Claire comes out of the shower and...

[If claire 5 or above, but below ]

You've cleared the plates, rinsed them, and put the Scrabble tiles back in their bag, and you are standing in the kitchen trying to decide whether it would be presumptuous to make tea when the bathroom door opens down the hall.

Claire pads out a moment later in an oversized faded T-shirt that reaches her mid-thigh, a washed-out print of a Montreal hockey team across the front, bare feet, her hair damp and loose around her shoulders. She smells like vanilla and clean cotton, and she is, as far as you can tell, completely unselfconscious about it.

"There he is," she says. "You didn't flee. I'm touched."

"Where would I go? It's my apartment too."

"Fair." She comes over and bumps your hip with hers on her way to the cupboard. "Tea? I'm having tea. I need something to stop me from falling asleep at ten forty-five like a pensioner."

"Please."

She makes two mugs with the practiced efficiency of someone who has made a lot of tea in this kitchen, and you carry them to the couch together. It's an old, deep sofa, slightly sagging in the middle, the kind you sink into rather than sit on, and within a minute Claire has pulled a blanket from the back, tucked her feet beneath her, and shuffled sideways until she's leaning against your shoulder as naturally as if she'd always done it.

You don't say anything. You're afraid that if you do, she'll notice.

"Is this okay?" she asks, a beat too late, her voice muffled slightly against your sleeve.

"It's very okay."

"Good. I'm very tired and you're warm." She sighs happily and tugs the blanket over both your knees. "It's a purely practical arrangement."

"Naturally."

"Don't be smug."

"I'm not smug."

"I can hear you being smug." But she's smiling, her head settling more comfortably into the hollow of your shoulder, and the weight of her is warm and easy and entirely new.

For a while neither of you talks. A tram rattles faintly in the distance. Her breathing slows. Her hand, resting on the blanket, shifts a little until her fingers lie loosely against your wrist.

"I like this," she says, quietly. "Having someone around. I didn't realize how much I'd gotten used to the quiet until it wasn't quiet."

"Was it lonely? Before?"

"Sometimes. Not in a dramatic way." She thinks about it. "It's strange, a place this big. You hear everything. A door, a pipe, your own footsteps. After a while you start talking to the radiator." A small laugh. "I'm glad it's you who showed up, you know. It could have been a lot worse."

"A guy who does yoga on the floor at five in the morning?"

"Or one who labels his yoghurt." She tips her head back to look up at you, close enough that you can see the faint damp curl at her temple. "You're a good roommate, John. A very good roommate."

"I'm still doing dishes, then."

"Always. It's in the contract."

"Shirtless?"

"If you insist." Her eyes are bright, laughing, and she doesn't look away. Something shifts quietly in the lamplight. You become aware of your own heartbeat, of the weight of her, of the very small distance between her face and yours.

She's the one who blinks first. She settles back against you with an exhale that sounds a little shaky, and when she speaks again her voice is lower.

"It's late. If I stay here much longer, I'm going to fall asleep on you."

"That wouldn't be a tragedy."

"No," she says, almost to herself. "I don't suppose it would."

But she gets up anyway, slowly, like someone leaving a warm bath, and the blanket slides off her knees. She stands over you in the half-light for a second, T-shirt rumpled, hair drying in soft waves, and then leans down and presses a brief, warm kiss to your cheek.

"Bonne nuit, John."

"Bonne nuit, Claire."

She pads off down the hall, and you hear her door close, and you stay a moment longer on the couch with the cooling tea and the faint scent of vanilla on the blanket, the apartment very quiet, and your cheek still warm.