So I was probably projecting. But I did see tragedy on his face. I could see it in the tightness of his lips, a sadness in those magnified eyes that his forced smile couldn't disguise.

When this picture was taken, had Cole Gordon known the demons were coming for him? I guess it didn't matter, because one way or another, they'd caught up with him in the end.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Two days later, Kevin and I were both at home working - Kevin on an interview with some reality TV star, me on Spirits - when there was a knock on our apartment door. I was at the desk with the computer in the front room, and he was in the kitchen with the laptop.

For a second, we both sat there looking across the apartment at each other, like that knock on the door didn't quite compute. We'd been in Los Angeles for over a month now, and this was literally the first time anyone had ever knocked on our door.

I answered it. It was Daniel.

"Oh," I said, surprised. "Hey. What's up?"

He was back to wearing clothes - khaki pants with the pockets out again and a polo shirt, rumpled and grubby. Up close, he was a little shorter than I expected, five-eight, or maybe even five-seven. He looked slightly less bored than usual, peering beyond me into the apartment.

"So this is where you guys live, huh?" he said.

"Um, yeah."

Somehow - I'm not quite sure how - he pushed past me and stepped inside. He looked around like a landlord, seeing how we'd arranged the furniture, taking in the posters on the walls, and my collection of Lord of the Rings Pez dispensers. He came to my keys and wallet on a bureau by the door. He noticed me noticing him notice it, and nodded and half-laughed at me, like he was saying, "Don't worry, dude, I'm not gonna steal your d.a.m.n wallet."

Kevin stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching it all.

"Hola," Daniel said to him.

"What's up?" Kevin said.

"Nada," Daniel said, continuing his inspection, picking up one of Kevin's baseb.a.l.l.s (signed by Ichiro Suzuki), almost sniffing it like a cat. "I just wanna see where you guys live."

Kevin looked at me, but I shrugged. I didn't know what the h.e.l.l this was about any more than he did. Daniel had been such a preening jacka.s.s that day in the pool that it didn't make any sense he'd visit us in our apartment.

"Well," I said, and I was about to go on to say, "we should get back to work," when Daniel flopped down on our couch. He didn't quite put his feet up on the coffee table, but he leaned back with this whole relaxed demeanor like he was planning on staying a while. He opened the case on my iPad mini (and for one brief moment, I was terrified that I'd left it open to a page of p.o.r.n, but was glad to remember it was pa.s.sword protected).

I'd said that Mr. Brander had owned that room during the development meeting, and he had, but Daniel was somehow owning this room too. This was my actual apartment, and I doubted I'd ever looked as relaxed as he did at that moment. The self-confidence of this kid was amazing. Right then, it was alternating in my mind between really annoying and really attractive.

"So what's it like," he said, "living here, just two guys?"

I looked to Kevin again. That sounded suspiciously like Daniel was asking us what it was like to be gay.

"It's all good," Kevin said. "Uh, shouldn't you be in school?"

"No school today," he said.

Right, I thought. Part of me wanted to say, "Do you have any idea how much more difficult your life is going to be if you don't finish high school?" But I was annoying myself even by thinking it. Besides, maybe he had a good reason to be here. Maybe he had questions about himself, we were the only gay people he knew, and he'd come here for advice.

I took a seat across from him, and Kevin sat on my armrest. It's not like either of us was going to come out and ask him, "Do you think you might be gay?" We both knew that was something you shouldn't ever say to a teenager. The whole point was to let them tell you in their own time, even if it seemed like they were begging to be asked.

"Where's your sister?" Kevin asked.

"Work," he said.

"Does she know you're here?"

He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "She don't ever know where I am. Besides, she don't like you guys."

How could she not like us? She didn't even know us.

"Why doesn't she like us?" I said.

He lifted the other eyebrow, like it was obvious.

She thinks we're going to hit on her brother! This actually p.i.s.sed me off. It's true we'd noticed him, how he looked, that he was a cute guy. But looking was a lot different from touching. Besides, he was only seventeen years old. Plus, Kevin and I were monogamous - we didn't f.u.c.k around with other people. If we ever did, it definitely wouldn't be with some openly c.o.c.ky, but secretly confused teenager.

Now I was torn. On one hand, I wanted Daniel to leave - he was annoying, and Kevin and I both had work to do. On the other hand, he might still have questions about himself.

"You want something to drink?" I asked Daniel.

"Sure," he said. "Got a Corona?"

"Uh, how about a c.o.ke?"

He shrugged, and I went into the kitchen and tossed him a can.

Daniel drank it while picking at the padding on the sole of his shoe.

"So what's up?" Kevin said.

Daniel shrugged.

Work with us, I thought. You came to us.

"You need help with school?" Kevin said. "'Cause Russel here is pretty smart."

"Thanks a lot," I said, whacking him on the arm. I looked at Daniel. "But Kevin's right. If you need help with anything, Kevin would be glad to give it a go. I'm just kidding. We both would."

