Chapter 1

1

It wasn’t something Dane had been aware of before he stood on the chair to clean the top of the sliding glass door, but now he’d discovered it, the knowledge was going to be impossible to forget.

His summer holidays were speeding towards their ultimate end. Already behind him were a week in tropical Bali, and five days over Christmas with his parents on their farm. He’d celebrated New Year with friends in an appropriately wild style and in between the hedonism, time had been found to complete all the little chores he was too busy to get around to doing during the year. That included cleaning the windows.

It was a small movement, but enough to catch his attention. His new neighbour had walked into the laundry, and from where Dane stood, he could see right in over the fence.

The man appeared to be in his late thirties, which meant they were possibly around the same age. He was tall, slender, but toned, like an athlete, and he had a thickly-haired chest. Southern European or Middle Eastern if Dane wasn’t mistaken.

Dane watched the man dropping clothes into his washing machine and felt a warm rush of endorphins as his neighbour bent to remove his underpants. As he dropped the garment into the machine, he turned to look out the window. Immediately, Dane began spraying and wiping the window with gusto, his eyes darting between the job at hand and his neighbour, who by that time, appeared to have noticed him.

Play it cool.Act naturally. Act like you haven’t been perving at him

And when the glass door was the cleanest it had been since he moved in, Dane climbed down from the chair and moved onto the windows in the kitchen.

* * * *

Two days later, Dane pulled into the driveway of the small complex of three villas where he lived and noticed a letter poking out of the slot in his mailbox.

Probably a bill, was his first thought, but then again, in an age of Internet and emails, finding something other than a flyer advertising real estate in his letterbox was mildly exciting.

He parked the car and ambled down the driveway to the mailboxes. The letter, it turned out, was for a previous tenant who hadn’t been at the address for at least a year. Yet the flash of disappointment he felt was soon replaced by a stronger and infinitely more pleasant sensation when he heard the door of the front villa open.

He smiled. “Hi there. You must be the new neighbour.”

The guy was even more handsome up close. Olive complexion, dark five o’clock shadow, and perfect white teeth.

“I must be,” replied the man, grinning. “Tassos, but call me Tas. Pleased to meet you.” They shook hands, his grip firm. “You keep your windows very clean.”

“Er, thanks,” said Dane with a twinge of guilt. “It’s actually the first time they’ve been done since I moved in.”

“Oh I hear you. Windows, hey? I’ve been cleaning this place for the past few days. A bit at a time, you know. Don’t want to overdo it.”

“I bet. New place and all. A lot of cleaning.”

“Anyway,” said Tas, checking his mailbox, “I suppose I’d better get back to it.”

“Right you are,” said Dane, none too pleased that their meeting had been so brief.

Tas walked off, then stopped. “Hey,” he said, turning back, “if you’re not too busy, would you like to come in for a cuppa? A quick one?”

“No,” Dane replied. “I mean, no, I’m not too busy.”

It wouldn’t have mattered if he were flat out. Give up the chance to spend more time with his hot neighbour? No way, Jose!

The interior of Tas’s living room was a lesson in sensory overload. The first thing Dane noticed was the strong aroma of incense. Patchouli. Sandalwood. Beautiful. Next, he noticed the intricate tapestries on the walls, the elaborate carpets placed this way and that over the floor. The couches were decorated with exotic fabrics and patchwork cushions of vibrant colours with tiny mirrors stitched into the fabric. A golden Buddha sat at the centre of a small shrine with incense sticks and candles surrounding it. Large potted palms and ferns crowded the areas near the windows and doors, and great swathes of patterned fabric hung from the ceiling, creating the sense of being inside some kind of magical tent that had been plopped in the middle of a tropical jungle

Almost hidden by everything else was a large cane birdcage with two yellow canaries. The cage seemed rather dramatic, considering what it contained, but that made Dane happy. He had never liked the idea of caged birds, although if they had to be caged, he was glad these two had an enormous space to fly around in.