by Grace Risata
“Fuck that plan, babe,” Tyler protested immediately. “I like to touch stuff.”
To prove his point, Tyler scooped her up in a giant bear hug and began to suck on her neck so fiercely that I assumed he’d be leaving a nice hickey as a souvenir.
Cara shrieked and began to half-heartedly smack him, but I could tell she loved every second of it. It was becoming apparent that those two were going to be no help at all. As usual, it was up to me to be the brains of the operation.
“How do you want to handle this?” I asked Roman. “Should we take a quick look around together, or divide and conquer?”
Much to my surprise, he had already scoped out the room and had several suggestions.
“We have a lot of ground to cover, Andi. Obviously something is hidden in one of the books, but which one? There’s no way that a huge bookcase taking up so much space is just there for decoration. The radio probably means something too, and I’m sure the paperwork on the desk might yield a clue. Also, you’re extremely lucky I’m here to assist with that object over there.”
Roman nodded toward a small parlor table holding nothing but a globe.
I broke out into a shit-eating grin.
“Good thing my human globe is available, because I’d definitely be lost without you,” I admitted, then waited for him to catch on to what I’d just said. While it’s true that I’m impressed he remembered me teasing him about his geography knowledge, I wanted to know if he’d catch something else.
“You’d be lost without your human globe?” he repeated while raising an eyebrow. “That might be the worst pun I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Possibly. However, I gave him a million imaginary bonus points for understanding my cheesy humor.
“Will you two quit wasting time and come over here?” Cara called out. “I’ve actually found something.”
I turned in her direction, only to be appalled at the sight before me. She was holding up a piece of paper in one hand while Tyler snuggled into her backside and appeared to be dry-humping her from behind as she sorted through the items on the desk.
“This is definitely a clue,” my friend insisted. “Read it and tell me what you think it means.”
Roman sidled up next to me and examined the document as I read aloud:
Should you wish to escape this room,
Here’s a hint to avoid certain doom.
A group can work together or scatter,
Keep your eye on things that matter.
Extra thought will get you far,
Set some records and raise the bar.
Perhaps the clues are high and low,
Eyes and ears will let you know.
A limited time is what you’re given,
Race round and prove you’re driven
End with success and keep on livin.
I looked at the words to see if something jumped out at me, but it was hard to concentrate with Tyler jabbering in the background.
“You said the word ‘eye’ twice in that paragraph. I think we should look for a pair of glasses. And you also said something about a record. I bet there’s a music record hidden somewhere with a code on it. Who needs a whole fucking hour? I’ll solve this shit single-handedly!”
“Do you notice anything about the letters on the paper?” I asked Roman, completely ignoring Tyler as I suddenly caught on to the meaning of the clue.
“If you’re referring to the fact that each capital letter of the sentence reads ‘Shakespeare’ if you look at it from top to bottom, then yeah. I might have figured that out before you even started reading.”
The smart ass gave me a sly little wink and hustled over to the bookshelf.
I followed and helped him search the book titles while Cara continued to rummage around in the desk drawers for anything else useful. In the meantime, Tyler decided he was going to play the game his own way.
“Roman, I need your expertise for a second. Pick this lock on the door.”
All heads turned in Tyler’s direction as he fumbled around with a vintage handle on a mysterious narrow door next to the massive bed. How in the heck had I missed the door in my initial inspection of the room? Most likely because an ivory dress hung from a hangar partially obscuring my view. If it’s a closet, I bet there are more clues inside.
“I’m not supposed to do that, man,” Roman replied tensely as though annoyed. “We have to play by the rules.”
“Fuck the rules. Since when did you become such a pussy?” his cousin asked menacingly. “No one ever got anywhere in life by playing by the rules. Didn’t you learn anything from your parents?”
Roman’s demeanor instantly went from calm to nuclear in the space of two seconds. Before I knew what was happening, he stormed over and shoved his forearm under Tyler’s neck…effectively choking the man.
As Tyler’s face began to turn a very unnatural looking color, he desperately clawed at Roman in a futile attempt to pry him off. It became abundantly clear which of the men had more strength…and it wasn’t the one with the life force being strangled out of him. Maybe I should have been concerned at this sudden display of aggression, but it seemed highly unlikely that Roman would actually kill his cousin. I mean, we were on camera after all.
“Say one more word about my parents and see what happens, asshole,” Roman growled in disgust, before finally easing up and backing away. “You can only push me so far, Tyler. Keep coming at me and I’ll happily put you in your place.”
In response, the defeated man simply rubbed his throat and stared daggers at his attacker while Cara and I looked on in disbelief that the situation had escalated to an extreme level in such a short time.
“Are we going to finish this or not?” Cara asked quietly, almost afraid to speak at all. I’m not a mind reader, but I think she was second-guessing this whole adventure and probably wishing she knew just a little bit more about Tyler and Roman. My friend had a habit of ‘kiss first, ask questions later.’
“The clock is ticking,” Roman responded as though he were the one waiting on us instead of the other way around. “Let’s get to work. Come on, Andi, we need to find Shakespeare. Which book do you think holds the next clue?”
