Chapter 9
nine
“Wait, so you sailed all the way to Alaska?”
“Sail isn’t the exact term for what we do. We run seiner boats. But when the salmon are running up there, yeah. It’s beautiful sometimes, but other times it’s…not as glamorous as it sounds. I wasn’t scaling Denali or anything, just spending a lot of time in gray mist on a boat.”
Ben’s eyes looked rapturous.
“But still.”
Luca laughed a little. Raised his beer to his lips. “Still,” he agreed good-naturedly, before taking a long sip. Emerson pretended—as he had pretended all night, as he had pretended a week ago, at a different bar—to not watch Luca’s throat as he swallowed.
“Jules.” Ben slapped his palms on the table and turned to the strawberry-blonde haired woman at his side. “Alaska. That’s it. We should obviously honeymoon in Alaska. There are way more trees there than people. Lex would be so happy.”
“Sure.” Julie picked up her phone, made a dramatic show of pretending to type. “Alaska. I’ll just add it onto the Honeymoon Possibility List. That’ll make it number…four hundred and twenty-three.”
“Okay, I know you’re making fun of me, but—can you actually add it, though? As my most favorite maid of honor?”
Julie swiped open her phone and typed without complaint.
“We can’t afford a honeymoon quite yet,” Ben turned back to Luca and Emerson to say.
Well, he was, one could charitably say, talking to Luca and Emerson.
But his eyes kept straying to Luca and Luca alone.
Emerson couldn’t blame him. One, because Luca was beautiful.
He was also the only one truly keeping up the conversation.
“There are a few reasons why,” Ben continued, cheeks coloring, as if he needed to explain that a honeymoon was expensive.
Emerson could barely afford the beer in his hand.
He never needed financial straits explained to him, ever.
“One, just affording the wedding is expensive enough—I don’t really understand how people do it?
A wedding and a honeymoon all at once, bam, just like that?
But we had been doing okay, financially, for years, but then we bought a house—at the same time we got engaged, actually, like Alexei somehow got the keys early and when I walked in for the first time after we’d finally closed on it, the bare floor was full of candles and flowers and paper fucking cranes—”
Ben paused here to blink rapidly through the tears that had gathered in his eyes. And then he said, with a wet laugh, “I’ve told you this story already, haven’t I?”
Emerson had, in fact, heard this story already, but he certainly wasn’t going to say that.
“I haven’t heard this story,” Luca said, like an angel. “And I am enchanted.”
Julie patted Ben’s hand. “Maybe one day you’ll even be able to tell it without crying.”
Ben shook his head. “No. Couldn’t be me.
But anyway.” A deep, loud sniff. “Loved the proposal, love the house, but one issue after the other keeps coming up with it, each of which costs approximately five hundred million dollars. And Lex’s job used to be even more reliable than mine, but it turns out being a federal employee these days isn’t necessarily stable.
And even if we were able to take off enough time from work for a honeymoon too, we just have not been able to decide on where to go. ”
“Ben.” Julie gripped Ben’s forearm. “Dude. Take a breath. You’ll get your honeymoon. Let’s get through the wedding first, huh?”
“Right.” Ben listened, taking a deep breath in and out. “You really are my favorite maid of honor.”
“I know. Except if Carolina hears you say that, she’ll punch you in the face, so maybe stop saying it.”
“Carolina lives three thousand miles away.”
“I know, but you never know. That girl could have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“You’re right. She’s so scary and I love her so much. Am I talking too much? I swear I’m not drunk. I don’t want you to think I’ll be a sloppy drunk at your farm during the wedding. Although—”
Ben bit his lip. Julie snorted.
“Dude. Uncle Jaco will be there. I’m not saying the Caravalhos are sloppy drunks.” Julie leaned toward Emerson and Luca. “I’m just saying they like to party. Things might get a little weird.”
“If a wedding doesn’t get a little weird,” Luca said, “what’s even the point of having one?”
Emerson was trying to stay focused on the conversation.
Which wasn’t going the way he had expected, at least not precisely.
Ben was usually such a charming, charismatic guy; this slightly nervous, slightly frantic side to him was new for Emerson.
But it made sense. Emerson had been a wreck before his wedding, too.
It was just that Emerson’s stomach sank a little lower every time Ben showed his nerves. When he fretted about the money he and Alexei were handing over to Emerson, money Emerson sorely needed, but—
For what? In an hour, maybe less, they’d drive to the farm, and both Ben and his very favorite maid of honor would see that the wildflower field and the old barn were still in shambles.
