JONAH
In A Week - Hozier, Karen Cowley
The warmth of the fire burned against my skin, but it was a welcome relief compared to the chill of the loch.
“This is so good,” Kit mumbled, sitting opposite me as she took another long slurp directly from a bowl of Scotch broth, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail.
She’d been so brave, following me as we headed deeper into the water. I knew it was a delicate thing, that trust. From the sound of it, she’d been hurt before, and badly. It had taken a lot to get her to open up to me, and, even now, I knew some walls still remained.
I couldn’t help the feeling that there was a reason we’d both ended up here at the same time. Like we’d been exactly what each other needed.
“It’s my mother’s recipe.” Maddie smiled, scooping a second serving from the pot that rested in the middle of the dining table. Since she and Archie only lived a few streets away, they’d invited us back to theirs to shower and warm up.
Kit grinned. “She must be a chef.”
“Thanks so much for inviting us back,” I said earnestly, grabbing a thick piece of bread and dunking it into my own warming soup. “It would’ve been a long, cold drive back up to the lodge if not.”
“For your first year, you both did great!” Maddie grinned, looking towards her husband. “I remember the first year Archie took me back for Christmas. I watched from the shore. I refused to go in.”
“What changed your mind?” Kit asked.
“Archie has excellent powers of persuasion.”
“I didn’t expect it either.” Kit winked. “But I did have a certain American pulling me in.” Under the table, her leg bumped against mine. It was meant to be a casual touch. To me, with her, it was anything but.
“When are you heading back to London? I bet you must have lots of work lined up.”
“Yeah, it’s looking busy. I was supposed to head down tomorrow,” she said, her gaze falling to the table. “I’m considering staying a few more days.”
If I held any pretence of being cool, my desperate tone betrayed it all. “Really?”
“Yeah.” She met my gaze, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth. “I could stay until after New Year.”
“Nothing runs for two days after Hogmanay,” Archie added, still munching away on his soup.
I couldn’t help the stupid grin across my face, remarking, “The Scottish love a bank holiday.”
“So, the third,” she said, and my heart felt like it’d doubled in size. Her blue gaze held an affection I’d not received in a long time. Now I had it from her, I didn’t want it to stop. “That’s when I’d need to head back. I have to be at a fitting on the fifth.”
I didn’t care that she had to leave. I’d known that from the start. However, the fact that Kit could stay longer somehowchanged everything. Like maybe the ending I kept bracing myself for wasn’t set in stone. We got more time. And, God, I wanted every second of it.
“Sounds good,” I managed to say casually, as if the entire world around me didn’t feel brighter.
We all fell into easy conversation, Archie telling far too many embarrassing jokes which had me questioning the months spent here. Eventually their kids came home, three little monsters I’d been coaching in my junior class, and they dragged me into their snow-covered garden to show off the new serve they’d been working on.
From the kitchen window, I spotted Kit watching us, clutching a “perfectly made” cup of tea, as she put it. And I couldn’t help but wonder what she wanted for her future. If there was room for me. Wherever we both ended up, perhaps there was the option to carry on. Long distance or in London. I wasn’t sure what that would look like; she was a model, and judging from Maddie’s freak out, much bigger than I’d expected to find in the village pub; but whatever happened, I knew for sure that I would do anything for more time with her. I don’t think I’d ever felt this connection, this longing for somebody.
Why did she have to stumble into my life just as I was leaving?
“That was nice,”Kit said, her attention on the madly waving Maddie who was standing in her yard as if the queen had come to visit.
I shifted into second gear and continued the slow crawl through the village, rows of granite houses lining the road. The snow had turned into a slush in the slight warmth of theafternoon, but it was sure to refreeze to black ice after dusk. “Yeah, they are great company.”
“Do you hang out with them a lot?”
“I suppose I do.” I had vastly underestimated how many embarrassing stories Archie had about me. “They are friends, you know. And I coach the kids, so I see them regularly.”
“That’s fun,” she said, smiling as she adjusted the radio, skipping through stations in search of music she liked. “Do you like them? Kids.”
