One Mad Night (4 page)

Ian had been playing phone tag with Brad. He'd made the crucial mistake of stepping into the men's room, and in those few minutes, Brad had packed up and left with the mad exodus of staff. But Brad had left a message on Ian's cell phone asking him to call. Of course Ian had called him immediately—but it rolled to voice mail.

Whatever it was that Brad wanted would wait, Ian decided. He was the only one left in the office, and judging by the snow he could see coming down outside Jason's windows, he ought to get out of here too.

Ian shoved his last-minute notes into his bag, wordlessly chiding himself for allowing Chelsea to ruffle him this afternoon. That wasn't like him—Ian loved a good challenge, loved being the underdog. He thrived on competition, and in fact, he'd started it with her. But he'd left a partner track to come to this job, lured away by good money and a promise of quick, upward mobility. He'd left everything he'd worked hard to achieve at Huntson-Jones, because Grabber-Paulson was offering him the same thing, only faster. But it all hinged on getting the plum accounts, like this one. And he realized, too late, that he wasn't as sure of his decision as he had thought.

The truth was that Ian had liked Huntson-Jones. But in the end, he thought taking the leap was what he was supposed to do after all the years spent building a reputation.

His friends had told him to leap too. “They don't offer that salary because they want to test you out,” Ben had said. “What are you waiting for?” Devin had asked him, and both had good-naturedly shoved him out the door.

Frankly, Ian didn't know what he was waiting for, but it felt like he was always
waiting
. Maybe he'd been waiting for this very opportunity. Maybe he needed to give it more than a few months before he came to any conclusions. He only knew that since he'd done the thing he thought he ought to do, the thing that seemed to make the most sense, he'd had a few second thoughts.

Today, he'd let those second thoughts turn into doubts and get the best of him.

“Too late for doubts, man,” he muttered. He was all in, ready to rock and roll. He reverted back to his standard pep talk: first the Tesla account and then, who knew? The sky was the limit, right?

Right.

But why did he sometimes feel as if maybe the sky was the wrong thing to aim for? Maybe he ought to be aiming for the horizon or a totally new challenge—

His phone rang. Ian almost killed himself getting it out of his pocket. “Hello,” he said, trying not to sound antsy.

“Ian, are you believing this weather?” Brad shouted into the phone, the wind carrying his words away from the receiver.

“I haven't made it out yet.” Ian realized he was shouting too.

“You should get out of there! It's
crazy
out here—I've never seen so much snow! It's hell, only white. White hell. So look, I've got some good news for you, Ian. Me, all the partners—we like you. We like the way you think and the way you present. Jason's had a chance to look at the work you and Chelsea have done, the partners have done some talking, and we're giving you the account.”

Ian was shocked. Of all the things he thought Brad might say, this was not it. It was great news,
great
news. It confirmed everything he'd believed about himself. So why should an image of the woman bundled up like an Arctic ice fisherman who'd just left the office pop into his head? Why should he be concerned with how hard Chelsea had worked for this?

“Hello? Are you there?” Brad shouted.

“Yes, yes, I'm here!” Ian said, shaking it off.

“I thought you'd be happy!”

“I am!” Ian said, recovering quickly. “Thank you! I won't let you down, Brad. I'm just…” He ran his hand over his head. “
Surprised
. What about the pitches?”

“Right, right, the timing is no good on that. We made the decision just this afternoon, because we've only got a week to get ready for the final presentations to Tesla. We're going to go ahead with the pitch tomorrow,” Brad said. “We know how hard Chelsea has worked and it's only fair that she get her chance to present.”

It seemed patently
un-
fair to Ian for them to hear her pitch, knowing they would not give her the account.

“It's good for the office to do these things,” Brad said, sounding as if he had prepared himself for an argument. “Good practice for partnerships. In your case, it will be great practice for the pitch to Tesla next week. Be ready to go; present like you don't have the account. And congratulations, Ian! Great work!”

