Change Her Life. She was getting on that damned train, she was going to have a superb day, and she was going to be a woman in charge of her own life. The air was different, today. She was different, today. Possibility for the adventure of her own life splayed before her. I’m going to meet Waistcoat Guy again, she continued to tell herself. I see it. I feel it.
She made it onto the platform, into her usual spot, before the train pulled up, and was thrilled she did because, amazingly, perfectly, OH-MY-GOD-I-CAN’T-ACTUALLY- BELIEVE-IT-EXCEPT-THIS-IS-WHAT-I-VISUALIZED-LY – and there HE was. DannyBoy101. The guy from the cinema event. The man she’d stalked on Instagram and willed to cross her path again.
Shit, Nadia thought. It really is him! He was cuter than she remembered. She had literally been on his Instagram only that morning, sneaking a peek to see if he had uploaded anything since the movies. He hadn’t. Nadia had been frustrated, wanting a titbit about his life to fuel her interest in him, but his mysterious online ways gave her nothing.
She took a breath.
She looked across to the left as the train slowed to a stop.
The train doors opened.
DannyBoy101 looked up.
Their eyes met.
‘Hello,’ he said, and as people pushed around her to board the train, she walked towards him, slowly, relieved that he seemed to recognize her.
‘Hi.’
They stood and smiled at each other like they had done the other night, until the forward movement of the train forced Nadia to stumble slightly. As a knee-jerk reaction, DannyBoy101 held out his arm and she grabbed it, waiting for the train to pick up speed before trusting herself to regain her centre of gravity. His arm was rock solid. She didn’t want to let go.
‘I almost didn’t recognize you fully clothed,’ she smiled, and DannyBoy101 laughed.
‘Yeah, I tend to save the leather waistcoat for when I’m not about to meet with my boss, and my boss’s boss, and my boss’s boss’s boss.’
Nadia made a big demonstration of being impressed. ‘Big day for you then.’
DannyBoy101 swallowed and, holding her gaze and without blinking, said, in a voice that felt all loaded and heavy and deliberate: ‘Apparently so.’
The way he said it was so laden with meaning that she felt her nipples get hard as her cheeks flushed. She smiled, willingly herself to rise to the occasion of the moment. She didn’t want to be shy, or let this pass her by. She had to be brave. She was securing the name and telephone number of this man, confidence wobbles be damned.
Nadia was vaguely aware of the intrigue from the people around them. The London Underground was famed for being notoriously unfriendly. Several campaigns had been instigated over the years, typically from people Not From Here, to encourage chit-chat and smiles, including but not limited to badges that said ‘Talk to Me!’ in the red, white and blue colours of Transport for London (ostensibly not, in fact, issued by them) to buskers asking people to sing along, to American tourists trying to drum up conversations with locals only to be met with a stony silence and a pointed seat change. But – Londoners had a nose for romance. They loved a ‘Tube Meet’. Nadia was quite sure one young woman had even taken off her headphones to listen in to them more closely.
‘Where do you get off?’ Nadia said eventually, her voice a little high-pitched – but at least she’d used it.
‘There’s a joke in there somewhere,’ DannyBoy101 smiled.
‘Very funny.’
‘I try my best.’
‘I’m sure you don’t have to try at all.’
Another loaded silence. Nadia knew, without a shadow of doubt, that he felt what she felt. He couldn’t not. She couldn’t explain what was happening, but she knew, understood implicitly, that this guy was going to be something mind-blowingly meaningful to her.
The train slowed down as they approached London Bridge.
‘This is me,’ said DannyBoy101.
‘Oh – me too,’ said Nadia.
DannyBoy101 held out his hand to indicate that Nadia should lead the way, and they walked side by side in the mass of people heading to the escalator, where Nadia got on first. She turned around, and being on the higher step meant she was now eye to eye with DannyBoy101, at about the same height. She was close enough to smell him: cloves and sandalwood and maybe cedarwood too. He had the tiniest speck on red blood at the side of his face, down on his jaw. Nadia thought it must have been from shaving, since