Belonging

by Alexa Land

  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.”

  Nico stuck his head into the family room, a full coffee mug in his hand and a thick textbook under his arm. “So, we’re all stuck in here because there’s a media feeding frenzy outside, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  He contemplated that for a moment, then said, “Might be kind of fun to turn the sprinklers on them.”

  Nana whooped, then yelled as she darted from the room, “That’s a peach of an idea! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself!”

  Jessie took off after her, calling, “I’ll make sure she doesn’t get into trouble.”

  Dante sighed at that and followed them both, saying, “That’s like having Thing One keep an eye on Thing Two.” On the way out of the family room he added, “Thanks for the suggestion, Nick.”

  “My work here is done,” Nico said with a smile. “If anyone wants me, I’ll be in my room with headphones on. Come get me if the paparazzi sets fire to the building in an effort to smoke us out.” He went back upstairs.

  I turned my attention to the TV, picking up the remote and hitting record, and said, “I like this aerial view. It’s convenient. See? There’s my grandmother, about to make her world debut. I bet this’ll go well.”

  Nana and Jessie had appeared in the side yard. It was sealed off from the front and back by a high fence, so the only camera that spotted them was the one in the helicopter. As it zoomed in for a tight shot, Nana looked up, then flipped them off with both hands. She really got into it too, pumping her arms up and down to really emphasize her point.

  She then ran to a control box, pulled open the cover, and cranked a dial. We could hear the yells from all the way at the back of the house. The cameraman in the copter zoomed out, just as all the reporters that had been on the front lawn ran from the onslaught. Nana had turned the sprinklers as high as they could go, and had done a pretty good job soaking the crowd. “Just be glad she doesn’t have access to cauldrons of hot oil,” Skye said cheerfully.

  “Don’t give her that idea when she comes back in here,” I said. “She just might find a way to make that work and go medieval on the paparazzi.”

  Once all of the reporters retreated to dry land, the eye in the sky zoomed back in on Nana and Jessie. She was looking around and obviously hatching another idea, while Jessie took over the important job of flipping off the camera. I wondered what had become of Dante, and then I saw his arm sticking out the side door, making a ‘come here’ gesture. Of course Nana ignored him.

  She dashed into a storage shed, then returned moments later with an open bucket of paint and a wide brush. She got as far as painting a huge, yellow F on the concrete and was partway through the U when Dante finally came outside. He shielded his face from the camera with one hand while trying to disarm Nana with the other. She ended up smacking him several times with the wet paintbrush before he finally got it away from her.

  “I love your family,” Zan said with a grin, watching the screen with the rest of us. “They’re all completely insane. I really feel like I fit in here.”

  “I’m always trying to tell people that my family’s crazy. Now the whole world gets to see what I’ve been talking about.” I leaned against the back of the couch with my arm around him and Zan curled up beside me.

  Dante had retrieved a garden hose and was attempting to hose the F U off the cement before it dried on. That didn’t sit well with Nana. She and my normally dignified brother got into a tug-of-war for control of the hose, totally soaking each other while Jessie darted inside to escape getting drenched as well.

  “I almost feel like I should intervene,” Charlie said with a huge smile, sitting down on the arm of the sofa and watching as Dante got hit in the face with a blast of water, “but this is freaking hilarious. My husband’s going to be mortified when he sees this. You’re brilliant for thinking to record it, Gi.”

  “I live to get embarrassing footage of my brothers. I should show you the pictures I got of them wearing those hideous, furry Sasquatch boots when Nana first brought the puppy home. Why’d we discontinue those, by the way?” I asked, gesturing at the dog, who was still chewing on my shoe while pinning my foot down with one giant paw.

  “Because the puppy systematically peed on each and every pair,” Charlie told me. “When Nana tried to put them in the washing machine, all the fur molted so she threw them out.”

  “And it just keeps getting weirder,” Zan murmured. He gave me a little smile and I leaned in and kissed him, then remembered who was sitting just a couple feet from us and pulled back quickly.

  “Oh come on,” Christian said. “I’m not going to get squirmy if you two kiss. I’ve already seen both the live version and the prerecorded one. Actually, pretty much everyone on the planet has seen the airport footage by now. We went by a newsstand this morning, and pictures of you two kissing were on the front page of every single newspaper. It’s a trip. I knew you were famous, Dad, but I never realized you were this famous.”

