All Peter Bankston ever wanted to do was paint. An aspiring painter, Peter scratches out a pauper's living in San Francisco, wanting nothing more than to be left alone. Instead, he finds himself getting involved with not one but two very different men. Like Peter, getting involved with another man is the last thing on Nick Katsaris's mind. Smart, handsome, and good-humored, Nick's done more than just survive-he's positively thriving in San Francisco. But when he meets Peter, what begins as fun and games quickly turns into a game he can't control. Miles Bettencourt's days are filled with longing. For him, San Francisco is haunted by Stuart, his missing ex-lover. Desperate to win him back, Miles wanders the streets in the hope of running into Stuart again. Instead, he runs into Peter-the one man who might hold the key to what Miles is looking for. These three gay men soon form one very unlikely love triangle. Sometimes, when people break apart and then come together, they learn that discovering that where you are is the key to knowing who you are.

You Are Here

By Chris Delyani

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Chris Delyani
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-3443-4

Contents

Chapter One Finish What You Started...........................1Chapter Two Unexpected Guests.................................24Chapter Three Illegal Room....................................46Chapter Four Happy January....................................67Chapter Five The Curse........................................90Chapter Six Blackmail.........................................111Chapter Seven The Best with What You Have.....................133Chapter Eight The Thrill of the Chase.........................158Chapter Nine Lunch Date.......................................181Chapter Ten Dirty Little Secret...............................202Chapter Eleven Forgiveness....................................224Chapter Twelve Perfect All the Time...........................246Chapter Thirteen Nightmares...................................266Chapter Fourteen Water's Edge.................................284Chapter Fifteen You Are Here..................................303

Chapter One

Finish What You Started

PETER BANKSTON STOOD ON a stepladder at the chalkboard behind the cash registers, trying to draw an elf. He'd come to work an hour early to create this Christmas drawing: a group of shady-looking elves playing poker with Santa Claus, with the elves in the background trading glances and the one in the foreground holding a Valerie's Java Shop gift certificate behind his back. After reducing several pieces of green, red, and tan chalk to nubs, he still wasn't satisfied—the hand clutching the certificate looked more like a claw. He drew and erased, drew and erased.

"Hey, Leonardo, get down from there," his coworker Cesar called up to him, a hand on his hip. "Can't you see we're about to open?"

"Sorry," Peter said. He got down from the stepladder and scrubbed his hands at the sink, studying his knuckles, fingers, palms, nails.

They got a smaller rush of customers than usual, since today was the day after Thanksgiving. By nine o'clock the place was empty again, the sun streaming through the plate-glass windows. Peter wiped the tables, swept the floor, refilled the creamers, and then unfolded the stepladder and climbed up to his drawing. He peered at the elf's hand, studying his own hand, flexing his wrist, wiggling his fingers. About a minute later, he felt a blast of cold air behind him but didn't turn around, figuring Cesar could handle the customer. Then a familiar-sounding voice called up, "I always wondered who did those drawings."

Peter turned to look, slipping the chalk into his back jeans pocket. Gazing up at him from the other side of the counter, with his hands tucked in the front pockets of his blue jeans, stood the most regular of his regular customers—a fortyish-looking man with a pale face and wavy brownish hair, a delicate build, and small brown eyes. Instead of his usual business suit, the customer wore a brown tweed jacket and a white collared shirt. Peter got down from the stepladder, brushed the chalk dust off his hands, and took his place by his register. "Good morning," he said, trying to sound businesslike as he hovered his fingertips over the register keys. "The usual?"

"You must be an art student," the man said, looking up at the drawing.

"Ex–art student. I graduated three years ago."

"Oh." The man shifted his gaze from the elves to Peter. "You look younger."

Peter glanced over at Cesar, who was wiping a nearby table in a lame effort to look busy, and then looked at his fingers poised over the register keys. "So—a nonfat soy latte to go?"

"Actually, I came to ask you to dinner tonight."

Peter looked up.

"Unless you're too stuffed from eating turkey yesterday," the man said, the corners of his mouth upturned.

Peter was too surprised to answer, and the man, taking Peter's silence as a yes, brought out his cell phone and asked him for his address and number. Peter gave him the information and watched him type it in. The man was still looking down at the device when he asked, casually, what time he should pick Peter up. Peter tried mumbling out a protest—"but wouldn't it be easier if I met you there?"—but the man looked up, surprised, told him not to be ridiculous, said he'd be over at six. Before he left he gave Peter his business card. In elegant black letters, against textured, cream-colored paper, gleamed the name Donald Mantei. When Peter looked up from the business card, the man was gone.

