Take a Chance on Me Read online

  “Why would it be Marion?”

  “Because that was John Wayne’s real name, and it makes an odd kind of sense, since you call yourself the Duke, just like he did.”

  “Not the Duke. Just Duke.”

  “Is it Gaylord?”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I think that’s actually a cool name. It’s like Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy, but, you know. Gay.”

  “You’re never going to guess it, so please stop trying.”

  “Elmer?”

  “What, like the glue?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Were they hippies? Is your name something like Wheatgrass, or Kumquat, or Quinoa?”

  Duke shot me another over-the-glasses look. “You’re terrible at guessing, and you need to stop.”

  “I’m also hungry, not that any of those foods sound appealing. Hey, can we find a drive-through?”

  “Let’s just focus on the task at hand.”

  “Fine. I know where Skye hides his secret chocolate stash, so I can fortify myself once we get there.”

  Fortunately, he sped up to match the flow of traffic when we reached the Bay Bridge, and I tried to keep the conversation going with, “If you won’t tell me your real name, tell me something else about you, Duke.”

  “Like what?”

  “Where’d you grow up?”

  “In South San Francisco. What about you?”

  “I grew up right over there, in the Oakland Hills,” I said, pointing out the window. “I spent my entire childhood staring at the city across the bay and dreaming of the day I could finally live there. A little over a year ago, I made it happen. I would have been here sooner, but I moved to New York for a few years after high school to study with a famous ballet instructor.”

  “My old roommate mentioned you’re a classically trained ballet dancer. So, why are you working as a go-go boy?”

  “I just needed a job when I moved back to California. I met Dare Evans when I went to audition for his start-up ballet company, and he referred me to this club. It’s actually where he met his husband Skye. Dare’s still trying to get the dance troupe off the ground, so at this point it doesn’t pay anything. But we’re staging our first production in a few weeks, and we all have high hopes for it.”

  “If it’s a success, will you quit go-go dancing?”

  “I don’t know.” I settled back in my seat and said, “Even though it was meant to be a short-term gig, it’s a great job. I used to spend most nights dancing in the clubs anyway. Now I get paid for it.” He glanced at me, and I noticed the frown line was back. “You don’t approve?”

  “It’s not that. I just can’t imagine getting up and dancing in front of a bunch of strangers while wearing almost nothing.”

  “I’m feeling judged.”

  “What? I didn’t say there’s anything wrong with it.”

  “Your frown line begs to differ.” That just made the crease between his eyebrows deepen. I asked him, “Have you ever been to Thrust?”

  “That big nightclub in the Castro? No.”

  “That’s where I work. You should come by sometime and check it out. It’s just a really fun party atmosphere, not sleazy at all.”

  “So, you and the rest of your coworkers aren’t dancing in skimpy costumes?”

  “We are, but everything’s covered that needs to be.”

  “And you don’t get hit on every five minutes?”

  “Oh no, we totally do. But that still doesn’t make it sleazy.”

  “If you say so.”

  “So judgmental,” I muttered.

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes you are. Come to Thrust on your next night off and see it for yourself.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  He muttered, “I’m uncomfortable in places like that.”

  “Are you straight?”

  “No.”

  “Why then?”

  “I just don’t like crowds, noise…all of it, really.”

  “I bet you’d have a great time, despite yourself,” I said. “A big muscle stud like you would get a ton of attention.”

  “Why would I want attention?”

  What the hell kind of question was that? “Don’t you want to meet people? Have fun? Get laid?”

  “Not like that.”

  “God forbid.” The conversation ground to a halt at that point.

  When we reached Oakland a few minutes later, he asked, “What exit should I take?”

  “Oh. Um, I’m not sure. I always take public transit. Try that one, maybe?”

  I was way off. We ended up winding through a part of the city I didn’t know at all, for the better part of half an hour. “Why don’t you just map it?” Duke asked at one point. When I told him I didn’t actually know the warehouse’s street address, a muscle started working in his jaw as he ground his teeth. I tried texting Dare, then Skye, but they took a long time to reply. By the time they did, I’d finally gotten my bearings, and we pulled up in front of the warehouse just as the address appeared on my screen.

  I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head and flashed Duke a smile as he cut the engine. “Well, the good news is, we got here,” I said. “Sorry about the detour. At least it’ll be easy to find our way home, since we can just map our way back to the bridge.”

  We both got out of the truck and went around to the back of it, and Duke murmured, “Seriously?”

  The rolling door was wide open, and the truck was empty. I blurted, “Where’d the mattress go?”

  “It must have fallen out. Didn’t you latch the door?”

  “Oops.”

  Duke sighed, and as he pulled out his phone, I asked, “Who are you calling?”

  “A friend in dispatch.” When the call connected, he said, “Hey Anita, it’s Duke. Are there any obstructions on the Bay Bridge?” Apparently the answer was no, because he looked relieved. Then he asked if anyone had reported a round mattress in the road anywhere in the city. Another no. “Can you check with Oakland P.D. and see if anyone called it in?” He listened for a moment, then rolled his eyes. “No, someone didn’t abscond with my bed. I have a new roommate, and…you know what? It’s a long story. Will you please call my cellphone if you hear anything?” Apparently she agreed, and after a brief pause, he said, “Thanks, Anita,” and ended the call.

