Public transportation romance I

There’s a guy who gets on the bus about the same time as me, a little before 6:30 in the morning, and, like me, rides all the way to the end of the line. He’s quiet, reserved. He looks like Paul Giamatti in Sideways, only more so: bigger in every way. He’s taller, wider, darker hair, going grey, and with scruffier stubble, although all these things work together to maintain his proportionality to the Miles character. He also has a notebook that he scribbles in the entire bus ride, so I imagine he’s working on this monstrous novel.

There’s a woman who gets on the bus, too, older, about an average build: nothing much to speak of. She dresses nice, emphasizing her ass which is fairly toned, and trying to conceal the age in her face. She wears sunglasses and a scarf on her head in inclement weather. Her hair is dyed red, but fading a little bit, shoulder-length, and wavy. If she reads, it’s only the paper, but she doesn’t ride that long, so she mostly sits and looks out the window.

They both get off at the same stop, and transfer to the same bus, the one I ride. She gets off at my stop. He rides on.

Yesterday, on the second bus, she wasn’t looking out the window. She was looking across the bus at the Paul-Giamatti guy scribbling in his book. He was sitting in front and across from her. At one point, he looked up from his notebook, and glanced back over his shoulder. Their eyes met, and there might have been just the fraction of a smile before they both looked away.

Is this the first spark of a brilliant flame that will illumine the lives of these people? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.