CHAPTER ONE

      “IT’S HIM. It has to be.”

      Ignoring her friend’s imploring voice, Evie Croft let her body rock with the soothing motion of the morning train as it rumbled along the Frankston Line. Swiping through the ads in the Room Rent app, she tried really hard to feel enthused about exorbitant rent, alarming-sounding housemates, or both.

      “Evie!” Zoe whispered, loudly enough that the schoolboys sitting across from them actually looked up from their phones. “You know who I mean. He’s nose-deep in a book the size of a house brick, so you can look. Look. Look now.”

      Evie knew Zoe was talking about her “train boyfriend” and she had no intention of looking. She’d already accidentally made eye contact with Hot Stuff in the Swanky Suit today, and many more times since he’d started taking her train.

      It was hard not to. With his overlong hair and rugged stubble, the man was a study in the kind of dark, broody countenance you just couldn’t fake.

      “Stop looking at that stupid app,” said Zoe. “You are not moving out of my apartment just because Lance is moving in and that’s final.”

      Evie gave her oldest friend a squeezy one-armed hug. “I love you because you truly believe it. You and Lance have been waiting for this moment since you were sixteen years old. He’s home from deployment next week and it’s finally happening.”

      Zoe sat back, closed her eyes and sighed. “It really is, isn’t it?”

      Either way, Evie gave up on looking for a new place to stay. Only half an hour out from the biggest job interview of her life—with Game Plan, no less, a coder’s Holy Grail—she instead practised answering interview questions in her head.

      At least, she tried. Until Zoe leaned over, reaching for her phone. “Click back to that other app. No, the other one. Go back.”

      “Gah!” Evie held her phone up high, out in front, then opened the neck of her top and slipped her phone between sternum and bra.

      Zoe cocked an eyebrow. “You really think that’s going to stop me?”

      Evie did not. With only a super-quick glance in the direction of Hot Stuff in the Swanky Suit to make sure he wasn’t watching, she dug beneath her vintage pea coat and warm winter top to fish out her phone, shivering as her chilly fingers grazed her skin. And rocking into the older man sardined in beside her. She sent him an apologetic smile. The barest flicker of his cheek was a tale of eternal sufferance.

      The train commute took all sorts. The bored schoolkids, the frazzled mums with toddlers and prams in tow, women in piercings leaning on men with tattoos, creative office types with their smooth hair and manicured nails. It was a delicious microcosm of the city at large.

      Evie had grown up in a small dairy community, just north of Echuca, and her favourite memory of her mother was listening to her wax lyrical about the short time she’d lived in Melbourne—the electric hum of creativity, the eclectic fashion, the epicurean delights. She remembered tracing the delicate “Adventure” tattoo etched into her mother’s fine wrist.

      After her mum died Evie had promised herself she’d end up there one day too and have the life her mother had never had.

      Though the past couple of weeks the city had been making her work for it.

      “Seriously?” Evie cried when Zoe whipped her phone away with a delighted, “Aha! Now, let’s see what Hot Stuff in the Swanky Suit has to say.”

      Zoe didn’t mean “in person”. For she and Hot Stuff had never had an actual conversation.

      Well, unless you counted that first day. She’d made it to the train doors right as they’d pulled up to their city stop when the train had lurched to a halt. Shoved from behind, Evie had tripped and elbowed Hot Stuff in the gut.

      Mortified, she’d crouched to pick up the book he’d dropped. The autobiography of Jonathon Montrose, the man behind Game Plan, no less. Cowboy tech investor, IT savant, Evie’s actual hero.

      Funny. She’d forgotten that detail. Had that given her the seed of the idea to dare apply for a job with the great man himself? Huh.

      Anyway, handing over the book to Hot Stuff, she’d apologised like crazy, while trying not to swoon in his glorious presence, until he’d taken her by both shoulders, strong hands holding her still. He was even bigger up close. And he’d smelled so good. When he’d looked down into her eyes, the stormy blue depths of his own holding her in their thrall, she’d forgotten how to breathe until he’d let her go and disappeared into the station with the bustling morning crowd.

      Evie let out a soft sigh and glanced his way just as he ran a hand through his overlong dark hair, leaving finger tracks in its wake. All that indolent grace, the sexy stubble and those deeply intelligent-looking eyes—he really added an extra something to the daily commute.

      Other commuters came and went, took different trains, adopted random seats, but Hot Stuff always chose the same spot: across the aisle and down three rows from hers. Evie had always been a fan of patterns. It was comforting to know she wasn’t the only creature of habit in their little train universe.

      “How many apps do you have open at one time?” Zoe fussed, and she swiped them into oblivion. “How does your brain not scramble?”

      “It’s called multitasking.”

      Zoe snorted. Then found the Urban Rambler app. Developed by Game Plan, of course. His apps were seriously the best. Evie would be first in line to sign up to Game On—the revolutionary new mobile communication app everyone in the biz was excited about.

      Zoe clicked on the Let’s Get Personal column, flipped the phone so the words were nice and readable and read out loud.

      “‘Frankston Line.’ That’s us. ‘Carriage Three.’ Ditto us. ‘To the Bewitching Brunette in the Beauteous Beanies.’”

      Zoe paused a moment for drama before lifting her gaze to Evie’s knitted beanie. One of the billion she’d knitted herself. For she really was a fan of patterns.

      Today’s was silver, with a rainbow pom-pom on top. It didn’t exactly go with her interview outfit—pea coat over black top and slouchy black pants with fake zips and pockets—all belonging to fashion-plate Zoe, as even computer-nerd Evie wasn’t about to turn up to an interview in a Han Solo “I Know” T-shirt, boyfriend jeans and Converse boots—but it did the job.

      Zoe said, “Now, hold on to your hat, my friend, because this is going to blow your mind. It says:

       New to your orbit, I find myself struck

       By your raven locks, your starlit eyes. What luck

       That I find myself able to see you twice a day.

       A beacon in a sea of strangers. I must say

       Your sunshine smiles are my good morning.

       Your evening sighs my goodnight.

       If I had the courage I’d say hello.