[offline] Love

The first time he saw her, Vidal would later claim, sparks had flown in the air between them. That first moment — a tiny glance and the smile he threw her way — had been enough to bewitch her completely.

The reality was that he had stared at her until his friends pointed it out with a sharp tap on his shoulder.

But no one could really blame him, because she was beautiful — in her own strange sort of way. Dark blonde, sleek hair that fell just past her shoulders, pale skin, and an outfit that vaguely resembled a British school uniform while simultaneously striking him as both sexy and studious. Dark tights, black patent leather shoes, a dark green pleated skirt that reached just above her knees, and an elegant, if rather old-fashioned, red jumper to which a white brooch was pinned.

The colour combination reminded Vidal of something, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what — except his grandmother, because who on earth still wore brooches these days?

“You’re staring at her,” Johan murmured, accompanying the observation with a tap on his shoulder.

A well-aimed punch followed, landing in his stomach with just enough force to make Vidal briefly fight down a groan. “You’re looking at her like you’ve just seen an angel,” added Severin — someone who, for Vidal, was more like a brother than a friend — speaking only after the blow had already landed.

Maybe he had, in fact, just seen one. It certainly felt that way. But he would never, of course, tell his friends that. Yes, he would trust these two with his life — but certainly not with any kind of emotional rambling about how love at first sight apparently did exist, and had just happened to him. No. They weren’t quite that close.

“Mate, you’re still staring at her.” Johan’s voice hovered somewhere between amused and genuinely concerned. “And honestly, it’s starting to make me uncomfortable.”

“Yes, everyone’s staring at us,” Severin added, running a hand through his short black hair before sliding on his oversized sunglasses. “While you stare at her, and she very much isn’t staring back.”

“That’s really nothing new, is it? People staring at us?” Vidal smiled to himself and glanced around.

The small lift cabin was packed — not just with him and his two friends, but with suited office workers who were clearly on their way back from lunch. An older gentleman kept glancing at his wristwatch with barely concealed irritation before turning to a younger colleague who was already deep in a stack of documents. A disgruntled construction worker in high-visibility trousers studied the interior of the lift as though he was mentally scheduling its repair. And two young women in expensive-looking business suits were giggling quietly, before tossing Vidal a curious look and grinning.

He smiled back, gave a small wave — almost shy — before turning to Severin. “They know who we are.”

Severin, whom Vidal had claimed as a friend right at the start of his time in England, was considerably taller and broader than Vidal — whose build was more reminiscent of an underfed librarian — and likely always would be. Unlike Severin’s love of pretty women and gym sessions, what actually bonded the two of them was the past and a shared obsession with music they swapped as if it were still the 1970s. Every week they exchanged vinyl records they’d discovered the week before. Admittedly a rather strange habit in the age of Spotify, but Vidal loved the idea of truly owning his music.

“Everyone knows us,” his friend answered immediately.

“As long as they’re under thirty,” Johan added from Vidal’s right, yawning. “Which is, incidentally, the reason we’re here in the first place, right, MaxVolumesUp?”

Johan — who described himself as “a beanpole with deformities that could generously be classified as muscles,” whose hair bore a passing resemblance to Elvis’s iconic quiff — had joined the group only five years ago. More accident than intention, and yet Vidal had welcomed him with open arms. What else was he supposed to do? He could hardly tell Severin’s little brother to disappear, could he? Besides, Johan had always slotted naturally into the group and had, for reasons Vidal didn’t entirely understand, become the brains and voice of reason among them.

In that moment, however, Vidal could only roll his eyes.

MaxVolumesUp — his creative persona, the one he projected across every social media platform — was more sought-after than any other influencer in England. His account, which had once carried his real name, was a piece of the family empire, overseen by his sharp-minded mother, who had jumped onto a train early enough to make the entire family rich.

Back then he had barely been three weeks old, and already had profiles on the internet whose significance a newborn couldn’t possibly grasp. Whenever a new platform rose to prominence, Vidal had a profile there too — whether he wanted one or not.

At some point, the account belonging to thirteen-year-old Vidal Cárdenas had, overnight, become Max Volume’s Up. His teenage self had wanted freedom from the family name, which had grown impossibly famous — but the opposite had happened. Vidal had become even more famous.

