If there had been a time when he used not to hate Valentine's Day, he simply must have forgotten everything about it. In his experience it was a day that invariably turned out to be either lonely, stressful, boring – or any combination of the three.
It was certainly all off those things, and more, in the aftermath of his third divorce. He'd been hoping against hope that they would get a last-minute booking, but even his infamous luck appeared to have taken a day off for once – probably celebrating it with its significant other, he sneered between himself.
Well, there was nothing for it but to struggle through the day as best as he could, and he supposed that a good book would do nicely for that purpose. He went through his flight bag to find his latest purchase, courtesy of Helsinki Airport duty-free shop, and was marginally surprised when a slip of paper fell from in between its pages.
In Finland, February 14th is known as ystävänpäivä, 'Friendship Day', it read in Martin's distinctive scrawl. That was it, but he could easily imagine the man racking his brains in order to put together those few kind words of sympathy, and the thought brought a warm smile to his lips.
He might have given up any hope of finding the love of his life, but that didn't necessarily mean he was all alone now; his ersatz MJN Air family could be irritating at times, and yet he wouldn't change it for anything in this world.
And he might as well invite his friend in for a coffee or something, he decided as he put the slip of paper into the book and picked up his phone instead. He highly doubted that Martin would have better plans for the day anyway.