Page 68 of Stuck

I supposed I ought to be thankful that he hadn’t barfed. Being stuck in a tiny metal box for an indeterminate length of time was bad enough; being stuck with a stinking heap of vomit didn’t bear thinking about.

Fortunately, my phobias were limited to blood and heights. Confined spaces didn’t bother me. Neither did the dark, although whatever was wrong with the mechanics didn’t seem to be affecting the electrics, and the lights were thankfully still on. There were only three things irritating me at the moment: my bladder, which was uncomfortably full, my stomach, which was distractingly empty, and my boredom, which had reached peak levels after my phone ran out of battery, denying me the diversion of offline games.

Oh, and Darcy. But I was trying hard not to give him any more brain time. I might not be claustrophobic, but my feelings towards him were too large and too ugly to be safely aired in such a small space.

George moaned again and rolled onto his back. “What the… Where am I?”

“On a desert island in the Bahamas.”

He lifted his head, one eye open, and peered around. Then he dropped it back down again with a thunk and draped an arm over his face. “Looks suspiciously like the inside of a lift to me, but I’ll take your word for it. Don’t suppose you’ve got any water, have you?”

“Afraid not.”

“Are we stuck?”

“No, just hanging out for fun.”

That earned me a sardonic look from under the crook of his elbow. “How long have we been in here?”

“It was two hours up until my phone died. I’ve no idea how long it’s been now.” I hoped Jane would start wondering where I was soon. Mary had said she’d call at some point; she’d soon realise I wasn’t answering. I doubted Darcy would give a second thought as to whether I’d made it home safely, but I pushed that notion away, ignoring the accompanying burning sensation at the back of my eyes.

George fished his own phone out of his pocket and squinted at it. “It’s eight fifteen. I’ve got four percent battery and no reception.” He tossed it carelessly aside and heaved himself into a sitting position, leaning back against the opposite wall with his legs bent up and his elbows resting on his knees, his crossed arms spanning the gap between. “Does anyone know we’re in here?”

In answer, I pointed at the control panel, where the emergency call button had been wedged, askew, two inches inside the wall as though someone else had already lost their temper with it before us. George blew his cheeks out in a way that had me reaching to rest a reassuring hand on his arm.

“We’ll be out soon, I’m sure.”

“It’s not that.” Another groan. “Day drinking was a bad idea.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “And you wanted to do more of it!”

He’d been waiting for me when I got home from Mary’s, having texted to ask for my address, saying he needed to talk to me urgently. As soon as I arrived, he’d tried to persuade me—by physically hauling me in that direction—to go with him for more drinks to drown our joint sorrows. I would normally have told him to go home and sober up, but I’d been feeling such a painful mix of confusion, anger, and hurt that the prospect of getting sloshed had been extremely appealing.

Sadly, we hadn’t got any farther than halfway between the first and second floors before the lift—and our grand plans—came to a grinding halt. George had immediately lain down “to check his eyelids for leaks” and promptly passed out. I’d been sitting here, getting piles on the hard floor, with only myself and some not very cheery thoughts for company ever since.

He lifted one shoulder. “Yeah, well, staying drunk enough to avoid all my problems seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I sighed, and considering how badly I was failing to keep him out of my thoughts anyway, I plunged straight in with the obvious. “Darcy?”

George nodded glumly. “You know what he thinks we’ve done, right?”

“Yes. Corporate espionage. I’m not sure I even know what that is.”

“I need you to tell him I didn’t do it,” George said with unexpected intensity.

“I did, repeatedly. He wasn’t having it.”

“Will you try again?”

I looked at him more closely. Now that he wasn’t slack-faced and drooling, I could see that he was uncharacteristically agitated. It was unnerving; I was more used to seeing him laugh off every scrape he got into. “George, we haven’t done anything, remember?”

He groaned again. Loudly.

I scooted away from him. “Don’t you dare be sick.”

“I’m not going to be sick.”

“Good. Fair warning, though, I might wet myself.” The sudden movement had reminded my bladder of our predicament.