by Ally Blake
“I find myself struck.” Was that a nod towards the time she’d winded him?
“Starlit eyes.” She did have an impressive collection of Star Wars, Star Trek, even Starman T-shirts.
She usually went for nice-looking men, with easy smiles and busy mid-level jobs. Men who had no hope of spinning her off course as her mother had been spun. She was only just finding her feet in this town after all. Quietly following her curiosity as her granddad had encouraged her to do.
Hot Stuff was fun to moon over because he was out of her league. The thought of him reciprocating—heck, the thought of him even knowing who she was—made her belly turn warm and wobbly.
“Now, hang on a second,” said Zoe. “What does this have to do with Hot Stuff and the poem? Ah, I get it. After home and work going up the spout, you don’t really think a falling piano is in your future. You believe the logical third spate of bad luck involves your love life. But that’s a good thing!”
“In what universe?”
“You can cross messed-up love life off the list. You’ve already had the worst luck there. Eric was a douche. Dumping you. Using you. Framing you—”
“Yep, okay. I hereby concede that point to the prosecution.” Evie shook her head. “It doesn’t count. He doesn’t count. We’ve been kaput for months. ‘Bad luck comes in threes’ means it has to happen after I opened the cookie.”
“You’ve arbitrarily decided a man who looks like Byron’s hotter descendant is off-limits because a fortune cookie says it will turn to crap.”
Evie looked over at Bryon’s hotter descendant. She couldn’t help it. Heck, at that very moment the train rounded a bend and a slash of sunlight lit him up like something out of an old film.
“He’s dreamy, Evie,” said Zoe, though Evie hadn’t said a word. “And he wrote you a lonely heart.”
Evie blinked, only to find she’d been staring too long as a pair of stormy blue eyes caught on hers. Her breath lodged in her throat. Her cheeks burned as her very blood went haywire.
Look away, her subconscious begged. Look. Away. Now!
Instead habit overcame instinct, and she smiled.
Growing up in a country town, she’d been smiling at strangers since she’d learned how. Saying hello to anyone who made eye contact. Waving in thanks to cars that stopped to let her cross the street. It was simple good manners.
Now, on a packed train hurtling towards the big city, she felt like an utter fool, her smile frozen into place as those fiercely blue eyes stuck on hers and didn’t let up.
Then a small miracle happened. The man blinked, as if coming to from a faraway place. The corner of his mouth kicking north into what could only be a return smile. And then he nodded. Nodded! Sending her a private hello from across the way.
She felt the train concertina as everything beyond the tunnel between their gazes turned fuzzy and out of focus. And then those eyes slid north, pausing at the top of her head. Catching on her beanie, the wool suddenly itching like crazy against her scalp, the bob of the pom-pom like a pulse at the top of her head.
He blinked again, then those stormy eyes slid away.
“Oh, my ever-loving gods,” Zoe said. “Did you see that?”
Hell, yeah, she had.
“He couldn’t take his eyes off you. Proof he’s your Appreciative Admirer!”
Heart kicking against her ribs, Evie let herself follow the possibility of Hot Stuff in the Swanky Suit having a secret crush on her to its logical conclusion.
By the look of him he’d eat in fine restaurants, read and understand prize-winning literature, know the actual difference between bottles of wine. From the feel of him when she’d elbowed him then checked him for injury he also wrestled crocodiles, chopped wood for fun and rescued newborn puppies from warehouse fires.
While she lived on cheap cold pizza, spending all weekend in the same holey PJs obliterating strangers gaming online, and she currently slept on an ancient lumpy futon in her best friend’s lounge room.
She didn’t need a fortune cookie to tell her it would all end in tears.
She looked down at the phone she was spinning over and over in her cold hands.
Her granddad had always insisted her flair for coding was a result of her mum’s creative mind. But she’d inherited his practicality too.
Working for Game Plan would be a dream job. Even getting an interview was akin to finding a unicorn in your cornflakes. Especially when no one else would even take her call. She might have been cleared by the feds, but her connection to the embarrassment at her last job made her untouchable.
She couldn’t go into that room with thoughts of Hot Stuff filling her head with cotton wool.
Evie glanced up at the electronic readout denoting which stop was next. Real or imagined, the fortune was messing with her head and she had two more stops to put an end to it once and for all.
“You know what I think?” said Evie.
“Rarely.”
“If there is even the slightest chance the fortune is real, and I am to be hit with a third blast of bad luck, and it is linked to my love life, wouldn’t the smart thing be to get it over and done with?”
Zoe grinned. “Only one way to find out.”
Which was why, before she had even hatched any kind of plan, Evie pressed herself to her feet and excused herself as she squeezed past the others in her row. Buoyed by Zoe’s, “Atta girl!” as she made her way down the carriage.
* * *
Armand breathed in deep.
He’d been trying to read a tome on Australian patent law all morning, knowing there was something—some key, some clue—that would unlock the problem he’d been hired to unearth, but the tattooed youth to his left bumped him yet again. He couldn’t care less about the piercings and symbols carved into the kid’s hair, if only he’d damn well sit still.
