Slow Summer Heat Read online

  I made for the store I never visited—the one with all the mannequins in the display window wearing various outdoorsy outfits and activewear—and looked around with trepidation. There were ski jackets prominently displayed, and I laughed inwardly. It was sweltering outside, and this store was trying to sell ski jackets? I supposed some lucky people would be heading for the northern hemisphere for the Christmas and New Year break and would need to buy that sort of gear, but buying a jacket like that told the store clerk you were about to head overseas. There was only one small section of Australia that ever experienced snow, and it was a long, long way from Perth.

  I walked to the back of the store and found what I was looking for. A camping tent. I was a relatively intelligent man in his forties. I was sure I could work out how to put up a tent in my backyard if the inside temperatures got too much for me. I found one that could be stripped down until it was a domed mosquito net, because you didn’t ever want to sleep outside without one. Not only would the insects make a meal out of you, but you could find something like a reptile curled up beside you in the morning.

  And everyone knows 90 percent of the most venomous snakes in the world reside in Australia.

  I lingered in the shopping center, bought a dreadfully sugared slushie that made my tongue blue—which I knew because I poked my tongue out at my reflection in the shop window to check and scared the bejesus out of some old lady on the other side of the glass—then finally went back home to my furnace house.

  Dinner was salad because I didn’t want to cook anything. I opened every single window in the house to try to capture the cooling evening air, turned on my two fans, and watched the end of my movie. The serial killer was the awkward maths teacher. What a surprise.

  At eight o’clock I took a cold shower and went to bed with the fans blowing directly on me. Thirty minutes later I tried earplugs to mute the noise. Thirty minutes after that I tried ignoring the heat and turned them off. At ten I caved…. I turned on the lights, pulled out my brand-new tent, and found the instructions.

  Chapter Three

  I DISCOVERED, to my delight, dome tents weren’t all that hard to put up. I decided I didn’t need to peg it to the ground, because there wasn’t a breath of fresh air outside, let alone a wind that would take my little tent and my large hairy body with it. My tent was plastic stuff on the bottom and netting over the top. I left the other canvases off so I was lying under the stars. I pushed my unused yoga mat inside, laid a doona from my bed folded in half over the top, chucked in my pillow… and I was set. And I only got four mosquito bites for my effort.

  I lay there in the dark trying to ignore their itch. As I was clad in only sleep shorts and a T-shirt, they’d managed to get me good.

  Outside was pleasant, but there were a lot of unfamiliar noises that obviously didn’t penetrate the house but were easy to perceive outside. I could hear air-cons from nearby houses and restrained myself from thinking evil thoughts about them. There was a dog barking, some loud party in the distance, a neighbor’s loud TV playing Christmas carols, and the irritating chirp of mole crickets.

  I managed to fall asleep, much to my own surprise, and slept for a good few hours until the unfamiliar hardness of the surface I was lying on woke me. And once I was half-awake, my body decided it was time for waste water evacuation services to be employed.

  Okay, so I needed to pee.

  I crawled out of my tent and contemplated the toilet in front of me. Someone once said the world is a man’s toilet. After midnight on a hot summer’s night, this was certainly true. There was a bit of light coming from the moon and the streetlights in the suburb, so I could see the main obstacles to my mission. I picked a bush at random and went for it.

  My mission was winding down when I heard a familiar sound. A splash. In my half-waking state, for a moment I thought I’d peed on myself. It had happened before. Then I realized the splashing sound was louder than if I’d hit my bare foot and was coming from over the fence.

  Vaughn’s fence.

  Next to Vaughn’s pool.

  Vaughn was having a swim after midnight. Lucky bugger. My exposed dick looked toward the sound. I pushed him down and told him it was rude to spy on people. I also told him off when he urged me to go have a look. I told him it was a bad idea as we both made our way down to the back of the yard—me tiptoeing, my dick just hanging around for the ride—until I was next to the purple flowers.

