Chapter 16 #3
Another almost affectionate laugh.
“She was so small and helpless for so long, you know? After she was born. I wasn’t prepared for…the violence.”
“Yeah. She was pretty fucking angry today. Did anything happen to bring it on? Like did she not sleep well or something?”
Emerson shook his head.
“Sometimes there are reasons, like she’s tired or hungry or overwhelmed. Sometimes there aren’t. She makes me think a lot about how my own brain works, sometimes. How it doesn’t always make sense. She just…expresses it out loud.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway, we taught her to get out her anger on inanimate objects instead. Like Moomoo, instead of us.”
“Good call.”
“Yeah. She did good today.” Emerson paused the steady movements of fingers and string to pick up the stuffy and look him in the eyes. “Sorry, old pal.”
For several minutes, even after Emerson had resumed his sewing, Luca couldn’t say anything at all.
Eventually, he managed to ask, “How did it go today, with your guy and the old barn?”
Emerson sighed. For the first time since Luca had lain down, the atmosphere around Emerson turned heavy. Luca straightened out his knees a bit more. Stuffed his toes under Emerson’s bum. It made Emerson crack a small smile, even if he still only looked at Moomoo.
“Okay. Good, really. He can reinforce the main beams, says it should keep the structure sound for a good few years. Said while almost all the wood is obviously weathered, only a small amount appeared to be fully rotted. He’ll replace the boards that are easy to replace.”
“And he’ll be able to do all that before the wedding?”
Luca knew they were starting to cut it close. Like, less-than-two-weeks-away close. Today was September first. When Luca had woken up this morning and seen the date change on his phone, his own stomach had tumbled in anxiety.
Emerson nodded. “Yeah. He’ll be back next week.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah.” Emerson completed a few more stitches, his brow more furrowed, as if he was contemplating saying more.
After another few minutes, he did.
“He’s done work for us before, so I know he’ll do a good job. But he charges what he’s worth, too. Gonna have to max out the last of my credit cards to get it done.”
A self-deprecating huff that wasn’t quite a laugh, even if his mouth was curved in the shape of a supposed smile.
“I don’t know—” Emerson stopped himself, shook his head. Picked up his sewing again. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Shit.
Luca searched his brain for something to say. Some way to help.
“You’re getting money from Ben and Alexei, right? For the wedding?”
“Yeah, but.” A small sigh. “Not much. One, because they’re my friends, and two, because they’re really just renting the space.
They’re bringing all the other amenities—chairs, food, DJ, all of it.
I honestly felt weird about the amount I did ask for, but Jay insisted it was the minimum I should charge.
I’ve been fooling myself, though, thinking it would help save me somehow.
Even with Ben and Lex’s money, on top of everything else…
it’ll help me last another month, maybe, in the end. I don’t know.”
Luca had been slowly wiggling his toes under Emerson’s ass, but now he stilled.
“Are you…do you really think you’ll lose this place?”
Another sigh, heavier this time.
“I don’t know. I’m bringing in more money than I did my first few years but the costs are eating up any profit faster and faster, and it’s all harder to make work without Jayden.
My spreadsheets are—fuck, it’s embarrassing to say out loud.
I’ve been relying on credit cards for years but now that those are maxed out and my credit’s obliterated, I can’t get any more or qualify for a loan, so—nothing adds up.
I haven’t been able to afford this place since I bought it, but now I can’t hide from the truth anymore. ”
Luca’s heart thumped against his chest.
He knew Emerson had talked about the farm being in trouble since the literal minute they’d met, but—somehow, it hadn’t seemed real to Luca until now.
“There has to be something we can work out.”
His panic wasn’t just for Emerson, but for himself.
Luca cared about this place now. He was just starting to really understand it, the rhythms of it, how much fucking work went into every single item of food we ate.
Somehow, at the same time, he was writing more than he had in years.
Even though he’d promised himself he would stop.
Which was weird, and he didn’t quite know what to do with it; he was trying not to think too hard about it.
But he felt—god, he felt good here. Like his dream of a fresh start was actually fucking happening.
If he had to slink back to the boats, he didn’t—he wasn’t sure if he’d recover.
“I’ll probably have to get rid of Jansel,” Emerson said so quietly that Luca wasn’t sure if he was even talking to Luca anymore, or just to himself.