“Thanks,” Ian said. “Thanks for the opportunity.”

“We're expecting big things from you, you know—
big
things! This is your chance to wow us. Now get out of the office! It's too nasty to be holed up there!”

“I will,” Ian said. “I'm leaving now.” He wished Brad an easy trip home, then clicked off.

He didn't move, just stood rooted to the floor. He was thrilled. Of course he was thrilled. This was exactly what he'd come to Grabber-Paulson to do. This is what he'd worried about all afternoon, that he
wouldn't
get the account. So why wasn't he doing his happy dance?

Ian tossed his phone onto his desk, put his hands on his hips, and looked to his left, to where the Director of Media—the fancy title this account carried—would be housed. A corner office with actual sunlight filtering into it. Ian didn't like the way the firm had handled this, but hey, he would have won the account anyway. And he felt great about his work.

Still—what had just happened to Chelsea sucked. She didn't get a chance. That she didn't even know left a very bad taste in his mouth. He thought about her walking around that conference room, honing her pitch. He knew how hard she'd worked—everyone on the floor knew how hard she'd worked.

He picked up his bag.

Chelsea would bounce back. This business was cutthroat, and if you couldn't bounce back, you had no business being here. Chelsea would accept it and move on to the next account.

Ian checked his watch, wondering if he could rouse Ben and Devin for a celebratory beer. He donned his coat and wound his scarf around his neck. He picked up his bag and shoved his hands in his coat pockets, looking for his gloves and his knit hat as he strolled around the cubicles toward the entrance. The lights flickered; he glanced up, wondering what was going on. He heard the slam of the stairwell door and figured it was the security guard. But just as he rounded the corner and stepped into the reception area, the office doors suddenly banged open, and Chelsea waddled in, collapsed against the door, and then doubled over, dragging air into her lungs.

“Chelsea! What's wrong?” he exclaimed and rushed to her side, putting his hand on her back and leaning over her.

“
Snow. Pocalypse
,” she said through drags of air, and she slid down the door to her bottom. “The trains aren't running because of some massive power outage. The elevators aren't working, either.
We
are
on
the
thirty-first floor
,” she said through a wheeze.

“You walked up thirty-one floors?”

She shook her head. “I took the elevator to twenty. I stopped to hit the vending machines and they stopped working then. I could have been stuck in the elevator. Ohmigod, I would have been
stuck
in the
elevator
.” She started pulling candy bars out of her coat pocket and throwing them on the floor. She suddenly stopped and looked up at him with big green eyes. “Oh no. No, no,
no
! I can't be stuck in here with
you
!”

“With me!” he said, surprised. “Why not? Maybe I can't be stuck in here with you!”

She groaned and closed her eyes. Ian looked at Chelsea, the small mound of candy, and the door as reality began to seep into that reception area.
No
. No, hell no, he couldn't be stuck in here with her, not knowing what he knew now. He couldn't bear it, couldn't stand the thought of her trying to one-up him. He suddenly darted out the office suite doors to the elevator banks and banged the down button. There was no light, nothing.

“You know, if the power goes off, these doors lock,” Chelsea said. Ian glanced over his shoulder. She was still on the floor but had leaned over to push the door open. “It's a security thing.” She removed her hand, and the glass door closed.

Ian hit the elevator button again. But as he did, her words penetrated his thoughts. Ian turned back to look at her. Chelsea was on her back now, her arms spread wide, still sucking wind. He had never seen her like that, and he meant to say so, but the lights flickered overhead. Ian had a vision of being locked outside the office and in the elevator bank. He dove for the office door, crashing into it in his haste to open it before it locked. He tripped, falling just beside Chelsea as the door slid to a close and the locks clicked shut.

The lights went out.

He shifted, wanting to stand, but his hand hit something gooshy.

“Hey!” Chelsea said.

“Sorry.” Apparently the gooshy thing was her.

