Slow Summer Heat Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  By Renae Kaye

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright Page

  Slow Summer Heat

  By Renae Kaye

  Geoffrey Saxon is in his forties, a bit plump, a lot fuzzy, and rather boring in bed—and thanks to a very public breakup, everyone in his street knows it. However, what they don’t know is that Geoffrey sometimes watches his hot young neighbor, Vaughn, in the pool. Vaughn has invited Geoffrey to join his pool parties, but Geoffrey knows it’s only pity.

  As if things can’t get worse, Geoffrey’s air conditioner breaks during a heat wave in Western Australia—and just before Christmas. In search of some relief, he camps out in his backyard, where he also has a prime view of Vaughn swimming… naked. When Geoffrey’s injured falling from his spying post, Vaughn comes to his rescue and Geoffrey doesn’t think he can be more horrified.

  But he could be in for a sweet holiday surprise. Is he ready to take the dive?

  Chapter One

  THE FIRST thing I noticed was the smell. I wondered why my stomach was thinking of popcorn. Then I thought maybe it was an electrical burning smell. I stopped the movie I was watching and lifted my nose. Yes. There was a definite smell in the air, as if something had just short-circuited and fried the heart of an appliance. Or perhaps it was a bushfire starting outside.

  And something every Australian is aware of, especially in Perth, is the risk of bushfires and house fires in the middle of summer. Each year there seemed to be some major fire causing loss of lives or major property damage. In 2016 it was the Yarloop fire, caused by lightning, which killed two people and burned so much bushland. That one was fresh in everyone’s minds. However, it was probably the 2011 Roleystone fire that impacted me the most. It was caused by a man using an angle grinder during a complete fire ban. The sparks from the grinder ignited nearby grass, and over seventy houses were lost.

  An angle grinder. That’s all it took.

  Such a simple thing.

  I peeled myself off the lounge and went looking for the smell. It felt like I left a layer of skin attached to the seat, reminding me I was never, ever going to buy a leather lounge suite again because wearing shorts in summer meant you regularly received the equivalent of a wax job without the benefits.

  The kitchen was my first thought of where the smell would be coming from—oven, fridge, microwave, toaster. There were so many things in there that could short out. The fridge light still worked, and I couldn’t pin down the smell, so I moved on to the next room.

  The Christmas tree was a prime suspect. Made out of plastic, kept wrapped up for eleven months of the year, probably extremely dusty, and then people put Christmas lights on them? Christmas trees in Australia were just asking to be melted away. I made my way over to the tree I halfheartedly put up the week before. There was no one who visited me and no one to see it but me, but this year I wanted to at least try to be in the festive spirit.

  I pressed the button for the lights. They winked on, momentarily blinding me, so I turned them off quickly, hoping to save my retinas. I screwed up my eyes, blinking to rid myself of the blue and yellow now floating in my vision, and turned to consider the room. What could be causing the smell? The air conditioner was on, circulating air throughout the entire house via ducts in the ceiling, so I couldn’t even pin down what room it was coming from.

  Was it even coming from inside?

  The back entrance of the house was a glass sliding door, but it was currently covered by a thick thermal curtain in an attempt to keep the heat out. I pulled back the curtain, unlocked the door, and stuck my head out. Instantly I was blasted by the heat of the outside. The forecast for the day was thirty-eight degrees Celsius. It was the old-fashioned 100 degrees in Fahrenheit and completely typical weather for three days before Christmas.

  I stepped outside quickly, shutting the door behind me to keep the cool air in and the hot air out. The heat pressed down like a weight on my skin, and I felt my body’s instant response—sweat. Taking a deep breath, I tested the air outside for any signs of burning smells. Neighbors sometimes did weird things and caused awful smells. I couldn’t scent anything.

  I moved farther away from the house, running lightly on the burning-hot pavement to where I could stand on the cooler grass, and looked skyward. I turned a complete circle, searching the horizon for any sign of a smoke plume that would indicate a nearby house fire, a bushfire, or even a barbeque fire.

