Salvation (27 page)

Christopher beamed at him and exclaimed,
“Well, shit! That’s almost literally word for word what I’d planned to say to
you. I knew I should have gone first!”

Everyone burst out laughing, and Christopher
said, “Oh man. I just said shit during our wedding ceremony, in front of your
entire family!”

“Twice!” Kieran exclaimed, and both of
them laughed.

Nana yelled from the audience, “You
could’ve said way worse things than shit! Want me to give you some examples?”

Christopher looked over at her and
smiled. “No thanks, Nana. We’re good.” He then turned back to Kieran and said,
“Okay, so I just want to add that I absolutely, unequivocally adore you, Kieran
Nolan. You’re everything I could want, and so much more than I ever dreamed of.
I’m so grateful that I get to spend every day of the rest of my life at your
side, loving you and being loved by you.” The two men grabbed each other in a
passionate embrace.

When they stopped hugging and went back
to holding hands, the wedding official smiled at both of them before
announcing, “It is with great pleasure that I now pronounce you married. You
both may kiss your husband.”

Kieran and Christopher didn’t just kiss.
They grabbed each other and completely made out, while everyone in the audience
leapt to their feet, cheering, applauding and whistling. I got up too, laughing
and clapping, and then Vincent took my shoulders and turned me to face him.

He looked into my eyes for a long moment
and smiled at me, and the most incredible feeling of happiness bloomed inside
me, spreading from my heart outward, making me feel warm and almost giddy. He
kissed me gently, then whispered in my ear, “That’ll be us some day.” I stared
at him in surprise, and he winked at me and said, “Come on, you have work to
do.” I grinned and followed him to the kitchen.

*****

Two solid hours of cooking and plating
and more cooking followed. We got a four-course sit-down dinner for a hundred
and eleven people served, with the help of six waiters Nana had hired. The food
went off without a hitch. River’s elegant, inspired menu of fresh seafood and
peak-of-the-season produce met with rave reviews.

It was after dinner that a bit of
pandemonium broke out. Somehow Puffy the attack cat got let out of the garage,
and when he wandered into the reception, Tippy the little silky terrier blew a
gasket and launched himself out of his owner’s lap, taking off after the cat.
It took all of about fifteen seconds to topple the towering flower-covered
wedding cake, which had to have been close to four feet tall. As it went over,
Kieran dove onto the grass and caught the top tier, holding it up out of harm’s
way as the animals circled him and then took off under the tables. The rest of
the cake didn’t fare quite so well. 

The little kids at the reception thought
this was all pretty exciting and started running around after the dog and cat,
yelling and screaming. Skye leapt into action along with a couple moms and set
up a human barricade at the cliff’s edge. When the shrieking white feline
launched himself at the cliff in a desperate bid to escape the crazed canine,
Skye executed a perfect flying interception, catching the cat in midair and
then crashing into the bushes with him.

Apparently, Skye landed on some kind of
control panel. In the next instant, the sky overhead was ablaze in a riot of
light and sound and color. A hundred huge fireworks went off at once, launched
from a little barge positioned just offshore.

Everyone froze, staring at the ten
second display in absolute amazement, and when it ended they all erupted in
cheers and applause. “Do it again,” little Brody shrieked delightedly, a
fistful of crushed wedding cake in each hand.

“Well shit,” Nana exclaimed. “There goes
the grand finale.” She turned to look at the grooms. Christopher had helped
Kieran to his feet, and they were still staring at the now-dark night sky in
amazement. “That’s a shame,” she said. “I really wanted everything to be
perfect for the two of you.”

“It
is
perfect, Nana,”
Christopher said, coming up to her and giving her a hug. “That was the best
fireworks display I’ve ever seen. Thank you.”

She still wasn’t convinced. “But, it was
so quick. And the cake....”

“Kieran saved the top tier. What’s the
tradition? That you stick it in the freezer and eat it on your one-year
anniversary? We can still do that.”

