Luca opened his mouth to respond, then closed it, looking at the field again. Where…there wasn’t space for a person to walk at all, really.
“You can just mow a bunch of this down, though, right?” The thought hurt Luca’s heart, but there would still be plenty of wildflowers left over.
“Potentially, but—gotta make sure I do it the right way. For the soil, and to make sure it looks…pretty, for everyone. For a hundred people I don’t know. Anyway.” Emerson turned, started walking back the way they came. “It’ll get done.”
Luca caught up to him. They ambled down the hill, gaits easy, almost in sync.
“How many acres you have here?”
“Twelve. Only have about four of them in active use so far, though. Only two cultivated into permanent beds, the ones we walked through earlier.”
“That’s still a decent amount of acres.”
“Yeah.” Their feet clomped over the hard earth. Another small Emerson laugh. “If anything it’s too much. The technical term for what I have going here is a small-acreage microfarm. Or if you want to sound fancy, a regenerative marketfarm, or a diversified biointensive farm, or other words that mean producing a variety of things without chemicals or heavy duty equipment. I don’t own a tractor that could plow that whole field down; that’s not how it works here. No matter what you call this place, though…doesn’t feel so small to me, most days.”
“You probably don’t ever get bored, though.”
Luca had hoped that one would earn another mini-laugh, another huff of semi-amused air; he felt a swell of pride when it did.
“No, can’t say I often feel that exact adjective. Farming’ll make you feel a bunch of other ones, though.” And then, almost off-hand: “I’ll show you the barn they want to have the reception in later.”
“Different from the barn with the chickens and Sally?”
“Yeah. I’d never be able to get the smell out of that one for a wedding. But there’s an even older one, back there by the trees. It’s…kind of falling apart.” Emerson scratched the back of his neck again. “Ben seemed to think it’ll work. I don’t know.”
“You really don’t have any other help here?” Luca asked after another stretch of silence.
“No, I do. I have some summer hires, though they’ve left for the season now. You’ll meet Jansel, though, my one full-time farmhand. He knows what he’s doing. I’d be lost without him.”
You’ll meet Jansel. I’ll show you the barn later.
Something warm and hazy, like fresh honey, stirred in Luca’s belly.
This was really happening. Emerson was going to let him do this.
“How hard will Jansel judge me for not knowing whatI’mdoing?”
Another soft laugh. “He won’t. Not at all.”
Sally’s barn came into view. The lengthy produce beds. The house across from them, the windshields of their cars gleaming in the setting sun.
Emerson’s feet came to a stop before they’d quite reached the drive. He looked into the distance, toward his wishful orchard.
Luca waited, his stomach clenching for the first time all night. Maybe he’d been wrong. He didn’tthinkEmerson would back out now, but?—
“I feel like I still don’t know anything about you,” Emerson said.
And there it was. Luca had been enjoying it, learning about the farm. Pretending no one had to know anything about Luca at all.
“Other than…you’re a fisherman? Or your family are fishermen? Is that why you came to the bar, too? To feel depressed about your chosen profession?”
Luca released a quiet sigh, joining Emerson in his contemplation of the horizon.
The truth was two-pronged, but neither path would do for explaining out loud. He didn’t want to tell his potential employer that maybehehad come to the brewery to find a good fuck. He’d needed a distraction, and his sexual well had run rather dry since Dell McCleary dumped his unserious ass almost a year ago now. Although, if he was more honest about it, it wasn’t the lack of sex that bothered him the most. He was…lonely, he supposed, a deep-boned feature of his life that hadn’t been cured by two years of intermittently sleeping with Dell. If anything, Luca had always thought they worked so well because they could be obviously lonely together. The loss of it still stung.
And so even if the feeling wasn’t new, and even if another night with Matt wasn’t exactly what he’d been looking for either, it was a truth universally acknowledgedthat being around a flirty queer bartender in a place that could use more of them—well, it helped. Luca had seen it broadcast across Emerson’s face, too, the moment he’d seen him.
And he certainly wouldn’t tell Emerson the main thing that had propelled him to the bar tonight, the reason he’d desired a distraction so badly. A milestone so embarrassing he wouldn’t have told Dell about it either.
