by Alexa Land
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Sure it does. Mine’s Andreo.”
“I’m just some anonymous hookup. Why do you care?”
“I just do.”
I ran my fingers into the slightly long, silky hair at the nape of his neck and kissed him gently. He returned the kiss tentatively, his fingers framing my jawline. Then he said, his voice a bit rough, “You’re not supposed to make out with the random hookup once you fuck him. You’re just supposed to say ‘see ya’ and walk away.”
“Who says?”
“Every other man who’s ever done this to me.” He slid his arms around my neck and rested his forehead against mine.
“You’re far too sweet and beautiful to be used and discarded like that.”
“I’m neither of those things.” His voice was so soft.
“Well, you are to me.”
His lips met mine abruptly and he took my face in his hands as he kissed me. There was so much need in that kiss, not for sex, for something else. It went on for a long time, and when he finally ended it, he wrapped his arms around me and held on tight, his head on my shoulder. After a minute, he whispered, “My name’s Connie. Well, it isn’t really. But that’s what people call me. Not all of them. Just…well, just the ones who care about me.”
“Thank you for telling me your name, Connie.”
“I think you’re beautiful, too,” he said. His voice was still so quiet.
I chuckled a little and said, “Not even on my very best day.”
He kissed me again before saying, “If I can be beautiful to you, then you can be beautiful to me.”
I brushed my lips to his. They were so soft, and they tasted just a little like vanilla. “I want to see you again,” I told him. “Only next time, I want to take you on a proper date.”
“You are so bad at anonymous hook-ups. The name, the kissing, the cuddling, and now this.”
“I know.”
He kissed me again, taking it a little deeper, his lips parting and his tongue lightly brushing mine. It went on for a long time. After a while, he shifted position and curled up in my arms, and fell asleep as I stroked his hair. I went right on holding him, breathing in his clean scent. His hair smelled just a little like tangerines. That shouldn’t have made me happy, but it did.
*****
When I woke up alone in that strange little building in the park, dawn was just beginning to break. The sky was pale grey, and the smell of smoke still lingered from the night before. I was disappointed that Connie was gone, if not particularly surprised. I got up stiffly and stretched my arms over my head, then stepped out into the park. It was completely deserted.
I hadn’t intended to fall asleep. I hadn’t intended any of that, actually. I could count on one hand the number of one-night stands I’d had, and in each of those cases, I’d had no intention of leaving it as just one night. Apparently that made me a bit of an oddity, since most men my age seemed to want nothing more than a random hook-up.
I began walking back to the hotel and pulled my phone from the pocket of my overcoat to see if Luca had called, but there were no messages. Suddenly, I remembered the coin. How on earth had I forgotten about it? I was carrying something that was worth two hundred thousand dollars, maybe more. Jesus. That sexy guy had been one hell of a distraction.
I slipped my hand in my pants pocket to retrieve the coin, but what I pulled out instead was a small square of neatly folded paper. I moved it to my other hand and checked the pocket again. A sickening feeling of dread began to rise up in me. The coin wasn’t there. I checked my other pocket. Then I checked all the rest. Twice. Had it fallen out? Was it in the building in the park?
Shit, I was so screwed. Stella Motola was nice enough until you crossed her. Then she was enough of a badass to hire a couple goons to bust your kneecaps.
I turned and started to hurry back to the building to search for the coin. Then I remembered the piece of paper in my hand. When I unfolded it and got a look at it, I stopped short.
The note was written in small, tidy handwriting. It said: I took the coin within five minutes of meeting you, while we were still at the bonfire. Everything that happened after that wasn’t some grand scheme. I slept with you because I wanted to, not because I was trying to rob you. Actually, when you think about it, it was pretty stupid of me to stick around once I got the coin, because you could have noticed it was missing at any time.
I’m telling you this because I guess you’ll probably feel pretty shitty when you realize the coin is gone, but you might feel far worse if you thought I’d just been using you the entire time in order to steal it from you.
I stood there for a long time, rereading the note again and again. Every emotion flared up in me, but they were soon replaced with just one: anger.
