The Grass is always greener.

   Craig had thought a wife and child were expensive, but they were definitely cheap compared to the IT girl that was pulling the puppy dog eyes at him right now. She couldn't really expect him to buy her a £500 bag could she? She could, and she was, and the eyes she was pulling was making it quite clear she was not going to take no for an answer. 
Craig was really beginning to regret getting involved with Holly, it had seemed such a good idea at the time but now that good idea was turning into a nightmare. 

Craig had been in a rut to end all ruts, his life was going nowhere and was in danger of reaching its destination. His job, although well paid, was getting more demanding and less rewarding by the day, while his wife and daughter had been all take, take, take with no give, give, give. 
When Holly had come on the scene it had been not such much a breath of fresh air but a hurricane blowing through his life. She was beautiful, sexy, young and interested in him; the perfect combination. Initially interested in him as a person, notjust as a wallet or a taxi driver or a solider ant. She flirted, he fell for it; mid-life crisis cliché it may have been but he was shagging a hot 25 year old, so he didn’t give a damn.

God the music in the bar was loud. Holly wasn’t content with a 500 pound bag, she had to have a cocktail or two on the way home too. Craig was pretty sure that she’d texted her friends and told them where they were. Soon he’d be surrounded by a gaggle of twenty somethings wittering on about reality TV or trying to catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirror to check they looked beautiful. Both females and males, each as vacuous as the next, each as vain as each other. They preened like they believed the bar was full of Tyra Banks searching for America’s next top model. Was he that bad at their age? Was life quiet so material back then?

Craig wished himself back at home, not the lousy apartment he shared with Holly and her yapping dog, but the lovely house where his lovely ex wife and daughter lived with all their home comforts. But he was about as welcome there as a wasp at a picnic.

He stared out of the window and caught a glimpse of an elegant looking woman, his age or thereabouts, slender, sophisticated, beautiful but understated. He watched her go on tiptoe and kiss the man who greeted her, then throw her head back and laugh at something he said. He seen those gestures so many times before but this time it was not him on the receiving end. The man was a bit older but looked after himself, no beer belly and his wrinkles looked distinguished not craggy. They disappeared inside the unpretentious but exquisite French restaurant that Craig had always promised his wife they’d visit.