#thirdtimesthecharm

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” you apologized as the two of you rushed to pick up the mess on the ground. The man in front of you tucked his hair behind his ear as you both stood up, realizing he was quite tall. He was the most attractive man you had seen since arriving in the city.

He had a soft smile on his face as he replied, “No, no, I should’ve been paying attention. I was too focused on my phone.”

“Work?”

“Yeah,” he let out a small laugh. Eyeing the lanyard sticking out of your bag, he asked, “You teach?”

“Yeah, I started at a new high school about a month ago,” You told him.

“High school? How’s that? Most people are trying to get out of there. I know I was,” he told you, making you laugh.

“Honestly, I couldn’t wait to graduate high school, but after working with kids in the summers between and after college, I realized I loved working with them. Plus, that was the most appealing job to me as a Sociology major; the legal field wasn’t exactly my thing,” you revealed to him.

“You have a B.A. in Sociology? So do I.”

“Huh, that’s neat.”

“Yeah, I also have Ph. Ds in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering and a B.A. in psychology,” he rattled off his degrees as if they were items on a grocery store list. You stared at him in shock.

“Really?” He nodded in reply. “How old are you? Is that even possible?”

He opened his mouth to say something else as a barista called a name and an order from behind the counter, the first half of which you didn't quite catch: “Large black coffee, no cream or sugar!”

“Sorry, that’s me,” he walked over to grab his steaming drink, making his way over to the counter perpendicular to the order line, which had an array of napkins, utensils, and sugar packets. Your order was called shortly after, and you went over to the counter. You watched as Spencer poured packet after packet of sugar into his drink. It wasn’t until probably the sixth one that he finally stopped reaching for the dwindling bowl of sugar packets.

Walking over to him with your drink in hand, you joked, “Sure you put enough sugar in there?”

He let out a laugh as he put the lid back onto the cup.

“Interestingly, recent research suggests that the addition of sugar in coffee not only masks the bitterness of the drink but actually changes the molecular structure of the coffee,” he stated proudly.

“I’m sure enough sugar to make a small child fall ill wasn’t what those researchers had in mind,” you jested.

A loud ringtone interrupted your conversation as Spencer moved to answer the phone call.

“Hey, Garcia,” he paused. “Yeah, I’m on my way.”

“I, uh, I have to go, but it was nice meeting you,” he said, turning back to you. He began making his way towards the coffee shop's door. Just before he exited, he turned back to you to say, “Sorry again for running into you!”

You stared as he jogged down the street, wondering if what just happened was real.

౨ৎ

Slumping in your chair, you finally let out a sigh of relief. While you loved your job and the kids were great, some days it felt like your first day on the job all over again. As you sat in silence, taking in the morning's events, your stomach gurgled, prompting you to reach for your bag. Instead of rifling through it, you decided emptying the contents on your otherwise neat desk would be easier.

Once you found your lunch, you set it aside and put the items strewn across your desk back into your bag. However, as you moved to put your book into the bag, you realized that it was unfamiliar to you. Apparently, an unintended book exchange had occurred.

The cover of The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury stared back at you from your desk.

You realized you had no way of contacting him, as you two had barely swapped names, never mind phone numbers. You thought about returning to the coffee shop: maybe he had also realized the mistake and would return there. Regardless, you weren’t complaining about another excuse to return to the store to grab your go-to drink (and maybe a pastry, too, this time).

You reached for an extra copy of Cat's Cradle on the shelf behind you. Today you would just have to do without your notes and annotations.

౨ৎ

The B.A.U. had just wrapped up their most recent case in Santa Monica, California. After the discovery of three indistinguishably burnt bodies by the pier, the local police department called them in. It turned out that an ex-fireman was their unsub, believing that the homeless population of Santa Monica was plagued and had to be exterminated—the trigger for this being his tuberculosis diagnosis following his rescue of several homeless people from a fire. The team was finally able to relax after the case had closed.

Everyone was getting some much-needed rest while the jet was returning to Quantico. Hotch and Rossi were sitting towards the front of the plane, Emily was asleep, J.J. was grabbing a hot cup of coffee, and Morgan and Reid were seated across each other towards the back of the jet. Reid reached for his copy of The Illustrated Man but pulled out a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle instead. His brows furrowed in confusion.

“What’s wrong? Are the scientific inaccuracies of ice-nine too hard to ignore?” Morgan jested.

“No- well, while ice-nine isn’t real, there’s a similar phenomenon that occurs on the ocean floor; it’s called the ‘Icicle of Death’; when polar sea ice forms, the separated brine sinks and freezes the water around it. Once it reaches the ocean floor, it spreads and forms an ice sheet, freezing and killing any organism that doesn’t evade its path. It’s quite neat,” Spencer prattled on as Morgan stared back at him.

“Reid- I mean, why did you look at the book like you didn’t bring it with you,” Morgan explained.

“Because I didn’t.” Morgan was now confused as well.

“What do you mean you didn’t? Who’s book is it then?” Morgan questioned him.

“I don’t know; I can’t find my copy of the Illustrated Man either; it’s weird I put it in here the morning we left and then-” Reid cut himself off, realizing when the mix-up must’ve occurred.

His cheeks turned a rosy pink as he remembered what had happened before work that day. After the initial embarrassment of the situation subsided, he finally got a good look at your face and realized how absolutely beautiful you were.

