The Distance

by Alexa Land

  “Hey there, Rocket and Trigger,” a familiar voice said, and Kai and I both turned to look at Six. The tall blond was holding a paper coffee cup and peering at us over an expensive pair of sunglasses. He asked me, “You alright, mate? You look a bit banged up.”

  I was on crutches, my ankle was still in a cast, and both my hands were bandaged because I had stitches in my palms (which made using the crutches a bit awkward). “I’m fine, and it’s just Jessie and Kai now, since we’ve both retired from racing,” I told him.

  “Alastair,” he said with a grin. “A bit uptight, I know. I’ve missed you at the races. Why’d you retire?”

  I shrugged and said, “We both just get our kicks elsewhere these days.” The answer was a lot more complex than that, of course, but I didn’t really want to go into all the soul-searching that had gone into my decision, and how I’d ultimately decided the thrill of racing wasn’t worth risking my life, not when I had so incredibly much to live for.

  Six gestured at the crowd with his cup. “What’s going on? Is there a celebrity in that building?”

  Funnily enough, there actually were two major celebrities in the audience, both disguised with baseball caps and sunglasses and doing their best to blend in. Normally Zan Tillane, a pop star who was dating Nana’s grandson Gianni, would be the biggest celebrity in any crowd. But in San Francisco’s gay neighborhood, ex-porn star (and friend of the family) Hunter Storm might possibly give him a run for his money in terms of overall fan frenzy. “No,” I said, “we’re all here for a wedding. My grandmother’s about to get married. But Nana is a rock star as far as I’m concerned.”

  “She’s getting married at a sex shop?”

  We were clustered around an establishment owned by one of Mr. Mario’s friends, which did in fact sell all manner of adult entertainment. Its tidy, matte black storefront was completely festooned for Pride. Rows of briefs arranged by color formed rainbows in the huge display windows on either side of the entryway, and at least forty rainbow flags spanned the front of the building and jutted from the black awning over the door. Hot pink neon in the window on the left spelled out ‘The Whack Shack’.

  “Yes and no,” Kai said. “Her procession will be coming out of the shop, and then she’s getting married right here, in the middle of the street.”

  “You should stick around,” I said. “It’s going to be fun.”

  “I wish I could, but my bestie Rebecca is expecting me for breakfast three blocks over and she gets cross with me when I’m late. Don’t be a stranger, both of you. Maybe we can go for coffee sometime and you can bring your friend Zachary.”

  After he took off, Jed and Ruthie found us in the crowd, and my sister said as she tucked her long, blonde hair behind her ear, “Do you want me to find you a chair? I don’t think you should be doing this much standing.” She’d come up to visit and check on me every weekend that month.

  “I’m fine, Rue. Don’t worry. It’s going to be a quick ceremony, since Nana and Ollie don’t want to jam up the neighborhood for too long, especially during Pride.”

  “The neighborhood’s barely awake yet,” Jed pointed out. “I happen to know it was partying hard last night, and I doubt tying up half a block is going to ruin anyone’s day.”

  “Does that mean you were out at the clubs?” I asked him.

  “He was, but don’t get too excited,” Ruthie said. “I was with him. He had two cokes, hid in the corner, and wouldn’t ask anyone to dance. He’s going to die a virgin.”

  “Oh my God, Ruthie, shut up!” My brother turned deep red.

  Zachary came up to us and asked, “Who’s going to die a virgin?” I did a double-take when I turned to look at him. His hair was shorter and dark brown, and he was wearing a pastel polo shirt and khakis. When I’d first met him, he would change his look about once a month, but I’d started to think the black-and-red hair and black clothes were here to stay.

  “Nobody,” Jed said quickly.

  “Hey,” I said, moving my crutches to one hand so I could give my friend a hug. “I’m glad you made it. You just missed Six, by the way, he was headed to breakfast. He asked about you and said we should all go out for coffee.” I couldn’t help but notice the way my brother paid close attention to Zachary’s noncommittal response.

  Just then, Kai’s grandmother came bustling out of the sex shop in a red taffeta bridesmaid’s dress. “We’re ready to get started,” she yelled. “Make a rainbow circle, people, just like we practiced!”

