15
ON SATURDAY, ASTRID was in her room, packing her cases ready to head over to her new apartment.
‘Leifur’s coming to help,’ she said to Gudrun, who was handing her clothes out of the drawers.
‘Is he? Are you two…’
‘No.’ Because they were something, but she wasn’t sure what. She couldn’t say he was her boyfriend, or that it was a relationship. And why did it need to be called anything? They were friends.
‘You didn’t know what I was going to say.’
‘I have a fair idea.’
‘What’s he helping with? You have two cases.’
‘Neither of us will manage to carry them up the stairs at the apartment, and now that Olafur’s working, it seemed like the obvious solution.’
‘I suppose so,’ Gudrun said grudgingly. ‘If he’s helping with the cases, I could go to the shop and pick up the things we chose yesterday.’
The two of them had had a great time choosing cushions, throws, a few mugs and glasses and a couple of table lamps from Snug, hammering Gudrun’s staff discount. They also went shopping for bed linen and towels since Astrid usually tried to travel light, so she bought cheap and left things behind.
‘That’d be great. Then we can spend the evening together sorting everything out after Leifur’s gone.
’ She didn’t want to assume he would stay that long.
And it was important to Gudrun to be involved, so Astrid didn’t think too hard about how much she’d like to lie on her new sofa in Leifur’s arms. There would be other evenings for that.
They got the cases down the tiny path from Gudrun’s house and then wheeled one each through the streets of Reykjavik.
It wasn’t that far — less than a ten-minute walk and when they got there, Leifur was outside waiting for them.
Astrid was ridiculously happy to see him.
He was so much more in real life than how she held him in her head.
His hair curled softly around his forehead and collar, and it looked as though he’d trimmed his beard.
He was wearing a Lopi sweater, jeans and boots and had his hands in his pockets, and a lop-sided smile as if he was nervous.
‘ Hae .’ He kissed Astrid on the cheek. ‘ Hae, Gudrun.’ He took the case from her.
‘Thanks,’ Gudrun said with a nod.
‘You have the keys?’
Astrid unlocked the door to the building, and the three of them went inside, taking the cases between them.
‘Lead the way,’ said Leifur, hefting one case onto his shoulder as if were filled with fresh air.
Gudrun, her eyes wide, shot an impressed look at her sister before she headed upstairs. Astrid couldn’t help grinning. She’d had the same reaction. It was hot.
Astrid unlocked the door and stepped inside the apartment. It was just as she remembered, and the same feelings of it being exactly the right place came flooding back.
‘It’s very nice,’ said Leifur, leaving the case in the hallway and heading into the lounge to look at the view from the balcony.
You couldn’t quite see the sea, but nevertheless it overlooked some of the residential streets in the city where the houses and roofs were colourful, so it was a delightful view.
When Astrid tried the door to the balcony, it was unlocked, and she stepped outside. There was a wooden bench against the wall and a small wooden table.
‘Perfect spot for a morning coffee,’ she said to Gudrun, who had appeared next to her.
‘I’ll go and get the other case,’ Leifur called.
‘What do you think?’
‘I love it!’ Gudrun said. ‘It’s so you, and even with the high ceilings, it feels cosy.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Astrid, pleased to have her sister’s agreement that it was a great place, as well as her blessing for moving out.
‘Oh my god, As. The way he picked up that case. No wonder you’ve fallen for him.’
It was going to get tiring batting away Gudrun’s constant assumptions that something was going on between her and Leifur. And now that there was something, even if she wasn’t sure exactly what, perhaps it was time to give in.
‘He’s very fit,’ said Astrid. ‘It’s probably from being a fisherman, hauling nets and ropes around.’
Gudrun raised an eyebrow but said nothing, which was just as well because Leifur came back with the other case.
‘Shall I put these in the bedroom?’
‘I’ll help you,’ Astrid said, taking one case herself and leading him into the bedroom.
‘I should leave. Let you get settled in,’ he said.
‘Stay for a coffee?’
‘Do you have any coffee?’
‘No. But there’s a coffeemaker.’
‘I’ll go and get coffee for us. ’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘I want to.’ He took her hand in his. Astrid thought she might never take another breath.
‘Oh, I love this room,’ said Gudrun, ruining the moment.
Astrid dropped Leifur’s hand, and he smiled and pointed to the door. She nodded and turned her attention to Gudrun.
‘The great thing about white walls is that you can make the place yours without much effort at all. You need to put one of your new lamps in here. The one with the glass base would be perfect for a bedside light,’ her sister said.
‘Okay. Leifur’s gone out for coffee. I think when he gets back, I’m going to go grocery shopping while you pick up the shopping from Snug. Then we can meet back here, set everything up and then open a bottle of wine.’
‘That’s perfect!’
Once the three of them had the coffees and pastries that Leifur returned with, they all trooped back down the stairs. Gudrun headed into the centre of town to collect the Snug haul, leaving Leifur and Astrid alone.
