I knew just by the confident, assured way he held himself—shoulders back, chin just slightly tilted to the sky—and by the cut slopes of his jaw and his thick brown hair, that this was a man who had never known an awkward phase. While the rest of us were running around seventh grade with oozing zits and blinding metal braces （I had to sleep in headgear, for god’s sake）， he breezed through with ease, all long muscles and creamy, clear skin and enviable cheekbones and dark lashes, from the day he was born.
And then there were his eyes, stern and serious but also big and beautiful. At first glance, they looked brown, but with a second look I realized they were so inky and dark that they came closer to matching the navy of his suit. He had the body of a runner or a cyclist or—it clicked then—a triathlete. I could see him in one of those skimpy running suits now, muscle pulsing against spandex, not caring that everyone in the world could see every angle and curve of his perfectly sculpted body.
“Please.” His voice was caught between concerned and annoyed, and the slight wrinkle between his brow underscored his tone. “Take it.” He even had good eyebrows, the kind that somehow looked well-groomed even though he was surely too cool to wax them.
“What?” I said, my voice shaky. “You want me to take your jacket?”
He nodded and offered a small smile. “Yes.”
And then he blinked, holding his eyes closed an extra beat, showing off those lashes, the kind women revered with both jealousy and awe.
“I have five more of these at home.” He said this firmly, like it should be obvious. “It would be of much more help to you.”
Five more? If I wasn’t half-naked on the subway living through my worst nightmare, I’d make some crack about selling his fancy suits to pay my rent. But instead, I pursed my lips together, which I’d painted in my bright-red all-day lip stain just hours earlier. It was an attempt to push down the tightness in my throat, but it was no use. The misery of this morning was rushing out of me in heavy sobs.
“That’s really nice of you. Thank you.” I sniffed, my nose stuffy now. Good lord, why does snot need to be a part of crying? I already looked like a newborn sloth when I cried, and the dripping nose only made things worse. “But I can’t take it. Your suit jacket. How would I even. Get it back to you?” My breathing was choppy, and the words came out in gasps.
Before he could reply, the train lurched forward and I stumbled a step, my left arm instinctively shooting out to stop myself from falling. I reached for a pole to grab on to, but there was nothing there, and instead I face-planted into him, my left cheek smooshed against his chest, which was warm and solid. My arm that had searched for the pole slid along his side instead, and I wrapped it around his back just to have something to hold on to, my fingers gripping his shirt like a steering wheel. The jolt sent my dress flapping behind me. He took a step forward to balance himself, and his hand landed on my butt where my dress hung open, his fingers firm on my skin.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I heard him say from somewhere. Something about the soft press of his palm—hot and brief on my bare skin—was both electric and comforting, all at once. We stood like this for what felt like minutes: two strangers awkwardly embracing, my cheek still flush against his chest, so close that if I actually stopped to listen I could probably hear his heartbeat.
“It’s okay,” I babbled into the cool relief of his shirt.
He pulled his hand off me and steadied it on the roof of the subway car. “Excuse me,” he said, taking a small step back, holding his hand out like it had just been burned. “That was an accident. My apologies.”
Then he glanced down, first at me, and then at his shirt, where I’d left two wet blotches where my eyes had been. And right below it—oh god—was a trace of snot. Suddenly, getting laid off didn’t seem like the worst thing to happen to me today.
I backed away from him, and the pregnant woman gave me a sympathetic look as I accidentally bumped into her. Again.
“I would take it,” she said as I muttered another apology. “Unless you want—” She gestured to the clip in her hand.
The conductor’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker as the train rolled to a slow stop in the tunnel. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re just holding here as we wait for a train to leave the station ahead of us.”
“Okay, yeah.” I nodded at the stranger on the subway. “Thank you so much.”
He held up the jacket in front of me by the collar, like the men did for their dates in the black-and-white movies that my grandma and I used to watch. Gingerly, he draped it over my shoulders, tugging it ever so slightly so it hung snug over my body, his cheek coming dangerously close to brushing against the top of my head. I breathed a sigh of relief that I was no longer showing my ass to the entire city. As I did, I caught a whiff of his scent lingering on the collar. Apparently, this man’s neck smelled like an afternoon spent with old books stacked on wooden shelves as icy rain cracked against the window, with hints of spicy pine and a fireplace that roared with hot flames and flickering coals. It was heady and decadent, steady and dark.