She watched the stream of smoke curl out of his lazily parted lips into the warm, dark air. Eyeing the skinny, lit cigarette in his pale, stylistically posed fingers, she reached over and took it. First holding it unceremoniously between the pads of her thumb and index finger, she slid it until it rested against her middle finger. She took a fraction of a second to glance at her hand, checking that the image mirrored that of photographs and films, before popping it into her mouth."You smoke?"
She glanced up at him through blackened lashes.
"No," she replied, removing it from between her lips and holding it aloft, for him. A column of ash topped the cigarette and snowed to the ground as he took it from her fingers. He assessed it nonchalantly, staring at the ring of shimmery pink that her lips had printed on it before closing his mouth over it and taking a long drag.
"Since when have you?" she asked, glancing out into the silent street. A flash of lights and exhaust rushed by and then disappeared.
"Since when have I what?" he replied, tilting his chin up and puffing out a stream of smoke rings that drifted up towards the sky. He followed them up with his gaze.
When he looked back down she was standing, in front of him, tracing a loop around the inside of the last ring with a single finger.
"Smoked," she answered, her hand still poised in the air as the smoke drifted and dissolved around her outstretched finger.
