The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight Read Online Free Page A

don’t know, actually. To get dinner, maybe? I just didn’t want to sit there forever.”
    This is not entirely true; she’d been heading to the bathroom, but she can’t quite bring herself to tell him this. The thought of him waiting politely just outside while she stands in line for the toilet is more than she can bear.
    “Okay,” he says, looking down at her, his dark hair falling across his forehead. When he smiles, she notices that he has a dimple on only one side, and there’s something about this that makes him seem endearingly off-balance. “Where to, then?”
    Hadley stands on her tiptoes, turning in a small circle to get a sense of the restaurant choices, a bleak collection of pizza and burger stands. She isn’t sure whether he’ll be joining her, and this possibility gives the decision a slightly frenzied feel; she can practically feel him waiting beside her, and her whole body is tense as she tries to think of the option that’s the least likely to leave her with food all over her face, just in case he decides to come along.
    After what seems like forever, she points to a deli just a few gates down, and he heads off in that direction obligingly, her red suitcase in tow. When they get there, he readjusts the bag on his shoulder and squints up at the menu.
    “This is a good idea,” he says. “The plane food’ll be rubbish.”
    “Where are you headed?” Hadley asks as they join the line.
    “London as well.”
    “Really? What seat?”
    He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and produces his ticket, bent in half and ripped at one corner. “Eighteen-C.”
    “I’m eighteen-A,” she tells him, and he smiles.
    “Just missed.”
    She nods at his garment bag, which is still resting on his shoulder, his finger hooked around the hanger. “You going over for a wedding, too?”
    He hesitates, then jerks his chin up in the first half of a nod.
    “So am I,” she says. “Wouldn’t it be weird if it was the same one?”
    “Not likely,” he says, giving her an odd look, and she immediately feels silly. Of course it’s not the same one. She hopes he doesn’t think she’s under the impression that London is some kind of backwater town where everyone knows everyone else. Hadley’s never been out of the country before, but she knows enough to know that London is enormous; it is, in her limited experience, a big enough place to lose someone entirely.
    The boy looks as if he’s about to say something more, then turns and gestures toward the menu instead. “Do you know what you’d like?”
    Do I know what I’d like?
Hadley thinks.
    She’d like to go home.
    She’d like for home to be the way it once was.
    She’d like to be going anywhere but her father’s wedding.
    She’d like to
be
anywhere but this airport.
    She’d like to know his name.
    After a moment, she looks up at him.
    “Not yet,” she says. “I’m still deciding.”

3
    7:32 PM Eastern Standard Time
    12:32 AM Greenwich Mean Time
    Despite having ordered her turkey sandwich without mayo, Hadley can see the white goo oozing onto the crust as she carries her food to an empty table, and her stomach lurches at the sight. She’s debating whether it would be better to suffer through eating it or risk looking like an idiot as she scrapes it off, and eventually settles for looking like an idiot, ignoring the boy’s raised eyebrows as she dissects her dinner with all the care of a biology experiment. She wrinkles her nose as she sets aside the lettuce and tomato, ridding each disassembled piece of the clinging white globs.
    “That’s some nice work there,” he says around a mouthful of roast beef, and Hadley nods matter-of-factly.
    “I have a fear of mayo, so I’ve actually gotten pretty good at this over the years.”
    “You have a fear of
mayo?
”
    She nods again. “It’s in my top three or four.”
    “What are the others?” he asks with a grin. “I mean, what could
possibly
be worse than mayonnaise?”
    “Dentists,” she