  Nothing.

  About to head inside again, I caught a faint sound. A splash. I knew that sound. My breath caught in my throat, and my whole body yearned in a southerly direction. As in to the south… where my hot neighbor lived.

  Vaughn Maalouf.

  And I only knew because our postie regularly couldn’t tell the difference between number fifteen, where I live, and number thirteen, where Vaughn lives. I got a lot of Mr. Maalouf’s letters and had to walk them back to their correct letterbox. It gave me a chance to look up the name and the man.

  Maalouf was an Arabic name, according to the internet. And Vaughn was definitely gay, according to his profile on Facebook.

  It seemed odd life would place two gay people side by side in a suburb. I could never seem to find any at all when I was looking to date, and here I was now, happily not dating, and the universe set Vaughn right next to me. I wondered how many people in this world were queer, and their neighbors never knew.

  My neighbors certainly knew I was gay. But that was because of Ben. When your recently ex-boyfriend stands in the middle of the street and hurls abuse at you, airing all your dirty laundry from the relationship as he cries, screams, and smashes items you once lovingly collected together, then it becomes pretty obvious to the neighborhood you’re definitely not one of those mild heterosexual crowd.

  My neighbors, including Vaughn, knew all about me in an intimate manner, thanks to Ben. Their impression of me would now be that I had a limp dick that didn’t work very often, I was timid and shy in bed, unadventurous when it came to sex, completely pathetic in life, over-the-hill now that I was more than forty, and a total loser. They would also know Ben was planning on having a fabulous life without me that included swinging, lots of blow jobs, and more sex than he could handle.

  I think those people who know nothing about their neighbors are lucky.

  It had been fourteen long months since Ben left. Those months were somewhat lonely, but I had found myself thankful for them. I rarely missed Ben. Although I couldn’t say I was thankful for him leaving me, I discovered I wasn’t sorry he left.

  I was, however, sorry the whole street knew he left me because I didn’t wish to go to a sex party. At the time, if I’d had the money, I would’ve moved. Now I was glad I didn’t. I liked my house. I liked the suburb. I liked that Ben thought I’d curl up and die of loneliness, and I hadn’t.

  Unfortunately I was also ashamed my hot gay neighbor knew I had been dumped so spectacularly. Not that it made a difference to our relationship. Vaughn Maalouf was too young, too hot, and too sexy for Geoffrey Saxon.

  How did I know that?

  Because I’d peeked.

  Standing in the super-hot sun, I hesitated about having another peek. Each time I peeked, I felt atrociously guilty, but the heat was making my resolve waver, and in the end, I sighed and approached the back corner of my yard. The previous owners of the house had built a gazebo-type structure, and it was
covered in a vine that produced these dark purple flowers. It was very pretty, and the lattice running up the fence gave me a handy foothold so I could boost myself up exactly the thirty centimeters I needed to see over the fence.

  Because looking over the fence, hidden behind the vine with the purple flowers, I could spy on my hot gay neighbor swimming.

  Vaughn preferred a short European style of swim trunks. I had to admit I preferred them too… on him. He had several pairs—a purple Hawaiian print, plain red, sailor blue with a red trim, and plain black. It was sad how many times I had peeked and therefore memorized his swimwear.

  About eight months ago he had a get-together on a Saturday afternoon. I heard music and laughter from the house next door and didn’t really pay much attention. I was in my backyard—on the way to the bins to empty the kitchen scraps, because my life was so exciting—when I heard a loud female voice say, “I can’t find it. It was here two minutes ago. What happened to the ball?”

  At the exact same moment, I spotted something red resting in the garden bed. Closer inspection revealed it was a red blow-up beach ball. Determined to be a good neighbor, I grabbed a chair from the patio, dragged it over, picked up the ball, stood on the chair, and stuck my head over the fence.