“And Sally. And those fucking goats. But Daisy would never forgive me for Sally, and I’d never forgive myself for Jansel.
Except the only way my business plan actually works is if I increase production to the level it needs to be, and that requires more labor, so it doesn’t—” Emerson shook his head again, both the movement and his words still quiet but angry now, restrained but agitated. “None of it fucking works.”
His fingers, previously cradling Moomoo’s neck, turned to fists, twisting the fabric in an only slightly more controlled way than his daughter had done earlier.
Luca was already sitting up, giving up the fight against holding himself back from moving closer, so he saw Emerson’s wince up close, the slight hiss of in-taken breath.
“Hey,” Luca said. “Hey.”
Emerson held up a finger. A small pinprick of blood bloomed from the center of the pad where he’d stabbed himself.
“Well,” he said, laughing a little. “Probably deserved that.”
Before he could think too hard about it, Luca grabbed the finger and stuck it inside his own mouth. Held his tongue firm against the wound.
Emerson and Luca’s eyes met. Emerson’s turned dark, but they also steadied, the stress lines of his face evening out. His mouth, those lips, suddenly soft again.
“You’ve helped, Luca,” he said after a moment, voice soft still, but in a way that made Luca ache. “You being here has helped so much.”
Luca had a hard time fully believing it.
He just did what Jansel told him to in the fields, made occasional trips into town for deliveries for Emerson.
But each day went by surprisingly fast; there was always so much more to do.
Luca was proud of what he did each day on the farm; he was happy here.
But he still felt like a very small cog in a big wheel.
How Emerson was looking at him, though. How Luca was sure he was looking back. That he understood.
He wanted to do more than hold Emerson’s finger in his mouth.
He wanted to lean forward and make every single worry in Emerson’s head disappear.
With his hands, his mouth, his body, however he could, for as long as he could.
As he’d promised to do, in this same exact spot, over a week ago.
A week that felt like forever. He wanted to fulfill that promise in a way he’d never felt before, wanted to dedicate his body to it like it was a professional sport and Luca was the most valuable player, until all of Emerson’s senses were blown apart and he could only understand pleasure.
But Daisy was in the house. Only a short distance away.
And Luca had made that promise, too.
Slowly, he slid his lips away from Emerson’s fingertip. His tongue missed the salt of Emerson’s skin, the tiny ping of copper from his injury, immediately.
Emerson released a long, quiet breath, still holding their eye contact.
“Thank you,” he said.
Unable to hold himself back entirely, Luca slowly raised a hand.
Trailed his fingers down the side of Emerson’s face.
Rubbed a thumb underneath Emerson’s eye.
He almost said, it’ll be okay. The way he had been saying that to Emerson since they’d met.
His throat practically ached to say it. But maybe it wouldn’t be.
Maybe, a few months from now, both Emerson and Luca would be entirely fucked.
And in that moment, Luca didn’t want to lie.
It was easier not to lie with only your fingertips.
Emerson’s eyes fluttered closed. He leaned into Luca’s palm.
“I’ll get you a Band-Aid,” Luca whispered, because he didn’t know how else he’d be able to keep sitting there without kissing him.
He stumbled away from the couch, made his way to the bathroom. It wasn’t his, the one downstairs next to his room he used most often, but it was easy to find the Band-Aids nonetheless. A box of regular ones sat in the cabinet above the toilet, right next to a smaller, brighter box of Bluey ones.
Luca stared at that box of Bluey Band-Aids for probably too long. Picturing how many cuts and scrapes Emerson had helped cover on Daisy’s skin. How many times he’d plucked off her glasses and cleaned them on his shirt after she’d cried.
Luca plonked his forehead against the wall a few times, and then he returned to the living room with the Band-Aid.
“Here you go.” He held it out to Emerson and then stuck his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t tired but couldn’t stay in the living room anymore. “I’m going to head downstairs. Try to get to sleep early.”
Emerson nodded.
Luca almost turned to walk away, but something still felt off, unfinished. He couldn’t kiss Emerson and he couldn’t lie to him, but other than sticking his finger in his mouth like some kind of weirdo, Luca hadn’t really responded to Emerson pouring out all his worries to him.
“Thank you,” he said, “for talking to me.”
It wasn’t enough, but hopefully it was something.
“Thank you,” Emerson said in response, “for today.”
Now it was Luca’s turn to nod. And against every instinct in his body, he left the room.