OUR STOP
Laura Jane Williams

Copyright

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Laura Jane Williams 2019

Cover design © Cherie Chapman 2019

Cover illustrations © Shutterstock

Image here © Shutterstock

Laura Jane Williams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008320522

Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008320539

Version: 2019-05-30

Dedication

For anyone who, like me, chooses to believe

(despite all the evidence to the contrary)

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

1
Nadia

‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit.’

Nadia Fielding launched down the escalator of the tube station, her new sandals flapping with force underfoot. If people didn’t move out of her way because of the swearing, surely they would for the massive thwack she made each time a sole hit the step. She cursed ever having swiped up on the Instagram link, and she cursed the blogger who had made the black leather monstrosities look chic – and comfortable – enough to buy. They were giving her a blister already. Fuck you, @whiskyandwhimsies, Nadia thought to herself. I hope your next sponsored trip to the Amalfi Coast falls through.

Coffee held precariously in her hand, bag slipping from her shoulder, sunglasses beginning to slide off the top of her head, Nadia was a mess – but she’d be damned if she wasn’t getting the 7.30. Today was the first day of The New Routine to Change Her Life, and The New Routine to Change Her Life meant catching the train on time.

She struggled with this. Midnight bedtimes after a night out with Emma or Gaby (she was healing a dented heart! Wine is so delicious!) and a general tendency towards being more of a night owl than an early riser (to think she knew people who did Super Spin before work!) both conspired to intensify Nadia’s love affair with the snooze button. She only accomplished being on time for work about once a week, normally on a Monday. She thanked god she lived alone in a flat that technically her mother owned but that meant she didn’t need roommates – no matter what time she got up, at least there was never a queue for the bathroom.

Monday was a perpetual Fresh Start – but often by the time Nadia put a Netflix series on that night, little had changed. She was always very conscientious between getting up and just before lunch, though. It was Monday afternoons that undid her. It couldn’t be helped. The working week was just so agonizingly long, and she spent her whole life trying to catch up with herself. She was sick of being exhausted. A viral BuzzFeed article had called it ‘Millennial Burnout’. But, that’s not to say Nadia couldn’t achieve big things when she put her mind to it – recently she’d polished off all seven seasons of The Good Wife in little under three weeks. Unfortunately, however, there was no way to leverage her binge-watching-of-American-lawyers-in-impossibly-tight-skirts-with-bizarrely-sassy-retorts-to-chauvinism skill into a salaried position. And so, life went on in a muddle. Well, until today. Today was the first day of the rest of her life.

Nadia’s New Routine to Change Her Life wasn’t to be confused with a Fresh Start, because obviously The New Routine to Change Her Life would not fail, like previous attempts. This time it would be different. She would be different. She’d become the woman one step ahead of herself. The sort of woman who meal-prepped for the week in matching Tupperware, who didn’t have to renew her passport at exorbitant cost the week before a holiday but instead recognized the expiration date with a three-month lead time and didn’t get frustrated at the confusing form at the Post Office. She was to become the kind of woman who had comprehensive life insurance and a closet full of clothes already ironed, instead of crisis-steaming wrinkled & Other Stories dresses five minutes before she had to run for the bus. Nadia would become, when her new plan became her new reality, a beacon of Goop-like organization and zen. More Namaste than Nama-stay-in-bed. She’d be the Gwyneth Paltrow of Stamford Hill, with slightly wonkier teeth.

‘Excuse me! Sorry!’ she screeched, to nobody in particular and everyone all at once, as she approached the platform at speed. She normally hated the people that shoved her out of the way in tube stations and at bus stops, as if they were the only folks with anywhere important to be. On more than one occasion she’d shouted after an elbow-barger, ‘EXCUSE YOU!’ in pointed frustration. But today, this morning, she was the selfish oaf pushing through the commuting crowds, and she didn’t have time to be embarrassed about it. The new Nadia was perhaps a little ruder than her old self, but goddamnit she was also more punctual. (She suddenly had an echo of the shrill soprano of her GCSE English teacher, who would intone, ‘To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late … and to be late is absolutely unacceptable!’)

‘Wait! No!’ she squealed. Nadia was four quick steps away from the train, but at the speed she was hurtling was about to go face-first into closed doors unless somebody defied Transport for London’s rules and held them open. ‘Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!’ Her voice reached a pitch only dolphins could hear. As if in slow motion, a hand reached out and pinned the door back, meaning that Nadia could stumble aboard just as her knock-off Ray-Bans hit her face and she was temporarily blinded by their darkness. The doors snapped shut behind her. She’d made it. Just.

With a bit of practice, Nadia thought, suddenly smug, muttering a thank you and grabbing the only free seat to sit and slurp at her coffee, I might be able to nail this new routine. It had taken cajoling and effort, but so far, in the whole hour and half she’d been up, she was impressed to reflect that she’d stuck to her self-imposed rules. Ninety minutes on plan was better than ninety minutes off-plan, after all.

The New Routine to Change Her Life comprised several things besides making sure she was on the platform at exactly 7.30 a.m., to catch the tube from Angel to London Bridge. The other rules included:

 AT LEAST seven hours of sleep a night, meaning bed at 11 p.m. LATEST – and that meant lights out and eyes closed at 11 p.m., not getting to bed at 11 p.m. and spending three hours doggedly refreshing the holy trifecta of Instagram, Twitter and email and then wondering why it was so difficult to get up when the alarm went off the next day, whilst also fuelling the suspicion that everyone else’s life was far easier and more beautiful than hers.

 Up at 6 a.m., to meditate for fifteen minutes, then lighting a soy-wax scented candle as she got ready for work with calmness and serenity, in the manner of Oprah, or perhaps the Duchess of Sussex.

 Swapping a station-bought, triple-shot, extra-large cappuccino that Nadia was sure gave her spots – she’d seen the trailer for a documentary about the hormones in milk – to make a bulletproof coffee in a reusable cup for the commute. She had heard about bulletproof coffees via a Hollywood star who documented her life and workouts on Instagram in real time and who added unsalted butter to her morning espresso to regulate her energy levels and poop schedule. (‘That’s like making a green smoothie with vanilla ice cream,’ her mother had suggested in an email, which Nadia had, regretfully, no scientific retort for. ‘At least I’m doing it in an environmentally friendly KeepCup,’ she’d settled on, wondering if, actually, her mother was right.)

 Keeping faith in romance: just because her ex Awful Ben was, indeed, awful, it didn’t mean she had to think all men were, and it was important to keep believing in love.

Nadia also planned on getting to the office before everyone else each morning. She worked in artificial intelligence, developing technology that could think for itself and replace basic human activities like stacking shelves and labelling boxes, with a view to eventually making the warehouse arm of her company totally AI-run. She intended to always get a head start on reviewing the previous day’s prototype developments, before the inevitable meetings about meetings began, interrupting her every six to nine minutes and destroying her concentration until she wanted to scream or cry, depending on where in her menstrual cycle she was.

Her morning’s self-satisfaction didn’t last long, though. The train stopped in a sudden, jerky movement, and hot brown liquid hurled itself from the lip of her KeepCup, soaking into the hem of her light-blue dress and through to her thighs.

‘Shit,’ she said again, as if she, a woman in charge of a team of six, earning £38,000 a year and with two degrees, didn’t know any other words.

Her best friend Emma called Nadia’s coffee addiction an attitude adjustment in a cup. She needed caffeine to function as a human. Groaning outwardly, pouting at the blemish she’d have to wear on herself all day now, she chastised herself for not being more sophisticated – she’d never seen Meghan bloody Markle covered in her breakfast.

Nadia pulled out her phone and texted her best friend Emma, wanting a bit of Monday-morning cheerleading.

Morning! Do you want to go see that new Bradley Cooper film this week? I need something in the diary to be excited about …

She sat and waited for her friend’s reply. It was hot on the train, even this early, and a tiny bead of sweat had formed at the nape of her neck. She could smell BO, and instantly worried it was coming from her.

Nadia tried to surreptitiously turn her head and pretend-cough, bringing her shoulder up to her mouth and her nostrils closer to her armpits. She smelled of antiperspirant. She’d read about the link between deodorant and breast cancer and tried using a crystal as a natural alternative for three weeks a few summers ago, but Emma had pulled her aside and told her in no uncertain terms that it was ineffective. Today, she was 100 per cent aluminium – and sweat-free – in cucumber and green tea Dove.

Relieved, she looked around for the culprit, clocking a group of tourists arguing over a map, a nanny with three blonde children, and a cute man reading a paper by the doors who didn’t look unlike the model in the new John Lewis adverts. Her gaze finally landed on the damp patches under the armpits of the guy stood right in front of her, his crotch almost in her eye. Gross. The morning commute was like being on Noah’s Ark – wild animals cooped up, unnaturally close, a smorgasbord of odours akin to Saturday afternoon in Sports Direct.

She waited for her stop, staring idly around the carriage, trying not to inhale. She glanced lazily back at the man by the doors – the one with the newspaper. Just my type, she couldn’t help but think, enjoying the way his tailored trousers danced close enough to his thighs to make her cheeks blush. Her phone buzzed. She pulled her gaze away to look at Emma’s text, and forgot about him.

2
Daniel

Daniel Weissman couldn’t believe it. As they’d pulled up at Angel she’d skidded around the corner and he’d held his breath as he’d held the door, like a Taylor Swift lyric about an innocuous beginning and a happy ending and love that was always meant to be. Not that Daniel meant to sound soft that way. He just got weird and jittery and soppy when he thought about her. She had that effect on him. Daniel found it hard not to let his imagination get carried away.

He tried to catch sight of her from his position by the doors – she’d snaked around to the middle of the carriage. He could just about make out the top of her head. She always had hair that was messy, but not like she didn’t care about herself. It was messy like she’d just come from a big adventure, or the beach. It probably had a name, but Daniel didn’t know it. He just knew that she was very much his type. It was so embarrassing, but in the sponsorship advert in between every ad break for The Lust Villa, there was a girl who looked just like her, and if Daniel hadn’t seen her in a while even that – a bloody advert! – could make him nostalgic and thoughtful. It was shameful, really.

