Summer Boy

Lynn dragged herself into her apartment feeling completely spent. She shut her door and leaned back, thumping her head against it. She felt so antsy, like her skin was crawling. Today, she did notice that her air-conditioning wasn't working, the heat hanging in the air. It was days like this she wished she didn't live on the ground floor of the building. If her windows and back door hadn't backed onto the ground level of the complex's garden, she could leave them both open while she was out.

Feeling exhausted and frustrated, she didn't make it to the back door, however, and simply fell into her sofa, surrendering to the heat. She curled up like a cat, hugging a cushion in her arms and stared blankly ahead.

She sighed and stroked her forehead. She surprised herself, realizing she had calmed down rather quickly, all things considered. Sure, she didn't feel like taking a single step out of her place, but she also hadn't let one tear drop. In fact, thinking about it, she never cried once during this whole ordeal starting with the night Dominic had just left her hanging. Her eyes had gone red, they swelled with tears, but the dams never burst. That was something to be proud of, she thought.

"Yay, for vodka coolers," she chimed. She hugged the cushion a little tighter as she caught herself chucking softly.

"This must be the feeling stupid and silly stage," she mocked. So Dominic and his girlfriend dropped by the community centre. So what? She managed to keep it together in front of them no matter how much Zoe taunted her. It was a slap in the face, to be sure, but she took the hit, rolled with it and came out undamaged.

Maturity, That's what set herself apart from both of them.

Now she felt bad for going home like that. Besides, what was she going to do in the place with her damn A/C conked out?

Her eyes suddenly widened. "Spa day," she said to no one in particular, "Massage. Facial. Avocado Smoothies!"

Giving in to that impulsive decision, she flipped aside the cushion. Just as she sat up, she heard a rapid knock on her door.

Frowning, she stood up, went to the door, and peered through the peephole. The distorted image of Adam stood on the other side.

Oh, right. Then there was that thing with Adam.

Lynn pulled away from the peephole and looked aside. She wasn't sure if she could deal with him, right now.

Once again, a quick series of knocks echoed through her door.

"Lynn?" he called to her, "Open up, please. I know you're in there. I followed your car." He sounded out of breath.

Lynn rolled her eyes up and thought for a moment. Finally she said, "Go back to work, Adam."

"Are you okay?"

She closed her eyes and nodded, "Yes, I'm fine. I just don't feel like going into work today."

"Me neither," he replied then coughed.

Lynn frowned, then asked, "Are you alright?"

"Just winded," he said, "Hot as hell out there today."

"Did you bike here?" she asked.

"Yeah."

God, he was going to collapse from heat exhaustion at her door.

Sighing, Lynn reluctantly opened her door. Adam stood on the other side hunched over slightly, his cheeks pink, his hair and neck damp, breathing hard. He managed a grin.

"Why would you do something like that?"

Adam managed to stand upright. He took a deep breath then tried to speak assuredly, "I wanted to know if you were okay."

"I'm fine," Lynn said softly, leaning against her door, "Thanks."

"Good. Good," he said nodding.

Lynn craned her neck and peered down the hallway. She looked back at him. "How did you get past the security doors?"

"La petite grand-mere with the blue hair let me in," he declared with a grin, "Said my smile reminded her of her late-husband."

"Don't think yourself all charming. Her cat reminds her of her late husband," Lynn noted.

Adam chuckled and then stooped over again and coughed.

Lynn instinctively slipped under his arm and helped him steady himself. "God, Adam. You're drenched."

He simply nodded.

His arm still slung over her shoulders, she guided him into her apartment. As she led him over to the sofa, she paused and looked at his hand. "Adam. What's this?"

She examined the reddish-purple welts on two of his knuckles.

"Ah, yeah," he lifted his brows as checked his knuckles, as well, "I hit something."

Lowering him onto the sofa, she continued to hold his hand and check the bruising. "You hit something?"

"To be specific, I hit someone."

Lynn pursed her lips. "Someone?"

Adam nodded, watching her hold his hand. He winked one eye shut and said, "To be absolutely precise, I hit Dominic."

"You hit...?" Lynn dropped his hand, She sighed heavily, "Oh, Adam. Why did you do that?"