You wore a plum-colored sweater that complemented the large burgundy frames of your glasses, which now sat slightly farther down your nose as you continued to pick up the items on the coffee shop floor. You brushed the baby hairs on your forehead aside as you stood, now looking back at Spencer. The rays of sun coming through the window behind you made it appear as if you were glowing.

“Then what…?” Morgan snapped him out of his memory.

“It was nothing. I bumped into someone Monday morning, and we dropped our stuff. I guess we mixed up our books in the rush to get our stuff back in our bags,” Spencer tried to backtrack, not wanting to reveal who he had bumped into.

“Was this ‘someone’ in high school?” Morgan asked, trying to pry more information from Spencer.

All he got back was a confused, “What?”

“The last time I remember seeing Kurt Vonnegut was when people had to read it in High School. Plus, the back of that book has a High School's stamp on it,” Morgan added. Reid looked about, ready to jump off the jet in mid-air. “So spill. Is she a librarian or something?”

“Fine- we walked into each other at the coffee shop that Garcia goes to sometimes,” Spencer began to reveal. “We both dropped our stuff on the ground, and I saw her teacher's I.D. lanyard and asked about it. That’s all.”

“Doesn’t seem like that’s all,” Morgan pressed. “You get her number or anything?”

“What?” Reid’s face dropped.

“Well, clearly you were into her, even if you don’t want anyone to think that, so did you get her number or anything?”

“No… I didn’t think about that. Plus Garcia called us in for this case as we were talking,” Spencer sounded dejected. He realized he didn’t even know your name, never mind your phone number.

“Well, what was her name?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You didn’t even ask her for her name?”

“I was a little preoccupied, okay!” Spencer was about to switch seats on the jet. “Besides, she probably felt bad for bumping into each other.”

“Okay, whatever you say, pretty boy, but if I hear about a new girlfriend, I want five dollars,” Morgan joked.

“Whatever,” Spencer huffed, opting to open the book instead of continuing to talk to Morgan. He initially thought this was just another standard high school copy of the book, but he quickly realized you had several annotations throughout the book. Seeing as the novel was only around 300 pages long, he decided to read it and your annotations in the remaining length of the flight. As for getting the book back to you, he would just have to return to the coffee shop in hopes of running into you again (hopefully figuratively this time).

౨ৎ

The end of the work week had finally arrived, and you couldn’t be more elated. However, the weather did not seem to reflect this sentiment.

The past few days consisted of perfect fall weather: mild temperatures, partly sunny skies, and a cool breeze here and there. Yet, the weather took a drastic turn upon the arrival of the much-anticipated end of the week. The sky appeared to be dark gray and pouring frigid rain. It was only September, yet the temperature had plummeted to 58 degrees.

When you finally got into the cozy coffee shop and placed your order, you were relieved and finally given a break from the dreary weather. As you waited for your drink, you saw a familiar face dumping what appeared to be cupfuls of sugar into his coffee. The past few mornings, you had returned to the coffee shop each morning, book in hand, but Spencer was nowhere to be found.

Bringing your large cup of tea over to the counter, you began to speak. “You know, there has to be research telling you how bad that is.”

He turned towards you. “Yes, unfortunately, then it would be entirely ingestible.”

“Have you ever tried adding milk? Or drinking tea?”

He seemed perplexed as if he had not considered those options before.

“Anyways, where’ve you been? Haven’t seen you the past few days,” you told him, adding a spoonful of honey to your tea.

“Yeah, sorry, I was away for work,” he told you. He seemed genuinely apologetic.

“Well, I have something to give you,” he looked confused as you reached into your bag, pulling out his copy of The Illustrated Man from the depths of your bag. “Apparently, we swapped books the other day.”

“Oh, yeah! I left your copy of Cat’s Cradle back in my apartment, but I meant to return it to you,” he told you. “I mean, if you want, you can keep my book in the meantime if you haven’t read it- if you want to. It’s quite an interesting read: it’s about a man covered in tattoos drawn by a woman from the future, and at night, the tattoos come to life and tell a story. It’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve read many of his other stories like Fahrenheit 451, The Veldt, and The Pedestrian, but I haven’t gotten around to that one,” you told him, taking the book back and placing it into your bag. “Thanks.”

Glancing at your watch, you realized you had to be on your way lest you wanted to be late for homeroom. Lord knows the chaos that would happen if you were even a minute. Half your class would probably be gone.

“Hey, I gotta go, but let me give you my phone number so we can figure out when to return each other's books,” you told him. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to stay in touch with him. After all, this man was so handsome you wanted to pinch yourself to see if you were dreaming. However, he just stared at you. You weren’t sure if you said something wrong, so you began to backtrack, “Only if you want to, I mean. We don’t have to if that’s weird or anything, sorry-”

“No, no, that would be great,” You were glad he cut your ramble short. He pulled out his phone, and you quickly typed in your name and contact information.

“It was nice running into you again,” you told him, turning around to leave the coffee shop. Realizing you never asked for his name, you swiveled to face him again. “Wait, I still don’t know your name. It’s only fair that you tell me now that you know my name and my phone number.”

“It’s Spencer,” he told you, smiling.

“Spencer,” you tested it out. “Well, Spencer, I’ll see you soon.”

And with that, you were already out the door and heading down the street, leaving a smiling Spencer behind.