The Lust Villa was Daniel’s summer reality TV fix, full of romance and seduction and laughing. Daniel acted like it bugged him that the TV had to be on at 9 p.m. every evening for the show, but he was always in the living room at 8.58 p.m., as if by accident, just settling down to his cup of tea in the big armchair with the best view of the widescreen. His flatmate Lorenzo pretended that he didn’t notice the coincidence, and they happily watched it together every night. Neither said it out loud – and nobody would guess it from Lorenzo’s behaviour – but they were both looking for somebody to settle down with and it was quite informative watching what women liked and didn’t like via a daily show that featured genuine relationships. Daniel used it as a way to get his confidence up, taking notes and learning lessons; last night, the bloke that was obviously there as a bit of an underdog had finally found his match, and now here Daniel was in this moment, today. He didn’t want to be the underdog in his own life. That show made him feel like he owed it to himself to at least try with this woman. Just to see.

Daniel couldn’t help but admire the serendipity of the morning. What were the chances she’d stagger right past him on the morning the advert got published? They’d only been on the same train at the same time on a handful of occasions, including today. He forced himself to breathe deeply. He’d done it – sent off the Missed Connection – to maybe, hopefully, finally get her attention, but he was suddenly terrified she’d know it was him. What if she laughed in his face and called him a loser? A dreamer? What if she told everyone at work – her work, or his work – how he was pathetic, and had dared to think he was good enough for her? Maybe she’d go viral on Twitter, or post his picture on her Instagram. On the one hand, he knew she was too nice to ever be so awful, but on the other, the tiniest voice in the back of his mind told him that’s exactly what would happen. He shook his head to try and rid himself of the thought. Love was sending him crazy. Or was it that he was crazy in love?

‘Mate, this isn’t love,’ Lorenzo had told him, not even taking his eyes off the telly to issue his damning verdict. ‘You just wanna bang her.’

Daniel did not just want to ‘bang her’. That wasn’t it at all. He probably shouldn’t stare at her silently and from afar, though. That was a bit weird. It was just – well … The politics of hitting on a woman seemingly out of the blue were so blurred and loaded. He could hardly approach her cold, like some train psychopath she’d have to shake by ‘pretending’ they were at her stop and then slipping out and onto a different carriage. But he also knew that if any blokes in his life told him they were trying to seduce a woman they’d never directly spoken to by putting an advert in the paper and then staring at her stealthily somewhere beyond Moorgate, he’d gently suggest that it probably wasn’t the most ethically sound plan. He was trying to be romantic, whilst also saving face. He hoped he’d got the balance right.

In his head, the fantasy went like this: she’d read the paper and see his note and look up immediately and he’d be right there, by the doors, like he said, and they’d make eye contact and she’d smile coyly and he’d go, simply, ‘Hello’. It would be the beginning of the rest of their lives, that ‘Hello’. Like in a movie. And in that movie there wouldn’t be five Spanish tourists in between them, crowded around in a circle, looking at a map, an indistinguishable babble punctuated occasionally by the mispronunciation of ‘Leicester Square’. Fuck. Where was she? Oh god, this was awful.

The train pulled into London Bridge and, after finally locating her as she steamed ahead through the crowds and towards the exit, the moment he thought might happen disappeared before his eyes. There was no bolt of lightning. No world slowing as their eyes met, not so much as a question but as an answer. She had barely acknowledged him when he held the doors and helped her get on the train – she’d been in a rush, and distracted, and her ‘thank you’ was more of a breathy ‘ta!’ as she passed by. As he tried to keep pace with her, Daniel realized he was disappointed in himself, and in the situation. He’d imagined this for weeks, and now … nothing.

She suddenly stopped in the middle of the departing commuters to read her phone, but it wasn’t like he could slow down as well, let alone stand beside her, could he? So he kept walking and then waited by the exit. He wasn’t sure what for. Just to see her, probably. To see her on the day he’d put himself out there, to remind himself it was real, that she was real, even if it hadn’t gone to plan.

Later, when Daniel told Lorenzo how the morning had played out, he’d miss out this part – the part where he waited for her. What was he doing? He wasn’t going to actually go up and talk to her. Again, she had a right to exist without him bothering her. He shook his head. Come on mate, get a grip, he told himself. He headed towards his office, his heart beating loudly and rapidly and disruptively in his chest.

He’d screwed it up.

He was gutted.

She hadn’t seen it.

What a wasted gesture.

You bloody idiot, he muttered to himself, unaware that seeing the advert was exactly what was holding Nadia up back on the platform.

3
Nadia

Nads, not being funny but don’t you think this sounds like it could be you?!

Nadia tapped on the photo Emma had sent through and waited for it to download, simultaneously bumping through the commuters heaving in the opposite direction to her.

The photo was a close-up of that morning’s paper, specifically the Missed Connections section – the bit where Londoners wrote in about their commute crush and left hints about their identity in the hopes of landing a date with a stranger they’d seen on the bus or tube. Nadia and Emma were obsessed with Missed Connections. It was a mix of horror and awe – the same kind of compulsion that drove their love of reality TV.

The mating rituals of the sexes were a constant source of fascination for them both. Before she got the restaurant review column – a superb job for any best friend to have, since Nadia was frequently her plus-one – Emma used to be the dating columnist at one of the weekly women’s mags, but most of her material was crowd-sourced from after-work drinks with Nadia and sometimes Nadia’s work best friend, Gaby.

Romance and lust and sex and relationships were of endless interest for them all, and ever since they’d known each other, bad dates were almost worth it in order to have an outrageous story to share the next day. They’d had four-fingers-in-his-bum guy, and the divorced chap who’d disclosed on their first date that his wife had left him because he ‘couldn’t satisfy her – you know, sexually’. There’d been ‘Actually-I’m-in-an-open-marriage-my-wife-just-doesn’t-know-it’ man, and also the one who picked at the eczema behind his ear and proceeded to eat it in between mouthfuls of his pint.

Emma once accidentally had three dates with a man Gaby had previously dated – Gaby had dumped him because he refused to wear a condom, and Emma found that out only after she’d dumped him for … refusing to wear a condom. For some reason all three of them had dated more than a handful of men called James, who ended up being referred to by number: James One, James Six, James Nine. The most memorable bloke was Period Pete, a friend of a friend who liked performing oral sex on menstruating women, and who the three collectively decided must have an undiagnosed iron deficiency.

Nadia, Gaby and Emma had talked about them all, trying to understand the puzzle of men-kind. Well, except for the one who said he’d be too busy to have a girlfriend ‘for the next five years, at least’, who Nadia had simply never texted back again. He was a riddle not worth trying to solve. She didn’t want a man she had to teach kindness to.

Nadia wondered if it would change if any of them ever got married – if they’d stop telling each other everything about their sex and love lives. She hoped not. She hoped that even in marriage or after fifty years with her hypothetical guy that there would still be romance and mystery and tension that she’d want to gossip over with her girlfriends. She’d heard on an Esther Perel podcast that that was important. For a woman who historically hadn’t been very good at it, Nadia spent a lot of time researching love.

The image Emma had photographed cleared into vision and Nadia saw that it said:

To the devastatingly cute blonde girl on the Northern line with the black designer handbag and coffee stains on her dress – you get on at Angel, on the 7.30, always at the end nearest the escalator, and always in a hurry. I’m the guy who’s standing near the doors of your carriage, hoping today’s a day you haven’t overslept. Drink some time?

Nadia stopped walking, causing a woman behind her to side-step and mutter, ‘Oh, for god’s sake.’

She reread the note.

The devastatingly cute blonde girl on the Northern line with the black designer handbag and coffee stains on her dress. She spun around to look back at the train she’d just disembarked. It had already left. She dropped her hand to run a finger over the brown mark on her dress. She looked at her handbag. She WhatsApped Emma back.

!!!!!!!!! she typed with one hand.

And then, Um … I mean, lol but maybe?!

After a beat she thought better of it: I mean, the chances are slim, right?

She mulled it over some more. She and Emma weren’t even sure that Missed Connections was real. It made her initial reaction seem increasingly off the mark. Nadia and Emma didn’t care one way or the other – if it was real or made up by the weekly intern at the paper as a creative writing exercise – it was the fantasy of a stranger searching for somebody they felt a fleeting connection to that was fun. It was like Savage Garden knowing they loved you before they met you.

It was romantic, in a you’re-a-blank-canvas-I-can-project-my-hopes-and-dreams-on sort of way.

In a fantasies-don’t-have-problems-so-this-is-better-than- real-life way.

An our-love-will-be-different way.

Missed Connections felt full of more romance than messing around on Bumble did. Although, any time either of them doubted that sort of love existed, the other would bring up Tim, Emma’s brother. He’d gone out to Chicago for a couple of weeks for work and used a dating app to meet a local who could show him around, maybe even partake in a fling. Through that app Tim had met Deena, and legend had it that when Deena went to the loo Tim pulled out his phone, deleted the app, and within three months had transferred out there to live with her. They’d got married that spring. Miracles do happen, Tim had said in his speech. I searched the whole world for you, and there you were, waiting for me in downtown Chicago, in a restaurant window seat.

Emma texted: Question: are you sporting a coffee stain this morning, and did you get the 7.30? It’s Monday, so I presume yes.

Nadia replied with a snap of her outfit from above – the splodge of butter-laden coffee clearly visible – very obviously on her way to work.

But, Nadia thought … surely there were a million women on the Northern line spilling coffee and carrying fancy bags that family members had sourced at discounted designer outlets. And nobody ever did things on time – not in London. Loads of cute blondes – devastatingly cute blondes – probably missed their intended train all the time. And yeah, she’d never really thought about how she instinctively always turned left at the bottom of Angel’s escalator and walked towards the end of the track there, but that was something she did. Who else did? Hundreds, surely. Thousands? It was the longest tube escalator in London, after all. It could hold a lot of people.

Right then, Emma sent back, love heart emojis before and after her text, I think we’ve got some investigating to do, don’t you?

I’m dying, Nadia wrote back. It’s totally not me. I’m grateful to all the other women out there who can’t take a coffee cup on a train without spilling it, though. Makes me feel better about myself, lol.

Could be you, though … Emma said.

Nadia considered it. I mean, there’s like a 2 per cent chance, she typed. And then: If that.

Then it hit her: the man by the train doors, reading the paper. There’d been a man there! Was that him? Men must stand by the door and read the paper all the time, what with being male and commuting and picking up a newspaper on the way being statistically quite high. Nadia looked around the station, to see if she recognized anyone as the man she’d been near. She couldn’t even remember what he’d looked like. Blonde? No. Brunette? Definitely handsome. Oh god.

A weird feeling of hope that it was her came over Nadia, whilst she simultaneously realized that hoping for that was kind of non-feminist too. She didn’t have to wait to be chosen by a mystery man to date and be happy. Did she?