  “I wasn’t,” Zan said. “Turns out, mysteriously disappearing at the peak of your career is a sure-fire way to get boatloads of publicity and catapult yourself into superstardom. Not that that was what I was going for. At all.”

  Dante poked his head in the family room. He was soaking wet and paint-smeared, and said, “I’m going to go upstairs, murder Nick for the sprinkler suggestion, and find something to change into. Nana and Jessie both went to clean themselves up, too. For God’s sake, if she gets back down here before I do, try to prevent her from doing anything that’ll get her more than six months in county lockup.”

  “I’m going to make us a snack while you kill your cousin,” Charlie said, getting up and crossing the room to his husband. He grinned and said, “Gi recorded your hose fight for posterity, by the way. You totally lost.” He stretched up and kissed Dante’s cheek, then chuckled when my brother sighed dramatically.

  Everyone besides Zan and me relocated to the kitchen to pursue the snack idea. As soon as we were left alone, Zan wrapped himself around me and buried his face in my shoulder, a tremor going through him. I knew then that his calm demeanor had all been an act. “You okay?” I asked as I held him.

  “I’m trying to be. I’m trying so fucking hard.”

  “You don’t have to pretend for my sake, or for anyone else’s. If you need to yell or cry or melt down, you can do that. Or if you need to retreat to my room or a room of your own and just hide from all of this, you can do that, too. Just tell me what you need and we’ll make it happen.”

  “I wish I was back home,” he said. “But I’d want you with me, so that’s where it all falls apart. I can’t go back to the way I was before and just expect you to pull up a seat beside me on the couch. I need to get a fucking grip and learn to live in the world again, not only for my sake but for yours, too.”

  “Give yourself some time. It would be hard for anyone to acclimate back into society after all those years, even without that kind of chaos,” I said, gesturing at the TV screen.

  The aerial shot was picture-in-picture, showing the ever-increasing crowd filling the street. Meanwhile, a reporter was talking to some of the people who’d gathered outside. A woman in her forties was being interviewed, who was wearing a faded Zan Tillane t-shirt.

  When Zan noticed that he sat up, reached for the remote and turned up the sound. The woman had tears in her eyes as she said, “I’m so happy he’s alive. I never gave up hope, I kept praying for this day. I have every single album he ever made. His music got me through some really hard times when I was in college, and I’ll never stop loving him. Never.”

  The reporter asked her, “What about the claims that he’s been in prison all this time?”

  “I don’t think it’s true, but even if it is, so what? People make mistakes.
If he was in jail, then he served his time. I’m just so happy he’s out now.”

  When the camera cut back to the reporter, Zan murmured, “It didn’t even occur to me that there would be fans out there. I assumed they were just curious onlookers. I didn’t think I had fans anymore.”

  “Oh, you do. That documentary I watched said the number of Zan Tillane fan clubs tripled after you vanished, it just added to your mystique.”

  “And they still remember me, even after all these years,” Zan said quietly. After a pause he said, “I have to be honest, I used to take them for granted. In fact, I was often annoyed by my fans and the way they hounded me for photos and autographs. Just goes to show how narcissistic I was back then, and why I desperately needed to step away and gain some perspective.”

  On the TV screen, two men in their twenties were being interviewed. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were holding little rainbow flags. The African American guy was saying as tears ran down his cheeks, “I grew up on his music. My mom played it all the time. She passed away last year, and whenever I want to feel like she’s with me, I put on one of her Zan Tillane CDs.” The guy looked into the camera and said, “Zan, if you’re watching, we love you. We think it’s beautiful that you came out of hiding for Gianni.” He opened his denim jacket, revealing a hand-lettered t-shirt. A pink heart had the words Zan & Gianni written over the top of it. “We love you both. Our entire community is behind you. Thank you for taking your relationship public and letting the entire world see the beauty of two men in love.”

  “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  I turned to look at Zan, who was staring at the TV. “This is just...this is unbelievable,” he said as I slid close and put my arm around him again. “I wasn’t making a statement. I was just kissing you.” The camera was panning across the ever-expanding crowd. Someone had brought a big rainbow flag and as they waved it back and forth, the camera zoomed in on it.