Skin so cracked and dry it would fuck up your finger prints. It’s the feel of Danny’s rough touch holding my hand (more like ‘holding onto my hand’). He anchors his groans and complaints onto my ear “ooh no, I’m so tired, eurgh I’m broken”. I want my nasty little thoughts to seep into the air and push away his bad mood.

Now I see him in his work uniform polo shirt, coffee stains and milk splashes. My mind’s memory eye latches onto his chest hair, strips his clothes and pulls him close. The slightly squidgy, blue boxered, horizontal Danny. He’s got a full bottom lip that bulges in between mine. Nothing like this withered, work Danny: huffing and puffing those ciggies up on the roof.  

But I still like the sound of his laugh, too much. I check the rota for his bright pink box next to my dark blue, and I get a little pleased. I make sure to bring my lipstick with me on those Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights, when pink box sits right next to dark blue.  

Danny in the darkness of the cinema- when we watch a film after work, hold hands and lean across for zingy kisses, the knee squeeze and a handful of popcorn. Slurp slurp! Impatient for another more intimate, natural night time darkness, the you + me wrapped up in bedtime darkness.  

But up on the roof it’s pigeons and ash and black uniform tops. We’re so formal in the daytime, (paid time). The sober sun sinks his mood and my conviction that this is something more than a played out scene. On my part, I’m playing a part. I can feel the lightness of my sincerity when I stroke his rough hand under the counter, and brush back his hair in the dark.

Cinema work is about providing the fantastical. My colleagues’ common interest revolves around how ‘convincing’ an actor was, the ‘meaningful camera work’ that is ‘thematically significant’. ‘The set’ ‘the angle’ ‘the 2d insincerity!’ I’m a popcorn professional ‘representing the line of the company’, representing my silly self. Shoot my good side would you, and kiss me quick before I go ‘PUFF!’ up in a cloud of popcorn dust. Work romances: another carefree game, another little subplot story of the cinema. “Oh hi Danny!” Just give me a little bit of honesty, up on that roof.