gabolange

Sergei was in the back garden; he was shirtless, wearing his orange swim trunks covered in a pattern of large tropical flowers.

He drove to the store yesterday and returned with an above-ground pool—the kind with a proper steel frame and legs and a liner. Several sections of metal tubing were laid out across the grass, and the instruction sheet beside them was already weighted down with a rock and had not, by the look of it, been consulted recently. Sergei was crouched over one of the frame joints with the focused expression he usually reserved for significantly more consequential engineering problems.

Margo made herself a plate of eggs with toast, poured her coffee, and went outside, barefoot and still in her nightdress.

It was not yet eight in the morning, but the heat met her at the door. 

“You were up early,” she remarked in place of a greeting, settling into the sunlounger under the shade of their ipê tree with her plate, angling the chair to face him directly.

“I did not sleep,” he groaned, wrestling with a section of pipe, turning it over in his hands and trying the joint from a different angle. “It was not possible.”

“You’ll get used to it eventually,” Margo quipped, taking a bite of her toast. “Give it another year.”

Sergei looked up at her, and it was clear he found this entirely unhelpful.

His shoulders were already catching the sun. The swim trunks were, if anything, more vivid in direct light—enormous white hibiscus flowers across a background that was somehow both orange and red simultaneously, an achievement in poor taste that Margo found she could not look away from.

She settled back in the sunlounger and decided she was in no hurry to finish her breakfast, watching him work over the rim of her coffee cup and very much enjoying the view.

After a while, Sergei stood to attach the top rail, working his way around the frame, determined to see the task through despite the heat or the hour. The liner went in next, pulled taut and tucked under.

Semyorka emerged from the house a moment later, spotted the pool, gathered herself, and jumped up and over the side with ambition, landing inside with a soft thud before immediately starting to bite the liner. 

“Ай-ай-ай!” Sergei chastised, grunting as he shooed the kitten out and away from the pool, then set the liner straight before moving to grab the hose. He fed it over the side of the pool and turned to look at Margo while the water started running.

“Are you going to join me?” he asked, the corner of his mouth already turning up in what was half a smile and half a dare. “We should test it…”

“I’m fine right here,” Margo noted, without any inclination to move.

Sergei considered this for a moment. He glanced back at the hose in his hand, then at Margo, then back at the hose, and Margo could see the idea forming before he’d fully committed to it.

“Don’t you dare.” She sucked in a breath. The glint in his eye made it very clear that he absolutely dared. “Sergei—”

He swept the hose in a wide arc directly at her.

Margo was off the chair with a speed that would have impressed her twenty-year-old self considerably, but Sergei caught her before she’d fully decided where she was going, arms coming around her waist and pulling her in, laughing. She could feel the sunscreen on his arms, warm and slightly tacky against her skin.