Chapter 22 #2
“This might seem complicated to you right now. But if this love holds, if this thing sticks? I think, in the end, that little girl having three people to love her, to care for her, is going to end up being a bigger blessing to all of you than you can even picture right now. Okay? You wake up grateful. And you look out for the blessings.”
Luca’s throat was so thick he could barely breathe.
“Okay, Mom,” he managed to get out, rubbing a fist over his eyes.
“Okay.” She patted his cheek and maneuvered herself off the bed. “Now, it’s family dinner tonight. Go talk to your farmer and then invite him. It’s about time he starts coming ‘round. And Jacob’s bringing Bailey Hulegaard too, so the attention won’t all be on you.”
She was almost to his door when she turned back.
“Also, for goodness sake, take a shower before you go. You smell like you spent the night in a barn.”
Emerson had barely started cleanup when his stomach rumbled.
With a sigh, he tied the single trash bag he’d filled in the old barn and started lugging it down the hill.
Even though he’d let himself sleep in more than he ever did, this day had still dragged.
He’d sent Luca a text a couple hours ago, asking if he was okay, but hadn’t yet received a reply.
He’d tried to busy himself taking extra time with the animals this morning, cleaning the chicken coops and Sally’s stall extra thoroughly, but his head still refused to clear, his mood refusing to lighten.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t text Leah to ask if she knew where Luca was until after lunch. So at least he was an inch closer to that needy milestone.
When he rounded the house, it took him a few seconds to register it.
When his brain fully processed that Luca’s beat-up black car was actually there, he recklessly threw the trash bag in the vicinity of the bin before running into the house.
“Luca?”
No answer.
Emerson paced around the upstairs, peeking his head into every room, until he jogged downstairs to Luca’s room once more. No Luca there, either.
With a frown and an erratic heartbeat, Emerson flung himself outdoors again.
He marched to the barn first, but Luca wasn’t hanging out with Sally or the chickens or the goats.
He was about to head up to the wildflower field—maybe Emerson had just missed him before, on his way back from the old barn?
—when a distant clanging echoed faintly across the fields.
Emerson frowned deeper, practically sprinting toward and then through the crop beds. Could it be—why would he—
There was definitely someone stomping around Emerson’s broken greenhouses.
It was easy to find him once Emerson got close enough, with all the noise Luca was making. Emerson paused at the open door of the third greenhouse, catching his breath. He watched Luca shove old pots with the side of his foot, stack discarded trays with a scowl, squint at the busted windows.
Finally, Emerson couldn’t take it anymore.
“Luca? What are you doing here?”
Luca jumped. Shoulders hunching toward his ears, he turned and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Emerson said back, fighting a smile. He was still confused, still hurt about Luca’s disappearance, but—it was hard not to smile anyway, seeing Luca’s face again.
Luca cleared his throat.
“You, um. Told me you needed to fix your greenhouses. To extend your growing season.”
Emerson nodded slowly. He was sure he had said that, at various points.
“Right. But why are you here…now?”
“I’ve never actually looked at them before. I wanted to see…if there was anything I could do.”
What? Emerson thought. But then he changed gears, took a cautious step forward.
“Fixing the glass would be expensive,” Emerson said instead.
The old school structures, sturdy but long abandoned, had already been here when they’d purchased the property.
Most folks didn’t use glass anymore. “But you can achieve basically the same functionality through investing in heavy duty clear tarps. That was what I was going to try to do, soon, if I could. But we have to take care of all the broken glass first. Which will be tricky.”
Luca’s shoulders creeped closer to his ears with every step Emerson took. Emerson paused when he was a few feet away.
“Luca?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
Luca was staring in the other direction. Emerson had hoped talking about the dumb greenhouses would help break the ice, soothe Luca’s clearly chaotic energy, but he still hadn’t made eye contact. Emerson watched him swallow.
“It’s not your fault, Emerson,” Luca said, swinging his head back around but not yet looking Emerson in the eye. “It’s not your fault that you and Jayden got divorced.”
Emerson frowned, trying to take in the sudden change in topic.
