When It Holds You

by Nicki Elson

  Her eyes sparked and she nodded furiously, sending her wild curls dancing. “Some people dream of getting married and having their own kids—I dream of working my ass off to enrich other people’s kids.”

  “It’s a great dream, and you’re making it happen. That puts you way ahead of those who are content to only dream when they sleep.” There was something magnetic about this woman that made Cliff want to be her cheerleader. Her positive energy flowed out and surrounded him. He could see by her employees’ smiles and relaxed posture in her presence that they felt the same way.

  She departed a few minutes later, and the meeting went on for another hour. Despite all the new information Cliff had taken in, it was Patty he thought about on his way back to the office. She wasn’t his type at all. He usually went for long and lean, like Trish and his video game girls. Patty was short and somewhat pear-shaped. She was also less polished than the kind of woman he was typically attracted to. And yet…he couldn’t deny he’d felt stirrings around her.

  His professional integrity would make it impossible to pursue anything with Patty until after the project was completed, but she’d awakened the notion that perhaps he ought to branch out beyond his typical type. Maybe the reason he was continually nursing heartache was because the kind of woman he’d always gone for was wrong for him.

  His mind drifted back to business, reviewing everything he’d learned at the Rock This Town meeting. As he approached the chrome elevator bank at the base of the River South offices, he stopped dead, recalling a particular piece of his conversation with Patty. He grinned—she’d given him the answer to the Castleabra riddle. He had an urge to rush home to punch it into his gaming system, but he had a ton of work to do and plans with Trish that night. Besides, he needed PlanetClaire’s assistance to get through the vine wall, and she wouldn’t be back online until Sunday afternoon.

  After outlining a redraft of the RTT bylaws, Cliff’s phone rang. It was Trish. He hadn’t seen her since returning from Saint Lucia, and the two of them planned to try a new Cuban restaurant that night. He felt firmly enough back in the friend zone to see her again.

  “Yo,” he answered.

  “I’m so tired,” Trish groaned. “And April just told me she’s got a conflict tomorrow morning, so I’ve got to open the shop. Do you mind postponing Encendido’s and staying in for a movie night tonight?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll cancel the reservation. We can cancel altogether, if you want.”

  “No. It’s Friday night. I refuse to not have any fun at all.”

  “Okay, I’ll come to your place. What time?”

  “Can we do it at yours? My apartment’s trashed, and I’m gone so much I decided to cancel all my streaming accounts.”

  “Aha, so you just want me for my Netflix.”

  “And your Hulu. And Apple TV. And Amazon Prime. God, Cliff, how much are they paying you at River South these days?”

  “Too much, apparently.” He really did need to get his technology expenses under control. “Come by at seven thirty. I’ll order Thai takeout. The usual?”

  “Yes, please. You’re so good to me.”

  Two hours later, Trish walked into his studio apartment carrying a quilted duffel bag. “Call me presumptuous, but I know I’ll probably fall asleep halfway through the movie, so I figured I’d crash here for the night and head straight into work. I’ll be out of your way by five a.m.”

  “Crash where? I only have one bed, which also happens to be the one couch.”

  She shook her long blond waves, setting her purse on the counter. “I don’t snore, Cliff, and I’m not a kicker. You won’t even know I’m there.”

  He didn’t like the idea, but thought maybe it would be good to push the limits of his friend zone, just to make sure it was stable.

  She set her bag next to the sofa and pulled out a few things before excusing herself to use his bathroom. Cliff went to his kitchen to put away a clean load of dishes and pull out plates and chopsticks. Trish reappeared in a tight white T-shirt and fuzzy pink pajama bottoms. She’d washed off her makeup and tied her hair into a ponytail yet somehow still looked runway-ready.

  “Food should be here any minute,” Cliff said. “Want to choose the movie?”

  Trish plopped onto his couch, tucking her legs underneath her, and played with his collection of remotes. “What’re you in the mood for?”

  “How about something retro?” While Trish stared at his TV screen and scrolled through various lists, a buzz sounded through the speaker by Cliff’s door. He pressed the button. “Be right down.”