Armand willed himself to focus. It was why he’d agreed to uproot himself after all. A challenge, a mystery to sink his teeth into, to deflect his thoughts from hurtling down darker, more twisty paths until it became harder and harder to find his way back.
When the words on the page blurred back at him he gave up. Rubbed his eyes. Looked up.
People watching, he had told Jonathon when his oldest friend had asked, expression pained, why he insisted on taking public transport instead of the car and driver he could well afford. A childhood hobby, it had been a useful survival skill once he was an adult.
Armand glanced around the cabin as it rocked gently along the tracks.
There was the Schoolgirl Who Sniffs. Behind her the Man Who Has Not Heard of Deodorant. The Women Who Talked About Everyone They’d Ever Met. The Man Who Carried an Umbrella Even When It Had Not Been Raining.
Now he could add the Boy Who Could Not Sit Still.
A glance out the window showed Armand he was nearing town. Frustrated with his lack of progress, he picked up the book again, opening it just as a shadow poured over the pages.
Armand glanced up, past black jeans tucked into knee-high black boots. Black-painted fingernails on a hand gripping the handle of the backpack slung over a shoulder. Long dark hair pouring over the shoulders of a jacket. Wind-pinked cheeks. And a heavy silver knitted cap with a huge rainbow pom-pom atop, bobbing in time with the swaying of the train.
Fingers lifted off the strap of the bag in a quick wave as the owner of the hat said, “Hi.”
“Bonjour.”
“You’re French?” She glanced sideways, and out of the side of her mouth said, “Of course he’s French.”
Armand looked past her, but no. She was talking to herself.
When he looked back, she tugged the knitted hat further back on her head and he recognised her as the Girl Who Sang to Herself.
A regular, she often sat deeper back in the carriage with her loud, fair-haired friend. On the days she rode alone she wore big
white headphones, mouth moving as she hummed, even giving in to the occasional shoulder wiggle or hand movement.
With her wide, dark eyes and uptilted mouth, she had one of those faces that always smiled, even in repose. Add the headphones and she was practically asking to have her bag stolen. No wonder he’d felt the need to keep an eye on her. He’d seen all too often misfortune descending on those who deserved it least.
When his gaze once more connected with hers it was to find she was watching him still.
“You like to read?” she asked.
Armand blinked. He’d been riding the train for a little over two weeks and it was the first time anyone had tried to strike up a conversation with him. Another reason he’d enjoyed the ride.
“I do.”
Her dark gaze slid over his hair, down the arm of his jacket, towards the cover of his book. He turned it over and covered the spine. One didn’t become head of an international security firm for nothing.
Armand checked the sign above. With relief he saw his stop was next. She followed his gaze, her mouth twitching before her eyes darted back to his. “How about writing?” she asked, the pace of her words speeding up. “Do you like to write?”
When he didn’t leap in with an instant answer, she nibbled on her lip a moment before saying, “I guess there is writing and then there is writing. Texting is wildly different from a thousand-page novel. Or to-do lists compared with...”
As she continued to list the multiple kinds of writing the train slowed and the screech of metal on metal filled his ears, cutting out every other word. The sound dissipating into a hiss as she said, “Or, of course, poetry.”
“Poetry?”
She swallowed. Nodded. Her eyes wide. Expectant.
Was he meant to respond in some way? It hadn’t felt like a question. In fact, it felt as if he’d stumbled into the middle of someone else’s conversation.
And suddenly the singing, the constant smile, the talking to herself, the novelty backpack, his persistent urge to keep an eye on her—it all made sense.
She was a Van Gogh short of a gallery.
He felt his shoulders relax just a little.
“Are you asking if I like poetry?”
She nodded.
“The greats can make you laugh, cry, think, ache, but it depends on the poet. You?”
“I’ve never really thought about it. I appreciate the skill it must take. Finding words that rhyme. Creating patterns in sound and cadence.”
“Look closer. You’ll find it’s never about a cat who sat on a mat,” he said as he pulled himself to his feet.
The woman gripped harder to her backpack strap as she looked up, up, up into his eyes. Her pupils all but disappearing into the edges of her dark irises.
“What is it about?” she asked.
He leaned in a fraction and said, “Wooing.”
“Wooing?” she said, her voice a little rough. Her fingers gripping the strap of her bag. “Right. But the thing is, I’m in a transitional period. My life is kind of in upheaval right now. No room for wooing.”
“Then my advice would be to stay away from poetry.”
The train bumped to a halt, putting an end to the exchange either way. He slid his book into his briefcase.
But she didn’t budge an inch.
He angled his chin towards the door. “This is my stop.”
“I know.” Blink. “I mean, right, okay.”
She looked as if she had more to say, but the words were locked behind whatever traps and mazes had befallen her afflicted mind.
“Excusez-moi.”
A frown flickered over her forehead as the occupants of the carriage swarmed towards the door. Gripping tightly onto the loop hanging from the bar above kept her from smacking bodily against him, but not from stamping down on his foot with the heel of her boot.
He winced, sucking in a sharp breath as pain lanced his toes.
She spun, grabbed him by the arm and said, “Oh, no! Oh, sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry!”
