you there was one more thing to be done, so you were stuck there for a while longer.

Getting into your car and listening to the engine rumble low, then getting music playing to stop the broken dam of stress and chaos and cycling thoughts triggered by your bad day, you breathed a sigh of relief. You could go home now with a properly inflated tire, make yourself a dinner that you actually wanted and do everything you wanted for the rest of the evening on your own time, which would be a whole lot of nothing. 

You weren’t going to let the fact that you ended up at the elevators just as Jake was waiting for it to descend as well bring you down. You’d be home in no time. You nodded; he nodded back, those three packages under his arm, and you stopped yourself from saying something sarcastic about him finally taking them out of the lobby.

Just a few floors to go and it would all be over. You’d be home and you wouldn’t have to look at anyone’s face, least of all Jake’s, whose undeniable attractiveness also irked you.

But a couple floors below your own, the elevator suddenly rumbled, jarring you and your neighbor into a nerve-wracking stumble within the small space. The vibrations radiated up through your feet and into your heart that began to beat fast with instinctual worry. Elevators weren’t supposed to make sounds like that, and certainly weren’t supposed to come to a screeching halt between floors.

“What the hell,” Jake said, intercepting the tense silence that followed the strange mechanical sounds. He peered at the buttons, the two of your respective buttons still lit up, glanced at the metallic doors that were still glued shut, then turned to you. “Are we stuck?”

It was one of those things that seemed to happen so rarely that, at first you thought, no, there was no way. There was clearly a problem, but it’d get moving soon. It had to. 

“Hopefully not,” you said, but your gut told you that, yeah, you guys were stuck, and of course you were, because as much as you’d thought your day couldn’t get worse, of course it could.

Silence commenced for a minute, the two of you undoubtedly sharing the hope that you weren’t stuck and, in a few seconds, the elevator would get moving again. But when it didn’t, and no more mechanical noises came, Jake sighed and pressed the button to your floor, waited a second, then pressed the button to his own floor.

“Fuck. Come on, seriously?” He tried the “open door” button next, but nothing happened. He sank back to the wall perpendicular to the doors and buttons that had betrayed you and, for the first time in a long time, looked directly at you for more than a mere second. “This is messed up.”

Yeah, it certainly was, but there was the “call for help” button that he’d neglected to press. You managed not to roll your eyes at his seemingly total lack of awareness and pressed it yourself, but nothing happened; no voice came. 

“Wow, okay.” You tried again, but no luck. The apartment office was closed, but didn’t they have some kind of backup system or something? You tried one more time, but it was clear that, at least right now, no one knew this was happening. But a neighbor coming home would have to notice what was happening and do something, right?

Perhaps more quickly accepting this unfortunate fate than you, Jake set his packages down. “Well, this sucks. I’ve never been in this situation before.”

You scoffed. “I doubt many people have.” Snide bitterness almost made you sneer as he took a seat on the floor, but the idea of sitting down was tempting. You were exhausted. But you remained standing and reminded yourself that dealing with this in the company of someone else was probably better than dealing with it alone.

Jake pulled his phone from his jacket pocket, put it to his ear, then a moment later locked it with a frown. “No answer at the office, although I suppose that’s expected.” He unlocked his phone and tipped his head down, scrolling. “Shit, I don’t have the emergency maintenance number, which is very stupid of me.”

You did the same thing, heart singing with hope that you were smart enough to have saved it at some point but, no, you hadn’t. You sighed and sank down the floor across from him. “Me either. So stupid.”

“Do you know anyone else in the building?”

“No.” That was also stupid, but you’d pretty much given up on being neighborly with anyone else since Jake had scorned you. Anyway, people came and went so often that you couldn’t keep track. As far as you could tell, you and Jake were the longest standing tenants.

Jake sighed and tilted his head back, eyes pointing up to the ceiling. “This has been such a stressful day. It’s just one more thing, apparently.”

“Tell me about it.” You figured that would be that, that you’d both sit in silence and distract yourself with your phones until you got rescued, but intrigue tickled you once again and you found yourself asking, “What happened?”

