Because blue is how I feel on the inside

He's changed scents, downgrading his clothes but upgrading his perfume from Versace's Blue Jeans to Bleu de Chanel (EdP). He tells me he can't get us in to Milan Fashion Week but it's a cheap lie to keep us out of sight. "I always knew things would end this way" he sighs, "ever since...".

Maybe it's all in his head but the way he plays this game until there are no other options sends shivers down my spine and we're the slightly darker 21st century versions of Bonnie and Clyde. He turns toward me in bed, runs his sharp fingers through my tumbleweed hair.  "Anyway" he says, "I want you to see my mother".

So we drive north again and the pre-autumn sunlight drifts across the hillsides and the mountains like fingertips on naked skin. We stop for pastries and coffee at a run-down restaurant just east of Lausanne and he makes me promise to re-read Anna Karenina in time before the winter and the snow.