Chapter 9 - "Ezra, I could kiss you!"

Ezra's first five attempts were close, but none of them reached the building across from them. Liv held her breath every time he threw, and tried not to show her disappointment when each of them fell short.

Each time he leaned down for the next ball, she gave a little pep talk. "That was good practice. It almost made contact. I'm sure this next one will."

She was repeating herself and the words had lost any pep but they helped keep the hopeless thoughts from creeping into her mind.

"Besides, we still have..." she turned to count the balls left on the ground. Her stomach dropped. They only had two left. "We still have plenty of chances," she finished, turning back around and smiling brightly at him.

She was trying to keep her own worry from affecting him but it was unnecessary. Since the first throw, he had been in a zone. He hadn't said a word and he didn't show any sign that he had heard a thing she had said. His eyes held an intense focus as he took in his target. He pulled his arm in and she held up the sign. The air went still around them as he wound up for the pitch and released the ball.

They both froze as they watched the ball sore through the air and hit one of the dark office windows. A loud crack rang out through the night and they looked at each other in disbelief.

"You did it!" Liv said. Her voice grew louder as she repeated it like a cheer, "you did it! You hit the building!" She grabbed Ezra's arms and jumped with joy.

He smiled, but he didn't join in the celebration. "I did, but it wasn't one of the windows we needed to hit."

"It doesn't matter," she said, trying to keep the hopefulness alive. In truth, she knew it did matter.

The noise hadn't been loud enough to get the people's attention but he had hit a window. When he had come up with the idea, she hadn't been sure it was possible. But now that they knew he could, getting help felt as simple as him throwing the next ball.

His smile brightened with amusement at her happiness. "But it does matter. I have to hit the right window."

"Easy," she shrugged, like the hit was as good as done. "You got this."

He chuckled as he reached for the next ball. When he looked at the building, his gaze became serious again. Liv took a step back, this time trying to contain her eagerness so as not to distract him. Her toes danced in her slippers as she tried not to bounce up and down.

She didn't hold her breath as he threw the next ball, her faith solid in his ability. The ball soared through the air and hit a window, but it was too high. She rushed forward, hoping the noise had been loud enough to get someone's attention, but there was no movement or sign that they had heard it.

"Okay," she started, ready to put everything she had into her pep-talk, but one cold glare from Ezra silenced her.

She bit her lip and stepped back. He calmly reached for the last ball and got into position. She knew his look wasn't meant to be mean. He need to focus and nothing she could say would help.

He sucked in a deep breath and she watched his shoulder's settle. He looked down then back up. He wound up the pitch and Liv held her breath. The moment the ball left his hand, it felt like time stopped. Liv's eyes tracked the ball as it seemed to spin through the air at a sluggish pace. It collided with a dark window and the loud crack the impact made was like an electric shock, snapping time back into place.

Ezra let out a low sigh, but Liv didn't give her disappointment a breath.

"Okay," she said brightly. She turned away from the neighboring building and began to walk. "Next plan."

She walked to the door and headed back to where Ezra remained frozen. With each step she waged a war inside her head. It felt like disappointment and despair had shown up with full armies, and hope had brought nothing but a stick. But she told herself a stick was at least something.

She let her feet pound out a rhythm as she marched back and forth. As she walked back towards the edge of the roof, she looked at Ezra. It looked like he was beginning to drown in his own despair.

"Hey!" she snapped, walking right up to him. "The fight isn't over until its over." He nodded grimly and she could tell the motion was more for her than himself. "We just need the another plan."

She turned back and paced towards the door. "Another plan. Another plan."

She repeated those words over and over again in her head as if they alone could manifest a plan into being.

"We need a plan. We need a plan. What we really need is a drink," she thought.

She wasn't much for drinking, but after everything that had happened she wouldn't mind a drink to take the edge off of their situation. She usually drank wine but at the moment she wouldn't be picky about the type. She would take anything, even the whiskey she can come across in her search for baseballs.

