The heat of the day settled damply around the house, the coming night doing nothing to allay the humidity. Inside, Jennie was sweating despite the air conditioner rattling away in her window. She wiped her forehead on the back of her bare arm and surveyed the chaos around her. Her bed was piled with suitcases and badly folded clothes. More clothes littered the floor, along with sheets and towels and the big photo album with the leopard print cover that her best friend Cammy had given her that morning. In two days, Jennie would be cramming all of this into her little Camry and driving ten hours to start her first semester at Greenwood College.
She sighed, hands on her hips. It was just too much to deal with in this heat. She needed a break. She went downstairs to the cool darkness of the kitchen.
Jennie trailed her hand over the smooth countertops as she went, glancing again at the note her mother had left her. She and Jennie's step-father Mark had accepted an invitation for cocktails out on a friend's boat and wouldn't be back until after midnight. She had left the name of the boat and the number for the marina in case there was an emergency. Jennie turned to the big refrigerator and pulled open both doors. She wasn't sure what she wanted. She only knew that it had to be cold. She grabbed a bottle of water and an ice cube from the bucket. With the fridge still open, she stood in its light and ran the ice over her sweaty skin. She shivered happily.
"Am I interrupting something?" Jennie jumped, but it was only Kyle, Mark's 25-year-old son.
"I didn't hear you come in," she stammered as her heart rate returned to normal.
"Sorry, I really didn't mean to startle you," he said. "The door was open. I just came to pick up some stuff from my dad's office."
"No problem," Jennie chirped, flinching at the forced casualness of her voice. "It's upstairs, you remember." Kyle nodded, half a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. He disappeared around the corner and up the stairs. Jennie cursed herself for sounding so ridiculous. She always felt like such a child when Kyle was around. She took her water and headed back upstairs to her room. She could hear Kyle rummaging around down the hall as she slowly began the arduous task of packing again.
"Hey, Jennie," Kyle said, poking his head around the door. "You mind if I take a swim while I'm here?"
"What's wrong with the pool at your building?" she asked, throwing a crumpled dress shirt into a suitcase.
"Lots of small children is what's wrong with it," he laughed. "Come on, you won't even know I'm out there." He put on an exaggerated pout.
"Fine, have at it," she said.
"Thanks, Jen," he grinned, "you're a lifesaver." He disappeared into the darkness of the hall before popping back into her doorway. "Hey, why don't you take a break and join me? You look like you could use some cooling off."
Jennie frowned and looked from the piles of stuff littering her floor to Kyle's big puppy dog eyes. "All right," she sighed, "but just for a little while."
"Awesome," Kyle said, disappearing again. Jennie pushed her door shut and began to dig through her things in search of her suit. She was just tying the back when Kyle knocked on her door. "You ready yet?" he called through the wood.
"Ready," she said as yanked the door opened. Kyle stood there in a pair of trunks he had left there earlier in the summer, a towel slung lazily over his shoulder.
"Hey," he said softly, his eyes moving up Jennie's body, lingering appreciatively on her rounded hips and breasts. "Wow. You look great."
Jennie blushed. "Thanks," she murmured. She moved to step out into the hall, but Kyle was still in the doorway. "Uh, aren't we going swimming?"
"Oh, yeah," he stammered, "Of course." He stepped back to let her walk ahead of him, and Jennie could feel his dark eyes watching her ass as she walked. She felt sexy and powerful knowing that he was watching her, and she went out of her way to let her hips sway back and forth.
Jennie stepped out of the coolness of the air-conditioned house into the damp warmth of the evening. The air seemed to cling to her skin as she reached back, holding the door for Kyle. He stepped up close behind her and Jennie felt a chill run through her body that had nothing to do with air temperature. The night was quiet, broken only by the lazy chirpings of the crickets in the grass. Everyone else was inside, reveling in the store-bought coolness of their air conditioners.
"Watch your feet," Jennie said, "there's a lot of pebbles left from when the landscapers were here last week." Kyle only nodded, his face set and his eyes firmly fixed on her face. Jennie was confused. She had been sure that he was watching her, and now he seemed determined not to watch her. She set out across the grass, unsure of what was going on. Jennie really didn't have much experience with guys. She just hadn't had the time, yet. She was committed to her studies and her volunteer work with her church group. Boys just hadn't seemed all that important. Cammy liked to tease her about going off to college as an 18-year-old virgin, but Cammy also had the worst reputation in school. Still, Jennie wished she had her friend with her now to explain the mysteries of male behavior.
Jennie opened the gate to the pool and threw her towel on a chair. Without looking to see if Kyle was watching, she went to the diving board and dove in. Under the surface it was wonderfully cool and Jennie relished the feel of her body's weightlessness. She broke to the surface with a gasp to see Kyle sitting on the edge with his feet in the water, watching her.
"I thought you wanted to swim," she said, wiping the water out of her eyes.