But – also – in The New Routine to Change Her Life, Nadia was supposed to believe that luck was on her side. And if luck really was on her side, maybe this was for her, and maybe this guy wouldn’t be an insecure loser. Awful Ben, her last boyfriend, had had a weird fragile masculinity – he was emotionally manipulative and made her think she was in the wrong until he’d undone her confidence. And he did do that – he did undo her confidence. It had really bruised her, because for the six months they dated she almost came to believe there was something wrong with her. She still didn’t understand why somebody would do that: say they’d fallen in love with you and then decide to hate everything that made them say that in first place. She was only just starting to feel like herself again.

Nadia shuddered at the bad memories. She thought about Awful Ben every day still, but when she did she always thanked the heavens that she was now out of that dire situation. She couldn’t believe what she’d let herself put up with. Occasionally she set her web browser to private and typed in his Instagram handle to check he was still as much of a difficult, pretentious arse as ever. He always was.

But now, months after their break-up, Nadia was equal parts bruised and in need of an emotional palette cleanser. A romantic sorbet. Somebody new to think about. A man to be a bit nice to her would do, as if that didn’t place the bar too low. Perhaps her own newspaper ad would read, Wanted, man: must actually seem to like me.

Oh, who was she kidding? Her advert would say: Wanted: man with strong sense of self, capable of having a laugh, healthy relationship with mother. Must love romance, reality television, and be ready to champion and cheerlead as a partner through life, in exchange for exactly the same. Also must understand the importance of cunnilingus and pizza – though not at same time. I cum first, pizza comes second.

Was she expecting too much? She thought of Tim and Deena. Surely she could have that too.

2 per cent is higher than 0 per cent, typed back Emma. So, game on.

Nadia laughed as she finally made her way to the escalator, emerging in the early-morning summer sun at the top. Whatever you say, she typed back. And to herself she thought, But I daren’t be too hopeful.

‘Emma has already texted me,’ Gaby said, catching Nadia as she headed down to the lobby for an 11 a.m. break. The coffee cart in their lobby served an amazing dark espresso blend. ‘And I reckon it’s you as well.’

Nadia was astonished.

‘Ohmygod. Worst thing I ever did was introduce you two to each other,’ she replied, laughing, before saying to the guy behind the counter, ‘double-shot espresso topped up with hot water, please.’

Gaby pulled a face. ‘What happened to a full-fat cappuccino as a political statement?’

‘I’m pivoting. I did one of those bulletproof coffees this morning, to see if it keeps my blood sugar regulated and also, have you seen this acne on my jawline? It’s a menace. I think it might be too much milk – like, apparently milk is just cow hormones not meant for people – so I’m giving up for a bit. These little fuckers hurt, you know.

Nadia craned to see her own reflection in the glass of the skyscraper they worked in. Having acne made her really self-conscious. When she was in the middle of a flare-up she tended to dress in darker colours, as if she didn’t want to be noticed. She needed a permanent filter to follow her around – it didn’t look half as bad when she was on Instagram Stories and could use the crown filter to smooth everything out. She’d try anything to get rid of the angry red boils under the skin of her jaw, including sacrificing her daily cappuccinos.

‘So,’ she went on, ‘I’m experimenting.’

Nadia thanked the barista and the pair walked from the lobby coffee stand to the lifts of RAINFOREST, home to two thousand Research and Development employees for a worldwide delivery service for everything from books to toilet cleaner to marble-top tables. This was where Nadia did her artificial intelligence work. Gaby was her work BFF. They’d met at the summer party two years ago and hit it off talking about AI and its role in a Good Future or Bad Future: what if they accidentally developed technology that turned on them, like in a horror movie? Gaby worked on what was called ‘cloud computing’ for the company, their biggest revenue-generator, selling pay-as-you-go data storage to everyone from start-ups to MI6. Nadia didn’t really understand it, but she knew Gaby was about thirty times cleverer than her, and scared half the people in her part of the office.

‘And, anyway – can I tell you about The New Routine to Change My Life?’ Nadia hit the lift button. ‘Because, I dunno. I guess I feel finally purged of Awful Ben and want to switch my energy up or something. I feel like I just came out of mourning. Like literally, this weekend I got my mojo back.’ The lift arrived. ‘And today I’m trying to be deliberate about keeping it. I’m taking my wellbeing and mental health seriously, beginning now.’

‘That’s great!’

‘Thanks!’ The lift button flashed ‘0’ and the doors opened. The pair got in and Nadia hit the buttons for their respective floors.

‘You know, if you want to get some endorphins going to keep your high, what about coming to spin before work tomorrow?’

Nadia rolled her eyes.

‘No!’ Gaby continued. ‘Don’t pull that face! It’s so good. It’s really dark in there and the instructor says positive affirmations and you get to scream because the music is so loud nobody can hear you.’

Nadia shook her head, watching the lights of the different floors ping brightly as they passed through. Spinning was her worst nightmare. She’d done exactly one SoulCycle class when she went to LA for work and spent forty-five minutes on a bike next to Emily Ratajkowski, wondering how a woman so tiny could peddle so fast. She’d hated it.

‘Absolutely not. I don’t do morning workouts. I’m happy with my evening body pump class, back row, two left feet but doing my best. Only psychopaths work out before noon.’

‘Urgh. Fine. Also – we’re getting sidetracked.’

‘I’d hoped you hadn’t noticed.’

‘It really does sound like you, you know.’

Nadia raised her eyebrows, partly amused, partly sarcastic.

‘It does! Literally you are cute and blonde and chronically late and you spill stuff. And –’ Gaby suddenly seemed to connect some mental dots ‘– and today is the beginning of your New Routine to Change Your Life! So, energetically speaking, the exact day something like this would happen. It’s like the stars have aligned. Today would be a great day to fall in love.’

‘I can’t tell if you’re being earnest or teasing me.’

‘Both,’ Gaby deadpanned.

Nadia rolled her eyes good-naturedly again, afraid to give herself away.

‘Emma says you might write an advert in response.’

‘I’m toying with it, yes. If I decide the advert is really meant for me. Which … I’m not sure. I half want it to be. And I half think I’m insane for giving this more than two seconds’ thought.’

‘Do you have any idea who he could be? If it is for you? Is there a cute man on your train every day?’

Nadia looked at her friend. ‘This is London! There are hundreds of cute men, everywhere, all the time. And then they open their mouths and become 200 per cent less cute because … men.’

‘Ever the optimist, I see.’

‘I’m just being realistic.’

‘Never met a woman protecting her heart who didn’t claim the same,’ said Gaby, smirking.

Nadia said nothing, knowing full well that Gaby was right. She found herself doing that a lot: making sweeping statements that damned men to their lowest denominator, acting as if she didn’t need or want one. She was protecting herself, she supposed, at least out loud. Of course, her friend could see right through that. Because Nadia was, in the same breath as saying all men were pigs, hoping that this one, the Train Guy, wasn’t. Or, at the very least, that one guy, somewhere out there, wasn’t. All morning she’d been having little fantasies about the advert being for her, and seeing him on the train, and falling in lust and love somewhere on the Northern line between home and work. She wanted that for herself. She wanted it for herself so hungrily that it scared her a bit, truth be told.

The lift arrived at Gaby’s floor, and like they did whenever they rode the lift together, Nadia stepped off with her to finish the conversation.

‘There is this one thing, though,’ Nadia said. Gaby turned and looked at her, willing her to go on. ‘Well. The thing my brain can’t understand is that if a guy sees me on the train every morning, why wouldn’t he just say hello?’

Becky from admin walked by on her way to the photocopier, and Nadia interrupted herself to throw up a small wave and say, ‘Hey, Becky!’

‘Nice shoes!’ Becky said, as way of reply, disappearing around a corner.

Nadia continued: ‘Why concoct some elaborate plot that involves a newspaper and relying on me – or, whoever, because it might not be me, like we’ve established – actually seeing it?’

‘It’s fun!’ Gaby said. ‘Cute!’ She thought about it some more and then added, ‘Plus, if some rando came up to you on your commute, would you honestly even give him the time of day?’

Nadia smiled. ‘No. I’d think he was a creep.’

‘Me too.’

‘Urgh!’ Nadia exhaled. ‘I’m just trying to manage my romantic expectations, you know? I don’t even know if I could stand another first date …’

Nadia made a noise that was like a gag of repulsion, summing up the many emotions of a serial dater in as succinct a way as any. But, even as she did that, her heart skipped a little beat. When a first date went right, it was the most magical, hopeful feeling in the world. A feeling of the gods smiling on her, of recognizing herself in somebody else. She once heard that love shouldn’t be called ‘falling’, because the best love roots you, and makes you grow upwards, taller and stronger. She’d seen that happen with her mum and step-dad, after her biological father had left. Her old colleague and friend Naomi and Naomi’s husband Callum embodied it. Her direct boss in her first job, Katherine, was the most charismatic, well-adjusted woman Nadia had ever had the honour of being mentored by, and Katherine often said she had got to be where she was at work because of the team she was part of at home. All of them said they knew early on that they’d met the person they wanted to spend their lives with, and committed, together, to making it work. Tim had said that about Deena, too.

‘No – you couldn’t stand another bad first date,’ said Gaby. ‘But what if this was the last first date you ever had, because it was so good?’

Nadia was grateful that Gaby was playing to her more romantic inclinations, because she was enjoying imagining what would happen if she met the love of her life through a newspaper ad. How they’d laugh about it, and be forever united in their appreciation of big gestures and taking chances. But Nadia was suddenly suspicious too: Gaby was usually sceptical and pithy about love, priding herself on dating man after man but not needing any of them. It wasn’t like her to coax anyone into believing fairy tales were real.

‘What’s made you such a romantic all of a sudden?’ Nadia asked, eyes narrowed. ‘You’re supposed to be my cynical friend.’

Gaby shrugged, non-committal. ‘What are you working on today?’ she said, by way of reply.

‘Now who’s changing the subject!’

‘Don’t get smart with me, Fielding.’

Nadia made a mental note to follow up with Gaby later on her sudden softening. Something was different about her, now she thought about it. Nadia was a tart for her work, though, and so was seduced by her own vanity into talking about it.

‘It’s crunch time on the prototypes for the fulfilment centres soon. That newspaper exposé really damaged the stock price and John wants actual humans out of the role as soon as possible to get the whole thing boxed off as an HR issue. Which sucks for the thousands of people who don’t know they’re going to be unemployed by Christmas …’

‘Oh, that’s hard. That’s really hard,’ Gaby said.

