Somethingwas jostlingLuca’s shoulder.
Blurrily, he opened his eyes and blinked?—
Into Emerson King’s smiling face.
“Shit.” Luca tried to sit up, looking over to the beanbag chair, where Daisy—wasn’t. “Did?—”
“She’s fine,” Emerson interrupted. Luca looked at him again. Remembered that he was smiling. Eyes clearer now, Luca could see the pinch around Emerson’s eyes, the press of his lips, like he was trying to hold himself back from smiling even bigger. His hand was still on Luca’s shoulder.
It felt good.
“I didn’t fail my first babysitting gig?”
Emerson shook his head. His thumb dug a circle into the muscle underneath Luca’s collarbone. Luca had to force himself to keep his eyes open.
“No. Except don’t let her hear you call it babysitting. She’ll lecture you for approximately three hours about how she’snota baby.”
“Right. Thanks for the heads up.”
Their gazes held, Emerson still massaging Luca’s shoulder. Luca was muddled in that weird, out of time, woke-up-in-the-middle-of-the-day feeling. God, he could look at Emerson’s face all day, all the strong lines of it, those eyes and that wispy hair. His stomach flipped.
Emerson took his hand back. Stood straight.
“Want to join us for some quesadillas?”
They didn’t always meet for lunch; a lot of times when Jansel and Luca walked into the kitchen for a break Emerson was nowhere to be seen. Luca usually made himself a sandwich or a bagel, heated up a frozen burrito.
Luca blinked a few times. “Sure.”
“Take your time waking up,” Emerson said, the smilehitching a little farther up his cheek. “We’ll see you in the kitchen.”
Surrounded by Daisy’s pillows and stuffed animals, Luca didn’t move, watching Emerson’s ass as he walked away.
Luca rolledhis head in a circle, stretching out his neck.
He’d stayed out in the fields longer than usual, past when Jansel had already gone home, to make up for the time he’d missed while watching Daisy. Jansel had told him he didn’t need to, that they never finished weeding all the beds on Wednesdays, that it was literally impossible. Still, Luca had some extra energy from his nap. He wanted to at least get done what he could.
And while he was out there, alone for a while—well. More words had come to him.
He’d hurried downstairs to his room and his journals as soon as he’d come inside, forgoing dinner or a shower, lest the words disappear before he could scrawl them out.
But he’d gotten the gist of his new idea out now, and his stomach was growling, his neck cramping. He was definitelyover writing in this bed.
It was mostly quiet when he walked up the stairs, laptop tucked under an arm. Daisy must already be asleep. He dropped his laptop at the kitchen table, grabbed himself a glass of water. A low murmur of sound emanated from somewhere.
It took Luca less than a second to realize what it was.
He popped his head around the doorframe into the living room. Emerson sat on the couch, the same side where he’d sat that night last week, when Luca had propositioned him. He was clearly occupied with something in his lap, but Luca could only see his strong neck, the back of his head.
And just beyond him, on the TV—a Giants game.
“Whatchya doin’?”
Emerson barely glanced behind him. Only sighed, holding up Moomoo.
“You know. Just stuffy surgery.”
As if pulled into the room by an invisible string, Luca found himself flopping onto the other end of the couch, laptop and anything else promptly forgotten. He stretched out his legs just enough so his toes brushed Emerson’s thigh.
