Salvation

by Land, Alexa

  “Oh. Um, I’m not sure. I mean, it feels really serious, because we just spent the past seventy-two hours together.” I thought about it for a while, eyes on the granite countertop, then said, “Actually though, I don’t know what happens now. We didn’t make plans for when I return to San Francisco.”

  “You really care about Vincent, don’t you?” His tone was so gentle that I looked up at him.

  “Yeah. I really do.”

  “I hope he doesn’t fuck this up,” Gianni said. “You’re probably his one and only shot at happiness. You know what I mean, right? It’s like, Vincent lives in this dark prison inside himself. No one ever has any idea what’s going on with him. If you’ve somehow managed to kick down the door to his cell, then this thing between the two of you just has to work out.”

  “I didn’t kick it down at all. He flung open the door willingly and turned on the light. You know, just to carry your metaphor through. It’s not like he wants to be alone and isolated. I don’t think anyone would ever want that.”

  “Vinnie sure seemed like he did. He was always so secretive, he’d never tell me or our brothers what was going on with him. It was especially bad when he was a teen, but we found out later there was a reason for that...which I probably shouldn’t go into now.” Gianni busied himself by lining up row after row of little plastic cups on the kitchen island.

  “He already told me about his heroin addiction,” I said.

  Gianni stopped what he was doing and blinked at me. “Oh. Wow, he really has opened up to you.”

  “Not about everything,” I admitted. “He won’t talk about whatever business he’s involved in.”

  He considered that for a long moment, then said, “Maybe that’s for the best,” before going back to the plastic cups.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, you must know about my family’s mafia history, right? It’s not really a secret or anything. We’ve made a lot of progress over the past couple decades, almost all of us have gone legit. But I guess Vincent’s hanging on to the old ways. And the first rule of the mafia? Don’t talk about the mafia.”

  I grinned a little. “I thought that was the first rule of Fight Club.”

  Gianni smiled at me. “That too. And you know why that rule exists, don’t you?”

  “So you don’t get arrested?”

  “Nope. It’s so you keep the people you love safe. If you’re in the mafia, you don’t go home and tell your spouse and kids all about your business over pot roast. Because if you do, that makes them a target. If it’s understood that you don’t talk about your business, then nobody has a reason to come after your loved ones. Usually.” His voice wavered a bit on that last word, and I could tell that he’d inadvertently steered the conversation into painful territory.

  “Your grandmother told me about your parents and sister,” I said gently. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Gianni.”

  He looked up at me with a little smile. “You must be close to Nana if she told you about that.” I nodded and he said, “I’m really glad I came home early and got to meet you, Trevor. It sounds like you’ve become a part of my family.”

  “Well, not quite. Nana and Vincent are both special to me, though.”

  “So, while you were hanging around my family, did my name come up?”

  “Um....”

  “That’s a yes. Can I ask what they told you about me?”

  “Well, I mean, I can tell they really love you, Gianni....”

  “Did they tell you I’m a prostitute? I’m really not, you know. I just have kind of this odd need to be taken care of. I know that sounds stupid, but it is what it is, I guess. I date men and women that are a lot older than me, and I let them take care of me, in every sense of the word. It makes them happy, and it makes me feel secure. To me, it’s a win-win. But others just see this gold-digging slut when they look at me.” Gianni sighed and said, “I know that was all completely oversharing, by the way. But I don’t want you to think badly of me, Trevor.”

  “I don’t. I never did. Not even when I thought you were a gigolo, I never judged you for it.”

  He burst out laughing. “Oh God, a gigolo. That’s so retro, but I can see them calling me that.”

  I watched him for a moment, then asked, “Did your travel companion really send you home for having oral sex with some waiters?”

  “No. She sent me home because she found a younger, prettier boy in Athens and didn’t want me anymore. Don’t repeat that to my brothers, okay? It makes me sound like such a loser.”

  I had to grin a little. “You’d rather have them think you’re promiscuous?”

  “They already think that, so I just concocted an excuse that fits their image of me. Well, plus finally outing myself as bisexual. I’d been trying to figure out the best way to do that for some time, and finally decided to not make a big deal of it and just throw it out there.”

  After helping Gianni make a rainbow of Jell-O shots, sticking them in the refrigerator, and mixing up a double batch of tequila sunrises, we went back out to the pool. Only Hunter and Brian were out there, making out wildly, their hands all over each other. “Woopsie,” Gianni said when he saw them, and the couple broke apart embarrassedly. “We didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Hunter said, trying to be subtle about adjusting the front of his orange and white swim trunks as he climbed off his boyfriend.

  “Where’d everybody go?” I asked, setting down the pitcher of drinks I was carrying.

  “Dante and Charlie ‘went for a walk,’ which I assume is code for going off to have sex on the beach, Christopher and Kieran went upstairs to ‘lay down for a while,’ which is definitely code for having sex in a bed, and Jamie and Dmitri went to ‘check out what’s in the pool house,’ which presumably means having sex on some sort of floatation device,” Hunter explained cheerfully.