  I listened carefully and could hear the faint sound of movement through the water. I hesitated. My dick urged me on and even tried to climb the lattice himself. I gave in.

  There were lights on in the pool, the glow bouncing off the moving water in odd directions. The rest of the yard was in darkness. There was a red towel draped over the pool fence. I didn’t spot Vaughn immediately, as he was in the corner, but as I watched, he pushed off from the side and swam a lazy lap of breaststroke, moving toward me. I could see his tanned, muscled arms cutting through the water and wondered what it would be like to have those arms around me.

  He touched the end of the pool, then pushed off with his feet, thrusting through the water with the power of his legs.

  And that’s when I caught a glimpse of bare buttocks.

  Butt Cheek.

  Nude Arse.

  Holy Fuck.

  Those words needed to be capitalized to show my shock and appreciation. Santa Claus had come early for me, and Vaughn Maalouf was swimming naked in his backyard.

  That bare arse winked at me through the lights glittering off the water as Vaughn made his way back up the pool.

  Someone once told me your eyesight starts deteriorating at forty-five. I cursed my luck that perhaps my time had come a couple of years early because, try as I might, I couldn’t discern anything else through the water. Vaughn was swimming away from me, opening his legs wide as he did a perfect frog kick through the water, and I couldn’t see details.

  My dick was weeping with the unfairness of life. Or maybe that was something else.

  Vaughn reached the end of the pool and thrust back in the opposite direction. He was now swimming toward me again, and I couldn’t see his body. I looked at his face and wondered why some people got the good genes. He had this neat little trimmed beard I was really attracted to, and great cheekbones. I was unsure if it was his heritage or if it was tanned, but his skin made his white teeth gleam even brighter, which always drew my attention to his mouth.

  His gay mouth.

  I tried to ignore my dick’s reminders of what gay mouths did.

  Vaughn reached the end of the pool, and this time he arched up and dove backward into the water, giving me about a 0.4-second look at his body to confirm that, yes, my seriously cute neighbor was swimming naked in his backyard.

  And he shaved.

  I was processing this information as Vaughn swam to the opposite side of the pool. That end had the steps, and as I eagerly watched, Vaughn placed his feet on the bottom of the pool and stood up. The shallower end was up to his waist, and with greedy eyes, I took in his back. He had to work out that gorgeous body. With a bit of a wince, I remembered back to my twenties when I also took care of my body. Those days were gone, and my body was now slightly chunky and a heck of a lot more fuzzy.

  Ben had certainly been turned off.

  To my knowledge, Ben never mentioned Vaughn to me. I didn’t know if that meant Ben didn’t like him or whether he’d never seen him. But the days of Ben were way behind me. I was now Geoffrey Saxon, definitively and unfortunately single, so I could drool at my hot young neighbor. Not that my hot young neighbor ever saw me—thank goodness—or considered me in that light.

  Now Geoffrey Saxon was stepping on a piece of lattice to look over the fence at this hot young neighbor and was about to see him exit the pool. Naked. My dick and I couldn’t wait.

  He put one foot on the bottom step, and the crack of his butt appeared. Then he put his other foot on the next step, and disaster struck.

  The lattice holding the pur
ple flower plant was obviously not built for over-forty-year-old men spying on their neighbors. There was an ominous snap; then my view disappeared. Pain exploded in my body as I hit the ground, came down heavily, and smashed my head on the paved pathway.

  “Fuck.”

  More pain hit my nerveways as my body insisted I had amputated my foot, shattered my coccyx, and lost several vertebrae in my spine. I lay there winded and hurting. Then the universe turned on me. I heard a scraping sound from the other side of the fence, sort of like someone dragging a chair across the paving, and then a familiar voice.

  “Uh? Geoffrey? Is that you?”

  I closed my eyes and put my hands over my face.

  “Oh my God. Geoffrey! Are you okay? Geoffrey? Please answer. I’m going to have to climb this fence otherwise.”

  He was naked last time I saw him. Did he really think that was a big enough threat?

