Chapter 28
twenty-eight
October
“Hi.” Emerson blinked in surprise a second after pushing the shower curtain aside. Luca leaned against the doorframe of the now-open bathroom door, eyes raking across Emerson’s still-dripping body in approval.
“Hi,” Luca said back, a small smile in the corner of his mouth as Emerson grabbed a towel. He scrubbed it over his hair first, covering up his flushed face, before wrapping it around his waist, knowing it wasn’t enough to cover his suddenly-on-alert dick.
No matter how many times they slept together, both figuratively and literally, no matter how many times he had been naked in front of this man, it still made his heart pound to be looked at like that.
The way Luca looked at him these days made Emerson feel at least twenty years younger. Like he was still that young kid leaving Baker City for the last time, the future wide open. And terrifying, but in a hopeful kind of way.
Luckily, Emerson had already stepped onto the more solid ground of his bathroom rug when Luca said, “Let me take you to dinner.”
Emerson stopped the stomping of his feet against the rug to look up at him.
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.” Luca finally shoved off the doorframe.
He stepped closer until he was right in front of him, hands reaching out to run up Emerson’s arms. “We could go back to the brewery where we met, get an actual meal this time. Or someplace nearby, somewhere you like, or somewhere new. Whatever you want.” Luca stepped even closer, hands cupping Emerson’s neck, his t-shirt brushing against Emerson’s bare torso. “On me.”
“Like a date?” Emerson asked. Luca nodded, forehead against Emerson’s.
“Yeah.” He laid a soft kiss on Emerson’s lips. “My boyfriend deserves some of those. The farm will be okay for a couple of hours.” Luca’s lips moved toward Emerson’s neck. Emerson swayed a little, the fogged-up heat from the shower, the unexpectedness of the moment making him dizzy.
“Also, full disclosure so it doesn’t feel like I’m ambushing you, I want to talk to you about something.
It’s good.” Luca sucked Emerson’s ear into his mouth.
Mindlessly, Emerson pushed his now fully-hard dick against him, his hands grasping at Luca’s sides.
“Promise,” Luca added, before, with a groan, he walked Emerson backward until Emerson’s ass hit the sink.
“Okay,” Emerson breathed.
“Yeah?” Luca pulled back with a smile, bright and joyful. “I thought I might have to work harder to convince you.”
“No.” Emerson stared at Luca’s mouth. “You’ve made me easy.”
Luca’s grin turned smug. Sexy.
“Good.” He pressed his lips to Emerson’s again. “Do you want me to take care of this”—he pressed his pelvis into Emerson’s—“now, or after?”
Emerson moaned into Luca’s mouth, unable to decide on a coherent answer.
“Be honest.” Luca moved back to Emerson’s ear, continuing a slow rhythm with his hips. “My easy man. Don’t think too hard. Just tell me what you want.”
“Both,” Emerson said. “I want both.”
“Mm.” Another tug on Emerson’s ear with his teeth. “Good answer.”
And then slowly, leisurely, as if neither of them had a care in the world, as if they didn’t now have a date to get to, Luca made his way down Emerson’s body until he was on his knees.
Until Emerson was able to thread his fingers into Luca’s dark hair, long enough now to curl, long enough for Emerson to pull, just hard enough to make Luca moan.
Emerson still didn’t understand how Luca had never had a boyfriend before.
He was fucking good at it.
They ended up going to a different brewery, one further up the coast. It was a fancy one right on the beach, with views of a dramatic, towering cape made of golden sand.
Luca drove, holding Emerson’s hand across the gearshift the entire way.
They were seated in a booth next to a high window with views of the surf.
Emerson tried not to stress about the prices on the menu.
They’d all been working hard, this last month since the wedding.
Finishing the last of the summer and fall harvests, prepping the beds for winter, making slow progress on the greenhouses and website.
Daisy was at Jayden’s this week. Luca was right: they deserved date nights every now and then.
And he’d been looking for the right time to ask something, too.
“Hey,” he said after they’d ordered their meals. “Before you say whatever you wanted to talk about. I have something, too.”
Luca had been taking a sip of his water, but he nodded profusely as he swallowed, gesturing to Emerson to continue.
Almost like he was relieved he didn’t have to talk first. Which made Emerson suddenly nervous about whatever it was Luca wanted to talk about.
He hadn’t been nervous before, probably because Luca had been sucking on his neck when he’d first mentioned it.
