Belonging (22 page)

Christian rolled up alongside us, and
muttered, “Hey.” He looked as embarrassed as I did, his eyes on
anything but me.

“Hey.”

“So, um, sorry for busting in on you
two.”

“Sorry for making you see me grinding
on your dad,” I told him, shifting my weight from one foot to the
other.

“It’s okay.”

“So...we good?” I asked.

“Yeah. We’re good.”

“Alright. Well, your dad’s in the
family room at the back of the house if you want to talk to
him.”

“Okay.” Christian wheeled himself
toward the house. When he got to the stairs, Shea stepped in and
lifted both him and the chair seemingly effortlessly, and they went
inside.

Christopher Robin chuckled. “Way to
dude it out.”

“We had a super awkward PDA moment
earlier.”

“So I gathered,” he said with a smile.
“I saw one of the videos of you and Zan at the airport, by the way,
speaking of PDA. You’re really sweet together, and I hope it works
out between you two.”

“Thanks, me too.”

His husband Kieran jogged up to us,
paintbrush in hand, and said, “I think we’re about to have company.
Gianni, maybe you want to go inside, though it’s your call, of
course.” He pointed over my left shoulder, and when I turned my
head, I saw two white news vans from rival stations speeding toward
us. Even before the vans came to a complete stop, reporters and
cameramen slid open the panel doors and began spilling out. “Gianni
Dombruso,” one of them was yelling, trying desperately to get ahead
of his competitor. “Guy Stanley, Channel Sixteen Action News! How
long have you and Zan Tillane been lovers? And where’s he been all
this time? Is it true he took a vow of silence and spent the last
decade in a Tibetan monastery?”

“Where do they get this stuff?” Kieran
muttered. He tossed the brush aside and put himself between me and
the incoming fray, his police training suddenly really
evident.

Guy Stanley was viciously hip-checked
by a petite Latina from another channel, who shouted, “Gianni,
Gloria Espinosa, Channel Three First on the Scene News! Is it true
that Zan Tillane was just released from prison and flew to San
Francisco to be reunited with you, his gay lover, after serving a
thirteen year sentence for drug smuggling?” She sounded very Jersey
shore, except when she said her name, which she imbued with a heavy
Spanish accent.

“What? Hell no!” I
exclaimed.

While the two cameramen tried to shove
their equipment in my face despite Kieran running interference, the
reporters jockeyed for position. Gloria emerged victorious when she
brought her five-inch heel down, accidentally or otherwise, on
Guy’s toes and he yelped and doubled over. She then called,
“Gianni, is it true that Zan fell in love with you when you were
just fifteen and wrote the song Love Overcomes for you?”

I raised an eyebrow and said, “Oh,
come on!”

Guy Stanley had recovered a bit by
now, reaching my side and shoving his microphone in my face as he
asked, “Tell us Gianni. All of America and the rest of the world
wants to know. Where’s Zan Tillane been since 2002? Is it true that
he had a nervous breakdown during his final concert and was just
released from a mental hospital?”

“Of course not!”

By now, my friends and family had
abandoned the paint job and were clustered around us. Nana was
yelling at the reporters to back off, and when a cameraman stepped
on one of her hedges, she kicked him in the shin. Okay, that was
not good.

To my right, Christian’s best friend
Skye muttered, “Oh shit.” I glanced at him and followed the
direction of his gaze. Three more news vans and a few cars were
pulling up. “Um, maybe you want to go inside, Gianni, before you’re
stampeded,” he said. I stood frozen for a moment, watching the
chaos unfold, then nodded.

Skye grabbed my hand as I turned and
rushed toward the front door, and his husband Dare came up on my
other side and put his arm around my shoulders, acting like a human
shield. All my friends and family closed in around me, forming a
little protective pod as reporters ran at us from every angle. I
was vaguely aware of them knocking over paint cans and trampling
the landscaping. Nana was going to be pissed.