  There were approximately ten people in Vaughn’s backyard. I saw three women—two of them in bikinis—and a bunch of men. Some were swimming. Some were wearing bathing suits. Some were gathered around a barbeque in the corner. And yet Vaughn outshone them all. Wearing his red swimming trunks and a pair of sunglasses, he drew my attention immediately.

  “Um… excuse me?” I called politely over the fence. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  Several heads swiveled my way, but it was Vaughn who approached me. His all-over tan, his expertly cut dark hair, and the dark sunglasses on his face all combined to give him a very casual, rich European look.

  His face lit up. “Oh, hey. Yep. That’s what we needed.”

  His accent was pure Australian, and his body was pure lust. Vaughn jogged toward me and stood on a cement decorative bench that was on his side of the fence.

  “Thank you,” he said as I passed the ball over. Really, I could’ve thrown it. But why throw it when I could wait and watch Vaughn approach me?

  “You’re welcome,” I said graciously. I took one last look at Vaughn’s delicious and nearly naked body, then went to step down. However, Vaughn stopped me.

  “Geoffrey, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I was surprised. “Geoffrey Saxon. Pleased to meet you.”

  He tilted his head to the side and gave me a flirty half smile. “Would you like to come over and join our party, Geoffrey Saxon?”

  I looked over his shoulder at the woman threatening to spill out of her bikini and then the briefness of Vaughn’s swimwear. Then I thought about my own swimwear—faded-green trunks that needed replacing years ago.

  “Ah, no. Thank you anyway. Truly. Thank you for the invitation, but I think I should get back to cooking my meal.”

  Vaughn’s smile stayed in place. “Will you think about it for next time?”

  He would forget about me within minutes, but it was nice to dream. “Sure. Why not.”

  I nodded politely again and stepped down off my chair.

  Vaughn had reissued the invitation about four times since then. Vaughn once called out over the fence, “Hey there, Geoffrey. How are you?” which meant I felt obligated to go over and speak with him. He’d then mentioned the party he was having that night and asked if I wanted to come. I knew it was a trick. It was rude to call the police to a party you were invited to. But truthfully the party was restrained.

  Now we waved in a friendly manner if we were passing out the front. I was that sort of person. I also spied on my hot neighbor in the pool because I was also that sort of person.

  I had beaten myself up about it so many times. What sort of person spied on their neighbor? A peeping tom, that’s who. It didn’t matter that Vaughn had invited me over to his house. It didn’t even matter that I’d caught him—twice, thank God!—in his bathing suit while he checked his letterbox. Both times I was using the hose on my front garden, trying to ward off imminent death of my plants from the burning-hot summer sun. The second time was only yesterday.

  I got a whole twenty-eight seconds worth of perv on Vaughn Maalouf just yesterday. I didn’t need to peek again, did I?

  I managed to restrain myself as a whiff of burning caught my nostrils again. What was that?

  I walked back inside, glad to be out of the searing heat. The smell was definitely stronger inside, so it was something in my house. And it was all through the house, which meant—

  A horrible thought occurred to me. I dashed to the nearest ceiling duct that should’ve been blowing cold air, but instead it was silent. No blast of cooling, refreshing, lovely refrigerated air greeted me.

  “Oh no, no, no.”

  No. This was the worst news. I ran outside again and around the side of the house. Instead of a blast of hot air and the noise of the motor from the air conditioner meeting me, there was silence.

  “No no no no.”

  I looked around the machine, having no idea what I was looking for but needing to do something. It all looked the same as last time I poked around the unit—dusty, cobwebby, and machinerish. There wasn’t anything I could see that was broken.

  I went back inside, thinking perhaps I simply needed to turn the unit off, wait ten seconds, and turn it back on. It worked with computers. But more bad news greeted me at the wall display. There were no numbers or lights on the display. I reached for the nearest light switch and flicked it on. It worked.

  Further investigation told me the light inside the fridge and the lights on the Christmas tree were now nonoperational. So the lights phase of the power worked, but the wall plug phase didn’t. It meant the power was still coming to the house, but something I had plugged in had tripped that phase in the last five minutes.

