Taking Chances (7 page)

I think.

Anyway, getting out of the car was like that. If I never got out of the car, then I was never actually gay, but the second I opened the door, my gayness was a fact. I know that sounds like an incredibly stupid and cowardly way to look at it, but I still wasn’t ready to say the words “I am gay” out loud. So I sat in my car in the parking lot and tried to tell myself it didn’t matter if I walked into the bar or not, but my mind refused to play along.

Turns out nothing I said made a difference and after an hour, I started my car. Which, of course, was the exact moment Riley and Robbie pulled up in their car. I swear to you, I can’t make this shit up. Fate just has too much time on her hands if she has time to set up things like that. They of course saw me, which meant if I left, I would have to explain to them why I left, which would lead to me explaining that I was so far in the closet I had hanger marks on my back.

Instead, I took a deep breath and got out of my car.

“You were going to chicken out, right?” Riley asked as I slammed my door. “You were just thinking about burning rubber out of here like a little girl.”

“Shut up” was all I could manage as a comeback.

“Right,” he said, stifling a laugh. “So Tyler, this is my partner, Robbie. Robbie, this is Tyler.”

If you had asked me before that night if I could tell if someone came from Texas only by looking at them, I would have told you the whole idea was stupid. People from Texas are not stereotypes with big cowboy hats, boots, and faded jeans with a ring worn into their back pocket from where they kept their Skoal. We don’t all speak with a drawl or use the word
pardner,
just for starters. When I see someone in a movie or on TV acting like that, I just roll my eyes.

But one look at Robbie, and I knew he was from nowhere near Foster or, for that matter, Texas.

I don’t say that to put Robbie down; he was handsome, in a city way, with his hair gelled up and a pair of skinny jeans that could have put my best pair of Wranglers to shame—hey, I didn’t say that those stereotypes were all wrong; I just meant all of us aren’t like that all the time. He looked gay, and again, not in a bad way. He wasn’t acting like a girl or carrying himself effeminately. Robbie was obviously gay and didn’t care who knew.

Frankly, it scared the shit out of me because it was everything I was not.

“Hi,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Tyler. I went to school with Riley.”

He paused for a second before shaking my hand. “Of course you did.”

I looked at Riley, confused; he was shaking his head and laughing. “Robbie is under the impression they put something in the water around here.”

Robbie hit Riley’s chest and looked back at me. “I’m serious! I feel like I’ve walked into a goddamned Abercrombie and Fitch commercial. Were there
any
normal-looking guys in your high school?”

“Um… yes?” I said, not sure how to answer.

“It’s no wonder half of you are freakin’ gay,” he said, stomping off toward the bar. “You guys look like you’re all underwear models on a break.” He swung open the bar door and music spilled out into the night. The parking lot was almost too quiet after he slammed the door behind him, closing the music back in.

“Well, he’s nice,” I said hesitantly.

Riley laughed and slapped me on the back and walked alongside me, shepherding me toward the door. “He’s still adjusting to Foster. I call it the
Green Acres
syndrome. I so wanted to find someone to pretend to have a talking pig, but no one would play along.”

I had known Riley all through high school. I mean, we weren’t best friends, but we hung around the same crowd so I thought I knew him pretty well. But this guy was someone completely different. He was open, expressive, laughing….

And then it hit me.

“You’re happy, aren’t you?” I asked him before we walked in the door. “This whole coming-out thing, it’s made you that happy?”

He stopped and thought about it for a moment. “You know, I am,” he answered with enthusiasm. “I don’t know how much of it has to do with me being head over heels for Robbie, but a weight lifted off me once I came out. I don’t look over my shoulder. I don’t edit everything that comes out of my mouth. I mean, I don’t feel like I’m acting different; I just know I can be myself.”

What Riley said surprised me, because I was expecting him to say he was happy because he was with someone, but I could tell it was more than that. This was who Riley was, the real Riley, and that was somebody no one but Robbie had met or talked to or known before he’d come out. Riley was happy.

