Sacha twisted around in her chair, craning her neck to see obliquely through her glasses Hannah walking into the bar with a broad grin on her face - as so often, but this one was a little different. Sacha had her back to the doorway - that's just how the chair she'd sat in had been angled - and Hannah crept up behind her and placed her hands on Sacha's shoulders, leaning down to say hello into her left ear. It was like a gesture of possession: one that a person might make if there were other people watching. "How are you, sexy?" asked Hannah.

"Much the same as usual" replied Sacha.

"Don't worry honey, we can do something about that." Before Sacha could complain about this gently-spoken jibe, Hannah had strode over to the bar. Sacha looked in the other direction, in a bit of a huff, but she heard the barmaid greet Hannah enthusiastically and she wondered if there was a barmaid in this city that Hannah didn't know.

Hannah returned with two glasses of wine. "Chardonnay, honey. Because we're such fucking yuppies."

"Why? Because we're gonna talk real estate?"

"Of course!" Hannah grinned again, parting her lips just briefly to show her teeth. She extended one arm towards Sacha, and after a pause for to think about it Sacha took the wineglass Hannah was offering her.

"Thanks" she said, although she didn't really want it.

Hannah's grin receded and settled into a friendly smile, and she placed her own glass on the table that was in front of Sacha's chair. She stood up straight again and rolled her shoulders back, slipping her coat off. Her black top stretched tight across the balls of her shoulders as she did so, and she gazed steadily, a little curiously, at Sacha, the smile still locked on her face. Sacha held Hannah's gaze quietly, protected behind the lenses of her glasses - but suddenly something rushed up inside her and she looked away. She took a gulp of her wine self-consciously. "So" said Hannah, sitting down. "Let's talk living arrangements."

"You realise" said Sacha carefully, "that if it was just about anyone else trying to explain to me how to find a new place to live, I would take it to be extremely patronising."

"Oh?" Hannah raised an eyebrow. "And why not me?"

Sacha fingered her wineglass, but thought better of it and placed the glass back on the table. "Because I know you're trying to be friendly and helpful" she replied.

"Damn, only trying?"

Sacha laughed (and Hannah smiled to herself, and to Sacha, at the achievement of making her laugh). "Well we haven't begun yet" she said.

"Okay. So let's begin. How about you move in with me?"

This time Sacha laughed loudly. "Well I think that might be a bit much for the both of us" she replied.

Hannah shrugged. "Yeah, I was only kidding" she said, covering her tracks. Her smile remained frozen in place. "Where do you want to live, if not with little ol' me?"

Sacha glanced sideways in thought, and began to tell her.