Love via late train.

A friend did a pick-up, so to speak, while waiting for her morning train. He was there to catch the 7․21 to Bondi Junction. As was she. They had noticed each other on the platform for a while, but it took the shared exasperation at the four-minute delay for either to work up the courage to start a conversation.

He would be late for his job at a veterinary hospital, he explained one morning. She would miss her connecting bus again. Slowly, through the consistent and profuse 7․22 apologies of CityRail over the next weeks, their relationship blossomed.

She had a cat. There was a bus stop outside his house. When the expected delay one fateful Tuesday blew out to 20 minutes, they casually agreed to share a cab. The rest, they say, is history.

— Leesha McKenny