68. Chapter 59
Dashiell
Three years after the fire
Sicily in autumn is an oil painting come to life: ochre stone, bougainvillea spilling over ancient walls, light that falls golden and slow.
We spend the first four days doing tourist things: getting lost twice in Palermo, eating our way through a market Lorenzo claims his ancestors helped start, taking photos with every pretty thing we can find, buying each other ridiculous souvenirs.
Lorenzo seems lighter here than I’ve ever seen him before, though in the past months—and years—of our relationship, I’ve noticed the weight of his past steadily slipping away from him.
Our fifth evening there happens to also be his fortieth birthday.
After I get all the jokes about him being middle-aged out of the way, after I’m done asking if the multiplying gray in his hair officially makes him a silver fox, after I muse loudly if anyone might think I’m his son instead of his boyfriend, he jokingly threatens to ditch me in the Mediterranean, before taking me to a cliff overlooking the water outside a beautiful little town.
The sea has gone pink and gold with the sunset, and we lean against each other, looking out at the waters.
“Happy birthday, my love,” I whisper.
He pulls me closer. “I know it’s maybe not traditional, but I got you a present,” he says.
“What? It’s your birthday. I got you a present! It rhymes with bland-cuffs and it’s waiting for us in the hotel bedroom.”
He chuckles. “I plan on enjoying that present as soon as we get back to the hotel. But can I give you yours first, at least?”
“Well, I’ll never say no to a present,” I huff. “Sure.”
He removes his arm from my shoulders and turns so that he’s facing me, my hands held loosely in his. “You’re a wonderful person, Dashiell Novak,” he murmurs, and then he gets down on one knee.
“Oh, fuck!” I yelp, causing two nearby tourists to look sharply in our direction. They squeal when they see what’s going on. It’s all I can do to keep from squealing, too.
Lorenzo grins. “Dash, I spent most of my life being told who I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to do, what I was supposed to want. Rarely, until I met you, did I let myself ask who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, and what I wanted. You inspired me to become a better man, and you still inspire me every day.” His thumbs move in slow circles over the backs of my hands.
“You’re who I want, Dash. And I’m always going to want you. ”
With that, he reaches into his jacket pocket and draws out a small velvet box.
“I didn’t want to use a ring that belonged to my family, because—well, blood money and all that.
But when I spoke to your family, telling them of my intentions, your Grandma scampered up to her room and was back with this, and she said that I’d only have her blessing if I proposed using it. ”
I choke back something that’s either a sob or a laugh. I think I know what’s in the box, and when Lorenzo opens it, my suspicions—my hopes—are confirmed.
Nestled in the velvet is a single band of gold with a clear, simple diamond on it.
“Her engagement ring,” I whisper.
“That’s right.” He smiles up at me, tears in his eyes and joy and certainty written across his face. “Dashiell Novak, will you make me the happiest man in all of Sicily—hell, all of Europe and maybe the world, and marry me?”
“Yes!” I barely let him get fully to his feet before throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him. “Yes, obviously! God, yes!”
He laughs into my hair, his arms tight around me, relief and joy tangling together so completely that I feel them like one emotion. He slips the ring easily onto my left hand—despite Grandma’s petite size, her hands aren’t much smaller than mine—and the setting sun glints on the diamond.
“I love you, Dash,” he whispers, and it’s as much a vow as the ones we’ll make someday before witnesses.
“I love you, too,” I murmur, and pull him down for another kiss.
Four years after the fire
“Will you hold still?” Kenny barks, adjusting my collar for the fourth time in eight minutes. “You need to look absolutely perfect because the photographer I hired is the best.”
I look at him in the mirror. “Didn’t you hire the guy who shoots your videos?”
“Yes, and he may or may not think that he’s getting to shoot you and Lorenzo in your honeymoon suite later, but we’ll worry about that later.”
I groan. “Kenny…”
“It’s fine! If all else fails, he can just film more content of me.”
I roll my eyes. “Only you, Kenny. Only you…”
Kenny is my best man, and Vinnie, Charlie, Nick, and Tristan are my groomsmen.
Lorenzo and I thought about not doing traditional wedding attendants, but when Vinnie heard that, he almost rioted, and now I’m glad that I have all these men with me on my wedding day.
Each of them, in their own way, has shaped and inspired me to be the person I am now, and I can’t think about it without getting emotional.
Vinnie comes up behind Kenny and me and intentionally messes up my collar just to annoy Kenny, who pokes him in the ribs. “You nervous?”
“Definitely not,” I say while Kenny grumpily fixes my collar again.
Vinnie grins. “Liar.”
“Okay. I’m a little nervous.”
Instead of a church wedding, we’re holding it in the garden of a hotel that Pepe now owns—an elegant, art-deco place downtown that just feels so perfectly us.
“It’s good to be nervous,” Vinnie says proudly. “Means it’s real. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
I pour us both more champagne. “So, are you next? Nick got married, now I’m getting married. Unless someone’s still in the closet, I think you’re the last queer man at Station 27, right?”
He cringes. “Don’t wish marriage upon me, friend.”
“C’mon. You’ll know when you’re ready.”
He ruffles my hair, causing Kenny to yelp in protest. “I think I’m the one who’s supposed to give you advice, right, kid?”
Charlie pokes his head into the suite. “Hey, they’re seating people. You’ve got twenty minutes.”
“Is my grandma behaving?”
He winces. “She’s currently trying to convince Carlo that she should be allowed to ‘say a few words’ during the ceremony.”
“Oh god.”
Kenny snaps to attention. “I’ll handle it.”
In another part of the hotel, in a room I’m not allowed to see, I know that Pepe is doing the exact same thing with Lorenzo, fixing his tie, coaxing away any nerves, making sure everything is ready for Groom Number Two.
Mila Chaudhary is also there—despite their rocky start, she and Lorenzo have become unexpectedly good friends, and she’ll be standing behind Pepe when Lorenzo and I get to the altar.
Twenty minutes later, it’s time.
We’re down in the hotel courtyard, by the garden strung with fairy lights. I still haven’t seen Lorenzo—I won’t see him until we walk down the aisle together.
The music starts, Kenny squeezes my hand one last time, and then he and the other groomsmen make their way down the aisle. My family is already at their seats. Lorenzo’s family, of course, is behind bars. They weren’t invited.
When the music swells, I step forward, and Lorenzo appears on the other side of the garden. My heart somersaults when I see him, and I can’t help breaking into a smile.
He winks at me. He looks absolutely dashing in his black tuxedo, his dark gray-streaked hair swept back from his face, his beard trimmed down to little more than whiskers.
We meet at the aisle and walk, together, toward the front, my arm looped tightly through his.
“You look nice,” he whispers as we reach Carlo at the front. He’ll be officiating our wedding. It just felt right.
“This old thing?” I whisper back, and then Kenny shoots me a look that says, quiet, it’s starting.
I don’t hear most of what Carlo says, because I’m too busy looking at Lorenzo.
I don’t just see him as he is now, but as every man I’ve known him to be.
Soot-streaked and furious outside his father’s burned house.
Dominant and feral, pinning me to a bed.
Cold and cruel as he ends things with me.
Burning and desperate in the wreckage of Lo Scandalo.
Humble and reformed at his Foundation’s grand opening.
And loving and earnest during a sunset in Sicily.
I see him. All of him. I know who I’m choosing, and I would gladly make this choice a thousand times.
When it’s time, I say the words that burn through me like a promise, and Lorenzo echoes them back, a sacred vow that we’ve already made a thousand times in our minds and with our bodies: I do.