Chapter 26 #2
“Come in,” Luca called when he heard the knock at the door two days later. He was getting two beers out of the fridge when, for the first time in over a year, Dell walked into his cabin.
“Hey.” Dell shoved off his shoes.
“Hey.” Luca placed the beers on the counter. “You want one?” He didn’t know if it was weird to offer, to initiate the same routine they always used to do.
“Sure,” Dell said with a grin, and Luca’s chest eased.
He cracked open the cans. Handed one to Dell, being careful not to brush fingers.
“So,” Dell said after he took his first sip. “You had a real estate question?”
“Yeah.” Luca exhaled and propped his palms on the counter.
Dell McCleary specialized in real estate. Specifically, buying up places in Greyfin Bay that needed saving. Waiting until he found the right buyer, someone who would help conserve it or keep its integrity. Someone who actually cared about the future of the town and the ecosystem that surrounded it.
Hardly anyone in Greyfin Bay truly knew Dell, with the exception of Mae and possibly Liv. But even though he wasn’t a Greyfin Bay native, he’d become somewhat of a local legend within a few years of him living here. Everyone respected what he did. Everyone was grateful for it.
“I’m thinking of selling this place.”
“Damn.” Dell put his beer down and shook his head.
Looked up at the ceiling, turned his head to look at the rest of the space for the first time since he’d walked in.
Toward the bed where he and Luca had fucked for two years.
“I was worried that might be the case when you texted, but I didn’t want to fully believe it. ”
“Yeah.” Luca crossed his arms over his chest. Now that he’d gotten over the first hurdle of surviving seeing Dell here again, the reality of the rest of it sunk in, a complicated swirl in his gut. “I know. Let’s talk a little, maybe.” He motioned toward the glass door at the end of his kitchen.
“Yeah. Let’s.”
They settled into the cheap plastic chairs on Luca’s deck, facing the Pacific.
“It’ll only really be worth it,” Luca started, “if I can make a decent chunk of change on it.”
When he’d thought about selling his cabin before, when his reservations had started decreasing, when he’d first started to freak out about the farm in a serious way.
Maybe it was because he’d never actually contemplated selling; maybe it was because he didn’t know anything about real estate.
Maybe it was because he had just never been that smart.
But all Luca had been able to think about at the time was the loss of rental income.
He hadn’t contemplated that he could maybe make a significant amount of money from the sale until he’d shown the cabin to Emerson a week and a half ago and had explained—had remembered—how he’d lucked into it, how he’d probably gotten it at a steal.
“How much did you buy it for?” Dell asked.
Luca told him. Dell made a small hum.
A hum didn’t really tell Luca anything. Maybe he hadn’t gotten it at a steal. Maybe he still wasn’t that smart.
“I heard you’d been renting it out,” Dell said next. “You’re living at Short King Farms?”
“Yeah.” Luca shifted on his chair, ran a sweaty palm down his jeans. “Most of the renters have been good. A few have fucked up some shit, some scratches in the floor, things like that. Hopefully that doesn’t affect things too much.”
“No, cosmetic stuff isn’t a huge deal in inspections. What’s the plan then? Move onto the farm full time?”
“Yeah.” Luca cleared his throat. It was easier talking like this, both of them able to stare at the dunes and the waves. “I sort of fell in love with a farmer, so.”
Dell huffed a breath. Yet another noise Luca couldn’t interpret.
And maybe Luca shouldn’t have said that. Considering he still hadn’t said the words to Emerson. It had just…come out.
It was less scary, somehow, saying it to someone else.
“Damn,” Dell said again, and took another sip of his beer. Luca didn’t really know what else to say, other than, so do you think I can make bank on this place or not, and he didn’t want to be rude. So he waited until Dell put down his beer and said, “I mean, I’m fucking jealous. Emerson, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Lucky guy.”
Now Luca huffed, crossing his arms over his chest again.
“Well, you fell in love with a bookseller. And I’m still a little jealous about that, so.”
Dell laughed. Luca smiled.
“Fair enough,” Dell said. “I’m glad, though,” he added after a beat. “Genuinely. I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you,” Luca said. And then he cleared his throat. “The thing is, though. Turns out farming’s kind of a perilous business.”
Dell turned to him.
“You want to sell your cabin to have money for the farm,” he concluded. Luca nodded. Dell turned back to the ocean. “I get it,” he said. “It’s just such a good cabin.”
“I know.”
“You must really love him.”
