“You’re gay, you know,” Kayla said. She was standing in our living room, her arms crossed, Pam right at her side.

  I don’t know what they expected. Tears? Me to be like, Oh my God! You’re right! How did I not realize this?

  “Duh,” I said.

  Pam and Kayla locked eyes.

  “Oh,” Pam said. “So you know that already.”

  I repeated, “Duh.”

  “We thought you were a hopeless closet case. We were, like, going to help you come out.”

  “I’m hopeless. Just not a closet case.”

  This made them laugh, and we all loosened up, and suddenly the play got way better. Or I should say, the play was still awful because I am not a great singer, and Pam is also not a great singer, but we had a total blast and I was let into the club. We’ve been inseparable ever since. Kayla is still all about theater. Pam and I have never done another show. Pam moved on to volleyball and I moved on to lying in my waterbed with Dorcas, doing nothing.

  I jump off the bed and Dorcas leaps off too, wagging her tail at me. Poor thing. Summers suck for Dorcas. Any time after about nine in the morning, the sidewalk is too hot for her. So is the tile next to the pool. She can go out the doggie door to do her business on the shaded side of the house, but that’s about all the fun she has. I normally take her for a morning walk, but now that I’m working starting at five, she’s not getting that either. I know my mom isn’t picking up the slack, so she’s getting basically no exercise. Poor girl.

  I get an idea I love.

  I pat the side of my leg, which means follow me. Dorcas walks at my side to my mom’s bedroom, which is at DEFCON 3. Her treadmill-hamper is covered with clothing from the past two weeks, I’m guessing, and there are empty soda cans and four half-full glasses with various rotting liquids on her night table. I roll my eyes. I don’t feel like cleaning up right now, but I go to her treadmill and carry her dirty clothes to the actual hamper in the corner. Dorcas follows me every step, which is part of why I need to teach her how to exercise inside. Mom used to at least hang with her all day, but I think Mom’s forgotten about Dorcas, pretty much.

  We got Dorcas a year after my dad died. Mom was in this short-lived religious phase — hence the biblical name.

  We went to the pet shop at Arizona Mills. It was called Puppies ’N Love, which is a little too cute a name, and the place smelled like sweet aerosol spray, which was clearly just covering up the odor of dog crap. I saw this bichon frise. She was so sweet, with black eyes like tiny marbles and the softest white fur. Even though Mom wanted a bigger dog, she allowed me to sit in the tiny, glass-enclosed visiting room with the dog.

  Oh my God, did I love that bichon. She just sat on my lap like she belonged there, and I stroked the top of her bed and she stuck her tongue out in that contented way that says, Keep doing that forever, please.

  I was set. I had already named her Snowball. But Mom had questions.

  “So are you a chain?” she asked the flummoxed, barely adult salesgirl who was working with us.

  “We have another store up at Paradise Valley,” she said.

  My mom raised an eyebrow. “Oh! At the mall there? That’s so expensive!”

  “We’re like the discount center I guess,” the girl said.

  “So, what?” my mom said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are the dogs cheaper here?”

  The girl said, “We sort of get the ones that don’t sell right away.”

  My mom’s eyes opened real wide. “You mean these are OUTLET DOGS?”

  The girl didn’t know what to do with my mom. Few people ever do. She just shrugged, and my mom said to me, “Say good-bye to the dog.”

  “No!” I said.

  But she insisted, and she grabbed my elbow and hauled me out of there, and there I was, sobbing in a mall, while my mom told me there are more fish in the sea, or dogs in the yard, or whatever.

  “You don’t buy the first dog you see. You comparison shop,” she said.

  She didn’t understand me. She didn’t get it. That of course if it were up to me, I’d get the first dog I fell in love with. Because I loved it. And what more is there than that? How do you comparison shop love?

  And then she sweetened up, and she promised me an even better dog, as well as an ice-cream sandwich from Slickables, and I was pretty much over Snowball.

