Oli stood outside the coffee shop, fighting the desire to play with his phone in order to look busy, and wished, without feeling overwhelmed, that Ruff was there to support him. There was something about waiting with a dog that made a single guy seem much less alone and much less pathetic. More than once he had dreamt of another dog, but no one could replace Ruff, and Oli couldn’t see how he could hope to do justice to a new puppy when he would be putting in long hours at university and vanishin