Chapter 11 #2
“Nah.” Luca smiled back. “I saw the look on your face when you described the first one.”
Emerson’s gaze dropped back to his screen, but the grin on his face remained.
“Yeah,” he conceded. “I do love that one.”
Reluctantly, Luca shoved off the counter and finally picked up his computer.
He contemplated walking around the island and sitting on the stool next to Emerson’s.
They’d just had, by all accounts, a real conversation.
Probably the first one since Luca had moved onto the farm. Maybe they were friends now.
But then he glanced at the bags under Emerson’s eyes and kept walking until he reached the kitchen table. Emerson had made it clear over the last week that he was a man who kept to himself, too. He’d probably appreciate a bit of space.
Still. Luca positioned himself on the side of the table against the wall, underneath Emerson’s whiteboards and across from the island, so he could sneak peeks at him when he wanted. Luca might not understand how to craft true human connection, but he wasn’t a complete masochist.
He navigated to his regular email, the one only full of junk mail, Meta trying to get him to log on to Facebook more.
It was a waste of time, maintaining this inbox at all, but at least it was neutral.
At least none of these emails told him what a talentless piece of shit he was. It was always a nice warm-up, of sorts.
He’d just clicked on his user icon to switch accounts when Emerson spoke again.
“What are your spreadsheets about?”
Luca glanced up. Emerson was looking at him, gaze steady.
Luca was already preparing to brush it off, shoulders lifting in an automatic shrug. But something stopped him, yanked whatever words he’d been about to say back inside his throat.
Emerson had told him about his spreadsheets, right?
And moving onto the farm was supposed to be Luca’s fresh start. His opportunity to try something different.
He was still determined that the fresh start would involve leaving all of this bullshit behind. But maybe trying something different could include this. Actually talking out loud about what was always in his head.
“I, uh. I was trying to sell a book.”
Emerson’s eyebrows shot up.
“Like, a book that you wrote?”
“Yeah. Well, I was writing it, for a long time. When I finished it the first time, I tried getting an agent for it. You need an agent to sell a book to a traditional publisher, and you have to reach out to kind of a lot of people, keep track of a lot of things. That’s when the spreadsheets started. ”
Emerson nodded, his gaze still steady and interested. Even though Luca already felt like a tool. Maybe he shouldn’t have attempted talking about this out loud after all.
“What kind of a book?”
Luca looked away, out the sliding glass door toward the barn. The sky was gray, full of heavy clouds, as it often was on the Oregon Coast, even in August. He ran a hand over his head, the short hair that was starting to grow back in prickling his fingers.
“A fantasy novel.” He rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s always trying to sell their fantasy novel.”
A low, amused sound rumbled from Emerson, drawing Luca’s eyes back.
“I’m not,” he said simply. “Trust me, Luca. I would never even contemplate doing such a thing.”
“Well.” Luca shrugged, looking down at his screen. “You must be more mentally well than I am.”
Emerson actually laughed then, a resonant, hearty sound that Luca had never heard before. It settled in Luca’s chest, warm, joyful, almost enough to make him comfortable talking about any of this.
Almost.
“You said you were writing it? That you reached out to agents when you finished it the first time?”
“Yeah.” Luca cleared his throat, opening up folders in a new tab.
“I’ve kind of…taken it apart and rewritten it a bunch of times.
I’m trying to…” Move the fuck on with my life.
Stop being mentally tortured by a world that’s not even real.
“Start something new, now.” Like being a farmer.
Once I can actually put these spreadsheets to rest, forever.
“That’s amazing, Luca.”
Luca stared at his screen, trying to figure out what to say. If there was anything to say. Emerson’s words had sounded genuine, almost awe-filled. Yet—
“It makes me kind of miserable,” Luca eventually said.
And was rewarded with another soft, amused sound, rumbled up from Emerson’s chest.
“Relatable, Luca,” he said, looking back at his own screen. Another thrill ghosted down Luca’s spine at Emerson saying his name once more. “Relatable.”
They settled into a silence then. Emerson studying his laptop, Luca studying his.
Emerson didn’t ask any of the questions Luca had been dreading. So I assume you never got that agent, then? What’s the book about?
Luca sank into the quiet with relief.