  After riding the elevator to the lobby, he paid the delivery guy and grabbed the food. When he returned to his apartment, he found Trish jabbing at the remote. Annoyance creased her forehead. “With all these options at my fingertips, none of them offer the movie I want. A three ninety-nine rental is the only option. Do you mind?”

  “That’s fine. What movie is it?”

  “When Harry Met Sally.”

  Cliff froze, clutching the paper bags. Something deep inside him snapped. “Are you effing kidding me?”

  Trish whipped her face toward him, her expression puckered in question.

  “You come here with an overnight bag, get all comfy on my couch, and now you want to watch the queen mother of friends-to-lovers movies?”

  “You said you wanted something retro.”

  Cliff studied her face. Her expression registered genuine confusion. Of course she wouldn’t understand the source of his anger—she’d only ever thought of him as a friend. She didn’t see how her actions tonight could be interpreted as anything more than that. He set the bags of food down and leaned one hand on the cool granite countertop, staring at his stiff fingers for a moment before looking directly into her gorgeous brown eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  She sat up straighter, apparently noting the weightiness of this tone. “Can’t do what?”

  “This.” He swished his hand back and forth, indicating the two of them. “I can’t stay on your hook.”

  “My what?” She swung her legs around and set her feet flat on the floor.

  “Stop being so blind, Trish.”

  She clamped her mouth tight as an injured gleam passed through her eyes.

  He rounded the counter so that it no longer stood between them. “You have to see it. You can’t be that obtuse. I mean, my God, Hayden saw it and he doesn’t even know me.”

  Trish rose to her feet, the injured look hardening to stone. “Saw what?”

  “That I love you! That I’ve been in love with you since Iowa, and like an idiot, I keep biding my time, waiting for the right time. Waiting for you to finally feel the same.”

  “Cliff, I…”

  He threw both hands up in front of him to stop her. “I don’t want to hear anything you’re going to say. Maybe you really are completely oblivious, or maybe you know exactly what you’re doing. Either way, whatever comes out between those pretty lips of yours will be designed to screw with my head and keep me on your hook.”

  “My hook? That’s what you think our friendship is? Me leading you on? Stupid me thought you actually enjoyed hanging out with me. How ridiculous, right? You were just ‘biding your time’ until you could get into my pants!” Her eyes flashed.

  “It’s not like that. I…” Cliff shook his head. “Uh uh. No. You don’t get to turn this around on me. I’m friends with plenty of women, but none of them invite me to share hotel rooms on romantic islands. They don’t drop in for rom-coms and sleepovers. Or ask me to be their fuck buddy. You’re the one—” His eyes darted around the room, and he thrust a finger forward, pointing it at her as if to help him focus. “You’re the one who wanted to get into my pants!”

  “To help me get over Adam! You knew that! I flat out told you it was a friends-with-benefits thing, and you agreed.”

  “Of course I agreed—I’m in love with you!”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, clamping them there like an iron shield. Duri
ng the few seconds of quiet that passed, Cliff noticed her eyes shimmered with tears. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “So this whole time, ever since you showed up in front of my desk at River South Partners, you’ve had these feelings for me?”

  He took a deep inhale and tried to match her calmness. “At times I thought they’d gone away, but I guess they never really did.”

  Her face crumpled. She clamped her eyes shut, and her cheeks bulged as she pressed her lips together, as if holding back a sob. On any other girl, it might’ve been called an ugly cry, but not on her.

  He wanted to stay angry, but he couldn’t stand to see her so upset. And he didn’t want her to feel sorry for him. “It’s not entirely your fault. I knew you were a longshot, but—”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Fuck off, Cliff.” She was on the move, straight toward the door. When she brushed past him, he grabbed her arm, stopping her. She glared at him. “You’re right—I am obtuse and blind and stupid and whatever else you want to call me. Because I thought you liked me for me, not because I was some sort of longshot you wanted to conquer. I really thought we were friends.”

