Going Up! by Amy Lane Page B

like a kid—who stopped the doors and opened them again, wore cowboy boots and leather chaps and a pink-striped oxford shirt and a really revoltingly large fake-Stetson hat. He had kind of a long neck, a really prominent jaw, a smattering of freckles still on his cheeks, and teeth that barely escaped being bucked.
    And curly yellow-brown hair.
    And really blue eyes.
    And not an ounce of embarrassment for skating in through the door at the last minute, stumbling past the girl and pitching into Zach’s arms.
    “Sorry ’bout that!” he burbled, straightening himself and then straightening his hat. He arranged a scuffed leather satchel over his hip, and got a tighter hold on the peacoat he’d obviously brought to ward against the cold San Francisco morning. The doors were still open, because sometimes they did that, and the staff complained about it going slow and the tenants said things about it being haunted by the ghost of the bachelor who had died on the twenty-second floor and who had been so lonely his cat had eaten his face.
    Zach pretended none of that was actually happening because even though he didn’t own a cat, he didn’t want to think of his face being eaten. So he didn’t think about his face being eaten. He just scooted around the teenaged girl, leaned forward and pressed the “close” key, and mumbled, “No problem” so the boy didn’t think it was totally okay to go rocketing into a stranger’s arms.
    “Yeah, well, I’m still sorry,” the kid said, tilting his hat up. Zach had no choice. He looked up from the control board into those plasma-blue eyes, and the kid grinned. He had the slightest space between his teeth, which made Zach think that maybe his parents hadn’t had good health insurance, and that made him feel bad.
    All his own teeth were capped, because six years of braces hadn’t been enough and his smile had been… well, it was perfect now, and that’s what mattered.
    “That’s okay,” he said, a little more clearly, and he quirked his lips up for good measure. “Uhm, going on a round-up?”
    The guy’s face split into a grin. “Substitute teaching in seventh grade. They didn’t give me a cattle prod so I figured this would have to do.”
    “That’s… you do that voluntarily ?” The thought of facing a battalion of sugar-crazed grunion made Zach’s well-worked abdomen muscles roll tightly. “You don’t look old enough to be in college !”
    He laughed. Not a polite “you just insulted me so I’m brushing this off” laugh, but a full-stomached laugh, like what Zach had just said was really fucking funny.
    “I’m twenty-six!”
    Ding!
    The elevator opened into the lobby then, and Zach watched the boy—guy, man, crap—stride off into the shiny, fogless day, struggling into his battered peacoat as he went.
    Zach followed him, feeling bemused. He didn’t see which way the guy turned, and so he went his usual right, because it was twelve blocks to his office building and he walked it every day, wielding his briefcase like a weapon against the hordes on the crowded sidewalk. The bay wind scalpeled its way through his wool trench coat, but he didn’t let that stop him, and he didn’t resort to huddling and blowing on his hands, either. He just kept up that same relentless pace that allowed him to push his law firm into success, that allowed him to gut school districts and corporations that tried to treat their employees like crap, and that allowed him to subvert every desire he’d ever had for a warm and comfortable life in favor of the thing his parents had decided he should have instead.
    He strode into his office with an expressionless face, because that’s how he always walked through his office.
    Leah smiled brightly at him like she did every day.
    “Hello, Mr. Driscoll, are we having a good day, Mr. Driscoll, I have your coffee waiting for you, Mr. Driscoll, all of your appointments are on your computer, Mr. Driscoll—”
    Her perky sarcasm usually washed