Thank You for Riding: Strangers on a Train

by Meg Maguire

  They wandered back to the revolving gate, and Caitlin sat on the floor as demurely as could be expected in her tiny dress—not that Mark would be able to see much if she accidentally flashed him, not in this paltry light. She slipped off her shoes and set them beside her with a sigh, flexing her toes.

  “Funny how getting dumped at a holiday party suddenly isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to me today,” she teased herself.

  “Careful. Crappy stuff’s supposed to come in threes.”

  “Oh, right. I wonder what’s next?”

  “Guess we’ll just have wait and to find out.”

  On the positive side, at least she didn’t need to pee. And though she didn’t know Mark well at all, she did have a crush on him, and if someone had forced her to choose a person to be trapped in this corridor with all night, his was the name she’d have blurted.

  Mark stretched his legs out in front of him. “So. You like it so far? Our first date?”

  She smiled, glad he was finding the humor in things again. “I would have preferred that coffee, I must admit.”

  “You okay? Cold?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, pretty cold.”

  He unzipped his coat.

  “No, don’t do that.”

  He ignored her, slipping it from his shoulders. He draped it over her lap, and she tucked the edges under her legs and feet, happy for the soft fleece lining…though she wasn’t exactly cozy. The brick floor was turning her butt to stone, and the breeze still reached them, sucked from the street down into the station, off through the tunnels bound for other stops.

  “Still think you can make it three or four hours?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I can.”

  “Lemme know if your feet go numb or anything. You want my socks?” He reached for his shoes.

  “No, no.” She tucked his jacket more tightly under her heels. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Gloves?” He was already pulling them off, so it wasn’t a question.

  She slipped them on, liking how they’d been prewarmed by him, and how small her hands felt inside them. Mark slid his own hands into the front pocket of his Dingoes sweatshirt after flipping up its hood and cinching it around his face. His very handsome face.

  “Thank you,” Caitlin said, her voice sounding strange and disembodied in the dark weirdness of the space.

  “Least I can do, after talking your ear off and getting us stranded down here.”

  She shrugged. “I’d been willing you to ask me out with telepathy, so really it’s my fault. You were just doing my bidding.”

  He laughed softly, and she wished she could see his grin better. That’d warm her up.

  “Why didn’t you just ask me out yourself?”

  “Well, I might’ve, except I’d already admitted I got dumped in the last few hours. That might quite rightly give a guy pause.”

  “Ah. What does it say about me that I asked you out anyhow?” Mark asked, a smile lingering in his voice.

  “That you like ’em desperate and vulnerable.”

  Another laugh, a proper one. “Wow. I’m a scoundrel.”

  “Nah. You’re cute.”

  He turned to meet her eyes, raising a brow. “Oh?”

  She nodded. “I thought you were cute at the Red Cross, with your scaredy needle-face and your library book and your reading glasses. And the fact that you were donating your platelets in the middle of a weekday.” And your shapely, shapely arm.

  “How did you know I wasn’t unemployed, just there for the free snacks?”

  “I knew. The way you squeezed that stress ball…” She sighed for wistful effect.

  “Oh?”

  “Oh, yes. Women can’t resist a man with strong squeezing hands. Tells us you must be great at, oh, I don’t know…making juice. Opening jars. Crushing beer cans.”

  “Women really go for that, huh?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe that’s my own perversion, after spending seventy hours a week surrounded by guys who speak in financial code.”

  “All that mouse clicking, though. Dexterous fingers. Left click! Right click!” he mimed furiously.

  “You make us sound so exciting.”

  “Enter that quarterly earnings data!”

  “Indeed. Not nearly as exciting as what you do, I’m sure.”

  He made a dismissive pfffft noise. “In any given eight-hour period, I get mocked fifty times for not knowing who some pop star or rapper playing on the radio is or what a slang word means. And get told stuff like, ‘Coach Holly, you’re actually pretty cool. What are you, like forty?’”

  She laughed. “And what are you, really?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “Ooh, burn.” A chill overtook her, and she tucked Mark’s coat tighter under her butt. “Thank you again, for lending me this.”