  “So, why didn’t you two sneak off and have sex somewhere?” Gianni asked with a big smile.

  “Well, everyone had cleared out, so we just, um....” Brian began, but couldn’t quite make himself say any more.

  Hunter finished for him, flashing an embarrassed smile. “We just did it right here. We were going for round two when you guys came back.”

  “Well, don’t let us stop you,” Gianni said with a playful wink, taking my hand. “My future brother-in-law and I can just go play Parcheesi or something while you get back to it.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Hunter said. “I refuse to chase you away from your own pool. Come and sit down, and pour us some of whatever’s in that pitcher.”

  Gianni distributed new glasses and I poured the drinks. When I settled onto the wide lounge chair beside the one Hunter and Brian shared, Gianni flopped down on it with me and draped a leg over mine. He had no concept of boundaries whatsoever, but since I liked him it didn’t really bother me.

  “So, did you get everything done in time for Kieran and Christopher’s wedding surprise?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just barely,” Brian said. “We were working on it up until yesterday.”

  I explained to Gianni in a hushed tone, just in case the grooms returned, “Brian is giving his brother Kieran the house they grew up in as a wedding present. They’d both inherited it when their father passed.”

  “It was pretty trashed, thanks to me,” Brian said, “but we got it totally cleaned out. We also repainted it inside and out, refinished the floors, and put in a little garden out front. I can’t wait to see Kier’s face when he gets a look at it.” He smiled proudly.

  “Wow, that’s a hell of a present,” Gianni said. “You must really love your brother.”

  “I not only love him, I owe him big-time for taking care of me when I returned from Afghanistan. I came back pretty destroyed, and put him through hell before I got my shit together. This is a thank you gift as much as a wedding present,” Brian said.

  “You were living in that house, weren’t you, Brian?” I asked, and he nodded. “Where are you living
now?”

  “With Hunter.”

  “We’re living in my apartment for the time being,” Hunter said, “but we decided to put it on the market and find a new apartment together, someplace that’s both of ours.” There was so much love in the look he gave his boyfriend, and it made me really miss Vincent.

  “That’s a nice idea,” I said.

  “So, how are you presenting the house to them?” Gianni asked before taking a sip of his drink.

  Hunter grinned and said, “We debated how to do that. Finally we just got a gift box, filled it with the signed deed and some photos of the newly refurbished house, and wrapped it. We’re going to put it with the rest of their wedding presents and just let them discover it.”

  I grinned too. “They’re going to be blown away.”

  “I just hope they’re not going to feel like they’re obligated to live there or anything,” Brian said. “If Kier wants to sell it and buy someplace that they both pick out, that’s fine. The house is his free and clear now and he can do whatever he wants with it. It actually felt good for me to let go of the past, so maybe he’ll want to do the same.”

  “It couldn’t have been easy, though,” Gianni said, “giving up your home like that.”

  Brian shrugged his broad shoulders. “No, but it’s the right thing.”

  I excused myself after a while and called Vincent. He answered on the second ring by saying, “I was just thinking about you, Trevor.”

  “You should be here,” I told him, lying down on the bed we’d shared. “Your brother Gianni got home shortly after you left. We’ve been bonding over cocktails.”

  “Johnnie’s there? Damn, I haven’t seen him in months. Why’d he cut his cruise short?”

  “He broke up with his travel companion.”

  “Please tell him I said hello.”

  “I will.” I rolled onto my side, pulling a pillow against me, and said, “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked idly, just to keep him talking.

  “I’m still in the car on the way back to the city.”

  “Oh! It feels like you’ve been gone a long time.”

  “It does.”

  “Maybe it’s weird that I told you I miss you, if it’s only been a couple hours,” I said.

  “It’s not weird.”

  “Hey Vincent?”

  “Yes, Trevor?”

  “Will you go out with me?”

  He chuckled softly and said, “Of course.”

  “Okay good. How about Sunday night, when I get back to the city?”

  “Sure.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “I want to fuck you for about three hours straight.”

  That made me grin. “Absolutely. What do you want to do afterwards?”

  “How about dinner and a movie? Something nice and conventional, to make you think I’m not a complete sex fiend.”

  I smiled at that. “Sounds great.”

  “I can hear the smile in your voice,” he said, a bit wistfully.

  I closed my eyes, breathing in his pleasant scent on the pillow I was holding. “You shouldn’t have run off.”

  “You’re right. I’m regretting it. I especially regret not being able to sneak a dance with you at the wedding reception.”

  “So turn the car around.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I made a couple calls when I left there, and now I have a business meeting this evening that I really can’t back out of without repercussions.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ll see you Sunday then.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  “Me too.”

  When we hung up, I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling for a while. How could I miss someone so much after just a couple hours, and after spending just a few days with him? I thought about the last time Vincent and I had sex, just that morning in the shower, which now felt like a long time ago. I remembered the way he’d picked me up, holding me securely, and pushed inside me with a kind of urgency, thrusting into me as if it might be his last chance ever, his body shaking when he came in me. He made me feel like I was as vital to him as air or water. I loved that, I loved feeling like he needed me.

