Umm, I have approximately 47,001 other things (both for fics and real life) that I should have been working on instead of this, but I had to go and notice a headline about the high temperatures in San Francisco, and then this happened. Oops. Just some silly, frivolous fun. And almost zero editing happened here (see: the 47,001 other things to do), so apologies for that.
Wyatt fights the wakefulness that is slowly creeping in. Even with his eyes still closed, he can easily surmise that whatever that pleasant dream he'd been having was, it was far preferable to the reality awaiting him. He can feel any and all exposed skin stuck fast to the leather of the chair he'd slumped in at Mason however long ago. The air feels thick and heavy, and the vaguely helpful breeze of the fan he'd set aimed at himself before dozing off is most certainly gone.
"Rufus," he whines into the probably-empty room, still stubbornly refusing to open his eyes to the reality of the temperature. "Where'd the fan go?"
"They needed it for downstairs, to try and help keep the computers cool," comes the matter-of-fact reply.
But the voice doesn't come from Rufus.
Wyatt opens one eye just a smidge, enough to follow the sound of Lucy's voice and peer across the room at her. And then suddenly, both eyes widen and he's a little more awake.
She hadn't been there yet when he reported earlier that morning. He'd gotten a call – Emma was on the move again, so he'd begrudgingly hauled himself from the then-still-cool cocoon of his semi-air-conditioned apartment to make his way to Mason Industries. But by the time he'd gotten in, the unrelenting heat of the previous day's 111-degree high coupled with already-rising temperatures today had started to wreak havoc on the hardware of all the computing systems. The warehouse was climate-controlled, of course, but the record-setting heatwave had the air conditioner's compressor struggling to keep up with cooling such a large space. So he'd been ordered to stand by while the techs addressed the issue of the computers' operating temperatures.
For him, that had meant permission to steal a nap upstairs, as he hardly even felt recovered from their previous mission. It was a bit stuffier up there, but the fan he'd dug up had helped.
But now that fan is gone. However, Lucy is there. But Lucy's clothes are barely there.
She must have had the same idea as him once she'd arrived – grab a little extra sleep – because she's stretched out over the length of one of the too-short couches across from him. She just happens to be in the smallest amount clothing he's seen her in since, well, since ever, and that's counting when he essentially ogled her topless in the jail cell roughly 4 hours after meeting her. He still feels a little bad about that, but that's not really what's dominating his thoughts at the moment.
Not when she's wearing the tiniest denim shorts he's ever seen on an adult woman. And certainly not when the little mint green tank top she's in – already rather revealing – is rolled up to just under her breasts, effectively covering little more than the pale pink bra he can see peeking out from under the shirt's strap. Those seemingly endless legs of hers are invitingly smooth as they're draped over the arm of the couch, her feet bare aside from her left flip-flop dangling from her toes, with their pretty, berry-hued manicure. Her hair is up in some messy, twisted arrangement, leaving her neck exposed save for the few curls that cling to her skin in the same sheen of sweat that glistens on her forehead above her still-closed eyes. And because that isn't enough, she's got a ziplock of mostly melted ice perched on her chest under her chin, and either it's leaking or it's condensation, but there are a few little dribbles of water running down her chest to under that think tank top, and all he wants to do in that moment is lick them up.
As if it isn't warm enough in the room already, Wyatt most certainly feels his own temperature creep up by a few degrees.
He realizes belatedly that he should probably say something in response to Lucy's offering of information about the fan, but his brain is doing a little bit of a short circuit-y thing. He probably also shouldn't be staring at her quite so blatantly, lest she open her eyes or someone else walk into find him practically drooling. He blinks hard, tearing his gaze from her body, and clears his throat as he shifts awkwardly in his own chair. "Uh, ok," he stammers. "Thanks-"
Mercifully, Rufus bursts back into the room at precisely that moment, saving Wyatt from more less-than-eloquent stumbling over words.
"Mothership's back in the present," he informs them. "We're off the hook."
Wyatt knows it's coming before it happens; Lucy scrunches up her face, contorts her body a little, and lets out a groan. "Ugh, what did she do that now we don't even know about?" But she surprises him a second later, her whole frame going slack on the couch once more. "You know what?" she corrects herself, "I don't even care. It's too hot."
Her movements have shifted her shirt just enough to expose the actual bra part of the bra, not just the strap, and Wyatt has to agree about the hot thing. "Seriously," he echoes under his breath.
If she has any idea what she's doing to him, she either doesn't care or is just plain evil, because the next thing she does is stretch languorously, making some oh-so-intriguing little noises of pleasure in the back of her throat before craning her neck to throw a winning smile in Rufus' direction.
"Rufus?" she asks, her voice syrupy sweet.
