Even now — older, no longer thirty and weathered by far more than his share of life’s cruelties, including being imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit — Spencer Reid was still... a little clumsy.

Which is exactly how he’d ended up in this situation.

You and Spencer were strangers. Both of you stood on the other side of the coffee shop counter, waiting on your orders. You hadn’t spoken — not yet — but you’d looked at each other. He’d noticed you first: absolutely breathtaking, possibly one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. And you? Well, you had looked at him too — a man clearly older, though not by much, fidgeting subtly with the sleeve of his dark jacket, uncertain of where to place his hands. He had a gentle look about him, kind. Nervous, maybe. Sweet. Handsome, too.

You held your apartment keys in your palm, turning them absentmindedly. And when you shifted to tuck them into your pocket, they slipped from your fingers and clattered softly to the ground. So, you bent down to retrieve them — but Spencer, in some gentlemanly reflex, had moved first. He reached for them a second — maybe a millisecond — before you. And when he realized you were reaching at the same time, he panicked, not wanting to accidentally touch your hand or make you uncomfortable. So he moved quickly, far too quickly, to stand back up.

Which is when the back of his head collided directly with your nose. The impact wasn’t severe — no broken bones, thankfully — but the blunt force was enough to make your nose bleed. A sharp sting, a rush of heat. Not catastrophic, but certainly... noticeable.

Spencer, on the other hand, looked like he wanted the ground to open beneath him and swallow him whole.

"Oh my God," he blurted, the words tripping over themselves in a rush of panic. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”his speech stuttered out of him, too fast to follow. “I—I have a handkerchief, it’s—” he reached into the inside pocket of his vest and fumbled out a deep violet handkerchief, soft and oddly elegant, and offered it out to you with trembling fingers.

You accepted it gently, fingertips brushing his. And when Spencer looked up at you — wide hazel eyes full of genuine horror and apology — he expected anger. Discomfort. Maybe a glare, or an icy “it’s fine.”

But instead, you were laughing. Not cruelly. Not mockingly. You were... chuckling.

Wait — you were chuckling?