Every Little Kiss Read Free

take that breath with you,” he said. “Both of us. We’re going to do it together.” The flashlight cast strange shadows around his eyes. It reminded her of face paint at a carnival.
    The hand that wasn’t holding the flashlight slid palm-down from her shoulder, along her biceps, all the way to her fingers. He pulled her hand through emptiness until it came to rest on his chest. “Now you’ll know if we’re breathing together. You’ll feel it. In and out, okay? Just like me.”
    He held her hand tight against his sternum. His heartbeat was there, too, steady underneath his fireman’s gear. “In and out,” he said. “Easy does it.” The rise and fall of his chest was like the waves on Lake Superior—great swells that rolled along, one into the next. She squeezed her eyes closed. She pictured the lake, concentrated on matching her breathing to his.
    “Good,” he said. The rumble of his voice was so near she could feel it. If his chest was a rolling wave, then his voice was rich sunlight full of heat. “You just keep breathing like that, and I’ll keep holding your hand. I’m going to use my other hand here to set down this flashlight, then I’ll call for help on my radio. The rest of the fire crew can get us out in no time. I need you to speak and tell me you understand what I’m telling you.”
    “I understand,” she managed. He squeezed her hand. In the cramped space, it should have made her more claustrophobic to be this near to a stranger, touching like this. Yet she wanted to close the last bit of distance between them.
    The radio was on the lieutenant’s shoulder. He turned his head as he spoke into it.
    “Dispatch from unit sixteen, we have an elevator entrapment. It’s a single elevator, and we’re between floors one and two.”
    “Dispatch copy. Do you have any injuries on scene?”
    “No injuries. There are two other firefighters here also from unit sixteen, responding initially to a carbon monoxide concern. We don’t need a cruiser—just an elevator tech.”
    “Unit sixteen, message received. We’ll get a technician en route.”
    “Copy. Thanks.” A pause, then: “Lieutenant to firefighters and unit sixteen, go to channel two.”
    A crackle of static. “Yeah, Lu. What’s up?” It sounded like the female firefighter.
    “I’m in an elevator entrapment situation. I called dispatch; they have an elevator tech en route.”
    “You doing okay?”
    “Yeah. Just try to get the stupid elevator going from your end if you can. And somebody wait outside for the elevator tech, help them get to the scene.”
    “Copy that, Lu. We’ll get you out in no time.”
    “Copy. Thanks, Quinn.”
    The conversation was over, apparently. The flashlight beam was a tiny lamp in an ocean of black.
    “They need to call the elevator company to get those doors open,” the lieutenant said. “They’ll get a tech out here, and we’ll be out in no time.”
    How long? Casey trembled, wondering if she’d suffer for minutes or hours.
    “My name is Abe Cameron,” the lieutenant said after a moment.
    Casey’s brain fumbled, trying to process how to respond. Where were her manners? She couldn’t remember how or what to say. All she knew was that she couldn’t think past the four walls pressing so close around her.
    “I used to spend a lot of time at Robot Lit,” he continued when Casey didn’t say anything. “I was tutored here. When I started, I was in fifth grade and could barely read.”
    The idea had emotion swelling in her chest, though she had no idea what to do with it. “My teacher, Mrs. Wills, brought me to Robot Lit after school one day. They had time to spend with me that she didn’t. She really helped. This place really helped.”
    The clouds in her mind broke enough for her to wonder if that was why Abe had been such a stickler in the basement. Because he cared about the place.
    For some reason, the idea of Abe being gruff because of affection for Robot Lit calmed her. Moment by