Lunch With the Boss's Secretary

VII

By late afternoon, it was sweltering. The double doors hadn't opened since lunch, and the air was thick with petrol and other noxious things. Trowa had abandoned his shirt hours ago, and swiped the back of his arm across his forehead, squinting to focus at the far wall. Too much damned paperwork, that's what ruined your vision. Slowly the blur dissipated, and he was left looking at the clock: four-thirty.

Fabien saw where he was looking, and looked at Trowa hopefully. "Yeah, go ahead," Trowa nodded. "I could use a break, too." He stepped away from the car, stretching and feeling cramped muscles groan. He was getting old. Was twenty-seven old? It hadn't felt old yesterday... Maybe he was just in the wrong line of work.

Fabian had moved to the window, Joseph and Nick quickly joining him. Nick pressed his bare chest against the glass, sighing at the contrast. The heat of his body rayed out as fog on the glass, leaving an imprint when he stepped away, chill to the touch. Trowa couldn't resist the allure of the cold window, and he joined them, leaning at first just an arm, and then his whole back against the glass. It felt so, so good... Amazing to think that without that window he could freeze to death in that weather; amazing to think that a few scant inches away it was freezing, while he was burning up.

The men stilled, watching. Trowa glanced over his shoulder, and then away. A small, plum, two-door economy car pulled into the parking lot, backing up to realign itself with the curb. It was too hot to worry about tiny, cheap cars with good gas mileage. It was too hot to think about how he was going to clean up that mess a broken pipe had made in their current project's engine. Too hot to do anything but press his back to the glass, and fight the urge to push his jeans down any lower- it was second-story window, Trowa, not his personal cooling system.

A low whistle broke him out of his reverie. Without really meaning to, he looked, and stilled.