Chapter 26
twenty-six
A week later, on a sleepy Sunday morning after breakfast, Emerson and Luca sat down with Daisy.
It was surprisingly easy, telling Daisy they were together.
Well, Emerson was the one who really led the conversation, even though Luca was the one who had requested the conversation be had, a few days prior.
But Luca nodded a lot, and made a lot of eye contact with Daisy, and when Emerson held his hand Luca held it back with what he hoped was calm confidence and assurance.
And then Daisy looked straight at Luca and asked, “So are you my da-dee too? I have three da-dees now?”
“Well,” Emerson said smoothly, “I think it depends on what Luca feels comfortable being called.”
Luca kind of wanted to turn to Emerson and say, Oh my god what? But he only continued looking back at Daisy instead, hoping his panic wasn’t showing on his face.
Because sure, he loved everyone in this room, which was why he’d asked Emerson if they could tell Daisy, but also—he and Emerson had only officially been dating for a week.
He hadn’t told Emerson he loved him yet, because he still felt kind of insane and scared all the time, and what happened when Emerson one day said, your book has many strengths but I just didn’t feel that spark.
Or, having sex with you has been great but I’ve realized only Jayden still has my heart.
Or, you know, some variation along either of those lines.
Also, Luca hadn’t seriously contemplated fatherhood since he was a kid, since he and every child alive had absorbed the societal expectation of the timeline. Youth → adulthood → work → marriage and babies → death.
But ever since he’d turned into the kind of gay adult who’d barely even tried to catch a committed relationship before, considering he was the kind of adult who couldn’t even afford his own health insurance anymore, the idea of that kind of responsibility had never fully returned to his brain.
He belatedly realized it maybe should have returned to his brain before having this conversation, and yet.
“Uncle Luca,” he blurted, when the weight of Emerson and Daisy’s patient silence became too heavy.
Because he vaguely recalled a conversation with Daisy about uncles.
Because he had always enjoyed the idea of being a guncle.
Even if he rarely saw Enzo and Summer. Even if this wasn’t really the same thing.
Fuck. “I mean, you can just keep calling me Luca, too? But if you wanted to call me something special. Maybe Uncle Luca would work. For now.”
“Hokay!” Daisy’s face lit up, and Luca’s entire chest almost collapsed into his intestines, his relief was so immense. “Uncle Loo-kah!”
Emerson patted their attached hands with his free one, and only when Luca looked down did he realize he was squeezing Emerson’s hand so hard he was probably hurting him.
“Sorry,” he said, releasing him. Emerson shook his hand out, but he was smiling. Almost laughing, even though Luca’s heart was still pounding.
And then Emerson leaned over and kissed Luca’s cheek, and Daisy giggled.
“Da-dee, can I watch TV now?”
“Sure.”
And Daisy slid off the kitchen chair she’d been sitting in, and hopped into the living room.
Luca waited until he heard the disturbing sounds of that weird ass show she loved on Netflix before he turned to Emerson.
“Did I just tell her that I’m like your brother? And then you kissed me? I am going to fuck her up, aren’t I.”
Emerson giggled—a laugh Luca hadn’t heard before, a sound funnily similar to Daisy’s a few minutes before—and fell into Luca’s neck.
“No,” he said. “You’re perfect.” And his voice was so full of affection that Luca almost wanted to throw up. In like, a good way, maybe. Being in love was a lot.
“Okay.” Emerson leaned up to kiss Luca’s cheek again. Maybe this was a new thing, how they’d communicate in front of Daisy now. Holding hands, cheek kisses. Chaste, but open. Somehow it made Luca blush more than anything else. “I’m gonna do the dishes.”
He stood to do just that, but Luca stayed there for a while. Able to watch both Daisy in the next room, watching her terrifying shows, and Emerson at the sink, rolling up his flannel to his elbows, doing all the work he did every day to take care of them.
Telling Daisy was a big step. But now that they’d accomplished it, a pressure on Luca’s sternum pressed in harder than ever before. Now he really couldn’t fuck this up. Now he truly had to put in his weight.
He still hadn’t sent Emerson his book. He knew it’d only been a week, that Emerson wasn’t waiting impatiently by his laptop for it or anything, that he’d still care about Luca even if he never sent it.