"Uh huh?" Rufus grins in response, though not looking at Lucy; Wyatt can feel the weight of his amused stare as he shifts again in his seat. Lucy may be oblivious to the effect she's having on him, but Rufus isn't.
"What are the odds we can take the lifeboat on a little unplanned excursion?" Lucy proposes. "Like maybe the first successful expedition to the South Pole? Klondike Gold Rush?" Her initially reasonable tone of voice is quickly deteriorating into whiny grousing. "Anywhere cold? Please?"
Rufus gives a dour chuckle. "Sure, let's go hang with the Donner Party. I hear they were super fun."
Lucy shoots a glare at him over her shoulder, and Wyatt is on the receiving end of the next one because he can't help himself and laughs at her too. But what else is he supposed to do when she, a Stanford professor, is adorably whiny and pouty? He rarely sees this side of her, but, miserable temperatures notwithstanding, it's kind of amusing. Or at least it would be if he felt he could join in and tease her, but his throat is still a little dry and she still looks like that, so words, teasing or not, still aren't coming particularly easily.
"Somewhere cold?" Lucy pleads one more time. "Anywhere?"
Rufus shakes his head. "No can do, sorry." He apologizes, explaining, "The heat still has some of the CPUs on the fritz."
Lucy sighs.
With a furrowed brow, Rufus eyes her quizzically. "Why don't you just go home? You have AC."
"Barely," she glowers, pulling herself to a sitting position. Much to Wyatt's dismay, the tank top slides back into position, covering her midsection. "I practically had to sit on it yesterday to feel anything."
Wyatt sympathizes with that; his own apartment is much the same. The one unit in the wall of his living room had barely put a dent in the temperature of anything beyond a ten-foot radius yesterday. Given the skeptical look Rufus is shooting Lucy, he manages to voice his support and corroborate her claim. "My place is the same, man."
"My mom's place has good AC," Rufus shrugs. "And a pool. Jiya and I are going to head over. You guys are welcome to come too. We can barbecue if someone can stand the grill long enough to cook stuff. Might have to deal with my brother and bunch of other high school seniors, but if your places are that bad-"
Lucy practically leaps off the couch. "I'm in," she declares immediately, already shoving her foot in the wayward flip-flop, heading for the door, and herding Rufus into motion. She pauses before leaving, glancing back into the room at Wyatt. "You coming?"
A reflexive snort escapes from Wyatt at her inadvertent innuendo. If he's already this affected by the sight of her in shorts and a tank top, yeah, he's probably going to have to take matters into his own hands and do exactly that when he gets home later that night if he's going to be subjected to an afternoon of the sight of her in a bathing suit.
Still, he must have a masochistic streak, because the mental image he's conjuring up of exactly that sight is proving to be too tempting, and before he realizes what he's doing, Wyatt is nodding his confirmation.
So it's just a few minutes later that the four of them exit Mason Industries and venture out into the oppressive heat. Jiya and Rufus are driving together, obviously. Lucy will follow them, with a quick detour to her apartment, since it's on the way. And though his place is further out of the way, Wyatt needs to go home as well, to grab his swimsuit. Not to mention reevaluate whether he really can handle a day spent with Lucy in even less clothing than what she's already wearing. He's half hoping that she'll have some sort of racing suit, a one-piece with a high neck and all that. Or maybe she'll even be one of those women so concerned about burning that she'll have long sleeves on. She's pretty pale, right?
Wyatt shakes his head at himself as he climbs into his sweltering Jeep and cranks the AC. It's not that he doesn't want her – oh, he does. And it's not even that he doesn't want to want her – yeah, he'd been stuck in that mode for a while, still wrapped up in the memory of Jessica and feeling guilty for having even an inkling of a feeling about someone else. But he's (mostly) made his peace with that; he hadn't been lying that day, that day that now seems like forever ago, when he'd said he wanted to move on from the past. It's just that now they've been in this holding pattern, this odd suspended animation of a (non-)relationship, since the whole Rittenhouse thing blew up and Emma stole the mothership. He would swear on his life that if Mason hadn't walked in when he did, they'd have ended up kissing right there in the hallway that day. But stupid Mason had walked in, and it had felt like they were teenagers getting caught sneaking around the hallways at school by a teacher or something. And then nothing since.
So not, it's not an issue of not wanting her, or not wanting to want her. Wyatt just has no idea how or when or even if to act on that wanting. It's not like with Jess, when they'd both been young and impulsive and had just sort of fallen into a relationship. Now, half a lifetime later, he's a little broken, maybe even a lot broken. And Lucy, for all she's been through, is a little broken too. So he's not quite sure how to proceed.
