Chapter 1

Why does every man in London think that eight o’clock on a warm June morning is the ideal time to remove their shirt and get on the tube? I consider this as I peel myself away from a sweaty back and turn around to find myself face to face with someone’s wet armpit. There’s often a good time for shirtlessness, but the middle of rush hour on a crowded train is not it.

I sigh and stare at my feet. Every morning I get on this train and get off feeling like a floppy sardine that’s just been let out of a tin and probably smelling worse. All to go to the soulless office block of the women’s magazine where I work as a fact-checker, and then do the exact same thing at half past five with all the other sweaty, irritable commuters who would really love nothing more than to poke their boss in the eye and run away to a beach somewhere.

Someone stands on my toe and a handbag hits me in the thigh as someone else swings it over their arm. Ow. Only four more days to go until the weekend, and then I can have two whole days of not having to leave the flat and face the crowds of London. Two whole days of uninterrupted Netflix, apart from when Mum calls to update me on my ex-boyfriend’s latest news, which she knows because they’re still online friends even though I deleted him over two years ago.

I jump back as a briefcase threatens to take out my kneecaps. There’s got to be more to life than this.

I look up and my eyes lock on to a man near me. Train Man is going somewhere today. Usually he only has a backpack with him, but today there’s a huge suitcase leaning against his leg, rucksack straps over both shoulders, and a holdall bag hooked over one arm. He’s standing up and holding on to a rail like I am, his attention on the phone in his hand, the lines around his eyes crinkled up as he looks down at it, and the sight of him makes something flutter inside me.

I see him quite often, but he’s always already on the train when I get on, and we’re usually much further apart. Up close, he’s even more gorgeous than I’d always thought he was. He’s got short brown hair, dimples denting his cheeks, and the kind of smile that makes you look twice, which I know because he’s one of the rare London commuters who smiles at others.