I checked my wallet and found he’d taken nothing else, even though I had a lot of cash on me. How had he known about the coin? It didn’t feel like a random robbery. He wasn’t the luckiest pickpocket of all time, he somehow knew I had it. But how could that possibly be the case?
It would be years before I finally got my answer.
Chapter Three: Santa’s Little Helper
San Francisco, Present Day
I’d been sitting out on that bench in Nana Dombruso’s front yard for at least an hour, reliving the past, and I was cold and stiff when I finally stood up and stretched. Plenty of people had cut through the yard on the way to the party during that time, but most hadn’t noticed me amid the insane holiday decorations. Those who had just called hello and smiled at me before heading inside.
They seemed friendly, but the Dombruso family scared the shit out of me, not that I’d ever admit that to any of them. It wasn’t because of their long history in organized crime, either. I was used to that. My family wasn’t exactly on the straight and narrow. It wasn’t even because of the stories I’d heard my whole life of their alleged dastardly deeds (which I strongly suspected were little more than urban legends). Instead, it was just kind of hardwired into me. My family and theirs had been at odds for generations, so it almost felt like fearing and distrusting them was in my DNA.
But my brother Luca, who clearly didn’t share my concerns, had fallen in love with a Dombruso, so here I was. It felt a bit like walking into a crocodile pen while wearing bacon underpants, but whatever. I grabbed my parcel and wove through the herd of gay electric deer, squared my shoulders and rang the doorbell, then smoothed down my short, light brown hair with my palm. I flinched a bit when the scariest Dombruso of them all opened the door.
Nana Dombruso raised a drawn-on eyebrow at me as I fidgeted on her front porch. She was about eighty, barely five feet tall, and was dressed in a green pointed hat with a star on top, a matching green sweater and a flared skirt, all of which were covered in miniature ornaments and bulbs that actually lit up. The fact that she looked like a Christmas tree was in no way reassuring. Out of all the Dombrusos, Nana was by far the most likely to shoot me.
“Merry Christmas, Andreo,” she said as she stepped back and held the door for me.
“To you too, Mrs. Dombruso.” I handed her the bottle of brandy I’d brought as a hostess gift.
She pulled it out of the gift bag and looked at the label as I eased past her into the spacious, ornate foyer and glanced up at a huge, crystal chandelier. The Dombrusos had done well for themselves, no doubt about it. “This is good stuff,” she said. I was surprised when she twisted off the lid and took a long drink, then handed me the bottle. Well, why not? I took a swig too, then passed it back to her as she told me, “Come on in. Most everyone’s in the kitchen.”
“Is Luca here yet?”
“No, but I’m sure he and Nico will be along soon.”
Jessie, Nana’s assistant, or whatever he was, appeared beside us and wished me a Merry Christmas as he offered to take my coat. The slender blond was dressed like an elf with pointy ears, red-and-white striped stockings, red high-tops, green shorts and a tunic. The outfit looked oddly natural o
n him.
I entered the kitchen with more than a little trepidation, then tried to figure out what the hell I was looking at. A few dozen people were clustered around a huge kitchen island, which for some reason was lit with stage lights that were mounted to the ceiling. A video camera was set up on a tripod, manned by a slender brunet, and a couple other people were holding professional-grade camcorders. A huge brown mutt wearing plush reindeer antlers sat down right in front of me and panted happily as he thumped his big tail on the floor. He was accompanied by a tiny Chihuahua wearing an ugly Christmas sweater. It looked an awful lot like a representation of his companion (including the antlers) had been knitted into the sweater’s pattern, though it might also have been Chewbacca.
I scratched the bigger dog’s head, then stepped around him and wound my way through the crowd. Eventually, I reached a little round table in the far corner. A boy and girl of about thirteen were already seated there, and when I hesitated, the boy said, “Pull up a chair.” I thanked him as I took a seat beside him, and he said, “I’m Josh, and this is Emma.”
“Andreo. Good to meet you.”