By the time he pulls up to his apartment building, his train of thought has gotten him exactly the same place it always does – absolutely nowhere. So he tries to forget about it and just focuses on the task at hand. He keeps his t-shirt on, but swaps his khaki shorts for the swimsuit he manages to locate in the bottom of one of his dresser drawers, then digs up an old beach towel from the linen closet. He tosses his shorts, a pair of boxers, the towel, plus some sunscreen and a hat into an old duffel bag, shoves his feet into a pair of flip-flops and heads back out. He stops at the store on the way, initially grabbing a couple six-packs and a bottle of wine, but then recalls Rufus' mention of his brother and the potential crowd of 17-year-olds. So he sticks with just one six-pack, and grabs a few bottles of Sprite and Mountain Dew instead.
And beyond that, there's nothing else he can really do to stall, so he's off, following Google Maps to the address that Rufus had texted him. When he arrives, Rufus introduces him to his mother and brother, Kevin, and informs him that Lucy and Jiya are already out in the yard by the pool. He's still not quite sure he's prepared for the sight of a mostly-naked Lucy, so he offers to help Rufus' mom in the kitchen, where it looks like she's prepping some salads. But, of course, she just thanks him and shoos him away.
When he finally steps out onto the patio, he's immediately regretting wasting time inside. Jiya's just finishing slathering sunscreen over Lucy's back and, for as much as he's been half-dreading what the sight of Lucy like that would do to him, he's paradoxically wishing he'd been the one to get to touch all that bare skin.
Because bare skin, there more certainly is. She did not go for the high-necked racing suit or long sleeve shirt, not by a long shot. A quick visual assessment tells him that Jiya's green bikini is actually a little more revealing and string-based than Lucy's, especially considering she's a little curvier than Lucy too, but that hardly matters; Lucy is stunning in her slightly more modest blue and white stripes, and he's actually having a little trouble with the breathing thing that he's supposed to be doing. Wyatt manages to distract himself from that fact by looking away from her, tossing his bag to the side, kicking off his shoes, and tugging his shirt over his head before sitting to apply his own sunblock. Which actually does prove to be a good distraction, at least at first, because he's half done before he notices that Lucy has crossed the patio to stand just in front of him.
"Need help reaching your back?" she asks, sounding innocent enough.
Wyatt just gapes up at her for a second, but nods numbly and hands over the bottle. She sits next to him on the couch, and nudges him to turn away from her. He jumps a second later when her hands make contact with his back, and he could probably blame it on the cold lotion, but really, he knows better than that.
His eyes fall closed and his head lolls forward as she works her palms over him, and on one hand, he doesn't ever want her to stop. On the other, he's grateful that she's almost finished because much longer and he's really going to need some help from the cold pool water.
And then she is done, and announces as much to him with a little slap on the back as she stands up to head over to where Rufus and Jiya are already standing at the edge of the pool.
Jiya jumps right in without any fanfare, and Rufus looks poised to do the same until Jiya comes up for air next to a bug and insists that Rufus get the skimmer net to get it out of the water. Lucy, meanwhile, is hovering over by the stairs to the shallow end, barely dipping her toes in.
Wyatt approaches her, eyebrows questioning.
"It's cold," she replies, sounding a little pathetic.
With a laugh, Wyatt teases her in response, "You were the one all ready to go to Antarctica."
She rolls her eyes as she tries to stifle a laugh. "Yeah," she counters, "and I would have had a snowsuit on. And boots."
Out of the corner of his eye, Wyatt can see that Rufus has just succeeded in removing the floating insect from the water, and he can hear some lame joke about 'debugging' and computers. And between Lucy being reluctant to get in the water, and him being a little reluctant to give up on that skin-to-skin contact he'd just been lucky enough to have when she was putting sunscreen on his back, he knows what he has to do.
Before she can protest, he scoops her up and heads for the deep end of the pool. She squeals, and squirms a little in protest in his arms, but mostly she's laughing, even as he launches her into the air.
He and Rufus and Jiya, and even Kevin, from back over on the patio, are all still laughing when Lucy surfaces, spluttering and wiping the water and stray locks of hair from her face.
"You're gonna pay for that," she warns, though she's smiling as she says it.
A shriek of a laugh from Jiya is the only thing that alerts Wyatt to the fact that said payback was coming a little faster than he'd anticipated and that it wasn't coming from Lucy herself. Before he can even whirl halfway around to try to defend himself, Rufus has barreled into him, sending him careening into the water with an awkward splash.
Wyatt's back up to the surface just in time to get a faceful of water as Rufus cannonballs in after the rest of them.
