"Oliver where are you!?"

Oliver Davis' boss was screaming at him through the phone. He was twelve minutes late to work and they wanted to open the floor. Without Oliver they couldn't, so now twenty brokers sat idle, waisting time and money.

"I'm on my way! There was a car accident on the highway-"

"I don't care! Just get your ass over here in the next ten minutes or we open and you're fired." click.

With a sigh, he dropped his phone into his pocket and walked through the door of the impressive skyscraper his firm was located in. By some divine intervention, the elevator was open and empty, he bolted for it.

Another man was rushing towards the elevator and Oliver felt a pang of sympathy for his struggle, but it's a dog-eat-dog world and the weak must be punished, so he started slamming the "close door" button.

The man made it in time and saw Oliver in the act of trying to shut him out.

"I, um..." Oliver tried to justify his actions but the man just smirked and with a cruel grin, slid his hand down the button panel, hitting every floor.

"What the hell!? Now I'm gonna be late!" Oliver cried, staring at the glowing buttons in horror.

The man adjusted his lapel and shrugged. "You didn't have a problem with making me late." He said coolly.

"Nice going anyways genius, 'cause now we're both gonna be late."

Slowly, the realization of what he'd gotten himself into struck the man. "Shit."

Oliver stuck out a hand and introduced himself. "Oliver Davis."

The man returned the handshake. "Ben Schrader."

Ben dropped his messenger bag to the ground and sat down next to it, Oliver joined him on the ground.

Excruciatingly slowly, the elevator began to move. It hit one floor at a time, waiting there, then moving on. Ben noticed Oliver glaring at him and he returned the stare. "You started it." He grumbled.

"No I didn't."

"I'm sorry, was that somebody else I saw smashing the 'close door' button?"

"I wasn't smashing it."

"Yeah you were."

"No I wasn't!"

"Yes you were!"

For four floors, they shot back and forth like that. With a sinking feeling, the two men realized they still had over 150 floors to go through.

"Maybe we can use the call button?" Ben suggested. Oliver shook his head. "They're not gonna get a mechanic to stop the elevator because of a coupla' idiots."

In silence, they watched one floor after another, after another go by. Well to be precise, Ben watched the floors, Oliver watched Ben. He wanted to learn the face of the enemy.

Oliver noticed that the enemy had shiny hazel eyes, clean-looking brown hair, and a curious looking appearance that was uniquely attractive. When Oliver looked away, he didn't know that Ben began observing him.

Similar to Oliver, Ben's scoping out of him started as curiosity and ended up as infatuation. He didn't want to look away from his elevator companion for some reason.

"Whatcha staring at?" Oliver asked, noticing the direction of Ben's gaze.

Ben's cheeks flushed in embarrassment and he ran his fingers through his hair. "Nothing!" He said, louder than he had intended.

Six floors later, Oliver's phone rang. The caller ID on his screen said "The Boss" and he cringed before hitting the answer button.

"Hello Sir."

Ben could hear shouting through the phone and he watched as Oliver gritted his teeth in frustration. "Sir I understand. No, I- Mr. Schrader please."

When Ben heard the name of Oliver's boss he reached out and snatched the phone away. "Hey Mickey, it's Ben. How about you take that stick out of your ass before I call Mom and tell her how hard you're being on poor Oliver, hmm?"

Oliver watched in shock and horror as Ben continued to disrespect his boss. When Ben hung up and handed the phone back to its owner, he gave Oliver a wink. "Don't worry, you still have a job."

"H-how?"

"Mickey, your boss, is my older brother. I'm here visiting him today. Small world huh?"

Oliver nodded dumbly. What are the odds that the one person who could help him also happened to be the one person he was trapped in an elevator with?

Eventually the elevator crawled into its final ten stops. "Y'know Oliver, I'm sorry." Ben said, looking down at his lap. "That was a pretty cheap shot I took."

"It's okay, I was the one who started it by trying to close the door."

Ben reached into his bag and pulled out a pad of sticky notes and a marker. He scrawled something onto the pad and peeled off the top note. "Here." He said, folding the note and placing it into Oliver's hand. "I've got a pretty spot-on gaydar. Call me sometime."

Oliver smiled and slipped the note into his pocket before standing up and stretching his legs. He pulled Ben up and they watched the final two floors flick by.

When the elevator opened, Oliver bolted towards his desk and started making calls immediately, Ben watched him with a smile before heading in the other direction.