Read One Mad Night for Free Online

stairwell door and figured it was the security guard. But just as he rounded the corner and stepped into the reception area, the office doors suddenly banged open, and Chelsea waddled in, collapsed against the door, and then doubled over, dragging air into her lungs.
    â€œChelsea! What’s wrong?” he exclaimed and rushed to her side, putting his hand on her back and leaning over her.
    â€œ Snow. Pocalypse ,” she said through drags of air, and she slid down the door to her bottom. “The trains aren’t running because of some massive power outage. The elevators aren’t working, either. We are on the thirty-first floor ,” she said through a wheeze.
    â€œYou walked up thirty-one floors?”
    She shook her head. “I took the elevator to twenty. I stopped to hit the vending machines and they stopped working then. I could have been stuck in the elevator. Ohmigod, I would have been stuck in the elevator .” She started pulling candy bars out of her coat pocket and throwing them on the floor. She suddenly stopped and looked up at him with big green eyes. “Oh no. No, no, no ! I can’t be stuck in here with you !”
    â€œWith me!” he said, surprised. “Why not? Maybe I can’t be stuck in here with you!”
    She groaned and closed her eyes. Ian looked at Chelsea, the small mound of candy, and the door as reality began to seep into that reception area. No . No, hell no, he couldn’t be stuck in here with her, not knowing what he knew now. He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand the thought of her trying to one-up him. He suddenly darted out the office suite doors to the elevator banks and banged the down button. There was no light, nothing.
    â€œYou know, if the power goes off, these doors lock,” Chelsea said. Ian glanced over his shoulder. She was still on the floor but had leaned over to push the door open. “It’s a security thing.” She removed her hand, and the glass door closed.
    Ian hit the elevator button again. But as he did, her words penetrated his thoughts. Ian turned back to look at her. Chelsea was on her back now, her arms spread wide, still sucking wind. He had never seen her like that, and he meant to say so, but the lights flickered overhead. Ian had a vision of being locked outside the office and in the elevator bank. He dove for the office door, crashing into it in his haste to open it before it locked. He tripped, falling just beside Chelsea as the door slid to a close and the locks clicked shut.
    The lights went out.
    He shifted, wanting to stand, but his hand hit something gooshy.
    â€œHey!” Chelsea said.
    â€œSorry.” Apparently the gooshy thing was her.
    â€œSurely there is a gen—”
    Lights along the wall sputtered to life, casting a dull gray light. Ian looked down; he’d landed on a package of peanut butter and chocolate, and it had smeared his trouser leg.
    Chelsea was sitting up. He hopped to his feet and walked to the glass doors, pulling hard against them. They would not budge. He held his ID card up to the card reader.
    â€œYou have to have a key.”
    â€œYeah, well, I don’t have a key.”
    Chelsea rolled over and pushed herself up onto her feet. She unzipped her coat and removed it. Then she removed a coat under that and then the jacket under that . She unwrapped her scarf and let it drop, pulled off her hat and ear muffs, pushed her hair out of her face, and bent over, stiff legged, to rummage through her bag. When she stood again, she proudly held out a key. “Ta-da! You get one of these when you become an account manager.” She gave him a pert little smile and handed him the key.
    Ian looked at the key and then at her. “You knew you had a key and yet you let me think I would be locked out?”
    She smiled and shrugged a little.
    â€œI almost killed myself,” he said, pointing to the chocolate stain on his trousers.
    â€œPlease. I would