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“Hey, son. Good to see you.”
“You too, Dad.” We shook hands, which I knew was different from most people, but that was just who we’d always been. I wouldn’t know what to do if my dad suddenly hugged me.
“Sorry it’s been so crazy. Your mother wants to open a San Francisco office, and we’ve been traveling back and forth.”
Well, shit. That was news to me. They were seventy years old, but it didn’t surprise me that they were still taking on even more responsibility.
“Why?” I asked, following him through the living room.
“You know how she is.”
I knew how they both were. They liked to put the blame on each other, but they were the exact same: work, work, work.
Like you?
I shook that thought from my head. “Where is Mom?”
He went outside, and I followed. When home, they spent a lot of time in their backyard, the way I did too. The weather was almost always perfect in Santa Monica, so why not?
“She’s finishing up at the salon, then grabbing our lunch.”
We sat in chairs at one of the tables outside. The yard was perfectly manicured and had a pool and a kitchen, same as mine.
“How’s work going?” Dad asked.
We talked business because that’s mostly what we had in common. What they had would belong to me one day, and I had no clue what the fuck I would even want to do with it. I’d have to keep it, but now I was thinking that if we had a San Francisco office as well, that was just more on my plate. It was selfish because I was lucky as shit, but that was how I felt.
It wasn’t too long until Mom got home, carrying two bags of food. Dad immediately got up to take them from her. They did things like that often, helped in those small ways. To some, he treated her like a queen, the way she deserved, but it was with a detachment you didn’t see in people in love with each other.
“Hey, baby,” she said, sitting beside me. “You’re letting your hair go. You need to clean up this fade.” She touched my scalp, and I pulled my head away.
“I know.”
“You need to look professional at work. If you don’t, no one will take you seriously.”
“I’m one of the highest-ranked agents in Los Angeles County. I think I’ll be okay.”
“I was just trying to help,” she replied, and I sighed.
“I know. What’s new?”
Dad was pulling out food as we went on to discuss work and the business yet again, now from Mom’s point of view.
She’d gotten Italian from one of their favorite places. I tried to change the subject to the food and how good my ravioli was, but they kept getting back on the topic of my company or Alston Architecture.
Eventually, I said, “Parker and Elliott are getting married at my place this coming summer.”
“Which one is Parker?” Mom asked.
Dad said, “He’s Marcus’s best friend. The one who was bigger as a kid.”
“No, Dad, that’s Corbin. Parker is the baker.” They’ve been my friends since middle school, and yet my folks still couldn’t remember which one was which… “Never mind. I have a friend staying with me right now. Kai.”
“Boyfriend?” Mom asked. They had never given a shit that I was gay. That was one thing I’d never worried about. Like most things about me, it was just a fact to them and didn’t require much feeling.
“If this is serious,” Dad said, “and you plan on marrying this man, you need to start considering a prenup. Have you spoken to Lawrence?”
“No. Hell no. I didn’t talk to our attorney about Kai. Jesus, I never even said we were together, and you already have him trying to steal my money. You don’t know him.”
Mom said, “It’s not personal, Marcus, but we’ve worked really damn hard to have what we do. Is it so wrong to want to protect it?” And I did get what she meant. Every single thing they had accomplished had been with hard work and grit. They hadn’t been handed anything the way I had been. They had to work much harder to have the things they did, and that meant something to them, but their assumptions about Kai made my skin feel too tight.
“He’s a friend. And he’s moving to Atlanta soon.” Though we still didn’t have an exact date, which didn’t sit well with me. “He needed a place to stay, and I’m helping him out, is all.” And now I was pissed at myself. Kai was more than just someone I was helping out. Fuck, why had I brought him up in the first place?
Mom scrutinized me. “Something is different in your voice.”
“No, it’s not.”
She nodded, but I wasn’t sure she believed me. We got off the conversation about Kai, though. We ate and talked. Once the food was gone, Mom took the plates inside, and they told me about a new client and some issues they’d had with one of their designs.
