The Distance (24 page)

“Do you think there’s any chance they’ll get back together?”

“I doubt it. That fight seemed like a bridge-burner, if you know what I mean. Things were said that nobody can take back.”

“That sucks,” I said. “They seemed so good together.”

“I know, but couples don’t always show their real face to the world. I hope they both go on to find people who truly make them happy.”

“I hope so, too.”

Jamie tossed his jacket into the SUV and gave me a hug. “Go have fun with your handsome prince. I’ll talk to you soon.”

After he left, I walked slowly back to the warehouse. Kai was waiting outside the door and drew me into an embrace when I reached him and kissed the top of my head. “River and Cole will both be okay in the long run,” he said. “I know you must be upset because you care so much about everyone who’s lucky enough to call you a friend, but sooner or later they’ll find people who fit them perfectly.”

“That’s what Jamie said, too.”

“He’s right.”

For most of the partygoers, the fight had been just a momentary distraction, and the atmosphere was festive when we went back inside. My friends were the exception. They sat in a corner by the bar, their expressions grave. River was well on his way to getting very drunk, and Skye sat right beside his brother with his head on River’s shoulder. Ignacio and Dare were handing out shot glasses, and Haley and Yoshi leaned against the wall with solemn expressions.

Dare came up to us and gave us both a shot of amber liquid as he said quietly, “You guys missed all the excitement.”

“We heard. How’s River?”

“Drunk and stoic. We’re going to take him home with us tonight, but he refuses to leave yet because he wants Skye to enjoy his evening in the spotlight.”

River overheard us and surged to his feet. “That’s right, tonight is about my baby brother.” Skye got up too, and River grabbed him in a bear hug. “I love you, bro. You’re so fucking talented! I mean, holy shit! Look at what you can do.” He kept an arm around his brother’s shoulders and pivoted a bit so he could wave his hand at the angel sculpture. “We all need to stop acting like we’re at a damn funeral and start celebrating! My brother is going to be a famous artist after tonight. So are you, Iggy,” he said, pointing at Ignacio. “I’m sorry that my personal drama had to gush out all over the place tonight, but it’s over and done now. No more scenes, no more fighting. Just a whole lot of whatever this is,” he said, scooping up a shot glass from the table and tossing it back.

River almost fell over after that, and Haley stepped forward and held him up with an arm around his waist. “He’s right that you should stay, Skye. You promised an interview to that art blogger. I’ll take your brother back to your apartment.”

Yoshi stepped forward and put his arm around River’s shoulders as he said, “I’ll help.” He’d put on a black t-shirt over his body art, but was still sporting the hand-drawn mask.

River nodded, and that was almost enough to tip him over again. “This is good. Skye can stay and get famous. We can go drink all his tequila.”

“I still feel like I should go with him,” Skye said, pushing his blue bangs out of his eyes.

“He just needs to sleep it off, there’s nothing you can do for him tonight,” Yoshi told Skye. “We promise to stay with him until you get home, right Haley?”

“Exactly,” Haley said. “Alright, we’re out of here. All y’all stay and have fun, that’s an order.” The trio swung around and headed for the door.

As soon as they were gone, Ignacio sighed and tossed back a drink. The tall Spaniard looked a bit like a pirate that night, with his tousled shoulder-length hair, tattoos, and a white shirt that really could only be described as swashbuckling. He spoke with a heavy accent, and said, “This is why I am single. No offense to you married fellows, I wish you all the luck in the world, believe you me. But it’s like they say in Barcelona.” He rattled off a long saying in his native language and explained, “Loosely translated, it says ‘love will kick your ass.’ It sounds better in Catalan.” He gave a salute and wandered off into the crowd.

Dare put his arm around his husband and said, “Come dance with me, Skye. River’s in good hands, you have nothing to worry about.” After a bit of cajoling, Skye finally followed his husband to the dance floor. A slow song was playing, and they held each other tight as they swayed to the music.

I looked around and said, “I wonder where Nana is.”