‘I feel bad, yeah. I’m building robots to replace humans, and … well. It’s so conflicting, you know?’

The lift pinged back open, and seeing that it was going up, Nadia stepped in.

‘To be continued?’ said Gaby.

‘To be continued,’ said Nadia. ‘I’d like to maybe brainstorm ideas about making sure everyone gets jobs elsewhere? I’d like to help.’

‘Sure!’ Gaby said, adding: ‘Maybe over lunch this week? Wednesday? I’ve got a lunch meeting tomorrow. We’ve not been across to Borough in ages. And we’re not done talking about this missed connection.’

‘Stop talking to Emma about my love life!’

Nadia could hear Gaby giggling even as the lift went up.

4
Daniel

‘You’ve been infatuated with her for months, mate. Today is a big day!’

Lorenzo had called him at work, despite being asked not to. But Lorenzo hated his job and got bored easily and liked winding up his flatmate and also feigning busyness at his own desk, at a publishing house north of the river. Plus, he was charming enough to persuade the receptionist, Percy, to connect the call, even though Daniel had given Percy numerous and explicit instructions not to. Lorenzo enjoyed practising his charm and getting his own way. Reaching Daniel at his office was another way for him to show off.

‘She’s not bloody seen it, though,’ Daniel hissed down the phone.

‘Can you change the adjectives and send it again, for somebody else you’ve spotted? Throw enough shit and something will stick,’ Lorenzo said, and Daniel was about 70 per cent sure he wasn’t joking. Lorenzo said he wanted a relationship, but from what Daniel had seen his requirements for dating were that she had a pulse, and didn’t talk too much. It was very Lorenzo of him to suggest simply trying the same tactic with another woman.

‘Go and sell some books,’ Daniel retorted.

‘Can’t be arsed, mate. Still on a comedown.’

Daniel hated that Lorenzo did coke Thursday through Sunday. He never did it at home, Lorenzo promised, but Daniel was still the one made to put up with his mood swings as he scaled the walls and then festered on the sofa for the first half of the week – even if he did watch great telly as he did it. Lorenzo was a good bloke, but didn’t half make some choices that Daniel couldn’t help but think weren’t exactly sound. It was so frustrating to be witness to. They’d ended up living together through a SpareRoom.co.uk advert Lorenzo had put up, and Daniel had his suspicions from the beginning that they were a bit chalk and cheese, but the location of the flat and the rent price were basically perfect, so Daniel had made a decision to largely overlook their differences, not quite becoming friends, but certainly becoming more than just strangers who lived together. They had forged their own, very particular, double act, and until Daniel had a place of his own, it did the job.

‘I’m going now,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ve got actual work to do. I’ll see you at home.’

Lorenzo was still talking as he put the phone down. Not seconds later, Daniel’s mobile flashed with a message. It was Lorenzo.

Well done on having the balls, mate, it said. That was Lorenzo’s way of saying, I know you hate it when I’m a twat but I can’t help it. Daniel double-tapped it and gave it a thumbs-up.

Daniel resumed idly scrolling through the emails on his desktop, trying to focus on the day ahead and not on the morning that had been. He couldn’t. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He couldn’t stop thinking about the day they first met.

Not long after Daniel’s father had died, just after Easter, Daniel had begun to force himself to leave his desk whenever he felt claustrophobic, or uneasy, or like he might cry. In his grief – the word ‘depression’ still sort of stuck in his throat a bit, sounded a bit wet – his therapist had said that being outside, in nature, would always help.

Christ. He couldn’t believe he had a therapist.

‘Keep using your body, make sure you engage with the world, take a stroll around the nearest park, even, just to get the energy moving differently,’ she told him at one of their first sessions together, when he’d said about panic attacks that grabbed him by the throat and made him feel like he couldn’t breathe.

He’d had to pay sixty-five pounds an hour to go private because the NHS waiting list was too long, his situation too dire to wait because he could barely function, and he wondered, not unkindly, if this was the kind of advice he could expect for two hundred plus quid a month. Anyway. Walk he did, at the very least to feel like he was getting value for money, and she’d been there, Nadia (of course, he didn’t know that was her name then), in the courtyard tucked away off Borough Market. A random Friday. Poof. At his lowest, in a moment of pure emotional desperation, this positive, engaged, clever woman had appeared and her verve – her very essence, her aura – was like sunshine, solar-powering everyone around her. It had knocked Daniel sideways.

Daniel knew exactly which day he’d first seen her because it was two weeks after the funeral, and five weeks after he’d started his six-month consulting contract at Converge, a petroleum engineering firm. It was the day his mother had rung when he was in a meeting about the design flaws of a submersive drill, and he’d excused himself in time to pick up in case it was urgent.

She’d said, ‘He’s here.’

‘What do you mean, Mum?’ Daniel had replied. ‘Dad’s … Dad died, remember?’

He’d held his breath as he waited for her to realize she’d used the wrong word, said the wrong thing. He held up two fingers to the guys on the other side of the glass partition, signalling two minutes. He just needed two minutes. They were impatient, needing his sign-off before lunch, and suspicious of an outsider coming in this late in the project and pissed off that he’d been pushing for a pivot on the next steps. He didn’t care. He wanted to make sure his mum was okay. He wouldn’t be able to handle it if she had dementia or memory loss or something. He’d just lost his dad – he couldn’t lose her too.

‘Daniel,’ she’d replied, level-headed. ‘I know he’s bloody dead. It’s his ashes. They’ve just been dropped off.’

Daniel exhaled loudly in relief. She wasn’t crazy. Well. Any crazier.

‘But it’s a bloody bin bag’s worth! He’s so bloody heavy I can’t shift him anywhere. So he’s just here. In the kitchen with me, by the back door. All his ashes in a heavy-duty bag that I don’t know what to do with.’

Daniel closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, stunned. His dad’s ashes. Because his dad was dead.

‘I’m having a coffee and telling him – your dad – about Janet Peterson’s new Vauxhall Mokka – they had it in gold, can you bear it! Gold! And you know, I say new but obviously it’s good second-hand. Cars lose money as soon as you drive them off the forecourt – but anyway, it’s a bit creepy. Your dad. Can you come by after work and help me?’

Daniel could almost have laughed. In fact, he did laugh, and told his mum he’d be across to Ealing Broadway at about seven, and in the meantime to go hang out in the living room to watch Loose Women instead. She’d been so strong since the funeral that it made him feel ashamed to be the “weak” one. He was about to go back into the meeting – literally had his hand on the door knob to push back through – when his throat closed up and his shirt collar felt tight and he had a vague notion that he might be sick, because his body was remembering, all over again, that his dad was gone. His best mate. His loudest champion. Dead from a ruptured brain aneurysm.

They’d been drinking pints in the pub together before Sunday lunch, his dad telling Daniel he could help him with a flat deposit and not to worry about it, it wasn’t a loan it was a gift, he wanted to see him sorted and London property prices were so crazy now he’d never be able to do it alone. It was weird for a thirty-year-old to have a flatmate, his dad said – he’d had a kid and a wife by that age. Daniel had said he’d think about it, that he was a bit proud to accept a handout, that it was normal to be thirty and have a flatmate in London, it was an expensive place, he liked the company, and living in Kentish Town, and that afternoon, before he could accept and say, ‘Dad, I love you, cheers for looking out for me’, over the spicy bazargan at home his sixty-two-year-old dad had keeled over and had never woken up. In a single hour, everything was different and nothing was the same and Daniel had lost the man who’d made him.

Daniel made a break for it, after that phone call, turning on his heel with his head dipped down to cover his face, a face that was ashen and streaked with tears. He took the back stairs, all twenty-three flights of them, down to the ground floor, and pushed out of an emergency exit onto the street. He stood with his back against the wall, panting. He didn’t realize he’d started walking until he flopped down on a circular bench in the sun, drenched in sweat, somewhere off the market. He sat, closed his eyes, breathed deeply, let the tears and sweat dry, and thought about his dad, thought about how lonely he was, thought about how badly he’d been sleeping and how the insomnia might be the thing to drive him truly mad.

On the bench he’d had his back to her, at first. He’d been staring at nothing in particular, just sort of letting the sun be on his face and closing his eyes to do a bit of deep breathing, reminding himself that he would be okay. He didn’t call it a ‘mantra’ as such, but when he missed his dad in his bones he’d say in his head, ‘Be alive, and remember to live. Be alive, and remember to live. Be alive, and remember to live …’

He became vaguely aware of a voice just over his left shoulder getting louder and louder, and he tuned his ear into it like a radio dial finding a signal on a country road, until he could hear a woman’s voice clearly saying:

‘… Because it’s going to be built anyway, right? So it needs to be built by people who come from lower-class or lower-income families …’

That was what had made Daniel pay particular attention. He was the first in his family to go to university. His family was very modest. His dad had missed only three days of work as a postman in his forty-year tenure, putting Daniel through a degree with hardly any debt. It had been important to him that his child had the opportunities he hadn’t. The woman’s voice continued: ‘The only way artificial intelligence will ever look after poorer people is if people from these underprivileged communities are the ones programming it.’

As an engineer, Daniel had a small amount of knowledge of artificial intelligence, but not much. ‘The next industrial revolution,’ one of his undergrad professors had declared, but Daniel had preferred the known entities of maths and equations and building things for the now, not the future. Daniel craned over his shoulder a little to see who was talking. There was a guy – suit trousers with no belt, obviously fitted by a tailor to the exact drop of his hip, narrow pinstripe instead of plain black, shoes so shiny you could see your reflection in them – giving the girl a sort of wry look. A smirk.

‘I’m not sure about that …’ the wry-smile guy said.

Daniel didn’t like him at all. He looked like he was from the gang at university for whom everything had come easy. The good-looking guys with the athletic frames who didn’t play football or rugby but played tennis or lacrosse. They got pretty average grades but were the first ones to get above average jobs, because their families all knew other families who could put in a good word. Daniel had friends at university – good ones, who he still knew now – but they’d all grafted, all been the working-class kids whose accents got mysteriously broader in the company of the posh boys, as if to hold up their class difference as a shield instead of bowing to the pressure to act like they were from somewhere they weren’t. A small ‘fuck you’ to privilege.

Most posh boys were amused by it, and a couple even tried to befriend Daniel, but he always felt like it was a game to them. That them being ‘unable to see class’ meant they could acquire a friend from a working-class family who spoke with different vowels and it be a testament to their own character. But anyone who comes from very little money knows never to trust a bloke who says money doesn’t buy happiness. Money buys food and electricity and pays for a school jumper without holes in it so you don’t get picked on, and you can’t be happy without that.