Kevin's friends will be over later, and because the four of them have so little carefree time these days, they take advantage of the still otherwise empty pool and launch into a game of Marco Polo as if they're all ten years old. (Though Jiya cheeky suggestion of switching the name of the game to either Flynn's or Emma's given their lack of success in ever really catching either one does not go over well with the Time Trio.)
And if Wyatt is purposely slow to dodge when Lucy's the one coming after him, sue him. He can't bring himself to really try and escape when she's launching herself at him, all splashes and lanky limbs. She does get him pretty quickly, and she opens her eyes in delight when she's got her arms looped around his neck, his around her waist, as they float there.
He's almost convinced she's going to lean down and kiss him, but then she just grins, declaring, "You're it."
When that gets a little tired, Rufus takes it upon himself to provide the next round of entertainment by ducking under the water next to Jiya, only to pop back up with her perched precariously on his shoulders.
To Lucy, that's apparently a wordless invitation to climb onto Wyatt, because a beat later, she's less than gracefully shoving him below the water surface by his shoulders while simultaneously nearly kicking him in the head. More than once. But Wyatt manages to get her situated, and is really thankful that she and Jiya start playfully warring almost immediately, because if he thinks too hard about the fact that Lucy has literally wrapped her legs around his head, he might have heart attack right there in the pool.
If you'd asked him, and not that he'd have admitted it, but this is hardly how Wyatt would have imagined ending up between Lucy's thighs for the first time.
Then again, he acquiesces to himself with a wry grin as he grips Lucy's legs tighter to keep her from toppling over, the first time he'd seen her shirt off was in a jail cell within hours of meeting. The first time she'd taken his shirt off, it had still been within a couple days of meeting, and he'd been shot. Why the hell wouldn't the first time he gets anywhere close to this kind of proximity with her be in the middle of a game of chicken in the pool at Rufus' mother's house with a growing crowd of high schoolers as an audience?
Given that Wyatt and Lucy are both taller than Rufus and Jiya, respectively, even with her general lack of coordination, Lucy manages to take Jiya down rather quickly. Rufus immediately demands a rematch, insisting on best of three, and then best of five when Jiya tumbles down with another splash. On the third go-round, things get messy and all four of them somehow end up in a tangled mess in the water. Rufus catches someone's foot, or knee, or elbow, in the jaw, after which Jiya insists on taking him inside to put some ice on it.
"Does that mean we won?" Lucy asks with a smirk from where she's treading water next to him. "'Cause I-" She stops short in the middle of the sentence to grab at his arm and drag him closer to her, and he's really really curious as to why she'd do that. Or at least he is until he hears and feels a splash from uncomfortably close to where he'd just been located. "Jeez," she mutters, still clinging to his arm.
The kid offers a halfhearted "Sorry, man" when he's back above the surface, but given that it had forced him closer to Lucy, Wyatt's not about to hold the ill-advised jump against the kid.
"I think we're officially being invaded by teenagers," Lucy murmurs, still tantalizingly close. And a quick scan of the yard confirms that Kevin's friends have indeed started to arrive in droves, with a significant proportion of them already following the other kid's example and hopping into the pool.
"You wanna get out?" Wyatt offers reluctantly, not really relishing the idea of leaving the water, which has been offering plenty of welcome opportunities to brush up against her here and there.
He's exceedingly grateful that she shakes her head, smiling, and gestures for him to follow as she swims around the crowd of teens toward the stairs she'd been starting to tiptoe down when they'd first arrived. "We can just sit here," she says, nodding her head at the steps. "It's too hot to get out."
"Says the woman who would barely put one foot in," he chides her with a smirk as he moves to take a seat on whichever step will leave him with pretty much just his head out of the water. Once he's found the right one, he moves to slide over toward the edge of the pool to give her room to sit as well, but he's surprised, and pleased, to find that she's apparently forgoing an actual seat on the steps to just sort of float in a sideways seated position, half in front of him, half between his legs, anchoring herself by looping her arm around his bent knee. No way is he going to complain about that arrangement. And if it means one of his hands ends up resting on the arm she's got on his leg, so be it. Same for his other hand, which ends up by his other knee behind her, half floating, half caressing her bare back under the water.
With Lucy almost in his arms, the heat of the sun beating down, the waves of the pool lapping at his shoulders, the effect is nearly trance-like, and before long, Wyatt feels his eyes slipping closed.
He must have actually fallen asleep, because the next thing he's aware of is Jiya crouching at the edge of the pool next to him, poking him in the shoulder and wearing a smug grin.
"Come on, sleeping beauties, you must be hungry," she teases with a wide grin. "I've got the grill on and Rufus and his mom are bringing out drinks and other stuff."
