Nice not to meet you.
She'd been a smoker when they'd met. Yeah, a real train-wreck. That habit, the filthy one she’d grow to deny once they were introduced, struck him out with a slow burn from between her fingertips. 

He had wondered then how long he could hold his breath.

There were a few of them sat sun-side smoking, shrieking. When the trays of drinks arrived, it became difficult to distinguish steam from nicotine. Lungs dependent on deep inhalation, fingers flicked nails painted and chipped.

He saw then the way she commanded conversation, watched the jaw where words found form and projection, how irritatingly intriguing her confidence was. She spoke with her hands to twelve ears receptive. Her friends, they all looked the same. Brown hair center parted, cat’s-eye glasses. Smiling smoke.

There was nothing particularly notable about her except everything.

She, two hands cupped around a mug. He, the same china held left-handedly. With a loosening his grip he registered the rings she wore, their weight, which fingers they warmed. 

He turned, signalled to a passing waiter, a cappuccino por favor and she was gone, apothéotico. 


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