  “Geoff?”

  Okay, that one got me. I lowered my hands and searched through the darkness until I saw his head peering over the fence.

  “It’s Geoffrey. Never Geoff.”

  His white teeth were blinding in the darkness, even from this distance. He was grinning at me. “I knew that. I just thought I’d try it to get a reaction.”

  Bastard.

  “Anyway, are you okay?”

  He sounded concerned. I tried to sit up and groaned loudly. My head was thumping. I gingerly touched the back of my skull and could feel a lump forming already. I tried to catalogue the rest of my pains. I could feel the heat and bruising from where I fell, but it was most intense on my right foot.

  “Geoffrey?”

  Oh damn. I’d forgotten Vaughn. It took a heck of a lot of pain to do that. “I’m all right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I rolled my shoulders and touched the back of my head again. I couldn’t feel blood or anything that would indicate more than a goose egg. Was it six or seven geese that laid eggs in the “Twelve Days of Christmas”? I had a feeling I was going to add to the total. “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  Despite the knock to my head, I knew better than to answer that one truthfully. “I tripped on something in the dark.”

  “What were you doing in the dark?”

  “I thought I heard a partridge in my pear tree.”

  I heard him grunt with laughter. “I’ve been looking for those eleven pipers piping for years. Because I’m sure that when eleven pipers get together, piping is not all they do. Sort of like band camp for gays, I reckon.”

  Okay. He was funny. I was just in too much pain to appreciate it.

  “Fine,” I admitted, “I was taking a piss in the garden.”

  I saw him look at my tent as if he were considering its purpose. “Are you sleeping outside?”

  “Yeah. Damn air-con broke earlier today. It’s too hot in the house. I think I’m going to die.” I took a deep breath, forced my legs to gather under me, and heaved to a standing position. I wobbled and staggered to find my balance.

  “Literally? Because I’m more than willing to perform CPR and mouth-to-mouth. I can doctor-and-nurse you up good if you let me. Sponge baths are good. As long as there’s no bleeding. Because I don’t do blood. So if there’s any red stuff involved, then I’m better to stay on this side of the fence.”

  His words only sort of made sense. There was a buzz in my ears as my blood drained from my head and apparently wasn’t replaced. I put my hand on my heart to make sure it was still beating.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Way to smash a guy’s dreams,” Vaughn muttered.

  “Huh?” I said, very confused. “You want me to be injured?” I took a step forward and yelped. “Ow. Shit. I think I’ve broken my foot.”

  Merry fucking Christmas, Geoffrey.

  “You’re not okay, are you?” Vaughn said. “You’ve probably got a concussion, a broken foot, and you have no air-con. That does it. In the spirit of Christmas, you’re going to have to come over my house and share my air-con.”

  “What? Oh no. Seriously, Vaughn. Thanks for the offer, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.” I limped another two steps to show him.

  “You would rather sleep in that tent on the hard ground than my spare bed, where the temperature is a nice twenty-four degrees?”

  Twenty-four mild and lovely degrees? He was killing me. The temperature had hit thirty-nine earlier, was probably still hovering around thirty, and it was midnight.

  “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “Geoffrey, you’re bothering me now by thinking of sleeping out here. I’ll stress all night that you have a concussion. I have my air-con on. It’s not working any harder by you sharing the house with me. In fact, we’re saving resources by you sharing with me. We should do it more often.”

  It did sound nice.

  “Come on. Sleep in my spare bed. Wake up nice and cool. You’re welcome to stay all day tomorrow too, as I’m not doing anything. But if you want, you just go back home. Easy, right?”

  He obviously felt me wavering.

  “Come on, Geoffrey. Grab that chair over there, jump over the fence, and you can be nice and cool within a minute. Don’t think too hard about it. It’s Christmas. Accept the gift of generosity.”