Wyatt blinks at her in the bright sun, nodding. It's only then that he realizes that Lucy is no longer floating in that sort-of-between-his-legs space, she's on his lap, her arms loosely looped around his waist and her head on his shoulder as the water still laps around them. No wonder Jiya had practically looked like the Cheshire Cat.
Not that that means he isn't immensely enjoying his discovery of Lucy's new seating arrangement. Still, they've been summoned. Plus, even under the water, her shoulders are starting to look the slightest bit pink, and probably in need of another round of sunblock. So as much as Wyatt wants to stay there with her, he reluctantly tries to nudge her awake. "Luce…"
"I heard," she replies almost immediately, sounding far more awake than she looks. "I just didn't want to move," she admits, opening her eyes and lifting her head from his shoulder. Peering at him through squinted eyes, she shoots him a soft smile and then runs her thumb over his cheek. "But you are looking a little red," she informs him. "You should put on more sunscreen."
Wyatt just nods and goes along with it, helping her stand up to climb out of the pool. He doesn't bother to point out to her that he's been facing away from the sun and the pink is just him being stupidly flustered by the notion of her in his lap and smiling at him.
Not that that stops him from obediently sitting in front of her when she approaches him, a towel wrapped around her waist and tube of sunscreen in hand. He closes his eyes and lets her rub the lotion on his face, lets her slather his back again. This time, Jiya is still manning the grill, so he gets the honor of taking care of her back. If he goes particularly slow, taking care to get cover every last square inch of skin, from the waist of her bikini bottom to under the straps of her top, massaging it into her shoulders, well, who cares? Not Lucy, he surmises, almost sure he hears a little whimper of protest when he finally stops and pulls his hands away from her back.
But Jiya is waving a plate of something at them from across the patio, so Wyatt reluctantly slides away from Lucy and finishes the far less exciting task of putting sunscreen on his own chest, arms, and stomach.
He gets a plate, eats obediently as he keeps Rufus company by the blazing hot grill when he switches with Jiya to give her a break. Food has drawn the hordes of teens over from the pool, so suddenly the patio is more crowded than Wyatt would like, because he can't seem to locate Lucy anywhere. He freezes sheepishly when Rufus, with a sly grin on his face, catches him searching. He's grateful that Rufus doesn't push it any further than that; whatever is or isn't going on with Lucy today, Wyatt wants to figure it out for himself before any commentary from the peanut gallery.
Lucy and Jiya do make an appearance again not long after that, helping Rufus' mom carry out boxes of popsicles for all of Kevin's friends. Wyatt almost chokes on the last of his cheeseburger when he sees that Lucy has snagged one of the extras. She's not even doing anything particularly indecent with it, but it's still a popsicle and all kinds of suggestive, and Wyatt has to look away before his brain gets the better of his body and leaves him in dire need of a jump into the cold pool again.
The crowd dwindles a little once the food is gone – to be expected from a mob of teenage boys, so the four of them do end up back in the water after a while, this time with the beverages for the not-under-21 crowd that Wyatt had brought. Less of the horsing around, more just talking about anything and everything that wasn't work, because most days, that's all they did get to talk about.
At some point, the soda he'd had with the food and the two beers in the pool catch up to Wyatt and he has to duck into the house to find the bathroom. With that taken care of, he finds Rufus' mom in the kitchen, and this time doesn't take no for an answer, helping her do some dishes and put away the few leftovers.
When he finally heads back out onto the patio, it's that point in the late afternoon that's just on the tipping point between all golden-y yellow light and the pinker, purple tones of impending sunset. Kevin and the friends that are still there, for some godforsaken reason considering it had to still be 100 degrees out, have started a fire in the fire pit in the back corner of the yard, and Wyatt can see chocolate bars and bags of marshmallows being tossed around.
There are also still quite a few kids down at one end of the pool, and Wyatt's gaze automatically seeks Lucy out among them. But she's not down that end. More toward the middle of the pool, he sees Rufus and Jiya wrapped around each other, probably a going a little too far given the audience of minors, but who's he to judge? But still no Lucy.
And then he spots her, in almost the same place as they'd sat earlier in the afternoon. She's on the steps, leaning her head against the railing on the side of the stairs. And she hasn't been under the water for a while, so her messy hairdo has left her with soft, curly wisps framing her face and tumbling down onto her neck, so she looks all sorts of beautiful in the colors of the approaching sunset. And part of it is the wistful expression on her face, but Wyatt's heart aches a little when he follows her gaze back to Rufus and Jiya.
