Before worry creeps in, I say, “It’s just a fucking picture of me. Lo keeps texting me the photos with heart emoticons.” I slip into the hallway, and register another smile that pulls my lips. I couldn’t care less about what Celebrity Crush prints, unless it hurts Daisy or any of the Calloway sisters.
This was fucking harmless.
Daisy must search the internet, her hand to her rising lips. When her eyes start glassing, I stop in the middle of the hall.
“Dais?”
She’s smiling. “You dressed up for her?”
My heart fucking radiates because of my wife. “I fucking tried.”
Daisy laughs, wiping tears that fall. “I know people always remind Lo of this, and for Connor, it’s just known, but Ryke…” Daisy smiles into another heartfelt laugh. “You’re an amazing dad.”
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hit me like a thousand tons. I promised myself that I wouldn’t be like Jonathan Hale, and I broke the mold faster than my brother could. I had no good father figure, nothing to emulate, but I knew what I never wanted to fucking be. What I’d never do to my daughter.
I’d be there every day, not just on Mondays.
I’d love her more than I loved money. More than I loved my reputation. More than I loved myself.
I’d dig for fucking happiness and hand it to Sulli.
Daisy’s smile is infectious. I end up laughing lightly and shaking my head—grateful for my wife, my daughter, and this fucking life.
“Daddy?” Sulli’s bedroom door begins to open.
Daisy swings faster, her excitement shining at the sound of our daughter.
Quietly, I tell Daisy, “I wasn’t the only one who really fucking missed you.”
Daisy mock gasps. “Is it the moon? Did the stars miss me? Or was it the sky?”
“It was this fucking tiny one.” I rotate the camera onto the bedroom door, just as Sulli emerges, half-dressed in the same fucking mermaid outfit.
I squat. “Want to say hi to Mommy?” I face the screen to our four-year-old.
Sulli gasps, but a real fucking gasp, and she races towards the phone. “Mommy!”
Daisy smiles. “The most beautiful mermaid in the whole wide sea.”
It’s 5:00 a.m.—and we’re all together again.
{ 28 }
December 2022
Hale Co. Elevator
Philadelphia
LILY HALE
I’m in a nightmare.
If I could rank a scenario as “nightmarish” this, right here, would be mounted at the top.
“Press the button again!” I yell at Ryke. I’ve already repeatedly pushed the elevator button, but maybe it’s operator-error. Maybe Ryke has the magic touch.
Not a sexual touch! Just a touch that makes a Hale Co. elevator go when it’s come to an abrupt, terrifying stop.
“I’ve pressed it fifteen fucking times already,” Ryke snaps. He listens to my demand anyway and pushes the red call help button. Nothing happens. No chimes, no beeps, no intercom system.
It’s broken.
Our only way out is broken. We’re trapped about ten floors beneath our destination: a Hale Co. Christmas party.
I pace in the small, confined space. No mirrors, just maroon wallpaper, dim lighting and soft Christmas music from the corner speakers. “Here Comes Santa Claus” is the current anthem to my nightmare.
I bite my nails while Ryke crouches by the maintenance box below all the buttons. He tries to pry it open with his fingertips. If those fingertips can scale rock, surely they can save us. Right?
My swollen ankles hurt. I lean against the wall for support, my hand splayed on my large baby bump. The extra weight drags my body down. Stay upright. I motivate myself. I’m due at any time. In fact, I almost stayed at home and ditched the party for pajamas and television with Moffy and Luna.
At the last minute, I decided to go and support Lo. And…the Christmas cookies. He enticed me with a photo of frosted sugar cookies, and I caved.
So, naturally, I hitched a ride with the Always-Late Ryke Meadows.
If I would’ve known that attending the party would result in being stuck in an elevator with the Always-Late Ryke Meadows while I’m Very Pregnant Lily Hale, I would’ve stayed in my PJs. And pretended I was eating sugar cookies.
I anxiously pick at the fuzz off my ugly Christmas sweater (the party theme). The red wool stops at my thighs, and white pompoms are hot glued over every inch. Ryke wears a green sweater with a reindeer pooping ornaments and glitter. Gold stitching says: Merry Fucking Christmas.