“Oh, you’re Luca’s brother,” the kid said, pushing his Clark Kent glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I was trying to figure out if you were some random relative I hadn’t met yet. I’m Vincent and Trevor’s son, and Emma’s my friend from school. It’s her first Dombruso family Christmas, too.”
“It’s wild,” Emma said, swinging her long, brown hair behind her shoulder. She wore glasses too, and her eyes were wide behind them. “My family’s not nearly this big.”
“Or crazy,” Josh added, and she nodded.
“What exactly are they doing right now?” I asked.
“Nana has a low-budget cooking show on cable TV. She tends to film segments for her show at random times, like now, since she’s getting set to make some drinks and appetizers,” Josh explained.
Mrs. Dombruso bustled into the room and climbed up on a step-stool behind the kitchen island. “Let’s get rolling,” she said. “Then we can all go back to partying.” The three men with video cameras all started filming, and Jessie took his place beside his employer. Nana looked around and said, “Where’s my other assistant? We got a lot to do here, I need an extra pair of hands. Vinnie! Where are you?”
Her grandson Vincent came into the room, blushing furiously. He was wearing the same elf outfit as Jessie, right down to the red-and-white striped stockings and pointy ears. I burst out laughing, and so did Josh and Emma. Vincent Dombruso was normally very serious and reserved. He was also a big, muscular guy who looked like he could bench-press a small car, and that get-up was about the last thing I’d ever expect of him. “Santo cielo,” I exclaimed, lapsing into Italian before I remembered to speak English. “Did he lose a bet or something?”
“Yeah, he did. Oh my God, that’s the best thing ever.” His son pulled out his phone and snapped a picture, wiping away tears of laughter beneath his glasses.
“Aw, Vinnie, you look so cute!” Nana exclaimed, pinching his cheeks. Then she turned to the camera on the tripod and said, “Since it’s Christmas, I got a special treat for my viewers.” She turned toward the doorway and yelled, “Come on in, boys!”
Half a dozen firefighters in full gear came into the kitchen and lined up behind Nana. I wondered what she was planning to burn down. But then music started playing, and Nana began twerking on her step-stool as the men peeled off their heavy coats and tossed them aside, revealing, buff, oiled bodies. “You have the best grandmother,” Emma told Josh. She was smiling ear-to-ear.
The men stripped down to little red thongs, each of which had a gold bell attached to the pouch with a green bow. One of the videographers, a man in his sixties who was orange from all the makeup or self-tanner he’d used, slid in on his knees for a close-up. When the song ended, the strippers put their hands behind their heads and began thrusting their hips in a choreographed pattern, playing Jingle Bells with their holiday packages. Surprisingly, they carried the tune quite well.
Once the musical interlude concluded, Nana turned back to the kitchen island and fanned herself with her hand while the strippers remained in the background, mugging and posing for the camera. “Damn,” she said. “It got hot in here, didn’t it? Good thing we’re fixing to make some cocktails. But first, we gotta get some appetizers in the oven. Since the drinks are for grown-ups, I decided to make an appetizer for the kids. Now look here.” She pulled over a mini muffin tin, which was filled with corn bread batter. “This is kind of a healthy twist on corndogs, since you don’t fry them. Jessie, grab a wiener and stick it in my muffin.”
“Wait, what?” her assistant asked.
She put a bowl of cocktail wieners in front of him and said, “Like this.” She took a miniature wienie and pushed it into the center of one of the unbaked mini muffins, so that only the very top protruded. “Do that with all of them, then stick them in the oven.”
As he worked on that, Emma muttered, “I’m officially a pervert. When I look at those, all I see is a row of uncircumcised penises, if you were looking at them tip-on.”
“I see boobs,” Josh said. “I’m not sure which of us is more of a pervert.”
As Jessie finished the task and loaded the muffin tin into the oven, Nana moved on to making a cocktail. She lined up a bunch of highball glasses on the counter and said, “Aren’t these cute? I had them made for the party.” Each one had a photo of Nana’s grinning, Santa-hat-wearing head on it.