He doesn't really know any details about her past relationships, whatever they were, but at the very least he's been able to gather that she hadn't had anyone in her life like that for at least a few years, not since before her mother got so sick. Before that, he figures there was someone, or a few someones. Maybe even a lot of them, who knows. She doesn't really seem like anything but a long-term, serious relationship kind of person to him, but he supposes that anyone can be different when they're younger. But now? Even before… things started happening between them, little indications popped up here and there – the kids she wanted to read history books to, trying to make something work with the doctor guy even though she didn't know him, the envy in her voice that she tried to hide when talking about the bond Bonnie and Clyde seemed to have. And now that wistful wanting as she watches their friends from across the pool. She wants that, something real, for herself.
Wyatt wants to be that for her so badly in that moment that it hurts. He has to just take the leap. But not here, he knows. Not with a dozen high-schoolers still running around, not at their friend's mother's house. But soon.
Still, even in the absence of any grand sweeping declarations of his intentions for the time being, he doesn't like the sight of her looking all pensive and alone. So he snags her towel from where she'd left it near her bag and heads over to the pool. He forces a smile onto his face and clears his throat. "I think they've got s'mores down there," he informs her. "You want?"
The wistful melancholy is thankfully gone when she smiles up at him. "Sure," she grins, nodding and accepting the hand that he offers to help her stand up. He holds out her towel to wrap around her, and once she has it secured over her shoulders, Wyatt, feeling a little emboldened, slips his arm around her waist to guide her over toward the fire pit.
She manages to drop the first marshmallow into the dirt before she even gets it on the skewer that one of the kids hands them. The second, she completely ignites almost instantaneously and Wyatt has to keep her from accidentally flinging a flaming projectile into the trees or someone's lap. When she reaches for third, Wyatt just eyes her skeptically. She gives a sheepish nod and points over her shoulder with her thumb, "Yeah, I'm just gonna…"
Wyatt smiles, watching perhaps a little longer than necessary as she retreats back to the chairs on the patio. But then he loads up a skewer with 4 marshmallows and gets to work on achieving the perfect toasty brown. Unlike Lucy, he manages it on the first try, and before long, he's hurrying over toward her to deliver them while still melty and gooey. One is a little more precariously clinging to the skewer than the other three, so he cups his hand under it for the imminent fall. Fall it does, just as he's easing into the seat next to Lucy on the couch. So suddenly, he's got a sugary mess in the fingertips of one hand and a skewer full of more impending disaster in the other. He looks back over his shoulder, scanning the table where the food had been to see if there were any napkins still laying around. "Lucy," he begins absently, "do you see any napk-"
And then he feels her grip his wrist. His eyes are off the table and back on her immediately. And then her lips are around the marshmallow, which means they were also, by default, on his fingers. He's frozen, his jaw slack as he watches her, and then he feels her tongue on his thumb and he almost dies. He's pretty sure he is dead, because then she's sucking on his finger, and is this really happening? He's almost not sure, because a split second later, she's sitting up straight again and letting go of his wrist, instead innocently reaching for the skewer with the other three marshmallows. And then she just sits there and slides the next one off and pops it into her own mouth as if that same mouth hadn't just been wrapped around Wyatt's finger.
He blinks himself out of his stupor when he sees her smile at something over his shoulder. He turns around to see Rufus and Jiya approaching with their own skewer of toasted marshmallows, plus another couple bags of untoasted ones.
"You guys ever play 'Chubby Bunny'?" asks Jiya, giggling as she flops down in one of the chairs across from the couch and Rufus heads into the house. "They're doing it back there," she says, gesturing to where all the teens had now gathered by the fire. "I figure we can too, but turn it into a drinking game."
Wyatt rolls his eyes; he's played it before, what seems a lifetime ago. But Rufus is already returning with a bottle of cheap rum and a roll of paper towels, and it doesn't look like there's going to be any way out of playing it again, right now. At least it might take his mind off the fact that Lucy had been quite literally sucking on his finger not five minutes ago.
"When you're out," Rufus declares, flopping down in the chair next to Jiya's, "you do a shot for each marshmallow that the rest of the players can still add."
Jiya laughs excitedly, but Lucy nudges Wyatt's knee and leans in, sounding like she's only half joking, "Please don't let me die of alcohol poisoning right now."
It ends up that Jiya's the one closest to being in any danger of that. She's out first, hit with a fit of giggles when she's not even that many marshmallows in, but she (wisely) chooses failure over choking and spits the lot of them into her paper towel. She dutifully does her shots as the other three keep up with each other round after round.
