“Yeah,” he said, voice calm. “Of course. I’ve actually been meaning to suggest the same thing. If Jayden’s okay with the idea, too, I think that would be good.”
Huh. Emerson breathed out. “Yeah. Me too.”
Emerson had told Jayden about him and Luca weeks ago, during one of their regular Saturday switchouts. Jayden hadn’t been surprised, even if his eyes had seemed sad. But he wasn’t angry, which seemed the best Emerson could have hoped for. He’d even been able to joke about it, the following week.How in the world did you find someone first when I live in one of thegayest cities in the world, and you live on a fucking farm?And then he’d rolled his eyes with an affectionate smile and said,Figures.
“Cool.” Luca flipped his fork upside down. Flipped it back again. “So, my turn now.”
“Your turn now,” Emerson agreed. And then he nudged Luca’s foot under the table with his own in encouragement. Luca’s mouth twitched.
“I have a few things, actually,” Luca said. “The first is that that literary agent got back to me.”
Their waiter came back with their beer, and Emerson almost snapped at him for interrupting. As soon as he’d walked away, he returned his full focus to Luca.
“And?”
“It wasn’t an offer of representation. But it was…nice? In a way? The nicest rejection I’ve ever gotten, that’s for sure. He gave me a lot of suggestions about my book, and it’s been making me think about a lot of things. He said he wants to see more of my work and maybe I’m still an idiot, even after a hundred rejections, but I kind of believe him.”
Emerson reached out and ran his fingers over Luca’s knuckles, where his hands clutched his pint glass.
“That’s amazing, Luca.”
“Thanks. Okay, so the second thing is a lot bigger.”
Emerson frowned. Bigger than his book?
Luca exhaled before retreating his hands from the glass. He reached into his pocket, brought out his phone and placed it on the table.
“I made some notes, just in case I got nervous and forgot to mention everything. But I’m going to say a lot of stuff and am politely asking you to let me get through it all before you object.”
Emerson swallowed, nervous again. Possibly more nervous than he’d ever been in his life. He thought he and Luca hadbeen settling into a nice routine, post wedding. They worked together a lot more on the farm, now that Emerson wasn’t always stuck in the wildflower field or the old barn. Emerson could see, literally every day, Daisy and Luca growing closer. Even on the weeks she wasn’t here. He shared all the texts Jayden sent him from Portland now, and he kind of lived for the times he got to watch Luca’s face when he showed him a new photo: the affectionate smirk, the curious furrows of Luca’s brow as he examined the details of Daisy’s Portland world.
They’d been going over Emerson’s favorite spreadsheet in the evenings, all the data about the farm, while baseball played in the background. The Giants didn’t make it to the postseason, but they were watching the World Series anyway. They still had sex all the time, got to fall asleep and wake up next to each other. Emerson had somehow been able to keep his panic about the future—of the farm, of their relationship—at bay, taking each quiet morning of mucking out the barn, watching the sun rise over the beds, to tell himself to enjoy every second of all this while it lasted.
But maybe Luca was starting to get bored. Maybe he was starting to realize?—
“I sold my cabin.”
“What?” The word shot out of Emerson’s mouth before he remembered Luca had asked him—politely—not to interrupt.
Luca only gave a small smile, like he’d expected that, before his face turned serious again.
“I know I should have told you earlier, but I knew you’d try to talk me out of it, so I decided to wait until everything was all done and the money was actually in my bank account. I loved that cabin, but the farm is my home now, and I didn’t need it anymore. More than that, though, Emerson, I was ableto make a lot of money from it. Like a lot. And I want to use it for the farm. For us.”
Their waiter approached the table with their food. Emerson couldn’t even look at him to force a polite smile onto his face this time. He only stared directly at Luca, as Luca took the reins of social propriety and turned to the waiter. No, they didn’t need anything else at the moment. Yeah, thanks.
And then Luca turned back to him.
“I knew you’d try to talk me out of it because I realized, almost as soon as Dell had agreed to buy it from me, that it’d make you think of Jayden, quitting his job and giving up his Portland life to move to the farm. That you’d be sure I’d come to regret it one day, like he did. But Emerson, I need you to know that I’m not Jay. I’ve lived in Greyfin Bay my entire fucking life and have no plans to leave it. Even if this money doesn’t get the farm to a truly sustainable place, even if we can’t hack it, we can move to my parents’ house until we figure out what to do next and I won’t regret a thing. Because Emerson, I just—I love you so fucking much. I’m in this life with you. Okay?”
Emerson was having trouble breathing. Before his brain could properly process the rest, he had to ask, even if it was interrupting?—
“How much money?”
Luca told him.
Emerson’s stomach left the building.
“I know that’s still probably not as much as you actually need, but here’s what I’m thinking.”