  “You’ve got nice legs,” he said casually. “Be a shame if they snapped off from the cold.”

  “I wish I had something to offer you, aside from a uselessly tiny purse… You need lipstick? Or my T-Pass?”

  “Save the lipstick for when we get hungry.”

  “Oh.” She sat up straight. “I do have champagne.”

  He glanced at her, and she realized neither of them was sure if she was serious. Mark shrugged.

  “Have to pass the time somehow,” Caitlin said.

  “True. Okay, sure. Bust it out.”

  She reached for the bag and freed the bottle from its tissue-paper nest. The idea perked her up, making it feel more like an adventurous date, assuring her she hadn’t gotten all hussied up for nothing. She’d toast to that. “Would you like to do the honors, with your manly squeezing hands?”

  “Sure.”

  While Mark unwound the little wire cage, Caitlin tore the pretty paper from Kevin’s would-be Christmas present and slid the shaker from the box.

  The cork escaped with an echoing pop, and she caught some of the fizzy overflow with the shaker’s silver cap.

  “Cheers,” she offered, and clacked the cap against the bottle.

  “To, um…” Mark took a sip from the bottle, seeming to think.

  “To my first subterranean date,” she ventured.

  “Mine too. What a coincidence. To many more.” He tapped the cap again. “And to the next date going a bit more smoothly, if you ever let me take you on a second one after this debacle.”

  “It’s not your fault we’re locked in. If only I were litigious, I’d lose a toe on purpose and sue the pants off the T. Not that they have any money.” She sipped her wine. In a weird way, she didn’t think champagne had ever tasted so nice. Considering the surroundings, it was all the more luxurious.

  “In any case, it can only get better from here,” Mark said. “The bar’s been set so low. I planned it all this way, paid off the T employees.”

  “I’m sure next time you’ll take me somewhere really nice. Like the North Station parking garage.”

  “Nothing but the best. Keep those standards low, Miss…”

  “Dwyre.”

  “Miss Dwyre.”

  “I shall. Mr. Holly, is it?”

  “Yup.”

  “Mark Holly,” she repeated, nodding. “I like that. Very seasonal.”

  “HR probably wouldn’t approve.”

  “No, maybe not. You’d have to change your name to Mark Nondenominational Winter Greenery.”

  He laughed, a soft chuckle that made her feel clever and pretty, momentarily warm.

  “So you aren’t allowed to say Christmas, but your boss is allowed to give you alcohol? And a martini shaker?” He nodded at it.

  “Yeah, I know. Though the shaker wasn’t a gift. Not a gift to me, anyhow. It was supposed to be for the guy who dumped me.”

  “Ah. Ouch.”

  She picked it up to show him, and Mark squinted at the engraving in the dim glow of the emergency lights. “Can’t return it, huh? Bummer.”

  “Yeah. Do you know any KPDs who enjoy cocktails? I’ll sell it to you at a very reasonable discount.”r />
  “It’s a memento, now. Maybe you can make up an acronym to commemorate our little underground adventure.”

  She pondered it, nothing witty arriving. But if she wasn’t mistaken, the wine was already taking effect, its fizziness bubbling through her veins, making her feel all mischievous and slinky, even camped out in quite possibly the least romantic spot in all of Greater Boston. Except perhaps for that territory between the half-dead ficus and the laser printer.

  “We’re going to hit it off,” Mark announced after a minute’s conversational lapse.

  “Oh?”

  “And we’ll have a real date and fall in love and get married and have about ten kids.”

  “Ten sounds like a lot,” she said, playing along to see where this was going.

  “Fine. Nine kids. And fifty years from now, everyone will gather around the parlor for our silver or gold or whatever anniversary, and we’ll take the old martini shaker off our stately mantle, and regale everyone with the tale of how it brought us together. And you can drink champagne out of the cap, just like you are now.”

  “Deal,” she said, and they tapped vessels again.

  After another swig, Mark cleared his throat. “Provided we do survive the night and I don’t mess this up, I would like to see you again.” He sounded a touch vulnerable—nervous and hopeful, all the things she felt. It warmed her in a way the champagne never could.