“I know.” Luca hugged himself a little harder. Shook his head. “It’s fucking sick.”
Dell laughed again.
“What’s your acreage here?”
Luca told him. It wasn’t much, but he owned enough of the land surrounding the cabin that a developer couldn’t build right next to it. And the dunes and beach beyond belonged to the state.
“I’ll have my inspector come out this week,” Dell said. “But I don’t need to look around myself. I know how great this place is. But if her report looks good—” Dell tilted his head, thinking.
And then he listed a price that made Luca’s jaw drop.
A price at least double what he’d been hoping for.
“Dell. That’s—”
“It’s what it’s worth, man. Trust me. Even ten years ago, whoever sold this to you for that price was an idiot.”
Even though this was exactly what Luca had been hoping to hear—
Luca looked behind them, over his shoulder through the glass door.
“It’s one room.”
“It’s beautiful. Ocean view.”
Luca squinted at him.
“Are you just being nice to me?”
Dell smirked. Took another sip of beer.
“I wouldn’t bullshit you, Luca.” Luca still squinted at him. That wasn’t a real answer. Dell’s smirk turned into a true grin. “Mae and all their friends really love your guy’s pickles, though. Would be a shame if they couldn’t get them anymore.”
Luca huffed and shook his head. Looked back at the sea.
Whatever Dell was doing—fuck, Luca shouldn’t question it anyway.
“Speaking of Mae,” Luca said a minute later. As soon as the words hung in the air, regret squirmed in his gut. Even though—
Even though Luca knew, somewhere deep inside himself, that the reason he’d asked Dell to meet him in person wasn’t so Dell could appraise the house.
It was so Luca could ask him this.
“Yes?” Dell eventually asked, a lilt of curiosity in his voice.
Luca cleared his throat.
“When you came here however long ago, after you’d fallen for them. And you were talking about, like—I don’t know. Being open, and stuff, in your relationship.”
Dell shifted in his chair until he was facing Luca, but Luca still couldn’t look at him. His face was burning.
“Yes?” Dell said again, the curiosity in his voice turning more…curious.
“That’s not actually—that’s not really what I wanted to ask about, but I remember you saying you’d been reading things, about different relationships and stuff, and—”
Luca pressed his lips together, irritated with himself. His arms were still crossed over his chest. He needed to just ask it.
Because he was sure about this. About selling the cabin, about all of it.
Like, ninety-eight percent sure.
He just needed to talk it out with one more person. One more person who wasn’t his mom, who could be more objective about it all maybe.
“Do you think it’s possible to be in love with two people at once?”
“Of course,” Dell answered easily. And then, perhaps sensing that this casualness didn’t immediately soothe Luca’s feelings, he added, “But I don’t think I used to truly believe that, before Mae—and you, honestly—made me think about stuff more.
We’re raised to believe in a single soulmate, in two people falling in love and getting married and having a happily ever after.
But sometimes life is messier than that. ”
“Yeah.” Luca swallowed, still staring resolutely at the horizon.
This was more what he’d wanted to hear, even if it was essentially what his mom had said, too.
Even if what she’d talked about that day still felt like a different thing to Luca because Jayden was alive.
They all were, navigating this breathing, squirming, evolving thing.
“Is that…what’s happening with you and Emerson? Does he want to be open?”
Luca shook his head. “No. No. It’s just—he and his ex-husband still love each other. Like, they have both explicitly told me that. And they’re not together anymore, so it’s nothing like that; it’s just—”
“Scary?”
“Yeah.” God, that. “It’s really fucking scary.”
“Do you trust him? That he can love both you and his ex?”
“I do.” Not that Emerson had said the specific words to him yet, either, but—Luca just felt it, every time Emerson looked at him. “I really do, so I don’t—I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked you about this at all. I’m being—”
“Hey. Luca. Stop. The expectations society pushes on us go a lot deeper than we realize a lot of the time, so I get why you’re fucked up about this.
Why you need to talk about it with someone who isn’t Emerson.
And hey, remember how I said you falling in love with someone else made me jealous?
Even though we’ve barely talked in over a year?
Even though I’m still fully in love with Mae?
I wasn’t joking, Luca. You can feel messy and jealous about this. ”
Damn. Dell was being…wonderful. Maybe that’s why Luca wanted to talk to him about this. Because he knew he would be.
He probably also wanted to talk to Dell because he was queer, and with respect to his straight mom, this whole thing felt super fucking queer to him. Only queer people would still love their exes so openly. Luca hated gay people sometimes.