Lucy caves next, but just before she does, Wyatt finds himself musing over the fact that she shouldn't look so attractive with her cheeks puffed to the limit and marshmallow-y drool slipping out of one corner of her mouth, but somehow she manages it. But similar to Jiya, something about shoving yet another marshmallow into her face gets her giggling and then she's gagging her marshmallows out into a paper towel too. And still, she's laughing. Both she and Jiya dissolve into peals of laughter, Lucy collapsing against Wyatt on the couch despite being well behind Jiya in terms of alcohol ingested. When the laughs finally slow, Lucy's fully laying on the couch, tears in her eyes, and her head on Wyatt's thigh as she grins up at him.
And then she reaches up and pokes him in the cheek.
It's all he can do not to spit the stupid marshmallows all over her. But she got him; he's cracking up the same as the women were, and it's out with the marshmallows.
While Rufus celebrates his triumph, Wyatt halfheartedly scolds Lucy. "I could have beaten him, you know. You screwed me up," he pouts.
Lucy grins as she pulls herself up to sit again, though she's leaning heavily against Wyatt's side this time. Not that he minds in the least. "Oh, let him have his moment," she laughs, looking over at Rufus, still stuffing more marshmallows in his mouth to see how many he can actually fit.
When Rufus finally hits his limit, both Wyatt and Lucy obediently do a few punitive shots, though not quite as many as Rufus is trying to insist on. And Rufus imbibes as well, just to catch up to the rest of them.
Hilarity behind them and the alcohol starting to lull them into a comfortable buzz, the foursome just sits there for a bit.
But it's still hot. Like still 90 degrees or more even though the sun has gone down. Wyatt's pretty sure he understands why weather like this is described as sultry; it makes you sweaty and tired, just like sex does. Though not exactly as satisfied and content as sex does, unfortunately.
He's definitely less than content with the current weather, and Wyatt can tell that Lucy is uncomfortable too, just starting to shift against him and fan at her face with her hand. He nudges her with his shoulder. "Pool?"
She gives him a lazy smile and nods, peeling off the towel she still has wrapped around her legs like a skirt.
Wyatt and the others follow her over. He has the fleeting notion that he could toss her in again, but like she's reading his mind, she eyes him over her shoulder and jumps in before he can get close enough. He follows suit before Rufus can get any ideas.
Of course, Rufus gets other ideas. Still riding his chubby bunny champion high (not to mention a decent amount of rum), he's finding it amusing to sneak up behind Wyatt and Jiya to try and dunk them. He gets each of them twice, though not Lucy for some reason, and Wyatt's on the defensive the next time he feels someone touch his shoulders from behind.
But it's thin pale arms that loop around his neck and torso, not Rufus' dark, strong ones. "I'm protecting you," Lucy informs Wyatt, her lips brushing his ear as she leans over his shoulder. The feel of that, coupled with her body pressed to his back, her legs locking around his hips, is almost too much and Wyatt almost misses the rest of her explanation. "He's not trying to get me; I think he's scared of me," she snickers conspiratorially in his ear.
She's not wrong; Rufus pretty much gives up after that and they all end up just kind of floating aimlessly for a while. Though Lucy doesn't let go of Wyatt, and he's not about to complain.
As has been the cycle nearly all day, the kids start to drift back toward the pool too, and Rufus and Jiya start getting cozy again, so Wyatt nods questioningly back toward the empty patio. From on his back, Lucy hums her agreement in his ear.
They drip their way back over to the same patio couch they've had claimed since arriving, and as soon as Wyatt gets his towel around his shoulders and sits, Lucy does the same with her towel and curls up next to him with her head on his bare chest.
He's not even questioning it anymore; things are happening and he's more than ok with it.
She lets out a tired sigh and he can just see enough of her face to see her eyes flutter closed. He's not surprised – between the heat, the swimming, the alcohol, he had to figure they were all going to crash hard at some point. He feels himself on the edge of dozing too, but, even though it's hardly cold, the breeze has picked up a bit, so he uses the arm not wrapped around Lucy's shoulder to pull his towel from around himself to drape over her legs.
Before he nods off, Wyatt lets his hand wander up to her hair and ever so carefully feels for what's holding it up in the twisty-knot-thing. He's glad to feel his fingers hit hard plastic instead of one of those tangly rubber band things. He works the clip open gently, letting her damp hair spill out in waves over her shoulders. He passes that to his other hand so he can rest it on the table beside the couch, and then he closes his eyes as his fingers softly comb through Lucy's hair.
That's the last thing he remembers before he blinks awake to the sight of Rufus's mom cleaning up stray bags of marshmallows and other random leftovers.
He immediately goes to apologize for having still been asleep in her backyard, but she hushes him before he can get a word out. "There's no rush," she assures him. "The kids have all left, and Rufus just left to drive Jiya home, but we didn't want to wake you. You don't have to get up."
Wyatt nods at her appreciatively, but Lucy is already stirring from where she's slumped down even further in her sleep.