“Just–just bullshit, you know?” He chuckled with a shake of his head that was still resting on the wall of the elevator. Unexpectedly, he added, “Sometimes people just need to let things go.”

So you two had different versions of bad days, but you could still relate. “Yeah,” you said, and he tipped his head down and his eyes met yours again. 

You felt a little thrown for a second–it’d been so long since you’d had a true face to face interaction. You often got glimpses of his profile as you passed one another or you saw him sitting in his car, but seeing him straight on revealed everything–his long, dark hair with the gentlest wave; his slightly arched dark brows that perfectly framed his dark, slightly sleepy eyes that, unfortunately, perfectly exemplified bedroom eyes; the incredibly subtle but not imperceptible bump in the middle of his otherwise perfectly straight and proportional nose; the pointed cupid’s bow adorning the curve of his lips.

It wasn’t often you saw attractive guys around. That was another motivator to be neighborly back in the day. Not that you had the intention of trying to get with him–that seemed like a bad idea–but it never hurt to engage with a hot guy, and it never hurt to have fleeting fantasies. It was only his sour attitude toward you that blew those fantasies away.

“I’m trying to let all the bullshit that happened today go,” you admitted, tearing your eyes away from his face and to the shiny silver elevator doors instead. “But it’s pretty hard to do that trapped in here. It’s like a horror movie. Any second, the lights are gonna go out.”

He laughed. You’d never heard him laugh before. It was a nice sound, both soft and lively, and undoubtedly earnest. He really thought it was funny. 

“Let’s not speak that into existence.” His laugh ended but his smile remained, and it was a nice smile. “At least neither one of us is dealing with this alone.”

“I thought the same thing,” you admitted. Now that the two of you were indeed stuck together, it was shockingly easy to talk to him. Maybe you would’ve talked to anyone in this situation easily, because what other option would there be? But instead of the usual awkwardness and chill that drifted from him, there was a feeling of warmth and comfort. That was odd, and you said, “It’s funny that fate decided to put two people who don’t even like each other together, though.”

His brow furrowed and his bedroom eyes became alight with confusion. “We don’t like each other? I didn’t know that.”

Well, it could have been inaccurate phrasing considering no one can dislike someone they don’t really know, but you weren’t sure how else to describe it. You had to try to explain it now: “I just mean, like, there’s this weird, unwarranted, unspoken animosity between us.” The confusion on his face only intensified but, worse, after a second of him processing that, he looked hurt. “You don’t even say hi to me.” 

“Oh.” Hurt turned to recognition, and his gaze dropped down to his crossed legs. “Yeah, uh–that’s true. I’m sorry.” His quick and easy apology was also surprising, and he followed it up by looking up at you with solemn sincerity in his eyes. “I was kind of a mess when I moved in here and–I think I was a little intimidated by you.” He ran a hand through his hair with a little sigh. “I was in a bit of a fragile state.”

“Me trying to be nice was intimidating?” you probed, sort of amused, actually, by this confession of his. His silence in response tugged at your heart, though. “Well, what happened? If you wanna tell me.” 

He leaned forward and rested his arms on his thighs. “It all seems silly now, but at the time, it felt so serious. It was serious. My girlfriend broke up with me and I had to move out, and it all happened so quickly.” His shoulders dropped, his upper body slouching even more. “Obviously, I didn’t want that to happen. I was just trying to process everything and–honestly, I felt very insecure.” His brows rose a bit as he regarded you. “And then I find out this really pretty girl lives in the same building and is being nice to me and I didn’t know what to do.  My guard was up, y’know?”

You opened your mouth to reply, but he spoke first, throwing you off again by carrying on with this confession: “I wasn’t sure how to navigate it after I realized how much of a dick I was being. I couldn’t just say, hey, sorry for being so fucking rude, but my girlfriend who I thought was going to marry dumped me for another guy and now I don’t know how to talk to anyone?” With a quiet chuckle, he leaned back, seemingly relieved that he’d gotten it all out. 

