Northbound Field

“It has dust.”

“That is what I meant.”

Isidro lowered himself against the rear wall, his dark trousers creasing neatly despite the circumstances. There was room beside him, though not much.

“May I sit here?” Rico asked, because suddenly it seemed important that somebody asked something.

“Please.”

Their knees touched when Rico settled down. He started to move away, then found nowhere to go without making the situation theatrical.

“Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Isidro said. “Unless you stole the crossword answers.”

“I would have chosen better puzzles.”

They shared the water in measured sips. Isidro unscrewed the cap, drank, and passed it over. Rico’s hand met his around the bottle for an instant. Isidro released it immediately, as though contact had a proper filing procedure.

Rico drank. The water was warm from the cabinet, faintly plastic, still better than nothing.

The car gave a brief, ugly shiver.

Rico’s body reacted before his mind caught up. His shoulder struck the wall. His hand shot toward the control panel.

“Rico.” Isidro had not moved closer. “May I hold your arm?”

The question landed more surely than any reassurance could have.

“Yes.”

Isidro’s hand closed around Rico’s forearm through his sleeve: dry palm, steady pressure, no attempt to trap him there. The lift settled after its complaint. Somewhere machinery turned, then stopped.

“You’re all right,” Isidro said.

“I know.”

“Good.”

Yet neither of them moved at once. Their shoulders rested together. Rico could smell clean soap beneath Isidro’s aftershave, something citrusy and restrained. He found himself listening for the next question: May I? Is this all right? Do you want me to stop?

He wanted them to continue.

The recorded woman announced the emergency procedures for a third time. Rico looked down at the puzzle book in his lap.

“Four-letter word,” he said. “A confined place of distress.”

Isidro considered it. “Lift.”

“Four letters.”

“Damn.”

Rico laughed again, softer now. Isidro’s hand remained around his arm until Rico, without looking at him, turned his forearm slightly beneath that careful hold.

The car answered with a groan from somewhere below, then climbed.

Rico’s arm remained turned in Isidro’s hand for one more second. Isidro let him decide the duration, which was absurdly considerate and perhaps why Rico noticed every inch of his own skin.

“That sounds promising,” Rico said.

“It is moving.”

“Please don’t ruin it by being correct.”

One fluorescent tube blinked out, then recovered. The floor display woke in uneven numbers: twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

At fifteen, the car settled with a soft mechanical complaint. The doors parted on cool conditioned air, carpet glue, and lemon disinfectant.

Rico stared out at an empty executive reception area: dark monitors, pale sofas, a wall of frosted glass bearing the firm’s old logo. There was no lobby. No street. No mercifully ordinary pavement.

“Fifteenth floor,” he said. “A destination nobody requested.”

“Safe-release floor, perhaps,” Isidro said.

“Everything has a name when it’s disappointing.”

“Are you steady enough for me to let go?”

Rico looked down at the hand around his forearm. “Yes.”

Isidro released him at once.

They stepped out before the lift could reconsider its generosity. A desk phone at reception rang almost immediately, its old-fashioned bell too cheerful for the hour. Isidro picked it up.

“Ramos,” he said. He listened, then set his free hand against the desk. “Yes, we’re out. Fifteenth floor.”

Rico watched Isidro’s face without learning much from it, which seemed rude of a face.

“A flooded loading bay?” Isidro repeated. “All right. No, we will not use the lift again.”

He covered the receiver. “Water reached part of the basement control equipment. Security is waiting for an electrician before they clear any route through the building.”

“So we are free,” Rico said, “in the sense that a decorative fish is free.”

Isidro relayed the question. The guard on the other end must have replied at length.

“They want us in the wellness suite down the hall,” Isidro said when he hung up. “There’s an emergency phone there. Their overnight transport is coming to the main entrance once the lobby route is cleared.”

“Of course there is a wellness suite.”

“You dislike it already.”

“I dislike any room that claims it can improve my health through beige furniture.”

The suite had once been designed for client meditation sessions and now appeared to serve as storage for abandoned corporate aspirations. A rolled yoga mat rested beside a cabinet of herbal tea. Two low chairs faced a squat sofa. A framed photograph of a beach had been hung slightly crooked, perhaps in rebellion.

