“No, I know you weren’t saying there’s anything wrong with that in general.”
“Exactly.”
“My dad and I will probably drive each other nuts, but this arrangement makes sense,” he said. “He’s not retiring right away, so we can commute to the office together. More importantly, I can make sure he actually leaves at a decent hour instead of working until ten every night. Plus, he’s all alone in his big house, and I worry about him.”
“I think it’s great that you two are close. Was it always that way?”
“Yeah, he’s always been really loving and supportive, especially when I came out to him.”
I asked, “How old were you?”
“Seventeen. I was so afraid to tell him, but once I did he decided right away that my happiness and well-being were more important than what he’d been taught to believe about homosexuality. It surprised me, but it shouldn’t have because he’s a great dad. I just wish…”
His voice trailed off, so I guessed, “That he understood the family business is his passion, but not yours?”
“Yeah, exactly. But he worked so damn hard all his life to make it a success, so how can I turn my back on it?
“And it means everything to him. I think to really understand that, you have to understand his past. He watched his family lose absolutely everything in the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Before that, they felt very secure. They owned a hundred-year-old rum company and had a beautiful ranch that had been in the family for generations. There was every reason to believe they had a bright future. But it all got taken away under the new communist regime.
“They all fled to the U.S. as refugees—my dad, his sisters and parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. They came here with nothing, and his family struggled for years. Then my father quit school at fifteen, built a business from the ground-up, and ended up supporting all of them, his entire extended family. It was a matter of pride and family honor to rebuild what had been taken from them. And now, this is so much more than just a company. It’s our family legacy and my dad’s way of ensuring we’ll all have a secure future, not just us but our future generations.”
“Wow, that’s a lot to live up to,” I said.
“It is, and I really don’t want to be a disappointment to him.”
“There’s no way he could be disappointed in you! From everything you’ve told me about him, it’s so obvious that he loves you.”
“He can love me and be disappointed in me, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.” There was a lot of emotion churning in his eyes, but Lucky sat up and smiled at me. “Anyway, enough about that. Do you feel like going out and doing something?” That was surprising, since we’d always just stayed here. But if he felt like changing things up, I was fine with it.
“Sure, but aren’t you tired after flying cross-country today?”
“Nah, I took a long nap when I got home. Now I feel like I need to burn off some energy.”
As I reached for my T-shirt, I asked, “What do you want to do?”
“I have an idea. Will you let me surprise you?” I really wasn’t going to say no to that.
After we got dressed, he placed some kind of order online, then tossed a few things in a messenger bag. As he handed me his spare helmet and leather jacket, I said, “So, this’ll be a motorcycle-based expedition, apparently.”
“That was the plan, if it’s alright with you. We’ll just be driving across town, and I promise to be careful.”
“It’s fine. I trust you, Lucky.”
He decided to take a motorcycle he’d recently finished restoring, which he said was a 1957 Harley-Davidson. Even though he rattled off a lot more information, none of it stuck with me. All I knew was that it was sleek and powerful-looking, and its retro black and cream paint job was really sharp.
Once again, the best thing about riding on the back of a motorcycle was getting to hold Lucky tightly during the whole trip. And just like the last time, I could tell he was making an effort to go slowly and not take any chances with our safety. I wondered how differently he’d be driving if I wasn’t on the back of his bike.
We made a stop at an old-fashioned ice cream parlor and picked up the order he’d placed earlier. Once he loaded the insulated sack into the messenger bag, we kept going.
Surprisingly, he then took me to a quiet, upscale neighborhood. I hadn’t lived in San Francisco long enough to know what it was called or anything about it. But the fact that the housing switched from tightly-packed apartment buildings to huge single-family homes made it clear we were in a very expensive part of town. In a city where space was at a premium, real estate like this had to be worth millions.
He parked in the driveway of a Spanish-style villa with white stucco walls, a porch with terra cotta tiles, and lush landscaping. We both took off our helmets, and as I asked, “Who does this belong to?”
“The same rich asshole who owns the garage.” He climbed the stairs and unlocked the front door.
“And he trusts you enough to let you housesit for him?”
Lucky grinned at me over his shoulder and said, “I’m a very trustworthy person,” before entering a code on a security pad inside the front door. He took my helmet from me and put it with his on a bench in the impressive foyer, and I looked around curiously.