Page 25 of It's a Brewtiful Day
“Just breathe. Maybe you have the wrong locker. Let’s try them all, okay?” I reached out and found his arm, giving it a slight squeeze. It was tight and tense. “Just breathe. We’ve got this.” Sliding my hand down the locker, I touched the cool metal lock. “What’s the combination?”
“20-35-57.”
I nodded and tried to visualize the movements. “You do the next one, I’ll do this.” I slid my left foot in the direction of his voice until it touched his. “Don’t move your foot. That’s me.”
Together, we blindly tried the combination on three different lockers, cursing at the darkness and the total inability to see what we were doing. From my left came the distinct clicking sound of success.
“Yes! My locker.” The pitch and volume of his voice increased. “Finally.” The metal door squeaked as he opened it. Fabric rubbed against metal as he grabbed his bag. I heard a shuffling sound as he rifled through but didn’t miss the sharp drop when he spoke. “Where’s my phone?”
Chapter Five
“My phone should be in this pocket.” Elliot’s words were even, but there was a subtle, underlying note of panic.
I hated the trepidation in his voice mixed with the sound of zippers ripping opening and closing. My heart nearly stopped and plunged into the depths of my rapidly souring stomach with each yank of a zipper and exasperated sigh.
Another Velcro ripped, and as his display lit up from his touch, the area flooded in the brightest of light.
“Found it! Wrong pocket. Forgot I tucked it into the inside one.” He wiggled and danced, the light from the display illuminating the storage locker space like a beacon. “I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway when he made the fire.”
Even though I was ecstatic, my shoulders slumped, whether it was from exhaustion or whatnot,I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I desperately needed and wanted to get back to the main space. No one would see or find us back here. We’d been gone long enough as it was.
“Flashlight works?” I asked, praying for a morsel of good luck.
He tapped the icon, and my hand flew to my brows to shield my eyes from the bright-as-the-sun light, only peeking through a thin and narrow gap between my fingers. For that brief, instantaneous second, I saw a truly ecstatic Elliot, who was beaming from the inside out.
Until a quick tap on his screen, and we were once again plunged back into darkness.
“Sorry. I’ll put the phone on night mode. It’ll give us some light but not blind us.” More fiddling and finger tapping on the screen. “Oh.” His voice plunged into the depths of darkness.
I waited for a follow up that never came and reached out to grip his arm.
“Oh, what? No night mode?” Not that it would surprise me. It’s been one of those days. Or nights.
“No, I have it in night mode now.” With the screen facing upwards, it was impossible to miss the downward turn of his lips and the tight expression on his face.
“What is it then?” I braced for another round of bad news.
“We have no cell service.”
“What? Like none?” I sidled up beside him so we were shoulder to shoulder and stared at the top-right corner of the screen.
No Wi-Fi. No 5G. Not even the terrible 3G we were prone to receive on occasion in the mountains.
I shivered as the air turned cool all around me. “Seriously?”
After that whole ordeal? Nothing. We couldn’t call for help. We were stuck for at least a few more hours. Maybe overnight. Maybe a couple of nights!
I had no way to even let anyone know I was okay. I was trapped. He was trapped.
We were trapped together.
Tears built and made the ambient lighting blurry, and I worried there’d be a crack in my voice to match.
“Let’s just get out of this backroom and head back to the front. Maybe someone will be walking by and will tap on the window to check for anyone.” His voice pitched and dipped, betraying his outward confidence.
My hairline pulled back as realisation hit me, much like the locker had a few minutes ago. The house across the street looked vacant, but maybe a resident had run across and checked our store, only for neither of us to be visible. “Maybe they did already, and we missed it because we were back here, searching aimlessly for the lockers.”
Why did every thought need to sail past my lips? And why was I getting mad? It wasn’t Elliot’s fault. Had I not forgotten my own phone in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to wait out the timing on the security. I could be home now if I hadn’t been so careless. But then … I wouldn’t be here with him. Of all the bad things to have happened today, being in his presence was hardly awful.