“So, tell us more about Mr. Gorgeous, then.”

Allie groaned and rolled her eyes toward where Craig was snipping off the split ends of her long, jet-black hair.

“He’s not Mr. Gorgeous. He’s another man who I met on the tube, who decided that he could stare at me like I was some interesting poster on the wall of the carriage. End of.” Allie replied tartly, narrowing intense blue eyes at her blotchy-faced reflection in the mirror. Since she’d woken up that morning all Allie had received from Craig were meaningful, large-eyed looks, several dramatic speeches about how she needed to feel more grateful when men showed a real interest in her, and another painful moan about how she needed a new haircut or no one would look twice at her next time she was on the tube.

“I’m sure he is, sweetie. You don’t usually look twice at these boys unless they’ve got something on them.”

Allie gritted her teeth and went back to looking down at the glossy magazine, which lay open on the central circular table of the hairdressing salon.

“Craig; if I’m being honest I think you’ve bloody well spoken enough today. And before I rest my case, I’m pretty damn sure that it’s you who doesn’t usually look twice at guys unless they’ve ‘got something on them.’” Allie smirked down at the magazine and held up two fingers on each hand to exaggerate her quotation.

Craig gave a loud tut as the elderly woman sat beside Allie having a perm opened her mouth in shock.

“Thank you, Allie. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t question my masculinity too much.” He droned, raising his eyebrows. He looked over at the old dear beside them and smiled at her, flopping his hand down in an obviously gay manner and chirping, “be with you in a minute love, my ruddy room mate is definitely having a bad hair day!”

He laughed at his own stupid pun with the elderly woman and then tottered away from the pair toward the sinks.

True, it only took Allie to ask Craig to pass the cornflakes at breakfast for him to burst out with, “got your eye on anyone at the moment?” But Craig had been asking that for the past year anyway; he wanted Allie to find her other half, he seemed to want her to find someone to lean on. Allie constantly made a clear point that she had two halves to her body; and since she was a complete person then since when did she need a man to complete her? There was no such thing as love; it was only a feeling, which drunken men pretended to possess whenever they were trying to get the latest victim into bed. Men were just as unpredictable as the bus services, which could turn up however early or late albeit complaint.

“Ooh, I love this song,” Craig whistled as he literally danced back over to Allie, who sat staring vacantly into the distance, trapped inside her thoughts.

“Babe?” Craig furrowed his eyebrows and leant over Allie’s shoulder before clicking his fingers in front of her face and snapping her back to reality.

“Yeah, sorry.” Allie shook her head and gave a feeble half-smile. “What song’s this?” She asked, absent-mindedly tapping her foot along to the slow beat of the song, which emanated from the radio on the table. In contrast to Craig, who was as much of a music-whore as Allie was a general one, she barely knew the name of any main-stream bands and the only CD she had ever owned was a Take That reunion disc which she’d given to Craig for his birthday last year.

“I always loved the dance moves…” Craig had hinted when the song “Relight my Fire” aired on the radio.

“I think this is What’s Paradise by Be my Hero. They’re pretty good, their lead singer is a catch.” Craig announced to the salon, his hands snipping away at the old woman’s perm in beat to the music. The woman whose head he was damn near about to snip off looked bloody petrified.

Everyone tells me to change,

But I’m another misfit hung over the edge,

“Intense,” Allie muttered to herself as she skimmed through the fashion section of the magazine, practically drooling over the beautiful clothes that every woman desired to posses. As the song wore on, she realised she was hanging on the singers every word, the man’s voice sounding both misty and full of emotion; he actually gave an edge to the song which made the hairs on Allie’s neck stand on end.

Literally, metaphorically, just another lost cause

Since I can’t find myself making too much sense

And soon enough she found herself relating to the man; relating to the strong words, which filtered through the crackly radio. These same words which he’d scribbled down on paper months before were now winding their way into Allie’s subconscious along to a melody, dragging her mind away from how she would earn the rent for this month and where she would buy food enough to supplement for tonight’s dinner.

Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll snap in your face,

Love’s another game and you’re winning this race

---

Matt swivelled in his chair absent-mindedly with the tip of his pen resting inside his mouth, a thoughtful expression spread across his face. His eyes re-focused onto the computer screen, and he nagged himself out of the dazed state of mind, which had overtaken him.

Today had most likely been the most boring day in the office since the Monday beforehand, and with an anxious expression across his face, Matt had been checking the clock at least every five seconds for the past two hours, practically begging the small circular device up on the wall to magically fast forward.

“Sorry, but why in the actual hell are we meant to write our bosses speeches? He’s the one actually talking them.” Matt moaned, folding his arms behind his head and sighing acrimoniously, after having checked the clock for a fifteenth time in the last five minutes. He looked over at his friend in the cubicle beside him, to who he’d directed the pretty much rhetorical question.

Dom shrugged, slumped back in his chair and continued to draw stick figures on his arm like a bored schoolboy. Dom was the opposite to Matt; they were best friends but the contrast between them was similar to that of Allie and Craig. Whilst Matt was so much more hardworking than his next-door cubicle-neighbour, Dom was surprised even at himself for making it so far up the career ladder when he barely even knew what department he was in.

“This is dreadful.” Matt continued, oblivious to the fact that Dom was barely even listening. “Since when did Greg decide that he thought every abandoned or adopted child should have a right to find their parents?”

Dom looked up from his arm, covered in scribbles. He tentatively pulled his sleeve down over the evidence and returned to his computer. “Uh, I vote for the motion.” He grumbled, blinking in the light of the screen as he opened up a fresh window of pacman.

Matt shook his head and turned back to the computer screen, ramming his pen back down onto the table forcefully and taking a breath. He wiped a hand across his forehead in agitation, and blew a few strands of hair out of his face with a long huff.

“You know one day, I’m actually gonna do something decent, and one day I will find some link to a poor kid on the street and reunite them with their family.” Matt decided, puffing his chest out slightly and frowning.

“Your call, mate.” Dom encouraged feebly, saluting with a hiccup.

“Are you drunk?” Matt said, slumping back in his chair and kicking his brogues up onto the shiny polished desk.

Dom shook his head and returned to the small yellow blobs which chased each other about on the screen, and replied glumly, “Dannie chucked me out of the house.”

Talking of women. Matt had been asking himself for most of the day why he hadn’t been in with his beautiful new fiancé the previous night.

Oh yes, he thought, with a stabbing feeling rising in his gut. I was out following some prostitute around.

How weird did that sound? Matt sat up, ready to try and shake some advice out of Dom. as he turned in his swivelling chair, his eyes caught sight of his fiancé beaming up at him from a small photograph, which rested on his desk; her glorious blonde curls bouncing on her shoulders, her face held with a pearly white smile. His conscience got the better of him, and he shut his mouth to return to the computer screen.