Chapter 1

“What are you looking at, Sir Lance-A-Pot?” Marcus says from behind me on the floor. He is playing some video game with dragons, castles, and handsome knights in shining armor. “Get away from the window and give your new neighbor some space. Help me slay this three-headed dragon before he has me for lunch.”

Sometimes I think Marcus lives with me in my two-bedroom saltbox in downtown Pittsburgh because he’s always around. But my bestie doesn’t. He has his own place across the Allegheny River on the North Side, next to Heinz Stadium in the Mexican War Streets District. Maybe he likes my place better than his, although, if ever asked, I will surely disagree with the person regarding this statement, hands down, since his place is vast, three levels, and has an incredible view of downtown.

I tell him, “I haven’t smoked pot in three months. Since Valentine’s Day. When Ricky Starr broke my heart. So you can’t call me that anymore. I’m pot- and boyfriend-free.”

He clicks and clacks the handheld device with his fingers and thumbs, controlling some time-traveling fool he has named Gridiron. “Starr isn’t boyfriend material. He might look good and stir your private parts, but trust me, he doesn’t have a brain in that delicious body. He’s into cars, muscles, and drugs. You will never have an in-depth conversation about gentrification or climate control in highly-populated cities with him.”

It’s early May and I stand at my open living room window. I roll my eyes. Sometimes Marcus is too honest with me. Frankly, I’d be perfectly fine if he lied to me once or twice. Guess this will never happen, though. Too bad. I ignore him and check out Tool in the double lot next door. My neighbor’s a dreamboat that stands at six-three with a golden brown tan all year round, wavy cinnamon-brown hair, a chiseled body at 210 pounds with perky nipples, pumped abs, and creamy brown eyes. He’s bent over the engine of a mustard-colored 1976 Nova. He’s in the mouth of a single red-brick garage where he works. His ripped back and tight bottom faces me. The guy sports a pair of tight, greasy jeans, cowboy boots, and no belt. The hood of the Nova is propped open and a blue metal tool box sits on the right side of the engine, open. He grabs a stainless-steel tool out of the box, clicks and clacks it against the engine, hard at work, looking like Hercules, Troy, or Apollo, and causes me to ogle him like a high school boy.

Behind Tool is the semi-dark garage filled with managed clutter: working fan that Tool sometimes plugs in and uses; paint cans of many colors on one wall; workbench to the right with a heap of stainless-steel tools; hubcaps galore here and there, a radio near the fan. Next to the Nova’s rear bumper is a single man-door to exit from the garage. There’s also a foldable steel chair. Sometimes Tool sits here and enjoys a smoke. He relaxes, taking in life for a minute or two, drifts away…somewhere. He has pretty much taken over the garage from his uncle, who I rarely see these days, enjoying his (private?)time.

Over my right shoulder, I lower my voice and ask Marcus, “Do you think the guy next door knows he turns me on when he’s working on the Nova?”

“Hell no. He’s a good neighbor who minds his own business. Unlike you.”

I snicker, admiring Tool’s bronze, flexing shoulders and back.

Behind me, I hear an angry dragon make a horrendous squealing sound, breathe fire, and a man scream on the seventy-two-inch flat-screen. It definitely sounds like Marcus has just lost one of his three lives. “Fuck!” he yells, and pounds the heel of a foot against the hardwood floor.

The outburst is loud. Tool hears it. He grabs a greasy rag, spins around, lifts his head, and checks me out in the window like I’m Juliet in a high school play. Adorably, he sports grease on his right cheek, and his left pec. I can’t help myself and check out his chest: swollen pecs with perky nipples, unlimited puffed abs, treasure trail beneath his navel. Just a beautiful specimen. Gloriously spectacular.

Neighbor guy winks at me, smiles, and calls up like Romeo, “Everything okay over there, Lance?”

I yell down to him, “Never better! My friend is here and he’s losing at a video game. I think a dragon just toasted his ass!”

“My skin and muscle are burning off my bones,” Marcus whines, presses a button on the video console, and attempts to save a village called Windysour for the gazillionth time.

My neighbor nods, keeps his handsome grin and eye contact, goofily laughs, and calls, “Tell him to be careful. We need as many dragon slayers in this world we can get.”

“I’ll do that,” I say, and spin around, feel a twitch of blissful excitement at my center, leave the guy to his dilapidated Nova.