under the skin, part 1

August 2083 - April Hutchins is 20, James Porter is 26, Maxwell Shaw and Heather Huffington are 37.

They have errands to run for Max. April's are quite simple, pick up some supplies for the bar, some random trivial things the delivery service had forgotten. James is here to help her carry them. Then afterward, he has his own errands to run for Max. These ones are secret - they always are. April doesn't ask anymore. She's never been a big rules kind of person. She hardly even thinks about it - what he does, that is.

But him, yes, she thinks about him. She thinks about him a lot. There's something about him that just sticks. She grins at him as they're walking. "You're a hard egg to crack open, Mr. Porter," she says.

James almost turns his head to her, almost turns the corner of his lips into a smile, but doesn't. "I'm not an egg," he says.

"I bet I can make you smile," she says.

"I bet you can't," he says.

She grabs his ass.

"That's cheating," he says. "And it won't work."

"You wanna take this date back to my place? I'll make you smile for sure."

"This isn't a date," he says.

"Dating is a state of mind," she says. "You can even take me home to meet your mommy if you want. I'm friendly, moms like me."

"I can't," he says. "I don't have a mom."

She stops.

"What?" he says.

She tilts her head and says, "Awww."

Before either of them know what's happening, she's wrapped her arms around him. She's small, but unexpectedly encompassing. She holds him, squeezes him, runs her hands all over his back.

"What was that for?"

"For not having a mom," she says. "If it makes you feel better, I don't have a dad. Never had one. I mean, well, I must have had one for a minute, or something."

She stops talking and just smiles at him. He smiles back.

"It looks like I win," she says.

"Win at what?"

He begins to walk again.

"Oh nothing," she says.

***

You see, April has never been very focused when it comes to men. Call it "daddy issues" if you will. There's probably plenty to dissect. The thing is, she likes James, really, a lot, but then she just kind of began this other thing. It was nothing, really, she begins things all the time. It began with good intentions - or is that just something people say when they've screwed things up really bad?

Sometimes you know something is a bad idea even as it's happening. But you're already in it, and it's too late to turn back, because the point where you should have turned back was the moment you came in the door. Maybe she didn't recognize the bad idea because it happened so fast, from vague flirting, just words, and before she knew it, he'd lured her into his back office and they were into this thing. It was so good, but at the same time so suffocating.

But he enjoyed her youthful energy, and she enjoyed his mystery. He appreciated that she honestly wanted nothing from him, because he wasn't offering anything anyway. And she loved that she could work and screw at the same time, even though she didn't really think it all the way through.

Because suddenly, this isn't frivolous and carefree anymore, because he's her boss - he's not some random fling from a chemistry class, who she'll never see again after the semester. He's her boss, for a job that pays her very, very well. And besides for the first time in her life feeling a little bit like a whore, any way she spins it, it feels like suffocation.

But it wouldn't be fair to say this wasn't her fault too. The problem is, she can't easily say, "Hey, Boss, you mind if we stop screwing now?" As much as her friends told her it was weird, it wasn't right, to stay away, she still charges head first into it, because she was just so damned eager to find out for herself. Wild, Crazy, Fun April Hutchins is eager to live up to her nickname, even when she's starting to suspect it's time to outgrow it a little.

So it began with good intentions, even if that's just something you say when you've screwed things up really bad. It began about the money, which bartending in a place like this pays pretty damn well. It began because even though Beau probably would have covered her half of the rent, she felt a little whorish doing that. So she did this instead, which feels, well, a little bit whorish, to be quite honest.

When the hard truth of it is, maybe she can't actually afford to be in college after all.

***

She doesn't notice it immediately, but one night, Heather finally finds Max watching after April as she finishes her shift and hurries quickly out the door. "Oh Max," she says. "You didn't."

The answer is written all over his face. "Eh," he says.

"That's not gonna work out for you," she says.

"Consider Ana, you remember Ana? The crazy one?"

"Jog my memory. Cute, blonde?"

"Aren't they all?" Heather says. "She threatened to tell Valerie. She walked by your house."

"April's a nice girl," Max says. "She doesn't want anything. What could happen?"

A better question might be, what couldn't happen? But Heather only smiles at him. "Remember me at twenty?"

"Sure," he says. "Who doesn't?"

"Hmmm," she says, squinting at him, as if digging out the man behind those dark, dark eyes. She's known him for eighteen years, longer than even his wife. "You're almost charming sometimes, Max... almost."

"'Night, Heather."

"Goodnight, Max," she says.

She goes then, and she knows he's watching her hips sway as she breezes through the doorway. Maybe she sways a little bit harder for him, just to jog his memory a little, just for fun, just for the game.

*******

(footnotes: April gets a job)

notes: *sigh* So, April and Max then... wrong as it might be, they have HUGE chemistry (three bolts/134), and well, neither of them are exactly the type to turn down a lay, lol! (Max is also her #1, if you don't count Beau's dad, lol! And NO, she's not going THERE if I have anything to say about it!!!) So anyway, both of them together for such lengths of time, and I didn't figured they'd hold out for very long.

I feel her being smothered by it though, the expectations of it. And she keeps rolling wants for James (also three bolts/about 95), but he's a hard egg to crack open ;)