Danny Masterson is finally getting a place all his own, and he couldn’t be more excited. Since college he’s lived with his best buddy Rob, but when Rob’s pregnant girlfriend moved in, Danny knew it was time to move out. His new apartment has all the amenities, and the sexy neighbor living downstairs named Kyle only sweetens the deal.<br><br>But a heat wave hits when Rob helps Danny move in, and the apartment’s A/C isn’t working right. Maintenance won’t come out because Danny isn’t listed as a tenant yet, so he’s stuck sweating it out over the long, Fourth of July weekend.<br><br>Kyle invites Danny to stay downstairs in his apartment in air conditioned bliss, but he has a pretty roommate named Nadia who may or may not be his girlfriend. Danny thinks Kyle might be interested in him, but so far Kyle hasn’t said or done anything to move things forward between them. Will things ever heat up between them? Or is Danny going to end up getting burned?

Heat Wave: Richmond

Beside the kitchen is a small nook Kyle generously calls the dining room. It’ll fit a small table and chair set, so I’ll have to add that to my list of things to buy at some point. The living room takes up the rest of the apartment. One corner is given over to a nice fireplace that I’ll try out when the weather cools down, but it’s July and too hot to even think about lighting it up just yet. Actually, the whole room is pretty toasty thanks to the sun slanting through the mini-blinds drawn down over the balcony doors beside the fireplace.


Well, door—only one opens. The other is a floor-to-ceiling door-shaped window fashioned to look like the door beside it, but other than let in a lot of light and heat, it doesn’t have much purpose.


“You’re going to want to invest in a pair of blackout curtains,” Nadia says, turning the wand on the mini-blinds to let even more light into the room. “We get the afternoon sun and, believe me, it can get pretty damn hot up in here during the summer.”


Chapter 6