"I don't know if you have ever noticed," he said, grinning holding up his hands as if he were clutching a ball, "But the man has this big size melon for a head. It's just asking to be hit."

Folding her arms and dropping her head, she closed her eyes and said, "That's just so mature of you. That was completely unnecessary."

"Yeah. And you know what?" he continued.

"What, Adam?"

"I dropped him with one punch."

Lynn blinked. "Seriously?"

With a proud, open-mouthed smile on his face, he shrugged his brows and nodded slowly as he declared, "On...his...ass."

An unexpected grin teased itself onto Lynn's lips. She quite liked the way a Frenchman said the word "ass". Her narrowed eyes looked toward the wall a little left of Adam's head as she envisioned the moment when his fist crunched into Dominic's squared jaw. She quickly shook it off, not knowing what had come over her.

"Anyway," she said, hands planted on hips, She paused unsure of what to say that could come across as remotely convincing. "Just...don't do that again," she finally said rather half-heartedly.

"Quoi?" Adam asked, leaning forward in his seat, "I didn't quite hear you."

Lynn frowned, then rolled her eyes and waved her hands dismissively towards him. "I said don't be stupid," she sniped loudly as she turned to walk towards the kitchen, "Just don't go do anything stupid like that again!"

Once she was alone in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge, she muttered quietly, "At least not unless I'm there to see it."

Adam sat back in his seat and relaxed. He slowly regained his breath. "Geez! It's hot in here, Lynn!" he noted.

"No A/C."

He looked around the apartment then towards the back sliding-door. "You live on the main floor?" he asked, "Aren't you worried about security?"

"I can take care of myself," she shrugged as she walked back to the living room.

"I can believe that."

She came back holding an ice pack and a sports drink. She held out the bottle.

"Merci." Taking it from her, he checked out the cold blue liquid swishing in the bottle.

"Better than water for you, right now," she said.

"You would know...runner-girl," he replied, nodding. He quickly popped it open and chugged it down.

She handed him the ice pack and he gingerly placed it on his knuckles, wincing only slightly. Lynn disappeared into her bedroom and came back again holding a towel. She tossed it to him.

"Please don't get sweat all over my sofa," she said half-jokingly.

Adam rubbed his head and neck with the towel and then paused. "Should I take off my shirt?"

Lynn closed her eyes and sighed, "Just...keep it on for now, okay?"

Nodding, Adam simply lifted his shirt and wiped his skin with the towel underneath. When he was done, he handed her back the towel. He ran his hands through his short, damp hair, scrunching it a couple of times until it returned back to it's normal, casually messy style. He smiled warmly up at Lynn.

Lynn caught herself gazing long and thoughtfully into his attentive, deep blue eyes. Firming her lips, she pulled over an ottoman and sat down in front of Adam.

She drew a deep breath, held it then began, "Adam, what happened last night between us can't ever happen again, okay? Putting aside that the centre would fire us if it found out that we were...intimate...on the property, and that a supervisor was with a subordinate, it was just wrong."

Adam leaned forward on the sofa, the smile fading into a stoic gaze as he listened.

"I mean we were both wrong," she continued, "I realize I could have told you to stop, but I didn't. I don't know why, but I just couldn't..."

Her words trailed off as she struggled to stay focused. She had never seen Adam so passively attentive. She didn't want to waste the opportunity.

"I'm not angry with you...though, I think I should be," she went on, the memories of the previous night evidently flooding back to the forefront of her mind, "I think I'm more disappointed in myself."

It had been lustful and illicit in the showers. Lynn hadn't felt fearful or intimidated by Adam. As the moments had passed, as Adam moved from one explicit action to another, she had felt nervous anticipation which she should have rejected each time. Instead, it went further and further...

"But it's not going to go anywhere," Lynn said, "I just want things to go back to normal with you and me. The way we just hung out before was nice. You should be with someone like yourself and I need to be with..."

"Someone like Dominic?" Adam interjected, his brow arching sharply. It was a stiff blow and before the stunned Lynn could reply, he added, "Look, you can't know who I'm supposed to be with and you can't simply say you want a 'mature' guy, meaning someone as old as you or older. That didn't quite work out, yeah?"

There was some bite in his tongue than Lynn hadn't been expecting. It sounded to her like she had hurt him and now he was pushing back.

