The rain was drizzling outside, turning the London streets a grey colour that mirrored the buildings and her own mood as she trudged along and tried to step outside of the puddles. It didn’t always work, a slight dampness seeping through her shoes to make chilled toes squelch and curl under themselves in a fruitless bid to try and escape the inevitable. Penny adored it; it was home and she was just as comfortable amongst the crowds talking on their mobile phones as she was just a short feet away and into the other world. Somehow over the past two decades, she’d learned not only how to straddle the two worlds she called her own but how to indulge in the best of both of them and one of those indulgences was the prospect of a very nice crispy bacon sandwich.
Another was rising to meet her, a press of his lips leaving a graze of stubble against her skin and the lingering remnants of his scent. Filling the air with its familiarity and reminding her that this was a friendship that didn’t make any sort of sense. On paper they had nothing in common and yet..
“I’m good,” Penny took a step back to peel off her scarf, shedding the layers like a skin before sitting down and reaching for the menu. “Spain looks good on you, you’re tanned enough to make everyone jealous.” Ink marked her wrists, thumb prints etched in black where the paper had lingered too long on her skin.