“Surely there is a gen—”

Lights along the wall sputtered to life, casting a dull gray light. Ian looked down; he'd landed on a package of peanut butter and chocolate, and it had smeared his trouser leg.

Chelsea was sitting up. He hopped to his feet and walked to the glass doors, pulling hard against them. They would not budge. He held his ID card up to the card reader.

“You have to have a key.”

“Yeah, well, I don't have a key.”

Chelsea rolled over and pushed herself up onto her feet. She unzipped her coat and removed it. Then she removed a coat under that and then the jacket under
that
. She unwrapped her scarf and let it drop, pulled off her hat and ear muffs, pushed her hair out of her face, and bent over, stiff legged, to rummage through her bag. When she stood again, she proudly held out a key. “Ta-da! You get one of these when you become an account manager.” She gave him a pert little smile and handed him the key.

Ian looked at the key and then at her. “You knew you had a key and yet you let me think I would be locked out?”

She smiled and shrugged a little.

“I almost killed myself,” he said, pointing to the chocolate stain on his trousers.

“Please. I would never be that lucky.” She smiled again.

If it hadn't been for that smile, he might have strangled her. He gave her a look before stalking to the door, put the key in the lock, and tried to turn it. It wouldn't budge. He jiggled it around. Nothing. “This doesn't work.”

“What do you mean it doesn't work?” she said anxiously, and she was suddenly beside him, jostling him out of the way. The key wouldn't turn for her, either.

Chelsea yanked it out and held it up to the dim light. “Oh
no
!”

“What?”

“This is my spare apartment key!”

“Okay, well, look into your bag and get the right one,” he said, gesturing to her tote bag, from which one shoe was protruding.

“No, no, it's not there,” she said frantically. “I have the wrong key in my purse, Ian! How can I have the wrong key? I'll tell you how,” she said before he could answer. “I have a bowl at home where I keep all my keys. I must have picked up this one by mistake.”

He wondered how many keys the woman had that she required a bowl, but never mind that—“Are you telling me we are really locked in?”

She looked up at the ceiling lights. “At least until the power comes on again.”

“
Aaaah!
” Ian said and kicked the door in frustration. “That could be hours!”

Chelsea gasped. “
Hours!
” She suddenly whirled around and picked up a chair, one that was next to the receptionist's desk for visitors. She tried to raise it over her head for reasons that first eluded Ian, but then she hoisted it against her chest, legs out, and started for the door.

“Whoa, whoa,” he said, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her into his chest to stop her from ramming the chair through the door. “What are you doing?” he exclaimed as he wrested the chair from her grip.

“Breaking us out!” she cried. “I can't be here all night! I have to get some sleep. I have to be ready for tomorrow!”

A twinge of guilt nicked him. “First of all, that's tempered glass, Chelsea. You'd just knock yourself out. Second, I don't think the partners would be too happy to find you busted out like that because you need your beauty rest.”

She gasped as if he'd just slapped her. “What a sexist thing to say! It's not beauty rest; it's just
rest
.”

“You're missing the point—okay fine,” Ian retorted, in no mood to debate her. “You don't need beauty rest, obviously.”

She blinked at him. And then she seemed to actually blush a little, although it was hard to tell as low as the light was. And then she sagged against him, giving up. “I'm just saying—we have to get out.”

“We'll get out,” he said, and he gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder that he didn't quite feel. She wasn't the only one who needed her beauty sleep. Correction—he needed beauty sleep. She just needed sleep.

He remembered that Jason had a television in his office and began striding in that direction.

“Wait, where are you going? Do you know another way out?” Chelsea asked.

Ian didn't respond, just kept walking. He could hear her run to catch up to him.

He walked into Jason's office and turned on the TV. The meteorologist was gesturing to a huge swath of blue that covered the entire east coast. Chelsea crowded in beside him—actually, she gave him a bit of a shove out of the way so she could stand in front of the TV. He gently nudged her to one side. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, watching.