The woman talking was smooth. She wasn’t losing her temper as she explained her theory to this loaded rich guy, but she was passionate. Cared.

‘We need kids from underprivileged communities being recruited directly so that they take this technology in the right direction. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of rich people making rich-people decisions that continue to screw over millions of people for not being rich – like literally, the gap between the haves and have-nots will get to the point where there will be a minimum net worth a person has to have to even be alive. It’s sickening. Sickening! But we can absolutely do something about it.’

Daniel loved what he was hearing. He loved this woman, with her unbrushed hair and crazy arms and rice burrito and big ideas about social responsibility. He thought, My dad would like her. He positioned himself at a bit more of an angle so he could see her.

The rich man held up his hands. ‘Okay, okay. Jesus, Nadia, you can have the fund. We’ll do something. I hear you.’ He shook his head, laughing. ‘I’ll talk to the board. Give me a month or so.’

Nadia – so that was her name – laughed too.

Daniel had stood up at that point, his Apple Watch buzzing on his wrist to remind him that he had a conference call with the Cape Town office in ten minutes. The geologists had analysed the surface structures of the new site and he needed their input to know what to do about the drilling problem. He knew he couldn’t miss it if they were to come in under budget – and Daniel’s USP was that he always under-promised and over-delivered. That’s why he could charge the day rate he did. He felt much better now anyway. Now that he knew this woman existed.

He made eye contact with her before he left. It felt like the bravest thing he’d done in months. She was beautiful and untamed. He stumbled a little, backing away from the pair, unsteady on his feet. She half watched him, looked at him for what could only have been half a second but felt like a full minute to Daniel, and then she turned back to Rich Man. Daniel felt like he’d been slapped by the Love Gods, and it wasn’t his dad he thought about as he walked through the doors of his office, but the woman.

‘She just had this … spirit,’ he said to Lorenzo, later on. ‘And no ring on her finger either. I checked.’

Lorenzo had laughed. ‘This is the first time you’ve seemed even vaguely excited by something since your dad, mate. I’m pleased for you.’ And then, in a lower, more serious voice: ‘You’ll never see her again, though, of course. Don’t get too carried away.’

5
Daniel

When Nadia got on Daniel’s train before work two days after he’d overheard her speak at the market, first he gave a word of thanks to the universe, or maybe his dad, or whoever was up there doing him this very solid favour, and then sent a swift gloating text to Lorenzo.

Had she been on the Northern line this whole time? (Yes.) Why was he only just noticing her now? (He had been in his own, grief-fuelled world.) He knew he had to do something about it. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her, and had even gone back to the same lunch spot the next week to see if she was a regular, which was a bit much but true nonetheless. She hadn’t been there, of course. It was a lot to expect she would be.

Seeing her on the train felt like being given a second chance at a first impression. He looked out for her the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that – greedily, he wanted his third chance, and his fourth. The tube trains were huge and there were so many people on the platform and he couldn’t be sure, obviously, that she hadn’t got on one of the others whizzing through the underground every morning. She could have been on the 7.28, or the 7.32, or the 8 a.m. or 6 a.m. People didn’t always stick to the same schedule like he did. Daniel was anally retentive in a lot of ways, and thrived off routine and certainty. But for Nadia to be on the same train as him, even that once? He decided to hold onto that as a sign.

In total he’d seen Nadia (though he actually couldn’t decide in his head what to call her. Nadia was her name, after all, but having not been formally introduced it seemed presumptuous, even in his imagination, to refer to her like that. But then, why would he call her ‘woman on the train’ when he knew her name? It was confusing, and mostly meant he just imagined her face and didn’t really call her anything) seven times, always around 7.30, always seeming a little frazzled in a ‘Working Woman with A Lot To Do’ kind of a way. Three of those times she’d been in his carriage, once he’d seen her on the platform at Angel, and three times he saw her on the escalator at London Bridge. Twice he thought he’d seen her in and around the general Borough Market area, but it hadn’t been her, it had only been wishful thinking.

When he did catch her, she always had her phone in her hand, but unlike a lot of other commuters, she didn’t wear headphones to listen to music as she travelled. Daniel knew if he spoke to her one day, out of the blue, at least she’d be able to hear him. But then, he didn’t want to screw up his one shot at getting to know her. He worried that simply striking up conversation on a crowded tube – a place notorious for how anti-conversation it could be, where even a smile could make you seem demented because it just isn’t the done thing – he’d seem slimy and pervy. A woman had every right to get to work without fending off advances from men who thought she was hot. He knew that. He wanted to give her a nod of encouragement so she could let him know if she was interested as well. It was Lorenzo who had joked that Missed Connections was the place to do it. Lorenzo was kidding around, but as soon as he’d suggested it, Daniel knew that was how he wanted to get this woman’s attention. He’d seen her reading the paper before. It could be just the ticket.

‘But why this woman?’ asked Lorenzo. ‘I don’t get it. You don’t know her!’

How could Daniel explain to Lorenzo that, above all else, he just had this feeling?

6
Nadia

‘Am I being crazy?’ Nadia asked. ‘I feel like I can’t put a message in as a response because it might not even be me. Can you imagine? He’s expecting bloody Daisy Lowe to respond, and he ends up with bloody ME?’

Emma was pushing a grilled peach around her plate, loading toasted hazelnuts and creamy goat’s curd onto her fork. She had summoned Nadia to In Bocca al Lupo because, yes, she had to review it imminently after an RnB star and her Saudi boyfriend were spotted eating at the bar two nights earlier and it had immediately become The Place to Be and her editor wanted it in Saturday’s paper, but also because, as she’d said in her text, In Bocca al Lupo means good luck! In Italian! And your grandmother was Italian and you need some good luck! It will be a good luck meal for love! It was a bizarre logic that suited only Emma’s mental gymnastics, especially because the restaurant itself wasn’t actually Italian, but Nadia couldn’t be bothered to go home and cook and, truly, if a singer with twelve Grammys and a sold-out arena tour was going to chow down on the wood-fired Torbay sole on a Friday evening, Nadia could sure as hell do the same thing the following Monday. Plus, Emma would be expensing it. It was something of a personal rule of Nadia’s to never turn down a free meal. In The New Routine to Change My Life she should, technically, have been at home with a face mask on, eating a salad and meditating, but that didn’t matter. She could do that tomorrow, and Monday had already been mostly a success.

‘Listen,’ Emma said, using her fork to gesticulate. ‘Awful Ben. What a bastard, yes?’

Nadia scowled at the mention of his name. ‘Yes,’ she said, slowly.

‘You deserve love, and happiness, and everything your heart desires. Yes?’

‘… Yes.’

‘Right then. You’ve got to make that happen for yourself. You’ve got to put yourself in the way of your own fate. You’ve got to write back – of course the advert was for you!’

They were interrupted by the delivery of a garlic, parsley and bone-marrow flatbread, from a waiter with dancing eyes and plucked eyebrows.

‘Compliments of the chef,’ he said, and Emma replied, ‘Thank you, darling.’

She only ever called service people darling, sort of as a way to ingratiate herself into their favour and because in the reviewing industry nobody wanted a reputation as a miserable or rude customer. But also, Nadia thought, you could tell a lot about a person by how they treated service people: waiters and cleaners and doormen. Emma’s manners were always impeccable, whatever the motivation, and it made Nadia like her friend even more.

‘Uh oh,’ Emma said. ‘You seem grumpy. Why are you grumpy?’ She used her hands to tear up the bread, and licked welts of seasoned oil off her fingers and wrists once she was done.

‘I’m not grumpy!’ said Nadia, too brightly. Emma raised her eyebrows, knowing the minor changes in her friend’s moods better than she knew her own.

‘I’m not grumpy! I just …’ Nadia took a big gulp of white wine. ‘Just don’t bring up Awful Ben that way, okay? I can. You can’t.’

Emma nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

‘And also, don’t talk to Gaby about me. It feels like you’re ganging up on me. I’m excited and I’m scared and I need to feel like you’re on my team, not a team together.’

‘Right,’ said Emma, wide-eyed. ‘I hear you. Though, let the record show we are all on a team together. Team Nadia.’

Nadia suddenly felt guilty that she’d said anything. That hadn’t been the right moment to bring up Emma and Gaby talking about her. The two women finished the flatbread and emptied their glasses in silence. Hats off to Emma, she knew when to shut up and let Nadia have a bit of a wobble. And, at some point – not now, but at some point – Nadia would probably have to mention to one of them that sometimes how close Gaby and Emma had become bothered her.

It had been cool that the first time Emma came to after-work drinks she’d taken to Gaby so well. Emma was typically the jealous one, wanting Nadia all to herself. A typical only child, unpractised at sharing. But it was like the phrase ‘house on fire’ had been designed especially for Gaby and Emma. Nadia had sat there more or less mute as the two swapped outrageous dating stories and entered into a flirting competition with the wait staff. They’d never graduated to hanging out without her, but every time Nadia invited one out, the first question would always be if the other one was coming. Nadia knew it was childish to feel envious over how they’d clicked, but … well. She was envious at how they’d clicked. She’d been trying to see them separately just lately. Not that she’d made that clear out loud or anything. She didn’t want to seem immature.

Nadia let her temper calm down so that by the time their starter plates had been cleared and Emma said, ‘I still think you should put an advert up in response,’ Nadia was able to relax into herself and smile. She knew her friend only wanted what was best for her.

‘No!’ Nadia said, laughing. ‘Oh god! I just don’t think I can!’

Emma was impatient. ‘How are we going to find him then?’

‘I don’t know! Maybe I don’t even want to find him!’

‘Well, that’s bollocks,’ said Emma. ‘You’re a shit liar and I can tell that’s a lie.’ She poured them both more wine. ‘I can tell you’re gagging for it to be you. Look at you! Texting all maybe it is me! all day and then being moody tonight. You’re afraid to be excited. I see you.’

‘Oh shut up,’ Nadia said light-heartedly.

‘You’re going to have to be on the lookout. Like, on that 7.30 train every morning, the end near the escalators. That’s where you should start. Stake the joint out a bit. If it is for you, surely there will be a guy hopefully looking at you, all “Notice me! Notice me!”’

Nadia giggled. ‘Well, yes. That I can do.’

She twisted at the napkin in her lap.

