Hobbled (3 page)

Danny focused on the houses across the street. Some old guy watching the news. Another old guy watching the news. Two kids playing
Tomb Raider
on their PlayStations while their mother set the dinner table and screamed at them to turn down the volume. Danny could actually hear the woman’s strident voice from a block away. Oddly enough, it seemed her kids, who were less than eight feet from her flapping mouth, couldn’t hear the woman at all. Poor things must be deaf.

Danny heard the clink of glass, and sweeping his binoculars around, he spotted Mrs. Trumball, three doors down. She was wearing her ever-present flowery pink housecoat and pink fuzzy slippers and sneaking gin bottles into the trash can by her kitchen door now that it was good and dark, just like she always did. You would think someone being that sneaky would take the trouble to turn off her porch light. But no. She might as well be on stage with a baby spot aimed right at her head. Her hair was in rollers, as usual. Danny had never seen her hair
out
of rollers, and he had known the woman since he was nine years old. Danny grinned. Mrs. Trumball had been hiding her gin bottles for a decade, at least. One would think she would be tired of sneaking around by now and would just lean out her kitchen window and scream to the neighbors, “Yes, I’m a drunk! So what! Mind your own business you goddamn pack of nosy-assed jackals!” Then Danny imagined her carefully scooting her African violets aside, tugging an Uzi out from under her housecoat, and spraying the neighborhood with bullets, all the while screaming, “Snoop on this, you miserable pack of poopheads!”

Danny giggled at the thought.

Moving to the south window that overlooked the pool at the rear of the house, Danny could peer over the back fence from his high vantage point. From there he could see the house that abutted his father’s in the back. It faced the next street over. This house was ranch style. One story. It was stucco, painted in a Southwestern ochre, with Southwestern crap scattered around the yard. An old wagon wheel. About a thousand cacti. A couple of cow skulls. Artfully broken pots overflowing with lush succulents filled up the corners.

At that particular moment, the guy who owned the house was in his driveway by the open garage out back, working on his car. It looked like he was changing a headlight on his station wagon. He was wearing raggedy blue jeans with no shirt and no shoes, and Danny had to admit that for an old guy, he looked pretty darned good, with those slim hips and fuzzy chest and two little dimples just above his snugly blue-jeaned ass. Since Danny’s cock had just given a little lurch inside his cargo shorts, Danny could only assume his pecker agreed the guy was indeed a looker. The man’s name was Mike Something. Mike Childers, that was it.

Mr. Childers had lost his wife a couple of years earlier, and now he spent his time puttering around his property, keeping to himself, waving when he was waved to, but that was about all the socializing he did. Danny had to admit he really was a good-looking man, maybe around forty, which was old to Danny, and Danny didn’t blame the guy one little bit for keeping his nose out of the neighborhood’s business.

Actually, Danny should probably be following in the guy’s footsteps and minding his own business, too, rather than standing here snooping on everybody, especially since they were all so damned boring anyway.

The fact was, Danny was starting to feel like a perv. Here he was in a darkened house staring out the windows with a pair of binoculars, spying on the neighbors from a room that
still
smelled like multiple squirts of jism. Next thing you know, he’d be whacking off in the bushes while he listened to Mr. and Mrs. Dinkens have marital relations in that Victorian monstrosity next door. This was not good. This was not healthy. Mr. Dinkens was a bean pole, and Mrs. Dinkens weighed about three hundred pounds. Danny didn’t want to hear that.

Maybe now would be a good time to gauge the limits of his electronic leash. It would be good to know how far he could move in every direction just so he wouldn’t be tripping the alarm every five minutes and bringing nine million cops down on his head. It was nice and dark outside, so none of the neighbors would be able to see what he was doing. He was sure they were all talking about him being under house arrest. It was probably the lead story on the neighborhood grapevine. They might very well be watching his every move, like he was watching theirs, just to make sure he didn’t try any funny business, what with him being a bona fide criminal and all.

Hmm. Danny wondered if he should borrow Mrs. Trumball’s Uzi. Give himself some cover fire. Nah. Too dramatic. He’d just sneak around and do what he had to do on the sly.

It was completely dark outside now, except for the streetlights out front, which cast enough light through the windows to let Danny see what he was doing. With all the house lights off, including the porch lights, Danny slid through the front door like a ninja, except for the damn noisy cast on his leg thumping all over the place. Hunched over to make a smaller target just in case anyone did happen to be watching, he moved down the front walk, plucking the solar night-lights out of the ground that bordered the walk as he went along, like some deranged flower picker. They were about a foot high, the night-lights. One end was pointy to stick in the ground and the other end had a tiny solar panel that powered a wee light bulb inside. They gave off just a speck of white light, not really enough to see anything by, but enough to be able to follow the sidewalk and not take off in the wrong direction and end up in Portland. The little lights were mostly just ornamental, but for what Danny wanted to use them for, they would be more than sufficient.

When he had his arms full of night-lights, he saw the flaw in his plans. Hell,
everybody
could see him now, with this bouquet of night-lights cradled in his arms like Miss America clutching a spray of radioactive roses. From a distance, he probably looked like he was glowing. He quickly scooted back through the front door and dumped the night-lights in the foyer. Then, carrying only one light stick this time, and shielding the white light at the tip of it with his hand, he set off down the front walk again, watching his electronic monitor with every step, waiting for the light to go from green to red.

