Hobbled (7 page)

Luke gave Danny a searching look, as if maybe what Danny had just said made him wonder something. And Danny was afraid he knew what it was. So to cover his tracks, Danny blurted out, “So have you met the guy? The boyfriend? Did your dad introduce him to you?”

Luke appeared to set aside any questions he might have about what Danny said about his dad finding a boyfriend. He was on the third toe now, and that toe was just as giddily happy to be the center of attention as the other two toes had been.

“Nope,” Luke said. “I wasn’t even sure he was gay until a couple of months ago, when he told me we were moving.”

“Gee. Were you shocked? About him being gay, I mean?”

Luke thought about that. “Not so much. I, well, I know some gay people. They’re just like you and me, you know.”

Like me, certainly,
Danny thought.

Luke left Danny’s third toe screaming in protest when Luke moved along to the next toe too damn fast. Luke was too busy thinking about Danny’s last question to notice. “I think I was just glad Dad had finally found somebody he loved. I knew he was seeing somebody. I just didn’t know it was a guy. Not until he told me. But I don’t have a problem with it.” His eyes bored into Danny’s once more. “Would you?”

Danny blinked. “Uh, no. I don’t think I would. I mean, it would be a shock and all, what with it being my dad, but, uh, no. No problem.”

Danny couldn’t help wondering if that were really true. How
would
he react?

On the other hand, Danny was a wee bit more worried about how his father would react when Danny finally got around to telling him
he
was gay.

But that was a speculation Danny was always trying to avoid. Now was no exception. He steered the conversation to another heading.

“So where’s your dad now, Luke? Closing up the house in Tucson?”

“Yeah. I came early to bring the van and maybe get this house arranged a little bit. Dad won’t be here for a couple more weeks. He had to train his replacement at the bank. Talk to a Realtor. Shit like that. I didn’t want to hang around in a torn-up house, so I talked Dad into letting me bring the van early.” He released Danny’s toes and patted Danny’s knee instead. After he finished patting it, he let his hand lie there. “I’m glad I did.”

Danny swallowed, looking down at that warm hand resting on his knee. He studied the hair on the arm the hand was attached to. Then he gazed a little farther south to study the hairy legs of the boy cradling Danny’s left foot in his lap.

God, Luke was beautiful from one end to the other.

Danny’s dick stirred again, making him jump. Jeez, he wished it would stop doing that.

“So am I!” he blurted out. He blushed, then toned it down a bit. “I mean, well, so am I. Glad you came early, I mean.”

Luke grinned and gave him a wink. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”

“Yeah,” Danny said, still blushing but finding his own smile as well. “So do I.”

Danny had almost built up the nerve to reach down and pat the hand that was patting his knee, but before he could get around to it, a car horn made them both jump.

“Crap!” Luke said. “Must be the peons Pop hired to empty the truck. Good thing he did though, huh? If
you
tried to help me they’d drag you to the state pen for breaking parole. Or jumping ship. Or crossing the thirty-yard line. Or whatever the hell they call it.”

“They call it the quickest way to find my ass in jail and break my father’s heart,” Danny said. He didn’t even try to
fake
a smile after he said it. The thought was too depressing.

Luke looked at him, his cornflower-blue eyes wide, full of sympathy. He reached out and touched Danny’s cheek. Just the lightest touch imaginable. But to Danny, the touch burned all the way down to the bone.

“Then we won’t let it happen,” Luke said. “And for what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing flipping over that fucking ice machine. Sometimes a guy has to do what a guy has to do.”

“Thanks,” Danny said.

Before anything else could be said by either of them, the car horn blasted again, making Granger bark and making the cat spit and hiss at Granger for barking. It also got Luke moving toward the door.

“Later, buddy,” Luke said.

And Danny nodded. “Later.”

Danny’s heart was going a mile a minute.

He didn’t know it, but so was Luke’s.

D
ANNY
stood at the kitchen window and watched Luke hop the hedge with ease and speak to the two guys waiting for him in the driveway next door. Once again Luke’s ginger hair was set ablaze by the morning sun. Danny had never seen anything so gorgeous in his life. Luke was smiling and gesticulating to the two workers, pointing to the truck, then the house, bending to pet Granger’s head, and once, he faced Danny’s kitchen window and gave Danny a wave. Danny was so startled, Luke had turned away before he thought to wave back.

Wow. The past thirty minutes had been the most erotic thirty minutes of Danny’s young life. He could still feel Luke’s warm fingers touching him.
Touching
him. He could feel the timbre of Luke’s voice still flowing across his skin like a sweep of silk.

Danny actually had to close his eyes when he remembered Luke reaching out to brush his cheek just before he left the house. His fingers were so gentle. His eyes so kind.

His body so sexy.

Holy shit. The guy had to be gay. He
had
to be. But what if he wasn’t? What if he was just really, really friendly? Danny knew if he made the first move on Luke, and Luke backed away, or worse,
ran
away, Danny would be crushed. He would be so humiliated, it would probably set back Danny’s little coming-out party for another decade. Or longer. Or forever.

Danny let the kitchen curtain fall closed, and he clumped his way back to the kitchen table, where he collapsed into the chair he had been sitting in earlier.

Torn somewhere between despondent and exhilarated, he reached out and touched the seat of the chair Luke had been sitting in.

It was still warm.

Danny sighed. He really had to get laid. Please, God, just once.