"What did I tell you?" Cesar said, stepping forward with a triumphant look, twirling his dishrag. "I told you he was after you."

Peter slipped the card into his jeans pocket. "It's only dinner."

Cesar crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow. "Right, only dinner. For weeks he makes sure he stands in your line, talks to you every day, comes here on his day off on purpose to ask you out, and all he wants is dinner. Well, I've got news for you, girl—he wants you for dinner." With a glance at Peter's skinny frame, he added, "And I hope he gives you dinner too. You look like you could use a square meal."

"He's got to be fifteen years older than me; we've probably got nothing in common," Peter said, more to himself than to his friend. "What are we going to talk about?"

"If you're lucky, you won't be talking at all."

Peter turned and took a step toward the supply room, where the phone was. "I'm calling him now to cancel."

Cesar stopped him with a slit-eyed look. "You know what your problem is?" he said, holding up his index finger. "Your problem is you're a stingy little bitch. You tell me you're lonely; you tell me you haven't been on a date since you moved here; but when a respectable-looking man comes into the store and asks you out, suddenly you're all like, 'Ew, he's too old ... ew, we've got nothing in common!' What were you planning to do tonight anyway, sit in your room and draw? It's time you got outta the house, girl. So be a man and go."

A middle-aged woman in a green overcoat and a white beret came into the shop, followed by a young straight couple pushing a baby in a stroller. Cesar took his post by the espresso machines, and Peter, shaken, rang the customers up. But at least Cesar had given Peter an inspiration.

As soon as the shop was empty again, Peter got out the stepladder, climbed up to his drawing, and erased the elf's index finger. He redrew it so that it looked like the finger Cesar had pointed at him—long, upraised, and firm with resolve. He got down from the ladder and beheld his finished drawing, his best effort since he'd started working here five months ago. If only he could handle men the way he could handle this piece of chalk.

* * *

Peter lived on Wisconsin Street in Potrero Hill, in a chilly basement room with a threadbare carpet covering a concrete floor, and two grimy windows protected by burglar bars. As soon as he got home, at around four o'clock, the last bit of daylight seeping in, he rummaged through the cardboard box he used as a bureau and pulled out his green crewneck sweater and tan slacks, the only decent clothes he'd brought to San Francisco. He went upstairs and took a shower, wiping the tiles scrupulously after he was finished; then he got dressed and headed back downstairs, plopped down on his mattress, and began to tie his shoes. A shoelace snapped. His clock radio read nine minutes to six. He scrambled for one of his sneakers, yanked out the lace, and with fumbling fingers, forced it through the holes of his brown oxford. The lace was frayed and black with filth—disgusting—but he had no choice.

Overhead, the front door opened—Jeff King, the house's owner, must have gotten home from work. Good. Now he didn't have to worry about running into Jeff on the curb outside, explaining to him where he was going, or worst of all, introducing him to Donald Mantei. Putting on his denim jacket and red wool scarf, Peter switched off his bedroom light, left the house by the basement door, double- and then triple-checked the lock, and then walked down the side alleyway, in near-total darkness, to the front sidewalk. A frigid wind was blowing. He looked reflexively at his wrist, even though he wasn't wearing his watch. The battery had died two weeks ago. As the minutes crawled by, he began to wonder if Donald would stand him up. But a few moments later, a black sports car rounded the corner and slowed to a stop in front of him. No escaping now.

"You weren't standing out there too long, I hope," Donald said, turning to Peter as he scooted into the car.

"No, not too long," Peter said as he sank into the black leather bucket seat, crossing his ankles. The dashboard clock read 6:07.

"You sound out of breath."

"No, I'm fine, really," Peter said, but then, despairing at the thought of keeping his filthy shoelace concealed all night long, added, "well, if you really want to know, my shoelace broke right before you got here."

He uncrossed his ankles and held his breath, his face flushing.

"We'll get shoelaces on the way," Donald said, straightening up.

"I'll manage."

