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you want?”
    “I want you to come home. As soon as your house arrest is finished, I want you to come home.”
    “I’d rather set myself on fire.”
    “Oh, you’re breaking my heart, Danny!”
    “Yeah. You said that already.”
    “Gerald wants you home, too.”
    “He probably needs somebody to scoop cowshit out of the barn. He never wanted me for anything else. Unless he wanted a punching bag. He used me for that a couple of times.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “It is, and you know it.”
    “He’s sorry, Danny. But sometimes you would try the patience of Job, you’re so headstrong and so—”
    “I’m hanging up now. I’m not coming back to Indiana. Ever. I like it here with Dad. And Dad likes having me here. I’m an adult now. There’s nothing you can do about it. So get off my ass, and get off Dad’s ass, too. You’re driving him nuts. Good-bye. Have a nice life. Or not. Tell Gerald to—”
    And he hung up the phone, leaving it up to his mom’s imagination to decide what Danny wanted her to tell Gerald to do. Whatever it was, she’d probably be smart enough to know it wasn’t something genteel. More like cramming a fence post up his butt. Nothing genteel about that.
    Danny resolutely ignored the pang of guilt he felt for speaking to his mother like that, although the bitch deserved it, and to push it out of his mind completely, he took a peek through the kitchen window toward the back fence. He remembered how those blue jeans had clung to Mr. Childers’s ass the night before, and how that little patch of fuzz just above the swelling of the man’s butt drew Danny in like a magnet. Jeez, it was sexy. Then he remembered Mr. Childers stopping what he was doing and looking around as if he thought maybe someone was watching him. Danny could feel the blood rushing to his face, thinking about it. Thank God the man hadn’t spotted Danny snooping on him through the fence. Talk about embarrassing.
    Danny made a vow to himself that he would never again peek through the back fence at Mr. Childers. It was just too dangerous and too potentially humiliating. Nope. The next time he wanted to take a gander at the next-door neighbor’s delectable forty-year-old ass and fuzzy chest, Danny would do it from his upstairs window with the binoculars. In the dark. He could see better from up there anyway.
    With that resolution out of the way, Danny set out to do some actual work. It was a beautiful Southern California day. Sunny. Not too hot. A perfect day for some manly yard work.
    He slipped a sneaker on his right foot, a plastic bag over the cast on his left leg, and then as an afterthought, he slipped another plastic bag over the right foot as well, sneaker and all, so as to protect the ankle monitor from grass cuttings. After securing the garbage bags with rubber bands, he stared down at himself. Lord, he looked like a fool.
    Well, maybe the neighbors weren’t up yet. Or maybe they had all gone to work. Or maybe no one would notice him. Or maybe there would be a total eclipse of the sun and it would be so dark outside no one would be able to see any farther than the nose on their face and therefore wouldn’t notice the weirdass guy mowing the lawn and trimming the hedge wearing trash bags on his feet.
    Or maybe he’d simply have to abide looking like a fool. Period.
    It was just too bad his dad had bought pink trash bags.
    Regardless of all that, it actually felt good to be doing physical labor. The last thing he had done lately that was truly strenuous was flip over that frigging ice machine. Those things are heavy. Danny thought he might have even pulled something in his back when he did it, but there never seemed to be a good time to complain about that. People seemed more concerned with the damage to the ice machine. And the fact that he had actually broken his leg during the commission of his crime. As the judge had pointed out, Danny was not only inconsiderate and hot-headed, but clumsy on top of it. Then the