‘And – I’m sorry for snapping about Ben. He really was just … awful. He used such horrible mind games to make me doubt myself, and make myself smaller. I lost myself to him. I’m glad that relationship happened because fucking hell I learnt so much, but …’ She absentmindedly fiddled with the cloth. ‘He ruined me. My head knows love is real and not all men are so horrible, blah blah blah. But my body. It’s like muscle memory or something. I get tense just hearing his name.’

Emma nodded, understandingly. ‘That’s a thing, you know.’

‘Getting tense at somebody’s name?’

‘Yeah. Muscle memory is a thing. We store trauma in our muscles and that’s why we get pain in our bodies sometimes: it’s old wounds in the fibres of our being.’

Nadia didn’t really understand. Trauma in the fibres of her being? It wasn’t like Awful Ben had hit her or anything; although, one night, in a rage, he had hit himself, and the sound of it – thwack – had scared Nadia into knowing that if she didn’t leave she could be next. It started out as words, accusations and little niggles, but within a few weeks Nadia found she couldn’t breathe properly around him, and yet still felt like she couldn’t end it, that she was somehow bound to him. She was terrified to stay, but even more terrified to leave. She never thought she would be one of ‘those’ women, but it turned out there are no ‘those’ women – only ‘those’ men.

‘Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but there’s stuff you can do to let your body release like, bad memories. Really, really!’

Emma was exposed to all kinds of stuff through the paper she worked for. She’d once been silent speed dating where she had to do a slow dance to classical music, with a stranger, the only points of their body touching being one finger and with eye contact unbroken. She said it was the most erotic three minutes of her life. Or, another time, she’d ended up at a New Year’s Eve party with an ex-footballer who now sold bagels on the TV, and he offered her a threesome with his fiancée. Emma had said yes.

‘Emma, if this involves a woman fingering me in front of an audience I will actually kill you.’ That was another thing Emma had done – a Yoni love class that meant everyone had their vulva massaged by a teacher wearing a beaded kaftan and latex gloves. It was supposed to cleanse their energy and encourage deeper orgasms. Emma had orgasmed in front of an audience of six other women who’d paid £350 for the half-day workshop and who then afterwards took it in turns to hug her in congratulations.

‘Oh god,’ said Emma, ‘I’d never do that again. I think it was her herbal steam that gave me that recurring thrush, you know. No. This is just lolling about on mats in our Lululemon, but it works! Denise at work did it and said she cried in class and then got on with her life. That she really felt her energy shift. In fact – let me text her for the name.’

Nadia had never known anybody as interested in the ridiculous and the sublime as much as Emma. That was probably why they got on – Emma encouraged Nadia to experiment more, to be a little braver, and Nadia made Emma a little more thoughtful. She smiled at her friend as she texted, and looked out across the restaurant. It was almost full, and she lingered her gaze on a table of City boys across the room. It could be any one of them, she thought, surprising herself in her hopefulness. Literally, if it is for me, the guy who wrote it could be in this very room.

‘That guy could literally be anywhere, couldn’t he?’ she said, as much to herself as to Emma.

‘I’m telling you,’ Emma said, setting her phone back down on the table, screen-side down. ‘Write him back! You’ve got nothing to lose.’

Nadia hesitated. She didn’t. There was nothing to lose. Because if she wrote back and it actually wasn’t meant for her, the only person who would know was him. And they were strangers. Nadia could even laugh it off and say she thought she was writing to somebody else too. And if the guy turned out to be an axe-wielding serial killer who lived with his mother and had voted LEAVE, Nadia could simply deny she was the author of any return note. She could blame Emma. Feign total ignorance.

Emma bent down to her bag. ‘Hold on,’ she said, rustling through her stuff. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

She resurfaced with a notebook and two pens, victorious. Nadia watched her open it on a fresh page, and write in loopy cursive: ‘TRAIN GUY ADVERT’.

‘You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you?’

‘Yup,’ said Emma, pen poised above the page. A waiter came and topped up their glasses. ‘We’ll have another bottle, please,’ Emma said to him. ‘I think my friend is going to need it.’ Nadia smiled at him weakly.

‘So. I’m thinking you should be direct about this,’ Emma said. ‘His advert contained a compliment, but wasn’t too sickly, and that was cute, right? That hit the right note?’

‘If it was for me,’ Nadia said.

‘If it was for you, his tone was just right, right?’

‘Well, we’re here still talking about it and thinking of writing back to him, so … yes. The boy did good.’

‘The man did good.’

‘Man, yes,’ said Nadia, not realizing how good it felt to make the distinction between man and boy. She was twenty-nine. She should be dating men. ‘And listen, I don’t want to sound too desperate or anything, though, you know? That’s important.’

‘Well, you’re not desperate, is the thing.’ Emma seemed to have a flash of inspiration, and she held up a finger as if to say, hold on! ‘What about …’ Emma started to scribble something down, smiling to herself. The waiter delivered a new bottle and asked if they wanted fresh glasses. Nadia said no, eager to get rid of him, in the nicest possible way, so she could see what Emma was writing. Emma passed the paper over to Nadia, who silently read:

Hey sexy papa, your advert hit my heart so hard it hurt, and I can’t wait for you to hurt me a little more. I’ll bring the whips and chains, and you bring your dazzling charm. Friday night work? Love, the devastatingly cute blonde on the 7.30.

‘Close,’ said Nadia, laughing. ‘Definitely a great start.’ She took the pen and paper off her friend and turned to look out through the window for inspiration. She watched a couple a few years older than her, maybe in their mid-thirties, making out against a lamppost like teenagers. Summer did that to people. Made them act like they did the first summer they realized they fancied someone and that swapping spit could be a fun pastime. Summer released inhibitions.

‘Hello? Earth to Nadia?’ Nadia’s gaze refocused on Emma. ‘You’re supposed to be writing, remember?’

‘Yes. Sorry. I was watching those two people make out. They seem to like each other.’

Emma peered over her shoulder and said, ‘Jesus. I want what they’re having.’

‘Hey,’ Nadia said. ‘Are you seeing anyone? What happened with that Tinder guy? I feel out of the loop. I haven’t had an update in ages.’

‘Dead in the water,’ Emma said. ‘Why do all men want a mother and a therapist and a best friend and a cheerleader, all wrapped up in the body of a Kooples model, and at best what they bring to the table is, like, they’ve never killed anyone and maybe they know how to make chicken in mushroom sauce?’

‘Should I put that in my ad?’

‘Your guy seems romantic! Or at least minimally above average. He’s the one in fifty who are worth the effort, because he is making the effort. I think that’s the ratio. For every fifty men, one is worth the hassle.’

‘Okay, okay, I’m writing something back. What about:

I’m shy, and I’m often late, but I make great coffee and I think it’s me you wrote to, to call cute? I can’t figure out who you are on my train, but come talk to me! I won’t bite. At least not at first.’

Emma laughed. ‘That’s … kinda fun!’ she said.

‘I am not actually serious.’

‘You could be though! Or, what about:

Wine me, dine me, sixty-nine-me, train man: just let me know who you are by saying hello, first? Love, the devastatingly cute blonde with the amazing hair (you forgot to say about my amazing hair in your advert, but that’s okay. Just remember it next time.)’

‘You make me sound self-obsessed! OMG!’

Emma shrugged. ‘I mean, you are, a bit. At least with your hair.’

‘This hair costs me two hundred and ten pounds every twelve weeks. I think it would be a crime against hair if I wasn’t proud of it, don’t you?’

‘Very true.’

‘This is hard,’ complained Nadia. ‘What if I reply, and it’s shit, and he loses interest?’

‘Woah, woah, woah, friend – stop that before it starts! It is NOT your job to seduce him. It is his job to impress you. Whoever the next guy is, he has to break the cycle, okay? No more simpering, pliable Nadia. Date like the Nadia we know! And love! Literally your state of mind cannot be to impress him. He’d be lucky to have you. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘And if he is the one in fifty who is worth being bothered about, you’ll be lucky to have him too. And together, it will be lovely.’

‘Okay.’

‘Literally, one in fifty, okay? He has to prove he is one in fifty.’

‘It’s hilarious to think he’s probably looking for his one in million.’

‘It is. Nobody will ever win those odds. We’re all only human, after all.’

Within the hour, a third bottle of wine had been ordered.

‘Wassabout being flirt-y. FLIRT-Y,’ slurred Emma, just enough to let Nadia know that she was as pissed as she was. ‘I’m-the-best-flirt-y. I really am.’

Nadia nodded, sagely. ‘You are. You really, really, really are.’ She sank back in her chair, and smiled at her friend without showing her teeth – the smile of the drunk.

‘I gotta go home,’ she said. Picking up her phone from the table and hitting a button to make the time glow, she said, ‘It’s almost midnight! I-gotta-be-up in like …’ She went quiet and used her fingers to help count from midnight to 6 a.m. ‘Six hours!’

‘I like your new routine thing,’ said Emma. ‘I couldn’t do it, but I like you for doing it. Is proactive.’

Nadia nodded, her eyelids drooping. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘I’m-no-very good every day but I try,’ she said.

Emma paid, getting a receipt so she could expense it, and they feigned a more sober demeanour as they walked the flight of stairs to the reception area, not speaking except to say a strident ‘Goodnight!’ to the two stern-faced women in short black dresses and sleek ponytails on the desk.

‘Uber,’ said Nadia outside. ‘I need an Uber.’ She figured she could justify the expense of it since she’d not spent anything all night, even though The New Routine to Change My Life limited silly mid-week expenses like taxis. She paid her mum a good chunk of money every month, almost like rent, so that eventually the flat would be in her name. But the chunks of money needed to be bigger if she was going to own the deeds before she was 75. She poked around on her phone and ordered a cab.

‘Three minutes, it says.’ She glanced up in time to see Emma looking further down the street at something, and instinctively followed her best friend’s gaze to see Gaby – work BFF Gaby – waving. Nadia looked back over from her to Emma, who looked slightly panicked, and then shouted, ‘Gaby! Is that you?’

Gaby walked towards them, looking fabulous in what Nadia knew, even with her wine goggles on, was a date outfit. Hadn’t she said she wasn’t dating?

‘Hey, guys!’ she said, brightly. ‘What are you two doing here?’

‘We just sent an advert to the paper … for Train Guy,’ said Emma, smiling brightly.

Nadia corrected her, ‘Well. Didn’t send it. Wrote it.’

Emma shifted her eyes from side to side, mischievously. ‘Yeah. What she said.’