But without another word, Donald drove down the hill and pulled up in front of a Walgreens, saying he'd wait in the car. Peter got out of the car and slipped into the store, found and bought the laces in less than five minutes. Once back in the car, he thanked Donald and put on his seatbelt, thinking he'd fix the laces once they got to the restaurant, but as Donald pulled into the traffic, cutting off a car behind him as he sped through a yellow light, he said, "Aren't you going to change the lace now?" So Peter changed his shoelace in the dark, the blood rushing to his head as he bent forward, getting dizzy from the car's motion.

The restaurant, located inside a hotel near Union Square, had a vaulted ceiling and dark wood finishings, gilt mirrors and twinkling Christmas wreaths on the walls, white and yellow chrysanthemums exploding from brass jardinières, and lamps and sconces giving off warm, buttery light. Donald gave his name to the hostess, who looked at her computer screen with a slight wrinkle in her brow, as if she couldn't find their reservation. Maybe they'd have to wait for a table. For a moment, Peter's stomach knotted up at the prospect of sitting at the bar and running out of things to talk about even before they sat down to eat. But the hostess looked up from her computer screen with a smile, asked them to follow her, and led them through a maze of crowded, candlelit tables to a semicircular booth along the back wall, underneath a poster of a can-can dancer. Since the booth faced outward, toward the dining room, Donald sat to Peter's right, not across from him. Peter got the sense they were sitting on a stage.

"It's nice here," he said, for the sake of saying something.

"It used to not be," Donald answered, looking around with a proprietary look. He wore a beige herringbone dinner jacket, a tan-and-gray-checked shirt. "I heard they hired a new chef, so I thought I'd give the place another chance."

A black-vested waiter, fiftyish, bored-looking, came to their table with menus. Peter took his menu without looking the waiter in the eye and didn't look up again until the waiter went away revealing a thumbprint-shaped birthmark on the back of his cleanly shaved head. Peter reached for his water glass and took a long drink. Donald was scanning the wine list.

Then the waiter returned and asked if they were ready to order. Donald turned to Peter and asked if Peter had decided, but Peter, studying the list of entrées, told Donald to order first while he finished making up his mind. In fact, his mind was already made up—he'd order salad if Donald ordered salad, something fancy if Donald ordered something fancy. Peter stared at his menu. After asking the waiter a few questions, Donald ordered an arugula-and-goat-cheese salad to start, followed by the pan-seared bass. Peter snapped his menu shut and said he'd have the same salad and the prime rib, medium rare, with roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes. Before the waiter left, Donald ordered a bottle of a French-sounding wine that seemed to translate into English as "astronomically expensive." The waiter wrote it down and went away.

"Prime rib on the day after Thanksgiving," Donald said. "You'll have to tell me where you put it all."

The waiter came with the wine and presented the bottle to Donald, who put on his gold-framed glasses to examine the label. While the waiter splashed wine into Donald's glass, Peter looked out on the dining room and tried to remember the last time he'd eaten at a place as elegant as this one, the women in their dresses and jewelry, the men in their suits and cufflinks. Instinctively, he looked around for the gay couples and had little trouble spotting them. One couple, in fact, was finishing their meal only a couple of tables in front of them—two bearded guys sipping espresso, seeming neither happy nor unhappy.

"Well, cheers," Donald said, raising his glass.

"What? Oh, cheers," Peter said, clinking his wineglass against Donald's. It was a white wine, cold and smooth. Peter noticed Donald peering over the rim at him. He put down his wineglass and took a gulp from his water glass, which had been refilled without his noticing.

"So—have you gone to any of the Prop 8 protests since the election?" asked Donald.

"No. You?"

"I went to the rally at City Hall last Saturday. I've never protested anything before in my life." Donald sighed and sipped his wine. "Not that it did any good."

"Yeah, well, what can you do?" Peter mumbled.

"So why didn't you go?" Donald said, his head tilted slightly in disapproval. "Are you not the protesting type?"

"I—no, I guess not, not really. I wish I could feel more into it, but—"

Donald put down his glass, frowning at him like a teacher whose student has given the wrong answer.

"—but right now I'm doing all I can just to scratch out a living," Peter said, trying to sound chipper. "I'll worry about marriage later."

"But we lost our rights now."

Under the table, Peter wiped his palms with the tablecloth. "We'll get them back eventually."

"Not if you sit by and do nothing."

