He hesitates over accepting the lighter, but eventually smiles and lights the cigarette, cringing a bit when he feels the burn of smoke into his lungs. It's been a while. This has never been his particular vice, but like so many of them, it had been born out of social scenes: lighting someone else's, taking a puff off a boyfriend's, holding one for the sake of how it looked being held. There was a certain familiar comfort in the whole wretched forgotten habit.

"Thank you."

She had a unique way of talking that he would have recognized even without her unmistakable eyes. He was pretty sure he'd seen her at a support group meeting, but hadn't had the chance to talk.

"Oh, no, I'd have to insist on paying. You're my guest." He began to walk with her down the sidewalk. The cigarette burned slowly in his hand and he used it as much to fidget and gesture with as he did to actually smoke. Holding something was itself calming. "I know a nice little place a few blocks from here, where we can get a glass of wine, if you're willing to walk as far." And, if he's being entirely honest (which he regrettably has been this week), "I'd like the company, and the conversation."