Nadia suddenly felt nauseous, as well as a lot more sober. ‘Emma!’ she said, as if addressing a naughty puppy who had peed on the carpet.

‘No,’ said Emma, giving nothing away. ‘I mean yes. No. Maybe!’

A white Prius pulled up alongside the three women.

‘Nadia?’ said a guy through the driver’s window, and Nadia looked down at him, waiting for him to say something else before realizing he was telling her that he was her ride.

‘Oh, I – this is me,’ she said, offering her cheek to Gaby to kiss it, and then to Emma. ‘Tell me everything tomorrow?’ she said to Gaby, alluding to her date dress. ‘I knew you were seeing somebody!’

And then to Emma she said, ‘You had better be joking about that advert! I swear to god, Emma.’

Emma smiled as if butter wouldn’t melt, helping her into the car and closing the door behind her. ‘Of course I am,’ she said, as Nadia wound down her window to hear her. ‘I wouldn’t send it without permission.’

‘We love you!’ Gaby shouted through the open window, holding onto Emma’s waist as the pair waved her off.

‘I love you both too,’ Nadia slurred, before telling the driver, ‘Hey – can you put something nice on? Some music? Something romantic. Something about love.’

The cab driver switched on to a station that seemed to play love songs on repeat, and Nadia left Emma and Gaby in the middle of Soho, her head filled with thoughts of the man on the train lusting after her, arriving home just as the last chorus of ‘Endless Love’ finished. She went to bed without taking her make-up off, dreaming of trains and duets and newspapers. And, of course, totally forgot to set an alarm.

7
Daniel

Daniel had had Percy block out the last hour of his Tuesday as a meeting in the diary, and slinked off from work early. He was headed to his mother’s for tea, and was in the perfect state of mind to get fussed over. He’d never be too old for his mum. He’d not told her about the advert – the only person who knew was Lorenzo, what with it being his idea. It was literally yesterday’s news, anyway. He wanted to forget about it. What a stupid, dumb, pointless thing to have pinned his hopes on. He felt like a right twat.

Daniel passed by security on the way out, and a man with a shaved head and a walkie-talkie called, romantically, Romeo, held up his palm for Daniel to high five.

‘My brother, my man,’ Romeo said, turning the high five into a sort of fist grab, pulling Daniel’s right shoulder into his right shoulder so that they bumped in a way Daniel had seen American sports players and some rappers do. Romeo wasn’t American. Romeo had been born in Westgate-on-Sea.

‘How’s it going today? You’re looking shaaaarp.’ Romeo spoke as if he was the comic relief cousin in a Will Smith movie about a comedy bank heist done in the name of love, but was white with blue eyes and blond hair scraped up into a man-bun, and had a degree in Landscape Architecture. (‘Turns out I don’t like being outdoors much,’ he’d explained, with a regretful shrug.)

Daniel tugged on his own collar, jutting it upwards like John Travolta. He’d worn a jacket with his suit trousers today, which wasn’t expected in the office and which the weather was about ten degrees too warm for, but he’d wanted to look nice because it lifted his mood. He liked to take care of himself, liked to spend money on clothes. He liked feeling as though he was putting his best foot forward – it bolstered him. And after yesterday, he wanted to feel bolstered.

‘I try,’ Daniel said, attempting to make Romeo laugh. ‘I try.’

The suit was navy, a colour he had always bought his formal wear in, ever since his first suit at twelve, which his mother had insisted be navy: ‘Because that’s what Lady Di likes Charles in.’

Romeo frowned instead of laughing. ‘Okay, cut the bullshit, man. What’s up?’

On Daniel’s second day back after his dad’s funeral, Romeo had found Daniel around the side of the building. He’d been crying, spinning around in small circles, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to stem the flow of tears so he could get back to his desk without anyone questioning if he was back too soon. Daniel had never been rude to Romeo, but he had never gone out of his way to be friendly to security, either. He’d never ignored anyone on the door, but hadn’t extended courtesy beyond a mumbled ‘Hello’ each morning. After Romeo gave him a hug – two men, hugging, around the side of one of London’s most prestigious buildings in the middle of the day – and told him to let it all out, whatever it was – well. Daniel started to stop and chat to his new buddy in the evenings, when he was on shift, asking after his day or dissecting the Arsenal game the night before, and on one more memorable occasion listening to the merits of a dream-interpretation workshop Romeo was undertaking, until now it was one of Daniel’s most treasured moments of the day. It felt like normalcy. It felt like he’d found a friend.

Plus, Daniel particularly respected how Romeo hadn’t brought the crying up since, and didn’t pry as to why he’d been in such a state that day. He just carried on minding the door and greeting everyone who walked by, and that was a classy move, to Daniel. A real classy move.

‘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.

But she wasn’t around. The train pulled into London Bridge and Daniel stuffed the paper into his bag. He searched the crowds for her face. He kept his eyes and mind alert as he walked through the station, all the way to his own office.

‘Daniel! My man! How’s it going today, brother?’

Daniel fished the paper out from his bag, and said to Romeo, ‘Dude. Check this out! Check it out!’ He opened the paper on the Missed Connections page and pointed at the response. ‘She wrote back, man! Can you believe it?!’

Romeo took the paper from Daniel and read the small section meant for him in silence, his eyes growing bigger and bigger in admiration.

‘Well, she’s a feisty one. Congratulations!’

Romeo held out a hand for Daniel to shake, and Daniel beamed at both the advert and his mate in front of him who knew this was a massive thing for him. He felt a funny sense of accomplishment. Accomplishment, and also slight dread because: what now?

‘You gotta figure out a way to get this newspaper connection off the page and into real life,’ Romeo said. ‘She’s asking you to!’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Daniel, nodding. ‘I mean. Surely I wait for her to be on the train and then just … go up to her and say hello, right?’

‘Sure,’ said Romeo. ‘Sure.’

‘Sure?’

‘Well. Or, you could amp it up a little, you know. Sounds like she’s a gutsy one. Maybe you could build the tension a little bit.’

‘Uh huh. Yeah. Totally.’ Daniel nodded. And then he shook his head because he actually didn’t know what Romeo meant. ‘I mean – like how?’

Romeo folded the paper and handed it back to him. ‘Write her back, man. Make this a thing. If you build up the anticipation, the climax will feel all the better – for both of you. Girls love that shit!’

Daniel nodded. ‘I’m not a girl, and I love that shit too! Romance is nice, right? The thrill of the chase and all that?’

‘You got this, man,’ said Romeo.

Daniel nodded, understanding. ‘So if I write back, it needs to be flirty, like she has been, but also – well, you know on the dating apps when people say “I don’t want a pen pal”? I don’t want it to seem like I’m playing a game where it’s more about the letters than actually getting to meet.’

‘That’s smart thinking, man,’ Romeo said. ‘You’re absolutely right. So maybe what you want is some kind of like, riddle, yeah? A clue that she has to solve. You said she’s clever, so I bet she’ll love that.’

‘A clue she has to solve, but nothing that makes her think she has to impress me.’ Daniel’s face darkened with a memory. ‘My mate Joel always did this thing at uni that he’d read about – do they call it negging? Where you like, make a woman want to impress you by making out that she hasn’t already?’

‘Negging, yeah,’ said Romeo, disapprovingly.

‘That’s some weird psychological crap,’ Daniel said. ‘I like her, and now I know she likes me …’ Then it occurred to him. ‘Oh. Well. Actually that’s not quite true. She likes the idea of me – we don’t know that she’s identified who I am. She hasn’t even been on the train since Monday, so …’

Romeo held up his hands. ‘Do NOT tell me that you’re doubting if she’ll fancy you,’ he said. ‘She will, man. I like girls and all, but I’m confident enough in my sexuality to tell you that you’re a handsome bastard.’

Daniel smiled, chuffed, already standing taller for Romeo’s compassionate words. ‘Cheers.’ His dad’s face flashed into his mind. His dad had always made him stand taller, always believed in him before he believed in himself.

Romeo held out a hand, and as Daniel met it he pulled him in for one of his half-hugs, half-shoulder-bump things.

‘You’re inspiring me to get a bit romantic myself, truth be told,’ he said. ‘I’ve had two dates with a woman I like, you know? Maybe I’ll text her and wish her a good morning, just because she’s on my mind. Nothing wrong with that, is there? If you feel it, say it, and all that.’

Daniel nodded. ‘That’s a nice thing to do for people we like,’ he agreed.

Romeo held out his fist so that Daniel could knock against it with his own, as a goodbye gesture.

‘We’re a right sort, aren’t we?’ Romeo said, and Daniel couldn’t help but agree. Love was in the air, and he was thrilled about it.

8
Nadia

‘I am going to fucking kill you,’ Nadia said in a voice note to her best friend. ‘I can’t believe you sent that! You total …’ Words failed her. She could not believe that Emma had sent in an email to Missed Connections on her behalf. ‘This hangover cannot process this. You’ve made me sound … cheap! And like I’m some sort of sexy temptress! What the fuck is the thing about the biting? Nobody has made that joke since the nineties, and even then it was always someone’s pervy uncle. I said it ironically, but you’ve not bloody used it ironically. Oh god. If I get approached by some weirdo seventy-year-old who looks like Piers Morgan and has his hands down his pants, I will actually kill you. I just threatened to kill you, but I need you to know I will actually slaughter you.’

Nadia was an hour late for work, and in a foul mood. She’d been on time for work once this week, on Monday, but had forgotten to set her alarm twice after that. Last night she’d had a cocktail after work with her team, and then met her old colleague Naomi for dinner and they had talked so late that she was basically asleep by the time she fell into bed at midnight – again forgetting to set an alarm. That meant she’d woken up this Thursday morning with a start, had to rush to shower, and hadn’t had time to fully assess if her outfit actually looked like an outfit or was mismatched in a way she couldn’t pass off as cool. She’d have to start The New Routine to Change My Life again tomorrow. Or maybe on Monday.

‘Don’t act like you’re mad!’ said Emma, when she eventually called back in response to the scathing voice note. ‘It’s a cute advert. I did you a favour! And I promise I didn’t do it when we were drunk. I saved it in drafts and only sent it yesterday, when I was sure it was a good one.’

‘It’s not a good one! It’s awful!’ said Nadia, determined to give her a hard time for doing it without her permission. I don’t bite?! What was Emma thinking?

‘No! It is a good one! I 200 per cent know in my bones he will approach you. You’d be talking to him right now if you’d been on time for work! That’s how good it is!’

