“Ross,” he says, then puts his hand in mine.

“Nice to meet you.”

“I’m not so sure,” he replies. But his smile takes out the sting. It’s a good smile, nice teeth, smooth lips just barely parted.

Holding his hand, a little spark shivers through me. I gulp, realizing I am attracted to this man.

I pull my hand and gaze away from his.

“Enjoy the book,” I say, watching him take my words as a cue to go.

“Oh. Sure.” He waves, and begins to back away. “I will, thanks.”

That’s when I realize he’s going home without a book.

Chapter Five

Some people use their commutes to catch up on group text chains or true crime podcasts. I am a secret M-train fantasizer. It’s not always sexual, but a solid sixty percent of what passes through my mind while hurtling underground between our office in Washington Square and my apartment in midtown east could get me arrested in certain states.

Tonight it begins with Ryan on the couch, watching basketball and scrolling through The Economist app while he waits for me. Act Two has me entering the apartment, tossing off my trench coat—having shimmied out of my dress in the hallway, a trick my friend Lindsay taught me in college. I straddle Ryan wordlessly. Reunion sex ensues. Act Three opens on the chilled bottle of prosecco, consumed au naturel.

Ryan and I met in traffic. I love this, and not just because it gives me a lifetime fast pass out of tedious small talk at parties. (No one wants to hear about your awful commute, but if traffic be the food of love, play on!) I love it because the way I met Ryan feels like the way two characters in an epic love story might meet.

It was a steamy summer morning in Washington, D.C., about three years ago. I was in town for a conference. I’d left plenty of time to get from my Georgetown hotel to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where I would speak on a panel about feminist romance. But a bus broke down on M Street, with my taxi directly behind it.

Ryan’s first sight of me was a stream of curse words flowing from the window of my taxi. He was on a vintage Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, idling next to me.

“In a hurry?” he said.

Looking back, I liked his voice right away: steady with a hint of teasing.

“I’m supposed to be at the convention center in negative five minutes.”

“Then you’d better hop on.”