"And for some reason, I seem to have a reputation as a guy who hopes into bed from one girl to the next," he griped, "Have you actually seen me do this? Do I have a truckload of women lining up outside my door?"

Adam was taking swings at a variety of topics that obviously had been eating away at the seemingly happy-go-lucky guy. Lynn was taken aback. She had definitely been caught up in the rumours about Adam, allowed them to colour her impressions of him.

"You know," Adam went on, his voice softening. "When I was with you last night, I wasn't thinking about who I would 'score' with next. I wasn't thinking of you as a notch on my belt."

Lynn thought about the focused desire she had felt emanating from Adam the previous night. It was stunning and overwhelming how determined he was.

"Tell me, Lynn," Adam said, "Did it feel good last night? Did you feel good?"

Lynn's voice squeaked through her open mouth as she tried to figure out what to say. She shook her head slowly. "I'm not going to answer that."

"Ah. That tells me enough, then."

"I didn't mean...look, Adam. That's not the point. What happened last night was wrong because it's not what I'm looking for right now. I'm not just out for fun or a quick fuck." She hoped her harsh words would sink into the relentless young man.

Adam gazed hard at her. "I'm not just out for fun or a quick fuck, either."

"Did you seriously thinking you would come over here and we would just screw right now?"

Adam said nothing.

Lynn sat upright on her seat. She shook her head. "Where do you think this could possibly go for us?"

"You keep saying that," he said, his voice steady and firm, "But when any of us get into a relationship, who can say what will happen. It could be the most perfect thing until it suddenly goes down the toilet."

Lynn tilted her head. Did he get these ideas out of those magazines he read?

"I think we can live and enjoy the here and now and still be serious about each other, you know?" he offered, "Who knows what will happen and if these moments will pass when this summer ends?"

"I...," Lynn stammered, staring back at him, denying the ebbing thought that teased the darkest areas of her mind, "I don't think I can believe that."

"Lynn..."

"Adam," she broke in, "Last night you told me I just had to tell you to stop and you would have stopped. I'm telling you now...stop."

Adam sat back. His eyes narrowed slightly. Finally, after a long and silent pause, he put his hands on his knees and nodded. "Alright, Lynn," he said rising to his feet, "Alright."

He made his way to the door. Lynn remained on the ottoman, gazing at the empty sofa.

"Thanks for coming to check on me. I appreciate that," she said softly.

Adam paused by the kitchen counter, patting his shorts' side-pocket. "Sure. Just wanted to know if you were okay," he replied without looking back, then made his way to the door.

"Thanks," Lynn said hesitantly, but he had already closed the door behind him.

**********

Adam made his way down the hall and out of the building slowly. He felt unusually calm despite how energized he had felt before he arrived at Lynn's apartment. Lots of thoughts were running through his head yet he found he was able to think of them pretty clearly.

He walked over to his bike which he had dumped off to the side of the entrance and picked it up off the ground.

He smirked as he walked his bike slowly up the pathway. It was true, when he first broke out after Lynn's car as she drove away from the centre, there was a moment when some more overtly carnal thoughts had slipped into his head. With the adrenalin kicking in and the rush of testosterone from laying out Dominic swirling through his blood, he allowed himself to imagine breaking down Lynn's door, declaring his masculine feat, and then taking her to her bed for a few hours.

As her car pulled further away from him, though, he realized how stupid that seemed. As he struggled against the waves of heat the noon sun doused him with and as he pumped his legs until he felt they were going to explode, he thought about how Lynn must have been feeling. That thought was what drove him to hit Dominic in the first place.

He had needed to know if she was okay. That was the first and foremost thought in his head.

Adam wheeled his bike up to the street and stopped. Staring down at the sidewalk he thought more about it. She was okay. That was a relief. They had discussed what had happened the previous night and, despite some differences of feelings about it, she was relatively okay with it, too. That was also a relief.

He reached further back to that moment in the showers. Her reluctance had given way to some deeper passions. She had matched his probing kisses with her soft, hungry lips. She had held him close, pulled him in so tight that he had felt her pounding heartbeat against his chest. Her cries and groans had come freely with each of her breaths, never telling him to stop, always urging him on as he pleasured her.

They had come so close and he could tell it had taken all she had to strain out a plea to stop.

