Belonging (8 page)

“Nothing. I’m just annoyed because you
two totally hit it off. I always thought he was antisocial because
he won’t speak to me. But he’s not at all, he’s just anti-Gianni!
What did I ever do to him?”

“No clue. Want me to climb up there
and help you?”

“Yes, please.” Vincent picked up the
second saw, then climbed the ladder and started cutting a dead
branch. After a minute I asked, “What did you two talk about,
anyway?”

“Hair braiding. Boys. Friendship
bracelets.” I shot him a look and he grinned at me before saying,
“He asked me about myself and my family. He knew I’d recently
gotten married and asked about Trevor. He wanted to hear all about
Josh, too. He’s a really nice guy.”

“To people he actually
likes.”

“We also talked about a few projects
he wants to do around the house, and I told him I’d be glad to help
him out.”

“What kind of projects?”

“Just little things,” Vincent told me,
“like swapping out the shower head in the bathroom. I’m going to
come back next week and give him a hand.” When I knit my brows he
said, “What? It’s not my fault that he doesn’t like
you.”

“It’s not my fault, either. I’ve been
perfectly nice to him! Well, except when he’s acting like an ass
and I get in his face. But people who act like asses should expect
that!”

“And you wonder why he doesn’t like
you.” Vincent cut through the branch and tossed it to the ground as
I sighed and went back to sawing.

*****

My brother and I worked for a few
hours before we finally decided to call it quits. We then dragged
the dead branches well away from the house. “I’ll rent a wood
chipper this week,” Vincent said. “We can turn these into mulch and
use it around those bushes over to the right.”

“Good idea. Thanks.”

My brother paused for a moment and
watched me as he pushed his damp hair back from his forehead.
Finally he asked, “Why are you doing all of this? You’re salaried,
so I know you’re not getting paid extra to come out here on a
Sunday and trim trees.”

“It just needs to be done.”

“Why do you care, though?”

“I worry about Zan,” I admitted. “I
don’t care if he hates me, he still needs someone to look out for
him. What if there’s a wildfire? He’s so vulnerable there in his
house. I can’t protect him from everything, but maybe I can protect
him from that ‘what if’.” My brother watched me for another moment,
then grinned and went back to stacking the dead branches.
“What?”

“Nothing.”

After we put the tools away and he
washed up in the garage’s utility sink, Vincent went into the house
to say goodbye to Tillane. I washed up next, then remembered
something and retrieved a small paper bag from the backseat of my
car. My brother was coming out of the house just as I was heading
inside with my purchase, and I told him, “I forgot to give this to
Zan, I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time, I’m going to text
Trevor and see how the birthday party went.”

Zan was standing on the far side of
the kitchen island with a glass of water when I came into the room.
“I brought you something,” I said as I reached into the sack and
grabbed its contents. He frowned at me as I held my hand over the
kitchen island and dropped half a dozen little objects onto its
surface. “Don’t throw them outside. I mean it.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he exclaimed. “Why
have you brought me Lilliputian oranges? What am I meant to do with
them?”

“They’re not oranges. They’re
kumquats, and you’re meant to eat them.”

He stared at me like I was completely
insane. “Why?”

“Because they’re delicious, because I
don’t want you to die of scurvy, and because you need to try new
things.”

“This is your idea of getting me to
try new things? Mutant micro-oranges?” Zan asked.

“Yes. They’re small, cute and in no
way intimidating.”

He was still staring at me. “Why would
anyone eat that? Because they wanted to pretend they were a giant?
‘Oh, look how big I am with these tiny oranges!’ Is that the
idea?”

Now it was my turn to stare.
“No.”

“So what’s the point, then? By the
time you finish peeling the little blighter, you’re left with maybe
half a teaspoon of fruit.”

“Actually, you eat them peel and all.”
His expression of utter disgust made me roll my eyes. “Oh, come on!
You’re acting like I’m asking you to eat a bug.”

“That’s probably next week’s exercise
in trying something new.”

I plucked one of the kumquats off the
counter and said, “Watch. This is no big deal. You just remove the
stem if it has one,” I did that, then headed to the sink, “and give
it a quick rinse.” I did that, too, and dried my hand and the fruit
on a towel before returning to my side of the kitchen island. “Then
you just eat the damn thing!”

When I popped the little fruit in my
mouth and bit down, my eyes went wide. It was like biting into a
lemon. Instantly, I teared up and my cheeks sucked in. I wanted to
spit it out but I’d been trying to make a point, so I quickly
chewed it up and swallowed it. I couldn’t quite stop myself from
yelling, and it came out something like, “Arrrghfuckinghell!” But
then, in the interest of trying to support my kumquat idea, I
tacked on, “Refreshing!”

Zan doubled over laughing, hanging on
to the kitchen island to keep from falling over. I fought back a
smile, put my hands on my hips, and waited him out. When he finally
got it under control, he had to dry his eyes. He exclaimed, “Bloody
hell, that was entertaining! My only regret is that I wasn’t able
to get it on video. Now do you see why I refuse to eat the weird
shite you bring me?”

“They’re not usually that sour,” I
told him.

“Well maybe if they let those wee
bastards grow bigger than a squirrel’s balls they’d have a chance
to sweeten up a bit.”

“Oh come on!” I grabbed a couple of
the rounder kumquats off the counter and held them up, side by
side. “Where the hell have you ever seen mutated squirrels hung
like this? Did you vacation in Chernobyl as a kid?”

His expression became grave. “Yes,
actually. I was raised by a single mum and money was tight. You
could get really good hotel prices in the Ukrainian countryside
just outside the fallout zone in the years following the Chernobyl
disaster.”

“My God, are you serious?”

