Luca retrieved his phone.
“Let me just double check—” He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Have some people checking out that morning, but it’d be clear by ten.” Open for the rest of the day. On aSaturday. “I’ll send Ben a text.”
Leah patted Luca’s cheek again.
“How is the rental business going, by the way? Had any jerks since those people the other week?”
“No, everything’s been fine.”Just fine!Luca thought, feeling halfway delirious again. Everything was totally, completely fine!
“You had jerks at your cabin?”
Emerson frowned, in that deep way that made the dimple in his chin pop.
“Just some people that left it kind of a mess.” It had been more than a mess, really—there had been scratches in both the floor and Luca’s bedframe that Luca couldn’t justsweep away. He still felt pissed when he thought about it enough. He was just usually too busy breaking his back on a farm and fucking Emerson King to think about it. “It’s fine. Come on, let’s keep going.”
With one last look at Luca, Emerson kept walking.
Leah was full of compliments before they even stepped inside the old barn.
“Look at this door!” she enthused, pushing it back and forth in a show of how easily it now swung open.
Emerson grinned. “I am pretty proud of that, gotta say.”
Things only got more exciting for Leah Yaeger once they were inside. She was impressed with how much cleaning Emerson had done, his repairs to the gaps in the walls; she hummed with understanding as Emerson explained what the Gutierrez boys were going to do this week to reinforce the beams; she was charmed by the strings of warm globe lights Emerson had strung across the ceiling, hanging down from the hay loft.
Luca hung back, arms crossed as he listened in. He was charmed, too. By all the work Emerson had done. By how easily Emerson and his mom interacted. The fact that his mom had randomly shown up at Emerson’s door at all, and the fact that Emerson seemed delighted by it.
She could be your mom, too, he thought, even if he felt insane thinking it. Because truly—what the fuck? He didn’t even know what was happening between him and Emerson, not really, not with any confidence, and yet here his brain was, still thinking things like?—
She would love you, too. Like you’ve always deserved to be loved.
He listened to Emerson and Leah discuss plans for the wedding, and for the first time, through the haze of his delusional thoughts, Luca could actually picture it. Golden light in the wildflower fields. Laughter andmusic filling up this old barn nestled in the trees. Everyone would be so happy, Ben and Alexei so in love.
And then?—
And then what?
Luca’s heart beat so loudly, his brain feeling thick and heavy, dragging on his neck like a drunk bobblehead, that he barely heard anything else Leah and Emerson said the entire walk back down the hill. Emerson’s hands rested casually in his pockets, Leah’s gait slow but steady while the sun shone happily on their shoulders. Like they’d known each other forever. Like they’d all always been right here.
nineteen
On the daybefore Alexei Lebedev and Ben Caravalho’s celebration of love took over Short King Farms, Daisy made a request.
“Da-dee,” she said over her scrambled eggs at breakfast, “I want to go to the BEACH.”
Emerson’s fork paused mid-air.
Sometimes, Emerson forgot he lived a ten minute drive from the ocean. He likely would have forgotten altogether, if he didn’t have a Daisy to remind him.
She always asked in this same way, always pronounced the wordbeachwith both extra emphasis and declarative authority: not an exclamation point, but all caps. The requests always came randomly, on the whims of a four-year-old, but Emerson was taken especially off guard this morning. Not just because of the timing with the wedding festivities, but because it had been so long since she’d asked. She normally demanded BEACH much more frequently, especially during the summer.
Emerson turned his gaze to Luca, who sat across from him, next to Daisy, in his regular spot. He seemed to bekeeping his expression purposefully neutral, looking back at Emerson with only the slightest raise of an eyebrow.
Maybe Daisy, like Emerson, hadn’t needed the ocean as much lately because she’d been so preoccupied, this last month, with having a new friend.
“Daisy,” Emerson said carefully, “You know we have a big event coming up this weekend.”
“I knowww,” Daisy said dramatically, rolling her eyes and her head all around her neck for extra effect. “That’s why we shouldgo. Fun”—she stretched her arms flat across the table, leaning forward so her chest fell into her scrambled eggs—“beforework.”