She’d gone into fight mode, trying to
kick a reporter in the nuts when he knocked over and broke a little
statue near the stairs. My brother Dante scooped Nana off her feet
and carried her inside while she yelled, “You fucking parasites!
You got no respect for people and their property! Get off my lawn
or so help me God I’ll turn Tom Selleck loose on you!” I looked
around for the puppy. He was wagging his tail happily and panting
while my brother-in-law Charlie carried him up the
stairs.

As we dashed inside, Zan, Christian
and Shea came into the foyer, alerted by the commotion. A reporter
who’d followed us onto the front porch yelled, “There he is! Zan
Tillane, where have you been for the past thirteen years? Is it
true you were running a goat farm in the middle of
Idaho?”

Kieran slammed and locked the door
behind us. Immediately, people started knocking on it. He then went
and closed the curtains across the front of the house, shutting out
a cluster of paparazzi who’d climbed up into the flowerbeds and
were trying to take pictures through the windows. A couple other
people took his lead and started closing the curtains all around
the ground floor for good measure.

“Holy crap,” Skye muttered. “So, I see
why that’s called a media frenzy. I think they would have trampled
all of us to get to Gianni.”

There was such a commotion out front
that we retreated to the family room at the back of the house. “I
really messed up,” I said, sinking onto the sofa. As soon as I sat
down, the puppy came over to me, flopped down on my feet, and began
happily gnawing at the toe of one of my sneakers. “I should have
known the media would eventually figure out who I was and where I
lived. I’m so sorry, Zan. I should have just taken you straight
home, they wouldn’t have tracked you down there.” I turned to look
at my grandmother, who was still really keyed up. “And I’m really
sorry about what they’re doing to your front yard, Nana. I’ll pay
for the damages.”

“This isn’t your fault,” she said.
“It’s the fucking parasites’ fault. You did the right thing by
bringing your boyfriend here. You both need to be with family at a
time like this.”

“It’s my fault,” Zan said quietly.
“Maybe I should go out there and talk to them. They might leave us
alone after that.”

“You can’t go out there, the situation
is totally out of control. Every single one of those reporters is
hell-bent to scoop this story, no matter what,” I told him. “Even
if you talked to them, they wouldn’t clear out. They’d just want
more and more to keep the story hot and to drive up the ratings for
their networks.” Zan sat down beside me and I put my arm around his
shoulders.

From across the room,
Jessie said, “I thought I heard a helicopter. Turns out I was
right.” He’d turned on the TV, and the screen showed a live aerial
view of the house. It was lined front and back with people and
vehicles. The caption across the bottom of the screen read:
Zan Tillane reappearance sparks questions. Close
friend speculates singer may have been jailed in Mexico on drug
charges.

“The theories they’re coming up with
are absolutely insane,” I said. “Are they getting them from people
that knew you, or are they just completely making this shit up
themselves?”

The news footage went split-screen,
one half still showing the house, the other half cutting to a live
interview with Dev Holland. The famous redhead was dressed casually
in workout gear, but she was also completely made up, as if she
knew she was going to be interviewed on the way to the gym. When
Jessie turned the sound up, she was playing to the camera and
saying, “My ex-husband is a troubled man. He’s always been heavily
into drugs, so I assume he’s been in some long-term rehab
program.”

“For thirteen years,” Christian
muttered. “Because that’s likely.”

She looked into the camera and oozed
false sincerity as she said, “I’ve always loved Zan Tillane, and I
hope he’s gotten the help he’s needed.”

Zan laughed bitterly. “Always loved
me. That’s rich. She only married me to make her ex-husband
jealous. Once, she was so angry at me that she tried to castrate me
with a pair of salad tongs. That’s when I left.”

“What’d you do to piss her off that
badly?” Jessie asked.

“I told her I thought she’d made the
wrong choice with her dress for the Oscars.”

Jessie looked surprised. “That’s
it?”

“Believe me, it didn’t take much to
set her off,” Zan told him.

