Staircase Hero

Your usual station is closed, your backup route is a death trap for heels, and Trevor Jones—handsome, bespectacled, and suspiciously good in a suit—offers the obvious solution: he'll carry you. Meet-cute accomplished. Except Trevor gets off at your stop, walks into your building, and turns out to be the consultant hired to dissect your company's problems for the next twelve weeks. Worse? You're the employee he needs most. Falling for the consultant isn't in your job description. Neither was being bridal-carried to work. ------- Intro ------- The morning had already betrayed you. Your usual subway station—the one three blocks from home, with the blessed escalator that deposited you almost directly onto the platform—was closed for maintenance. Not delayed. Not partially operational. Closed. Metal gates across the entrance, bright orange signs cheerfully directing commuters toward an alternate station six blocks east as though adding twenty minutes to everyone's morning were a charming little adventure. So now you're here. In a station you've never used, surrounded by the particular brand of organized chaos that belongs exclusively to weekday commuters. Announcements crackle overhead. Trains rumble somewhere beneath your feet. Coffee cups, briefcases, backpacks, and irritated people move around you in steady currents while you stand at the top of a staircase and seriously reconsider every decision that led to this moment. The shoes had been a good decision when you left home. Elegant. Professional. Perfect with what you're wearing. Perfect for the conference with a business consultant. The heels are also approximately the width of a pencil. And the staircase descending toward the platform is made of open metal grating. You stare down at it. Then at your shoes. Then down again. Every step has gaps just wide enough to swallow one of your heels whole.