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Lara straightened her blouse and smoothed back her hair before she started undoing the locks on her door. Ten hours of sleep hadn’t been enough to wipe the effects of last night’s cheap wine, but she wasn’t going to admit that to Kit. “I hadn’t expected you’d even be conscious yet,” she began before she even pulled the door open, “but your call sounded urgent, and far be it from me to….” She fell silent at the thoroughly unexpected sight of a tall and not entirely bad-looking man standing behind her friend.

Kit obviously had been expecting Lara’s surprise. “Yes. Lara, this is Alex. Alex, my best mate Lara.”

Alex nodded. “Pleasure.”

Lara gave him a good once-over, concluding that her initial impression was correct - not bad-looking at all. She settled against the doorframe with a fist on her hip and a twinkle in her eye. “I see you didn’t go straight home from here last night. The pub on Wainwright first, I’d wager?”

Kit sneered at the implication. “Absolutely not. May we come in?”

“Of course.” She backed up out of the doorway, welcoming them in with an exaggerated bow and scrape. As she secured the door, Kit flopped into her favourite armchair. Interestingly, Alex chose a stool in the far corner of the room, opposite both the front door and sliding doors that led to the balcony, rather than the other armchair or the sofa. He seemed far more interested in watching the doors than in anything the two women said or did.

“At least you’ve got good taste, especially through a pair of beer goggles.” Lara swallowed her disappointment that neither Kit nor her new friend reacted to her tease. She took her customary seat in the vacant armchair and turned to Alex. “So if you aren’t her latest conquest, then who are you?”

“Lara, behave,” Kit snapped. “Alex is my cousin.”

Lara laughed. “Madam, I’ve known you since we were three, and I know perfectly well that you have only one cousin, Isaac, on your deadbeat father’s side.”

Kit’s eyes twitched to the man sitting stock-still in the corner. “I didn’t say first cousin. A few times removed.” She frowned, shaking her head. “Or is it fourth cousin? I never get that straight.”

Lara crossed her arms. “And he suddenly appeared on your doorstep this morning?”

Kit brightened. “Actually, he did. My uncle George called, said Alex was in a bit of a bind, needed a place to stay for a bit, and he was on the train down from Manchester. Wasn’t off the phone ten minutes when he knocked.”

“So, this cousin you never knew you had, he just appears and moves in, and you’re okay with that?”

Playing with the strap of her handbag in her lap, Kit shrugged. “What am I supposed to do? Family and all. It’ll only be for a few weeks, hopefully.”

Lara looked back and forth between the two, her friend who seemed to be avoiding all eye contact and the stranger who sat placid and unfazed, almost emotionless. She sighed. “All right. We’ll just go with that. So what do you need from me?”

(This is a scene from an origfic I’m working on. The fic is about Kit, but I turned it around and wrote it from Lara’s point of view for this challenge. Alex is totally not her relative, but he’s also not her one-night stand. At this point, she can’t tell Lara who he is, but Lara will find out later on.)