Flash Fic: Window Washer

I haven't been writing lately. Bad, bad writer. I need to get back into it, I know, but I've been having a case of blahs.

So, having no news to report, I thought I'd do a flash fic. Obviously, I can't call for prompts, because there isn't time. So I'm grabbing some random words to use. Words are: injustice, skyscraper, and sprayer.

***

Anthony stuffed his scraper back into its pocket on his toolbelt -- how the fuck did someone get gum stuck to the outside of a forty-third story window, anyway? -- and picked up the squeegee again. This time, the rubber slid effortlessly across the glass.

It wasn't fair, he thought for approximately the two hundredth time that day. He wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be back at school, starting his graduate degree, not in a dolly on the side of a skyscraper staring wistfully at the executive boardrooms and offices he'd been planning to occupy himself.

Sure, this job wasn't forever. He'd be able to go back to school next year, or the year after. But the business world was cutthroat: a year or two-year break from school without a really good, resume-building excuse (like a stint in the Peace Corps, say, or an internship with a really high-power firm) could be enough to make or break him. A break from school to take care of an ailing grandmother? It would interview well enough -- but only if he could get to the interview. And he'd have to be careful about even that, not to let those shadow-interviewers of the future see that it wasn't just an act of familial devotion but one of necessity, because there was no way Anthony's family could afford any outside help.

Of course Anthony loved Nana. He'd agreed willingly to put off the rest of his schooling to help take care of her when the doctor had said she was probably in her final year... but in these moments, when he was alone in the sky, he needed to vent about the sheer injustice of it all.

Anthony sighed. He wiped the squeegee and dropped it back into its bucket. He tugged on his harness to check that it was secure, pulled his gloves snug, and carefully lowered his suspension rig another twelve feet to the forty-second floor. This window didn't have any unusual debris on it -- he really did want to know where that gum had come from -- so he used the sprayer to mist the window with cleaning solution.

This one was an executive office. Heavy oak desk, leather chair, the works. On the side of the room was practically an entire gym's worth of equipment: a treadmill and a bike and a nice bench with a complete set of weights. There was a man on the treadmill, apparently reading a report as he jogged. Anthony grinned, then stopped working altogether, because the man was gorgeous. No more than thirty, with wavy blond hair, chiseled features, and ripped body -- he obviously used all that workout gear on a regular basis. Anthony watched the muscles of the man's legs ripple as he ran, trying not to salivate.

The treadmill slowed, and Anthony started out of his lust-induced haze. Oh shit, the guy had noticed him. Anthony jerked his gaze up to the executive's face and gave him a grin that he hoped wasn't too guilty or sheepish, and waved with the hand not holding a squeegee.

The man grabbed a towel and mopped his face, dropped the report he'd been reading on his desk, and walked over to the window. Anthony blinked. In his experience -- and he'd been washing windows for his dad's company since he was sixteen -- the people inside the buildings rare even noticed him, and even when they did, they never did more than wave. But this guy -- shit, he was even hotter up close -- was standing right up on the floor-to-ceiling window, right up in Anthony's face. If it wasn't for the glass between them, Anthony could have kissed him.

Shit, don't think about kissing! Anthony couldn't control his blush, but hoped the guy wouldn't notice. Maybe he hadn't. Their eyes locked. Anthony wondered if he was crazy for thinking something was passing between them.

The man turned away, and Anthony let out a breath he just now realized he'd been holding. He drew another, and yet another, trying to get a grip on himself, to forget about that electric gaze. The man was bending over his desk, scrawling something on a piece of paper without bothering to sit down. Anthony tried not to look at the way his workout shorts defined his ass. He swallowed, hard, and tried to ignore the way the harness suddenly seemed tighter through his crotch.

Harness. Work. Right. Anthony lifted the squeegee and scraped a line of cleaner from the window, trying to look at the glass and not the man beyond it.

Another line.

Anthony jerked in surprise, and the man smiled. He ran a hand through his hair and then pressed his hand to the window. He looked at Anthony, another charged expression.

Anthony's heart pounded as hard as it had the first time he'd lowered himself over the side of a building. Slowly, hoping he wasn't about to do something irrevocably dumb, he pulled off his glove and put his own hand to the glass, matching the other's.

The man's smile widened, and then he held up the piece of paper that had been in his other hand: The inside needs cleaning, too, and I think you're the man for the job. Come see me when you're done out there. Ofc 4228. He lowered his hand, leaving a smudged handprint.

Anthony looked back up to the man's face, met his eyes. Anthony smiled, and nodded once.

Things were looking up.