That Emerson still wasn’t sure where everyone was going to park.
That Short King Farms was in no way prepared to host the most important day of Ben and Alexei’s life.
There was that. And then there was the fact that Luca’s leg had been pressed against his for the last twenty minutes.
The first few times their knees had knocked, Emerson had taken them as flukes.
Luca was clearly a manspreader; the booth they’d snuggled up in was small.
But then, at some point, midway through his first beer, both their knees had just…
stayed there. Next to each other. Emerson wasn’t sure if it was Luca who chose not to pull away, or himself.
Maybe Luca wasn’t thinking about this at all.
Maybe it wasn’t a big thing for him to touch knees under a table.
When Julie had offered to go to the bar and get everyone another round, Emerson had said yes, he’d like another, even if he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had two beers in one night.
Tomorrow was Sunday, though, a Sunday without Daisy, and sometimes he let himself sleep in on solo Sundays. Like. In January.
But it was a good thing he’d said yes, because at some point over the course of his second beer, Luca had sidled even closer to him, so that their thighs were now aligned.
Or maybe Emerson had moved closer? That didn’t seem like a thing Emerson would do.
He had barely been able to make eye contact with the guy for a week.
He still couldn’t quite explain why he’d even invited him here tonight.
But it was dark and loud in the bar, and Ben and Julie were hunched close together too, so maybe it all looked natural.
All he knew was that Luca’s leg next to his was the warmest, most sensual thing he’d felt in at least twelve months. It felt like his whole body was slowly sinking into a fever, emanating from somewhere inside his quadriceps.
Julie’s phone lit up on the table. Her face brightened in tandem.
“Jesse?” Ben asked, a knowing grin on his face.
“Yeah. She and Elle are baking.” Julie tilted the phone Ben’s way.
Her gaze flicked across the table before she twisted her wrist to show Emerson and Luca the photo, too.
A tween-looking white girl, maybe eleven or twelve, with curly red hair and a dust-covered apron, stared determinedly down at the rolling pin she was pushing against a stretch of dough.
Luca moved even closer into Emerson’s side as he leaned forward to look at it, his right arm fully pressed into Emerson’s left. Emerson held his breath, blinking down at the photo past the shell of Luca’s ear.
“My partner and I have been fostering her for a little over a year,” Julie said. “We’re…” For the first time all night, Julie hesitated, her face suddenly young-looking and vulnerable. “We’re hoping to adopt her soon.”
“That’s wonderful,” Luca said.
“Yeah.” Julie took her phone back and stared at its screen, biting her lip. “It’s…complicated. The goal of fostering is reunification—”
“But Jesse’s best home is with you and Elle.” Now Ben squeezed Julie’s forearm. “You know it is.”
“Yeah,” she conceded, and immediately returned to biting her lip.
“And when she says they’re hoping to adopt,” Ben turned to Emerson and Luca to say, “she means it’s already in process.”
“Anything can happen, though.”
“I know.” Ben turned back toward Julie, giving her his full attention. His voice turned gentle. “I know. But it’ll go through, Jules. It will.”
Emerson’s chest tightened. The way Ben was talking to Julie, the way Julie was looking back at him—
It had been a while, he realized. Since he’d been around true love.
“Anyway, sorry.” Julie flipped her phone facedown on the table and flapped her hands a little, rolling her damp eyes.
“Didn’t mean to get weird! That’s why Elle isn’t here, though.
Jesse had a couple appointments this weekend, and traveling across state lines with her is still a whole thing.
We do already have it approved to bring her to the wedding, though, so you’ll hopefully get to meet both of them next month. ”
Julie forced a brave smile across the table. Emerson hoped he returned it—he tried to move his mouth appropriately, anyway—but Luca was still practically pressed against his torso, so Emerson wasn’t entirely sure what was happening with his face.
“Alexei will also love meeting you next month, Luca,” Ben said.
“He’s back in Portland watching our dog.
” An easy laugh rolled out of his mouth, whatever tension had arrested their booth during his and Julie’s moment over Jesse fully dissipating.
“You know, kind of the same as having to watch an entire human being.”
“Hey, taking care of a dog is still a big responsibility. Although, if we’re being real—Alexei isn’t here because I’m a selfish bitch who wanted a weekend alone with her best friend.”