Part 6 (1/2)

Done with Daniel, I faced Kevin. ”So how was work?” I said.

”I spent four hours in the car in order to interview someone for fifteen minutes,” Kevin said.

”That sucks.”

”It's even worse. I'm not being paid by the hour.”

From his side of the pool, Daniel said, ”You're the gay guys, right?”

Slowly, almost in unison, we turned to look at him. We didn't say anything for a second, just stared at him.

Then, with absolutely perfect timing, Kevin said, ”Yup,” and of course he over-p.r.o.nounced the ”p.” Kevin hated att.i.tude too, but unlike me, he was much more willing to get back in people's faces. I stifled a laugh.

Daniel didn't react. Maybe he was too stupid to know he was being mocked.

I started to turn away again, determined to ignore him. The water sloshed and, I swear, it sounded exactly like someone slurping. I glanced back at Daniel - or, more specifically, to the thin, wet material clinging to his crotch.

This time, Daniel caught me looking. He smiled. Now I felt stupid.

”What about you?” Kevin asked me.

”Huh?” I said.

”No idea when you'll hear from Fiona?”

”Nah,” I said. Unfortunately, he reminded me what I was trying so desperately to forget. I'd brought my phone to the pool, and I considered checking my email again.

As Kevin and I talked, Daniel must have been paddling with his hands, because he was suddenly back to floating in the exact middle of the pool. This wasn't a tiny swimming pool, but somehow Daniel was taking up most of it - sort of like how a housecat, only three feet long, can somehow stretch out his body and take over almost all of an entire double bed.

Kevin looked at me and rolled his eyes.

Then he pushed off the wall backward into the water, making a big ripple across the pool.

Daniel went bobbing over to the other side. Once the center was clear, before Daniel could re-take it, Kevin moved in. I joined him, cheering him on with a mischievous grin.

Displaced as King of the Pool, Daniel sat upright in the water. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him scowling at us, but we made a point of ignoring him again. I was tired of being tangled in the sticky web of this stupid kid.

”I have an idea for new screenplay though,” I said to Kevin. ”It's about this couple who inherits an old whiskey distillery, and they find this cache of old bottles. Little do they know that each bottle has an angry ghost trapped inside. It's called Spirits. Get it? It's about whiskey and it's about ghosts? 'Spirits'?”

”Clever. So it's a comedy?”

”Well, that's the thing. I can't decide. The t.i.tle sort of sounds like a horror-comedy. But I'm thinking I might go straight horror.”

As we were talking, Daniel faced the wall of the pool. He was right next to a metal ladder, and I expected him climb up it, but he ignored it, pulling his whole body onto the deck with one swift, impressive yank. It was sort of impossible not to stare at the muscles in his back, or the way the black boxer briefs clung to his pert round a.s.s. He reminded me a little of a snake, with everything s.h.i.+fting in synch. Somehow I knew that Kevin was looking too.

Once on the deck, Daniel grabbed a towel and started drying off. He didn't turn away or anything. He stood right there on the deck, facing us, legs spread, the sun setting behind him, and slowly ran the towel back and forth behind his back. He was in silhouette again, the blue sky crisply outlining the shape of his body. But it was still afternoon, an hour or so from twilight, so the front of his body was visible too - the ridges in his stomach, the miles of smooth brown skin. He absolutely glistened.

Floating below him in the pool, I felt like a wors.h.i.+pper prostrate before the statue of some Mesoamerican sun G.o.d - maybe even Quetzalcoatl, the snake G.o.d.

He knows we've been watching him, I thought. We thought we'd vanquished him, but maybe he'd vanquished us. Had he just a.s.sumed we'd ogle him because we happened to be two gay guys? That was a completely bigoted a.s.sumption! Okay, yes, it happened to be totally spot-on. But it was still bigoted.

Daniel kept toweling off. Behind the wet, clinging material of those shorts, he jiggled.

Okay, I give up, I thought. You win.

”Daniel Manuel!” came a voice from the other side of the pool. ”What do you think you're doing?”

It was Zoe, his older sister, arriving home from work.

Had she seen Kevin and me leering at her little brother? I felt stupid again. Then again, we hadn't really done anything wrong. Daniel had been a total d.i.c.khead. Yeah, Kevin and I had looked at him up on the deck, but that had been his whole point - to get us to look.

”How many times have I told you, you can't wear that in the pool!” Zoe went on.

”Chinga tu madre,” Daniel said under his breath.

”What did you say to me?” Zoe said, louder, harsher.

”Nada, nada.” Even in another language, I could tell Daniel was whining, exactly like a kid being caught eating the forbidden popsicles.

”Get over here right now!” Zoe said, and Daniel wrapped his towel around himself and scuttled her way, not unlike an admonished puppy. I guess she still had some control over him.

In a second, he was gone, thumping up the outdoor steps that led to their apartment.

Zoe stayed behind, staring down at Kevin and me. I sort of expected her to apologize, to say she was sorry that Daniel had been wearing his underwear in the pool again.

But she didn't apologize. Now she glared at us, not hatefully like Daniel had done, but suspiciously, like we were puppies in need of admonis.h.i.+ng too, or maybe something more serious than that - like we had something more serious to feel guilty about.

That was crazy. Like I said, Kevin and I hadn't done anything wrong. But I had a strange feeling this wasn't the last we were going to see of our annoying (and annoyingly hot) teenage neighbor.

CHAPTER FIVE.

I didn't hear from Fiona the next day, or the day after that. Then it was the weekend (when I didn't expect to hear from her), and I didn't hear from her on Monday either.

The next day, Tuesday, I met Otto for lunch again. Kevin had the car, so we ate at a place within walking distance of our apartment, an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet on Hollywood Boulevard.

”I'm paying,” I said, before we headed to the buffet itself.

”What?” he said. ”Why?”

”Because I owe you. You hooked me up with your agent.”

”Is that all negotiated now?”

”No, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.”

”Everything always takes three times longer than they say it will,” Otto said.