His girlfriend dumped him for another guy? Jesus. “That’s brutal,” you said, your heart tugged again, sympathy alive in every beat. When his compliment finally hit you, your heart beat faster. So, you both thought one another was pretty. Interesting. 

“I’m really sorry. For the record, I tried not to take it personally–for a while, anyway,” you continued. “I thought maybe you were just really stand-offish. But–I don’t know.” You studied the obscured red and blue pattern of the carpet between your own crossed legs for a moment. “I never got to know anyone else here and I thought maybe we’d be friends. Or at least friendly.”

“After this, I think we could be. We’re bonded now.” You laughed softly–that was true. With a little groan, he rose to his knees and stretched over to press the help button again. “Fuck. Just our luck, right?”

“Seriously.” It was a miserable situation, but for the first time, you smiled. “Today has been nothing but bad luck.” 

Tracing a fingertip along one of the packages beside him, Jake said, “Right after I moved in, someone would bring my packages up and leave them outside my door.” His perfect pink lips curved into a smile. “Was that you?”

You’d actually forgotten you used to do that. You’d stopped when you figured there was no way he’d ever appreciate the gesture and he was going to continue to let his mail sit in the lobby forever.

“Yeah, it was me. You just let them sit around for so long.” You scoffed, but you were smiling, too. “Don’t you ever worry about someone stealing them?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes I’m scatterbrained and don’t even notice them.” He patted the empty space to his left and said, “Let’s open them together. I don’t remember what the hell I ordered.”

It felt silly to literally crawl over to his side, but whatever. It took five seconds and then you were right next to him, your arms brushing together, the sleeve of his jacket a whisper against your long-sleeved shirt. He leaned away, prompting you to be insulted, hurt again, but he only shrugged his jacket off and tossed it beside the packages.

“It’s warm in here,” he said, and it was, but the brush of his arm against yours was even warmer. It was nice. It’d been a while since you were so close to such an attractive guy, and now you were trapped with one. He handed you the package tightly covered in thin green plastic. “Want to open this one? I know it’s a book, but I remember which one.”

You definitely appreciated a man who was a reader, and the book that was revealed beneath the wrapping was interesting–Manual of the Warrior of Light.

“I’ve never read this. Never even heard of it, honestly,” you said, flipping through the first few pages so you didn’t have to stare at Jake’s bare hand resting on another package. It was a tan, graceful hand, with long fingers and slender bones, and you wouldn’t mind that hand touching you. “It seems interesting.”

“Ah, now I remember. I ordered this because it’s a companion to The Alchemist, which I read a few months ago.” Jake moved in closer, looking over your shoulder as you flipped back to the publication page. “What do you like to read?”

“A lot of different things. I’m open to almost everything.” You couldn’t help but smile at the torn packaging. “I’m no stranger to Thrift Books.”

He laughed again, the sound a sweet song in your ears. “It’s great, isn’t it? I think that was only five bucks or something.” He was so close that his hair tickled your shoulder as he sat back. “If you ever want to borrow either, let me know.”

Your throat was tight as you said, “Sure.” All it had taken to go from possibly nonsensical enemies to two people with a budding friendship was a misfortune elevator mishap, a ridiculous stroke of bad luck that ended up having a silver lining. Maybe it was a good thing you’d never interacted before this because if you had, you would have spent a long time smitten.

“Okay, what is this?” He dropped the next package into his lap, clearly an article of clothing. “Oh, I think I know,” he said after a moment of contemplating it, then tore one corner. “I thought this was so cool, but you can tell me if it’s not.”

It was cool–a thin black button down long-sleeved shirt with silver rhinestones along the last fourth of the sleeves, glitzy and, dare you think it, sexy. Flashy, too, and you said, “I really like that.” He wasn’t wearing anything so bold now, just a contrastingly simple button-down and now that you thought about it, that style seemed to be what you saw him in ninety percent of the time. “Where would you wear it?”

He chuckled and ran his fingertips along the rhinestones. “I thought I’d wear it on a night out or something. You never know. It feels good to dress up.”

