open starter.
location: talk is cheap, downtown. 2.57pm.
there were few things solomon liked less than difficult customers. god, they did his bloody head in - he’d had some mad old cow in, getting up in arms about the fact that she’d have to pay an extra twenty cents if she wanted to drink her to go coffee in the cafe. that rule got a lot of people a bit pissy, but it worked well enough - solomon tried to do his bit in the war on plastics. talk is cheap was almost entirely plastic free, aside from the lids on the bloody to go cups. he’d tried he best to be polite with the silly old bint (’no i’m sorry, just how it is.’ ‘tryin’ to do my bit, you know? world’s on fire, love.’), but when she’d pulled out the ‘it tastes better in a take away cup!’ argument he’d almost lost his bloody mind. he tried awfully hard not to be a wanky coffee purist, but he was a bit. and the fact she thought it tasted better out of one of those awful paper cups made him want to scream.
he’d marched right on out for a smoke not long after the woman had left under a storm cloud - she’d promised to leave a bad review, and solomon had told her quite frankly that he didn’t give even half a shit. he’d been left to broil afterwards, letting himself out of the coffee shop to park up outside it. he pulled his pouch and papers from his pinny pocket, rolling himself a smoke nice and quick. but when he got to lighting it he ran into trouble - lana had nicked his bloody zippo. she’d pocketed it the evening before, when they’d shared a cigarette after closing, the tart. he’d tan her hide when he saw her next - he’d been left with a shitty bic lighter he’d found in his glove box. and it was empty, too. fucking typical.
solomon made a low, frustrated noise as he tried to get the lighter to work one last time, ball rolling to no avail. he shoved it back into his pocket, eyes flickering up to a passerby, cigarette still hanging from his lips when he spoke.
“hey mate, you got a light?”