"I could use a drink," she said when she reached the edge again.

He laughed, and even though it was a dark sound, it was better then the empty look he had been wearing. "That would make two of us."

"Good. Then you'll join me."

He frowned like she was making a cruel joke. She waved for him to follow. "I found a bottle of whiskey in one of the desks on the floor below. I'm sure they won't mind if we help ourselves to it."

Liv didn't remember exactly which desk she had found the bottle in, so they split up for the search.

"Anything?" she called out, as she searched a bottom drawer.

"Nothing but shirts," Ezra called back. "Why do so many people have shirts in their bottom drawer?"

Liv popped up so she could look at him over the cubicle walls.

"You must be joking," she said. He looked at her curiously, like she was the one who was joking. "There is no way you don't have an extra shirt at the office to change into in case you spill something on yourself."

"Of course I do," he said. "I have an extra suit in my closet." He looked at her expectantly, still waiting for her to explain herself.

She wasn't sure if she should roll her eyes or laugh. "Well, for those of us who don't have a closet in our cubicle," she paused to let the ridiculous image really sink in, "we use our bottom drawer."

"Oh," was all he said.

"Yes, oh," she mockingly laughed, returning to the search.

Two cubicles later she found the bottle of whiskey.

"Got it," she called out.

She grabbed it, pleased to find it was mostly full. She met Ezra at the end of a walkway and offered him the bottle. She thought she saw a displeased grimace cross his face as he read the label.

"Whiskey, is whiskey," she said.

"That's not true at all," he corrected her. "There is actually a huge difference in quality of whiskeys depending on brand and..."

"Save the lecture," she said. "If we ever get out of here you can educate me on what a good whiskey tastes like. But for now, we drink."

She led the search for cups and settled for two coffee mugs.

"To..." Ezra started to toast, his mug raised in the air, but he stopped as if the words were stuck in his throat.

She waited for a moment, before she stepped in.

"To surviving this far," she said.

He nodded and clinked his mug against hers.

She swallowed the small amount in one gulp and grimaced as it went down. It was bitter and sharp. Her stomach did an uncomfortable flip when the alcohol landed, but settled after a moment. She definitely preferred wine, but when Ezra offered her more, she accepted.

"This is not good," Ezra said, making a face himself as he swallowed his second cup.

"So it's not just me,"

He laughed and shook his head. "But at least its something."

She raised her mug in agreement.

"It could be worse," she added, but froze, her hand falling down heavily.

That wasn't true. They were hiding from huge Eastern European men who had guns. Huge men who had Tommy. The aftertaste of the whiskey turned bitter as she thought about how they were hiding, enjoying stolen whiskey while Tommy was in real danger. They had taken him hostage, and he had seen the men's faces.

She knew enough to know that was a bad sign. If they didn't care about him seeing their faces, it meant they didn't plan on him living long enough to tell someone what they looked like.

"We need to do something," she said, setting her mug down hard. The sound snapped Ezra out of whatever happy buzzed feeling he had been settling into. "About Tommy," she added. "We can't just hide and wait for him to get killed, because that is what is going to happen if we don't do anything."

"They aren't going to kill him," he said.

She suddenly didn't like the relaxed tone of his voice. "They might! We don't know what they are going to do."

"What else are we suppose to do?" he asked, pouring himself another drink. "We already tried everything we could."

She ripped the bottle out of his hand. "There's got to be something else. The fight isn't over until..."

"Yeah, yeah, until it's over." He scowled at her. "I never should have told you that," he added under his breath.

"Can you really sit here and drink while Tommy is in trouble?"

She glowered at him then at the bottle in her hands. This had been her worst idea. Alcohol didn't solve anyone's problems. She had seen enough bar fights to know it was usually only good at igniting a violent argument. She went to the sink prepared to dump the whole bottle down the drain, but stopped. Something in her brain told her not to pour it out.