Except it wasn’t fully quiet; life never was.
Even with the absence of Daisy’s noises now that she was in Portland for the week, the sounds of the house slowly filtered in, settled in Luca’s body.
The soft rushing whir of the dishwasher, almost like a small imitation of the ocean, a sound that had practically raised him.
The wind outside picking up, whipping around the house and the land around it.
The quiet clicking of Emerson’s typing, the occasional clink of his coffee cup hitting the counter.
The even quieter tick of the clock, an old, retro-looking one above the sink with a red rim, decorated with chickens and eggs, that didn’t fully seem to match Emerson’s style, somehow, but that made Luca smile nonetheless.
It didn’t take Luca long to go through his writing inbox.
It was empty, aside from the spam and the newsletters of other writers he admired, full of their successes and advice.
No word about any of his own queries, which he had expected.
He frowned, mouse hovering over the newsletter of a guy he’d followed for years.
These emails had felt like a lifeline, sometimes.
Luca had never studied writing professionally, but the information authors handed out on their own felt like Luca’s education.
They’d helped hone his skills, taught him about world building and plot structures, what querying an agent even was.
Had given him a road map that others had followed and won.
Even if it had always been tinged with a feeling of personal fantasy, imagining life as an author from the cramped, musty quarters of a fishing boat, from his one-room cabin in a coastal town no one had ever heard of, almost as far across the country from the publishing capital of New York City as physically possible.
It was still a comforting fantasy, though, some weeks. Checking his email and checking in on his parasocial relationships.
But when was the last time he’d actually felt comfort from them? When reading querying advice didn’t only fill his gut with doom?
He clicked on the newsletter. Scrolled down to the Unsubscribe button. And after a few more clicks, closed out the inbox he’d eventually delete entirely, when he was strong enough.
A particularly forceful gust of wind blew past the sliding glass door. Luca glanced up and watched the trees up the dirt road sway. And then he looked at his spreadsheet, deciding which queries he could decide this week he was officially never hearing back from.
His phone vibrated against his thigh. Gratefully, he fished it out of his pocket.
His mom’s first text was a laughing-crying face. Which Leah Yaeger responded to almost every message with.
Have some stuff at the house you can use drop by later and I’ll show you love you
His last text to her, sent last night, sat above the laughing emoji.
Hey Mom, do you have any advice about the best way to fill in gaps in the walls of a wooden barn?
He was typing a response when Emerson’s stool scraped abruptly against the floor.
The moment stayed frozen for a long second: Emerson, standing dead still, staring out the glass of the sliding door. Luca, fingers paused against his phone, staring at Emerson.
The sound of sudden, heavy rain drops lashing furiously against the house and filling the silence.
And then a smile cracked open on Emerson’s lips, crawling up his cheeks, lighting up his eyes. He strode across the kitchen in long, steady strides, exiting through the glass door without a word.
Luca, without thought, followed.
After making sure the sliding door was latched behind him, Luca turned into the wind, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Within two steps, he was soaked. Man. He really wished he’d put on a sweatshirt or something before running into a downpour.
Emerson, twenty paces ahead of him, seemed to have no such qualms. He strode toward the fields, arms swaying confidently at his sides.
“Hey!” Tucking his chin toward his chest, Luca jogged across the road to catch up. “Everything okay?”
Emerson turned his head without slowing. Threw a smile at Luca over his shoulder. Luca was so disarmed—it was so easy, so happy, so sexy, that smile—that he almost slipped on the swiftly softening ground.
“Everything’s great,” Emerson said. Finally, they were shoulder to shoulder. He was staring straight ahead again, that smile still on his face, when he continued. “It’s raining.”
“Yeah.” Luca squinted around them, hands still stuffed in his pockets, shoulders up by his ears in an attempt to hold in his shivers. Yesterday it had been almost ninety degrees. Fucking Oregon Coast. “I can see that.”
“Late summer’s hard,” Emerson started to explain, his legs finally slowing.
They walked through one of the veggie beds, Emerson glancing from left to right, surveying.
He had to shout for Luca to hear him. “The coast isn’t as bad as the rest of the state.
We usually get more moisture over the summer than other places.
But everything’s coming to a harvest at the same time that the land’s the driest, you know? ”