‘No show ’til tonight, for a change, so I thought I’d try to catch you before you hit the town and go wild with Mirren.’
Kelsey laughed. ‘Some chance. What with neither of us having any spare cash and Mirren’s new life as a nun to consider, it’s just another night of streaming movies and crisps for us.’
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine, just… a bit cooped up. There’s not a lot of room for guests and the weather’s taken a turn for the worse.’
‘Tell me about it; it snowed here at the weekend.’
‘Oh, I meant we had some drizzle but sure, October snow in Canada means winter’s on its way.’
‘Not long now and I’ll be there with you. Fifty-three days.’
‘You’re still counting?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Course I am. Did you book your flights?’
‘Uh-huh. I’ll arrive early December twenty-third so we can step right into Christmas, OK?’
Kelsey let out a long breath. ‘That sounds perfect.’
‘Don’t get down about it. It’s not forever.’
‘I know, I just… sometimes it feels like it might be, and having Mirren here is amazing and everything but we seem to have gone from being best friends to being an old married couple in the course of a week and a bit. If she were busier, or if we had better incomes maybe it wouldn’t feel so…’
‘Claustrophobic?’
Kelsey nodded guiltily and Jonathan understood the silence. ‘It’s not your friendship; it’s the bedsit. It’s too tiny for you guys, and you’ve grown used to living alone so sharing was always gonna be tough, even if you were in a bigger place. But I admit, I’m kinda jealous.’
‘You are?’
Jonathan sniffed a laugh. ‘Wishing it was me getting under your feet.’ Again, he understood the silence down the line and the new shift in feeling. ‘I wish I could turn around and always find you there, close to me.’
They listened to each other’s breathing.
‘Me too,’ Kelsey said at last.
‘So what are you gonna do?’
‘Wait it out? Hope Mirren gets a job soon? I don’t like to say it but she’s been getting sadder since she arrived, and this wassupposedto be her big escape. She’s lonely and… her stuff is everywhere.’ Kelsey blurted this last part and Jonathan laughed again. ‘I mean seriously, it’severywhere! Cotton wool pads around the sink in the mornings and her vitamin bottles, and the clothes! She’s not messy, it’s just the flat’s definitely designed for one.’
‘How will you manage when I fly in?’
A new kind of silence fell, betraying Kelsey’s panic.
‘I’m hoping she’ll have got herself sorted by then.’
‘And if she hasn’t? Sounds like she really needs a friend right now. I can look around for some place to stay if—’
‘There is one solution,’ she interrupted, not liking where this was going.
‘Already with the solutions. That sounds like my Kelsey Anderson.’
‘You know the barge I’m renting from Norma? Well, I got the key this week and its huge inside, I mean, relatively speaking. After the squeeze here at the bedsit anything where you can stretch your arms out and stand up straight feels big. Not thatyou’dbe able to stand up straight, you’d definitely bump your head.’ For an instant Kelsey’s brain ran its show reel of Jonathan’s tall, lean body and the image of him with his arms outstretched lying on his back on her bed with his head tilted back and his lips parted. For a moment she struggled to think of anything else. ‘Yeah, you’re so tall… tall and…’ Her voice tailed off.
‘Ontario to Stratford? Is Kelsey there?’ Jonathan laughed, but there was heat in it.
