Our Stop(15)

‘You know what …?’ Daniel started, and he trusted Romeo to tell him the whole sorry thing. That he’d seen this woman and thought it would be cute to do a Missed Connection, and that he felt pretty stupid that it hadn’t worked. He thought he’d wanted to forget, but he didn’t: he wanted to talk about it, to be sad out loud.

‘What! Well, that’s damned cool of you!’ Romeo exclaimed. ‘It’s here, in this newspaper?’ He reached behind the reception desk and rifled through a stack of papers – it looked like a collection of the past week’s. He flipped through them, looking for yesterday’s. ‘Ah – got it!’

‘Oh god …’ said Daniel, but Romeo was already flicking through the pages with lightning speed.

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Romeo said. ‘To the devastatingly cute—’

‘Don’t read it out loud!’ Daniel said. ‘Jesus!’ Daniel held up his palms, in surrender. He knew the thing off by heart: he’d laboured over it for three days before he finally hit ‘send’ on the submission email. He didn’t need the agony of having Romeo read the whole monologue out to him.

Romeo gave a hoot of laughter and read the rest under his breath, only muttering the odd word.

‘Smooth,’ he said in conclusion, closing the paper and putting it back where he’d found it. ‘Really smooth, bro.’

‘Well,’ said Daniel. ‘Not really, though. She was in my carriage and didn’t look up once. She’d not read it. She was texting!’

‘Coulda been texting about the ad,’ Romeo said.

‘No,’ Daniel replied. ‘I could just tell. She hadn’t seen it. She’d have at least looked around the carriage if she had.’ It then occurred to him: ‘Unless she did read it, but didn’t realize it was for her. Maybe I wasn’t specific enough?’ He threw up his hands, exasperated by himself. ‘I’ve been like this all week,’ he told Romeo. ‘Self-obsessed and neurotic. I hate it.’

Romeo stroked his chin, leaning back against the reception desk.

‘You know, I met a woman called Juliet on my first day of training for this job, and thought we were destined to be.’ Daniel watched his friend talk. Romeo met a Juliet? He wasn’t sure if this was true, or if Romeo was about to hit a punchline.

‘She’d give me the eyes across the table, hot as shit even under that fluoro lighting they have, you know. Every day for a week she’d catch my eye, and on the last day I thought, damn, I gotta make my move.’ Romeo was wistful as he spoke, and Daniel understood what he was saying was, as implausible as it sounded, genuine. ‘But on the last day, she didn’t come. I never saw her again. I think about her, you know? Because I think we could’ve been something.’

Daniel didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m … sorry?’ he settled on, making it a question. A near-miss in love was a special kind of disappointment.

‘I just mean,’ Romeo said, snapping out of his reverie, ‘at least you went for it. You don’t have to regret it, you know? Good for you, man. You said something.’

‘Yeah,’ said Daniel. ‘But to reiterate: she didn’t see it. Or doesn’t care. So.’

Romeo nodded. ‘She beautiful? Your woman?’

Daniel smiled. ‘Yeah.’

‘She kind?’

Daniel nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘She work around here?’

Daniel narrowed his eyes, wondering if there was some sort of security-person network that meant Romeo could track her down.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘No idea where, though. Something to do with artificial intelligence maybe? I heard her talking about it the day I first saw her.’

Romeo offered his hand to Daniel so that they could shake goodbye.

‘If she works around here, maybe she’ll surprise you yet. Not to sound woo-woo or whatever, but I think it’s not enough to love – you’ve got to have faith.’

‘Faith,’ Daniel repeated, appreciating that Romeo was taking his plight seriously. ‘Okay.’

‘I’ll keep everything crossed for you, bro. I think you did a cool-ass thing.’

Two mornings later, faith wavering but still intact, Daniel had read almost the whole paper by the time the train whizzed through Angel, and Moorgate, and then Bank. When he got to the Missed Connections section, right at the end, he wasn’t going to read it, because what would be the point? But two words jumped out at him: devastatingly cute. That’s what he’d called her – Nadia. He looked up and around the carriage, suddenly sheepish and exposed. His body knew what he was about to read before his mind did. The hairs on his arms prickled in excitement and he felt the back of his neck flush and redden.

It’s creepy that you’re watching me when you could be saying hello, but maybe you’re trying to be romantic. I just want you to know that I won’t bite until at least the third date, so don’t be shy. If you think I’m devastatingly cute then be brave with it: kind, romantic and bold? That’s my love language. From the girl you wrote to with coffee on her dress, on the 7.30 at Angel x

Daniel smiled, and looked up and around the train again. Was she there? Was she watching him, like he had watched her? He couldn’t see her from where he always stood, by the doors. He was grinning like an idiot and couldn’t stop. He opened the paper again and reread what she had written. He liked that she’d called him out for being a bit creepy, because intellectually he knew it was borderline bizarre that he was being so dramatic, and making a joke out of it felt … intimate. Like, that was cool, that she could poke fun at him. You had to be comfortable with yourself to poke fun. And to say the thing about the biting and the third date – that was flirty, and cheeky. She’d complimented him, too, which was kind of key. He’d put himself out there, and she was telling him it was okay. It was good – it was an encouraging and funny and kind response. Just the right level of provocative. If he could see her, he’d march right up to her and tell her: drinks, tonight, 6.30.