Hobbled (16 page)

“We’ve got about a week left before my dad gets back,” Luke said. “I think if I have to start sleeping alone, I’m going to go crazy.”

“Me too,” Danny sighed, his lips still brushing Luke’s. “What are we going to do?”

“What
can
we do?” Luke asked. “Sneak around, I guess. Maybe I can tiptoe over here in the middle of the night and climb up your rain gutter, if you have one.”

“Yeah, right.”

Danny took a deep breath and pulled back just enough to give Luke a searching look in the moonlight. Maybe the time had come to say the words. Maybe even if the time
hadn’t
really come, he was ready to say them anyway. Maybe. “I think we have to tell our dads how we feel.”

“And how
do
we feel?” Luke asked, suddenly shy. But not really afraid any more. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words first. He just couldn’t. So he waited. And he didn’t have to wait very long.

Danny had found his courage at last.

“I—I know exactly how
I
feel,” Danny stammered, reaching up to lay his hand against Luke’s neck, feeling Luke’s pulse there, just below the skin. Needing his touch. Absorbing his heat. Savoring the sensation of Luke’s life thrumming beneath his fingertips. “I—I just don’t know how
you
feel.”

Luke scraped the stubble on Danny’s chin with his thumb. Enjoying the crispness of it. Enjoying the fact that Danny tilted his head down to kiss Luke’s palm. “Tell you what, Danny. You tell me how you feel, and then I’ll tell you how I feel. How’s that?”

Danny took a deep shuddering breath. His heart was doing flip-flops. He was scared, but he was happy too. He
wanted
to say the words. He
needed
to say them. “Okay,” he murmured, nervous yet determined.

But before he could speak the words of love he had been dying to say for so long, the oddest sound suddenly tore through the bedroom window from somewhere outside. It was a soft keening. Like a gentle wail. A
fearful
wail. And then it dwindled down to a stuttering moan. And then nothing. Silence.

It hadn’t lasted more than three seconds.

They both turned to the window, and in the moonlight they could see Frederick, too, sitting alert on the bookcase where he usually rested. He was staring through the open curtains, peering out into the night. His tail was hanging straight down and the tip of it was flicking back and forth like it did when he was intrigued. Or agitated.

“What
was
that?” Danny whispered, feeling a cold chill crawl up his spine. “What was that creepy noise?”

Luke just shook his head, still listening, hoping to hear it again. But not really wanting to either.

Instead, a different sound came through the bedroom window. It was an unmistakable sound this time. Nothing mysterious about it. It was Granger. He was next door, where Luke had left him, locked inside Luke’s house, and he was barking up a storm.

Luke swung his bare legs out of bed, and Danny did the same, awkwardly because of the cast. They hurried to the window and leaned outside. Granger was still barking like the mailman was coming down the chimney or something. Granger hated the mailman.

“I don’t see a thing,” Danny said, looking in both directions, his face next to Luke’s, his chin digging into Luke’s shoulder. Luke’s naked ass was pressed comfortably against Danny’s groin.

The street was quiet. A few porch lights were on, but that was about it. It was almost two in the morning. The neighborhood was asleep. Or most of it was, except for Granger and whatever or whomever had made that creepy-ass moan.

“I’d better go check the house before Granger wakes up the whole state,” Luke said. He glanced down at the green light on Danny’s ankle monitor. “You might want to stay here.”

“Very funny,” Danny snarled.

He stopped snarling when Luke dropped to his knees in front of him and gave his sleeping pecker a gentle kiss on the top of its little head. Needless to say, the head of Danny’s dick didn’t stay little very long. But Luke was back on his feet and tugging on a pair of shorts before Danny could insist Luke finish what he had started. Damn.

The sound of Danny’s cast echoed through the house as he clumped over to the nightstand and grabbed his curtain rod. Then he clumped back to the window and stood there naked, half-hard, leaning out, all the while digging around inside his cast with the curtain rod trying to satisfy that ever-elusive itch. He watched Luke exit the back door down below. Danny grinned when Luke gasped as his bare feet touched the cold, dewy grass. He mumbled “Holy shit!” as he set out across Danny’s yard.