“Probably stirring up trouble. Come dance with me, Jessie.” Kai took my hand and we followed Skye and Dare’s lead.

*****

We ended up closing out the party, as did Nana and Ollie. I suspected they’d snuck out for some nookie at one point, because they returned looking rumpled and grinning ear-to-ear. We finally said goodnight to our friends around two a.m., after making sure Christopher Robin and his husband didn’t need any help closing up.

We dropped off Nana and Ollie at her house, and then I got behind the wheel of my Honda to drive Kai home. He turned to me and picked up my hand. “Not quite yet, okay? If you’re not too tired, let’s go for a drive.”

I didn’t want the night to end either, so I eagerly agreed and headed north, out of the city. I looked down at our hands, which were joined and resting on my thigh, and was struck by the absolute perfection of that moment, of being behind the wheel with my boyfriend by my side.
My boyfriend
. I loved those words. He’d brought me home to meet his family, and that made it feel official somehow.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and I drove him to the parking lot with a great view, the one where I’d spent part of Valentine’s Day alone. It was so late that the lot was deserted, and we got out and sat on the hood of my car, resting against each other. Both of us were still in full costume, right down to the crowns, and while I should have felt silly, somehow it just added to the magic of the evening.

Across the bay, San Francisco shone in all its wondrous glory. From Coit Tower off by itself on a hilltop to the iconic skyline dominated by the Transamerica Pyramid, it was a view that commanded attention. And yet, I was far more captivated by the beautiful man beside me.

We both leaned in for a kiss at the same time, and Kai’s fingertips brushed my cheek as I ran my hand around the back of his neck. We kissed for a long time, revving up in increments. After a while, I climbed on top of him, kissing and licking his neck and ear as I pulled at his clothes. I finally got my hand around his thick erection and began stroking him, and he unzipped my pants and grasped my cock. He then shifted us a bit, pressing our cocks together and wrapping his big hand around both of them. I moaned as he jerked us off, rocking on my knees as I straddled his lap. When I knew he was getting close, I slid down and sucked him, sliding my lips to the base of his cock and pulling back up slowly before picking up my pace. Within minutes, he was crying out and cumming down my throat, and I swallowed all he had to give.

The moment I straightened up, Kai leapt to his feet and glanced around quickly. “What are you looking for?” I asked.

“Teams of gay men with score cards,” he said, and flashed me a big smile as he zipped his pants. “If I spot any, I’m going to give them a flyer for my garage. The last time we messed around in public, it was good for business.”

I laughed at that and started to pull up my pants, but Kai came up behind me and lifted me off my feet with his arms around my waist. That made me laugh even more, and I exclaimed as he rushed over to the drop-off at the edge of the parking lot, “What are you doing?”

“You haven’t finished yet. We need to do something about that.”

He stood me on a rock and kept one arm around me as he started to jerk me off, and I asked, “Why here?”

“It’s kind of tacky to shoot all over a parking lot frequented by tourists. So, we’re going to be classy and help you shoot all over the breakwater down below.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Actually, I couldn’t say much of anything, because he tightened his grip on my cock and started stroking me hard and fast. I leaned against him and moaned with pleasure, and before long I was doing just what he’d intended and shooting my load out over the rocks below us. It was oddly thrilling to orgasm like that, totally exposed, and I came so hard that by the time I finished, I was shaking, gasping for breath, and leaning heavily against Kai. He tucked me in and zipped me up, then tossed me over his shoulder like a caveman and carried me back to the car while I chuckled and said, “What are you doing, Fred Flintstone? Put me down.”

“Can’t. You’re all rubbery, so you might tip over and hurt yourself. I need to take care of you.”

He deposited me in the driver’s seat, then went around and sat beside me. We leaned over the stick shift and rested on each other, and I murmured, “Epic day.”

“It really was.”

We ended up talking until just before dawn. As the sky turned pink, I drove us back over the Golden Gate, my fingers once again intertwined with Kai’s and our hands on my leg. I’d never even suspected it was possible to feel that good.