  We wound up going to the pound when my mom decided that it was a waste of money to spend $1,800 on an animal. Dorcas was a gray-black goldendoodle. She had only been at the pound a day. When she saw us, she wagged her tail so hard that her whole butt wagged, and that made us laugh. The guy there was like, “You don’t find a dog like this at the pound too often,” and I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t being like a used car salesman, but my mom was charmed. And I had to admit I was too. The way Dorcas stared directly at me with her mouth open in seeming wonder made me feel like someone liked me. And I know that’s pathetic but it’s true.

  I look at Dorcas now as she stands at the foot of the treadmill.

  “You need exercise,” I say, and she just looks at me like, Bitch, you are aware I don’t speak English, right?

  I step on the treadmill and search for the “On” button. The moving pad comes to life with a quiet whir and I start slowly walking in place.

  “See what I’m doing?” I say to Dorcas, who clearly does not understand language beyond the most basic of commands. “I’m walking. Exercising. You want to try?” I pantomime walking, while walking, which is unnecessary.

  Dorcas opens her mouth in what looks like a smile but turns out to be a big yawn.

  The doorbell rings. Dorcas leaps in the other direction and gallops off to the door, barking like a madwoman. I keep the treadmill on and follow.

  When Pam and Kayla walk in, Dorcas jumps up on each of them, Pam first. Pam gives her a big welcome, kneeling down to her level and letting Dorcas lick her face. Kayla does her usual “I know where that tongue has been” thing, creeping backward and patting Dorcas on the head with her arms extended.

  “I was teaching her to walk on the treadmill,” I say.

  The girls share a look. “Oh sweetie,” Kayla says. “That’s so bleak.”

  “Come on. Help me,” I say, but Pam is busy ignoring me, walking to the kitchen and grabbing a soda from the refrigerator. She gets two and throws a Pepsi to Kayla. They sit down on the couch and Pam flips on my television.

  I sigh, audibly. “No,” I whine. “No more TV. That’s all my mom does. I can’t take it. Please? Can we please do a non-TV activity? Anything. I would literally do anything.”

  Pam surfs Hulu and Kayla turns to me and says, “We did the mall for lunch. I think we’re in for the day, sweetie.”

  I flop down on the chair. “We can stay in. Just, let’s, do something? Make a YouTube video? Or help me get Dorcas on the treadmill? I left it on, even. Come on.”

  Pam does not stop flipping channels. “That is so not boyfriend-getting behavior. No one’s ever put ‘I enjoy teaching my dog to walk on the treadmill’ on Tinder.”

  “Oh!” I shout. “I have news. I have gossip! So good!”

  This gets their attention and Pam puts down the remote. They wait for me to expound.

  I shake my head. “Nope. Not unless you turn off the TV and do something with me. I’m so bored.”

  Kayla raises one eyebrow. “I’m worried this gossip is going to be not worth it.”

  “No. Totally worth it. Swear on my life.”

  “But no treadmill thing. That’s so not going to happen,” Kayla says.

  “Fine,” I say. “Something else.”

  “Dog makeover!” Pam shouts, jumping up from the couch.

  Kayla jumps up too. “Yes!”

  I shake my head. “Guys … come on. You’re — objectifying my dog. Not cool.”

  “She’ll love it,” Kayla says, and she’s already walking toward my room, so I guess we’re doing it.

  Twenty minutes later, they’re dressing up my dog in my clothing when I say, “So Max is gay.”

  Kayla struggles to get a neon-pink tank top on Dorcas, who looks unamused. She looks like a chagrined dog wearing a poorly sized tank top. “Who the hell is Max?”

  “Do you even listen when I talk? He’s the guy helping me with the food truck?”

  “What food truck?” she asks.

  I sit up from my waterbed, where I’ve been lying, and I pantomime slapping her across the face and she dramatically flips her head to the side.

  “So he’s gay?” she asks.

  “I was a little surprised. I mean. Total dude bro. Not that a dude bro can’t be gay, I guess, but the percentage of gay dude bros has to be on the low side.”

  Kayla goes to my dresser and grabs a pair of black ankle socks. “Do you think he’s like a ‘I’ll let you give me a blowie but I won’t kiss you’ guy?”

  I giggle. “I’ll ask him.”

  She gives the socks to Pam, who begins to put them over Dorcas’s front paws. Dorcas tries to free her paws and growls a bit. Pam succeeds and goes searching for more socks for her back feet. “Well if he’s Mexican, maybe,” she says. “My gay cousin on my dad’s side is one of those closet guys. Machismo is like huge in our culture.”