  I sighed. I’d love to sleep in a bed where it was cool. I dragged the chair over to the fence and stood on it. This was going to be awkward. I boosted myself up and slung one leg over the top of the fence. Vaughn quickly scrambled off his chair to position it for me to drop onto. I waited, balanced halfway over. Then something occurred to me.

  “Tell me why we didn’t just use our front doors?”

  Vaughn chuckled. “You can’t give up now. It’s like an adventure. Come on. This is fun.”

  Now that I was sitting on the fence, I could see Vaughn had wrapped himself in his red towel. My dick said he had a better idea of what was fun. I scolded him by deliberately hitting him—but not too hard, I wasn’t a masochist—on the fence on my way down. He rewarded me with pain. Ow.

  Vaughn was grinning broadly. “Welcome! I finally got you to come over.”

  I couldn’t help but smile back at him. He was super cute, plus, amazingly, I was having fun. “Thank you for your invitation,” I said rather formally.

  “Come on,” he urged again and made for the house. “Come inside where it’s cool.” He turned, and I trailed behind, limping on my sore foot. “The spare bed is all made up and ready,” he was saying as he opened the glass door and entered.

  I followed him into the house and took a look around. It was open, airy, and primarily white walls and tiles. It felt deliciously cool.

  He turned to me with a concerned expression. “Did you want me to have a look at any of your—” His words were cut off abruptly as he stared toward my feet with a look of horror. For a moment I thought my cock had become uncovered or something equally icky. I quickly glanced down. Nothing untoward was peeking from my shorts. Then I looked lower and saw red.

  Smudged red.

  There was red on the floor, and I whirled to find a trail of bloody footprints. I’d just bled all over the guy’s white floor.

  “Shit. I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’ll clean it up.”

  I turned back to see Vaughn had gone very pale. His face had lost all expression, and he was weaving slightly.

  “Vaughn?” I remembered him saying something about not doing blood and panicked. “Vaughn? You’d better not—”

  And then, with total dismay, I watched my cute neighbor’s eyes roll upward into his head—literally—and his body collapsed.

  Chapter Four

  I MANAGED to catch the top half of Vaughn’s body before he hit the tiles. I lowered him to the floor, spread him out so his limbs weren’t twisted, and checked to make sure he was breathing and he wasn’t swallowing his tongue. I didn’t know if he’d fainted or if it was something else.

  I considered the trail of red. Should I clean it up before he woke up? He groaned and turned his head as he b
rought one hand up to rub his brow.

  He moved his legs and put one knee up, which made his towel gape and…. Hello! It was confirmed Vaughn hadn’t put any clothes on before looking over my fence. With great difficulty, I turned away and concentrated on his face.

  “Vaughn? You okay?”

  He groaned again and tried to roll to the side. He turned my way, saw the trail of red again, and quickly shut his eyes. It looked like I needed to fix that.

  “It’s okay,” I assured him as I patted his shoulder and rolled him to his back once again. “Lay there with your eyes closed, and I’ll make it go away.”

  He obeyed, so I hobbled to the nearby kitchen and grabbed the roll of paper towels I could see. A quick look under his sink produced a bottle of spray. It was window cleaner, but it would do the job. I tore off three sheets of the paper and wrapped it around my foot to stop the trail of blood spreading.

  Speaking of spreading, Vaughn was still where he was, his legs spread and showing me everything. I wondered whether I should mention it, then decided to clean first.

  “I’m so sorry,” I muttered as I quickly wiped the blood. It hadn’t dried and came off easily.

  “No, it’s me,” Vaughn said, his hand still covering his eyes. “I’m a fuckhead about it and always have been since I was a kid. It’s completely irrational. I can’t believe I just did that.”

  “My fault. Maybe I should go home.”

  “No,” Vaughn cried and tried to sit up. He wobbled a bit, then realized he was flashing me. He pulled the towel over himself. “Oh heck. Now I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. You don’t need to go home over that.” He turned to me with a worried expression. “I’m really sorry.”

  I finished wiping the floor and tossed the used paper in the bin. “No, it’s me who’s sorry.”