Stalled
The elevator doors slid shut a half-second before Ryan could stop them, and for a moment all he could hear was his own pulse hammering in his ears, louder than the string quartet still playing two floors up.
He pressed his back against the mirrored wall and closed his eyes. Don't cry. Not here. Not in a two-hundred-dollar rental tux with a tray of champagne flutes still balanced on some table behind him like nothing had happened.
Nothing had happened. Except everything had.
He could still feel the eyes on him. Forty of them, maybe more, all turning at once, all waiting to see what he'd do. He'd done the only thing he could — smiled, apologized, backed away like a man who hadn't just been gutted in public. It was the smiling that stayed with him now, curdling in his stomach. He hated that he'd smiled.
"You okay?"
Ryan's eyes snapped open. He hadn't even registered the other man standing there — tall, dark-haired, dressed like he belonged on the cover of something expensive, one hand loosening his bow tie like it had personally wronged him. Up close, there was a tightness around his eyes that didn't match the ease of his suit, like he'd been holding himself together for a while now too.
"I'm fine," Ryan said, too fast, too sharp.
The man's jaw tightened. "I saw what he did to you. Out there. The way he — " He stopped himself, exhaled through his nose, like he was recalibrating. "I should have said something. I'm sorry I didn't."
And there it was. The thing Ryan had been trying to outrun since the words maybe if the help actually knew how to pour a drink had left some silver-haired donor's mouth in front of forty guests, loud enough to carry over the quartet, loud enough that even the caterers in the kitchen had probably heard.
"Great," Ryan snapped, shoving off the wall. "So you watched. You and everybody else in that ballroom just watched some guy in a five-thousand-dollar suit make me look like an idiot for doing my job, and now you want a medal for feeling bad about it after?"
"That's not — "
"I don't need your pity, man. I really don't." His voice cracked on the last word, which only made him angrier. He turned away, staring at his own reflection in the mirrored wall like it might have some better version of himself hiding behind the glass.
Something flickered across the stranger's face — not offense, exactly. Something quieter, more careful. "It's not pity," he said. "I just couldn't stop thinking about how unfair it was. That's all."
Ryan didn't answer. He didn't trust his own voice right now, not with the way his throat had gone tight and stupid.
The elevator gave a low groan, and the lights stuttered once before settling into a dimmer amber glow. Then it stopped moving altogether, and for a second neither of them said anything, like the silence itself needed a moment to catch up.
Ryan looked up at the ceiling like it might explain itself. "You have got to be kidding me."
"I don't think it's kidding," the man said dryly, and pressed the emergency button. Nothing but a faint click answered him. He tried it again, twice, then let his hand drop.
"Perfect," Ryan muttered. "This night just keeps getting better."
Somewhere above them, muffled through steel and concrete, a party was still happening — laughter, clinking glass, a string quartet that hadn't noticed anything was wrong. A life that felt very far away right now, on the other side of doors that weren't opening anytime soon.
Ryan let his head fall back against the mirror with a soft thud and slid down until he was sitting on the floor too, knees drawn up, tie half undone from where he'd already loosened it in the chaos of the ballroom.
"I'm Dimitri," the man offered, after a silence that had gone on a beat too long, lowering himself down across from him.
Ryan looked at him properly for the first time. Not the tux, not the easy posture of someone who'd never once been talked down to in a room full of people who thought they were better than him — just his face. Tired around the eyes in a way that didn't fit the rest of him. Sincere, maybe, in a way Ryan wasn't used to trusting from anyone dressed like that.
"Ryan," he muttered.
"Ryan," Dimitri repeated, like he was testing the shape of it.
A silence settled between them, not quite comfortable, but not as sharp as before either. Ryan studied him sideways — the loosened tie, the slight redness around his eyes that had nothing to do with the humiliation Ryan had just been through. Whatever had chased Dimitri into this elevator, it wasn't secondhand embarrassment.
"You look like you were running from something too," Ryan said, before he could stop himself.
Dimitri huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh. "That obvious?"
"Kind of."
He tipped his head back against the mirror, staring up at the amber light like it held answers. "Broke up with someone tonight. Or he broke up with me. I'm still deciding which version I like better."
Ryan winced despite himself. "Tonight? Like, at the gala?"
"Twenty minutes before I got in this elevator." Dimitri's mouth twisted, somewhere between a smile and something much sadder. "So. We're both running from something."
Ryan let that settle, the anger in his chest easing into something less like a fist and more like an open hand. "Guess we picked a hell of a place to hide."
Dimitri glanced around at the mirrored walls, the frozen numbers over the door, the amber light that made everything look softer than it probably was. "Could be worse," he said. "At least the company's not boring."
Despite himself, Ryan felt the corner of his mouth twitch. "Don't get used to it. I'm still mad at you."
"Noted," Dimitri said, and something in his voice made it sound less like a surrender and more like a promise to earn his way back into Ryan's good graces. "Well, Ryan. Lo
oks like we're stuck here a while."
