Time for one at the bar.

Ella sat in one of the high-back bar stools that lined the restaurant’s bar and ordered a glass of white wine. She’d driven to the restaurant so was there 15 minutes before they were due to meet. She could have sat down at the table to wait for Tom but preferred the busier atmosphere of the bar than sitting by herself.

Sipping her wine, Ella stared ahead to the mirrored wall behind the bar and watched the people around her in the reflection. She’d barely even touched her drink when a handsome man in his early forties came and sat down next to her. Ella smiled to herself.

“Mind if I join you?” the man asked belatedly.

“Be my guest,” Ella told him.

“My name’s Richard,” he introduced himself, holding out his hand.

“Ella,” she returned shaking his hand.

He had strong hands. They looked like they had seen their share of hard labour judging by the scars on them. Ella guessed that Richard had been some sort of tradesman or engineer but had transitioned into a more office-based role as he’d got older. He was dressed in a pale blue business shirt and dress slacks and his hands no longer having the callouses and weathering to go along with his scars.

“Are you meeting someone here tonight?” Richard asked.

By his tone Ella kind of though he hoped she wasn’t. “My husband,” she told him.

“Oh. I should probably get back to my work colleagues then and leave you to it,” Richard said going to rise.

“You could keep me company until then,” Ella offered.

Thomas hurried into the restaurant. The fall out of their raid today had taken hours. Suspects to interrogate. Reports to write. A unit-wide chewing out for allowing the perpetrator Thomas had caught to escape the team at the rear of the building. Thomas saved from it by being the one to give chase and catch him.

He looked briefly into the restaurant but knew Ella wouldn’t be there yet. She’d be at the bar. As he walked over, he saw his wife looking as beautiful as ever. A man getting up from the seat next to her and walking off just as he arrived.

“Hey Honey. Sorry, I’m late,” he said as he gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. Careful to avoid her lipstick this time.

“Not a worry,” she said, “shall we go sit down?”

Thomas and Ella waited for the bartender to come over and serve them before they made the walk to their reservation. Thomas getting a beer to take to the table with them. Ella her third glass of wine. Richard had insisted on buying her one while they talked.

“Almost forgot,” Thomas said as he took a small tin out of his pocket and dropped into Ella’s handbag. It was the condoms she’d asked him to pick up that morning.

At the table, Ella asked, “how was work?”

“Oh, you know. Just the same. Another bad guy off the street,” he told her modestly.

Ella was so proud of Tom. He’d gone through a very dark period after coming back from Afghanistan but had turned it around after being accepted into the local police ****. Thomas found he did best in life when he had someone else there to give him orders. It was what he’d been missing in the two years of civilian life.

The restaurant they came to was one of their favourites. So much so that Ella and Thomas could order without even having to look at the menus. Ella ordering her usual dish of sea bass. Tom getting the veal with sides.

As the waiter had been talking their orders from them, a group of three men had come and sat down at a table behind Thomas. Richard, the man from the bar, sitting so that he was facing towards the husband and wife pairing. Ella looked past Thomas and flashed Richard a warm smile.