  “Ugh,” I say, wondering if that’s how Max really is. “So tired.”

  Pam sits on the shag carpet down by Dorcas’s rear legs and starts to put socks on them. “Max is really cute, right? I remember from AP,” she says.

  I shrug. Fact is he’s mega cute.

  Kayla says, “He is. You should date him. Two boys on a food truck. It’s like a great trashy male-male erotica novel. ‘Pump me full of diesel fuel, Max.’ ”

  “You read those? Ew.”

  “Do not,” Kayla says, rolling her eyes in a way that confirms that yes, she most certainly does. “Boys and boys together? Hot.”

  “So you objectify my dog and you fetishize my people,” I deadpan.

  Pam and Kayla stand and admire their work. Dorcas stands there, tongue out, panting, in two pairs of black ankle socks and a pink tank top. It’s not a great look.

  “She needs underwear,” Kayla says.

  I jump up. “And now you’re fetishizing my dog. You are not putting my underwear on Dorcas,” I say.

  Kayla smirks like, Yeah. You have any say whatsoever in this decision. She goes to my dresser and starts opening drawers.

  “Can you not?” I say, but no one is listening to me. “Seriously.”

  “Overruled,” Pam says. Kayla has handed her a pair of light blue bikini briefs she’s found in my underwear drawer. She holds them out in front of her like she’s admiring them.

  “Please stop,” I say, and I know it’s stupid, but my chest is actually getting tight. It’s like, I said no. What part of no do they not hear?

  Pam says to Kayla, “You hold her steady.” Kayla holds Dorcas’s midsection, and while Dorcas struggles to free herself, Pam starts to lift Dorcas’s legs and slide the underwear on her.

  I have this urge to scream. It’s so weird. It’s just my wives being silly. But the treadmill is still running, and anyway, I said no. They do not have my permission. It’s like they just came in and took over, and suddenly I want them gone. That’s never happened before.

  But I can’t say that. So I sit down on my bed and say, “So how do I play this thing with Max? Us both being gay and all?”

  Pam succeeds in getting my underwear on Dorcas, who looks both ridiculous and pissed. My stomach turns. I was kidding earlier, when I said they were objectifying her. But now I sort of feel that way. I want to protect her from being dressed against her will. I can’t. I lie back and stare at the ceiling.

  “Just forget he’s gay,” Kayla says. “Not just because he’s a dude blow. Ha! Dude blow! Classic! You just — you don’t shit where you eat. And you eat on that food truck.”

  “I don’t eat there,” I say.

  “Um, hello, Captain Oblivious. I meant it as a metaphor. You need the food truck to work in order to eat. So don’t, like, shit there.”

  “Ew,” I whisper. “Stop.”

  Pam says, “Or maybe eat just a little. Like, no strings attached. Because he’s hot so it’s okay. God do I wish I were a gay guy. You have all the fun.”

  I don’t even respond to Pam’s messed-up-ness with a look. Instead I can’t help but think about the point-counterpoint they’ve given me. First off, they’re jumping the gun. But yeah, Max is kinda hot. And we’ll be spending all this time together, and now the barrier is gone because we both know the other is gay, and I wonder: What would he think of me? If I had to guess, he wouldn’t. Think of me. I’d be like this annoying skinny dude with acne that he has to spend time with. But it isn’t like he’s been dismissing me, exactly. A couple times, I’ve actually wondered why a guy like him would listen to a guy like me as boss, because I’m so — I don’t know. Not boss-like, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and everything he does is so — masterful. Like he belongs in the world, whereas I belong on some heretofore uninhabitable planet that dude bros have been taught to avoid like the plague.

  “Careful,” Pam says, elbowing me in the ribs. “Your brain just exploded. You’ve just married Max, haven’t you? Where are you two living?”

  “Have not,” I say, but I suppress a smile because, yeah. I could imagine that fantasy, at least.

  “Who the hell buys a Choco Taco?” Zay-Rod asks as we scan the ice-cream freezer at my local Circle K. It’s late Friday afternoon, the day before the new and improved Coq Au Vinny gets reintroduced to the world at the Gilbert Farmers’ Market, and I’m trying to make sure to enjoy every second of my free time.