  He climbed up onto the tailgate and pulled the door shut, then told me, “Come on, we have to retrace our steps.”

  “That’s impossible. I have no idea how we got here.”

  “We have to try.” Duke got behind the wheel and started the engine.

  I unrolled the window and hung out of it like a limp noodle as we drove around Oakland for what felt like days. Duke was thoroughly annoyed and apparently done talking to me. The silence in the truck was deafening.

  After maybe twenty minutes, I sat up and exclaimed, “This is impossible! The bed is gone, and it doesn’t even matter! It’s not like we had to deliver it to my friend. Wherever it landed, someone is bound to report it to the city sanitation department, and they’ll haul it away. You thought it belonged in the dump anyway, and that’s where it’ll end up.”

  All he said to that was, “This is our responsibility. We have to find it.”

  It took us one hour and thirty-three minutes to locate the mattress. We got lost several times and had to keep finding our way back to our original, circuitous route. But then finally, we rounded a corner in an abandoned-looking industrial area and there it was, overlapping part of the street and sidewalk.

  The mattress had company. A tiny, light brown Chihuahua sat right in the center of it, and I exclaimed, “Aw, he’s so cute!” Duke cut the engine, and I tumbled out of the truck and rushed toward the compact canine. But when I got within ten feet of him, the dog puffed up, bared his teeth, and started growling at me. “Whoa there buddy, we come in peace,” I said as I held up my hands.

  When he leapt to his feet and s
tarted barking, Duke said, “I’ll call animal control.” He reached for his phone, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “No, don’t do that. He’s wearing a collar, so he probably lives around here.” I took a step toward the dog and raised my voice a couple of octaves as I called, “Hey, puppy. We need that bed, so how about heading home now?”

  The dog snarled and barreled toward us, and Duke and I both turned and ran. We scrambled onto the bumper of the truck, then the hood when the furious little animal took a flying leap at us and narrowly missed my red sneaker. “Wow,” Duke said, “that dog hates you.”

  “Animals never hate me. You must have done something to piss it off.”

  “Oh no. That was all you.” He pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans and added, “It was probably that high-pitched cartoon character voice you used. No wonder it’s so angry.”

  He started to scroll through his phone, and I asked, “Who are you calling?”

  “Animal control, like I said. That thing’s a menace.”

  “You can’t do that! What if his owner doesn’t find him in time and he gets put down? I’d never forgive you!”

  Duke turned to me with his phone poised in midair and said, “It’s a vicious animal.”

  “He’s eight inches tall!”

  “What if it bites somebody?”

  “He won’t. I just pissed him off.”

  “He almost took a chunk out of your shoe.”

  “But he didn’t,” I said. “Come on Duke, put the phone down.”

  “Calling animal control is for the dog’s own good. He could get hit by a car if we just leave him out here.”

  “Then we need to help him get home.”

  Duke peered over the edge of the truck, and the little animal let out a menacing growl. “How do you propose we do that?”

  “Well first, I need to take a look at the tag on his collar to find out where he lives.”

  “If you try, he’ll bite you.”

  “Not if I establish dominance,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Right now, we’re acting like scaredy cats, so he thinks he can boss us around. I need to convince him I’m the alpha dog, and then he’ll fall in line.” I jumped off the truck, and when the Chihuahua lunged at me, I waved my arms to try to appear as big as I could and started barking. The dog stopped in his tracks and stared at me with his bulging eyes, and then he turned and ran. I exclaimed, “Shit, I overdid it! I was going for alpha dog, but I guess I landed on big, scary werewolf!”

  I took off after the dog, and Duke yelled, “Why are you chasing it?”

  “I have to make sure he gets home safe!”

  For an animal with four-inch legs, the Chihuahua was pretty damn fast. I sprinted down the street, then cut through an alley and across a vacant lot in hot pursuit. After a minute, the industrial area gave way to a modest residential neighborhood. The dog was maybe thirty feet ahead of me when it darted into a yard. An old man was watering a weedy lawn, and he exclaimed, “There you are, Tank! I thought I told you not to go out on any more of your adventures!” The yard was surrounded by a waist-high chain link fence, and the man closed the gate behind the little animal.

  Because I was watching that interaction instead of where I was going, I didn’t notice the curb in front of me. I stepped off of it and into a storm drain, and pain shot up my leg as I fell to the ground. I was cussing a blue streak when Duke jogged up to me and asked, “Are you alright?”

  I carefully extracted my foot from the drain and said, “No, damn it! How could I be so stupid? I wasn’t watching where I was going, and I just sprained my ankle!”

  “That’s okay. Sprains heal.”

  “It’s terrible! My dance troupe is just six weeks away from our first performance, and I’m the lead dancer. I’m going to let everyone down!” I tried to stand up, but my ankle wouldn’t hold my weight. I cried out in pain, and as Duke put his arm around my shoulders to steady me, I said, “Shit, it’s already starting to swell up and bruise. How could I be so careless?”

