He watched her eyes sparkling with mirth and mischief, as her face lit up now and again with the brilliance of her smile. The setting : the backdrop of the Singapore skyline, and the ever increasingly noisy New Asia Bar.
It had felt like a quiet little pub when they arrived, rather along the lines of Que Pasa... but as time flew by (as it always did around her) the music became ever louder and the beat began to pound. Girls were standing up to dance... and somewhat insiduously, they had been transported into an upmarket reveller's night club.
He had always hated struggling to make himself heard at clubs and watching people's lips move silently in stark, frustrating incomprehension. Other people always seemed to have the gift - he suspected he was born a little deaf.
Yet somehow they spoke effortlessly through the din, engaging each other with their eyes and thoughts.
Afterwards as they walked, and talked their ways back to the car enjoying the crisp coolness of a rained-out night sky, their hands brushed once or twice. They spoke, and laughed, and teased each other as they always did.
Something she said sparked yet another in the mounting chain of mock-retaliatory-tickles and counter-pokes-in-sides they had been sharing, and then, rather naturally they found themselves walking hand in hand.
