Man Crush Monday

Chapter 1

Here's a sample of my new book, Man Crush Monday! It's a romcom, and my first book in three years. Can't believe it's been that long!

Kirsty x 

******* 

Guess what day it is! It's Man Crush Monday. *le sigh*

Are you going to speak to him today???

YES!

More than just, "Ticket, please"?

Well ... maybe.

That means no ...

***

"Ugh, Mondays!"

I glance up from my screen and slip my phone into my trouser pocket as a harassed-looking woman in a brown business suit climbs aboard the train, noisily bumping her briefcase on wheels up the step, almost dropping her coffee cup in the process.

"Good morning." I offer her a beaming smile, pressing back against the wall so she can pass me in the small corridor and get into the quiet carriage.

She gives me a grunt and slops some of her coffee over the side of her cup, narrowly missing my ugly black work shoes as she heads past without another word.

"Oh, well, good morning to you too, Amy," I chirp sarcastically to myself as the door slides closed behind her.

Everyone dislikes Mondays; it's ingrained in us to hate it on some primal level. Mondays signify the end of the weekend, going back to work, alarm clocks, and routine, so I can see why people detest it. But not me. It's actually my favourite day of the week. It never used to be. Up until five months ago, I was a normal Monday hater, just like everyone else, but then something happened. He happened.

Let me explain. I work as a ticket conductor on a busy train route. Every day, I squeeze my slightly-too-big bottom into my ugly uniform and tuck my pale candyfloss-pink hair up into a bun or Katniss Everdeen–style side plait and go to work, collecting tickets on the train from Cambridge to London. It's a mundane job, but it pays the bills and keeps me in hair dye, Dr Pepper, and Converse. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

I'd been doing my boring, mundane job for almost two years when, one dreary Monday, I looked up, and bam, I caught the feels. It wasn't insta-love—this isn't one of those stories—but it was definitely insta-lust. That was almost five glorious months ago.

The guy in question—my dream guy and object of my unrequited crush—is tall. It's hard to judge with the train rocking and the amount of time I get to stand next to him, but I'd guess he's around six foot. His shoulders are broad, and he's lean and perfectly proportioned—I can tell this from the tailored suits he wears and how they narrow in at the hips and fit across his thighs in a way that sets my pulse racing. His brown hair is quite short on the sides and a bit longer on top, styled effortlessly. But it's his eyes that get me. The brown eyes the colour of single-malt whiskey with flecks of gold around the pupils. They're the type of eyes you want to stare into all day, the type of eyes you could lose time to. They're smiley eyes, if they can be such a thing. They exude warmth, and when paired with his killer smile, straight white teeth, and strong jaw, it makes me catch my breath and clench my thighs.

Now, don't get me wrong; it wasn't his looks that made me catch the feels. Yes, I'll admit, his looks were the cause of the insta-lust, and I'm not going to lie and say I don't want to climb him like a monkey climbs a tree because I do. But his looks weren't what made me fall in love with him. No, that was purely his personality.

You see, my Man Crush Monday is a geek. A one hundred percent bona fide geek. And it turns me on more than anything. Geeks and nerds have always been my thing. I've always been attracted to the smart, dorky guys who are into Star Wars or Dungeons & Dragons. If a guy talks to me about astrophysics or can tell me random facts about history or how they put the bubbles into cream soda, I'm putty in their hands. Hello, major Tony Stark fangirl here. And my crush, this hot dork who gets on my train every other Monday, is about as close to Tony Stark as I'll likely ever get.