Summer Rainault stared at the thermostat in her small, top floor studio apartment and growled under her breath. The a/c was working flat out, and it was still nearly 80 degrees in the apartment — breathlessly hot. Helios lay on the kitchen tile, panting miserably, as flat as he could possibly get upside-down. She leaned her head on the wall, then reached up and turned the thing off.
If it wasn’t going to work anyway, she might as well turn it off and save the money. As the fan shut off, she went round and opened all the windows and the door, and instantly felt better as a breeze moved through the space. She’d already put her lightest clothes on, and hopefully the neighbours across the passageway wouldn’t mind too much.
“Fucking hell.”
Said neighbor cursed underneath his breath, using today’s paper to fan himself with one hand as he set down more water for his little Frenchie called Diesel with the other.
He didn’t dare check his thermostat. Those tell-tale digits would make him even angrier he didn’t listen to his now ex-girlfriend about repairing his a/c in time for this unrelenting heat.
If his previously paid-for aircon wouldn’t put his money to good use, he’d have to do things the cheap way.
Ace made quick work of moving around the room, drawing curtains and opening anything that would help a breeze pass through the small flat, including the door.
He didn’t think about his neighbor when he did this, only himself and his dog that needed to stay cool or it might affect his health big-time. If the neighbor had anything to say, it would be in their best interest to take it up with the landlord, that is, if the old woman that had quite a soft-spot for the curly-haired lad cared to listen.
Turned out, the neighbour had already opened their door. She stood hipshot in the open doorway, gnawing on her lip and pondering. After a moment, she went back inside and hauled out her butterfly chair, then positioned a fan just inside the doorway to pull some of the hot air out of the apartment. Helios dragged himself out to writhe luxuriously on the concrete, white belly up and dark-masked blue eyes slitted against the sun.
Honestly, she didn’t even know who her neighbour was. If they were both going to do this, maybe she should do something about that … later. When it wasn’t so damn hot. Maybe after the sun went down.