I bit down on my lip and turned over in bed with my mobile pressed firmly to my left ear. Yet again I was smiling ear to ear, as I always was when Jon was involved. My giggles started as I listened to him shouting at the football he was watching on television. It amused me at how seriously he took it. The phone beeped in my ear to say we had been on the phone for an hour. It shocked both of us when we discussed the length of our conversation. We were meant to be meeting in thirty minutes.

Twenty minutes later, I shoved a lip gloss and a lighter into the side pocket of my handbag and ran out of the door to my room. The corridor wound to the right, and I waved at Joe and Louise sitting in the communal kitchen. My student flatmates had an obsession with eating cereal in the evening. They thought it was normal! My phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans and the message envelope flashed in the top right hand corner of the screen. I flipped the phone open as I slid into the taxi a little less than gracefully and told the driver where to take me.

Need any fags?

The message was typical Jon. Uninformative yet straight to the point. Curt, yet it was caring. He had to care to ask if I wanted any cigarettes; didn’t he?

I arrived shortly after replying to the text message with a brusque “No” but it was followed with a few “x”’s for good measure. He spotted me before I’d seen him and merely stuck out his hand to me. I eagerly grabbed the potato fritter he brandished and we began the two minute walk to the pub. Neither of us said a word until we got the door and he handed me his cigarette to finish while he ordered the drinks.

“Usual?” He almost grunted.

“Of course dear!”

I grinned at his grimace; he hated me calling him dear in public. On the phone and sporadically when he was drunk, he had admitted it was quite endearing and he enjoyed the sentiment behind it. He scowled at me with a glint in his hazel eyes and entered the pub out of the cold.

Blowing the smoke out of my mouth slowly, I began to think about which parts were smoke and which parts were just my breath hitting the frosty air. I entered the pub to find a small jewellery box on the centre of a small round table. He had the good sense to remove the beer mats.