•
1
The metro doors hissed open at Jaume I, and she stepped out, immediately colliding with a man holding a paper bag. Apples scattered across the platform—six of them, rolling in different directions like escaped planets.
"Perdó," they said simultaneously, then switched to English with the awkward recognition of fellow foreigners.
They chased the apples together. She caught three, he retrieved two, and the sixth disappeared under a bench where neither could reach. When they straightened up, slightly breathless, he held out the bag and she dropped hers in without thinking.