And feeling as daring as the shirt looked, you blurted, “You should try it on. Fashion show.” He turned to you with a befuddled grin and you added, “What else do we have to do?”

“Seriously?” he asked, and you nodded, it being too late to turn back. Your heart was racing again, blood warm with growing interest and anticipation. He tilted his head, studying the shirt, then shrugged and got to his feet. “Why not?” 

You really didn’t think he’d do it, but he did, and your stomach clenched as he unbuttoned the plain white shirt he was wearing. His skin was golden and smooth, so tempting; you could imagine skating your fingers across his chest that was revealed first. You could imagine tracing his collarbones, and when the shirt was unbuttoned all the way, you could imagine your mouth on his sternum and moving down to his belly that was also smooth and looked so soft.

Instead of cursing the broken elevator, you were now silently thanking it.

Jake’s cheeks had gone pink, the flush making him even prettier, but he said, “I might seem shy, but I’m really not. I’m just quiet.” 

“Noted.” You were mesmerized by his bare upper half and the way he moved, subtly and gracefully, and your chest tightened when he bent over and his hair hung in his face. With one hand, he plucked the black shirt from atop its plastic packaging and spread his arms, sliding one hand through the right sleeve, shrugged the shirt over his shoulders, then slid his other arm through. He let it hang unbuttoned long enough for you to salivate over his exposed skin for another moment, then you wished you were the one buttoning it up for him.

He only buttoned it halfway, leaving his chest exposed. He held his arms out, then dropped them to his sides. “Does it look ridiculous?”

You wished it looked ridiculous. It was a perfect example of someone wearing the garment, not the other way around. His lithe yet sturdy body took command of the shirt; it draped over him just right and you could see his skin through the material that was even thinner than it initially looked, gauzy and titillating.

“It looks really good. Keep it for sure,” you said, and he smiled, clearly taking the compliment to heart. Your own heart did another pitter-patter. “Very cool.”

He stepped over to the elevator doors and put one hand on his hip, then laughed and turned around. “I can’t see shit in those doors.”

“Trust me.” You nodded, unable to stop yourself from gaping at him. “It looks really good.”

The process of him taking the shirt off was even more agonizing, because you were stuck on the floor imagining him stripping and pouncing on you. But soon enough, he was buttoning up his familiar white shirt and sitting down next to you to open the last package, evidently more clothing.

“Oh, shit. Wait,” he said, slowly sliding it out of your grasp. “I remember this one. It’s embarrassing.”

“Why?” You managed to keep your hands on it and squeezed it, trying to figure out what exactly it could be. “It just feels like another shirt or something.”

He was blushing again. “No, it’s not a shirt. It’s, um–” You let him take it away, and he chuckled. “It’s what you wear under your pants.” He snorted and slapped a hand over his face. “Okay, I just told you.”

“Underwear?” You smirked to yourself. This bad day was really turning around. “Well, so what? Everyone wears it. Hopefully.” You gazed at his chest, exposed again because he hadn’t bothered to button his shirt up all the way like it’d been before. “You already stripped for me. I’m not gonna ask you to do that again, but I’ll admit I’m curious what these look like.”

So curious, and you were sure he wouldn’t satiate that curiosity, but then he ripped the package open–this time, with his teeth, and my god. In your mind’s eye you saw him ripping away your own underwear with his teeth.

“Okay, I’ll show you. No shame, right?” He ripped open the clear protective plastic with more urgency than before and placed three pairs of boxer briefs in your lap. “There you go.”

Oh my god, they were all silk. Silk boxer briefs, one black, one dark blue, one dark silver. This was a first. 

“These are nice. Fancy.” You flipped over one of the tags to look at the price which made you balk. “Jesus. It’s that much for one pair?”

“It’s worth it.” Jake chuckled and took them away, quickly putting them back in the packaging. 

You considered not asking, but who cared at this point? “Are you wearing a pair of those right now?”