Then he remembered.
They had spoken once before. His first day on the train she’d elbowed him right in the solar plexus.
If he’d been a man who looked for signs he’d have taken it to mean he’d made a grave error in travelling halfway across the earth in the hopes of being led out of his fugue.
“The Girl with the Perfect Aim,” Armand muttered.
“I’m sorry?”
The doors opened, bringing with them a burst of light and chill, rain-scented air. Armand put a hand on the girl’s elbow as he squeezed around her, joining the river of people heading out the train doors.
Strange young woman, he thought. Yet, he conceded, compelling enough to distract him with alacrity no book or challenge or mystery had yet managed.
He felt those burnished eyes on him long after he’d left the darkness of the station and headed into the grey light of the chilly Melbourne winter’s day.
CHAPTER TWO
EVIE GOT LOST—twice—while trying to find the front door to the Game Plan offices.
For starters, she’d stayed on the train till the next station. No way was she about to follow Hot Stuff in the Swanky Suit. If he’d seen her and was smart—and he certainly appeared to be—he’d have called the police. For oh, how she’d bungled that conversation royally.
Once she’d found the funky, arty little alleyway listed on the Game Plan website, she walked to the end and back without finding the door.
Not her fault. She blamed those stormy blue eyes. That accent. The scent—mysterious, masculine, drinkable. The serious don’t-poke-the-bear vibes rippling off the man like a mirage. Wondered if the ten-day stubble sweeping over his hard jaw was rough or soft. How could she make thoughts when he’d held her by the elbow and her nerves had been replaced by fireworks?
Every second of the encounter had been cringeworthy and it had all been for naught.
Born with a talent for seeing patterns in numbers, in lines of text, in architecture and nature, Evie did not have the same gift for reading people—a theory backed up by her choice of boyfriends in the past. But she had no doubt Hot Stuff believed her a chip short of a motherboard.
As to whether—or not—he’d written the poem... Who knew?
Stupid fortune cookie. Whether its powers were mystical or merely persuasive, she hadn’t been the same since she’d set eyes on it. The sooner she put the whole thing behind her and got on with her life the better.
She stopped in the middle of the alley, looked up into the overcast sky and breathed. “Get it together, kid. And fast.”
When she looked back down she found herself in front of a white door tucked into the white brick wall. It had to be the place.
“Okay. You can do this. You want this. You need this.”
She’d only just started making a name for herself, working on government contracts, really intricate work. She was most proud of finding and fixing a fissure in the Federal Reserve’s security system. One they hadn’t even known was there.
But after the way things went downhill in her last job she was tainted by association. Most of her contacts wouldn’t take her calls. Those who did wished her luck and got off the phone. Fast.
She had to convince Game Plan to give her a chance by sheer force of personality alone.
Taking a deep breath, she lifted a finger to press the buzzer when the door opened. Of course, they had video surveillance. This was Game Plan. Meaning somewhere some security dude had seen her talking to herself.
Super.
Her heart played a staccato against her ribs as she stepped into a waiting area with white walls, bright fluorescent lighting, potted plants. Needless to say, her jaw dropped an inch when instead of an HR clone an invisible door finally opened to reveal Jonathon Montrose, Mr Game Plan himself.
He looked exac
tly like he did on the jacket of his autobiography. Rugged. Imposing. Tall. Not as tall as Hot Stuff in the Swanky Suit, mind you.
Really? You want to go there now?
No, I don’t!
Then focus.
Evie whipped her beanie off her head, and once more felt the static turn her into a human generator. Madly patting her hair back down, she walked to the man and held out a hand.
“Mr Montrose, I’m Evie Croft. It’s an honour. Your Code of Ethics textbook is my bible.” Evie imagined Zoe holding out both hands, urging her to pace herself.
“From what I hear you can also tear apart code like a demon.”
Evie’s heart whumped, wondering who he’d heard it from. Her ex-boss? Her ex? The federal police? No way was she getting the job. Nevertheless, she said, “You hear right.”
“Shall we?” Montrose held out a hand, ushering her through another door. “Welcome to the Bullpen.”
And, while she would have liked to appear even slightly cool, her feet ground to a halt a metre inside the room and she gawped at the sight before her.
Despite the modest entry, the place was gargantuan. Two storeys of glass-walled offices circled the outer rim of the floors above, while the ground floor looked as if it had been hit with a paintball explosion. White walls and floors were splattered with brightly coloured beanbags, cubicles, desks, couches, exercise balls, computers, TVs and in between slouched dozens of guys in jeans, T-shirts and baseball caps, laughing, arguing, creating.
When she found her feet again, Evie followed Montrose along a wall of nooks filled with gaming rooms, VR rigs, darts, pinball machines. One room had rows of bunk beds like a camp dorm.
“When can I move in?”
Montrose laughed. While Evie took it all in—every rivet, every light fitting, every gumball machine, in case she never saw its like again.
Right when Evie felt as if she’d hit sensory overload, Montrose led her up a set of stairs to a huge but relatively subdued office on the second floor, tinted windows looking over the Bullpen below. When he shut the door, everything went quiet.