  “Let’s get you to the hospital. A doctor will be able to tell you how bad it is.” I was surprised when he scooped me into his arms. At five-foot-nine, I wasn’t the biggest guy in the world, and Duke tossed me in the air a bit when he picked me up, as if he’d expected lifting me to be more of an effort.

  “You don’t have to carry me,” I muttered embarrassedly.

  “It’s best to stay off your ankle. You might make it worse.” He turned and started back the way we’d come, and I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” I said, as I idly ran a hand over the soft, gray fabric of his T-shirt. “I didn’t mean to hijack your entire day.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I wish I could tell you I’m not always like this, but in all honesty, I’m usually even worse.”

  Duke grinned, just a little, and said, “I know.”

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “I asked my old roommate about you before I decided to let you move in. Since he just married your former roommate, I figured he’d probably spent a lot of time at your apartment and knew you fairly well.”

  “What did Cole say about me?”

  “He called you a loveable disaster.”

  “That pretty much sums me up.” I glanced at Duke and asked, “Why would you let a disaster move into your pristine home?”

  He shrugged and kept his eyes on the path through the vacant lot as he murmured, “We both needed roommates, so….” That really didn’t explain why he’d let someone like me move in, but I let the subject drop.

  When we got back to the truck, Duke deposited me in the passenger seat and went to retrieve our cargo. I felt bad that I couldn’t help him load the mattress. He swung by Skye’s warehouse and left the bed leaning against the side of the building before driving me to the nearest hospital.

  The emergency room was crowded. We sat on either side of a little table in the corner, at right angles to each other, and Duke lifted my foot onto his knee to keep it elevated. At one point, he asked, “Is there anyone you want to call? Your boyfriend, maybe?”

  “I don’t have one. The last guy I was interested in turned out to be a big, giant cheater with a live-in boyfriend, which is why I’m now on a hiatus from dating. For a week or two, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  I said, “He wasn’t much of a loss.”

  “But it was still enough to make you swear off men for a while.”

  “I’m just really tired of being lied to, and it keeps happening. It seems like guys will say almost anything to get laid.”

  “Not all men are like that.”

  “I know. I’ve just encountered more than my fair share of liars since I’ve been back in California.”

  “And you didn’t when you lived on the east coast?”

  “I was in New York to study dance, not to find a boyfriend, so I never got to know any of the men I slept with.” Duke frowned a little, and I said, “What? Are you judging me for having an active sex life?”

  “No.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “You totally are.”

  “No I’m not. I’ve just never quite understood the concept of casual sex. It’s literally the most intimate thing you can do with another human being, and…never mind.”

  “So, what exactly are you doing? Saving yourself for marriage?”

  “No.”

  He looked embarrassed and broke eye contact, and I said, “Oh my God. You are, aren’t you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “But—”

  He shot me a look and said, “You have two choices: drop the subject, or wait alone.”

  “Okay, okay. It’s none of my business anyway. I’ve just never met a thirty-year-old virgin, so it threw me off.”
/>   “I’m not thirty.”

  “But you are a virgin?”

  He lifted my leg and started to slide out from under it as he said, “I’ll be in the truck.”

  “Wait! I’m sorry. I’ll shut up about your sex life, I promise. Please stay and keep me company.” Duke studied me for a moment, then sat back down and returned my swollen foot to his knee. After a pause, I said, “Asking how old you are is okay though, right?”

  “I’ll be twenty-eight at the end of next month.”

  “Really? That’s when I’m celebrating my twenty-fifth birthday, but you seem a lot older than me. I’m surprised we’re only three years apart.” His expression could best be described as exasperated, and I blurted, “I don’t mean you look old or anything. You really don’t. You just seem much more serious than most guys your age. Plus, you’re a homeowner. How many people in their twenties can say that, especially in San Francisco? Actually, now that I think about it, cops make a fairly modest salary, and the city is crazy expensive. How did you afford that place?”

  “If you must know, my father loaned me the money for the down-payment. That’s why I work a lot of overtime, and why I need a roommate. I not only have to pay the mortgage, I also make monthly payments to my parents, with interest. Fortunately it’s a duplex, so I can rent out half of it, in addition to the spare bedroom on my side. That helps.”

  “Still, though. Given the housing prices in San Francisco, it must cost you a fortune every month, even with a roommate and a tenant.”

  “It does.”

  “That must come with a lot of sacrifices. I guess it was really important to you to be a homeowner.” He just shrugged, and I asked, “Wasn’t it?”

  “My parents felt I should buy a house. They thought paying rent was a waste of money.”

  “And what do you think?”

  He studied a spot on the faded beige wall and said, “It doesn’t really matter.”

  Because he seemed uncomfortable, I changed the subject by asking, “When’s your birthday?”

  “October thirty-first.”

  “Mine too! Well, kind of.”

  Duke glanced at me. “How can that kind of be your birthday? Either it is or it isn’t.”

  “My parents decided to celebrate the day my adoption was finalized as if it’s my birthday, and that’s Halloween. I have no idea when I was actually born.”