Those three words were like a cold bucket of water being thrown in my face, dispelling the multitude of fears that hovered around me.

Which, of course, made me think: who the hell was the real Tyler?

L
INDA
pushed her empty toward the center of the table. “Well, if you don’t think Robbie is an asshole, I’d hate to see how you react to someone you really don’t like.”

I ignored the barb, knowing she was fishing for me to comment more on the subject, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to go there yet, not even in my mind.

“So what is the final decision on Matt Wallace?” she asked, getting up and putting her coat on.

“Oh, leave me alone,” I whined and then instantly hated myself for doing it.

“So that’s a typical Parker ‘I refuse to make a choice until my back is up against a wall with no time left and even then I will find a way to make a half choice instead of just doing what I really want to do anyway.’ Got it.”

“Go away,” I said, folding my arms and collapsing toward the tabletop again.

I felt her mess my hair up. “Cheer up, pretty boy. If none of this works out, you can rent yourself out as an escort for middle-aged women who like to have nonthreatening gay men over for dinner.”

I looked up. “So then, I can use you as a reference?”

She flipped me off and walked out of the bar.

The next week consisted of a blur of people coming in and out, buying every sports-related present they could think of. Oh, and occasional food and less-occasional sleep. Even with Brad’s help, I was overwhelmed by the amount of foot traffic walking in empty-handed and staggering out with at least one piece of equipment or clothing in a bag. The only good thing about that was I had little time to think about Matt and what I wanted to do about him. In fact, I had almost forgotten him entirely in the haze of exhaustion the Christmas rush creates.

Then I got a call late one afternoon from Linda.

“Is this my monthly call from Dial-a-Bitch?” I asked, tossing a load of uniforms into the washing machine. Brad was out front dealing with customers while I tried to catch up with all the back work we had.

“He’s here” was all she said.

“Who?” I asked jokingly. “Jesus? Does he look pissed? Does he still have those abs?”

Her voice got even sterner, which was saying something about Linda’s voice. “Matt. Wallace. Is. Here,” she whispered into the phone. She was at work, which meant she was using her cell at the register, something she could get fired for.

I felt my stomach clench up.

“He just walked in the door. If you want to run into him casual-like instead of being hooked up by your mother, then you better haul ass down here.” She hung up, leaving me standing there dumbfounded, staring blankly at my phone.

I dropped the uniforms balanced on my other forearm and rushed through the front of the shop. “He’s here,” I yelled at Brad as I passed him. “Lock up for me!” I’m not sure if he understood what I said, but I trusted him to handle the shop in my absence.

The Better Buy was just on the edge of town, part of the new shopping complex they opened up a few years ago. It seems a development company came into town wanting to build one of those gigantic mega mall complexes with the Better Buy as the corner store. The city council had turned down their request to build it off Second Street, saying it would have disrupted the flow of the city proper. I didn’t know what they meant by that, but I assumed it was something along the lines of “We don’t like change!” so the idea went away, but the mall didn’t. The parking lot was crowded as usual this time of the year, but “crowded” for Foster is probably like a Tuesday anywhere else. I rushed past the Toys for Tots Marine just inside the front door, doing my level best to ignore the hot, uniformed man who was way too young for me to be looking at.

I glanced over at her usual register and saw Linda pointing to the back of store by the games. Nodding, I moved as fast as possible without breaking into a run, slowing down slightly to grab a few DVDs on the way. The electronics section was at the back of Better Buy in a quiet corner—well, relatively quiet corner. A dead-end department, it was designed to give buyers nowhere else to go once they’d stepped in its trap. From the looks of things, a bunch of people had stepped in at the same time. I scanned up and down the aisles for him, even standing on tiptoe once in an effort to see someone familiar. At the same time, I racked my brain to remember what he looked like. I had seen a recent pic on the website he worked for, but a picture and the real thing can be vastly different. I must have looked like a lost kid searching for my parents standing in the middle of the video games aisle.

And then I saw him walking away from me.