He's tempted to lean down and press a kiss to the top of her head, but he second guesses himself and figures maybe she should be completely awake before he goes for something like that. Instead, he runs his hand over her hair again. "Luce," he whispers, "we should go."
She's pretty much breathtaking when she blinks awake and gives him a sleepy smile, hair now dry and all soft and curly around her face. Wyatt wants to wake up to that sight every morning.
But it's not morning, and they're not in either of their beds, and they're not even together anyway (yet, Wyatt tells himself. Yet.) But they are still lurking on the patio of Rufus' mother's house, probably well after ten or eleven at night, if the fact that teenagers have been sent home already was any indication.
So both he and Lucy haul themselves up off the couch. Wyatt reaches for his bag, pulling out the t-shirt he'd worn for the drive over and tugging it on over his head. He balls up the towel that had been covering Lucy's legs and shoves that in the bag with his sunscreen. He steps into his flip-flops and makes sure he has his keys, and he's ready to go.
He turns to Lucy, who appears equally as ready to go, having pulled a sundress on over her swimsuit and donned those same flip-flops that were dangling from her toes back what felt like a million years ago at Mason Industries that morning.
Wyatt, as he so often does, in both the present day and on their missions to the past, steps aside and reaches out an arm to guide her to walk in front of him.
Lucy, as she's never done before, ignores the intent of his gesture and takes the hand he's holding out, weaving her fingers through his. She leans against their linked hands, nudging him into heading into the house before her.
He's a little dumbfounded, but again, not about to complain.
Once inside, they thank Rufus' mother profusely for allowing them to invade her house and swimming pool. She waves off their thanks, instead just saying how glad she is to finally meet Rufus' co-workers, and then complimenting them on what a wonderful couple they are. Wyatt flushes and uses his free hand to bashfully scratch behind his ear while he thinks of some way to explain that they're not, but Lucy just smiles and thanks her before heading toward the front door.
They're barely onto the porch when Lucy tugs on his hand. "Wait here," she instructs cryptically. "I'll be right back." And she darts back into the house and Wyatt's not sure what to think.
But she's true to her word, and it has to be less than twenty seconds before she's emerging from the house again, wearing a bit of a smile and threading her fingers through his again.
They make their way quietly together across the lawn to where they're both parked along the street and Wyatt's realizing that the last thing he wants to do right now is get in separate cars to drive to separate apartments. It has to be now.
They're just coming to a stop at his car when he finally works up the nerve, beginning "Luce, I-"
She cuts him off by pressing her lips to his. That's really all it is at first because Wyatt is almost too stunned to respond. She'd beaten him to it.
Lucy pulls away ever so slightly, bracing herself with one hand on his shoulder as she wobbles on her tiptoes. But then she leans up and does it again, this time tugging ever so slightly on his lower lip.
It's like that's somehow all it takes to spur him into motion. He lets his duffel bag slip off his shoulder onto the lawn and does the same for Lucy's tote bag, easing the strap off her shoulder, all the while managing never to break the kiss.
Free of bags, he's now focused solely on her, and he pulls her body flush to his and lets her insistent tongue slip between his lips.
It's like the whole day has been – long, and slow, and lazy, and hot, and dare he say, sultry. It's everything he didn't want in the weather, but everything he wanted with her.
Before long, he's leaning back against the side of his Jeep, pulling her with him between his slightly spread legs.
They do, eventually, have to come up for air – a thought that has Wyatt mentally chuckling given his own words as they'd waited out Bonnie and Clyde – and he feels like he's falling for her all over again when he sees the grin on her face and her lips all red and shiny and kiss-swollen.
"Before, um, this," she asks coyly, "what were you going to say?"
Wyatt drops his chin to his chest with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Pretty much what you did," he admits, "but I think you said it better than I was going to."
She smirks and then runs her hand over his chest, staring there as her expression grows a little more serious. "I'm just glad someone did."
He reaches to nudge her chin up so she's looking him in the eye again. "Me too."
They melt into another kiss, and for the first time he's been in this situation all day, Wyatt doesn't have to worry about the proximity of cold pools to help him out.
Lucy leans back again, her hips still pressed against his as she breathes heavily. "Rufus' mom said we can leave a car parked here," she informs him. "I asked."
Wyatt grins and pulls her in for another kiss, glad to hear she'd pretty much been planning the same end to the night as he'd been hoping for.
They leave her car. His apartment has slightly better air conditioning.
(Yes, Rufus will see the car. No, they don't care.)
~FIN~
Well, that 'short' piece got out of hand. Really, I just wanted them all hot and bothered and sweaty and cute and adorable and in a pool in skimpy bathing suits. More of it happened than initially planned. So sue me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