  The crowd shifted around a bit, forming a big circle in the middle of the street. Nana and Ollie’s groomsmen formed the inner ring, and we all took off our jackets, revealing rainbow tie-dyed t-shirts. We’d originally been fitted for tuxes, but Wedding 2.0 had gone far more casual. Jed took Kai’s jacket and mine, and a lump formed in my throat as I looked around the circle at our family.

  Directly across from Kai and me were Gianni and his boyfriend Zan, holding hands. Gianni’s best friend Yoshi was right behind him, and to Zan’s right, Gianni’s brothers Mike and Vincent and their brother-in-law Charlie were joking and laughing. Vincent’s husband Trevor and their son Josh also made up the circle, along with Nico, their cousin, and his boyfriend Luca, and a few more cousins.

  Nana’s adopted boys completed the circle. Skye and Dare stood with Haley and River, who looked happy. I didn’t see Cole, but he could have been somewhere in the crowd. Christopher and Kieran lined up with Hunter and Brian, and Christian and Shea squeezed in with Chance and Finn (who had a rainbow flag sticking out of the pocket of his police uniform). Chance’s brother Colt and Elijah were right behind them, along with Jamie and Dmitri, who were all smiles. Their toddler sat on Dmitri’s shoulders, delightedly waving a little rainbow flag.

  Ollie stepped through the crowd and took his place beside the wedding official, immediately to my right. He’d opted to stick with his white tux and tails, which he wore with a white top hat, pink shirt and rainbow bow tie. He was smiling ear to ear and his eyes were bright with tears of happiness.

  Josh’s best friend Emma was also in a tie-dyed shirt because she’d chosen to be a groomsman with her bestie instead of a bridesmaid. She was on the sidewalk in front of the shop with Izzy and with Mike’s three little boys, and when she received a signal from inside the storefront, she leaned down and whispered to the little girl. Izzy held her head up proudly, clutched the white basket in her gloved hand, and took her place at the front of the procession. She looked adorable in her pink dress with her French braid and butterfly clips, and when she spotted Kai and me, she smiled and waved. She’d lost her front teeth in the last week, but that just made her cuter.

  Kai’s arm was around me, helping to support me as I balanced on one foot, and I leaned close and whispered, “You ready?”

  “I think I’m going to pass out,” he whispered back. “Why didn’t Nana ask Zan to do this?”

  “Both because he’s incognito, and because Nana wanted to make you a part of the ceremony. You’ve totally got this.”

  He cleared his throat nervously, and when Kiki poked her head out of the shop and nodded, he began to sing Your Song by Elton John, one of Nana’s favorites. He sang the first verse by himself, his voice strong and clear, as Izzy walked across the street dropping flower petals. The ring bearer followed, and behind him, his two older brothers walked Tommy and Diego, Nana and Ollie’s dogs, on rhinestone-studded leashes. The dogs wore matching rainbow-striped sweaters, meticulously knit by Ollie. When the kids reached the groom, Izzy peeled off to the right and joined Kai and me, and the boys led the dogs to the left and joined their dad Mike.

  The crowd joined in on the second verse and sang with Kai as a rainbow of nearly two dozen women followed the children. The bridesmaids carried bright, mixed flowers and wore solid-colored tea-length dresses. Kiki led the procession, dressed in red, with Mike’s girlfriend Marie right behind her in reddish-orange. More family members and Nana’s senior girlfriends followed, orange dresses giving way to yellow and so on dow
n the rainbow. Mr. Mario was last, in full drag and wearing a deep violet dress. He looked beautiful.

  The bridesmaids walked swiftly, looping around and arranging themselves in an arc on the sidewalk behind Ollie and the wedding official. Then, as a few hundred voices sang the final chorus of her favorite song, Nana appeared in the doorway with Dante on her arm. She’d shortened her gown to knee-length for Wedding 2.0, and wore it with its matching long-sleeved coat of the same length. She’d paired the outfit with white go-go boots, which were pure Nana. The dress and coat both had a fitted bodice and flared out at the waist, and were completely covered in sequins, which looked pink overall. But when she stepped out from under the awning and her dress caught the morning light, a million tiny prisms in the sequins lit her up like a rainbow.

