Page 21 of The Best Worst Thing

The Paper Jam

September, Three Years Ago

Logan?” Nicole said. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

“No,” he said, laughing through a wail as he turned to her, holding up a few sheets of crumpled-up paper. He was hovering over the massive, glowing printer, and his hands were covered in ink. “I’m going to die. Here. Tonight. And soon.”

Nicole chuckled, taking another step into the copy room.

It was nearly midnight, and she’d been working out of a conference room on the other side of the office for hours, not realizing anyone else was around.

She and Gabe were headed to Santa Barbara tomorrow for a wedding, and she had a project to finish before she took the rest of the week off.

The plan, at least in Nicole’s mind, had been for her and Gabe to spend the long weekend together.

To maybe sleep in, walk on the beach, take some pressure off their relationship.

The novelty of trying to get pregnant had worn off months ago, and with that came ovulation strips and basal body thermometers and a shift in the air of their home she could not quite put her finger on.

But then Gabe booked two tee times with his buddies from high school, so Nicole dumped four new books and a face mask in her suitcase instead.

“Isn’t this why you have a team?” she said. “To print shit for you?”

“Contrary to popular belief,” he said, “I actually do work. The night before a big pitch, I lock myself in my office and make sure everything is just the way I want it.”

“Wow. That’s exactly what I would do.”

Logan looked up from the printer’s beeping notification screen and smirked. “Guess we have that one thing in common, then.”

She rolled her eyes, then walked toward the printer to assess the damage herself.

She and Logan were maybe a foot apart, just standing there, staring at the sputtering, squawking machine while the copy room kind of hummed.

Nicole had been in here hundreds of times and never noticed it.

And yet tonight, with the rest of the office so silent, the buzz was unmistakable.

Probably just the air-conditioning, though.

Or the overhead lights. Maybe that old paper shredder, idling in the corner.

“You know,” she said as Logan raced through the touchscreen troubleshooter for the third time, “it helps if you actually read the instructions.”

He turned to her, his eyes twinkling. They got like that sometimes when he was dicking around. So, all the time, basically. He was like this all the time.

“This is war,” he said. “You’re either with me, or you’re with them.”

“Who is ‘them,’ exactly? Technology?”

“Sure, Bradbury,” he said before throwing his body on the floor, where—in a full stretch—he shoved his hands back into the paper drawer. Nicole was about to fire off a comeback about how surprised she was Logan had read any short story, ever, when he yelped.

“Fuck!” He pulled out his hand and shook it a few times. He was bleeding. “It fucking got me!”

“Do you want me to call an ambulance? Do you want me to call your mom?”

He pushed his face into the ground and let out another little scream. This one was more directed at Nicole, though.

“Sorry!” she said as she made her way toward the first aid kit mounted to the wall. She sifted through the ibuprofen and the antacids until she’d found a bandage. “It doesn’t have to be your mom. We could call your Dungeon Master! I’m sure he could … cast a spell? That’s how it works, right?”

Logan, still lying down, snatched the bandage with a scoff. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“No, actually, I—”

“Hey, you know what?” Logan rolled toward her as he secured the bandage around his index finger.

He was on his back now, facing her. His hair, a mess.

His untucked dress shirt, pushed up a few careless inches, revealing the sharp lines of his stomach and the hard edges of his hips.

Nicole was not entirely sure this was information she required. “Can I borrow your little hands?”

“No way. That thing just ate you alive.”

“Please?” he said. “I’m dying.”

Nicole walked over to where Logan was lying down, picked up what she could of the endless pieces of bandage packaging he’d let fall to the floor, then tossed them in the trash.

“Fine,” she said. “But only because I want to go home.”

He smiled. “Better take that ring off, Speyer. You’re going in the trenches.”

Nicole laughed. And then she slid off her ring and lay down on the cold polished concrete, right next to him.

They were inches from each other—their heads, shoulders, hips almost touching as together, they peered into the black hole that was the first paper tray of Porter Sloane’s notoriously fickle printer.

With his phone, Logan spotlit a microscopic scrap of paper entrenched in the printer’s thick plastic jaws. Nicole flexed her hand and reached. She tried. She really tried.

“Do you have it?” he said.

“Almost!” Her forefingers were stretching, searching. “I can’t reach! It’s right there, I can feel it, but it’s—”

“You’re doing it all wrong!” Logan slid an inch closer, squinting as he shined the flashlight on her hand. “Go to the left more!”

“I am left!”

“God, you’re infuriating!” he said, grabbing her hand to push it farther into the drawer, to put it exactly where he believed it needed to go. But the moment his fingertips touched her wrist, they both froze.

A second passed, maybe two.

Logan’s hand didn’t move.

Nicole didn’t pull hers back.

They just lay there, alone, suspended in some alternate reality. A windowless copy room that was a bright light in a sea of black—every other office, every other cubicle having called it a night. Having fallen fast asleep.

It was just them.

That was when she turned to him and saw it—that look. Dense, careful, reckless. Painful. Really, really painful.

But half a second later, it was over. Just like last time, it was gone.

He pulled back his hand.

“I … I’m sorry, I—”

“For what?” Nicole said, shaking her head. Shaking it off. Gathering herself and her things and her diamond ring. “For putting me in harm’s way?”

Logan was still peering into the paper tray as Nicole walked toward the door.

“Yeah,” he said. “You could’ve chipped a nail.”