“There’s one other tradition,” Kieran
said, “and we can still do that, too.”

“You’re right,” Christopher said. He
handed Nana the top tier for safe keeping, then took his husband’s hand and led
him to the little round table that had held the towering masterpiece. Everyone
gathered around. Half of the bottom tier still sat on the edge of the tabletop.

Christopher grabbed a triangular cake
server and neatly cut a little wedge of cake, then picked it up and fed it to
his husband. Kieran ate from his husband’s hand and smiled at him, then cut
just a tiny sliver of cake. He took this between two fingers and held it to
Christopher’s lips.

For just a moment, Kieran and
Christopher stared in each other’s eyes. And then Christopher opened his mouth
and took the morsel from his husband’s fingers. After he swallowed it, he said,
“You know, squished cake tastes just as good as whole cake.”

A hush had fallen over the wedding
guests, and at first I didn’t understand why. A moment later, they erupted into
cheers and applause. It was only then that I remembered Hunter talking about a
horrible incident in his friend’s past. Christopher had survived a sexual
assault which had begun with a drug-laced meal. It had left him with food
issues so severe that for the last two years he could eat almost nothing but a
couple really specific things. Given that, the simple act of eating that piece
of cake must have been monumental for him.

“Hey, don’t we get cake?” little Brennan
called out, and the small army of children that had been chasing the cat and
dog perked up and clustered around the couple.

“Sure you do,” Kieran said. He and
Christopher carefully lifted the little round table over the wreckage of cake
tiers on the lawn and set it down in the midst of the children. They then
handed spoons to each of the kids, and Kieran said, “Go for it.” The kids all
squealed delightedly and descended on the cake like vultures, shoveling what
was left of the once magnificent confection into their faces while the adults
laughed and snapped pictures with their camera phones.

Most of the wedding guests, along with
the newlyweds, now moved over to the brightly lit dance floor. It had been set
up beside the big floral arch, right where the chairs had stood for the
ceremony. I noticed that someone had wisely used a lot of the chairs to erect a
big barrier at the edge of the cliff. It made me think of Skye. I didn’t see
him anywhere, and wondered what had become of him and the cat.

As a DJ that had been setting up during
dinner started cranking some dance tunes, I went back to the kitchen and found
Skye getting patched up by his brother. He had several long scrapes on his
forearms, and I asked, “Was that the cat, or the bushes?”

“Both.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine. I’m just embarrassed about
ruining Christopher and Kieran’s fireworks display,” he said. “That cat’s okay
too, by the way. He’s back in his cat carrier in the garage, just until the
reception’s over.”

“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” I
said. “It was an accident, you were just trying to save that stupid cat.
Besides, that really was a spectacular way to watch a hundred fireworks – all
at once!”

River was down in the dumps, too. “If
anyone’s to blame for ruining stuff, it’s me. I should never have brought that
damn cat. Do you know how much that wedding cake must have cost? And now most
of the guests didn’t even get any cake!”

“So, let’s do something about that,” I
said. “First we need to clean up that mess, and then we can whip up a quadruple
batch of cupcakes, one for everyone. The guests will love it, you’ll see.”

River perked at that idea and got busy
baking. Meanwhile, Skye and I found a shovel in the tool shed and used it to
scoop the wrecked cake into garbage bags. “Holy buttercream, Batman, this cake
weighs as much as you and me combined,” Skye exclaimed as we tried to drag the
heavy bags to the trash. A tall, handsome wedding guest with dark brown hair
overhead us and said, “Let me give you a hand with those.”

“Thanks,” Skye said with a smile. “You
must be a Nolan, so many of you have those same gorgeous, bright blue eyes.”

The guy grinned and told him, “I’m Shea,
Kieran’s cousin. One of many.” He helped us lug the bags to the trash cans
along the side of the house before returning to the party.