She put a huge pitcher with ice in front of her grandson Vincent and started handing him bottles. “Here you go, Vinnie. You’re gonna put in equal parts whiskey, coconut rum, peach liqueur and banana liqueur. After that, we’re gonna add a splash each of cranberry, pineapple, and orange juice.” When Vincent poured a tidy shot of whiskey into the pitcher, Nana stared at him and asked, “What the hell was that?”
“What? You said equal parts, that’s the first shot,” Vincent told her.
“Who are you making that for, Tiny Tim? Do it like this,” Nana said. She then poured in half the bottle of whiskey. While he did it her way, she looked at the camera and said, “Now I wanna take a minute and address you men out there. It doesn’t matter if you’re a gay homosexual, straight, bi, whatever, this applies to you.” She picked up a can of pineapple juice and said, “I wanna talk to you about funky spunk. Apparently this can be an issue for some of you, so think of this as a public service announcement. If you drink this stuff, you’ll taste real sweet. It’ll be like sucking on a lollipop! Do your boyfriend a favor and avoid spunk funk!” With that, she poured a generous amount of juice into the pitcher while her grandson Vincent’s eyes went wide.
When she noticed his reaction, she said, “Didn’t you know that about pineapple juice, Vinnie? Here, let me add a bit more.” She poured another swig of juice into the pitcher. “When you and your husband Trevor go home tonight, you can see if I’m right.” He turned an interesting shade of red while a bark of laughter slipped from his son Josh.
Eventually, the drink was assembled and poured into the row of Nana-embellished glasses. Vincent took a sip with her encouragement and said, “This is actually quite good. What’s it called?”
“Didn’t I say that already?” Nana asked as Vincent took another sip. “It’s called Sex on my Face.” He stopped just short of doing a spit-take, and sputtered a bit as he looked at the photo of his grandmother’s grinning mug on the glass.
Nana looked at the camera and said, “I gotta be honest, I don’t know what that name means. My boyfriend Ollie doesn’t know, either. How do you have sex on someone’s face? Maybe if it’s a three-way, then I guess I can see it. But aside from that, I got no clue.”
Vincent looked like he might actually die of embarrassment, but he was saved by the bell when a timer went off and Nana said, “That’s the mini muffins. Be a dear and fetch them from the oven, Vinnie.”
Meanwhile, her other assistant was bobbing and weaving to try to dodge the big, brown mutt, who
suddenly had developed a less than platonic interest in him. He ended up climbing onto the counter, and when he swung his feet up, I noticed the Chihuahua in the ugly Christmas sweater was trying to have sex with Jessie’s sneaker. He peeled the dog off, and a little old man in a matching ugly sweater bustled in, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. He took the Chihuahua from Jessie and hurried out of the kitchen, holding the little dog aloft as it air-humped and panted happily. Was this ‘cooking show’ really going to be aired on television?
Vincent had put on a pair of oven mitts that looked like lobster claws, and Nana pointed at them and said, “Those were a Christmas present from my Skye and his sweetie Dare. Thank you, boys! They’re the bomb!” A guy with blue hair waved from the audience as Nana’s grandson went to the oven.
Nana handed out cocktails to the strippers in their jingle bell thongs, who raised a toast. “L’chaim,” one of them called before tossing back the drink.
“Drink up, boys,” she said. “I got enough pineapple juice for the whole lot of you.”
Vincent had pulled the muffin tin from the oven by that point, and muttered, “Holy shit.” When the muffins rose in the oven, they’d squeezed out most of each cocktail wiener. The franks had swollen in the oven too and jutted straight up from the tops of the muffins like four rows of miniature erections.
“Well, damn,” Nana exclaimed. “Those wieners look happy to see us!”
*****
While all of that was going on, I kept scanning the crowd, looking for Connie. That was so stupid. He wasn’t going to show. He’d told his brother Nico that he would, but he hadn’t been home in years. He wasn’t close to this side of his family, not since his parents packed him up as a troubled teen and shipped him back east to live with his mother’s cousin’s aunt’s dogsitter, or whichever random relative had taken him in.