But Luca wanted to; there was just…something holding him back every time. Something that didn’t feel right.
He’d sent him one of his planning documents instead, a few days ago.
The one that listed out all the characters Luca now knew so well that they felt like the best friends he’d ever had: Ro, Indigo, Jack.
Along with probably too many others, like all the things that contributed to his probably overly bloated manuscript, but Ro and Indigo and Jack were the ones who mattered.
“I got your email,” Emerson had said that night, walking into his bedroom when Luca was already waiting, reading a book under the covers. Luca had blushed immediately, even as Emerson’s smile had taken over his entire face.
“Sorry it’s not the whole book,” Luca had said, already flustered as Emerson crawled onto the bed on his hands and knees.
“It’s wonderful,” Emerson said. “Do you want me to pretend I never read it?”
“Kind of,” Luca admitted, and by then Emerson had been hovering over him, trapping Luca’s body with his own, mouth inches away when he whispered, “Thank you.” He’d then proceeded to show Luca exactly how grateful he was.
So. Luca was still working on that. But it was a start.
He and Dagny were working on getting online ordering set up through the Short Kings Farms website.
Dahlia had promised not to drop her video until they were ready to go.
He’d ordered shipping supplies and was taking over control of the farm’s social media.
He’d talked with his mom about people they knew who could help spread the word about hosting small events, when Luca felt things were ready for that.
In addition to all the regular farm work with Jansel he still completed every day, he knew he was doing everything he could to contribute to the farm. It felt good, feeling more like an actual partner. Pushing himself to learn new things. To not be passive anymore.
But he’d seen Emerson’s spreadsheets now.
Emerson had shared them the morning after Luca had shared his Drift character sheet, while they still lay in bed, the dawn barely broken. And maybe it shouldn’t have surprised Luca, that Emerson seemed even more neurotic about it than Luca was about his book.
“I know it’s probably not fair to ask this, but—can you promise me you won’t say anything about the finances one, when you look at it?
I know I’m behind on things, that it’s bad, but…
I cut Jansel’s hours to half time in the winter months, which I hate, but I might be able to dig my way out of some of it then. Just know I’m working on it, okay?”
And Luca’s heart had broken at the stress in his voice, on his face, but he’d only nodded his head and said, “Of course, Emerson.”
He’d waited until Emerson had been out of the house that morning, off to take care of Sally and the chickens, before he’d opened his email.
His stomach had been in knots, tangled around his esophagus, ever since.
Emerson brought in decent money from his products, but his debts were just so damn high.
Luca frankly had no idea how he managed to pay Jansel every month, how he managed to keep up with the mortgage.
But he was behind on a lot of other stuff: credit cards, mostly, but also things like the electric bill, the water bill.
Taxes. And this was after the money from the wedding, which had paid off some other things—he had been even more in the red before.
Luca’s head had hurt after only a few minutes of trying to take it all in.
The fact that he’d ever thought his querying spreadsheet could compare to what Emerson was dealing with in this one made him feel like an asshole.
He thought of all the times he’d assured Emerson that the farm was totally fine and wanted to bang his head into the wall.
He knew now that even trying new ventures like online ordering wasn’t going to magically fill the hole that Emerson found himself in. He needed serious money to pay off his debts. To fix those greenhouses, to pay Jansel, to do the real, production-moving work that Short King Farms needed.
Luca looked at Emerson washing dishes now for a long moment more before he walked into the living room and sat next to Daisy on the couch. He attempted to watch the horrible show for thirty seconds before he turned to her and said, “Daisy. What the heck is going on here.”
She giggled and fell into his side.
And then she just…stayed there, while she explained what was happening in the show—which seemed, in Luca’s brief understanding of the actions on screen, completely inaccurate—until Luca was forced to wrap an arm around her back to better accommodate her. His hand found its way to her hair.
Emerson didn’t have any deep connections here, no family. Luca needed to find a serious amount of cash before winter hit so Emerson wouldn’t lose the farm.
So Luca wouldn’t lose this.
As he sat and let the unintelligible noises the characters were making on the TV pass right through him, the idea he’d already been thinking about gained weight, dripping through the hourglass of his heart.
Maybe it wouldn’t work.
Maybe it was a bad idea.
But later that night, he sent Dell McCleary a text anyway.