‘Thanks for helping today.’
‘No problem. Enjoy getting settled in. Your sister seems pretty excited about it.’
Astrid laughed. ‘I know. I think she secretly wishes she could cut me out and decide on everything herself.’
‘It’s nice that she wants to help.’
‘It is. I’ve been away so much, it’s taken me a while to get used to her being an actual grown-up. It’s the longest I’ve been back in years.’
‘I used to work with my brother every day, and I’m still not sure I know him.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway. I’ll text you about tomorrow. Can I pick you up from here?’
‘That’d be great, thank you.’
He leant in and kissed her cheek. ‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’ Astrid watched him walk away. Even that was sexy, and she ached with the need to be held by him.
She could imagine the warmth of his woollen sweater softening the firmness of his chest that she knew was hiding underneath.
She sighed. That was at least a day away, but if he didn’t kiss her on the lips tomorrow, she’d have to take matters into her own hands.
Once she got back from the shop, she let herself in and found a pile of Snug bags in the hallway. Gudrun didn’t have a key, so someone must have let her in. The door to the ground-floor apartment was open, and a woman came out just as Astrid was heading upstairs.
‘ Hae , you must be Astrid. I’m Solveig, but everyone calls me Sol. Welcome to the building. Your sister asked me to let you know she’s gone to pick up the bed linen.’
‘Thanks for letting her in.’
‘Oh, that’s okay. I love that shop.’ Sol nodded to the Snug bags. ‘I’m in there all the time, so I knew she wasn’t a burglar.’
Astrid laughed. ‘No, she definitely likes giving people stuff more than taking it.’
‘Hope the moving in goes well. Give us a knock if you need anything.’
Astrid took her groceries upstairs and then went back down for the Snug bags, by which time Gudrun was back and knocking on the door.
‘I didn’t think we bought as much as this,’ she said, putting the bags she was carrying down in the hall, before dramatically collapsing onto the bottom of the stairs.
‘Thank you. I would have helped if you’d waited. There’s more there than I realised too.’
‘I picked up a few more things that I thought you might need.’
In light of what she had just said to Sol, Astrid giggled. ‘Thank you. That’s very thoughtful. Move over so I can take this all upstairs.’
Gudrun recovered quickly, presumably so as not to miss out on Astrid rediscovering what they’d bought yesterday, grabbed the last of the bags and headed upstairs.
Once they’d put the groceries away, cleaned the bathroom — not because it didn’t already look clean, but because Gudrun insisted you couldn’t know it was clean unless you did it yourself — made the bed and unpacked the two cases, they opened a bottle of wine and took their glasses out on the balcony.
‘Here,’ Astrid said, handing Gudrun a cushion and taking one out for herself, as well as a woollen blanket she’d chosen at Snug.
‘This is so nice,’ Gudrun said. ‘Olafur and I have chairs on our porch, but we never think to sit outside.’
‘I didn’t have any outside space in Troms?, but it wasn’t far from the harbour, so I used to sit down there sometimes.’
‘I can’t believe I never came to visit you.’
‘Well, you’d only just moved back here from Norway when I started working there.
You had your hands full starting a new job and getting things back on track with Olafur.
’ Astrid felt guilty that she’d never suggested it, but she and Gudrun had never been close back then.
‘And things weren’t the same between us then. ’
‘I suppose so. You know what, As? Even if you move away again, I don’t want things to be distant between us. I’ve loved being around each other all the time again.’
‘Me too.’ Astrid shifted along until she was closer to Gudrun and pulled the blanket around both of them. ‘Anyway, we have the whole summer.’
‘I have a feeling you’ll be splitting your time between me and someone else.’
‘Don’t worry about that. Any guy I’m with…’
‘Any guy?’ Gudrun teased .
‘Needs to be lovely and easy-going like Olafur. Willing to hang out with me and my sister, like he is.’
‘Based on this morning, I reckon Leifur might be like that. He’s quiet, but we can bring him out of his shell.’
‘Give him a chance,’ Astrid said, laughing.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t scare him off. People love me. Oh, I met your neighbour, Solveig.’
‘Yes, she said. Maybe I should have a housewarming party. I could invite her, and I think she has a partner.’
‘She does. And you could invite Leifur and the rest of the gang.’
A housewarming party was a great excuse to invite Leifur. And although at the back of her mind she worried about commandeering Gudrun’s friends as her own, she enjoyed spending time with them.
‘You think they’d come?’
‘You’re going to be working with half of them. Of course they’ll come. Besides, it’ll help you out in case the neighbours are boring. And I want to see how Leifur behaves in a social situation.’
‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’
‘It is,’ Gudrun said. ‘I need to make sure he’s good enough for you. Today he showed his chivalrous side, and he won some extra points for carrying a suitcase in the sexiest way possible. But will he have your back in a social situation? That’s the next test.’
And although Astrid laughed at Gudrun for being too serious about testing Leifur, she couldn’t deny she was interested to see how it was going to go.