  She walked across the street, carrying a colorful, casual bouquet of mixed flowers as tears of joy streamed down her face. When she reached Ollie, Dante kissed her cheek and put her hand in her fiancé’s. Dante tried to remain composed as he took his place to the couple’s left and grasped his husband’s hand.

  The last verse ended, and the wedding official stepped forward. She was a beautiful, full-figured African-American woman of about seventy with salt-and-pepper dreadlocks to her waist. She welcomed the audience and said, “Stana and Olivio want to begin by saying a few words.”

  Ollie went first. “Stana, you’re a dream come true. At my age, I didn’t think I had too many dreams left. But then you came along, and I remembered how to dream again. You make me happier than I’ve ever been, and I love you with all my heart. Thank God for your grandson Nico and my dear friend Luca, who brought us together. If I’d missed out on you, I would have missed out on the very best part of my life. Every single day, I’m going to cherish you and laugh with you and make sure you know that you’re adored. Thank you for saying yes when I asked you to marry me. You’re my best friend, my love, and one hot mama, and I’m the luckiest man in the world to get to be your husband.”

  Nana dabbed at her tears with the back of her hand and smiled at Ollie. She said, “I always believed in true love and happily ever after. I wanted that for all my boys, and it’s made me so happy to watch so many of them find love. Somehow though, I never thought it’d happen for me. I figured I had my shot at marriage and it didn’t work out. It did get me my beautiful sons and a bunch of gorgeous grandkids and great-grandkids, which is pretty damn good, and I was gonna be content with that. But then I met you, and all of a sudden I realized what I’d been missing. I’m so lucky that we get to spend every single day that we’ve got left together. I love the hell out of you, Olivio Caravetti, and I’m glad you had the good sense to ask me to marry you. Otherwise, I was going to have to ask you myself.” She looked at the wedding official and said, “Now hurry up and marry us, Greta! We gotta party with our family and friends and then we got a honeymoon to get to.” Nana turned to Ollie and wiggled her eyebrows. “I did some shopping in that store before I marched down the aisle. I don’t know what half the stuff I bought is for, but you and I are gonna have a damn good time figuring it out!”

  Kai grinned and pulled me close and I hugged him as the official took them through their vows. After they were pronounced husband and wife and kissed passionately, the crowd went wild. The couple then turned to us and raised their joined hands in a victory gesture. I’d never seen either of them look so happy.

  Nana and Ollie led the procession, and as everyone headed to the rows of waiting tour buses on the next block, Kai picked up Izzy and put her on his shoulders. I carefully positioned my crutches so I could put my weight on the pads of my fingers and avoid my stitches, but before I could take a step, Skye scooped me up and yelled, “Piggy back ride!” Dare took my crutches while I burst out laughing. I held on tight while my friend jogged through the crowd with me, and then deposited me at Nana’s rainbow limo.

  Kai, Izzy and I rode in the back with Nana and Ollie. I’d really wanted to drive them, but I couldn’t with my broken ankle, so they’d hired a replacement chauffeur for the day, then insisted I ride with them to make sure I was properly cared for. I’d been pampered a lot since the fire, and I’d stopped fighting it.

  As we rolled out of the Castro, Izzy looked out the window and bounced in her car seat, and across from us, Nana and Ollie kissed each other tenderly. “Great wedding,” I said as I rested my head on Kai’s shoulder.

  “Perfect.” He tipped my chin up so he could kiss me gently, and then Kai smiled and whispered, “I can’t wait until it’s our turn.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Eight weeks later

  The construction on the apartment above the garage was going remarkably quickly, thanks to Nana. When she and Ollie returned from their week-long honeymoon in Maui, it had immediately become her new pet project. She knew a hell of a lot of people, and within days of her return, an architect (the granddaughter of one of the Nanettes), had helped us design the perfect apartment, we’d sailed through the permit process (so easily that I had to wonder if someone had owed the Dombrusos a favor) and a construction crew had gone to work, beginning with reinforcing and earthquake retrofitting the ground floor garage. Their prices were far below the going rate, so I suspected Nana was secretly footing part of the bill, even though she swore she wasn’t.

