Jake was waiting in the basement to hear Mere and Jay leave for the movies with Jay and Kat's kids. This had become a weekly ritual for the 4 of them to spend Saturday afternoons at a movie, maybe playing in the park, having a fun meal and outing while Kat took a much needed break at home mostly to herself. Jake could go with them, but while he loved kids, and these kids in particular, he was feeling his years and like Kat, needed a break by the end of the week!
Kat had just turned 40 and was suffering from the ailments of modern middle-aged life. She was a vivacious, fun-loving, energetic girl (correction, Woman)... but the birth of her children (premature) and a full time job and buying a new house and her husband's own needs had left her suffering what was diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome among several other more specific things which the docs *could* prescribe for.
Kat had always been a boistrous over-achiever and whether it was her role as wife and mother or in her full time social-work job, she gave 100% (and more if she could). But now it had caught up with her, and try as she might, any over-doing she might indulge in knocked her down for at least a day. She had been working hard for months to try to moderate her instincts and these Saturdays home-alone were a big part of that.
She didn't mind Jake being in the house with her during those days, he was good company when she wanted it and seemed to always know when and how to fade out when she needed that. The first couple of Saturdays, she gave him the hints and he faded off to take a walk one day, and into their bedroom to read or study or work on his projects. He was very self-contained and could disappear on a heartbeat when needed, quite unlike Jay who somewhat always had to be the center of attention and who could lapse into a kind of neediness if he wasn't. She didn't begrudge him that so much because she knew his difficult upbringing and he was very willing to take her advice and direction within limits.
She wasn't unhappy with Jay but since her mom and Jake had been there living in their basement for the summer helping out, she had begun to wish Jay could be more like Jake. They were friendly with one another but really did not have that much in common. Jay was a salesman at heart and had been a bartender before that. He thrived on the schmooze, while Jake was much quieter and reserved and deeply comfortable with himself. He was a scientist who had become a technologist, an entrepreneur later in his career. He was a Jack of all trades, broadly competent as well, while Jay had to ask Kat to change a lighbulb or unjamb the dishwasher. Both Jay and Jake were good cooks, but in very different styles and preferences. Jake was a long-time vegetarian leaning more and more toward veganism while Jay loved his meats.
Jake also had a very different body type and physique. He was tall, very tall, and husky is the best term, though he had been modestly athletic through middle age. He reminded her a lot of her own uncle who was more of a biker-gone-to-seed type and imagined that he was probably a lot like her *very attractive* older cousin in his midlife and younger. In any case, she was very comforted by his size. He had the grace perhaps of a dancing bear... large and almost lumbering by some standards but you could almost imagine him balancing on top of a ball. In any case, he made her feel safe and warm and loved, even though he mostly kept his distance. Jay, on the other hand, had never been particularly athletic and his youth had slipped away this last decade and now he was a bit of a lumpy bag of afflictions. She could hardly talk since she herself had put on some extra pounds, lost some of the spring in her step, and taken on several chronic conditions that were not debilitating but were distracting.
In contrast her mom, Mere was in excellent shape and Jake was not too far behind in spite of some extra pounds (hibernation weight!) and achy joints that slowed him down a bit. Kat hoped that she and Jay could find *their* way through the current raft of maladies and be as healthy in another 20 years or so themselves.
Today Kat didn't feel like being alone, but she *did* feel like relaxing in the infra-red sauna that had come with the house. It was in the basement, adjacent to the guest room her mom and Jake were living in this summer, so even if she'd wanted to "take some rays" on her own it would have been awkward to come and go through Jake's room. So she just asked him.
"Hey, you wanna take a sauna with me?"
she didn't know if he had been partaking with her mom or not. It gave her a little unexpected squirm to imagine the two of them in the sauna, probably naked in their baby-boomer way, and then retiring shined with sweat to the oversized ensuite shower or maybe straight to their bed?
Jake looked her up and down appraisingly and all but drawled "Sure, if you will have me!"
Kat said, "Get ready and go on in, and I'll slip into my simmin' suit and come right down!" It was an inside family joke... when she was small, she always referred to her swimming suit as her "simmin' suit" so most of the family came to call them that too!
Jake tended to spend his summers *in* his swim-trunks, a t-shirt and flip-flops. He loved the coolness, the freedom of motion and the efficiency. So his "getting ready" was just flipping off his flops, pulling his T-shirt over his head and going into the sauna to turn it on and get a cup of water ready to make steam later.
Kat slipped into the dimly lit sauna and Jake gently let his eyes roam over her body. Despite the few extra pounds she picked up having two babies and never dropped fully, she was still very easy on the eyes. Whatever "Rubenesque" curves she had developed he had to say he approved of. He liked his women properly "mature", not these skinny little girls a lot of men drooled over. He also liked women who had visible signs of having borne children. Kat had nicely broad hips and her breasts were still a size or two larger than they had been before pregnancy and breastfeeding!