Love Is Like A Heat Wave

Whenever I'm with him, something inside starts to burning...

Martha and the Vandellas sang over the oldies station on their crappy old radio, the volume turned up to try and drown out the rickety sound of the oscillating fan that was the only break from the stifling air in their stuffy little bathroom. It did little to provide much relief from the burning hell outside. It had turned most of the inside of Rob and Sandy's modest little home into a sauna.  Their AC window unit in the bedroom had gone on the fritz, clearly overworked after the last week of weather reaching well past the triple digits. The two immediately and unilaterally decided to move the only working unit from the living room into the bedroom just so the couple might chance to get a semi-good night's sleep during the worse heat wave Arizona had seen yet this summer.

"You feelin' any better, darlin'?"

Lacking the funds for a pool, the couple had discovered an alternate way of keeping themselves cool beyond laying in the direct path of their one working AC. Both lounged in their tub, filled with cold water with Sandy's back against his chest, her arms lifted up to clasp her fingers round the back of his neck and one of his arms wrapped loosely around her waist. The other arm remained free for use should he need to reach his cigarettes, which at the moment lay atop the closed lid of their toilet.

Sandy smiled and half turned to rest her head against Rob's chest, listening to his voice amplified with her ear pressed against his heart.  "I'm doing better than I was. I don't know, maybe it was the heat got to me more than I thought it would.  I just felt so weak all of a sudden and if you hadn't come out when you did, I might have fainted right there in the yard..."

"You can't go playin' 'round in the garden so much with the sun blazin' down on you like it's been all damn week.  And you don't drink enough on a good day let alone durin' a heat wave."

"Like you do!" Sandy pulled back enough for him to see her indignant look and the "O" of her lips. She smacked him lightly against his bare chest causing him to laugh and hold his hands up in surrender. "And don't you try to tell me beer counts because you know it doesn't, mister!" A humph and a short nod of her head showed she was satisfied she got her point across. Resettling herself, she nuzzled her face against his chest, turned almost on her stomach just to wrap her arms around his waist beneath the water that was quickly going from blessedly cold to room temperature.

"Alright, you got me." Rob smirked, leaned out of the tub enough he could snatch his cigarettes from where they sat. Dragging the ashtray toward them before he lit up.  A quick drag and he made it a point to exhale the smoke off to the side, worried that the nausea Sandy had been feeling earlier might return if she smelled too much of the smoke. "Tell me if this bothers you, darlin', I'll put it out."

"You're fine." Sandy sighed, closing her eyes, letting his steady heartbeat sooth her.  Eventually they would have to move.  Escape their little bathroom paradise and get out and about with their day.  Rob had work at the garage, she had a doctor appointment she had to get to in order to find out once and for all what was going on with the fainting spells and nausea. Was it really the heat? She wasn't so sure. Shifting a little nervously as she thought about a few more active moments the couple had shared in this tub.

"How's the garden holdin' up?" Rob questioned suddenly, the silence that had fallen between them and the weight of the heat beating down on her from earlier nearly having lulled Sandy into full on sleep.  She made a small noise at the back of her throat at being awakened from her light slumber before she deemed to answer in a sleepy tone.

"Drying up. This heat wave needs to break soon or we're going to have to start worrying about wildfires everything is so dry out there.  You can see the haze coming off the street and I near burned my foot when I accidentally kicked my flip flop off walking to get the mail and stepped on the stone walkway."

"It'll break soon." Rob assured her, another drag off his cigarette and he sighed, again turning his head, looking up toward the small window that looked out on their backyard. At this angle he couldn't see much. But the few branches he could see from the tree to the left of the window looked brittle and the leaves looked a little more brown each day.  A shake of his head and he took one more quick drag, stabbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and used his other hand to give Sandy's naked rump a pat. "I gotta get to work, darlin'. Got that Mazda givin' me trouble still and customer is bitchin' it ain't ready yet."

"Noooo do you have to?" Sandy moaned in dismay, squirming to further illustrate her displeasure at having to deal with real life again.  "Baby, the AC in there is useless and yesterday you were sweating bullets by the time you came through the door."

"You know I do if you want our AC here fixed." He gave her backside another pat, then kissed the top of her head.  "Once I fix this Mazda I should have just enough to get a new unit for the living room, and you won't have to suffer loungin' in this tiny ass tub with me as much."

Sandy smiled, finally sitting up after feeling Rob's lips on her head, tucking a long strand of her red hair behind an ear before leaning in to press a soft kiss against his lips.  He tasted of cigarettes, the only man alive that could make her love that particular taste. "I like lounging in this tiny ass tub with you..." She smiled, kissed him again then gave a sigh of resignation. "Alright, alright..." Reluctantly she pulled herself up and out of the tub, grabbing for a towel as behind her she heard him getting up as well.  A coy glance over her shoulder made him laugh, shaking his head as he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her back against his chest.

"Don't give me that look."  Rob spoke against her ear, his breath tickling the sensitive shell and causing a chill that gave her goose bumps on her wet skin. "You're gonna make me late for work..."

Sandy laughed and turned in his arms. Wrapping both of hers around his neck where her fingers toyed with the shaggy strands of wet hair brushing at the back of his neck. "So you're late for work.  Heat wave makes every day in there like you're in an oven...so...just..." Again she gave him that coy look, a playful smile teasing the corners of her lips.  "...come to the bedroom and enjoy the AC that's still working for a while..."

"A little while?" Rob laughed, shook his head even as he hoisted Sandy up into his arms eliciting a squeal of excitement from her. "Alright yeah, I'm thinkin' you're definitely feelin' better now!"