Skye watched him walk away, then said,
“Damn. If I hadn’t promised River not to hit on anyone at the wedding, I’d be
flinging myself at that like a fat kid on a Snickers bar.” He looked at me and
added, “I’m not being mean. I
was
a fat kid, and believe me, no Snickers
bar was safe in my presence.” I grinned and took his hand, leading him away
from the hottie and back to the kitchen.

In less than an hour, a hundred and
twenty cupcakes were cooling on the counter, awaiting my killer buttercream
frosting, which we’d loaded into pastry bags after I whipped up two double
batches. Now that there was a break in the action, Vincent, who’d been hanging
out with us in the kitchen, turned to me and said, “Will you come with me for a
few minutes?”

I followed him to the dark living room,
and he went to the back wall and slid a window open. Briny sea air wafted in,
along with the slow, romantic music the DJ was playing. Vincent approached me
and held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”

“Absolutely,” I murmured, sliding into
his arms. The next song was just beginning and it was one I’d always liked,
‘You Send Me’ by Sam Cooke. We swayed to the music, totally caught up in the
moment and in each other.

After a while, Vincent said quietly, “I
don’t remember a lot about my parents. I was only five when they were killed.
But I remember them dancing to this song. My mom loved vinyl records, she had a
huge collection. And I remember one time, she was playing this album when my
dad came home early. She’d been cleaning the house, her hair was tied back with
a blue bandana. He tossed her duster aside, took her hand and spun her, and
then they started dancing around the living room. I remember the way she
laughed and told him to stop it. She told him he was nuts, and that she still
had a lot of cleaning to do. But she kept right on dancing.” I held him a
little tighter.

After a few moments he said, “I
shouldn’t have brought that up. Not now. I should have let you enjoy the
moment. That memorial at the start of the ceremony just really got to me, I
guess.”

“I’m so glad you told me that story. I
now know that there’s a history to our song, that it was already a part of you,
and now it’s a part of us.”

Vincent looked into my eyes, then kissed
me gently before whispering, “You’re beautiful inside and out, Trevor. It’s
really no wonder you have me under your spell.” I smiled at that and kissed him
again.

 It was pretty hard to go back to
work after that, but I returned in time to help River quickly frost the cupcakes
and load them onto serving trays. The wait staff was busy clearing and rinsing
all the plates and glassware, so River and I took the trays out to the garden
and began handing out dessert. Almost everyone was standing around the edge of
the dance floor, since they’d just concluded a series of speeches and toasts to
the happy couple.

Now Kieran’s brother Brian rolled
forward in his wheelchair, stopping in the center of the dance floor. He looked
a little nervous. There was a knit blanket draped over his lower half, and he
wiped his palms on it as he cleared his throat. He’d already given a toast to
his brother and Christopher earlier, so I wondered what he was doing.

He said, “Everyone, can I have your
attention please? Since most of my family is gathered here today, I thought I’d
take this opportunity to let all of you share in the most important moment of
my life.”

Brian cleared his throat again, and
swiveled around to face his boyfriend Hunter. He set the brake on his chair,
took a deep breath, then pulled the blanket off his lap and set it down beside
him. A brand new pair of metal and plastic prostheses extended from the legs of
his khaki shorts. He picked up a collapsible cane from his lap and unfolded it,
then used it to steady himself as he stood up on the artificial legs. Everyone
gasped and started talking at once, and his brother Kieran let out a laugh of
pure joy and pressed his hand to his mouth as Christopher grabbed his new
husband in an embrace.

Brian took a couple steps toward his
boyfriend, and then carefully lowered himself onto one knee as a hush fell over
the crowd. “Hunter,” he said, setting the cane down and taking his hand, “I
love you more than anything, and I’d be so honored if you’d agree to spend your
life with me. Will you marry me?”

Hunter burst into tears and nodded, then
dropped to his knees and hugged Brian as the crowd went absolutely crazy,
cheering and applauding. When he could finally speak, Hunter stammered, “How
did you do this? You didn’t even tell me you were getting prosthetics! And oh
my God, you want to marry me! I have to be dreaming right now.”