Emerson froze. It was only a moment before his gloved hands kept doing what they were doing, his trimmers snipping rosemary once more, but it was enough for Luca to notice. Enough for Luca to realize he’d fucked up.
“I don’t talk to my parents,” Emerson said. And, after a long pause, “Haven’t for twenty years.”
Jesus. That was…a long time.
“I’m sorry,” Luca said when the silence stretched. It sounded feeble, awkward. He wanted to ask everything:What the fuck? Why? Do you keep tabs on them at all? Have they ever tried to reach out to you? Do they know Daisy exists? Does Daisy ever ask about them? Are you okay?
There were lots of reasons people broke contact with their parents, Luca knew. And almost all of them were shitty.
Something Emerson had said, that time Luca asked him about the photos on his bedroom walls, pierced through Luca’s mind. When Emerson had talked about that first farm he’d worked at. How it’d made him feel calm. How, growing up, his house hadn’t been.
Before Luca even realized he was doing it, his body was walking toward Emerson’s.
He leaned his hip against the kitchen island, right next to where Emerson was working.
“What did they do to you?” he asked, voice low.
Emerson finally put his trimmers down.
“Oh, you know. I only have a few physical scars.” Heshrugged, not looking at Luca. “I think they just…never actually wanted to have a child. And they took that anger out on me. And each other. But I learned as I got older to be quiet, stay out of their way, and things were better then. So my teenage years weren’t all bad. But if you’re wondering if they’ve ever tried to find me, the answer is no. I doubt they’re that sad I disappeared.”
Emerson picked up the trimmers again. Selected a new cut of rosemary.
“It was all a long time ago. Working on farms really has helped heal a lot of things. You don’t have to feel sorry for me. Well, I suppose you can feel sorry that I don’t have any family I could borrow money from. I feel sorry about that, too. We already asked Graham and Yulia for some money—me and Jayden, I mean—to help get this place off the ground, so I’m not asking them again.”Snip, snip, snip.His fingers moved so efficiently. “I am sorry for dragging you into this dying operation, but you don’t have to worry about it.”
Luca almost flinched.Bullshit, he wanted to say. Emerson King didn’t have the right to decide what Luca was or wasn’t going to worry about. No matter what happened in the next few months, Luca had worked pretty damn hard, if he said so himself, on this land. This place. He had earned the right to care about it.
But his mind was still caught on something Emerson had said several minutes ago. He pushed down whatever hurt Emerson’s last sentence had inflicted to get back to that.
“Where are the scars?” he asked.
For the first time in ten minutes, Emerson looked at him.
“You said you only had a few physical scars,” Luca said, when Emerson didn’t reply.
“Well.” Emerson returned his gaze to the bowl. “I imagine you’ve seen them all by now.” A blush crept into his face as he said it, those tell-tale splotches, and Luca almost smiled.
“Show them to me again,” he insisted.
Emerson was quiet again. Maybe Luca should have felt guilty about pushing too hard, but he didn’t. There was an almost eerily deep calm inside of him. He would stand here for as long as he had to. Every single thing he’d been worrying about for the last hour seemed insignificant, selfish. The only thing that mattered was this.
Emerson trimmed the entirety of the twig of rosemary. And then he carefully placed the shears on the counter and turned his body the slightest degree toward Luca.
“Here.” He ran a finger against a thin white line above his temple. “One on my back.” He reached an arm behind himself. “My shoulder, here. And then—” He bit his lip. The moment stretched in a way that made Luca’s stomach sink. “Here.” Emerson raised his left hand and pointed to a raised scar on the underside of his forearm. Before he could stop himself, Luca stepped forward, running a finger over the smooth skin.
“A burn?” he murmured, too afraid of its truth to speak any louder. Hehadseen this scar before, but had assumed, like all the other marks on Emerson’s body, that it was the result of being a farmer: a mishap in the fields, in the workroom, in the kitchen.
Emerson nodded.
“A lesson in kitchen safety,” he said.
“But not…self-inflicted,” Luca said, needing to clarify.
Slowly, Emerson shook his head. “No.” And then, voice turning soft, he said, “Luca. Luca, it’s okay.” And Luca realized he was shaking his head too, that he had started backing away from Emerson for some reason, even though all he wanted to do was keep running his finger over Emerson’s scars, caressing them until they disappeared.
“Sorry,” Luca mumbled, frowning at himself. His back hit the opposite counter. He wasn’t reacting right. He wasn’t surewhat the right way to react to this was, but he knew it wasn’t whatever he was doing. “Sorry.”
Through his mental fog, he watched Emerson remove his gloves and lay them over the rim of the bowl. He watched Emerson step closer, until Emerson’s hands cupped Luca’s jaw. His thumbs ran over Luca’s cheeks.
