Page 11 of Our Stop

‘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 aMissed 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 shedidread 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.

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