“I know he has a pretty important test coming up,” Dev said. “Those HAWC guys get obsessed when a big test is happening. They all seem to disappear into their little rabbit holes, afraid to do anything that might screw things up. Problem is, they’re always like that, even when they’ve done good.”
“They’re not exactly party animals,” Annie agreed. She looked around the room, then at him, then around to the pool area.
“I hope you brought your suit,” Dev said. “The pool is nice and cool, and the hot tub will be perfect once it starts to cool down outside.”
“I should have brought a suit, but I didn’t.”
Dev was going to give her his standard line, “Well, you know, around here, bathing suits are optional,” but for some reason he didn’t use it on Annie. Was he afraid of offending her, chasing her away? He was amazed at his own odd feelings. Since when did he care so much about what others, especially women, thought of him?
“We can get you a suit if you’d like to go swimming later,” Dev offered, “or just take a rain check.” She smiled at him — he was pleased to think he had said the right thing, caring and helpful without being too pushy. “Can I get you something to drink? I make a pretty good margarita. I’m doing mango and strawberry tonight.”
“I’m not into that stuff,” she said. That was the first hint of resistance from her, and his hopes sank. But then she suddenly stopped looking past him, took a deep breath as if she had just decided something, and said, “But if you’re making margaritas, I know you have tequila, and I see some Coronas around, so I’ll start with a shot and a Corona.” She looked directly at him with incredible liquid blue eyes that looked like they could stop a freight train in its tracks, and asked, “Care to join me?”
Dev smiled and nodded. “Best offer I’ve had all day,” he said.
The party had ended just before midnight, but for Dev and Annie’ it was only getting started.
They stayed and talked well after everyone else had gone. They both quit drinking shots before too long, but had nursed their Coronas and then white wine and San Pellegrino. After one A.M. the apartment complex residents stopped coming down to the pool and hot tub, so they decided to give the hot tub a try.
The pool deck was dark, illuminated only by a few sidewalk edge lights, step lights, and the parking lot lights several dozen yards away. Both Dev and Annie wore bathrobes, and carried plastic cups of Chardonnay to the spa. The hot, dry desert air cooled quickly after sunset, and there was a breeze blowing, so it felt much cooler now. “Man, I’ve been in the hot sun all day, but I’m ready for the hot tub,” Dev was saying. He turned on the bubble pumps, set his wine down on the concrete deck, shed the robe, revealing his black Nike bathing suit underneath, then sat on the edge of the spa and let his feet dangle in to test the water. “Perfect,” he said. He took a sip of wine. “I’m glad you could—”
He stopped and gulped. Annie took off her borrowed bathrobe — revealing only her birthday suit. Her breasts were indeed small, but larger than they appeared beneath her dress, and incredibly firm. Her shoulders and arms were not just well-toned — they were ripped, as were her stomach and thigh muscles, lean, taut, and striated. She watched him closely as she eased into the warm bubbly water with a confident, satisfied smile on her face.
“I–I hung a bathing suit on the doorknob for you,” he reminded her.
“I know. I saw it. Thank you,” she said. “That was a very considerate thing to do. You don’t mind I didn’t use it, do you, Dev?”
“Are you kid … I mean, no, not at all, Heels.” She leaned back, her elbows back on the edge of the spa with her breasts tantalizingly obscured within the bubbles on the water’s surface, and sipped her wine. He felt like a dork now, with a bathing suit on, so after he got into the hot tub, he slipped it off and placed it on the edge of the tub.
After several long moments, he stopped trying to get a look at her breasts and relaxed. As always, his attention drifted up to the sky. The nearby buildings and the lights from the parking lot washed out most of the sky, but he could still see a few stars shimmering overhead. “Finally starting to see the summertime constellations,” he said. “That’s Vega, in the constellation Lyra. You can just start to see the head of Scorpio down over the building.”
“Must be a navigator thing, having to learn all the stars and constellations,” Annie said. “They still taught celestial navigation in nav school when I went through,” Dev said, “although they phased it out shortly after I left. They taught us how to use a sextant, do a precomp — figure out what the star positions are supposed to be — shoot the stars, sun, and moon, and plot a celestial, pressure, and speed line of position. Get two good star shots with a small bubble and a steady autopilot, add in a good pressure LOP and a true airspeed line from a good air data system, and a good nav could plot your position within five to ten miles.”
“Five to ten miles?” Annie exclaimed.
“I know — ridiculous, huh?” Deverill agreed. “The absolute worst inertial nav system back then could keep you within a mile or two with an update every thirty minutes. Nowadays, the worst INS gets you within a quarter-mile with one update, and GPS can get us within six feet. But it was pretty amazing to think that nays throughout history fought wars across the oceans with little more than a star to guide them. It’s a lost art.”
“Show me what you’re looking at,” Annie said. She picked up her cup of wine and waded over to him, turned around, and sat beside him, then leaned back against his chest. It both shocked and pleased him at the same time. The damned bubbles still obscured her breasts. He put his left arm around her shoulder and across her neck, clasping her right shoulder, and he could feel her nipples against his arm. Stars, Dev, he shouted at himself, think of stars now, celestial navigation, precomps, star tables, air almanacs …
“Now, what were you looking at?” she murmured. Her head was tilted back against him, the back of her head in the water, but she wasn’t looking at the stars.
“I was trying to look at you,” he said softly, and he bent down to kiss her lips. A bolt of electricity shot through his body, the physiological responder he was trying hard to distract sprang to life, and he kissed her deeper, harder. She returned the kiss, then took his hand from her shoulder and placed it on her breast. “God, Annie, you are so sexy.” She said nothing, but her right hand drifted down to his stomach, then his thigh, and then to his fully attentive and waiting member. She stroked him a couple times. He moaned with pleasure … and then realized she had stopped. “Annie, please…”
“I can’t, Dev,” she whispered. She reluctantly twisted away from him, moved away from him-not to the other side of the spa out of reach, but definitely apart from him-and laid her head back on the edge of the spa and covered her face. “I’m sorry, Dev. It is not you, believe me … believe me.”
“Then what is it?” But he knew the answer the second he asked the question: “Luger. You’re in love with him or something.”
“Or something,” she said. “I wanted to, but … I don’t want this to turn into a retribution thing.”
“You mean, sleeping with me just to get back at Luger.”
Annie nodded. “I’m sorry, Dev. I mean, you’re great-looking, and you got a great bod, and you got the eyes, and the butt. …”
“Wow. Women really talk like that about guys?”
“Only certain guys,” she said, with a smile. He liked her wann, honest smile. He’d never thought of her as a friend before, only as a colleague and maybe a future conquests but now he was talking to her like a friend, and he enjoyed it. He still wanted to see her underneath him or on top of him, but it wasn’t an urgent need anymore.