  “We are friends. That’s all real. But you can’t come around here in fuzzy pink pajama bottoms without putting ideas in my head. It’s not fair.”

  She jerked her arm free. “Yeah, well, don’t worry about it—I won’t be coming around at all anymore.”

  He leveled his heated gaze on her and felt…relief. Relief at the idea of not having her, the object of his unshakable desire, in his face all the time. It would be nice to stop having his resolve tested so frequently and so painfully. He couldn’t deny she had a right to feel hurt— betrayed, even. Maybe she truly had been ignorant of all the ways she’d encouraged his infatuation. But he was hurt, too. How could she not know him well enough to have sensed the longing Lyssa and Hayden had so clearly read?

  “I think that would be best.” His voice was calm and sad but resolute.

  Trish’s eyes opened wide, and she swallowed a gasp before masking her surprise in coolness. “I’m sorry our friendship didn’t mean more to you.” She grabbed her purse off the counter, shoved her feet into her shoes, and stalked out of his apartment.

  As soon as the door clicked shut behind her, Cliff fisted his hand on the cold, hard granite of his countertop. “It meant everything to me.” Several long moments passed before he noticed her duffel still sitting by the couch.

  Normally he’d have snatched it and chased her down the hall, but the circumstances weren’t normal. He didn’t want her to misinterpret his appearance in the hallway as him changing his mind about not seeing her. And he couldn’t stomach the thought of all the metaphorical chasing he’d done taking on a literal, physical form. He picked up the bag and set it in the short hallway leading to the door. When she realized her mistake and came back, he’d hand it to her before giving her a chance to cross the threshold.

  Chapter 7

  TRISH’S BAG STAYED ON THE FLOOR of Cliff’s entryway all weekend. Saturday had passed with no word from her. When Sunday afternoon arrived with still nothing, he decided he’d bring the bag with him to work on Monday, box it up, and send it to her coffeehouse via messenger. She was evidently as done with him as he was with her. At least for now.

  He was glad for the distraction of Castleabra. As planned, he logged into the game at three o’clock and waited under the low archway near PlanetClaire’s hideout. He hoped she hadn’t forgotten about their rendezvous. He needed something to pull his mind away from dwelling on Trish. He’d thought several times about calling her to apologize, but he wasn’t sorry for anything he’d said. It was all true.

  Claire’s sleek form appeared on the screen, and they connected their audio. “Sorry I’m late!” She sounded winded. “Disaster at work right before I was about to leave.” She led him into her tiny lair and lit the candles, bathing the curved stone walls in warm oranges and burnt yellows.

  “Let me make your day better,” Cliff said. “I know the answer to the riddle.”

  “Yeah? I have an idea myself.”

  “What is it?”

  “Trust. It fits the first and third clues, anyway—we’ll need it above all things if we’re going to continue working together. And for some it’s not an easy fit to have to trust strangers.”

  “That could work.” It was a good guess, and he didn’t want to dismiss it, but he felt more confident in his own.

  “What’ve you got?” Claire asked.

  “Dream. It’s what you want above all things.”

  “Some fulfill it with vows and rings,” Claire continued, reciting the second line of the riddle. “Yep, I know plenty of losers who’ve thought marriage was the answer to their dreams.”

  “For some it’s not an easy fit. That one’s a little fuzzier, but I suppose you could interpret it to mean that some people have trouble deciding on a dream or sticking with it.”

  “Or that their dreams are impossible for them to achieve? But this one: Some are content to sleep with it. Some people only ever dream in their minds and never actually go for it. I couldn’t figure out how to fit that one with trust.”

  “So you want to try dream first?”

  “Yeah.”

  They ventured through the village to its outskirts and into the field. It was already dusky in this universe. By the time they cut through the vine wall with their energy blades and climbed the rocky base of the mountain to the castle, it was considerably darker. They soon heard a familiar hiss and slither.

  “Ssso, you think you have the correct anssswer?” The serpent’s huge head emerged from the gloom. The rest of its long, tube-like body appeared by inches, curling to surround Loinerd and PlanetClaire.