The Kahale family had dressed up for dinner at Nana’s, more or less. Izzy was once again wearing her princess dress and tiara, but had forgone the mask and wings. The rest of the family had also made an effort. Malia and Kai were in jeans and long-sleeved shirts, but Kai explained they were his ‘good’ jeans. His mom wore a light blue nylon jumpsuit with elastic around the ankles. Kai said she’d had it since the eighties, and that she insisted good taste never went out of style.

But the real star of the show was his grandmother Kiki. She was wearing a forest green satin dress with huge puff sleeves and a lace panel which could only be described as a bib, and she’d paired the frock with sneakers. Kiki had capped off the look by twisting her long, mostly grey hair into a couple Princess Leia buns on the sides of her head.

“You can tell we don’t get out much,” Kai said as I led them to the kitchen.

Nana and Ollie stopped what they were doing to greet their guests. When Kiki was introduced, she grabbed Nana in a hug. “I’m such a fan, Mrs. Dombruso,” she gushed. “I never miss your show. I record it, because it’s on kind of late, and I watch it when I’m on the crapper.”

I fought back a laugh, and Kai whispered, “Kill me now.”

Nana was absolutely thrilled, though. “Now look, you call me Stana and make yourself right at home. It’s nice to meet a fan of the show. I got some appetizers over here, you like drunken wieners?”

“Hell yes, there’s nothing better than a drunken wiener,” Kiki exclaimed. I had to chuckle at that. Even though she was probably ten years her junior, Kai’s Gran was definitely cut from the same cloth as Nana.

As the two little old ladies bustled over to the crock pot, Kai asked, “Is that really a thing?”

“It is! I think it’s those weird little canned Vienna sausages in some kind of sauce with a lot of booze. Nana’s going old-school tonight.”

“Well, then my family will fit right in,” he said.

Izzy was awestruck by Nana’s rainbow mansion and took in the lavish surroundings and all the hubbub solemnly. She finally cracked a smile when I introduced her to the dogs. The little girl was particularly taken by the Chihuahua in his red sweater, especially when Ollie showed her where the dog treats were, and that the little dog would dance around on his hind legs when he thought he was about to get a biscuit.

Nana’s grandson Mikey arrived a few minutes later with his three young sons and his girlfriend Marie. The kids bonded instantly, in a way that only kids could, and the boys took Izzy out back to see the treehouse. Malia wanted to see it too, so she tagged along, as did Marie, who seemed glad to have another woman around her age in the house.

Dante and Charlie arrived next with their cousin Nico and his boyfriend Luca. I yelled, “Oh my God, you’re back,” and rushed across the kitchen to give Nico a hug. He’d been my housemate at Casa Nana for a while, before falling in love and moving in with Luca. For the past couple months, they’d been in Italy, because Luca’s grandfather had passed and they’d needed to settle his estate, clean out his house, and put it on the market. I introduced Kai and his family, then asked Nico, “Did you hear about medical school yet?”

He grinned shyly and said, “By some miracle, I got accepted to my first choice, which means we get to stay in San Francisco.” Nana yelled and fist-pumped before kissing her grandson’s cheeks and giving him a big hug.

As Dante and Ollie got busy finding champagne and glasses to drink a toast to Nico, I pulled Kai into my arms and said, “Hi.”

“Hi.” He smiled and kissed me, then said, “Everyone seems to be getting along well.”

“I knew they would.” I kissed him again and asked, “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Maybe an hour before Izzy got up. What about you?”

“I got to sleep in a bit. You must be exhausted.”

He said, “Totally with it.”

I kissed him again, and we got pretty caught up in it until his mother said, “Would you take this champagne already? My arms are about to fall off!” I hadn’t even noticed her standing beside us holding up two glasses, and I felt myself blushing as we took the drinks and thanked her.

Chance and his family came into the kitchen as we were toasting Nico. I asked him how his photos had been received at the event the night before, and Chance embarrassedly admitted they’d gotten rave reviews. More cheering, champagne, and toasting followed.

