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goddamn princess locked in a tower, he’d imagined his own Prince Charming coming to rescue him and to give him a happily ever after. It was a stupid thing to want—he’d known that even at the time—but he’d stubbornly held onto a little hope as he earned his good grades and got his good job and tried to live a successful life.
    And then he’d met Andy, and those fairy tale dreams were destroyed. He’d gradually come to accept that he’d never get to settle for even the middle-class version of those dreams, the version with the honeymoon in Maui and the picket fence and the good-natured arguments over whose turn it was to mow the lawn. It broke Dylan’s heart a little, but he’d succumbed to reality and acknowledged that those things would never be his.
    He was a brave little toaster—now sharing his life with a wolf, he’d done what he could. He managed to keep his job, cage his new murderous impulses, and smile when Rick and Kay invited him over. He paid his taxes, hung out at bookstores, shopped at the Apple store, and read blogs. He’d made what he could of his life, and he’d told himself he was content, with only the niggling fear over others’ safety keeping him from true happiness.
    But that was a lie. Dylan was lonely. Not just for a lover—although he deeply yearned for one—but for a friend. Matty was cool and he had a nice time with her, but he could never quite let down his guard, never quite let her see what he was.
    With all his hip urban friends and acquaintances, Dylan had never spent much time with anyone like Chris, but now he found himself wishing Chris could be his friend. “Idiot,” he said to himself, just as Chris came walking back into his house.
    “Just got here and already you’re callin’ me names,” Chris said with a grin. He smelled of bacon and mayonnaise and chicken soup.
    “Sorry. I was just… just remembering something I almost forgot.”
    Chris quirked an eyebrow at him and then shrugged. “Consider me clocked in.”
    They tore down the rest of the cabinets that afternoon, then removed the door between the kitchen and the dining room and dismantled the frame. Every now and then Chris would touch Dylan—a friendly pat on the shoulder here, an accidental brushing of hands there—and every contact made Dylan’s stomach flutter. Dylan’s muscles grew tired, but he wasn’t about to admit it since Chris was still laboring away.
    At a little past three o’clock, Chris went outside for another cigarette break. Dylan waited inside with his coffee, feeling both weary and wired. Little droplets of rain fell from Chris’s hair when he came back inside.
    Dylan walked over to the room’s other doorway, which led to the hall. “I think I want to take down this door too. The opening isn’t original to the house, and the door itself is a piece of crap.” He rubbed at his little patch of beard thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll go with a curved arch instead of a square. You think you have the abilities for that?”
    He turned to look at Chris and was surprised to be met with a glare. “Told ya I know what I’m doin’.”
    “Yeah, okay. It’s just tricky, that’s all. You can buy kits and stuff, and that’s okay for the framing, but I think I’m going to look at an architectural salvage yard for the doors themselves. Find something more authentic, something decidedly unique.”
    “Of course you will,” Chris said, confusing Dylan. What was his neighbor so pissed off about?
    Dylan tried to smooth things over with a little babble. “I love old doors and how they have so much character. Or really, any interesting doors. My freshman year in college, I went on a trip to Barcelona—Spain—and we went on a tour of Casa Batlló. That’s a house designed by this famous architect named Gaudí, who was sort of the father of Modernism and….” As Dylan spoke, Chris’s brows had lowered and his expression had soured. Dylan let his little lecture peter out. “What?” he