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that’s why I found him so attractive. He had something I never had. A good soul.
    Not that I wanted one. A good soul, I mean. I just wanted to know what made a person like Danny tick. People like him didn’t really make sense to me.
    Why was he the way that he was? That’s what I wanted to know.
    So when I noticed his, should I call them, special qualities, I started to watch him. Just watched. At least that’s all I did at first. Paid attention to what he liked. How he acted. Who his friends were. Not that he had many of those.
    And I looked at what made him happy. Which wasn’t often the case. But he never became bitter. He stayed innocent. Maybe there was a little darkness at his core, but that only made you want to protect him more.
    You know, if Danny had lived during the Renaissance, some crazy artist would have found him and used him as a model. I don’t mean an artist like Michelangelo who’s creating a statue like David. Danny doesn’t have that kind of strength. You couldn’t imagine him slaying a giant. His strengths are more hidden.
    So maybe it would have been a Botticelli bronze. Something smooth. Something vulnerable. A piece of art that made you ache with longing.
    Because you want to crush it.

 
     
    CHAPTER TWO
    Home
    Up ahead was the house. It boasted almost five thousand square feet of living space. Its four levels hugged the steep hillside. White stucco walls rose from well-landscaped lawns until they reached wooden corbels that supported the red tile roof. Bougainvillea clung to the walls and stretched around the tiled entry. It was Hollywood’s version of old Spain. It was also home to Danny and Josh.
    Danny was happy to be back. The airport limo rolled up the curving street, through the historic Los Feliz area neighborhood on the eastern edge of the Hollywood Hills, and into the circular driveway. This mansion was as grandiose and inappropriate to the lives of two modern men as their logging camp retreat. But unlike the Wisconsin house, this one suited Danny’s romantic spirit. Here he thought he could be happy.
    As the car came to a stop near the flight of stairs leading to the front door, a hefty young woman stepped out. She grinned and said with enthusiasm, “Welcome home.”
    Not waiting for the driver to open his door, Danny exited the car and rushed up the steps two at a time to reach her. Let the limo driver deal with unloading the suitcases, he thought. Wrapping his arms around Kenosha, he lifted her in a bear hug worthy of the north woods. “Kenosha Washington,” he said, “how I’ve missed you.”
    Kenosha just waved away his good feelings. She looked pointedly at the car. “Where’s that boyfriend of yours? Wouldn’t think you’d take such fancy wheels unless he was along.”
    “Watch your tongue. That’s your boss you’re describing. Just so you know, Josh asked to be dropped off at the office,” Danny explained. Danny felt so good to be home. Thread might have been where he was raised, but California was where he became who he was.
    Sensing his feelings, Kenosha turned to the driver who was approaching the door with both men’s luggage. “Just set them there. We’ll get them where they belong.” She turned back to Danny, effectively dismissing the hired driver.
    Once again, Kenosha was acting the role of a haughty black servant, which made Danny smile since he knew his old college friend had grown up in a household in Brentwood headed by two white doctors. While nobody’s servant, she seemed to have imprinted as a young girl on her black nanny and behaved as though her parents had adopted her from the depths of the South. None dared to remind her that she was really Caucasian. Even though she held a full-time job as the director of public relations for their company, she liked to housesit for them when they traveled to Wisconsin.
    “I suppose Josh will expect to find me there,” Kenosha said. “He’s always so eager to talk about publicity. A regular