Daisy bought it for him.
I pull out my phone. “Check your service again.” I raise my phone to the ceiling. No bars. No signal.
“Lily,” Ryke growls my name. “Sit the fuck down.” His magic fingers fail at opening the screwed-in maintenance box. Magic fingers? I start picturing his fingers in not-so-wholesome places.
Then I start picturing his fingers on my sister.
Cringing, I cover my face with a hand. I didn’t mean to think it, I swear.
I take a breath and focus on my cellphone. “If I sit down then that’s me giving into the idea that we’ll be here for longer than five minutes.” I raise my phone. “Maybe if you boost me up, we’ll find signal.”
“No,” Ryke argues. “You’re nine-months fucking pregnant. I’m not boosting you anywhere.”
“Shhhh!” I whisper-hiss and stretch out my arms. “Did you hear that?”
Ryke goes quiet but returns to a phone box that he’s already checked out four times.
I listen and hear soft chatter. “HELP!” I scream. “HELP!! WE’RE STUCK!!” Please every wizard in every land, please get me out of here.
Ryke puts the phone to his ear and presses another button. His features significantly darken. “What’s the fucking point of having this if it doesn’t fucking work?”
I blow out a steady breath, sliding down the wall. I can’t hold myself up any longer. This is me, literally sinking in defeat.
Ryke doesn’t see me halfway to the floor as he says, “Sit the fuck down, Calloway. We’re not going anywhere.”
Shit.
* * *
Two hours.
We’ve been stuck in this elevator for two brutal hours and counting. I slouch against the wall and struggle to unlace my boots. My ankles need to breathe.
Ryke scoots in front of me and starts untying them.
I think I mutter out a thanks, hot and exhausted from doing nothing but sitting in fear. Every so often, we’ll start shouting for help, but no one has heard us. I’ve forbidden him from crawling into the elevator shaft. The first time he proposed the idea, I played out the brutal scenario where he’s crushed to death.
He told me that I was being fucking overdramatic, but he relented for a while. Then he tried again and again and on the fourth try, he succeeded in opening the ceiling hatch.
Then I screamed so horrifically that he stopped.
He hasn’t tried after that.
Ryke dying hurts to think about. I felt it once, and I don’t care to relive that day in Peru. There’d be a bottomless void that can’t be filled by just anyone.
I blow out controlled breaths, and he yanks off my left boot and works on the right. I wiggle my toes. All intact. Ryke stares at my belly for a long moment.
I’m so pregnant—it’s not good.
I’ve been tightlipped about the pain that started about an hour back, which feels a whole lot like contractions. Denial is a natural mode for me, but then I start thinking about losing this baby. Sweat gathers on my neck.
I can’t lose him.
As he unties my right boot, I ask, “Hypothetically, if we’re stuck here for eternity, do you think you could help deliver Xander?”
Ryke glares. “We’re not going to be here for eternity.”
“But if we are.”
“We aren’t.”
“But if we are,” I say like I’ve trumped him—and then I blow out another breath.
/> He yanks off my second boot. “If we are, then we need to think about other fucking things too. Like food. Water.”
“Sex,” I blurt out and cringe with him. “Nononono! Not with you. I just mean.” What did I mean? I waft some air onto my face with my hands. “Whenever anyone starts listing off necessary things to survive, sex always comes to mind. Not with you, just to be clear. Just in…general.” I wave around the elevator as though it contains all the generalness of the world.
He rubs his face with his hands as if trying to wake up. Then he groans like he can’t believe we’re having this conversation at all. “Fucking A.”
Pain shoots up, and I grit down and shift some. “But seriously…” I’m afraid. “If we’re here for the next twenty-four-hours, could you…help or…”
He raises his head from his hand-fort, and concern engulfs his face beyond anything I imagined. “Are you having fucking contractions right now?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “Maybe.”
Ryke rakes his hands through his hair. “What’s maybe? Like really fucking intense or…?”