“Shit. I could open the doors.”
I still couldn’t see her face, but I saw the tips of her hair toss as she shook her head. “The smell.”
She was right. The charcoal filters worked for the air vented through the air conditioning system, but if we opened the doors then big clouds of marijuana-scented air were going to waft right down the street. And I wasn’t even sure it would do much good—there was barely any breeze outside to move the air. We needed air conditioning.
“Do you...know what you’re doing?” I asked.
“No!” she snapped. But I heard that edge in her voice again, the fracture that was seconds away from cracking open and spilling tears. “I’m figuring it out as I go along, but at least I’mdoingsomething, not just standing there—”
I heard her take two big gulps of air, almost sobs. Everything we’d worked for was about to be wiped out. I laid a gentle hand on her ankle and her body tensed....and then relaxed a little.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll fix this.”
Another two long gulps of air. Then I saw her hair move as she nodded.
“I’m going to come in there with you,” I said.
“There’s not a lot of room.”
“Do you want help or not?” The heat was slowly cooking my brain. I was getting frustrated already and I’d only been here a few minutes. She’d been here...what, an hour? No wonder she was losingit. And every time I glanced down at her nearly-naked body, I came close to losing control in a whole other way.
I peeled my tank top over my head and dropped it on the floor.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Taking off my clothes, what do you think? I’m dying in here.” I pulled off my jeans and then, in just my jockey shorts, lay down beside her. To get my head inside the air conditioning unit next to hers, our bodies were going to have to be touching. I scooched closer and she jerked as my hip contacted hers.Jesus.I lay there propped up on my elbows, looking down the length of her gorgeous body, every pale curve glistening with sweat. And down between her thighs, where the thin fabric of her panties had soaked through, I could see the shadow of—
“Are you coming in?” she asked, her voice tight, “or not?”
I swallowed and lay down. Then I had to slide my body along the floor to slot in next to her. My leg slid against the side of her leg, hard against soft, both our bodies heated and slick. I could feel my cock swelling and rising. The nearness of her, the touch of her body like this, was driving me wild.
My head slid into the box and then, finally, I could see her. We were side by side, like two lovers lying on their backs in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Except we were looking at tangle of multi-colored wires and, higher up, curving insulated pipes.
“It’s a wiring problem,” said Louise, her voice shaky.
I twisted my head to look at her. “How do you know that?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t. I’m just hoping for the best. If it’s anything other than wiring, we’re utterly screwed. A loose wire, maybe I can find and fix.”
She had a small flashlight in one hand and a screwdriver in the other and was poking determinedly through the nest of wires. I felt my chest grow tight. Goddamn it, even now she wasn’t giving up. This girl was amazing.
That’s why she deserves better than a thug like you, who’s going to get her killed.
“What can I do?” I asked.
She nodded towards my side of the box. “Trace the wires. See where they go. I haven’t done that side yet.”
I stared up into the rats nest of wires and started following them with my finger. We lay there barely moving, barely breathing, like a couple of lizards baking in the sun. Eventually, I said, “Are the plants okay? The ones those bastards broke?”
She glanced at me. “They look okay, don’t they?”
I nodded. When I’d come to the grow house each night to sleep, I’d seen the patched-up plants, their stems carefully wrapped in tape and they seemed to be doing fine. “But...y’know. You’re the expert,” I said. “And sometimes, you can’t tell by looking.” I held her gaze long enough to confirm that it wasn’t the plants I was talking about.
“They’ll be okay,” she said at last. Then she stared straight up into the wiring. “Now those guys are gone. And they’ll never come back?” She made it into a question.
I put a hand on her arm. “Damn right. Guaranteed.”
She nodded. “Then they’re okay.”
