Chapter Two
After kick-starting Bettie with luck and a prayer after work, Evan parks her in front of The Basement, a board game store in the Mission District. Riggs gets out first, balancing the pizza boxes with one hand and a grocery bag in the other. “That is brutal,” he crows, head thrown back in laughter. Evan told Riggs all about what happened with Dalisay while they were grabbing food for their gaming sessions. “ ‘You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that’?! Sounds like a threat.”
“I think it was,” Evan says, juggling two four-packs of tall boys under one arm and carrying the rest of the snacks while closing Bettie’s trunk with his elbow. He’s more amused than chagrined. The epic rejection was almost worth it to get Riggs’s reaction.
Riggs knocks twice on the window of The Basement. The lights are on deeper inside, but at this hour the door is locked, the store closed. “You should have known. That woman is out of your league. Besides, you work together. That’s ripe for drama.”
“We’re in different departments! I didn’t think it’d be weird.”
“Well, now it is!”
“I know, but it was worth a shot.”
“Never mix business and pleasure. Amateur move, dude.”
A hulking shadow moves at the front door and unlocks it. The six-four, totally ripped, Filipino Captain America, JohnMark—JM to his friends—smiles at them. “I smell barbecue. You better have normal pizzas in there.”
Riggs and Evan step into the store. “Only one barbecue, and that’s for me,” Evan says. “The rest are boring like you like, don’t worry.”
JM locks the door after them. “Good. If I’m going to kill you guys, you’ll want all the comfort food you can get.”
Every Friday, they gather here after the store closes to drink beer, hang out, and play Dungeons so did JM’s parents,” Pinky says. “I think it’s been around since the Spanish ruled the country or something.”
Evan’s never heard of such a thing before. But maybe Dalisay was right. He doesn’t know anything about her country or their traditions. His knowledge about that side of the world is particularly lacking, and it shows.
JM says, “My parents spent years doing the Five Stages. They talk about it every anniversary, and how my dad took forever to get enough nerve to do stage three.”
“What’s stage three?” Evan asks.
Pinky doesn’t let JM answer. “Forget it. She already shot you down! Best to just move on and take the loss.”
“Unless you want to come home scowling and soaking wet like last time you went on a date,” Riggs teases.
Evan frowns. Becca. He suppresses a shiver, remembering the way the ice cubes slipped down the back of his shirt as the champagne bucket emptied over his head. Evan swallows the memory down with a swig of beer.
“Evan’s not looking for another serious girlfriend,” Riggs says. “Are you?”
Evan shakes his head swiftly. “Not a chance.” He’s barely home enough as it is. “Besides, I have Tallulah. I’m not lonely. I’m just here to have fun.”
Right after his last relationship ended, he went to the pound and rescued Tallulah. Taking care of something other than himself helped occupy his heart. Before he became a dog-dad, he used to laugh when people would question whether they rescued their dog, or the dog rescued them. Now Evan knows firsthand that the latter is true.
Riggs gestures to the group, palms up, as if saying See? “Being single is actually fun. You two wouldn’t know that.” He points to JM and Pinky.
Pinky holds up her hands. “All I’m doing is telling you how it is in the Philippines.”
“People actually go through the Stages? Even today?” Evan asks.
“Yeah, dude,” says JM. “Though maybe not like they used to. But sort of.”
The only one who doesn’t seem convinced is Riggs, who sighs and bites down on a Funyun. “Well, the Five Stages sounds like a pain in the ass to me. Why do you have to jump through a ton of hoops just to tell someone you’re into them?”
“It’s only one of the most romantic things a person can do,” Pinky says.
“I never took you for the romantic type,” says Evan.
Daintily, Pinky shrugs a shoulder. “Every girl wants to feel special. I bet you would have done really well with the Stages … Too bad. Now let’s kill some orcs.” She snatches up her dice and rattles them in her hand, grinning.
JM hums and leans in to kiss her on the forehead and Pinky’s smile is radiant.
She may be right about one thing. Evan isn’t the type to make grand, sweeping, romantic gestures. Besides, Dalisay isn’t interested in him at all. “Even if I went through these Five Stages, Dalisay still could’ve said no.”
JM says, “The Five Stages isn’t a guarantee, but you would have stood out among the crowd.”
Evan grunts at that but Riggs still isn’t convinced. “Dalisay seems to know what she wants,” he says, “and it ain’t Evan.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Evan says. “I’m not broken up over it.” He’s not one to get hung up on a woman, even if her eyes did sparkle like the night sky.
“At least you know,” says JM. “Now, roll for initiative.”
The second Evan turns the keys, he hears the familiar clip of Tallulah’s nails on the floor as she comes to greet him when he opens the front door.
She’s not as fast as she used to be, and she’s a lot grayer in the snout, but her tail wags high when she sees him, bringing an automatic smile to his face.
“There’s my Ta-lulu!” Evan says, kneeling to pet her. He scrubs his hands on both sides of her long body, and she whines, spinning in circles. At least she never asked him to complete five stages to show his affection for her. “Wanna go potty?”
Tallulah immediately walks over to the coat rack where her leash hangs and Evan snaps it onto her collar. He leads her out to the shared courtyard where she can sniff around and do her business in the dark, guided by solar-powered garden lights in the pathway.
Growing up, he never had pets. His mom was allergic, and his dad didn’t want to deal with the mess. Getting a dog for himself, like buying his own condo with his own money, was the next natural step for independence. His dad tried to tell him getting a dog was a big mistake, especially with his work, and traveling, but Evan didn’t listen. Tallulah has been one of the most stabilizing factors in his life.
“Go poo!” Evan says to Tallulah, unashamed of using the same voice he uses when talking to babies. He’s still jet-lagged, and practically dead on his feet. All he wants to do is throw himself into bed, but Tallulah is on her own timeline, enjoying her stroll in the courtyard garden.
His complex in a quiet part of Noe Valley has four units, all of them two-story condos with their own small but fenced-in backyard and a courtyard connecting all the condos together. Evan’s unit is closest to the alley, quiet and secluded. He often spends time on his patio among the tomato plants and sunflowers to write, read, or eat breakfast in the morning before heading to work. He’s never thought about it until now, but Evan’s is the only condo with one occupant living in it.
All the neighboring units are lit from within, warm and comforting against the night: Ramon and Stephen cuddle on the couch together, drinking glasses of wine and watching TV; the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Kang sit at the coffee table to do a puzzle together; Alexandra pauses her knitting to lean into a kiss from her husband, Andrew, as he bounces their new baby on his hip.
Evan is used to being alone. He’s used to traveling for hours, occupying himself with books, or music, eating solo at a cafe, looking out the window as the world passes below him from forty-thousand feet up. The way he sees it, every single person he encounters in airports, or in hotels, or in restaurants, is living a full life around him—the main character in their own story—and he is just a background figure, a movie extra. He’s not meant for love stories. He’s better off being alone.
“You’re the only girl for me, aren’t you, Tallulah?” he says to her with a smile.
She answers by pooping in the tulips.