This set him off on another laughing
fit. “No, I’m not serious! My mum wasn’t daft. We’d vacation in
Brighton for fuck’s sake, not the Soviet Union! You’re as gullible
as a four-year-old girl.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and
told him, “That’s sexist. A four-year-old girl would be no more or
less gullible than a four-year-old boy.”

“Fair point. I amend my previous
statement. You’re as gullible as a four-year-old child of
unspecified gender.”

“You suck.”

“Furthermore,” he added, “Chernobyl
happened in 1986. I was twenty at the time. Were you picturing me
at that age in a pair of short pants and a sailor hat, skipping
along merrily with my mum on holiday while all around us, mutant
giant-balled squirrels cavorted?” He was still
chuckling.

“I’m leaving.”

As I turned and headed out of the
kitchen he called, “Come back here and take your squirrel testicles
with you!”

“No.”

“You can skip the freakish fruit next
time,” Zan called after me. I ignored him and kept going. But as I
headed down the long hallway, I was grinning.

Chapter Five

After I dropped Vincent off at his
house, I texted Christian and Shea, who invited me over. When I
arrived, Shea let me in and gave me a hug. Christian was propped up
on the couch under a blanket. He looked pale and thin, but he was
smiling. The brain surgery had necessitated shaving his head, and
he’d kept it shaved during his follow-up chemo treatments since it
probably would have fallen out anyway. He’d gotten in the habit of
wearing a blue bandana tied around his head, and joked that all he
needed was an eye patch and a parrot to complete the
look.

“
Hey Christian,” I said as
I bent to hug him. “You’re looking good.”

“Liar. I look like a bald stick
figure.”

“Yeah, but a
happy
bald stick figure.
How do you feel?” I asked as I settled into a chair.

“Terrific. I finished my latest round
of chemo on Friday. Just one more to go!”

“These breaks in between the chemo
sessions are so great. I’m planning to cook all of Christian’s
favorite foods just as soon as his appetite comes back,” Shea said.
He lifted his fiancé’s feet and sat on the couch, then began to
massage them as he held them on his lap. He probably did that with
no conscious thought. Shea’s love for Christian was a tangible
thing, the way he cared for him completely
second-nature.

“We have some news,” Christian told
me, picking up a piece of paper from the coffee table and handing
it to me. It was a real estate flyer for an attractive midcentury
modern home near the Castro. “We’re buying a house.”

“Oh wow! Congratulations. I didn’t
even know you were looking.”

Christian said, “We’d been talking
about getting a place that was both of ours for a long time and
were going to start looking at properties when I was feeling a bit
stronger. But yesterday we saw that house in some online real
estate listings and it just clicked for both of us. We went and saw
it and made an offer on the spot, which the owners
accepted.”

“That’s amazing.”

“It’s really nice on the inside and
totally move-in ready. The current homeowners gutted it and opened
up the floorplan, then put in lots of big windows and new hardwood
floors.”

“It sounds terrific,” I
said.

“It’s perfect for us. It’s even
wheelchair accessible, since one of the current owners is in a
chair. We don’t know that that’ll always be necessary, but right
now it’s a good thing.” Christian had been in a wheelchair for
several months, ever since the tumor had begun to affect his
coordination. There was a chance he’d regain his mobility
eventually, but for now the chair was a part of his
life.

“I’ll be happy to help you guys move,”
I told them.

“Thanks, we’ll take all the help we
can get,” Shea said. “Our friend Chance and my roommates have
volunteered to lend a hand, too.”

“Oh right, your roommates. I almost
forgot that you own a home with some friends.”

“I do, but my friend Bas is in the
process of buying out my share of that house. He broke up with his
live-in girlfriend and needs to move,” Shea said. “Another nice
thing is that this new place is only about a fifteen minute walk
from the house I shared with my friends, so I don’t feel like I’m
totally abandoning them.”

“It sounds perfect all the way
around,” I said.

“It really is,” Christian agreed.
“That’s why we jumped on it. It’s kind of impulsive to buy the
first house we looked at, but it was just so right and we didn’t
want anyone buying it out from under us.”

“Good call. That could happen so
easily in this market.” I returned the flyer to the table and
asked, “Did you tell your dad about this place?”

“Yeah. We called him right after we
looked at it and I sent him a bunch of photos. He’s excited for
us,” Christian said.

“He should be.”

“Zan mentioned you were there doing
yard work when we called. He says you have some big project going
to make the property safe from wildfires. Thank you for doing
that,” Christian said.

“No problem.”

“I want to pay you for all that extra
work.”

“No chance. You already pay me a
ridiculously generous salary for an incredibly easy job. I’m not
going to take more of your money,” I told him.

“I insist. That’s way above and beyond
your job description.”

“No it isn’t. My job is basically to
help out where needed, and that’s what I’m doing. If you want to,
you can pay Vincent for his help, though. Although really, he loves
this kind of thing. It’s fun for him.”

“I’ll definitely pay him,” Christian
said. “Please thank him for me, too.”

“I will.”

“How’s the rest of the job going?”
Shea asked. “Is Zan warming up to you?”

I frowned at that and leaned back in
the upholstered chair. “Gradually, I guess. He warmed up to Vincent
in about half a second today. I’m trying not to take that
personally.”

Christian said, “I really am sorry
that he’s giving you a hard time.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “He
just doesn’t like me. I did manage to goad him into a conversation
the last couple times I’ve gone over there though, so that’s
something.”

That made both of them smile. “Yeah,
the weird citrus fruit,” Shea said. “He told us.”

“He probably thinks I’m nuts, but I
don’t care. Not only do I really think he needs to try new things,
I also think he needs me to rattle his cage a little. At the very
least, it’s getting him to speak to me.”