  Since I hated being idle, I took an online course in bookkeeping while my hands were healing, so I could help Kai organize the garage’s financial records. That was pretty dry though, and it felt great to get back to working on engines when my stitches came out. We had to vacate the garage for four weeks during the retrofit, but Dante let us work out of an empty warehouse just a few blocks away, one of a long list of investment properties he owned around the city, so it was pretty much business as usual. Soon enough, we were back in our own garage, while a beautiful, airy, two bedroom apartment went in overhead.

  I was tuning up a Jetta one Friday afternoon, when Kai pulled the Impala into the space beside me. I stopped what I was doing and took off my gloves before patting the big Chevy’s fender and saying, “Welcome home, girl.”

  I’d dented her up pretty good when I’d smashed her into that brick wall, but a friend of mine who owned a body shop had fixed her up and just finished with her that day. He’d even given her a new head-to-toe paint job, and the midnight black shone like lacquer. “She’s good as new,” Kai said, running a hand over the hood. He’d picked up my habit of referring to our cars as females, which made me grin. “Your friend’s doing an excellent job on his part of the Fastback’s restoration too, I’m glad you recommended him. It’s great to have a boyfriend who’s so well-connected.” He grinned at me and kissed my forehead. He was always slipping in subtle jokes about me being in the mafia, since I was an honorary Dombruso.

  I pulled him into a real kiss, and when we broke apart I asked, “Have you been home yet?”

  “No, but I’m headed there now. When I come back, I’ll find a parking space on the street. It’s getting crowded in here.”

  “Don’t you dare. She and your dad’s Mustang both hold a place of honor in this garage. We can work around them.”

  Kai looked happy when I said that, and he kissed me again before saying, “I’ll be back soon. Did I mention I’m ridiculously excited for this weekend?”

  “So am I.” Nana was taking Izzy, Kiki, Malia, and Kai’s mom to a spa in Marin for a girls’ weekend of pampering and beauty treatments, while Ollie travelled to L.A. with Ignacio Mondelvano. Iggy was meeting with a collector who was interested in his work, and since he was pretty new to the business end of the art world, Ollie was acting as his agent. All of that meant Kai and I were going to have a very rare weekend all to ourselves.

  “Make sure they stop off here before they head to Marin,” I told him. “I want to say goodbye.”

  “No freaking way would Izzy let them leave without stopping off to give you a hug,” he said.

  After he drove off, I glanced at my left hand and flexed my fingers. I’d damaged some nerves when I
sliced up my hands, but thankfully it hadn’t affected my motor skills to the point where I couldn’t work on engines. It did make them ache a bit, but that was a small price to pay. I pulled a pair of work gloves back on and shook out my hands before turning back to the Jetta.

  I was totally engrossed in the job when Dante appeared in the doorway and said, “Earth to Jessie.”

  He was with his husband Charlie and Cameron Doyle, the arson investigator. Surprisingly, Dante and Cameron had become close friends over the last few weeks. I glanced from one man to the other. Dante was impeccable as ever in his dark, expensive Italian suit, while Cameron looked like he’d slept in his clothes. The investigator reminded me of an Irish version of the character Castiel from the TV show Supernatural. Whenever I saw him, he was in a rumpled suit and white shirt with his tie askew, and was almost always wearing a trench coat. In that respect, he went well with the Impala, and if I ever decided to organize a full-scale Supernatural cosplay, I was well on my way.

  “Hey,” I said, pivoting on my stool as I was facing them. “Are you slumming? I’m sorry to tell you this, but Dante won’t be able to find a twenty-dollar martini on this block. Try a few streets north, maybe on Cortland.”

  “Twenty dollar martinis are a crime against humanity.” Doyle had left Dublin as a child, but still retained a faint brogue. He brushed his windblown dark-auburn hair back from his blue eyes and said, “The gentrification around this city has gotten completely out of hand if you ask me.”

  “We were having a late lunch at that taqueria on the next block,” Charlie said as he pulled up a stool and sat beside me. He was the only one of the three who wasn’t overdressed, and he looked good in a pair of khakis and a fitted black polo shirt that showed off his ex-football player physique.