Until it changed.
Until Emerson started to sing.
Luca shifted under the covers. Stretched an arm under his head.
The clarity of the words was still muted, but Luca could track the melody. It was something familiar, something he knew he’d heard before. The specifics eluded him for the first minute and then the second. But it was right there, hovering in the back of his memory. He just needed Emerson to keep singing.
Emerson was different on the farm. At least, he’d been different this week. Luca had been trying not to take it personally, the fact that he’d talked with Daisy far more this week than he’d spoken with his actual boss. It felt, sometimes, like Emerson was purposefully avoiding him. That in the few moments their days did cross—when Emerson came down from his wildflower field to check in with Jansel; when they happened to occupy the kitchen at the same time—Emerson studiously avoided eye contact. Turned tail and walked in the other direction as soon as he could.
Luca really was trying not to take it personally.
This job wasn’t about him; it was about the farm. And if the man Luca had met at the bar a week ago now seemed somehow altogether different—well, it wasn’t Luca’s place to analyze. His place was doing whatever Jansel told him to do.His place was working until he was too exhausted to think about anything else.
Except it hadn’t just been at the bar. What Luca couldn’t stop thinking about was after they’d left the bar that night, when Emerson had first shown him the farm. There hadn’t only been an easiness to the way Emerson walked, to the way he talked. There had been a confidence, too. Arightness. Hands in those damn well-fitted jeans, spine straight but shoulders relaxed. A hint of a grin always hiding on his mouth as he complained with affection about all of it: the goats, the land, the chickens and the profit margins. It had made Luca feel easy, too. At home on this land from the jump.
This week, though. Any time Emerson was around, there had only been stiffness. There had only been a general aura of stress, even when it was surrounded by wildflowers. Luca wasn’t taking it personally. He wasn’t trying to analyze. But maybe he understood his boss a little better now. That the man he’d met that night, a week prior—alone, indulging in all of a single beer, complaining about his goats to a stranger, gazing quietly at his land—that had been Emerson King letting go.
That might be the most of Emerson Luca would ever be able to get.
Except for all the moments Luca had also been able to see Emerson with his daughter.
Even with Luca around—Emerson always softened, just a bit, when Daisy was there.
His voice through the ceiling hit a slightly higher note. Finally, it snapped into place.
Elton John. “Levon.”
When his daughter was scared after a nightmare, Emerson sang her 1970s Elton John.
Maybe Luca had learned more about a four-year-old thisweek than he had about his boss. Maybe he’d never truly know Emerson King.
But now—for better or worse—he knew this.
“Jesus Christ,”Liv Gallagher said the next morning as soon as she saw Luca walking through the automatic doors of the IGA. He smiled over the box of blooms cradled in his arms. “People are going to start depending on us having these things.”
“Emerson said you didn’t have to take any you didn’t need.”
“Of course he did,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“He said to tell you he really meant it today, though. In case you still had bouquets from earlier in the week that hadn’t sold.”
It had been one of Luca’s favorite duties, driving Emerson’s flowers to the IGA each morning. Partly because Emerson had looked so grateful when he’d first offered to do it, a rare moment when he’d actually looked Luca in the eye. Briefly. But still.
In any case, Luca liked seeing Liv every day, the blunt butchness of her, the way she rolled her eyes as much as she smiled. The way she knew everyone. The way she cared for everyone. Her family had been in Greyfin Bay as long as the Yaegers had. No matter how much adulthood had twisted around Luca’s ribcage, weird and squirmy and always less certain than he used to imagine, being in the IGA and hearing Liv Gallagher’s voice always felt like being a kid.
“He does know it’s a Friday, right?” Liv took the box from Luca’s arms and walked toward her office. Luca fell into step beside her. “Tourists love this shit. Hey, I have his order for next week, too. I know he’ll see it himself, but point out that Idoubled my numbers for that blueberry lavender syrup of his. People can’t get enough of it.”
Luca leaned his shoulder against the doorframe of Liv’s office. Watched her bustle around the small wood-paneled space, which was both packed to the gills and meticulously organized.
“Thanks,” he said when she handed over the order form.
“What’s the grade on your first week as a farmer? Everything okay over there at Short King?”
“Fuck if I know,” Luca answered with a laugh. “About my grade, I mean. I hope it’s passing. The farm itself seems great, though. Emerson’s stressed about a wedding that’s happening there next month, but I’m sure everything’ll turn out fine.”
“A wedding on the farm! Hot damn. Who are the lovebirds? Locals?” Liv jiggled the mouse of her computer, made a quick succession of clicks. A printer whirred to life.
“Live in Portland, I think. But they’re friends of Emerson’s.” And, feeling irrationally annoyed about it, he added another, “I think.”