By the time he turned fourteen, he already had more followers than several British actors. He celebrated his eighteenth birthday with various minor celebrities from film, music, and of course the internet, at the trendiest club in London. He received a Mercedes while gifting his parents a house — a gesture that was, admittedly, rather unnecessary given that his mother had more money than he did — and every one of his guests received custom diamond jewellery he’d had designed exclusively for the occasion.

Vidal worried about nothing. He had money, houses, women, and the followers that continued to multiply the first. Had his looks brought him all of this? Yes. Was all of this incredibly superficial? Also yes — but that was fine by him, as long as his wealth kept growing. After all these years, he couldn’t even remember the last time he had genuinely worried about anything.

Again, he stole a glance at the young woman leaning against the wall of the lift as it lurched noisily into motion. She seemed nervous — pulling a delicate silver ring from her index finger only to slide it straight back on again. He watched, transfixed, as she drew her lower lip between her teeth and bit down gently, while the tip of her left foot kept tapping against the polished lift floor.

It was Severin who finally broke the spell. “You’re turning into a creepy stalker.”

He was just about to respond when the lift gave a violent shudder, then came to a screeching halt and slid its doors open — not onto any floor where someone might board or alight, but onto a flat steel-grey wall.

“Oh God,” one of the business-suited women breathed in panic, her voice rising quickly to a shriek. “The lift is stuck!”

“We’re going to die!" the other one joined in.

“We’re not,” Johan interjected calmly, stepping toward the two women with his hands raised — the way one might approach a pair of agitated kittens — careful not to frighten them further. “Everything is going to be fine. Lifts get stuck sometimes, and it’s almost never anything serious.”

Vidal felt a tap on his shoulder as Severin pressed past him toward the women, who were now clinging to each other in alarm.

“Besides, we all have the power of modern technology,” he heard Severin say with a smile, pulling out his phone.

A simple statement, delivered with a grin, and everyone reacted at once. Not just Vidal and his friends, but the panicked women too, along with the older gentleman in his orange work trousers, and the two suited men who had been discussing paperwork only moments before.

Everyone reached for their smartphones to call for help — everyone except one.

“No interest in getting out of here?” This were the first words Vidal had ever spoken to her, though not the first time he had heard her voice. Because the pretty stranger who fascinated him so thoroughly only glanced up briefly, gave a mildly put-out little smile, and looked away again.

“Max,” he heard one of the younger women say instead — the ones who had until now been monopolising Severin and Johan’s attention. “Come join us.”

“I’d feel so much better if you were over here,” her friend added immediately.

The pretty stranger — he could see it clearly — shot the two of them a brief, amused look before turning back to the steel-grey wall that had appeared behind the still-open lift doors.

What if the lift started moving again right now, with her standing so close to the gap? What if she was thrown off balance by the jolt and tumbled into the shaft yawning open before her?

He felt his face do something involuntary — he probably looked like someone who had just been told they had four months to live.

“Maybe you should,” he cast about for the right words and didn’t notice his syllables beginning to stumble, “move away from there. We don’t know where the fault is, and, yes.” He didn’t get any further, because his body — completely against reason and his own advice — marched itself directly toward her. “Not that you fall into the open shaft the moment we start moving again. We still have no idea whether that door is going to close or not.”

He was rambling, and he despised himself for it. What was wrong with him? Why was he nervous? He was never nervous talking to a woman — why would he be? Everyone wanted to be his friend, and those who didn’t were simply jealous and secretly wished they could be Vidal.

Only this woman appeared entirely unimpressed — by him, and by his fumbling monologue. Instead she just smiled briefly, and then her gaze dropped to the tips of her shoes.

Was she ignoring him? Everyone else in this lift was angling for his attention. And she wouldn’t even answer him.

And Vidal? He simply could not stop talking, even as it became increasingly obvious that shutting up would have been the wiser move.

“You’re the only one here who hasn’t called anyone about the lift being stuck,” he said, running a hand through his short blond hair — which bore absolutely no resemblance to his actual hair colour. “No interest in being rescued? Or is your battery dead?”

She bit her lower lip — which internally drove Vidal very nearly to madness — and then, with a small smile, pointed to the lift’s control panel, where a red SOS button was already blinking in agitation.

