After Luis left the comment, Jase stood up and said, “Now it’s time for me to take you someplace I love.”
“We have to wait,” Luis said. “Elena always replies to my comments and I want to see what she has to say today.” He knew Jase wouldn’t understand. People who didn’t know anything about blogging etiquette didn’t know how important it was to maintain a good flow in the comment thread.
“She might not reply until later,” Jase said. “It’s different time zone in Italy. She might not be reading the blog right now.”
“Ah well,” Luis said. “Trust me on this, Elena is always reading her blog and she’s always following the comments people leave for her. It doesn’t matter what time of day I leave a comment. I know she’ll leave another comment a few minutes later. I don’t know how she does this, but she’s always on top of everything. It’s uncanny.”
Sure enough, it took less than ten minutes for Elena to reply. She thanked Luis for reading her blog post that day, then thanked him for his kind comment. He replied with another thank you and stood up from his chair.
“What if she replies back now?” Jase asked.
“She will reply,” Luis said. “She’ll say, prego, which means you’re welcome in Italian.
Though she’s really French, for some reason she often uses Italian words. I’ve been through this before and I don’t have to wait around now. She’ll have the last word. You always give the blogger the last word on the comment thread. If you don’t, it could keep going back and forth for days.” He smiled and patted Jase’s arm. He knew Jase didn’t understand and it would have been too complicated to explain in the short amount of time they had.
Chapter Eleven
When they left the Internet café, it was Jase’s turn to take Luis someplace he loved in New York. Jase didn’t have to think twice about where he was taking him, and it was within walking distance from the café. He wasn’t ready to tell Luis the truth about who he really was that day. But he wanted Luis to see one of the achievements in his life of which he was extremely proud. After Jase had made his first million, he’d started a small foundation to support the native arts of his home state, Alaska. It was called Alaska Frontier, and there were now several annexes located across the county. It was a museum and an educational facility that concentrated on native Alaskan arts. There were exhibits, videos, photo galleries, and more, designed to preserve these arts and educate the public. There was even a library and a gift shop where people could buy souvenirs. The annex in New York had been the first he’d started.
As they walked south, it was warming up outside. It was one of the rare summer days in Manhattan without humidity. Though the sun was bright enough for Luis to wear dark glasses, there was a comfortable breeze in the air that kept them from breaking a sweat. On Houston, they passed a couple of very young gay men who were walking down the street hand in hand. The smaller guy was leaning into the taller guy’s side and he was looking up at his face with adoring eyes.
Luis sighed. “They look so happy,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that young.”
“But they aren’t much younger than you are,” Jase said.
“I’ve been very old for a very long time,” Luis said. “I didn’t have a choice. I had to learn how to take care of myself. I may not do it very well. But at least I know how to get by.”
Luis was smiling and his voice was even and calm. But there was a hint of sadness that tugged at Jase’s heart. So he reached out and grabbed Luis’s left hand. He smiled and said, “I’m nowhere near as young as those two guys. Hell, I could probably be their father. But I wouldn’t mind holding your hand.”
Luis didn’t pull back. He tightened his grip around Jase’s hand and said, “Anyone who would object to holding your hand, sir, would be an obtuse fool.”
Jase felt his jeans tighten. This was the first time Jase had ever held anyone’s hand in public. All his life he’d wondered about couples, gay or straight, who walked down the street hand in hand. He’d see them and frown, shaking his head and dismissing them as blatant, overemotional fools. He’d always thought there was something contrived about holding hands in public, as if the people who did this were trying to prove to the world, or themselves, they were really in love. He’d never been fond of any public affection, especially kissing. But holding Luis’s hand, passing hundreds of people on the street, changed his opinion in a matter of seconds.
All he had to do was touch Luis and he felt alive from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. He was proud to be with him and he wanted the entire world to know it. A sense of stability and comfort passed through his body; the corners of his lips turned up and his eyes widened. If this was what mid-life crisis was all about, he thought with a smile, bring it on.
They passed people on cell phones who didn’t even notice they were holding hands. They could have stripped naked, gone down on the sidewalk, and started having sex and these people wouldn’t have looked up from their phone conversations. Some of the people they passed frowned at them for being so affectionate—Jase knew the look. A young woman pushing a baby carriage smiled and nodded. When they passed two older men with red faces and bulging stomachs who were also holding hands, Jase pulled Luis closer and put his arm around his waist.
“Do you think those guys have been together for a long time?” Jase asked. It had recently begun to occur to him that being gay wasn’t so different from being straight. The main factor, as he saw it, was finding the right person to spend the rest of your life with.
Luis shrugged. He leaned into Jase’s side and put his arm around Jase’s waist. “I’d like to think they have been with each other for forty years,” he said. “I don’t see many gay couples who have been together for a long time in my circles. But I’ve heard they’re out there somewhere.”
“I’m sure they are,” Jase said.
When they reached the entrance of the Alaska Frontier building, Jase stopped and opened the door. “Here we are,” he said. “The place in New York I love the most.”
Luis looked up at the sign, and then at the front of the building. “I didn’t expect this,” he said.
“What did you expect?”
“To be honest,” Luis said. “You act so straight sometimes. I was expecting you to take me to a baseball game, or something along those lines. Something really manly and butch.”