Page 44 of Sweet Rivals

“Alright,” I said skeptically. I widened my stance and pushed as hard as I could against the door. Jared wiggled the spatula back and forth trying to release whatever was stuck on the door until a loud snap filled the walk-in. The spatula had cracked in half.

“Damn it.” He had been so confident that I almost believed he would be able to do it.

“Well,” Jared said stepping back and studying the door.

“Is this really happened?” I asked. “Am I really stuck in a walk-in with you?”

“If I didn’t know any better, I might think the ‘with you’ part was worse than the walk-in refrigerator part,” he said.

“Are you seriously making jokes right now? Do you not take anything seriously?” I asked.

“Let’s just call someone,” he said, pulling out his phone.

Okay, now I felt dumb. I pulled out my own phone and texted Cat:

Jenna: HELP!

As soon as I pushed send a little red exclamation mark popped up next to the words. I had no bars. “No, no, no,” I said, holding up my phone while walking in circles around the small rectangular space, squeezing past Jared in the process. “Do you have service?”

“Nope,” he said.

I turned and glared at him. “If I didn’t know any better, I might think that you didn’t give a shit that we were stuck in here.”

“It’s not ideal,” he said.

“Not ideal? What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t think we are going to die in here. We have the painters coming back, the contractor, the guys installing the equipment. I’m sure my wonderful brother will show up to check on me at some point. Someone will let us out.”

“So we just wait here?” I asked, glaring at him.

“What do you suggest?”

“Damn it!” I shouted, spinning on my heels to get away from him, which only took me a few steps in the other direction. I turned again, putting my back against the wall before sliding down to land on my butt. “You know we could freeze to death before someone comes to save us, right?” I crossed my arms over my chest and pulled my legs in close.

He crossed the walk-in and took a seat next to me. “We won’t freeze to death.”.

“We could! People can get hypothermia in like thirty-five degrees,” I said. When I stepped into the walk-in for a few minutes to gather supplies, it more often than not felt like a welcome relief from the overheated kitchen but staying longer than a few minutes left me shivering in the cold. Already, I regretted my shorts and cropped tank. I moved my hands up and down my bare arms to get some heat moving.

“Someone is going to come,” Jared said as he slid down the wall beside me. His body pressed against the length of mine from shoulder to hip to leg to calf. Normally, I would be pissed, but I kind of appreciated the heat.

“Do you just not take anything seriously, or do you have some fatal optimism thing going?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe a little of both.”

“Of course. I would be stuck in a walk-in with the least serious person I’ve ever met.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Yes! Yes, it is a bad thing. Sometimes you need to be serious and practical and focused,” I said.

“How is that helping you now?”

I glared at him before rolling my eyes. “Do you have a comeback for everything?”

“Do you have a judgement for everything?”

“Yes, I think so,” I said. “Especially when there is so much to judge.”

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