“Right, of course,” he stammered awkwardly, mentally slapping himself. Obviously. She had pressed the SOS button, because no one else had thought to. “So you might actually be the one who’s saved all of us. I, for my part, sent a message to the director of the company I was on my way to see.”

Why couldn’t he stop talking? Why was he telling her things she had never once asked about?

Vidal would have very much liked to turn around and shout at his own reflection, which he had been rather pleased with in the glass panel of the lift only minutes ago.

“Perhaps you know the firm?” he simply continued regardless. “Celestial Management? Twenty-second floor.”

And for the first time, she reacted not with a smile but with an expression Vidal would later describe as stunned disbelief.

That was all he got, however — because the lift, which had been frozen in stubborn stillness, groaned back to life with its doors still hanging open.

“We’re saved!” one of the young women cried out in delight, throwing herself into Severin’s arms and planting a grateful kiss on the cheek of Vidal’s visibly startled friend.

“Let me hug you, Max!” he heard next, and then two slender arms were wrapped around his neck and he found himself holding the other woman, whose business jacket smelled of vanilla and tea.

Max — there he was again, the stage name that had long since swallowed his real one. Only his family and the friends who had known him before his influencer days still called him by his actual first name. For everyone else, he had become Max long ago.

He gave the woman’s shoulder a small pat, but his eyes were only for the silent stranger, who bestowed on him one brief, dismissive smile.

And for a moment, Vidal’s world lurched — then quietly broke apart.

She must think he was a staggering womaniser. He couldn’t explain that pitying, yet faintly contemptuous little smile any other way.

The lift shuddered to a halt again, and the familiar ping of a new floor sounded. The doors, which had been standing open this entire time, gave every indication of finally being willing to close.

The woman still in his arms — not the one he would have chosen to be holding — drew back with a grateful look and smoothed her jacket, suddenly calm, without the faintest trace of the panic from moments before, and immediately resumed chattering with her friend. The shock was forgotten. And so, it seemed, were Severin and Johan, who were shooting Vidal the unmistakable this is your chance look.

For a brief moment he considered it. Why pine after a silent stranger when two perfectly attractive women were throwing themselves at him uninvited? Then the moment passed, and Vidal blinked into the cold fluorescent light now flooding the entrance.

Fluorescent light, and the face of a disgruntled older man in a caretaker’s overalls, who surveyed the group as though they had personally ruined his afternoon. “Everyone alright?”

No one answered. Instead, the group flooded out of the lift as though it might plunge into the depths at any second. And it was here, in the scramble of document-clutching office workers and women draping themselves around men without invitation, that Vidal lost sight of his unknown beauty.

She was simply gone.

One moment he had caught a glimpse of her hair, and then she had vanished. Like a fairy who had granted him a wish and then dissolved into thin air.

“Now that we’re alone,” Severin said — strong as a bear and built in a way that could give the Hulk pause — tapping Vidal’s shoulder, “you can finally explain what exactly you were attempting back there. Who was the pretty one who distracted you from the actual prospects?”

“Prospects who, if I may say so, viewed us more as a consolation prize, Vidal,” Johan chimed in — who, beside Severin, looked like a bean with tiny muscles. “And you made a complete fool of yourself over the quiet one, like someone who’s never chatted up a woman in his life.”

“It is, admittedly, rather difficult to impress someone who never quite looks at you,” Severin added, shrugging. “Fortunately, England has no shortage of lovely women who are perfectly happy to.”

Just as Vidal was about to retort that he wanted to get to know that particular woman, a man in a suit with a sweat-sheened face came rushing toward them with barely contained urgency.

“Max, Johan, and Severin, correct?” The man beamed at them, then glanced down at the tablet he was clutching tightly with both hands. “Mister Johnson has had half the firm out looking for you.”

“The lift,” Vidal began apologetically, only to be immediately cut off.

“Yes, we heard — and he is devastated about it!” For a few seconds it appeared as though the man might actually bow. “We will absolutely find a way to make it up to you, I promise. We are so terribly sorry.” He cast another frantic glance at his blinking tablet. “If you’d be so kind as to follow me? I’ll take you straight to Mister Johnson.”