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here,” I replied, referencing ‘The Tempest’ and also giving a not-so-subtle hint about the behavior I just witnessed.
“Better the devil you know, than the one who pretends to be an angel,” he mumbled cryptically.
“That’s not the quote.”
“I know. Go find ‘The Tempest’ and let’s move this along. We’ve already wasted enough time.”
Holy shit. He actually knew which book I was referring to? Roman is full of surprises.
We flipped through six Shakespeare novels before finally finding a hollowed out book with a key inside. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on the closet door, the locked desk drawer, or the strong box on the counter. Okay, the strongbox wasn’t a keyed lock, but instead had a numerical four digit code.
“I guess it was a red herring,” Roman offered with a shrug, moving over to examine the radio a bit closer and turn his attention in another direction. Coincidentally, that’s exactly what Tyler had also done. However, his focus was solely on Cara instead of the game.
“This is lame as fuck, babe,” he complained, picking up my friend and carrying her to the enormous four post canopy bed. “We’ve been here for twenty minutes already and haven’t found a damn thing. I’m done playing detective. Let’s play something else entirely.”
She literally giggled as he dumped her on the red velvet comforter and began closing the silk curtains that had previously been tied back to the posts, effectively giving them privacy as they got up to no good.
It wasn’t long before I heard slurping sounds, moans of pleasure, and the unmistakable noise of pants being unzipped.
Are you kidding me? They’re just going to fuck on a prop bed in an escape room while cameras recorded their grunts of passion and two witnesses are mere feet awa
y? Who does that shit?
“I guess it’s just you and me, Andi,” Roman stated casually, coming up behind me and whispering softly. “It’s for the best anyway. Neither one of them has been much help. How about if we ignore their crude behavior and do our own thing?”
“What kind of thing did you want to do?” I asked breathlessly as the bed began to squeak and shake once its inhabitants ramped up their efforts to embarrass the living crap out of me.
“I was thinking…maybe we could open the strongbox with the code I just figured out?”
“What?” How in the hell was he so good at this?
“Take a look at the radio and tell me what you notice,” he suggested, taking me by the hand and leading me over to an antique Crosley cathedral style radio. It had to have been a replica because the real thing would have been worth a fortune.
“It’s cool and would make a great decoration in my apartment,” I admitted.
“Try to change the channel.”
After a bit of messing around with the dial, it became obvious that I only got one station. Number twelve-ten was the only one broadcasting music. The rest yielded static.
“One two one zero,” I mumbled. “What do we do with it?”
“Why don’t you try to put those numbers in the padlock on the strongbox and see what happens. I’ll bet it opens right up.”
Sure enough, the lock clicked and sprang free after I used that combination to open it. Slowly lifting the lid as though a rattlesnake might jump out at me, I was nervous, excited, and fearful all at once.
That is, until I saw what the box held.
It didn’t look like anything familiar.
“It’s a black light,” Roman explained while picking it up and turning it on. “Go hit the switch and let’s see what happens once we’re bathed in darkness. My guess is that something will magically appear on the wall. Maybe a clue or another code.”
I did as he requested, only to see a phrase written on the ceiling.
‘Getting Warmer,’ it read with a large arrow pointing to the closet door.
Groaning at our lack of progress, I turned the lights back on and threw my hands up in exasperation.
“Obviously the locked closet needs to be opened. That clue is no help what-so-ever.”
“What’s wrong, Andi? We still have time.”
“Not very much…and it feels like we’re no better off than when we started. There’s no closet key, Cara and Tyler are treating the escape room as their own bordello instead of actually trying to solve the mystery, and this isn’t nearly as fun as I had imagined it would be.”
While it’s true that I tried to keep a positive outlook, the situation had dissolved into chaos and I really saw no point in continuing. The noises coming from the bed were distracting, not to mention disgusting, Roman had partially attempted to kill his cousin, and I couldn’t find a clue if my life depended on it. Cara found the letter, Roman found the book, the Radio Code, and knew the purpose of the black light. Hell, from the sound of it even Tyler found something. Okay, it was probably Cara’s g-spot, but still.
I wasn’t finding a damn thing and it was pissing me off.
“You want me to pick the closet lock?” Roman offered with a shrug. “Or I can just open it with the key I found hiding behind the clock.”
“What clock?” I demanded, eyes searching the room in vain for a clue that had already been found.
“The round one hanging on the wall. The one that hasn’t worked since we got here. The one that had the key taped to it when I looked on the back. I thought that it seemed out of place because the hands are stuck on twelve and two…signifying a time of exactly ten after twelve, also known as twelve ten. Which coincidentally happens to be the code of the strongbox. I guess they thought we’re dumb and needed several hints to figure it out.”
“I am dumb!” I complained, burying my face in my hands. How shameful. I had intended on impressing Roman with my smarts, but all I accomplished was acting like a pitiful loser. He had the looks, so I wanted to have the brains. Clearly he had both and I had neither.
“No you’re not, Andi,” he replied earnestly. “Take the key and open the closet door. Let’s leave this room behind…and get away from Tyler and Cara. I’ve heard enough for one day. They sound like two feral cats.”