The reporter had asked her
a question about me, and she said, “No, I’ve never met Gianni
Dombruso, though of course I always knew Zan was bisexual. Everyone
knew that. The man would sleep with absolutely
anyone
, even while we were married.
I really don’t know what he’s doing with a boy half his age, but I
doubt it’s serious. Zan Tillane doesn’t
do
serious.”

“Could you mute it please, Jessie?”
Zan said, and the blond did as he asked. “I love how Dev is
suddenly this big expert on me. We were married for a couple years
over two decades ago. During that time, we spent a total of maybe
eight weeks together because I was always touring and she was
always on location. So yes, absolutely, let’s hear what she has to
say!”

“I get it now,” Christian said as the
screen filled with another wide shot of the house and the swarms of
reporters and paparazzi. “I see why you stayed isolated all those
years, given what was waiting for you when you came
back.”

My brother Dante had been on the
phone, pacing at one end of the room, and he disconnected and
turned to us, saying, “I’ve called the family. They’re sending a
security detail over to keep people off Nana’s property. We need to
get Zan and Gianni out of here, but where should we take them? I
don’t advise going to Zan’s house, that’s the last place you want
to lead them. Hotels are too public, and many of our relatives are
probably going to be hounded by reporters, so that’s no good
either.”

“We need to do something about Mikey
and the kids, and Vincent and his family,” I said. “If the media
finds out they’re my brothers, they might start harassing them for
a story.”

“Already thought of that,” Dante said.
“The family’s sending a couple security guards to each
house.”

“Forgive me if I’m being culturally
insensitive,” Zan said, “but by ‘the family’, you don’t actually
mean you’re in the mafia, do you?”

“We’re former mafia, once removed,”
Nana told him. “We’ve gone legit, but you know how it is. Just
because you quit the game doesn’t mean the game quits you! Our
family stays strong, because you never know when some old grudge
might rear its ugly head. We might be retired, but believe me when
I say, we still got the muscle to bust the kneecaps of every one of
those dickheads that are out there messing up my shit! Did you see
that fucker that broke my mini Venus De Milo statue? Rat bastard! I
hope they break his kneecaps twice! And if they messed up my pretty
new rainbow paintjob, so help me God I’m going out there and I’m
cracking some heads!”

Zan fought back a smile and said,
“Remind me never to get on your bad side, Mrs.
Dombruso.”

“Call me Nana,” she said, “and you
can’t get on my bad side, Zan. My boy Johnnie’s obviously crazy
about you, so that means you’re alright in my book.”

Zan turned to me with an alarmed
expression. “Oh God, have I been pronouncing your name wrong this
entire time?”

“No, you have it right. My family, on
the other hand, could go ahead and let that old nickname die
already,” I said.

Jessie said, his eyes still on the TV
screen, “Man, that crowd outside just keeps growing. A bunch of
onlookers have joined the reporters and paparazzi now, and the cops
turned up. I kinda think it’s already too late to get Zan and Gi
out of here. Actually, I don’t think any of us are going anywhere.
None of you can get your cars out.”

“Well,” Dare said, “I guess we need to
make some calls. Looks like we’re going to be here a
while.”

“I apologize,” Zan said. “I’ve
terribly inconvenienced the lot of you, and I don’t even know who
all of you are.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” I said. “Let me
introduce you. Everyone, this is Zan Tillane, which you’ve
undoubtedly figured out by now. Zan, that tall, dark and way too
serious-looking guy over there in the black t-shirt is my oldest
brother Dante, and the far more relaxed brunet beside him is his
husband Charlie. To their right, the blond wearing the red bandana
is Christopher Robin, and he’s married to Kieran, the guy in the
white t-shirt, who’s a former police officer. The guy with blue
hair is Skye, and the muscular guy with his arm around him is his
husband Dare. Skye’s best friends with your son, and Skye,
Christian and Christopher all went to art school
together.”

“I know Skye and Dare. While it’s good
to see you,” Zan said, “I’m incredibly sorry for dragging you into
the center of this media circus. That goes for all of
you.”