“I don’t—I think you’re trying to be nice to me, and I appreciate it, Luca, but it is my fault. I’ve accepted that, though. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not—” Luca attempted to scrunch his hands in his hair. It was getting long enough that he could almost do that. Emerson could see the curl in it now, closer to how it had appeared in that dating app profile picture. It was driving Emerson wild.
“It’s not your fault. He made the choice to move here with you, he was all in.
He made the choice to then leave. But I’m not saying—it’s not his fault either, okay?
Sometimes you love people, and I know how much you and Jayden clearly fucking love each other, but it just doesn’t work out.
Like you said, he needed to be back in Portland and Emerson, you cannot leave this farm.
And that’s not your fault. It’s not your fault that you were born to be a farmer.
It’s not your fault that your parents fucking abused you. It’s not your fault that—fuck.”
Luca kicked at an old, cobwebbed watering can, like a child having a tantrum, and it made Emerson jump.
He’d never seen Luca this worked up. It scared him a little, like any display of anger still scared him, still brought him back to his childhood home, even if he could view that fear with a more clinical point of view now.
Luca must have seen Emerson flinch, though, because he stilled, breathing out, hands in his hair again.
“Fuck. Fuck, I’m sorry Emerson. But it’s not—not your fault that industrialized farming has made us all conditioned to cheap food prices and you’re likely not getting the profit you deserve!
But you’re not going to lose this place, okay?
You can’t leave here, no matter what. You can’t. I won’t allow it.”
Emerson stared. He didn’t—he didn’t know what was happening.
“Luca,” Emerson said, shaking his head. Ever since he’d walked into this greenhouse, he’d been trying to go along with Luca’s mood, but Emerson needed to back up now.
Get his bearings. “Why did you leave last night? I was looking forward, all day, to decompressing with you when it was all over. And not—” He winced.
“I don’t just mean sex. We could’ve collapsed into bed fully clothed and fallen asleep like that.
I spent a significant amount of time, in fact, throughout the day, fantasizing about doing just that. I only…wanted to be with you.”
Luca hung his head. Something seemed to drop off his shoulders, the veneer of his anger and frustration, until he only seemed tired.
“I just—I needed some space.”
Emerson took a deep breath.
Too many things had gone unsaid for too long between Emerson and Jayden over the years. Emerson always too afraid to push, to hear the real answers. Until Jayden reached his limits, and spoke the truth for both of them.
Emerson knew, at once and with certainty, that he didn’t want to play that game anymore. He didn’t want it to be that way with Luca. Something clicked awake in his brain, a coin flipping through the air, shiny and crisp. A new chance.
He still didn’t know where Luca had been for the last twelve hours, what had driven him to come back and stomp around these greenhouses. But Emerson didn’t want to lie with Luca anymore, about anything.
Because hadn’t they been doing that for a long time?
Luca propositioning him on the couch that night, acting like sleeping together was simply some altruistic method of helping Emerson relax.
And god, it had certainly worked. He had still worked his ass off to make the wedding as successful as it had been.
The financial realities of Short King Farms still existed.
Emerson still didn’t know what the future held.
But there was that peacefulness in his bones that hadn’t been there before. That feeling that had only grown stronger with each passing day. That made everything feel easier, made hope easier to reach toward.
Maybe the sex had helped fuel it. But either way, Luca and Emerson had been sleeping together from the beginning because they were two people who wanted to sleep together. Not just because they were attracted to each other. But because they cared about each other.
Somehow, Emerson was pretty sure they had cared about each other since the day they’d met. In a world full of cruelty, such a chance meeting with such a thoroughly good human being felt increasingly like a miracle.
Emerson didn’t think they were lying anymore—that they hadn’t been for a while—but he should make sure.
He should make sure about everything.
“Why did you need space?” he pressed.
Luca remained silent. Until, hugging his elbows protectively against himself, he laughed a little, shaking his head.
“I saw you and Jayden dancing,” he said. “And it made me…I don’t know. Jealous.” He sniffed, craning his neck even farther away from Emerson. “Childish. I know.”
Oh.