A little later, Chance pulled me aside and asked, “Have you heard from Zachary today?”

“No. Why?”

“He seemed a bit off this morning and said he was going out to look at apartments. I texted him an hour ago asking if we should wait for him so we could give him a ride to Nana’s, and he told me he was going away for a couple days and that I shouldn’t worry.”

“Going away where?”

“He wouldn’t say. That’s why I’m concerned. I don’t know why that would be a secret.”

I frowned and asked, “Does he do that a lot?”

Chance lowered his voice. “He used to do it all the time, back when we were both sex workers. I always assumed he was on multi-day jobs with clients, not that he’d ever tell me what was actually going on. He hadn’t taken off like this since he’d been living with my family and me, though.”

“You don’t think he went back to prostitution, do you?”

“I hope not. I know first-hand what that job does to your self-esteem and I was so happy when he left it behind.”

“I was, too.”

Chance sighed and said, “I’m probably overreacting. There’s no reason to assume that’s what he’s doing. Maybe he just needed some time away and took a little vacation. I don’t know why he wouldn’t just tell me, though, if that was the case.”

“He was saving every penny for an apartment,” I told him. “I’d be surprised if he decided to spend money on something like that.”

“You’re right.”

I asked, “Does he have any other friends he might stay with?”

“As far as I know, you and I and my family are pretty much it.”

“Let me know if you hear from him, okay?” He promised he would, and asked me to do the same.

Meanwhile, Ignacio Mondelvano arrived with a case of Spanish wine, and Ollie clapped his hands together delightedly, then turned to Nana and exclaimed, “You gotta try this, hot stuff! I think we should serve it at our reception.”

Nana started grabbing wine glasses from the cupboard as she told Kiki, “You and your family need to come to the wedding! Ollie and I are getting married in June. Make sure you leave your address with me so I can send you an invitation.”

Kiki beamed at her. “That’s so nice of you, especially considering you just met us.”

“I like you,” Nana said, “you’ve got style, and I know you and I are going to be great friends. Plus, our kids are crazy about each other, and hopefully they’ll get married and unite our families.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize Jessie was your grandson,” Kiki said as she helped line up wine glasses on the counter. “I thought you were just his employer.”

Nana said, “Jessie may have started out as my driver, but he’s so much more than that now. He’s a part of my family.”

I felt a surge of emotion when I heard that. I loved being a part of Nana’s family, but I knew from experience that family didn’t always mean forever. I was getting ready to move out, and I really had to wonder how my relationship with the Dombrusos was going to change when I did.

I tried to snap myself out of my melancholy mood as we sampled the wine, and a few minutes later Trevor, Vincent, and their son Josh came into the kitchen. Trevor was carrying his tripod, and I said, “I didn’t realize we were filming tonight.” I circled the kitchen island and took a look at the ingredients Nana had arranged on the counter.

“I wasn’t planning to at first,” Nana said, “but we got an honest-to-God fan here, so I thought Kiki should see how we make the magic happen.”

“Mr. Mario won’t be here tonight, so who’s going to work the hand-held camera?” I asked.

“That would be me,” Josh said with a grin. He hopped up on the counter and started adjusting the settings on Nana’s compact video camera. “I got inspired by Crabmageddon a few weeks back and have started to play around with filmmaking. We probably won’t luck out with that same level of action footage this time, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Hey, that reminds me, did you end up finding all those little bastards?”

I shook my head. “We recovered twenty-nine of them, but the one with the knife hasn’t turned up. He has a distinct crack in his shell, so we’ve been looking for a crab with that marking. We keep leaving shucked clams around the house, places a crab could get to but the dogs can’t, and sometimes they’re gone in the morning. Either the Chihuahua is sneakier than we think, or Scarface is still around here somewhere.”

Josh raised an eyebrow at me and pushed his black-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “But they can’t live that long out of water, can they?”

