“Babsie, sorry to interrupt,” Jack’s voice said over the intercom. “But you have a visitor here. He was rather insistent. Says he’s a friend of your from Australia.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Hey Babsie! It’s me!” a familiar voice said.
“Nick!” Babsie exclaimed.
A few moments later, Babsie was at the front door, giving her old friend a hug.
“Hey, long time no see,” she said cheerfully.
“Yep, sure has,” Nick agreed.
“And what’s happened to you? You’re so pale. And you’ve lost weight.”
“So I’ve been told. Hope you don’t mind me popping in like this.”
“Nah. C’mon, I’ll take you to a room.”
“Great.”
“How long you planning on staying?”
“Umm, until I wear out my welcome?”
Babsie laughed as they headed upstairs.
“This house is so awesome. I can’t believe I’ve only been here twice.”
“You should visit more often.”
“Wow, I love the painting!” Nick said, admiring the walls.
“Tobias did that. He’s pretty darn good huh?”
“He’s fantastic.”
“He’ll be ecstatic to hear you say that.”
“Ecstatic,” Nick mused. “You people never do anything halfway huh?”
Babsie grinned.
“Now where would be the fun in that?”
“You guys getting ready for Christmas?”
“Heck yeah. Less than a week away. So, what have you been doing with yourself lately anyway? Weren’t you and Jarod working on a movie?”
“Umm, yeah… we… had an argument.”
“So, why are you here then and not beating each other up until the argument’s over? Like you usually do.”
“It’s… a bit more complicated this time.”
“Oh?”
“Let’s just say… the issue at stake is something one of us has to live with, and the other can’t deal with.”
Babsie gave him a weird look.
“What? Is one of you gay and the other homophobic or something?”
“Or something,” Nick grinned.
“Smart alec.”
“I learnt from the best.”
“Flatterer.”
“I wasn’t referring to you.”
“What? There’s someone out there who’s a bigger smart alec than me? Never!”
And that’s how it continued for the next twenty minutes.