  The shimmering riddle and five blank spaces floated onto the screen. Like last time, Claire typed in the answer. Also like last time, the crack of an explosion sounded the moment she’d typed in the last letter. Sparks and smoke filled the screen. But this time when it dissipated, instead of finding themselves back at the village, they were still at the castle. The serpent had vanished. They both whooped and their characters slapped a high five.

  An echoing creak drew their attention to the left side of the screen, where a drawbridge had appeared. It lowered slowly over the moat, revealing an arched opening into the castle. Loinerd and Claire moved onto the bridge, crossing over the inky water—tonight it presented a serene, glossy surface with no sign of the restless creatures that’d been snarling and snapping last time.

  The inside of the castle was dark with only a patch of weak moonlight seeping into the entryway. The hallways were pitch black. Two beams of glowing yellow light cut down one of the passages as both Cliff and Claire engaged their glow torches. Nothing to see there. Without discussing it, they redirected the beams in unison down the opposite hall and then into the wider one in front of them.

  “They all look equally innocuous,” Cliff said.

  “Exactly what I was going to say. Except for innocuous. I didn’t know anyone actually used that word.”

  “Harmless, then. Which way?”

  “Should we stick together or separate?”

  “It’s been a two-person operation so far; I say we stick together. You pick the direction.”

  Claire gave a quick flick of her light beam into each of the three passageways and kept it in the black tunnel to the left, the one Loinerd stood closest to. “That one.”

  Loinerd turned and stepped into the tunnel. PlanetClaire followed. They moved several yards into the dark, curving passageway, their footsteps echoing off the rough stone. Cliff focused his screen on the view ahead of his character, watching for signs of trouble. Tilting his light beam up, he noticed a thick, rusty chain running parallel to the curved ceiling, hanging just a few inches below its tallest point. As he trailed his light along the links, he saw that the chain extended as far forward as his glow could reach. “That’s strange,” he murmured into his mouthpiece.

  Claire didn’t respond.

 
; “Claire?” When he still didn’t get a response, he typed a note into the chat box.

  Loinerd: Is your audio working?

  Still no response. He stopped and swiveled his view to see that she was no longer behind him. He exhaled an irritated huff onto his mouthpiece. If she’d been abducted, she’d tell him where she was so he could rescue her. Obviously, she’d decided to separate and explore in a different direction and had cut off communication. Looked like she planned to take the booty all to herself. His irritation was tinged with relief that the problem wasn’t with his expensive new headphones.

  While he debated whether to continue on or turn back to try to find her, a garbled voice sounded through his earpiece. It was so distorted, he couldn’t make out a word. “Crap,” he muttered, concerned that perhaps the issue was his headset after all. A muffled screech came through, indecipherable but unmistakably urgent. “Claire! Are you in trouble?”

  He pivoted and moved back toward the entry, swirling his light over every inch in front of him as he searched for a sign of her. A strange shadow to his left caught his attention. He aimed his glow torch in that direction but saw only bumpy stone wall. The more he studied the crude surface, the more certain contours stood out to him.

  Cliff gasped when he realized he was looking at a sculpture of Claire’s features. Trailing the light downward revealed a carving of her entire body. Her hands were clawed as if scratching from inside the wall. One of her knees was frozen in an elevated position, as if jabbing at the surface. The statue seemed to be trying to get out.

  “No way,” he whispered, rubbing his free hand over the rough stone. The tips of his gloved fingers disappeared, dipping into the wall. He yanked his arm back. Thick, gray matter dripped off his fingertips. He followed the drops with his light and watched them smack onto the floor, then crawl across it to rejoin the wall.

  The noises coming through his headphones were now whimpers.

  “Are you in the wall?” he asked.

  A whine of confirmation followed.

  Cliff congratulated himself for his penchant for awesome boots in the virtual universes. That’s how he’d save her. Clicking small levers at Loinerd’s ankles, he activated the ultra-gravity feature of his pressurized footwear. The thunk of metal on stone echoed down the hallway as his boots held fast to the floor.