I held my breath, not sure what to do next. Should I just let him walk away? Would I not say a word and let the opportunity slip away? From what I could see, he was still in great shape. He turned his head to look at something and I saw his profile. He was as handsome as ever. I was so anxious I felt myself start to sweat….

“Matt!” my mouth called out against my will.

“
What the fuck mouth
?” I asked myself.

“Not like you were going to make a move, chicken
,” my mind answered back as Matt turned to look at me.

“Now we’re in it,” I mumbled under my breath.

My Judas mind said nothing, but I could hear it chuckle as I walked toward him.

“I
T
’
S
ME
,”
he said as if someone could have forgotten him even for a second. “Tyler? Tyler Parker?”

“Tyler,” I echoed. Like a robot president at Disneyland, I suddenly came to life and shook his hand. “I’m Matt,” I added.

Our hands paused in midshake and he replied, “I know. I just said it like three times.”

I kicked myself mentally as I nodded. “Right, just seeing if you were paying attention.” And then kicked myself harder. My brain laughed uproariously.

He half laughed and half made a sound that might have been “Uh-huh” before he released my hand, which I’d forgotten about. Handshake… oh yeah. Handshake. “How weird seeing you here, huh?” he asked as dazed, Christmas-numb people milled around us.

“Right?” I said. I wasn’t sure what language was coming out of my mouth, but I was pretty certain it wasn’t English. “What are you doing here?”

He grinned as if waiting for me to add a “Just kidding” on the end of my statement. When he realized it wasn’t coming, he answered, “I live here. What about you? Kinda far from California, aren’t you?”

“You know where I live?” I asked, the dumbfounded look on my face returning.

“It’s a small town.” He chuckled. “And not many people get out and stay out, so yeah, I heard you had moved.”

“Yeah. I moved to California,” I said and went back to kicking myself. My mind, traitor that it was, continued guffawing.

He burst out laughing. “Well, to answer your question more accurately, I’m trying to get someone to help me but I think I’m SOL,” he said while looking around for an employee to corner.

How anyone could not drop what they were doing to come running to help him was beyond me. “You buying a gift?” I asked in what may have been the first normal thing I’d uttered since I’d seen him. He had some DVDs in his hand, so it was a fair guess.

“I wish,” he said, running a hand through his hair as he looked around in apprehension. “My computer committed suicide this week, and I did everything I know to get it working again. So I’m kinda forced to buy a new one.”

“How old is it?” I asked, suddenly in a world I could actually form coherent sentences about.

He paused for a moment, trying to remember. “Less than two years, but you know how computers are today.” Abruptly, he stopped and looked at me. “What am I saying? Of course you know how computers are, my bad.”

“You know what I do for a living?” I asked, once again shocked.

He blushed a little more. “Guilty,” he said. “I’ve read your column a couple of times. You’re pretty funny.”

I
was pretty sure I was on the floor of Better Buy, body twitching in the throes of a brain-damaging embolism, but as fantasies went, this one was nice.

“So, yeah,” he continued, jamming his hands in his pockets and looking around again. “But at this point I’m better off just chucking a dart and buying whatever it lands on.”

“I can look at it,” I blurted out before my internal filter could stop me.

“
What the hell?
” my inner self asked me silently.

“
Oh, you were never going to make a move
,” I retorted. “
Fuck off
.”

Aloud I added, “I mean, if it’s that new, I’m sure it is just a power supply or maybe the hard drive. Both of those can be replaced for a lot less than a whole new system.”

I was praying I didn’t sound as desperate as I did in my own ears.

“Really?” he asked, shocked. “You’d do that?”

I tried to play it casual. “Of course. I mean, what are friends for?”

He looked at me for several seconds, and I wondered if he was going to point out that we had never actually been friends. “I mean, I know you’re down here for Christmas, and I don’t want to take you away from—”

“Please!” I exclaimed. “Take me away from them!” And we both laughed. “It wouldn’t be a problem at all, honestly.”

“Okay then, if you’re sure,” he said again, and I almost said, “I’d consider hitting my mother on the back of the head with a snow shovel if kissing you was in the cards.” But I thought that would come off as needy.