  Perhaps it was a simple fuse blown, and that’s why the air-con was off. Excitement filled me, and I dashed to the fuse board. One of the safety switches had been flicked, and with trepidation, I pushed it back to the on position.

  It stayed.

  Back inside, I checked out the fridge—the light now worked. No air was coming through the duct, though. I went to the air-con wall display and pressed the power button. Two seconds later all the numbers and lights died again.

  Fear built. Could my air-con be broken? On a Saturday? Three days before Christmas?

  Chapter Two

  A RECORDED message on the air-con repair place’s hotline told me to ring back at eight thirty Monday morning. I looked at my watch. It was two o’clock on a Saturday. The hottest part of the day was yet to come. It would probably peak around four or five.

  The situation was dire and required emergency supplies. Luckily I had chocolate. I had done my grocery shopping on Friday, buying up enough food to make it through Christmas and Boxing Day without having to shop again. I really didn’t want to brave those crowds. Parents on the hunt for their child’s dream present had short tempers.

  I pulled out the chocolate and told myself I would cope. The human race had coped before air-conditioning was invented. It could cope again.

  I lied to myself. I knew I wasn’t going to cope.

  What I needed were some fans. The house would remain at bearable levels of heat for the next hour if I didn’t open the doors. What I really wanted to do was watch the end of my movie, but the heat from the screen would warm up the house. Never believe salesmen when they say LCD TV screens don’t produce heat.

  The rabid serial killer in the movie was going to have to wait. Instead I would do something that made me want to turn into a serial killer—I pulled out the Christmas presents I hadn’t yet wrapped and got to work. And I only rolled my eyes at the commercialism of the season twice.

  A minute.

  Christmas celebrations for me meant lunch at Aunty Linda and Uncle Bob’s ho
use. Mum and Dad would be there, along with my brother, George, his wife, and their two kids, my cousins Jason and Alex, their two wives and two kids each, and Grandma and Grandad. I stuck out like a sore thumb. My grandparents had had two kids. They each had two kids too. And each of those two kids were married and had two kids… apart from me. Yeah, Geoffrey who didn’t like swingers’ parties also ruined the family numbers by not marrying and producing two kids.

  We all brought gifts for the children and supported the commercialism that made millionaires into billionaires, but the thirteen adults in attendance had a Secret Santa deal, so I only had to buy a gift for Aunty Linda. I’d bought her a watercolor painting featuring two giant and colorful koi fish. Aunty Linda liked fish. At least I thought she did. She had a goldfish in a pond.

  I wrapped paper around the painting and made it pretty enough to pass the did-Geoffrey-put-effort-into-this test, then went to work wrapping up Lego sets, water pistols, Shopkins figurines, and Play-Doh.

  By the time I was finished, I was dripping with sweat. I was uncomfortable. I was sweaty without the workout. I was sweatier than two men in a sauna. Naked. But I wasn’t going to think of that either.

  I was struggling to think of a solution. Moving to Antarctica in the next few hours wasn’t feasible.

  So I changed my clothes, picked up my wallet and car keys, and went shopping. A Saturday afternoon at the shops three days before Christmas was more survivable than the heat. And I was going to need fans if I was going to make it through until Monday. I had no other cooling appliances in my house apart from a tiny desk fan.

  It took forever.

  Kids screamed their tiredness and wanted every single toy in sight. Mothers yelled to keep their kids in line and looked frazzled. Scared men dashed frantically from aisle to aisle looking for a gift. People wielded trolleys like army tanks. Shop assistants looked homicidal, and I prayed they were getting paid enough to deal with the bullshit. Checkout queues were long, but I stood with my purchases—two large pedestal fans—and enjoyed the cool air inside the shop. I then infuriated at least three people when I placed my purchases in the rear of my car, and then walked back inside the shopping center without reversing out and giving them the space.