TITLE: Hot Summer Day
The sight of her bare back hunched over, and the clicking sound of the keys on her keyboard being pressed down hard and quickly was very familiar. Well, everything except the bare back; she hardly ever wore a halter top but was wearing one since the air conditioner was broken and she had the windows open but the shades pulled.
Spike thought it was the most suffering he'd seen any human go through as Alex drank her seventh straight glass of iced tea. She was wiping away big beads of perspiration on her forehead. "Can't you wait until tonight to finish this, love? It's eight in the morning."
She shook her head, pulling her hands away from the keyboard to readjust her hairband. Encountering a knot in her hair, she grabbed the brush and proceeded to pull it through, getting the knot out. "No. The page has to be finished by nine our time. So that they can launch it at midnight eastern standard time."
He nodded, going behind her and taking the brush from her hands, slowly brushing her hair and pulling it up into a ponytail. "So you have to work in this heat to finish it?"
"Yeah." She smiled when he put his hands on the back of her neck. "Today is a day I'm glad you have cold hands."
He moved his hands down to her back and rested his chin on her shoulder. "What type of page is it your working on?"
"One for a school, actually. There's one for students with special needs that asked my company for a free page. We do some of those, occasionally, for nonprofit organizations and really good causes. I volunteered to do this one."
"Really?" he asked, looking at the screen. "What does it look like?"
She saved the file and pulled it open on Netscape and let him take a look. There were pictures of the students doing different things as well as interior and exterior shots.
He put his hand over hers on the mouse and started looking around the page. It wasn't something he'd done before, but Alex didn't mind. Partly because she was burning up from the lack of coolness in the small room, something he being a vampire provided, and partly because the look on his face was one of pride and interest.
"You like it?"
He nodded, continuing to look around. "Could you teach me to do this?"
"Do what?"
"Design websites."
She turned around slowly and looked at him. "All right. I'll teach you," she said with a smile.
***
With horrendous spelling and grammar mistakes.
"What's so funny, love?" he asked, looking at her face.
"You're spelling," she said. "You don't use a keyboard often, do you?"
He glared at her a little. "No, Alex, I don't."
She pulled a chair over and backed up to the edit screen. "I can fix it. It's just because I have a weird keyboard. But it's a good page. It doesn't look like it's your first one."
"Really?" he said, grinning a cocky grin.
She nodded. "And I love the pictures you used. Except," she said, changing over to the improved page. "This one. But that's just because it got cropped badly. It can be fixed. I think." She pulled up the original picture and re-cropped it.
She moved her arm so that it wouldn't hurt as much from the weird angle and was surprised when Spike grasped her wrist. "Let me try it." He pulled the original picture back up and re-cropped it.
Alex shook her head as Spike messed around on the site and put on a new CD, having the sudden need for something light.
"Not this song," Spike said jokingly.
"What? I like it! I could be playing Nookie, you know."
He shook his head. "You, my love, have the strangest taste in the world."
She nodded, putting her arms around his neck. "Yeah, I live with you."
He turned to the side and kissed her lightly, surprising her. "Are you sure that's a strange thing?"
She'd started to sweat again and Spike wiped away what was on her face. "Nothing about my life is strange. Well, here it isn't. Elsewhere, it is."
"What I do is immensely strange," Spike said. "I live with a human and I'm supposed to be one of the best vampires in the world."
"You have my vote," she said in all seriousness.
He grinned. "And why's that, love?"
"I dunno. Because you're mine?"
He laughed. "Possessive, aren't we?"
"Damn straight," she said, sliding from the edge of the chair onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her, letting her rest her head on his shoulder.
"I don't know why I put up with it. That and your strange music tastes."
"Because you're madly in love with me?" she replied with an impish grin.
He pulled her face to his, kissing her as she relished the feel of his cold hands on her bare back. "Mmmhmm..." she said quietly, pulling away. "You gonna finish?"
"Kissing you or the webpage?"
"Either one. Though the first one is more enjoyable."
He nodded and kissed her again, for a few moments, before pulling away. "I wonder," he mused quietly to himself.
"You wonder what?" she asked.
"I wonder how I'm going to be able to type and have you stay right where you are."
"How about I type? It'd be easier..." she said, picking up the keyboard.
He shook his head. "Thanks all the same, love," he said, taking the keyboard. "I want to do this. I know how you feel about these things now."
"Well, remember I have to finish the one I'm working on soon."
He nodded and started to type, enjoying having Alex watching what he was doing. "This is hard, but I'm up to a challenge."
"I can tell," she said. "You're pretty fast."
He smiled at the compliment, concentrating on the page a bit more.
Alex yawned at the monitor. "Finished. Finally. And with ten minutes to spare. How's your page looking?"
Spike didn't even look up, his concentration almost solely on the screen in front of him. "Almost done. Sorry to make you use your laptop."
"No problem. You found something you liked," she said with a smile. "Can I see it soon?"
He nodded, still looking at the computer. "One more link...got it!" He looked up, rotating his neck to get the kinks out. "It's done. You want the address?"
She nodded. "Of course!"
"Okay. It's..." He checked the page. "Http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/sunnydaleishell/index.html"
She laughed at the address as she typed it into her computer. When the page came up, she felt Spike move towards her, looking over her shoulder as she looked at each page.
"Wow, this is...I really like it."
He pointed to her tiny screen. "Go to this page." She clicked on the link.
"The reason I exist," she mumbled, scrolling down to finally see a picture of...
"Me?"
He nodded, pointing to the picture of her in her maid of honor dress she wore in her uncle's wedding. "My favorite picture of you," he said.
She scrolled down and saw the entire page was about her, and she blushed. "You didn't have to do this," she mumbled, pleasantly surprised.
"But I wanted to," he said. "You took time away from what you were doing to teach me and...you are the reason I exist now."
She smiled and reached up to touch his face. "Thank you."
"No, love. Thank you," he said, leaning down to kiss her again.
