Chapter 1

1

“Hey, pal, how’s about dinner? I’m finally finished.” Evan Romer tapped on his best friend’s door one more time, then reached for his key. Lucas was home—Evan could hear the stereo blaring away. Funny, it sounded almost like country music, but Lucas only listened to jazz.

“Lucas?” he called once inside, detouring to the main room to turn down the music. That done, he couldhear the hiss of the shower. No wonder his friend didn’t hear him knocking. Evan rustled in the fridge and pulled out a beer, then found an open bag of pretzels in the cabinet.

Flipping the stereo off, he dropped to the sofa and switched on the TV to catch the local news. KPIX was predicting near-seventies tomorrow. Well, depending on the fog, of course. Like Mark Twain said, the coldest winter he ever spent was one summer in San Francisco. If tomorrow was foggy, forget the predicted high and wear a sweater.

Finally, the shower shut off and Evan heard the buzz of Lucas’ electric razor. Time for a little fun. He’d teach the man to sleep until the middle of the afternoon. Leaving his snack on the coffee table, Evan crept to the bathroom door and readied his phone. Flinging the door wide, he shouted “Facebook post!” and snapped a quick photo.

A blood-curdling shriek sounded from the steamy room. Evan took a second look, then let out a yell of his own.

“Who the hell are you?”

His surprised shout was echoed by the total stranger standing in Lucas’ bathroom. The man fumbled around on the counter, finally coming up with a’ bud vase, which he brandished like a sword, either forgetting his nudity or ignoring it.

“What the hell are you doing here?” The voice was low-pitched and melodious, with a Southern accent that brought to mind magnolias and mint juleps. The body behind that name was not quite so hospitable. Though on the short side, the man looked like he could hold his own in a fight, with broad shoulders and rippling muscles.

Evan took a step back. “I asked you first.” He thought about going for a weapon of his own, but the only thing Lucas had in the apartment that fit the description was his collection of plastic light sabers. Evan crouched and tried to look like he knew how to fight.

“You’re the one in my apartment, pal.” The stranger waved the bud vase beneath Evan’s nose. “You’d better have a hell of an explanation or I’m calling the cops.”

“Your apartment? This is Lucas’ apartment. How’d you even get in here?”

The stranger backed down just a bit, lowering the vase with an understanding expression on his face. “Oh, you must be one of his friends.”

“I’m his best friend, and you’d better do some explaining of your own before I call the cops first.”

“We did a house swap. I’ve got his place for two weeks and he’s staying at my house in Greenville.”

“You did what?” Where in hell was Greenville anyway?

The man set down the vase and yanked a towel from the rack. “Do you mind?” he asked, wrapping it aroundhis middle. Evan felt a brief pang of sorrow that the fine set of family jewels was now out of his sight.Then, he refocused on the situation at hand.

“What the hell is a house swap and where is Lucas?”

“I told you: he’s in Greenville. That’s in South Carolina by the way.” The man dropped to a seat on the edge of the tub. “And a house swap is exactly what it sounds like. We swapped places for two weeks. There’s a great gay-friendly site we used.”

“That’s crazy. Lucas would have told me if he was planning something that big.” Evan suddenly remembered several calls from Lucas over the past few days. He’d let them go to voice mail—when he wasin the zone, he ignored interruptions. Lucas knew that, just as he knew Evan would return his calls oncehis creativity was satisfied. But a house swap?

He pulled out his phone. Three voicemails from three separate days. Had he really been working on the new game that long? That bit of coding hadn’t seemed to take more than a few hours.

The other man swiped his longish, dark, and very wet bangs out of his eyes. “I think he said it was a last-minute decision. Something about a bad break-up.”

Oh crap, Lucas had finally broken up with that sleaze-ball he’d been dating for the past year. Not thatall of them hadn’t been after him to do just that, but Lucas had thought the man walked on water. If he’d been despondent, there was no telling what he might have done.