Belonging (18 page)

We finally broke through the wall of
bodies just as a trio of police officers arrived on the scene. Two
of them tried to do some crowd control while the third exclaimed,
“Whoa, you’re Zan Tillane! I thought you were dead.” He then
quickly assessed the situation and guided us through a nearby
security door.

The officer asked what happened, and I
explained before saying, “I really need to get him home. Can you
please take us to a taxi?” Zan was still shaking, and I kept my arm
around him as we made our way down a long, drab hallway.

“A cab’s probably not the best idea,”
the police officer said. “I’ll call a patrol car instead and we’ll
take you where you need to go.”

While he spoke into his transceiver,
we wound our way through a series of corridors, and eventually
exited a side door into what looked like a maintenance yard. A
police cruiser pulled up not five minutes later. After we climbed
into the backseat, I turned to Zan and said, “If it’s okay with
you, I’d like to go to my house and get my car. Then I can drive
you the rest of the way home.” When he nodded, I recited my address
for the officer behind the wheel.

Zan curled up with his feet on the
seat as the car started down a narrow service road. That was when I
noticed he was wearing a pair of dark green rubber galoshes that
had been in his garage. He’d been barefoot every other time I’d
seen him. “Thanks for getting me out of there,” he said quietly,
turning his head to look out the window.

“You’re welcome.”

A few minutes passed before he said,
“I’ve been gone for more than a decade. I didn’t think anyone still
remembered me. Christian told me they did when we were talking
about this a few months ago, but I didn’t really believe it. I knew
coming here and being around so many people was going to be
difficult for me, just because I wasn’t used to that anymore, but I
never expected them to recognize me and chase me down like
that.”

“What were you doing, Zan? Why did you
come here?”

“I had to convince you not to move to
New York, but I was so upset when we were talking this morning that
I threw my phone and it broke. After that, I had to come in
person.”

I wanted to ask him a million
questions, including why he wanted me to stay and what was behind
that kiss, but we weren’t alone so it wasn’t the right time for
that discussion. Instead I asked, “How did you get to the boarding
area? You’d need a ticket to make it past security.”

He sat up a bit and reached into the
pocket of his jeans, then pulled out a handful of stuff, including
a crumpled boarding pass, a passport, and maybe a dozen hundred
dollar bills. Some money fell to the floor of the patrol car. Zan
didn’t even notice, so I picked it up and handed it to him as he
said, “I bought a ticket. I can’t remember where it’s to. It was
just to get me into that part of the airport so I could find you.
Thankfully, I somehow had the wherewithal to grab my passport
before I left home, or they wouldn’t have sold me a ticket without
that for I.D. Really though, the only reason I thought of that was
because I spotted it inside my cash box.”

“
How did you get here from
Marin?”

“I rode the lawnmower most of the way
to town, then flagged down a cab.”

“But I used up all the gas in the
mower yesterday,” I said.

“Yeah, I found that out. I had to
syphon the petrol out of my convertible. I did try the car first,
by the way, lest you think I’m completely daft and went straight
for the mower. Needless to say, the Jag wouldn’t start.”

“I can’t believe you rode the mower.
Its top speed is probably something like ten miles an hour if
you’re running it flat out.”

“Probably. It took me ages to get to
town on that blasted contraption. Part of the time, I was literally
yelling in frustration. I almost got off and tried sprinting, but
figured the mower was very slightly faster. Eventually, it ran out
of petrol and I had to abandon it, but I was close to town by that
point and could run the final stretch.” As he was talking, he
stuffed the money and documents back in his pocket.

I asked him, “How did you make
yourself come here? I didn’t think leaving the house was really an
option for you.”

“I was never agoraphobic. At least, I
wasn’t before. I don’t know if that’s still the case. All I know
is, I’d gotten used to being alone, so all of that was incredibly
overwhelming. I just had to face it though, because I needed to see
you.”

He sighed quietly and added, “I’m not
sure when exactly I became this damaged. It just started with
needing to step out of the public eye. I did that to try to heal
myself after my career wore me down to almost nothing. But at some
point I guess the cure became more damaging than the original
ailment.” Then he went back to staring out the window.

Chapter Eleven

Nana’s house was bustling with
activity when we pulled up out front. The driveway was full of cars
and the big gay pride flag hanging between two upstairs windows
waved proudly in the breeze. The police officer glanced at that
expressionlessly when he got out to open the back door of the
patrol car for us (opening it wasn’t possible from the inside).
When I thanked him for the ride, all he said was, “Just doing my
job,” before getting back in the car and driving away.

“This is your house?” Zan
asked.

“It’s my grandmother’s. I grew up here
from the time I was four, after my parents died.”

“I’m sorry. How did they
die?”

“They were shot to death in our home.”
He turned to me with a startled expression and a question in his
eyes, so I added, “It’s a long, awful story. Let’s save it for a
time when we both feel like being depressed.”

He looked sympathetic as he took my
hand and gave it a squeeze, then turned his attention back to the
house. “Is there a party going on?”

“Nah. Nana just has people over a
lot.” He still hesitated, and I told him, “You don’t have to come
inside if you’re not feeling up to it. I can just get my keys and
drive you home.”

“I’d like to meet your family if
that’s alright. After being inundated by strangers at the airport,
how scary could your grandmother be?”

I had to knock on the door since I’d
left my key ring with Nico, and even I was startled when Nana swung
the door open. She was dressed in her red leotard, which she’d
paired with white Keds, a chunky gold necklace, and a giant,
feathered, Vegas showgirl-style headdress for some reason. She’d
also tried to put on red lipstick, but she’d done it without
looking in a mirror and had been a bit off in guessing the location
of her lips. “Hi Johnnie!” she exclaimed. “Did you lose your keys?
Hi Zan, I’m glad you finally left your cave. Come in!” I introduced
Nana and Zan to each other once we stepped into the
foyer.

