Daniel passed by security on the way out, and a man with a shaved head and a walkie-talkie called, romantically, Romeo, held up his palm for Daniel to high five.
‘My brother, my man,’ Romeo said, turning the high five into a sort of fist grab, pulling Daniel’s right shoulder into his right shoulder so that they bumped in a way Daniel had seen American sports players and some rappers do. Romeo wasn’t American. Romeo had been born in Westgate-on-Sea.
‘How’s it going today? You’re looking shaaaarp.’ Romeo spoke as if he was the comic relief cousin in a Will Smith movie about a comedy bank heist done in the name of love, but was white with blue eyes and blond hair scraped up into a man-bun, and had a degree in Landscape Architecture. (‘Turns out I don’t like being outdoors much,’ he’d explained, with a regretful shrug.)
Daniel tugged on his own collar, jutting it upwards like John Travolta. He’d worn a jacket with his suit trousers today, which wasn’t expected in the office and which the weather was about ten degrees too warm for, but he’d wanted to look nice because it lifted his mood. He liked to take care of himself, liked to spend money on clothes. He liked feeling as though he was putting his best foot forward – it bolstered him. And after yesterday, he wanted to feel bolstered.
‘I try,’ Daniel said, attempting to make Romeo laugh. ‘I try.’
The suit was navy, a colour he had always bought his formal wear in, ever since his first suit at twelve, which his mother had insisted be navy: ‘Because that’s what Lady Di likes Charles in.’
Romeo frowned instead of laughing. ‘Okay, cut the bullshit, man. What’s up?’
On Daniel’s second day back after his dad’s funeral, Romeo had found Daniel around the side of the building. He’d been crying, spinning around in small circles, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to stem the flow of tears so he could get back to his desk without anyone questioning if he was back too soon. Daniel had never been rude to Romeo, but he had never gone out of his way to be friendly to security, either. He’d never ignored anyone on the door, but hadn’t extended courtesy beyond a mumbled ‘Hello’ each morning. After Romeo gave him a hug – two men, hugging, around the side of one of London’s most prestigious buildings in the middle of the day – and told him to let it all out, whatever it was – well. Daniel started to stop and chat to his new buddy in the evenings, when he was on shift, asking after his day or dissecting the Arsenal game the night before, and on one more memorable occasion listening to the merits of a dream-interpretation workshop Romeo was undertaking, until now it was one of Daniel’s most treasured moments of the day. It felt like normalcy. It felt like he’d found a friend.
Plus, Daniel particularly respected how Romeo hadn’t brought the crying up since, and didn’t pry as to why he’d been in such a state that day. He just carried on minding the door and greeting everyone who walked by, and that was a classy move, to Daniel. A real classy move.
‘You know what …?’ Daniel started, and he trusted Romeo to tell him the whole sorry thing. That he’d seen this woman and thought it would be cute to do a Missed Connection, and that he felt pretty stupid that it hadn’t worked. He thought he’d wanted to forget, but he didn’t: he wanted to talk about it, to be sad out loud.
‘What! Well, that’s damned cool of you!’ Romeo exclaimed. ‘It’s here, in this newspaper?’ He reached behind the reception desk and rifled through a stack of papers – it looked like a collection of the past week’s. He flipped through them, looking for yesterday’s. ‘Ah – got it!’
‘Oh god …’ said Daniel, but Romeo was already flicking through the pages with lightning speed.
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Romeo said. ‘To the devastatingly cute—’
‘Don’t read it out loud!’ Daniel said. ‘Jesus!’ Daniel held up his palms, in surrender. He knew the thing off by heart: he’d laboured over it for three days before he finally hit ‘send’ on the submission email. He didn’t need the agony of having Romeo read the whole monologue out to him.
Romeo gave a hoot of laughter and read the rest under his breath, only muttering the odd word.
‘Smooth,’ he said in conclusion, closing the paper and putting it back where he’d found it. ‘Really smooth, bro.’
‘Well,’ said Daniel. ‘Not really, though. She was in my carriage and didn’t look up once. She’d not read it. She was texting!’
‘Coulda been texting about the ad,’ Romeo said.
‘No,’ Daniel replied. ‘I could just tell. She hadn’t seen it. She’d have at least looked around the carriage if she had.’ It then occurred to him: ‘Unless she did read it, but didn’t realize it was for her. Maybe I wasn’t specific enough?’ He threw up his hands, exasperated by himself. ‘I’ve been like this all week,’ he told Romeo. ‘Self-obsessed and neurotic. I hate it.’
Romeo stroked his chin, leaning back against the reception desk.
‘You know, I met a woman called Juliet on my first day of training for this job, and thought we were destined to be.’ Daniel watched his friend talk. Romeo met a Juliet? He wasn’t sure if this was true, or if Romeo was about to hit a punchline.
‘She’d give me the eyes across the table, hot as shit even under that fluoro lighting they have, you know. Every day for a week she’d catch my eye, and on the last day I thought, damn, I gotta make my move.’ Romeo was wistful as he spoke, and Daniel understood what he was saying was, as implausible as it sounded, genuine. ‘But on the last day, she didn’t come. I never saw her again. I think about her, you know? Because I think we could’ve been something.’
Daniel didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m … sorry?’ he settled on, making it a question. A near-miss in love was a special kind of disappointment.
‘I just mean,’ Romeo said, snapping out of his reverie, ‘at least you went for it. You don’t have to regret it, you know? Good for you, man. You said something.’
‘Yeah,’ said Daniel. ‘But to reiterate: she didn’t see it. Or doesn’t care. So.’
Romeo nodded. ‘She beautiful? Your woman?’
Daniel smiled. ‘Yeah.’
‘She kind?’
Daniel nodded. ‘I think so.’
‘She work around here?’
Daniel narrowed his eyes, wondering if there was some sort of security-person network that meant Romeo could track her down.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘No idea where, though. Something to do with artificial intelligence maybe? I heard her talking about it the day I first saw her.’
Romeo offered his hand to Daniel so that they could shake goodbye.
‘If she works around here, maybe she’ll surprise you yet. Not to sound woo-woo or whatever, but I think it’s not enough to love – you’ve got to have faith.’
‘Faith,’ Daniel repeated, appreciating that Romeo was taking his plight seriously. ‘Okay.’
‘I’ll keep everything crossed for you, bro. I think you did a cool-ass thing.’
Two mornings later, faith wavering but still intact, Daniel had read almost the whole paper by the time the train whizzed through Angel, and Moorgate, and then Bank. When he got to the Missed Connections section, right at the end, he wasn’t going to read it, because what would be the point? But two words jumped out at him: devastatingly cute. That’s what he’d called her –