Been Caught Peeking

I'm standing at the bus stop, Friday evening in the rain, cheerleading myself into the last commute of the week. A teenage boy is pacing around the steps up to Red Robin. He sees her coming. Face lights up, then is quickly composed back to detached, post-punk, hoodie-wearing cool guy. It's the greeting that gets me: it's not a hug, because then he couldn't look at her. It's not a handhold, because he's too caught up. It's one hand on either side of her waist, leaning away, holding on, but also taking a step back to savour. When he looked around self-consciously, he caught me peeking. He lifted his chin, looked proud, so that I was the one who blushed. The 17 pulled up, and I headed for home, thinking tender little thoughts that held strong in the rain, the rush hour, and all kinds of other things that don't matter at all.