Chapter 8 #3
Emerson lifted his ball cap, scratched his head again. Still half turned away, not making eye contact.
“Yeah. If you really don’t mind.”
“I don’t.” And even though he could hear Daisy’s cries, knew Emerson had to go, he kept talking.
“You know, I have to say I’ve been disappointed so far.
” Emerson turned his head at that. Made direct eye contact.
Held it. Luca savored the victory, like one of Leah Yaeger’s chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven, melting in his mouth.
“You promised me a falling apart farm, but all I’ve witnessed since I’ve been here is complete competence.”
“Jansel’s a competent man.”
“He is.” Luca’s heart pounded with each second Emerson didn’t look away. “But that’s not what I meant.”
“You’re sleeping in my seed storage,” Emerson said after a beat. He hadn’t moved a muscle, but a shade of uncertainty entered his voice. Barely noticeable. But in the quiet of the barely risen sun, Luca heard it. “You don’t know the half of it.”
It was possible that Luca, in the spare stretches of time he’d had in that room this week, had taken a few moments to examine that seed library. Something about studying the different drawers—all the different tiny shapes within them so organized—made his chest warm.
At least, he liked looking at them when he thought about them as Emerson’s.
But it hadn’t taken a lot of deductive reasoning to figure out that the neat, up-and-down handwriting on each of the labels didn’t belong to the same fast scrawl that Emerson used on his planning whiteboards in the kitchen.
The handwriting on the seed library must have been Jayden’s.
And when Luca lay in the half-dark and stared at it, those straight letters staring back at him from the side of the room, he felt like more of a ghost than ever.
“Then show me,” he said now. “Let me help.”
Use me.
The cries from Emerson’s pocket grew louder. Emerson turned away.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, and was gone.
Luca breathed out. And then he walked to the back of the van and unloaded the boxes in his arms. He shook out his muscles.
And he got another tray, and another. He tried to think about cleaning out the cabin, and the laundry he should do while he was there, and the groceries he should probably pick up, and having coffee with his mom.
But all his head could conjure up instead was how much he wanted to stick his hands in the pockets of Emerson’s jeans.
How he wanted to flip off that baseball hat, scratch his scalp for him while his mouth attacked that tense neck.
Or maybe he’d let Emerson keep the hat on.
Let him hide underneath it if it helped him feel safe while Luca unbuttoned that flannel, ran his hands underneath that t-shirt—
“Sorry.” Emerson’s voice came from behind him while Luca was loading another box into the back of the van. He almost fumbled it onto the floor. “Thank you, again. I’m not used to having help on Saturday mornings, but it’s really—”
Luca turned. Emerson backed up a step, hands in his back pockets.
“It’s really helpful,” he finished. “Would you want to join us for breakfast? I’m about to scramble up some eggs for Daisy before we head to Portland. She says Moomoo wants you to eat with us.”
Now Luca was the one avoiding eye contact and scratching his head.
“That’s kind of her, and of you, but I have some errands to get done this morning. I’ll go in and say bye to her, though.”
“She’d appreciate that. She—she really likes you.”
Luca shrugged. “She’s easy to like back.”
Emerson didn’t move, hands still stuck in his pockets.
Luca didn’t either, sensing there was something else Emerson wanted to say.
The unease that had entered his frame before he’d gone to check on Daisy had only doubled.
Luca could practically feel it, condensing inside Emerson’s bones.
Even though being around his daughter was normally the one thing that helped his joints relax.
“Would you want to—” Emerson finally started, another frown starting to divot his chin.
“Later, after I’m back—tonight, after—” He sighed, shaking his head at himself.
Luca wanted to jump on him and tackle him to the ground.
Tickle his sides, just underneath his ribs, until the laughter forced his words out.
“Ben, who’s getting married here next month.
He’s going to be in town with his maid of honor.
They want to get drinks and then see the farm.
I’m—” His hands finally extricated themselves from his back pockets.
He tugged at an ear and looked away, toward the old unused barn in the distance, where Luca remembered him saying the reception was to be held.
“I’m nervous I’m going to disappoint them, that I still don’t have anything ready for the wedding.
I was wondering if—if you wanted to come.
So they can at least see that I have help.
But I’m sure you already have plans, so it’s not—you can forget I asked, maybe. ”
Luca couldn’t help himself. He took a step closer.
A step close enough to be inappropriate, maybe, for an employer and an employee.
But Emerson didn’t move away. Didn’t look at him, but didn’t move away.
Luca could tell he felt his presence, though, from a twitch in Emerson’s left hand, a clenching of his jaw.
“I don’t have any plans,” Luca said, voice probably too low. “So I won’t forget, actually. I’d love to go.”
Finally, Emerson turned his head.
“Yeah?” The eye contact, this close, was like a flash of electricity, blue and sizzling inside Luca’s veins.
“Yeah. Just tell me where and when to show up.”
“All right. I’m not sure—” Emerson swallowed, and Luca could almost feel it in his own throat. “I can’t remember where Ben said. I’ll text you.”
Luca smiled. Tilted his head back toward the van.
“I’ll finish up here. Go make Daisy and Moomoo their eggs.”
Emerson’s lips parted, his eyes suddenly unguarded and vulnerable, as if he wanted to say something else, do something else.
But then he clamped his mouth back together, eyes shuttered, and gave a short, quick nod before he walked inside.
When Luca turned back to the van, he knew the smile that still tugged at his own lips was foolish.
He knew the excitement that bubbled in his gut—an excitement he hadn’t quite felt since the anticipation of a meet-up with Dell McCleary—was misguided.
It wasn’t like he had a date. If anything, Emerson had just asked him to work on a Saturday night, after professing how much he wanted Luca to take time off.
He didn’t need Luca’s company for drinks; he needed a buffer between him and his client, so his client wouldn’t know how much he was freaking out about the wedding.
Maybe being used as a buffer was another version of being a ghost.
But the idea of being in another dark room outside of this farm with Emerson King again—that didn’t make Luca feel ethereal and half here at all. By the time Luca loaded the last CSA box into the van, he felt rock solid: a man with things to do, a cold beer waiting for him at the end of the day.