Granger was really making a racket now. While Danny listened and watched Luke hop the hedge and duck through his own back door and disappear, he thought he heard another cry coming from somewhere out there in the darkness. But it was so fleeting, he couldn’t be sure. Still, it was enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It was such a bizarre sound. And it was eerie the way Danny couldn’t tell which direction it came from. It was like it came from every direction at once.

Danny stood there hunched over in the window, digging away at his itchy leg with the curtain rod as he watched every light in Luke’s house go on, one after the other, then quickly go back off again. Danny figured Luke was going from room to room, giving the place the once-over to make sure no burglars were lurking around waiting to steal the family jewels.

Soon Danny saw Luke slide across his back porch with Granger next to him on a leash. There was a jangle of keys as Luke carefully locked his back door behind him, then he and Granger wended their way back to Danny’s place. Rather than lift Granger over the hedge, Luke led the dog all the way down the driveway and around. Again, Danny could hear Luke gasp when his bare feet hit the cold, dewy grass in Danny’s yard.

Danny giggled when Luke was forced to stand below, hopping from one foot to the other on the wet lawn while Granger took his sweet time peeing on the petunias under Danny’s window. Luke looked up at the sound of Danny’s laughter above him and stuck out his tongue. Then he gave Danny the finger, and Danny laughed even louder.

Five minutes later, Luke was back in bed, after drying off his feet with a towel from the bathroom. He and Danny were cuddling just like they had been before they were interrupted. And Granger was softly snoring by the side of the bed.

Frederick had apparently decided to take a hike. Probably all pissed off about the dog invading his territory yet again and storming off through his pet door to take it out on the neighbors’ landscaping. Frederick loved to poop in flower beds. Especially flower beds other than his own. Or maybe he was off to see his girlfriend. Who the hell knew?

Luke and Danny had climbed back into bed and resumed their cuddling as if nothing had ever happened, but their conversation seemed to have been permanently derailed. It wasn’t that they had forgotten the things they were about to confess to each other. It’s just that the courage to confess them seemed to have bled away in the night because of that ominous cry of horror, or pain, or fear, or whatever it was, that had come tearing out of the shadows.

Subdued now, they simply held each other close. Danny mouthed the words “I love you” into Luke’s ginger hair, but he was afraid to utter them out loud.

By the tiny smile that crossed Luke’s face, as he snuggled there with his cheek once again atop Danny’s hard and heavenly bicep, and his fingers all tangled up with Danny’s, one might have thought he heard the words anyway.

A moment later, he silently mouthed the same three words as he pressed his lips to the inside of Danny’s arm.

Later, when the cry came again to echo through the darkness, louder and more desperate this time than ever before, they were both asleep. They did not hear it.

Only Granger lifted his head and softly whimpered.

L
UKE
was across the way, unloading boxes and stuffing kitchen stuff into the cupboards. Pots, pans, plates, glasses, all the crap humans think they need to feed themselves properly. Luke knew differently. He would be perfectly happy to eat fast food out of bags for the rest of his life and never have to wash a thing. Bored and wanting to get back to Danny as soon as he could, Luke was just flinging it all into drawers and onto shelves, not much caring where it landed. He knew his dad would come along later and rearrange it anyway. After all, his dad’s middle name was Anal. As in anal picky, not anal sex. Of course, considering that question, Luke really had no idea what sort of sexual stuff his dad was into. Probably better
not
to know. He gave a shiver, thinking of his dad having sex at all. Too creepy.

He picked up the last item in that particular box, a stack of potholders and dish towels, and sailed them into the cupboard under the sink. He kicked the empty box through the back door, where it landed in a pile of other boxes scattered across the driveway. Then he reached for another. There was no shortage to choose from. Boxes were everywhere. Piles
of boxes. Mountains
of boxes.

Standing knee-deep in a sea of crumpled-up newsprint, which the dishes and glasses had been individually wrapped in—like
that
was really necessary—Luke sighed and tore open the lid on the new box. No wonder the box was so heavy. It was electric crap. Electric grills, electric coffee pots, electric can openers, electric nose-hair trimmers. Just kidding. Damn. Electric stuff
flew
okay but it didn’t
land
very well. He’d have to be a little more careful with this lot.

While he worked and grumped and sweated, Luke wondered what Danny was doing.