"What?" Ezra asked when he noticed her arm hovering over the sink.

Slowly, her brain began to form an idea around alcohol igniting things.

"Fire," she breathed out.

"What?" he asked.

He still sounded annoyed with her for taking the whiskey away from him.

"Fire," she said more confidently, whirling around. "We should start a fire."

"Are you insane?"

"A fire would get someone's attention."

"Yeah, in a couple of hours when the fire finally burns enough to be noticeable."

"Then we'll throw it off the roof. Getting the fire department here is as good as the police. The police might even get sent to make sure everything is alright."

"Hold up. Lets go back to the whole 'throwing off the roof' part."

"Okay."

"How do you propose we throw fire off the roof? When I searched the bottom drawers of these desks, all I found were shirts, not a flame thrower."

Liv had been rolling that same question around in her head, only half listening to him talking, but at the mention of shirts she focused on him. A slow smile spread across her face.

"What?" he questioned, eyeing her suspiciously. "Stop doing," he motioned to her face, "whatever it is you are doing. Its creepy."

"Ezra, I could kiss you!"

He had given her the missing piece to her plan.

But before her brain could fit it into place, his hands were cupping her face and he was kissing her.

The kiss was surprisingly gentle for how blustery and rough he could be. His lips were soft as they seemed to search hers. Once she got past the a moment of shock, she sank in to it.

When he finally let her go and stepped back, it took her a moment to find her balance. She reached for the wall to steady her, and looked at him. He had sunk back against the counter, his arms and ankles casually crossed like he hadn't just kissed her.

She found something about his collected calm aggravating. "What was that?"

"You told me to kiss you," he said nonchalantly, as if this was something that happened to him all the time.

"I said I could kiss you." He frowned at her, like that made less sense than her asking him to kiss her. "Because you figured out how we are going to throw fire off the roof," she continued to explain.

"Well, if you didn't want to me kiss you, than you shouldn't have asked."

She glared at him, any warm, fuzzy feeling the kiss might have made her feel had disappeared the moment he had started to talking.

"Enough. This is pointless. We need to get all the shirts and alcohol we can find."

"Why?"

"We need to find a lighter or matches."

"Where are we going to find all these things?"

"We've already found the shirts. As for the alcohol, all the cubicle have mini-bars," she said, like it was common knowledge.

His eyes went big for the briefest of moments before they fell into a glare.

"What?" she mocked, "you don't have a mini-bar next to you closet?"

He straightened to his full height so he could look down on her. "No, mine's built into my closet."

She laughed, because of course he really did have a mini-bar in his office.

"I guess you'll know where to look for the alcohol in the offices. You search those, I'll take the cubicles. Grab any shirts or matches if you find any."

He walked away without any acknowledgment of her instruction, but when she returned to the stairwell door with her few bottles of alcohol and a pile of shirts, she found he had started a pile of his own on the ground by the door. She was inspecting the items when he joined her, his arms carrying a few more bottles of alcohol and a handful of shirts.

"This is good, but I couldn't find any matches," she said. "Did you have any luck?"

He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and flipped it open. For a moment, it looked like he was still holding onto his annoyance with her, but a triumphant smile spread across his face and washed it away.

"Ready to throw some fire?"

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THEY KISSED!!! AHHHHHH!!!! *runs around the room, crashes into the wall and blacks out*

They did and then they yelled at each other so you can wake up, it wasn't that exciting.

*stares up at the ceiling in a dreamy haze* It doesn't matter. They kissed and it was magical and everything I wished it would be...except for maybe the yelling afterwards.

Kiss shmiss I'm excited about the fire.

You have a heart of stone.

I don't know what to say that.

Oringial. Whatever, let's just see them throw some fire off the building.

Before we see things explode (into love!) tell me what you thought!

Vote, comment, follow because we got a kiss and it's worth the support! Cause let's face it this couple needs all the help they can get!