Another chuckle, this one laced with distinct shyness, which was so adorable that you were totally smitten now. Again, there was no turning back, and it was so ridiculous that it’d taken this long to really speak at all, yet it’d only taken half an hour to see this guy half-naked and learn what underwear he wore.

“Maybe.” Jake’s eyebrows rose and he glanced down at your thighs. “What are you wearing?”

Okay, that was fair. That also made you blush and, embarrassingly, giggle and turn away. “I can’t tell you,” you said, your voice high with nervousness.

“I showed you,” he replied, the smile evident in his voice. “I think it’s justified that you merely tell me.”

“Okay, well, they’re not silk.” That was all you were going to share, but when you looked at him, he was expectant, silently urging you with another raise of his eyebrows and a gleam in those bedroom eyes, and you gave in: “A thong, okay?” You raised your hands as if you could ward off your embarrassment. “A black thong. No one wants to see pantylines.”

“Really?” He sounded so pleased, and looked the same with that cheeky grin on his face. “That’s sexy.”

“Oh my god.” You turned away again, your face hot, your stomach fluttering with butterflies you hadn’t felt in forever, your instinct now screaming for you to keep it cool, but you couldn’t. From now on, there would be no dismissive glances in the halls or outside; there would be knowing grins and awkward waves. 

There was a slight pressure on your arm; Jake’s hand gracing you with his gentle touch, reassuring now, not teasing. You looked down at it, then up to his eyes, and he said, “Just so you know, I do think you’re really attractive.” He took his hand away as if he’d said the wrong thing, but then he added, filling you with bewildering confusion, “And just for the record, I’m still single. Maybe I could take you out sometime and begin to make up for being an asshole.”

His voice was so soft and his gaze was so tender that you began to calm down, at least enough to say, “That’d be really nice. The only reason I didn’t end up having a terrible crush on you is because I thought you couldn’t stand me.”

“A terrible crush,” he repeated with a small laugh. “Yeah, that’s fair. But you’re saying I still have a chance?”

“Yeah,” you said with a sigh. “You still have a chance.”

“Good.” He inched forward, repositioning himself in a way that made it seem like he was either getting up or about to pivot to face you. “Because–”

The elevator abruptly rumbled and lurched into action. You gasped; Jake cursed. It was moving again, the sound of metal churning strange and off-putting, concerning, and you clutched Jake’s wrist, suddenly made to anticipate the worst possible outcome. You’d never get out of the elevator. You’d die in it. But at least you wouldn’t die alone.

But then the grinding sounds subsided and the elevator moved smoothly upwards, and with a ding, it landed on your floor. The doors opened; you and Jake looked at one another with shared surprise, then he took your hand and helped you onto your feet.

“Let’s get out before we get stuck again,” he said, not letting go of your hand as he gathered all the open packages and jacket into his other hand, an impressive feat, you thought. “I’m going to take the stairs from now on.”

He walked you to your door with your hands bound together, your heart fluttering the whole way. His palm was warm and soft and his fingers were slotted with yours, and they curled into a little squeeze when your steps were forced to come to a stop.

You could have fainted when he lifted your hand and kissed it. “I’m glad you were with me during that ordeal.” He smiled, showing his impressively straight, white teeth. “And that we survived.” 

“I know, right?” It was hard to get the words out. You wanted to say more, wanted to do more, but you were frozen, unwilling to let him go. 

Thankfully, his grasp lingered, and he said, “I suppose I’ll need your number if I’m going to take you out.” 

“Yes, you will,” you agreed, but you still weren’t ready for the contact to be broken for either of you to get your phones. 

Jake looked down at your entwined hands and smiled again. Your own eyes stayed on his face, soaking in the sight, your mind replaying the memories of all the times you saw him and wondered and seethed and, sometimes, admittedly, pined. 

He looked into your eyes again, stroked your knuckles with his thumb, and was daring enough to kiss your cheek, which, of course, was even more exciting and made you even more delirious than him kissing your hand.

“Who knows,” he mused, his cheeks turning rosy when he pulled back. “Maybe someday we’ll both see each other in our underwear.” 

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