Chapter 4

S
INCE
his erotically charged
tête–à–tête
with Luke earlier that morning, erotically charged from Danny’s perspective at any rate, Danny had been alone the entire day. Playing video games. Playing
more
video games. Facebooking with people he didn’t really know or ever want to meet. Eating. Eating again. Then eating maybe a couple more times. He could have clomped his way to the hedge and struck up a conversation with Luke, but the guy and his two helpmates were busy unloading a huge truckload of furniture, and Danny didn’t want to bother them. Instead, Danny had tried twice to strike up a conversation with the cat, but to no avail. The cat wasn’t talking. Still pissed about the bird, he supposed.

Danny wasn’t used to all the seclusion, or to the restrictions this house arrest business was making on his ability to move around and function like a normal human being. It pretty much killed that ability dead, is what it did. Danny hadn’t appreciated what a wonderful thing it was to be able to just hop in his car and go somewhere when he had a mind to, or to simply pick up a phone and call somebody when he felt like talking. No wonder people go on and on and on about the importance of freedom. It is one of those things you don’t miss until you don’t have it any more. Like sex. Of course, in Danny’s case he had never had sex to
begin with,
except with himself, so you’d think maybe he shouldn’t be missing it so much
now.

If Danny was going this crazy being restricted to the house and yard, without access to his car and unable to use the telephone to call out, what would it have been like to spend these six weeks in a jail cell? No wonder his dad pleaded with the judge to let Danny serve his sentence under house arrest. Funny it was only now Danny really appreciated what an act of kindness that had been on his father’s part. And it was costing his dad a small fortune, too, because the cost of leasing the ankle monitor was accruing daily. Since a prisoner under house arrest saves the city over $150 a day in jail costs, you would think the city would be paying
them
, rather than the other way around.

But apparently the city didn’t see it that way. The pricks.

On top of all the loneliness and the restrictions on his movements and the frustration of having a cast on one leg and a damn flashing light on the other one, Danny was also trying to understand his feelings about Luke. Not that they were really that hard to understand. Danny wanted to get into the guy’s pants and he wanted the guy to get into
his.
Pretty basic stuff there. You’d think it wouldn’t be so confusing for him to figure it all out.

Lord, virginity sucks dick. Or was that an oxymoron?

Late in the afternoon, Danny’s father called. When Danny grabbed the phone on the first ring and heard his father’s voice on the other end of the line, the first words out of his mouth were, “I love you, Pop.”

There was silence on the line for a couple of heartbeats, then his father replied, “I love you, too, Son. Feeling lonely, are we?”

Danny gave him a wry chuckle. “How’d you guess?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll make it through. I’m just sorry I had to leave you to face the music alone.”

“It’s okay, Dad. You can’t put your life on hold for me all the time. You have to do stuff for yourself once in a while.”

“Wow. Who is this level-headed guy I’m talking to and where’s my crazy son who takes his frustrations out on ice-cube-making machinery?”

Danny laughed. “Maybe he’s growing up. I miss you, Dad.”

And Danny thought he could feel his father smiling at him over the phone line. “I miss you, too, Danny. Anyway, I assume everything is okay.”

“Yep. Just fine. Somebody’s moving into the house next door. Did you know?”

His father hesitated for a second. “Actually, yeah, I did hear that was going to happen. Have you met anyone yet?”

“Just the son. He’s over there now, unloading a bunch of furniture. Nice guy. His name is Luke.”

“Same age as you?”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “How’d you know?”

“I heard he might be. Maybe you can strike up a friendship with him and then you won’t be so lonely. I know you left all your real friends back in Indiana, and you really haven’t been in California long enough to make new ones. Outside of the penal system, I mean.”

Danny groaned. “Stop it.”

“Sorry.”

His father cleared his throat. “I’m serious, Danny. Make friends with the new boy next door. It’ll help get you through the next six weeks. You need an ally. Someone you can talk to. And he’s new in town too. Don’t forget that. I’m sure he needs a friend to talk to as much as you do.”

“I’m talking to you.”

“It’s not the same as a friend, kid.”

“I talked to Mom.”

“Oh, God.”

“Yeah. She wants me to come back to Indiana the minute I get this hardware off my leg.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“I told her hell no.”

His father chuckled. “Bet she loved that. I’ll probably be getting a call from her myself any minute now. Sure looking forward to that. We have
wonderful
little chats, your mother and I. She’s quite a woman.”

“She’s a bitch.”

“I’m trying to think of an argument to that.”

“Don’t waste your time.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

A comfortable silence settled over the line. The silence didn’t bother Danny at all. He was just happy knowing his dad was on the other end. He could almost feel him there. Like he was in the same room.

When his father spoke, Danny listened. That’s how much he loved him.

“Danny. I’ve been watching the news. That creep that’s killing young guys in San Diego has made national news. There was another one last night, you know. Have you been watching the news?”

“Not since yesterday,” Danny said. “He killed four people.”

“Well, now he’s killed five. There was another announcement on the news this morning.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow. I have to tell you, Danny, I’m sort of glad you’re under house arrest and not running around the city while this guy is still on the loose. I feel a lot happier knowing where you are every minute of the day. Still, I’m going to try to cut this trip short and get back there as soon as I can. He’s killing guys in your age group, you know. They think he’s—well, they think he’s raping them, too.”

“Jeez,” Danny breathed. He didn’t know which was more shocking. The fact the guy was doing that, or the fact his dad felt compelled to talk to Danny about it.

“So be careful, Danny. Okay?”

“You know I will.” He meant it, too. Meant it with every fiber of his being.

Another comfortable silence descended on the conversation. Danny knew what his father was doing. He was trying to think of something to say so as to extend the phone call because he knew Danny was lonely. It was exactly the sort of thing his father
would
do, and Danny loved him for it. He really did. Especially now.