At that very same moment, Danny was wondering the same thing about Luke.

What Danny was doing was standing awkwardly at the edge of the swimming pool, reaching out with the long pool scooper to pick the leaves and dead bugs off the water. Since it was nice and sunny and warm, he was wearing only his swim trunks: big baggy ones that barely hung on the curve of his pale ass and looked really, really sexy, although Danny probably didn’t know that. He wasn’t exactly enamored with his long, skinny body, even if Luke was. And thank God Luke was, Danny thought with a smile.

He looked down at himself, at his long, hairy legs, his flat belly with the tuft of hair around the belly button, at his pretty much nonexistent pecs, and just shook his head. He felt like a troll next to Luke. Luke was beautiful. And the moment he thought that thought, his dick began to move. He stood in stasis for about five seconds, enjoying the sensation of his dick creeping around inside his shorts.

A tap on his shoulder stopped Danny’s dick in its tracks. It pretty much stopped his heart too.

Danny jumped about two feet straight up in the air, then whirled around to find Mr. Childers standing behind him. Mr. Childers looked like he was trying not to laugh at the way Danny had jumped. Danny supposed he couldn’t blame him.

“Hi,” Danny said, making a concerted effort not to clutch his chest.

“Hi, son. Didn’t mean to startle you there.” Mr. Childers looked down at Danny’s cast and ankle monitor. “You’re looking a little hobbled.”

Danny just shrugged. What could he say? “Yeah, well….”

Mr. Childers was wearing his blue jeans again. He was wearing tan work boots, and he had a shirt on this time, but it was unbuttoned all the way down the front, showing off the man’s fuzzy chest and tummy. Danny had a really hard time keeping his eyes focused on Mr. Childers’s face.

“Can I help you?” Danny asked.

Mr. Childers squatted at the edge of the pool and played his fingers through the water. He was practically at Danny’s feet, so Danny stepped back, just to be polite.

“I’m not going to bite you, son.”

Danny forced up a chuckle. “I know.”

Mr. Childers stood and looked around Danny’s yard. He seemed to know what he was looking for, even if Danny didn’t. The man looked up at Danny’s bedroom window and saw Frederick lying on the windowsill, soaking up the sun. Frederick was looking down at them like he was trying to hear what they were talking about. He had a torn book page crumpled up in his front paws.
Looks like Mark Twain has taken another hit
, Danny thought, trailing his eyes up to where Mr. Childers was looking.

“Haven’t seen my cat, have you?” Childers asked. “An orange tabby. I think she got laid last night, since I seemed to remember hearing her yell about what a good time she was having. Haven’t seen her since.” He tilted his chin in Frederick’s direction. “That’s her boyfriend.”

Danny laughed. “Dad said Fred was porking one of the neighbors’ cats. I didn’t know he meant yours. No. I haven’t seen your tabby. In fact, I didn’t know you had one.”

“So you didn’t hear the noises last night?” Childers asked, still kneeling at Danny’s feet and casually splashing the water with his fingertips.

Then Danny remembered the eerie wail he and Luke had heard the night before. The creepy cry that made Granger go batshit and sounded like someone being tortured to within an inch of their life. Could that have been a cat? Danny wasn’t sure. Cats made some pretty horrendous sounds sometimes. Especially when they were getting laid.

“I might have heard
something,”
Danny said. “Didn’t really sound like a cat, though.
Anyway, if I see your tabby, I’ll grab her for you. You’ll have to come and get her though, if I do. I’m kind of being held prisoner here. Well—not
kind
of. I
am
being held prisoner here.”

Mr. Childers looked down at all the crap on Danny’s lower legs. “So I see,” he said around a smile. “Well, this too shall pass, son. Don’t let it get you down.”

“Okay,” Danny said, knowing full well that if Childers had all this crap strapped to
his
legs, he wouldn’t be so goddamn chipper about the whole thing. Sometimes adults were pretty stupid.

“And if you hear my cat again, just ignore it. I guess she’ll come home when she’s ready.”

Mr. Childers gave Danny one last lingering look, from his feet all the way up to his face, then he stood, and turning on the heels of his work boots, headed for the front yard. He’d have to go all the way around the block to get back to his own house. There was no gate in their mutual back fence.