The air-conditioning had turned the room chilly enough to make Rico regret his short sleeves.

Isidro found an electric kettle in the pantry alcove. “Ginger?”

“Is that a question or a warning?”

“An inventory item.”

“Ginger, then.”

They made the tea with powdered sachets and water that tasted faintly of mineral pipes. Rico carried their cups to the low table, then sat in one of the chairs with the answerless puzzle book on his lap. Isidro took the sofa, jacket still on, hard case tucked near his polished shoes.

For several minutes, they tried crossword clues with the solemnity of people avoiding a more interesting subject.

“Six letters,” Rico read. “A person who repairs what is broken.”

“Plumber.”

“Seven.”

“Then the puzzle is wrong.”

“It is a building-issued puzzle book. I suspect standards have slipped.”

The chair was softer than it looked. The tea cooled untouched beside him. His eyelids became difficult to negotiate.

Sleep took him somewhere tiled and bright.

The stairwell smelled of cut calamansi and rain-damp concrete. Sunlight poured through narrow windows, turning the blue-painted doors at every landing almost cheerful. Isidro stood one flight below in shirtsleeves, holding no keys.

“There are doors,” Rico said.

“There usually are.”

“Which one opens?”

“The one you ask for.”

It was not an answer, but it made a strange kind of sense. Rico descended one step. Isidro waited without urging him.

“Could you open that one?” Rico asked at last.

The nearest fire door clicked free.

Beyond it lay another landing, another clean blue door, another choice. Isidro remained patient through all of them. No tricks. No locked car. No recorded woman instructing him to remain calm.

Rico woke with dark blue wool over his knees and the clean citrus smell of Isidro’s jacket near his chin.

Isidro sat on the sofa with the puzzle book open. “You were cold,” he said. “I put my jacket over you. I’m sorry if that was unwelcome.”

“It wasn’t.” Rico adjusted the fabric, suddenly uncertain where to put his hands. “I was dreaming.”

“About crossword answers?”

“Worse. You were in a stairwell.”

Isidro considered that. “Was I at least useful?”

“You kept offering doors. They only opened when I asked.”

A small pause followed. Rico shook his head.

“Not an omen,” he added. “My brain has had a limited set of visual materials tonight.”

“Fair.” Isidro set the puzzle book aside. “Still, I don’t want either of us mistaking an elevator failure for permission.”

Rico met his eyes. “Neither do I.”

“If we kiss,” Isidro said, “I want it to happen after this building lets us go. Somewhere either of us can leave without needing a fire-safety consultant.”

Rico’s mouth curved despite himself. “Street level. Taxis nearby. Multiple stairwells.”

“And a clear choice.”

“Then we can ask.”

Isidro’s expression eased. “Then we can ask.”

Rico lifted his cold cup in a small toast. “To exits.”

Isidro touched his own cup to it. “To asking.”

The emergency phone rang before either of them lowered their cups.

Isidro answered on the second ring. He listened, asked two precise questions, then looked at Rico.

“The shuttle is delayed another ninety minutes. Security can send an escort through the west stairwell now, or we can wait here.”

“So we are not prisoners of wellness,” Rico said.

“No.” Isidro covered the receiver. “You may leave whenever you want.”

Rico considered fifteen flights of stairs, damp shoes, a dark street, and the ginger tea that had already gone cold beside the answerless puzzle book.

“I would prefer not to descend a tower in these shoes just to prove a point.”

“Then we stay because you prefer it. Not because you have to.”

“Yes.”

Isidro relayed the decision and hung up. The small click seemed to clear a place for a different kind of conversation.

Rico set his cup down. “Before we discuss anything else: neither of us has a boyfriend or husband who thinks we are elsewhere?”

“No,” Isidro said. “I’m single.”

“So am I.”

“And neither of us supervises the other.”

“You inspect a building. I organize its repairs.”

“My report may give you extra work.”

“Your report already gives me extra work.” Rico lifted a hand before Isidro could apologize. “That is not a complaint. It is the most normal thing about tonight.”

Isidro sat forward, elbows on his knees. “If anything happens here, I can ask the firm to use another consultant for future inspections.”