I find my usual spot near the edge, close to where the train doors will open. Slip my earbuds in. Let some song play on shuffle. I don't even register what it is.

The tracks stretch out in front of me, dark and gleaming under the fluorescent lights. People blur past. A child laughs somewhere behind me. An announcement crackles overhead, tinny and indistinct.

And then—I don't know why I turn my head. Maybe some instinct. Maybe just luck.

He's sitting on one of the metal benches. Legs apart, elbows on his knees, phone in his hands. But he's not looking at it. His gaze is somewhere far away, soft and unfocused, like he's thinking about something that makes his lips part just slightly.

The light catches his face just right. Hits the curve of his jaw, the sharp line of his cheekbone, the way his hair falls across his forehead in strands that look impossibly soft.

My breath catches.

He's pretty. No—that's not the right word. That's too small. He's the kind of pretty that makes you feel like you're intruding just by looking. The kind that makes your chest ache without explanation.

And then his eyes lift from wherever they were wandering.

They meet mine.

And for a single, stupid, suspended second—neither of us looks away.