Free Hobbled by John Inman Page A

a quizzical expression on his face with a little smile tickling the corners of his mouth. Danny had the horrible impression Luke knew exactly what he was doing.
    Danny blushed. And oddly enough, Luke blushed too.
    A silence fell between the two of them. The silence was both awkward and comfortable. Both friendly and positively teeming with testosterone. One of those silences. Danny wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear their heartbeats thumping away in the middle of it.
    Their eyes met, and Luke’s smile widened. He motioned to the table loaded with food. “Is this all for me?”
    Danny’s blush deepened to a magnificent magenta, two shades short of a stroke. “Well, yeah, I thought you might be hungry after working all day. But, you know, if you have other stuff to do, I won’t keep you. I just thought maybe—”
    “I’d love to. Thanks.”
    Luke dropped the ball of dirty clothes and the wet towel he was holding in his hand. Just dropped it right there in the doorway. He was in clean shorts and another tank top, just like Danny. It seemed to be the perennial uniform of the day for both of them. Except for the cast on his left leg, Danny was barefoot. So was Luke.
    When Luke brushed past him to get to the table, Danny could smell Luke’s clean skin and the Ivory soap the guy had showered with and the shampoo he had used to wash his hair. Danny’s shampoo. The combination of the three scents made for such a sexy smell that for a second Danny thought he might topple over just sniffing it. God, Danny wanted to reach out and stop Luke in his tracks, pull him into his arms, run his fingers across Luke’s clean smooth skin, nuzzle his neck to smell him all the better.
    But, of course, he didn’t. Danny sighed, and let Luke pass on by like a lost opportunity.
    They heard a horrible scream in some other part of the house. Sounded like a banshee.
    Luke grinned. “I guess my dog is pestering your cat. Sorry.”
    Danny shrugged. “Don’t be. That cat’s a cunt.”
    They laughed.
    Luke’s hair was still damp. Wet like that, it was really red, Danny noticed. Much more so than it was when it was dry. Danny watched as Luke swung a bare leg over the back of the kitchen chair and plopped himself down. He arranged his silverware neatly beside his plate, since Danny had just sort of tossed it on the table, not caring where it all went. Then while Danny still stood there watching him, Luke reached across the table and arranged Danny’s silverware too.
    When he was finished, Luke motioned to the opposite chair. “Sit,” he said. “Eat. I’m starved.”
    And Danny finally expelled the breath of air he had been holding for the longest time. He sank into the chair, happy to get off his wobbly legs, and they both started loading their plates with all kinds of stuff. Potato salad, ham, pickles, bread, coleslaw, cold pizza left over from a couple of days ago, cold green beans that had been in the fridge for God knows how long but didn’t stink yet so they must be okay. They ate as eighteen-year-olds always eat. With tons of enthusiasm and not a speck of conversation.
    Chomping away at a mouthful of food, Luke tugged his chair in a little closer, and their knees bumped into each other underneath the table. Luke acted like he hadn’t noticed, so Danny did the same, but for the next ten minutes Danny did not taste one single bite of food he put in his mouth. All his senses were centered on the brush of Luke’s hard, hairy knees against his own and the easy, gentle pressure that kept them there. Danny wondered what would happen if he simply crawled across the table, swept the food onto the floor with a crash like they do in the movies, and ripped Luke’s clothes off his body right then and there. He imagined them writhing around naked in the potato salad, a slice of ham dangling off Danny’s ear, a green bean stuck in his nose, Luke’s balls pressed against his chin.
    And uh-oh. He had a hard-on again.
    To take his mind off