“There are stories on the internet about crabs escaping after they’re caught, then being found alive on the fishing boat weeks later. Just to help him along a bit, we’ve also put shallow pans of water around the house. I keep expecting to find him in one of them, but so far, that crab is a master of stealth mode.”

“That’s all just weird,” Josh said. I had to agree.

I turned my attention to Nana, who was quickly and efficiently forming little potato gnocchi and lining them up on a sheet tray, and asked, “What can I help with?”

“Could you find my deep-fryer and fill it with oil? I think it’s in the cabinet below the espresso machine. Kiki pointed out the fact that we don’t do much frying on the show.”

Kai frowned at his grandmother. “You know you’re not supposed to eat fried stuff. Doctor’s orders.”

Kiki put her hands on her hips and said, “Bah! I’m not going to keel over if I indulge for one night! That doctor is just sizeist anyway. He thinks everyone should be a skinny Minnie. I mean, it looks good on you, Stana, but women come in all body types, know what I’m saying? Why can’t I enjoy fried food every once in a while, just because I’m naturally curvy?”

“Right on, sister,” Nana exclaimed. “Me, I wish I had hips and curves. I’ve always been built like a stick, but that’s not from some starvation diet, it’s just my body type.”

“Like I said, we’re all built different,” Kiki said.

“Exactly! I don’t believe in depriving myself. I say, if it tastes good, put it in your mouth.” Nana gave Ollie a roguish wink and added, “That’s also true in the bedroom.” Kai nearly choked on his wine, but managed to stop short of a spit-take.

I tried to get the conversation back on track by asking as I plugged in the deep fryer, “When do you want to start rolling, Nana?”

“Now’s as good a time as any,” she said, and Trevor and Josh both turned on their cameras.

I filled the machine with vegetable oil while she introduced her guest and talked about the recipe for the gnocchi she’d made. Then she said, “I’m going to try something different today, since my new friend Kiki likes fried food. I wasn’t gonna film this meal at first, because if you’ve seen gnocchi made once, you’ve seen it a thousand times. But then, I got to thinking. Gnocchi are made of potatoes, so why not cook them up just like a French fry?”

“Brilliant,” Kiki said.

“I’ve had deep-fried ravioli before, and they’re damn tasty, so I think I’m inventing a whole new thing here with deep-fried gnocchi.” Nana looked pretty proud of herself. “I already got my marinara simmering on the stove, it’s been going a couple hours. I figure it can become a dipping sauce and these gnocchi can turn into an appetizer. After that, we’ll go nuts and fry up all kinds of stuff. I was in a Mexican restaurant once, and they had deep-fried ice cream! You know we gotta give that a try!”

Nana showed Kiki and me how to finish the potato dumplings by running the tines of a fork over them and giving them grooves, and when we’d done that to all of them, she loaded up the basket that went with the fryer and said, “It looks like the oil’s at temperature. That’s important when you’re deep-frying. If it’s too cold, your food just steeps in it and sucks up too much oil, and then it ends up greasy. That’s no good.”

She climbed up on her stepstool and lowered the basket into the hot oil, and I asked, “How long should they cook, Nana?”

“Hell, I don’t know. They’re pretty small, so I’m thinking they’ll go fast. We’ll just check them at the three minute mark and see if they’re golden brown. Meanwhile, we can talk about what else we want to fry. I’m makin’ a salad, and deep-fried zucchini is a thing, so maybe we can fry up some other veggies, too. What do you think about the idea of fried cucumber?”

“Um, I’m not sure about that idea, Nana,” I told her.

“Yeah, maybe not,” she said. All of a sudden, something sailed across the kitchen with a loud popping sound, and Nana yelled, “Sweet baby Jesus on a Pride parade float, what the hell was that?”

“I have no idea,” I said. Josh panned all around the kitchen with the video camera, and I asked the group on the other side of the kitchen island, “Anybody see what that was?” They all shook their heads. A moment later, three more pops came in quick succession, and a couple tiny UFOs sailed around the room.

I leaned over and peered into the deep fryer, which was bubbling away, and said, “Oh shit, I think it’s the—”