4. Then
FOUR
then
“Did you wax like I told you to?”
I rolled my eyes and swiped my metro card, shoving my body and overstuffed satchel through the turnstile at the High Street station.
“No, Maggie.”
On the other end of the phone, my roommate puffed out an exasperated breath. “But what if the hot subway guy is on your train again? Now you won’t be able to bang him.”
I snorted. “Mags, good Lord. I’m not going to hook up with a stranger in a subway station bathroom. Wax or no wax.”
I’m not going to hook up with anyone, anywhere.
“All I know is, he had to be seriously fine for you to even mention him because you’re basically a nun,” she sighed. “C’mon, Ella. You had the driest sophomore year in the history of New York City. In the history of college , in general. It should be illegal for someone as hot as you to be celibate this long.”
Her confusion was all my fault. I had gone from being a fairly normal roommate to a mess of anxious neuroses literally overnight. Unless I broke down and spilled my guts, she’d never understand why the thought of dating turned my stomach.
But, every day, I chose not to tell her about that night.
I figured she’d eventually stop trying to get me to goad me into relationships if I stayed consistent with my rotation of denial and distraction. So far, no such luck.
“Hey, Mags? I’m catching the C; I’m about to lose you. I’ll text you when I get to class.”
I hung up before she could protest, tucking my phone into the back pocket of my cut-offs. Grimacing down at the rest of my outfit, I shook my head.
No wonder the beautiful man on the subway stared at me before—a thief at the laundromat had left my Goodwill wardrobe in critical condition when they stole my basket, along with half of my summer clothes.
There were times that I really hated New York. At least twice a week, I wondered why on Earth I ended up there, of all places. I was clearly not cut out for a city where people stole my laundry and elbowed me into gutters to steal my cabs. Where it was—somehow, impossibly—even hotter underground than it was under direct sunlight. Where I never quite knew if the incredibly handsome stranger next to me would turn out to be a white knight or a criminal.
My anxiety swelled at the thought. As soon as the train doors swung open, I hustled to a spot in the corner and pulled out my knitting needles. The familiar feeling of the wooden sticks between my fingers helped me calm down. I picked up where I’d left off, burning off nervous energy with a hurried pace.
That week, I’d found the seafoam yarn piled outside a warehouse in the Garment District and decided to try to make Maggie a poncho with it. With her statuesque figure, I barely had enough material to pull it off.
When my fingers got going, my nerves settled. Though, I think I may have preferred the panic.
Because as soon as my mind cleared, it started to wander back to the hot subway guy.
I kept doing that. In rare moments when I found my hands suitably occupied and my anxiety at bay, I wondered who he was, where he rode the train to, why he ever glanced at me …
Why I liked it…
I wanted to say it was the way he looked at me and not just the way he looked , but that wasn’t entirely true. Sure, he and I sort of… connected?
But I’d also never seen another man so effortlessly gorgeous.
It was sort of obnoxious , actually. His face just about knocked the wind out of me. A square, solid chin connected to a sharp, slanting jaw. A dark layer of barely-there stubble that shaded the golden skin around his sculpted mouth. Eyebrows matching the thick, shiny black hair on his head. He wore it combed slightly off-center, long enough to barely touch the collar of his dress shirt at the nape of his neck.
And, then, of course, his eyes. The bright shocks of green captivated me so completely, I hadn’t even realized I was staring until the subway stopped and I had to get off.
Which could not happen again.
Yet, the closer we got to his stop, the more my foot bounced. My fingers moved faster, like they could outrun my anticipation for me.
I don’t know what I’m so worked up about. It’s not like I can talk to him . That would be pointless. And psycho.
I already looked crazy enough in my mismatched outfit .
No. I decided to do what I usually did—pick an innocuous spot to stare at and knit. Try to enjoy a little peace before class and work.
Without looking up, I heard a group of traders jostling their way on. It was the Friday before Labor Day, and clearly, these particular brokers had made a detour at a bar on their way to the train. The stench of sweat and whiskey immediately filled the whole car.
Two of them dropped down onto the bench where I rested my gaze. I’d learned my lesson last week; this time, I didn’t glance up.
Still, in my line of vision, I noticed when one elbowed the other, then gestured to the woman holding the rail between us. She’d just gotten on, too.
A minute later, one of the men unlocked his iPhone and fiddled with it. I watched him drop it to the floor of the car— ew, germs —and push it with his foot until it sat right between the woman’s heels.
The move was odd enough to make my fingers falter. I dropped a stitch, then stopped altogether, trying to puzzle out why he would want his phone there . I figured it out—too late—when the screen flickered.
Pictures . He set the phone to take pictures up her skirt .
My stomach dropped, and my face heated. The swell of anxiety I rode all afternoon suddenly burst, leaving bright red rage in its place. My eyes snapped up to glower at the drunken idiots across from me.
“Excuse me,” I called, not recognizing my own voice. “ What are you doing?”
They both froze long enough to turn heads. Their victim followed my glare from their ashen faces to the place between her feet. Visibly horrified, she shrieked and stomped her heel into the screen, crushing it like a cockroach.
One of the men bellowed, “What the fuck , lady?”
She hurled a string of insults back at them as the train tumbled to a stop. Then she hurried off, kicking the phone carcass out of the car and down into the chasm underneath the train.
By the time I turned back to the two men, they had lurched to their feet to loom over me. “What the hell is your problem?” one of them demanded. At the same time, the other shouted, “That was a thousand -dollar phone, you little bitch!”
My hands started to shake. The wooden needles trembled in my grasp as I scooted as far back into my seat as I possibly could. My brain spun out, trying to remember self-defense or common sense… or anything . But I couldn’t even see their faces through my haze of panic.
“Is there a problem?”
A large, tanned hand pressed into the shoulder of the man on the left, pushing him backward. Both men straightened away from me as a familiar figure stepped into their path.
Hot subway guy.
His posture wasn’t combative, but even in stillness, his body was intimidating. The width of his shoulders was enough to send them falling back another pace.
He cocked his head as the car glided to another stop. “Excellent timing. I think this is where you two get off?”
The drunk men roared at him while they staggered out of the car with their tails between their legs. Relief coursed through my body in a heady rush. Before I could stop it, a hysterical giggle bubbled out of my lips.
My rescuer turned and gave me a quizzical look somewhere between amusement and disbelief. “Do you have a death wish?” he asked, “Or were you about to gut them with your knitting needles?”
My knitting needles.
The notion to use them for defense never occurred to me while I was panicking.
“Oh,” I said out loud. “That would have been smart, actually. ”
His handsome face broke into a wide, perfect smile. And I swore I might faint.
“Well, you could have garroted them with the yarn,” he replied, “But that would have taken more work.”
A second nervous laugh tittered out of me. I bit my lower lip, hoping to shut myself up. Our gazes met.
Just that easily, our ordinary moment shifted into something profound. The faint laugh lines around his mouth melted as his eyes became infinitely intense. Some elusive energy charged the air between us.
I thought I had imagined it before, but it really was there. The mysterious arc of something intangible. Connection, momentum. The feeling of finding something in a stranger that you thought only existed within yourself.
Dark heat bled into his irises. My core started to melt, sending tingles through my inner thighs.
I wanted to suck in a breath, but instead, I bit my lip harder. His eyes flickered briefly to my mouth. The same moment they snapped back to mine, our train slid to another halt. I glanced overhead at the map and my heart dropped.
“Oh no,” I gasped. My stop!
We’d passed it. Before I had time to think, I grabbed my stuff and leaped out of the car.
With the beautiful man hot on my heels.