The waiter came with their salads. Peter fished out a pink grapefruit wedge from the arugula and ate it, savoring the icy tartness in this suddenly overheated restaurant. He reached for his water—magically full again; where the hell was that busboy?—and gulped. A few seconds of silence crawled by. He spotted a family at another table, a fortyish married couple with their two kids—a girl and a boy both with large blue eyes. The girl looked about six in her pink dress and pink ribbons in her soft blonde hair, the boy about four in a dark-blue suit jacket and a red velvet bow tie, his blond hair plastered to his head. He gaped around the dining room while his mother, an older-looking version of the little girl, cut his food for him. The boy was the same age as Peter's nephew Aaron, maybe a little older.

"Did you have a nice holiday yesterday?" Donald asked.

"Not bad," Peter said, blinking and turning to Donald. "A little weird, I guess. It was my first Thanksgiving away from home."

"Where's home?"

"Illinois, outside of Chicago. I moved here the last weekend in June."

"So you came in time for the gay pride parade."

"Nah, I missed it—my flight came in that evening. I should have moved a week earlier."

"Eh, you didn't miss much," Donald said, sipping wine between bites of arugula. "It's the same old circus every year."

"Still, I wish I'd gone. I've never been to a gay pride parade before."

Donald seemed to need a moment to register this; then he put down his wineglass and stared at him. "How old are you, Peter?"

"Twenty-five."

"And you've never been to gay pride before?" Donald said, still staring, his mouth hanging open. "How'd you manage that?"

"Living at home, I guess. I commuted to Chicago for college and then for art school."

Donald picked up his wineglass, looked out on the dining room. "Huh. No wonder you moved here."

"Last summer I backpacked around Europe," Peter said. "So it's not like I've never been out of the house, but I don't know, I guess I never got around to going to a gay pride parade."

"You out to your family?" Donald said.

Peter took a gulp of water.

"I thought so," Donald said, not unsympathetically. "Well, don't worry about the parade. It'll be here next year, and the year after that, and the year after that."

Donald drained his glass and poured more wine into Peter's, which was still nearly full, before refilling his own. Already Peter was feeling the buzz. He reached for the baguette on their table, tore off a hunk of bread. His water glass was full again, dripping with condensation.

"I want to tell them," Peter said, chewing bread, "but the words get stuck in my throat. I don't know why. I'm sure they've guessed by now."

"You ever have a girlfriend?"

Peter shook his head.

"Then they've guessed," Donald said with a knowing nod. He gave Peter a quick pat of the hand and added, "You'll tell them when the time is right."

Peter sank his teeth into the bread, looking at the little boy with the red bow tie, and gulped down more water, feeling thirstier the more he drank.

"So if your family's in Illinois," Donald said a moment or two later, "who'd you spend Thanksgiving with?"

"My roommate, Jeff," Peter said with his mouth full, still not looking at Donald.

"You spent it with your roommate's family?"

"His friends," Peter said quickly. "He likes throwing dinner parties."

"Sounds nice. What did you have?"

"Oh, the usual," Peter said, reaching for his wineglass. "A turkey and cranberry sauce and potatoes and, um, Brussels sprouts, a few other things, I can't remember. I think someone else brought the pumpkin pie."

Donald nodded and sipped from his wineglass, and Peter looked away from him, flushing. True, Jeff did serve Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. He might even have invited Peter upstairs had Peter stuck around. But Peter made sure he was out of the house, slipping out by the basement door, long before the first guest showed up. Peter's dinner last night was a chicken burrito (with extra guacamole) and a slice of pumpkin bread from the coffee shop two doors down from the taquería. A ten-dollar feast.

"I have a roommate," Donald said, after a busboy came and took their salad plates. "Miles. Miles Bettencourt. I rented out my extra bedroom to him six weeks ago."

"You're getting along with him?"

"When I see him," Donald said, with a slight roll of his eyes. "Every night he leaves the house and doesn't come home until after I'm in bed."

"Sounds ideal."

"You'd think. But there's something about him ... I don't know how to describe it ... this ... this anger, this seething anger underneath his skin. I doubt if I've exchanged ten words with him since he moved in."

"Huh. Is he mad at you about something?"

"He's mad about something, but I don't see how he can be mad at me. I'm guessing he was living with a boyfriend and they broke up. Either that, or he was being evicted. He needed the room in a hurry; that's all I know."

Their dinners came. Peter's prime rib glistened next to a mound of mashed potatoes and roasted carrots and parsnips. He cut his beef into small bites, ate slowly and deliberately, trying not to look as starving as he was.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from You Are Hereby Chris Delyani Copyright © 2012 by Chris Delyani. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.