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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.
I grip the handrail and lean out, scanning the platform. More hurried people jump on the train, and I anxiously scrutinise the crowd, looking for him. My eyes flick to the platform clock—8:07 a.m. The train is to depart at 8:09 sharp. He’s cutting it close today.
A ball of disappointment settles in my chest when I realise with a jolt that he’s not coming today.
Bugger.
I’m on holiday from the weekend, two blissful weeks of lie-ins and late nights. I prepared myself to not see my crush while I was off, but because he only boards the train every other week, if he doesn’t turn up today, it will be pushing four weeks that I won’t clap eyes on him. This is a disaster. It’s 8:07 a.m., and my day is officially ruined.
As if my thinking about him makes him appear, he bursts through the ticket barrier at the end and runs, newspaper tucked under his arm, briefcase thumping wildly against his leg as he pelts towards the train. He looks up, his eyes meet mine, and he raises a hand in greeting—or maybe it’s not a greeting; perhaps it’s a don’t leave without me gesture, but I take it the other way. Small wins.
I smile and playfully roll my eyes, and he grins the cutest smile ever and climbs on board at the other end of the long train just as my walkie crackles to life with instructions.
I sigh happily, my disappointment dispersed.
Day officially unruined.
Once the train is safely on the move, I set about the other part of my job—ticket-collecting. I start at the front and work my way to the back—to him. The job is old hat now; I could do it in my sleep. When I first started, the motion of the train made me feel nauseous, and I’d wobble on my feet, almost falling over passengers’ bags they’d carelessly left in the aisles. Not anymore though. I’m like a ballerina, traipsing down the carriage like a swan gliding on water. Practice makes perfect.
I greet the passengers with my usual cheery smile, a little bit of chitchat to the regulars, and a few snippets of information about London for the obvious tourists.
When I step into the last carriage, I see he’s chosen a seat facing front at the far end. I chew on my lip, absentmindedly selling another ticket as I discreetly let my eyes glide over him. He’s chatting to an older guy next to him, and I see he’s already given away his newspaper. I smile to myself and hand a young teenage couple their change before moving on to the next passenger. The old guy seated next to him laughs at something, and I smile inwardly. My crush is one of those people you could drop into a room full of strangers, and within ten minutes, they’d be ordering a sharing platter, and he would be in their wedding.
The light slants in from the window, bouncing off his hair in a way that makes my fingers itch to reach out and run a hand through it. I bet it’s soft, like silk. He shrugs and takes a gulp of the disgusting train tea he purchased from the refreshments cart. I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallows.
Jeez, that throat! I would be perfectly content to do nothing other than run my tongue down that throat all day.
My greedy eyes drag over the rest of him. Today is a shirt-and-tie week. His grey suit is paired with a white shirt and blue-striped tie; it’s stylish and hot as sin. Last time, he was distinctly more casual—a well-worn grey Goonies Never Say Die T-shirt under a fitted blue suit, and I swear it almost made me come. In fact, I did come later when I was alone and thinking about it.
I sigh as a wave of longing washes over me. Why does he have to be so cute and so damn perfect for me?
I’m done, and he’s not even looked up at me yet.