He gave me a long gold skeleton key and ushered me to the closet door.
“What if this leads to Narnia?” I asked hesitantly. “Or to the parking lot where someone is waiting to rob us?”
Roman looked down and gave me a reassuring smile while resting his hand on the small of my back.
“No matter what might happen, Andi, I won’t let you get hurt. Remember that, okay?”
I nodded my head while trying to memorize the tender look on his face. It felt as though he were speaking about something more important than simply walking through a random door. It felt…personal. Like he wanted to say more but was forced to censor himself. Strange.
Inserting the key and turning the door handle caused a series of peculiar events to unfold. A loud and ominous creaking could be heard as the door slowly pushed open and welcomed us into another room.
A teeny tiny room with a low ceiling that caused Roman to duck his head lest he be decapitated.
A claustrophobic room that was about six feet long by six feet wide…in other words…the size of the small bathroom in my apartment. While the size of the room wouldn’t have been too bad if one person was the occupant and nothing else, it currently held two people, one large plastic tote bin in the middle of the floor, nine pairs of shoes lined up on the left wall, and eleven pairs on the right wall.
“What the hell?” I muttered in irritation. I spared a glance at the escape room countdown clock before walking into the closet, and it appeared we had roughly ten minutes to get out of the bordello before the cops raided the place and we lost the game. “How are we going to search twenty pairs of shoes, unlock the four digit code on the tote padlock, and get out of here in such a short time?”
I neglected to mention the other elephant in the room. You see…to the left of us was a bare wall, to the right of us was another empty wall, and there was a tote bin in the center…but straight ahead stood yet another door. Obviously locked. I’d bet any money that the door key was in the tote.
Instead of brain-storming to get us out of this clusterfuck of an escape room, Roman simply stared at me with a very unnerving look in his eye.
“What are you looking at?” I asked in confusion.
“You.”
Uh, yeah. I realize that. But…why is he looking at me? Do I have something on my face? There’s probably a dirt smudge from digging around all the dusty old books while searching for a key. I’d actually worked up a sweat. The air conditioning in this place wasn’t doing its job.
“Okay…” I mumbled idiotically, unable to tear my eyes away from him. He gazed down at me like I was a steak dinner and he hadn’t eaten in a very, very long time.
My breathing sped up and I felt my cheeks turn red. Roman was mere inches from me, his toned body pressed against my side as we wedged ourselves into the miniscule closet.
“Andi,” he whispered. “Tell me something. Be honest. Do I make you nervous?”
Without thinking, I nodded my head while wishing the lights in this room weren’t so bright. For a damn closet, they must have been hundred watt bulbs judging by the intensity of their glare. No wonder I was sweating so fiercely.
“Why do I make you nervous? You’re not afraid of me, are you? I have a feeling my little disagreement with Tyler didn’t sit well with you. I’m not a violent person. I just…he’s my cousin. He knows what buttons to push.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” I replied honestly. I actually wasn’t. For some odd reason I was beginning to feel safe with him. I felt protected and valued. With other people I sometimes felt like a burden or a third wheel, but not Roman. He took the time to listen to me. “You do intimidate me though.”
�
�I do? Why?”
I stared at him in awe, unable to use my ‘big girl words’ to explain it quite right. He had the body of a model, mixed with a layer of sorrow deep within his soul, topped off with the intuitiveness of a wise old man. Roman defied all the stereotypes of a guy too handsome for his own good. He was unique. And I wanted him desperately but couldn’t let myself tell him that for fear of being laughed at and turned down flat.
By some miracle, he must have been able to read my mind. Roman licked his lips, reached out and gently stroked my cheek with the rough pad of his thumb, and kissed me.
This was no chaste peck on the lips, either. What began as a soft meeting of the mouths rapidly escalated to full tongue exploration, his body pressing against mine and pinning me to the wall, my hands urgently clutching his shirt while trying to pull him closer. I might have reached up to run my fingers through his hair and moaned in delight once I grabbed a handful of silky heaven. In response, he might have sighed in contentment and stuck a hand up the back of my shirt.
Things were moving way too quickly for me to know for sure what the hell was happening. It took all my effort to stay focused on the task at hand and not let my mind wander to a million different places it didn’t need to go at the present time.
One minute I’m trying to escape a room as part of a game, and the next minute I’m in the hottest make-out session of my entire life with a man who is a total mystery to me.
BUZZ BUZZ
“This is your five minute warning. The time is almost up.”
Once the automated recording gave us that important reminder, Roman quickly pulled away from me like I was on fire and he was afraid of getting burned.
“Sorry, Andi,” he admitted sheepishly with a sexy as fuck smirk. “I never should have done that.”
I took a deep breath and tried not to show how disappointed I was at his statement. Typical. A man as gorgeous as Roman would only kiss me by accident and not on purpose. At least he has the decency to be honest about it instead of leading me on.
“We only have five minutes and that’s not nearly enough time to give your body the attention it deserves,” he continued. “Let’s get out of here and we can continue this later, okay?”