  “I’d like that too.”

  “Do you like dim sum? Or is that too lazy, since we both live so close to Chinatown?”

  “I like lazy. And I love dim sum. I like the way the wasabi makes me feel like it’s boiling my eyeballs for ten seconds, then suddenly it’s gone.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Then if we don’t mess it up, we could wander around and go into all those interesting shops that sell pickled fish and coffee-flavored chewing gum,” she added.

  “And those tiny prepackaged Japanese Jell-O shot things with the cube of mummified pineapple in the middle?”

  She laughed. “Definitely.”

  “If I’m feeling particularly smitten, I’ll buy you a lucky waving cat.”

  “A big gold one?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll be extra smittening, in that case. It might freak out my actual cat, but he could use a little friendly competition.” They were quiet a moment, and the chill took hold of her, making her legs tremble and her back muscles knit in the tensing cold.

  “You’re shaking.”

  “I’m fine.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Here.” He spread his legs wider and patted the floor between them. “You’ll be warmer, and I promise I won’t grope you or anything.”

  Yes, because getting groped by a handsome, charming man hours after getting dumped by a workaholic iceberg was such a repulsive notion.

  Caitlin carefully crab-walked herself over his nearest leg and sat in front of him, tugging her dress and coat flat beneath her frozen butt and rewrapping her legs in his jacket.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  Draping her hair over her shoulder and out of his face, she leaned back. He felt solid behind her, his voice so close by her ear. If she’d had any blood left in her extremities, it would’ve rushed to heat more womanly climes. “Yes, fine. Thank you.”

  She reached for her champagne, wanting a fresh sip to keep its pleasant, distracting tingle inching through her veins. As she swallowed, Mark slid his arms around her middle, encircling her waist a couple chivalrous inches below her bust. Not that he’d be able to cop much of a feel through her wool coat.

  “What base is this?” she teased, but her voice came out all breathy and overwrought. Behind her back, his chest felt as solid as the brick wall, but leagues more comforting.

  Mark’s silent laugh warmed her ear. “Not any base I’ve ever gotten to. I think we’ve wandered off in the outfield someplace.”

  She could begin to feel his heat through their layers and hoped maybe he could feel hers in return. Maybe they’d just melt together, two truffles joining so their mismatched gooey centers might mingle. She blinked at the metaphor, wondering if it was dirty, the idea of his nougat canoodling with her raspberry crème. Freak.

  “You feel nice,” she murmured.

  “You too. And you smell nice.”

  She smiled at a thought. “I wonder if I’ll tell anyone about this on Monday, if they ask what I got up to on my long-awaited weekend off.”

  “I will definitely not be telling my coworkers. They can’t be trusted with gossip.”

  “It’s a good story, though,” Caitlin said. “How would you word it? I think I’d say, ‘I got to talking with this cute guy I knew from the Red Cross, and the next thing we knew, the subway shut down and we got locked inside all night.’” Suck on that, stupid Kevin.

  “Will you mention all this?” Mark asked, giving her a gentle squeeze.

  “I’ll tell my girlfriends about it, yeah. Colleagues, not so much. But they’ll think it’s funny, I bet, boring old Caitlin getting trapped in the subway. That’s by far the most interesting water-cooler material I’ve ever had to contribute.”

  “After we fall in love, but before the ten kids—”

  “Nine, you promised.”

  “Before them, we can get married down here. I’ll walk you down the corridor and carry you through the turnstile. Hopefully your dress won’t get caught in the bars. A conductor can officiate.”

  “And we’ll string cans to the back of an Orange Line train en route to our honeymoon in…well, Forest Hills or Oak Grove, I suppose, unless we switched to the Amtrak.”

  “Very romantic. Except the cans would probably wind up breaking the train and they’d have to shuttle-bus us.”

  She laughed. “That sounds about right.”

  He sighed—a tired, happy noise—and his arms held her tighter. Or perhaps that was her optimistic imagination. She felt him go rigid for a few moments, could practically hear him thinking. About what, she had to wonder. About taking back all this flirtation, clamming up and retracting his silly wedding talk, as many a man would wish to do. But instead she felt his lips or nose brush the side of her face, by her ear, and her shiver had nothing to do with his chilly skin or the breeze leaking in from outside.