It didn't seem like a rash, impulsive, meaningless encounter. It had all felt like a culmination of months of flirting, familiarization, and subtly building urges on both their parts.

Her sweet smell, her beckoning voice, the image and feel of her enticing body filled Adam's head as he stood there on the sidewalk.

He realized he was breathing hard again and looked up and around him.

His thoughts driving him now, he turned his bike around and headed back to the apartment.

*********

The red hatchback remained parked off to the side and across the street from the apartment complex since it had arrived 10 minutes earlier.

Cassie sat in the driver's seat quietly. Despite the heat, she had her tinted windows rolled down a crack. It was kind of stupid, she knew. Adam would recognize her car if he noticed it. She didn't really care.

That's even if Adam was at Lynn's place. She wasn't quite sure of that. And if he was, she wasn't sure how long he would be there...and what they possibly could be doing together.

Over time while she worked at the centre, she always felt like she was sharing Adam with Lynn. Adam and herself were never really committed to each other but she did have hopes that they could eventually be at the same level to be able to go to the next step. Until then, Adam was Adam and flirted and charmed his way around with all the women in the centre.

She could tell, though, that with Lynn it was different. He did his usual routine with her to be sure, but Cassie always sensed there was something more going on between them. Their personal conversations, the way Adam would settle down to just talk with her, the way he smiled and laughed with her was different. It made the way he treated Cassie seem kind of generic.

The fact that it was with Lynn, though, the bane of her workplace existence dug at her.

To think that Adam may have raced off because he was worried about that woman, that he wanted to comfort her...that was something else.

Before that last thought churned her mind too much though, she glimpsed and saw Adam emerge from the complex's drive way pushing his bike up to the sidewalk. Again forgetting that he could spot her car if he was looking, she ducked down then slowly peered up through the window. He had turned down the other direction of the sidewalk, his back to her. Cassie eased herself back up in the seat. She watched him take a few steps then stop.

Her red lips twisted and slanted to the side as she frowned. On the one hand, she was disappointed to see him there at Lynn's place. She was admittedly relieved, however, to realize they couldn't have actually done much in the time he was there. In fact, he appeared to be a bit despondent from where she was sitting.

"Rejected," she whispered to herself.

Cassie smirked and sighed. She figured she would wait for him to go around the street corner before starting up her car, but she noticed he had suddenly turned and headed back down the complex's driveway.

Cassie's frown immediately returned as he disappeared from her view. After sitting in the car for a few more minutes, drumming her fingers on the wheel impatiently and unconsciously gritting her teeth, she finally got out.

*********

Lynn didn't feel like going to the spa anymore. After talking with Adam, struggling with his and her own words and emotions, she felt apprehensive about leaving her apartment once more. Her world outside that door was in turmoil and she knew when to just retreat and call it a day.

Pulling herself up from the ottoman, she went to her bedroom. Tossing aside her staff shirt and bra, she slipped into an oversized baby-blue T-shirt, and traded her Capri's for a looser fitting, softer pair of white shorts.

Barefoot, she went over to the bedroom window and pulled the curtains apart. A glow of buttery sunlight spilled against her and around the room. Already she felt better and even more so as she slid the window open. It was still warm outside but she could feel her apartment breath out the stale air that had been lingering there since the morning.

She went back into the living room and did the exact same thing with the back sliding-door. She admired the trees, flowers, and shrubs dotting the expanse of the garden. It was peaceful and refreshing and she inhaled deeply.

The sudden ring of her phone tugged at her. She allowed it to go on for a few seconds, not really feeling like picking it up. It stopped. Lynn held her breath then exhaled a long sigh when it started to ring again moments later.

"Alright," she grumbled and walked to the kitchen.

Picking up the wall phone, she sighed, "Hello?"

"Hey?" Olivia replied, sounding obviously concerned, "How's it going?"

Lynn leaned on her fridge and pulled up the hair that had fallen across her forehead. "Oh you know...not bad. Could be better. Could be in the Bahamas," she joked softly.

"That sounds like a plan," Olivia said, relieved, "Better than getting smashed."

"Oh, that's a plan, too," Lynn replied with tired giggle.

"Just wanted to tell you that everything's fine here. Take all the personal time you need. We'll hold down the fort."