Luca had been particularly quiet in the car, now that Emerson thought about it, but they were often quiet in the car.
“Of course,” Luca said when it had been too long and Emerson hadn’t kept talking. “What’s up?”
Emerson straightened his spine, trying to focus again.
“This weekend when I drive to Portland to pick up Daisy,” he started, “I was thinking you could go with me. And I was hoping…we could all go out to lunch. You, me, Daisy, and Jayden.”
Luca’s gaze remained steady on his as he nodded. If anything, he seemed to relax a little.
“Yeah,” he said, voice calm. “Of course. I’ve actually been meaning to suggest the same thing. If Jayden’s okay with the idea, too, I think that would be good.”
Huh. Emerson breathed out. “Yeah. Me too.”
Emerson had told Jayden about him and Luca weeks ago, during one of their regular Saturday switchouts.
Jayden hadn’t been surprised, even if his eyes had seemed sad.
But he wasn’t angry, which seemed the best Emerson could have hoped for.
He’d even been able to joke about it, the following week.
How in the world did you find someone first when I live in one of the gayest cities in the world, and you live on a fucking farm?
And then he’d rolled his eyes with an affectionate smile and said, Figures.
“Cool.” Luca flipped his fork upside down. Flipped it back again. “So, my turn now.”
“Your turn now,” Emerson agreed. And then he nudged Luca’s foot under the table with his own in encouragement. Luca’s mouth twitched.
“I have a few things, actually,” Luca said. “The first is that that literary agent got back to me.”
Their waiter came back with their beer, and Emerson almost snapped at him for interrupting. As soon as he’d walked away, he returned his full focus to Luca.
“And?”
“It wasn’t an offer of representation. But it was…
nice? In a way? The nicest rejection I’ve ever gotten, that’s for sure.
He gave me a lot of suggestions about my book, and it’s been making me think about a lot of things.
He said he wants to see more of my work and maybe I’m still an idiot, even after a hundred rejections, but I kind of believe him. ”
Emerson reached out and ran his fingers over Luca’s knuckles, where his hands clutched his pint glass.
“That’s amazing, Luca.”
“Thanks. Okay, so the second thing is a lot bigger.”
Emerson frowned. Bigger than his book?
Luca exhaled before retreating his hands from the glass. He reached into his pocket, brought out his phone and placed it on the table.
“I made some notes, just in case I got nervous and forgot to mention everything. But I’m going to say a lot of stuff and am politely asking you to let me get through it all before you object.”
Emerson swallowed, nervous again. Possibly more nervous than he’d ever been in his life.
He thought he and Luca had been settling into a nice routine, post wedding.
They worked together a lot more on the farm, now that Emerson wasn’t always stuck in the wildflower field or the old barn.
Emerson could see, literally every day, Daisy and Luca growing closer.
Even on the weeks she wasn’t here. He shared all the texts Jayden sent him from Portland now, and he kind of lived for the times he got to watch Luca’s face when he showed him a new photo: the affectionate smirk, the curious furrows of Luca’s brow as he examined the details of Daisy’s Portland world.
They’d been going over Emerson’s favorite spreadsheet in the evenings, all the data about the farm, while baseball played in the background.
The Giants didn’t make it to the postseason, but they were watching the World Series anyway.
They still had sex all the time, got to fall asleep and wake up next to each other.
Emerson had somehow been able to keep his panic about the future—of the farm, of their relationship—at bay, taking each quiet morning of mucking out the barn, watching the sun rise over the beds, to tell himself to enjoy every second of all this while it lasted.
But maybe Luca was starting to get bored. Maybe he was starting to realize—
“I sold my cabin.”
“What?” The word shot out of Emerson’s mouth before he remembered Luca had asked him—politely—not to interrupt.
Luca only gave a small smile, like he’d expected that, before his face turned serious again.
“I know I should have told you earlier, but I knew you’d try to talk me out of it, so I decided to wait until everything was all done and the money was actually in my bank account.
I loved that cabin, but the farm is my home now, and I didn’t need it anymore.
More than that, though, Emerson, I was able to make a lot of money from it.
Like a lot. And I want to use it for the farm. For us.”
Their waiter approached the table with their food. Emerson couldn’t even look at him to force a polite smile onto his face this time. He only stared directly at Luca, as Luca took the reins of social propriety and turned to the waiter. No, they didn’t need anything else at the moment. Yeah, thanks.
And then Luca turned back to him.