  “Was that a kiss?” she murmured.

  “Not quite.”

  She listened to him swallow, waiting. Was he waiting too, for her permission to take more official liberties? Then there it was—cool lips, warm breath. Just a faint graze to start, then a firm press, a real kiss on her temple.

  “You smell amazing,” he whispered.

  “So you said.”

  Another tease, a drag of his lips along her cheek. The tunnel disappeared as their little shared space seemed to heat, and she simultaneously tensed and relaxed against his firm chest, inside his strong arms. If her breath steamed in the air, it was because her insides had caught fire, not because it was cold. Because it wasn’t. It was suddenly very, very warm.

  A strange man you basically just met is kissing you in one of the shadier corners of the MBTA. You really ought not to get turned on right about now. He could be some kind of homeless vampire smack-fiend pervert.

  Fuck you, intuition. You should have warned me about Kevin dumping me when I was ordering that stupid martini shaker or mentally booking a room in the Berkshires.

  To spite her lousy instincts, she turned in Mark’s arms, resting her bent legs over one of his thighs. Their eyes met for a moment before he accepted her invitation, pressing his mouth softly to hers.

  Just the whisper of his cold lips against hers to start. Soft, dry skin, the sweet touch of their noses. She felt the warm huff of his breath, the scratch of his stubble. Subtle and cautious. A gentleman.

  His mouth opened faintly, and she let hers do the same, their lips brushing and glancing, becoming familiar, finding a rhythm of sorts in this new acquaintance. She put her hand to his jaw, swore softly, then pulled off the glove, cold be damned. As sh
e slipped her fingers inside his hood, the kiss deepened.

  The caress of his mouth felt lush, the promise and mystery of what would come next drawing energy low in her belly, hot and chaotic. When his tongue slid against hers, she just about melted. In the back of her consciousness, she felt that his coat had ridden up to expose a sliver of her thigh. To hell with it. She was half-tempted to grab Mark’s hand and lead it right there. That’d heat them up.

  He cocked his jaw, and she did the same, letting him take things a bit further.

  Ooh, he was good. He was the best kisser she’d had the pleasure of doing this with in far too long. It was as sweet and exciting as a prom-night kiss, but smooth and practiced as a seduction. Champagne had never tasted better than it did sampled off Mark Holly’s lips.

  She wriggled her hand free of the second glove, the chill wholly worth it to feel his neck against her bare palm. She loosened his hood and pushed it back, wanting the soft brush of his hair and the view of his handsome face, unobscured. His lips plucked her lower one. If they were seeking an invitation, she granted it, parting to welcome him deeper. His mouth taunted, giving just the tiniest slide of tongue. She angled her head and was rewarded with a brief, wet sweep, scalding in the midst of their fogging breath. Another sweep, the slick, thrilling tease of his tongue against hers. She returned the caress, feeling his body tense, alert. She felt everything fivefold, the corridor like one of those isolation pods, maybe. His heat scorched hotter, his mouth tasted more male and primal, his shallow breaths louder in the dark.

  What if he never wants to see you again after you show him you’re tacky enough to make out with him in a subway station?

  Fuck you, rational brain. I thought we were feminists.

  She couldn’t worry about what this little tryst would do—propel a romance or scare it away. She was too freshly cut loose to be trusted with overthinking this situation. Just enjoy it for what it is. If nothing else, it’s a great story.

  A better story would be, “You’ll never believe how Mark and I met.” It’d make a hell of a best man’s speech, as well. Oops, where’d that come from? Who cared—Mark wasn’t above joking about a basketball team’s worth of children.

  His mouth showed hers what he liked, and after letting him lead for a minute or two, she took ownership of the kiss. His energy shifted, an unmistakable swerve in a more sexual direction. She imagined insanely inappropriate things—how maybe his breath would go shallow and excited this way when she shimmied toward the foot of one of their beds to show him what else her mouth could do.