Missed the Bus, Found a Boyfriend

The sun was just beginning to warm the air as Zara Azizi stood beside the bus stop, sneakers tapping an anxious rhythm against the pavement. She looked at her phone for the time. Still seven more minutes before the bus was due to arrive.

Seven minutes might as well have been a lifetime.

"Oh no, no, no," she muttered, pushing her glasses up her nose. "This is what I get. This is karmic punishment for dry-brushing at midnight."

The culprits sat heavily in her tote bag: three meticulously painted Warhammer figurines, still faintly smelling of acrylic sealant. She had stayed up far too late perfecting edge highlights on tiny shoulder armour. Totally worth it. Absolutely worth it. Possibly not worth Farid's reaction if she walked into the office even three minutes behind schedule.

There would be no yelling; that wasn't his style. He would smile. He would gesture vaguely. He would say, "Some of us value punctuality," while looking directly at her across the conference table, all the while planning out lousy, menial work that she would be assigned for the next week.

She rolled her eyes. Guys like Farid always had to be right, always had to prove their point, and always at the expense of people like Zara.

Bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, she could feel her cardigan shifting with the motion. The violet knit clung warmly to her curves, the vintage NASA pin gleaming proudly over her left breast. She adjusted it absently, grounding herself.

Space was constant. Reliable. Stars burned for billions of years without caring whether Zara Azizi caught the 8:10 bus.

A strand of her short black pixie cut fell into her eyes. She puffed air upward to move it. The wind ignored her.

She checked the time again.

"Okay. Okay. We are calm. We are grown. We are thirty. We are not sixteen hiding report cards."

Thirty.

An age her mother had begun pronouncing differently in the last two years. With weight. With implication. Thirty and unmarried. Thirty and childless.

Her parents had emigrated from Iraq before she was born, bringing recipes, language, expectations. They had softened around the edges over time. Their new home had done that to them. They did not demand. They did not threaten. But longing lived in her mother's sighs.

"I just want you to have someone," her mum would say gently, while chopping parsley. "Someone kind. Someone strong. A good man."

Zara liked who she was. She liked quiet evenings with miniature paint and documentaries about exoplanets. She liked working late when a project caught her interest. She liked her own company and the company of friends. Sexual attraction had always seemed like a distant radio frequency she simply did not pick up. Men, women, anyone; appreciation, yes. Desire, not particularly.

Her mum did not fully understand that. Her dad understood even less. But they loved her. And she loved them.

The bus did not appear. She looked at her phone again. Still too soon, but it wouldn't be much longer. These last-minute mornings were stressful for Zara, something she had experienced often enough to know bette. But she knew that, even though it wasn't in her best interests, she'd do it again. And again.

A tremor passed through her arms. The fine hairs along her forearms lifted, every nerve flickering at once as if charged by static. The world lurched sideways, just for a moment, and then it was over. Gone.

A sudden, breath-stealing warmth unfurled low in her abdomen. Not abstract. Not academic. Immediate. Personal.

Roy.

The name arrived fully formed in her mind and in her heart. Her Roy. Her boyfriend.

She looked toward the car idling in front of her at the stop sign. Smiling, she reached for the door handle.

It opened. Climate-controlled air spilled out to meet her, carrying the familiar scent of coffee and him. She slid into the seat, cardigan shifting, tote bag settling at her feet. The door closed with a comfortable thunk.

"Morning, babe," she said brightly, leaning over to kiss his cheek. Soft. Quick. Possessive without thinking about it. "Thank you again for picking me up. I swear if you hadn't, I would've been late and Farid would've absolutely weaponized it in the staff meeting."

He was staring at her.

Poor thing. Still waking up.

"You, my love, are officially my favourite person."

A horn blared behind them.

Zara glanced into the mirror and gasped. "Oh my God, go! You're going to cause road rage."

The car lurched forward.

She beamed at him, energy spilling over, affection bubbling up too quickly to contain. Everything made sense now. Everything had simply been waiting for Roy.

Her Roy.

How had she ever thought she wasn't interested in anyone? The entire concept seemed so distant, especially sitting in the car next to the man she loved. She laughed aloud, startled by her own previous certainty. Of course she had been interested. She just hadn't met him yet. Attraction was not a switch that stayed off; it had been waiting for the right circuitry.

Her right circuitry.

Her cheeks flushed at the thought of him. Of his mouth curving faintly when she teased him. Of the quiet intensity behind his eyes. She wanted him.

Not abstractly. Not theoretically. Tangibly. She wanted to kiss him. To lean into him. To chatter at him about space and board games and lentil stew and whether aliens were statistically inevitable. She wanted him at her cousin's wedding. Wanted his hand at the small of her back. Wanted to show him to her mother and say, "Look. Look what I found."

But the drive to work wasn't the appropriate time to jump his bones, no matter how much they loved each other. Zara would have to show restraint. It was a difficult thing to do, having spent her whole life pre-Roy not even noticing men, only to have the firehose of affection turned on and solely aimed at one particular specimen of manhood. Whenever she was around him she wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to let him have his way with her. The longer she was Roy's girlfriend, the more Zara was convinced that she wouldn't stay as his girlfriend, that one day she would make her parents proud and Roy would make an honest woman out of her.