He bought her a strawberry tart. Ropati immediately imagined a tall, skinny, pimpled yet bearded blue-eyed man, leering down at her as he plied her with tarts and rasped ‘little girl’.

Probably not.

… Hopefully not.

“Fifty-four. Grandpa age,” he added.

Not a friend. Too old for friendship.

“Do you have somewhere to stay? It’s supposed to rain.”

It was always supposed to rain.