I expected him to scoff or shrug or roll his eyes, but he actually sort of smiled. "Cool," he said. He really was adorable, even with all that att.i.tude: thick, wavy, coal black hair, probably parted with his fingers, and great olive skin.

Suddenly I sort of saw things from Zoe's point of view. She didn't know us, but she had to know that Daniel was a good-looking guy. She also had to see how people looked at him - probably both women and men, especially in Los Angeles. And I'm sorry to say this, but Daniel didn't seem like the sharpest crayon in the box. It wasn't hard to imagine a situation where someone took advantage of those two interrelated facts.

Daniel's eyes searched the floor. The can of c.o.ke twisted in his hands.

"I have these...questions," he said. "Not about school. About...me."

Almost imperceptibly, Kevin and I leaned in closer. It felt like the universe was holding its breath, but maybe it was just Kevin and me.

Daniel burst out laughing.

"Chingados!" he said. "Ustedes creen que soy maricn!"

At first I didn't understand. But I didn't need to speak Spanish to figure out that he was laughing at us - that he'd somehow sensed what we were thinking, that we thought he might be gay and have questions for us, so he'd played us. Again.

Okay, I thought. Maybe Daniel's not so stupid.

Still laughing, Daniel stood up and breezed for the door. I was still too stunned to say anything, and Kevin was speechless too. Even after he was gone and the door was closed, we both sat there for a second. Why did it feel like he'd robbed of us something after all? I guess he'd taken our dignity.

Finally I said, "What a twit! He's an evil little twit!"

Kevin started laughing - not at me, at the situation. "Jesus," he said. "Talk about cojones."

"No!" I said. "This isn't funny! Before we can laugh about it, you have to admit he's an evil little twit."

"He's an evil little twit," Kevin said, but he didn't stop chuckling.

I turned for the bathroom.

"Oh, hey, can I make a request?" Kevin said.

"Huh?" I said, still p.i.s.sed off by Daniel (and by Kevin for not being p.i.s.sed off enough).

"How about we start keeping the seat down when we flush?"

"What?"

"I guess every time you flush the toilet, the water sends all these particles up into the air."

"No way," I said.

"I know, it's disgusting. But if you close the lid, that doesn't happen."

"Not that."

"What?"

"They were all talking about this at the development meeting last week. When did airborne fecal particles become a 'thing'?'

"It's not a 'thing'," Kevin said. "There was an article about it on Salon. But what do you think? Just for number two, not necessarily for number one."

"What I think is that the romance in this relationship is officially dead."

Kevin glared at me.

"Not just dead!" I said. "It's buried and decomposed and now the bones are gone, and even the bacteria that finally ate the bones are dead and have decomposed a couple of times over."

"Russel-"

"Come on, you know I have a point! We're talking airborne fecal particles!'

"You're talking airborne fecal particles. I was trying to keep it all nice and vague and euphemistic."

"Admit that the romance in this relationship is dead," I said.

"I'm not going to admit that!" Kevin said, mock-indignant. "The romance in this relationship is alive and kicking. There's so much romance in this relationship that the landlord is going to sue us for violating the terms of our lease, because of the additional occupant."

I stepped closer to him. "Admit the romance in this relationship is dead, and then we can figure out what to do to get it back."

Kevin smirked. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

I slipped my hand into the front of his shorts. His d.i.c.k was somehow already half-hard. I started unzipping him, even before we'd kissed.

"This is your idea of romance?" he said.

"No, right now, I just want to f.u.c.k. But this weekend, how about we go out together and do something nice?"

Later that afternoon, on our way out to pick up some dinner, Kevin and I ran into Gina and Regina on their way into the building.

"Oh, hey," I said to Gina. "Guess what? Turns out there really might be a ghost in our apartment. A screenwriter killed himself back in 1950. I looked it up at the library."

Kevin looked at me, surprised. "You did? When?"

"A few days ago," I said. I hadn't told him I'd stopped at the library, and now I felt kind of stupid I was telling Gina and Regina first, like I'd been trying to keep secrets (which I kinda sorta had been).

"A suicidal screenwriter?" Regina said. "Impossible!"

"I know," I said, laughing. "Who knew?"

"Hey, you guys busy this Sat.u.r.day?" Regina said.

"Ginny," Gina said.

"What?" She looked back at us. "Gina has a show. We can get you on the comp list."

"Really?" I said, looking at Kevin. We had those vague plans to do something romantic, but that was it. Still, I didn't want to speak for him, not after not telling him about the ghost of the dead screenwriter.

"Sure," Kevin said. "Sounds like fun."

"Okay, but there's one condition," Gina said. "I'm not saying you have to laugh at everything I say. But if something is on the bubble, if you think one of my jokes might be funny? Please laugh."

"We promise," I said.