At the very end of the walk, the ankle monitor flashed red. Danny’s heart did a somersault, and he stepped hastily backward, hoping to God the light would go back to green before every cop in California descended on his ass. And it did. Thank God.

Danny stuck the night-light he was carrying into the ground right next to the last square in the sidewalk, then he did an aboutface and went to fetch another. With this one, he took off across the grass to the west, and just as he reached the hedge and picket fence that separated his property from the vacant house next door, the light flashed red. He stepped back, poked the night-light in the ground and headed back for another one.

It didn’t take him long to realize that the police apparently knew what they were doing. Every time he reached the edge of his property, be it front yard, or side yards, the light flashed red just before he crossed the property line. It was only in the back, behind the pool at the six-foot-high fence that separated his backyard from Mr. Childers’s backyard that the monitor did not flash red. And with Mr. Childers still working on his car in his driveway by the open garage just on the other side of the fence, Danny couldn’t scale the fence to test the limits in that direction. He’d have to do it some other time. Or never. Chances are the light on his ankle monitor would flash red just a couple of feet past the fence line anyway, so maybe he wouldn’t even worry about it.

He stuck the last light stick in the ground on his side of the back fence, and called it quits.

His reconnaissance hadn’t really accomplished anything, but at least he had a clearer idea of where his prison walls were. He knew exactly where he was allowed to go during the next six weeks. He wouldn’t be tripping the alarm by accident, at least.

Just before he clunked his way back to the house, Danny dared a brief peek through the back fence, thinking a closer look at Mr. Childers’s naked chest would give him something to think about later if he found himself in need of a little sexual stimulation.

With his eye pressed to the wooden fence, right at the point where two boards didn’t quite come together, Danny gave a little gasp when he realized Mr. Childers was only a few feet away. He was still putzing around with the front fender of his car, and he was still looking pretty darned good in those faded blue jeans and nothing else. The skin of his back was smooth and well-muscled, with a little patch of dark hair just over his ass that Danny found very attractive indeed. When he turned, Danny saw a nice bulge in the crotch of his neighbor’s jeans. Danny swallowed, looking at it. God, it was beautiful.

Danny’s heart did a little stuttering tap dance when Mr. Childers stopped what he was doing and turned, as if he could feel a pair of eyes on him. He looked around in every direction, his gaze sliding over the fence where Danny was crouched. After a minute, he seemed satisfied he wasn’t being watched after all.

He turned his back to Danny once again, and returned to whatever the hell he was doing to the front end of his car.

Breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been caught snooping, Danny sneaked off through the grass, dragging the damn cast along with him, to the kitchen door, where he ducked inside.

Before turning on the house lights, he went around and closed all the drapes.

Finally, cocooned safely in his house with all the drapery closed and all the house lights switched back on, he wiped a patina of nervous sweat from his forehead. Yep. He really did feel like a perv.

No more peeping through windows and fences,
he told himself.
No more snooping ever.

Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen.

He went off in search of sustenance, trying his best to ignore his half-hard dick as it flopped around inside his shorts striving to get his attention, which it was managing to do quite well, thank you very much. Lord, he always did have trouble with boners when he went around without underwear staring at half-dressed men. Of course, there wasn’t much he could do about finally coming out of the closet for the next six weeks. He’d just have to muddle through, bone hard and horny. And try to stay away from the back fence. Too much temptation in that direction.

Still trying to take his mind off sex and the hunky older next-door neighbor, Danny built a sandwich with every ingredient and condiment he could lay his hands on. Then he tore into a family-sized bag of potato chips. Two seconds later the phone rang.

It was his dad, wondering if everything was okay and telling Danny his flight had been on time and he had arrived at his destination all in one piece.

While they chatted, Danny made all the appropriate responses, but his mind was still on that little patch of hair over Mr. Childers’s ass. It looked so—
welcoming.

Gee, maybe he really
was
a pervert.

On top of being gay, of course. Which was a whole different ballgame.

A ballgame Danny was all too aware he had yet to play.

Chapter 2

D
ANNY
woke up on the second day of his house arrest feeling, of all things, lonesome. That was certainly a surprise. He had thought he might actually enjoy the novelty of being alone for a while, but apparently his brain had other ideas.

He ignored his morning hard-on and clambered out of bed awkwardly, thanks to all the extra crap strapped around his ankles. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, grabbed the old curtain rod that he now kept on the nightstand and which had become his new best friend, and eased it down inside his cast as far as it would go. Then he started digging and poking and scrambling it around between his skin and the plaster. Scratching. Scratching. Jesus God, that felt good. Danny rolled his eyes and grunted and grimaced, and just before he thought he might actually pass out, or come, that’s how good it felt, it started hurting, and he knew he had probably removed a layer or two of skin, so he thought he’d better stop.

His dick was still hard; nothing much ever seemed to affect
that.
So he went to pee, and by the time he brushed his teeth and gave his head a shake to get his hair out of his eyes and pulled on the same shorts and T-shirt he had worn the day before, his hard-on had slipped into sleep mode. It wouldn’t take much to revive it, of course, but for now his dick was comfortably flaccid, being on hold and all, and he was able to walk around without looking like he was dowsing for water.

The house was so quiet. He missed the sound of his dad banging around in the kitchen getting their breakfasts ready. He missed the smell of his dad’s coffee brewing. He missed the scent of his dad’s aftershave wafting through the house. He missed his dad’s cheerful voice screaming up the stairs, “Come eat your breakfast, kid, before I eat it myself!”

Face it,
Danny told himself.
You miss your dad. Period.