  After a while, I sat up with a sigh and set the pillow aside. Lying around thinking about him was only going to make me miss Vincent more. It was best not to let the loneliness that was always waiting in the wings take hold of me. I went to rejoin the couples by the pool.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “So, why’d you bring the cat?”

  It was Friday morning, and River had just arrived at the beach house. My catering partner was holding three shopping bags in one hand and a pet carrier in the other. An unearthly shriek was coming from the carrier, enough to make my arm hairs stand on end. “I didn’t want to,” he told me as he swung the bags onto the counter, “but my friend that was supposed to cover for me on my petsitting gig totally flaked. I couldn’t leave Puffy unsupervised, because he’d get mad and completely destroy his owner’s apartment.”

  “So you brought him here to destroy a mansion?”

  “I didn’t know what to do. I was hoping there’d be a garage or something that we could keep Puffy in, someplace where I could check on him a lot and try to keep him calm.”

  “My brother brought another unexpected guest along, too,” a voice from the doorway said. Skye was balancing a huge stack of produce boxes, and I rushed over to give him a hand.

  “Hey, you convinced River to let you come!” I said as I took the top two boxes off the stack and set them on the counter.

  “I did! I wore him down with my constant begging and puppy dog eyes.” He set the boxes down and gave me a hug. He then held me at arm’s length and said, “Wow, look at you, all tan and gorgeous! New clothes, too.”

  “Nana decided I needed a wardrobe makeover.”

  “Or just a wardrobe. You always wore the same two things.”

  “I only had the same two things.”

  “This is really cute on you,” he said. I was wearing an aqua polo shirt and dark blue shorts. “I highly approve of this color palette.”

  Gianni entered the kitchen just then. “I came to see if someone had met with a horrific food processor accident, given that ungodly wailing.”

  I made the introductions. “River and Skye, this is Gianni, Nana’s grandson and owner of this house. Gianni, this is the rest of my catering team, plus an obnoxious cat.”

  “Well hello there,” Skye said flirtatiously. “Just so you know, I had nothing to do with the cat.”

  “I apologize for bringing it,” River said. “I’m watching it for a friend and couldn’t leave it behind.”

  “No worries,” Gianni said, leaning down and peering at the cage. “I like cats.” He put a fingertip up to the carrier, and the whole thing rocked and shook as the cat went crazy and tried to attack him, hissing and snarling. Gianni pulled back abruptly. “Um, but maybe this one would be most comfortable in the garage. It’s a nice garage, three-car. It even has windows. So, it wouldn’t be inhumane or anything.”

  “Good idea,” River said, and followed Gianni out of the kitchen.

  As soon as they were out of earshot, Skye exclaimed, “Damn, Gianni is a hottie! Is he single? And gay?”

  “He’s bi, and yes. But I don’t think you’re his type.”

  “Why not?”

  “He generally goes for a somewhat older demographic.”

  Skye sighed and said, “That’s too bad. He could have saved me from the horrors of internet dating.”

  “Are you really doing that now?”

  “Yeah, but I only agreed to give it a shot in a show of solidarity with my very single friend Zandra. We signed up for the same site, and I wouldn’t say it’s going well. She keeps getting messages from men two to three times her age. All I’m getting are offers to screw. I put on there that I’m looking for a boyfriend, though apparently guys read that as ‘a boyfriend for t
wenty minutes at a time.’ But whatever.”

  “It’s nice of you to support your friend, but you really don’t need internet dating. A guy as cute as you must get plenty of offers.”

  He smiled at me. “Says the guy who shot me down.”

  I grinned and said, “Only because I was already interested in someone else. Otherwise, I’d have been all over you.”

  “Speaking of which, how’s Mr. So-Sexy-it-Hurts?”

  My grin got a lot wider. “He’s good. We spent the first part of this week together.”

  “Wow, will you look at that lovesick smile! You, my friend, are smitten.” He beamed at me and jumped up on the counter, then ate a grape from one of the produce boxes.

  “Smitten? I don’t know.”

  “Oh, but I do. You’re one smitten kitten! It’s all over your face.” A few more grapes went into his mouth. He looked at me closely, and his smile ratcheted up another thousand watts. “You had sex with him!”

  “Oh my God! How could you possibly tell that just by looking at me?”

  His wiggled his fingers in the air around me. “You have that glow about you.” He grabbed another grape, tossed it in the air and caught it in his mouth.

  “I do not. And is River going to kill you for eating those?”

  “Probably, and don’t change the subject! Was it amazing? Tell me it was amazing.” I couldn’t help but blush and smile at that, and Skye clapped his hands together. “That right there is a yes. Man, I am so sick of being a virgin. Not to make it all about me or anything. I’m just saying.”

  “That actually surprises me,” I said. “That you’ve never slept with anyone, I mean. You’re the most social person I’ve ever met, so you must have dated a lot over the years.”