“Dude!” Jessie exclaimed, bounding up
to us and grabbing me in a hug. “Why weren’t you answering your
phone? Everyone’s been trying to call you!”

“Oh! Shit. I’d put it in airplane mode
and forgot to change it back. Jessie, I’d like you to
meet—”

“Like Zan Tillane needs an
introduction,” Jessie said, shaking Zan’s hand vigorously and
asking him, “Are you okay? You looked like you were about to lose
it at the airport.”

“I...did?” Zan murmured, turning his
head to the left to take in the six little old ladies in colorful
leotards and huge headdresses who’d spilled out of the living room.
They were all beaming at us.

“How did you know about that?” I
asked.

“You two are all over the internet.” I
must have looked startled, and he said, “Let me show you.” Jessie
took his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen a few times.
While he did that, I introduced Zan to my grandmother’s friends and
learned they were changing up their Jazzercise routine with
something called the showgirl workout. Sure, why not?

“More and more videos keep
being uploaded,” Jessie said. “The sudden reappearance of the
legendary Zan Tillane after all this time is freaking
huge
. The internet’s
going to explode with this story!” He turned his screen to face us.
The clip, taken over the top of the crowd, began with Zan calling
my name and cut out a few moments after we kissed.

Jessie said, “The two questions
everyone’s asking in the comments are: where’s Zan been all this
time, and who’s Gianni? You’re going to end up totally famous after
this, Gi.”

“Shite, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t
thinking,” Zan told me, pushing his hair back from his face. “I
never meant for you to wind up in the spotlight like
that.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His shoulders
were slumped, and stress and exhaustion were evident in his eyes,
so I asked him, “Do you want to go upstairs and lie down for a
little while before I drive you home?” When he nodded, I told
everyone we’d talk to them later, then took Zan’s hand and led him
up the wide, curving staircase to my bedroom.

When I closed the door behind us he
tugged off his boots with some effort and set them out of the way,
then looked around curiously, his tiredness apparently forgotten.
The room had only changed a little from my childhood. The walls
were still navy blue, and I’d kept the white curtains with tiny
nautical flags embroidered around the edges. But the wall of
shelves held books and photos instead of toys, and my old twin bed
had been replaced with a queen size one at some point.

He gravitated to one of my favorite
things, touching the ornate brass sextant carefully as he asked,
“Do you sail?”

“Yeah. I mean, I used to. I don’t have
a boat anymore.”

“This is quite remarkable,” he said,
running a fingertip over the antique navigation instrument. “May I
pick it up?”

“Sure, but be careful, please. It’s
one of my most prized possessions.”

He glanced at me and asked, “Then why
did you leave it behind when you packed up to move?”

“I didn’t know if I’d end up staying
in New York long-term. That thing’s over a hundred years old and
kind of delicate, so I never took it along any of the times I
moved. I’d only bring it if I was going someplace I knew for a fact
was going to work out.”

“Sounds like you didn’t have a lot of
confidence in Jason Jax.”

“I barely knew him.”

“And yet you were willing to drop
everything and move across the country to be with him.”

“I figured I’d give it a shot. I mean,
why not? No one else wanted me,” I said quietly.

“That’s far from true.”

I turned to look at him. “Why did you
come to the airport, Zan? And why did you kiss me? You spent all
those months hating me, and then all of a sudden—”

“I never hated you,
Gianni.”

“It sure seemed like you did. You
barely spoke to me, and when you did it was usually just to tell me
I’d done something wrong.”

“I avoided speaking to you because you
intimidated the hell out of me. Until you returned my kiss today, I
had no idea where I stood with you. I could barely think when I was
around you, let alone conduct a conversation. I did manage to
complain, but let’s face it, that doesn’t take much. Even a
three-year-old can whine about things.”

“Why the hell would you be intimidated
by me? You’re a world famous pop star and
I’m...nothing.”

“Nothing? How could you say that?”
When I shrugged he said, “I didn’t even know what to do when my son
brought you home and introduced us. My emotions were already
totally raw because I was so worried about Christian’s health at
that point. Then in the midst of all that and after years alone, I
was confronted with the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Later on,
you also proved to be intelligent and caring and witty, and that
just made it worse. I was incredibly attracted to you, but I kept
behaving like a complete and total arse. It was all just so
terribly awkward and humiliating, and the longer it went on, the
worse it got.”

“What was humiliating?” I asked,
taking a step closer to him and resting my hip against the
bookshelves.

“Seeing myself through your eyes, for
one thing. I always tried to tell myself I was coping pretty well
overall, just with a few limitations. That was pure bullshit, of
course. And then there was the fact that I was dependent on you to
bring me everything I needed. I lived in fear of suddenly
developing an embarrassing condition and having to ask you for rash
cream or, hell, fucking hemorrhoid ointment or
something.”

I grinned a little and said, “Okay, I
could see how that’d be a bit awkward.”

“Oh, a bit doesn’t begin to
cover it. It got far more awkward than that, too. For weeks, I
thought about asking you out and kept trying to figure out how that
could possibly work. First of all, I wouldn’t be asking you out,
I’d be asking you
in
, since I never fucking went anywhere, so all that would do
was shine a spotlight on my issues. Then, if I wanted to make you
dinner, I’d have to give you the damned list of ingredients and
you’d have to bring them to me. The real pinnacle of awkwardness,
though? If I thought there was even the most remote chance of
getting lucky during this already completely ridiculous dating
scenario, do you know what I’d have to do? I’d have to write
condoms on the fucking shopping list and ask you to pick some out
and bring them to me, just in case I somehow got you into
bed.”