  “I thought that was a Mexican thing,” Betts says, and Zay-Rod and I share a look.

  “It’s a Mexican thing like Taco Bell is Mexican food,” Zay-Rod says.

  “Oh come on. Doritos Locos? That shit’s the bomb!” Betts says as he grabs a Klondike.

  We don’t even need to comment on that one. I grab a Twix, because caramel. Zay-Rod, an ice-cream purist, picks himself a Drumstick.

  After we pay the lady with the scratchy cigarette voice, we unwrap our treats and start the walk back to my place. We’re pooling. My mom is the favorite mom; she grills the best hot dogs and makes the best tamales, so it’s usually our pool where we hang, and we usually wait until she just happens to be home from work. There’s that sizzling summer noise that’s actually cicadas but sounds like the sidewalk is blazing, and I can feel the sun attacking the skin on the back of my neck as we walk up Noche de Paz toward my street. My Twix ice-cream bar is immediately softer than it should be due to the heat, so I snarf it down in two bites. Olives that have fallen off trees and have been ground into the sidewalk dot the asphalt, and we have to step over an occasional gray and dying palm frond.

  “So here’s my imitation of Zay-Rod doing a slam poem,” Betts says, handing me his Klondike. He keeps walking and he clasps his hands in front of his chest, which is actually what Zay-Rod always does for some reason whenever he does his slam poetry in front of the church in downtown Phoenix on Third Fridays. It’s a monthly street party where we hang out and eat food off trucks and sneak sips of beer out of paper bags.

  “A frog comes out of its shell. The sun beats down, hot, hot hot, and the frog, seeking shelter, finds a … tree … and” — at this point he does this thing where he unclasps his hands and raises his arms like he’s exalting the heavens. It’s a pretty spot-on imitation straight from the Zay-Rod canon — “the powers that BE stomp the little frog.” He stomps. “Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.” I can’t help but crack up because it’s not a terrible impression, and Zay-Rod punches my shoulder.

  Betts continues. “The frog needs to go back to his shell. I am that frog! I am that frog!” Betts pulls his hands back down, clasps them again, and then does a big, exaggerated bow, and I pump my fist like crazy.

  “What’s your damage, dude?” Zay-Rod asks. “First off, frogs don’t have shells, dumb ass. Second off, you suck at poetry. Third, try doing something other than sitting on your fat ass. See how that goes.”

  “Good comeback,” Betts says.

  Zay-Rod grabs the Klondike out of my hand and Betts says, “Hey!” and reaches for it. Zay-Rod opens the wrapper and takes a huge bite, and a piece of loose chocolate falls onto his white T-shirt. He swats it off but it leaves a skid mark.

  “Serves you right, ass,” Betts says, grabbing his Klondike back. Zay-Rod lets him take it and pulls off his soiled shirt.

  He says to Betts, “You’re the kind of dude who peaks in high school. By twenty-five you’re gonna be bald as fuck, with a big gut like your dad.”

  I laugh at that one too, because yeah, I can totally see that.

  “And you,” Zay-Rod says, pointing his index finger at me. “You should have my back but of course you don’t because you’re so stupid. I think your mom and dad were brother and sister.”

  I roll my eyes. “At least they aren’t father and daughter, like yours,” I say, and Betts tries to high-five me. I pull away, and when he stumbles forward, I push him onto the concrete.

  “Ouch!” he says. “You crazy? The sidewalk is eight thousand degrees.”

  He stands and we walk on in silence, enjoying our snacks. Betts brings up the idea of hitting the batting cages over in Kiwanis Park. Coach warned us we better stay in shape over the summer and hit once in a while. So far we haven’t done either. Zay-Rod vetoes that idea.

  “So the kid, Jordan. He’s gay,” I say.

  “You thought he was,” says Betts.

  “Well now I know for sure.”

  “You gonna bone him?” Zay-Rod says. “Or you did already.”

  I punch him in the shoulder. I hate that shit. When I don’t answer, Betts jumps ahead of us and does this imitation of me that isn’t even close.