The problem was, the woman on the subway hadn’t felt like a stranger. Something about her had felt deeply familiar, like slipping into a favorite old sweatshirt. I’d noticed it immediately, right when she stepped on, before her dress fiasco. And then I couldn’t stop glancing at her, the way the curls of her hair touched her forehead just so, her delicate lips like a perfectly tied bow. But her eyes were so sad, like a kid whose dog had just died.

What I felt wasn’t sexual, not exactly. It was just a feeling, and it scrambled my brain. Like when you see a stranger and you can’t stop staring at them, and you want to know what’s going on in their head at that very second. And then when her dress ripped, and her expression downshifted into horror, well—I couldn’t have stopped the urge to help her if I’d tried. And that uncontrollable, inexplicable feeling annoyed the crap out of me.

“But was she pretty?” Perrine said, interrupting my thinking.

“I mean”—I shrugged—“sure. But it’s not like I was trying to ask her out.”

The woman on the subway hadn’t looked anything like the women I’d dated before or after Angie, or what my mother called my “blond army of exes,” a flip remark she’d made last summer while offering her thoughts on the status of my dating life (or lack thereof).

“The Hayes doth protest too much, methinks.”

“I wasn’t!”

“Fine,” Perrine said, narrowing her eyes and letting it go. But I knew thoughts were still churning away in her head. Perrine was calculating, and as inquisitive as a cat. Nothing got past her. Literally, nothing. It’s what made her an amazing surgeon. But it’s also what made her a pain in the ass.

Now my brain was off and running, remembering the long slope of the woman on the subway’s nose, and her bright lips, and the way her short, wavy black hair framed the angles of her face just right. What had Perrine called it when she’d cut her hair short a few years ago? A bob? The first thought that had popped into my mind when I’d turned and seen the woman frantically wrestling with her dress was how my hands would fit perfectly in her curls. I shook my head to get the thought out of my brain, did a few neck rolls to loosen the tension that had settled there. Everything about today was just off.

I was off.

Perrine eyed me curiously as I tried to stretch the thought of that woman out of my brain.

“Look,” I said, “I saw a problem, and I tried to help solve it.” I pressed my lips into a smile, tilted my head to the side. “It’s what I do best.”