Nadia had a weird twinge in her tummy at the thought of it – that if she had gone into the office on time, on her regular train, she could be talking to her future right now. But her future could wait twenty-four hours. Couldn’t it? She could use today to build her courage. Suddenly she was less angry and more excited.

After talking to Emma, Nadia picked up the paper again, open on the page with Missed Connections on. She took a breath and reread it, carefully unpicking it sentence by sentence.

It’s creepy that you’re watching me when you could be saying hello, but maybe you’re trying to be romantic.

Okay, well. That bit was actually okay, if she was totally honest. It was a sort of warning that he had better not be an actual creep, stalking her or something. She could deal with that. The line between big romantic gesture from a stranger and weird stalking was, actually, pretty fine, and probably rested on how handsome and well-adjusted the author of the letters was. Nadia had once read a Twitter thread about a girl whose date had known to come to the back door of her house, not the front, and brought a bouquet of lilies for her, because he knew she liked lilies. The woman said she’d never told him to use the back door, and that her favourite flowers had never come up in conversation; and to some it might have seemed like she was overreacting, but this woman said she knew in her stomach something wasn’t right. Two weeks later, the guy was arrested for masturbating onto her car bonnet at three o’clock in the morning.

I just want you to know that I won’t bite until at least the third date, so don’t be shy. Bloody hell. That bit really was awful. Horrid, horrid, horrid. I won’t bite until at least the third date? Emma was insane for including that. It was provocative in all the wrong ways. If Nadia had written it, she would have said something like … well. She wasn’t actually sure, off the top of her head. That’s why she’d delayed writing her own response – it was tough to get the tone right! But just because she hadn’t got around to it herself didn’t mean she wouldn’t have done it in the end. Probably. Maybe.

Hmmm. Nadia started to acknowledge the edges of a feeling that maybe Emma had done her a favour. Would she have ever decided on the ‘perfect’ response? Maybe it was like Pilates: you could put off doing it, or you could just go and get it over with and admit the flood of endorphins felt incredible after.

If you think I’m devastatingly cute then be brave with it: kind, romantic and bold? That’s my love language.

Hmmm. That bit was nice. Nadia could deal with that. It sort of stated her values and she liked declaring out loud that kindness was key. Kindness without being wet. Kindness that meant he knew to let other people off the tube before he got on, and that if he came to the pub and Emma was there he’d let her rant on a bit and then tell her she was absolutely right, no matter what she was ranting about. That was something else her old boss Katherine had told her: that when her husband was still just her boyfriend, he’d been out with her friends and listened sympathetically to a break-up story that went on and on. Katherine had thanked him afterwards for listening, for being as good a friend to her BFF as Katherine tried to be.

‘If she’s important to you, then I want her to be important to me,’ he’d explained to her.

Katherine said that was when she knew she wanted to marry him. Nadia had loved hearing that story. She loved knowing when men had been good and caring. She carried around a mental storybook of all the tales the women in her life had told her, that she opened in her mind when she felt herself begin to go down the all-men-are-the-same path. They weren’t. The good ones existed. Maybe not all of them were good, but perhaps Emma had been right when she said one in fifty was good. Katherine and Naomi had both won in those odds. Nadia forced herself to believe that she could too.

If she had to score the ad out of ten she’d begrudgingly give it an eight and a half. Emma lost a point for the biting thing – Nadia wouldn’t ever forgive that. But. Maybe, possibly, potentially it could have taken Nadia weeks to do it herself, and so at least something was out there.

She allowed herself a little smile.

He could be reading it right now, she thought to herself. He could be thinking of me as I am thinking of him.

The idea of it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it felt oddly comforting.

What would he say in return?

9
Daniel

‘I really am going to have to ask you to piss off,’ Daniel said to Lorenzo as he poured boiling water into his favourite Arsenal mug. ‘I am not reading a dating guide. Absolutely not.’

He manoeuvred around his flatmate to the fridge, pulling out the plastic carton of milk and doing a double take as he realized that it was weirdly light. He looked at it, pointedly, sighing dramatically.

‘Lorenzo, did you put an empty milk carton back into the fridge?’

Lorenzo looked from the carton to Daniel’s raised eyebrows.

‘It’s an emergency stash day,’ Lorenzo said with a shrug, opening the drawer where they kept the single-portion pots of UHT milk that they made a game of stealing from hotels and buffet breakfasts. Daniel wasn’t sure how it had begun, but there was now a specific drawer for them, for these long-life UHT milks, which had more recently come to involve UHT milk sachets too.

‘There’s a trend for them,’ Lorenzo had acknowledged knowingly once, as he returned from a weekend wedding in Edinburgh with ten sachets. ‘The sachets are much easier to open. More environmentally friendly too.’

Some weeks they didn’t buy proper milk at all, living off the UHT drawer. What was weirder was that Daniel and Lorenzo didn’t even really talk about it. It was just a thing that they did. No milk in the fridge? Time for the milk drawer, then. It normally happened at the end of the week, on a Friday, so at least today they were consistent with their milk-buying inconsistencies.

By way of a mild apology it was an easy-open sachet that Lorenzo handed over now. Daniel took it, shaking his head. It felt like there was a ‘Joey and Chandler’ dynamic between them sometimes – and that probably wasn’t a good thing.

‘I’m just saying, have a glance at it,’ Lorenzo said, taking a milk sachet for himself and ripping it open with his teeth. He drank it down, on its own, in one gulp.

‘It’s for girls!’ Daniel said. ‘Presumably girls who want to pick up boys! I don’t want to pick up boys!’ He held his tea by the rim of the mug, deciding it was too hot and switching it to the other hand to hold by the handle. ‘If I was a girl picking up boys it looks like a mighty fine book, but as I am not, I shall proceed on my own, book-free,’ he said, adding defensively, ‘I don’t need a book to tell me how to chat a woman up.’

Lorenzo picked up the copy of Get Your Guys! from the table where he’d left it out for Daniel the night before.

‘All I’m saying,’ Lorenzo intoned, ‘is that everyone at work was equally as sceptical as you, except the woman who commissioned it. And one by one, she passed it out to the 5 girls on the staff and, one by one, they all had stories about trying what –’ he glanced down at the front cover to remind himself of the author’s name ‘– Grant Garby says, and now most of them are engaged.’

‘But,’ Daniel said, closing his eyes as if very, very tired. ‘They are women. Hitting on men.’

Lorenzo shook his head. ‘Well, you see, I thought I should take a look at it, you know, as research, and it is my job to PR books, even if I wasn’t PR-ing this one. Know the market and all that. And he’s fucking genius. Grant Garby. He has this whole YouTube series and everything. It’s been a slow grower, but since it came out and word has spread, he’s sold like, one hundred thousand copies. Chicks swear by him, but he reckons blokes should be reading his stuff too.’

Daniel finished his tea and put the empty mug in the sink, where it would live for two days until he’d finally cave in over his dishwasher stand-off with Lorenzo and empty it himself, thus making room for a kitchen full of dirty crockery and the whole cycle could start over again.

‘Why do you need help hitting on women? It’s literally the only thing you’re good at.’

‘Rude,’ said Lorenzo, only half insulted. ‘And, my friend, this is what makes me so clever: continual practice.’

‘Continual practice.’

‘Continual practice. Christians don’t go to church once, and then say they’re Christian forever. They go to church every Sunday, to keep practising their religion. I’m no Casanova because I got lucky with girls a few times – I’m called The Closer because I practise the skills needed to be The Closer.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ said Daniel, looking at his watch. ‘Nobody calls you The Closer.’

‘I call myself The Closer.’

‘I repeat: that’s disgusting.’

Lorenzo moved to block Daniel’s exit from their shared kitchen. ‘Listen to me. I fucking care about you, man. I care that this works out for you. Okay? And I’m telling you – read the book.’

Daniel made eye contact with his friend, who instantly, in a fit of embarrassment at being so candid, looked away and moved aside. Theirs wasn’t an easy relationship, but Lorenzo had definitely stepped up after Daniel’s dad had died, and he figured that’s what he was getting at: that Lorenzo wanted Daniel to have something work out in his favour. Lorenzo was caring in the only way Lorenzo knew how.

Daniel took the book.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll look at it.’

Lorenzo clapped his hands, thrilled to have charmed yet another person into bending to his will. Daniel wondered if that’s where he’d learned to do it – from the book.

‘Chapter six, buddy – that’s the one. I double dare you to try it.’

‘Chapter six,’ Daniel said. ‘Fine.’

As he travelled to work, Daniel felt like there was a huge spotlight on his backpack illuminating the fact he had a dating guide in his possession. He’d be mortified to be caught with it, and worried one wrong move could see his bag slip from his shoulder and its contents splay out for the judgement of everyone else on the underground. What if she saw it? Nadia? His paranoia was so great that he’d almost managed to convince himself that The Dating Guide police were going to search every carriage, demanding anyone with a dating guide on them step forward. He had visions of having to declare to everyone, including Nadia, that he had a hardback copy of Get Your Guys! and he’d never be able to get on the tube again. He’d got the guide to help with Nadia, but if she saw he had it he would lose her before it had even begun, he was certain.

He was relieved that she wasn’t actually on the train today.

‘My man, how’s it going today?’ Romeo asked him, as he slipped through the glass doors of his office tower.

‘I HAVE A DATING GUIDE!’ Daniel declared, desperate for somebody – anybody – to know. He couldn’t carry the guilt. He needed to be absolved.

‘Good for you!’ said Romeo, totally unfazed by Daniel’s non sequitur. That was the thing about Romeo: he was just happy to be alive, and happy that everyone else was alive too.

Daniel fumbled around in his bag, pulling it out for Romeo to see. ‘It’s called Get Your Guys!’ he said, panicked. ‘Lorenzo forced me to take it.’

‘Oh,’ said Romeo, taking it. ‘Have you got to chapter six? My sister read this and said chapter six changed her life.’

‘Chapter six? No, no, I haven’t read chapter six. I haven’t read any of it!’ Daniel shook his head. ‘I don’t need to read a dating guide!’

Romeo shrugged, thumbing through it. ‘Well then, what harm can it do?’ he said, not unreasonably. ‘If you don’t need it, why are you freaking out about having it?’

Daniel scowled. ‘I have to go,’ he said, taking the guide and slipping it into his bag again. He leaned into Romeo and lowered his voice.

‘Tell nobody,’ he said, walking off.

Waiting to find somebody you like to flirt with is like waiting to go on stage to learn your lines

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