Page 25 of Until The Lights Go Out

She turned immediately, like she’d been hoping I would talk to her. Her grin spread wide when she saw me. “Oh good,” she said. “You don’t hate me.”

I shoved the note toward her quickly. “My reply.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “A reply?” She snatched the paper and tucked it into her suit pocket. “Are we writing letters now?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

Her grin grew even wider. “Oh, this is great.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice like we were sharing some huge secret and said, “Your dad is going to hate this.”

“He definitely does not need to know about this,” I rushed out.

She nodded seriously to match my tone, making another smile creep out. Then she straightened, already backing away. “See you on the track, Bauer!”

I watched her jog back toward her own pit area. Maybe the weekends at the track were about to get a little more exciting.

10

MAISEY | PRESENT

Turns out, I was the most awkward human ever. I was reevaluating my life choices in the elevator after running—and I meant physically running—into Theo. You would think after we had a rather civil interview and the whole work relationship started, I could string together coherent words. Apparently, it was unlikely. Somehow when Work Maisey was off, Regular Maisey was just a hot mess.

“I am so stupid,” I let out a sigh, throwing my hands over my face and groaning too loud for a public place. But it was an elevator, who cared?

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” I chanted as the elevator doors opened unexpectedly.

“Oh, do we hate someone already? Who’s stupid?” I heard a familiar voice and looked up, mortified that someone saw my display of self-depreciation. Nicola Moretti stood in front of me wearing a silver mini dress that glided along her curves like it was made for her.

“Um…me?” I squeaked out, slumping further into myself in embarrassment.

“Absolutely not.” Nicola shook her head. “Not allowed,” she insisted, getting a pathetic laugh out of me. “Come on! Time to fix this!” She held out her hand and pulled me out of the elevator. My eyes were hooked on the fact that instead of the lobby, the elevator stopped at a floor just below my own.

“Depending on how dire the situation is, I have two ideas,” she told me.

“Okay?” I replied, rather unsure. Nicola didn’t feel like a real person. I was pretty sure it should be illegal to be gorgeous, nice, and funny. But here she was.

“Listen, we gals need to stick together. What about a girl’s night? Option one, we order room service and watch classic nineties romcoms.”

“But you’re all dressed up! Don’t change your plans for me, I am totally fine. Really.”

“Second option is we get you dressed up and you join me with the girls tonight,” Nicola offers. The idea was so nice, but going out—let alone to what I would assume is a club—sounded sort of like my version of hell: sticky, loud, and claustrophobic. Maybe being confined to a house for so long made me a bit of a homebody, but honestly, at my ripe age, I just wanted to enjoy my fancy hotel room bed, maybe read.

“Okay, so not that! Option one it is!” Nicola announced and led the way down the hotel hallway.

“Seriously, I don’t want to ruin your plans. It’s okay, you’re going out! I’m so excited to even be put up in a nice hotel. I was planning on grabbing food and bringing it back up to my room.”

“Nope. I mean yes, but no,” Nicola said, smiling. “I think a girls’ night is in order. And I love to stay in too. Totally happy to! Getting ready is the fun part anyways. If you’re up for it, I think we should do a girls’ night.” She paused, taking in my expression. “If not, then we just get room service, you rant to your hearts delight, or we can both just silently exist in the same room and read or something. I have a few extra books with me. Are you a romance girl? I actually have this⁠—”

“So you’re just like a perfect human all around?” I asked, cutting her off.

“I can spot a girl in need from miles away, babes.” Nicola waved a hand around like it was nothing.

“Sure, why the hell not. Girls’ night it is. And I am a romance girl; my Kindle is in my purse at this very moment,” I replied.

“I knew I liked you!” she beamed.

We made it to her room, which was a huge suite about three times the size of my room. My room, which I thought was very luxurious when I first entered and jumped on the bed in excitement, was nothing compared to this.

“Woah. This is really nice.”