Chapter 30 Emery
To only Luca’s surprise, we wake up at sunrise a mess of tangled limbs.
I don’t remember a single time we shared a bed that we didn’t end up wrapped around each other, and the feel of his erection pressed to my thigh sends a wave of heat through me so intense I imagine he can feel my fevered skin go warm against his.
He pulls back to look down at me, his cheek pillow-creased, his dark blond hair a crazy nest on his head. Luca smiles sleepily and, for just a second, he looks like he’s back.
Like he remembers me.
I watch in real time as realization washes over him—we’re in bed together, and his morning wood is pressing very firmly into my leg, both of us moving slightly on instinct.
His eyes widen in shock, and he jerks his hips away, coughing out a laugh.
Unfortunately, we’re mostly on his side, and there isn’t a whole lot of space for him to retreat to.
In a flurry of arms and legs, he almost falls off the bed.
I reach for his arm, helping him find his way back onto the mattress, and we both break out laughing.
“Shit—sorry,” he says, righting himself, still laughing but without meeting my eyes.
I feel too good to be defeated by this weird little setback. I slept in my husband’s arms! Bring it on, universe, you can’t hurt me today. I am bulletproof.
“I wasn’t complaining,” I say with a grin.
He gives me a warning look. “Not helping, Emmy.”
I’m still laughing as I roll to my back, giving him space and stretching my arms overhead, my feet toward the end of the bed, elongating. Two nights of solid sleep, and I feel incredible.
Warm slashes of morning light streak across the room. I stretch again and tilt my head to see him. “What do you feel like doing today?”
He yawns before pushing up onto an elbow and looking down at me. “I don’t even know what day it is.”
“Friday,” I tell him. “I need to give you a brief checkup at some point.” At his sour expression I add, “I know, I know. But doctor’s orders. Other than that, I’m all yours.”
“Do I, at some point, need to get back to my job?”
“Crash said he’s got it covered for a couple of weeks.”
“Still, don’t I—”
“Do you mean financially speaking?” I ask, and he hesitates, and then nods.
“No.” He waits for me to say more and uneasiness twists in my gut.
“Okay. So, I guess you can imagine that being a lead scientist for a supersecret agency pays a bit better than being a project manager of a surgical laser company.”
Luca’s brows lift. “Is this your way of saying I didn’t know how much money you make?”
Wincing, I confirm this with a nod. “I make a lot.”
“What’s ‘a lot’?”
“We’d be okay if you didn’t want to go back.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
“What if you decide you don’t want to go back to BioNEX?”
“I can find something else.” Unless I have a host of criminal charges brought against me and lose my medical license along with all of my references, I think.
But something tells me BioNEX doesn’t want the medical ethics board snooping around.
If things went south, they’d have to find another way to ruin me.
My mind rolls back to the possibility that Luca’s accident wasn’t an accident, or that someone was trying to send me a message.
Beside me, he takes a long, slow inhale. “Didn’t we talk about money before? Do you have bank accounts that I didn’t know about?”
I chew on my nail, hesitating. I could lie, and odds are he’d never know the difference. It would be the easier answer for sure. But I’m not going to.
“We had separate money when we met, and both made deposits when we started our joint accounts. You assumed my money came from my parents’ estate, and I just never corrected you.
” I hold my breath as I chance a look up at him.
“You’re the beneficiary on everything. The account numbers and directions to access it all are in our shared safe-deposit box at the bank. It’s the yellow key on your key chain.”
“Have I ever used the safe-deposit box?”
“Not that I know of. You usually let me handle that kind of stuff.”
“And I never asked questions.” Luca exhales, rolling to sit up at the side of the bed with his feet on the floor, and my stomach drops. He’s right, and we both know it, but I don’t want him to shoulder any of this blame.
It’s quiet in the room, and as if to remind him that they’re in this crazy trip together, Honey bounds into the room from wherever she’s been and covers his face with kisses. Don’t worry, she seems to say. Everything will be okay.
Or, at least that’s what I hope she’s saying.
“We both need to promise something,” he says.
He runs a hand down Honey’s neck, and my eyes follow the flex of muscle, the twist and curve of his naked back. “Of course. Anything.”
“No more lies by omission, Em. If we’re going to do this… it has to be the truth, all of it. I want us to find what we had, but better than before, more real. The grown-up version.”
“I promise,” I tell him. “Luca, I promise.”
He turns to hold my gaze over his shoulder. “And I’ll tell you what I need. I’ll call you on your shit and won’t take the easy way out. I promise, okay?”
I’m already nodding, my heart ready to leap out of my chest. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he says with a nod, then, “Come here.”
Like a starter pistol has been fired, I’m across the bed, my arms wrapped around his shoulders so tight. So tight.
I’m never letting him go.
Unfortunately, I have to let him go eventually. A guy’s gotta pee after all. So when Luca climbs out of bed and goes into the bathroom, I slip to the kitchen, pulling out a can of cinnamon rolls to bake, assuming that even I can capably bake these.
I’m mostly right—I only burn the bottoms a little—and Luca looks like a cartoon dog who’s followed his nose to a delicious plate of food as he walks into the kitchen, sniffing. “Something smells amazing.”
“It’s this very clearly homemade breakfast I’ve slaved over.” I hand him a plate, smiling winningly. “There’s also coffee. Lots of it.”
“Of course there is.”
“Would you like some?” I ask.
“Yes, please. Thank you.” Taking his plate, he moves to the table. “I was thinking in the shower.”
“Oh?” Getting my own cinnamon roll and two mugs of coffee, I join him.
“When people get to know each other, they tell the other person about their past, right? Their likes and dislikes?” He takes a giant bite of his roll, chewing while he waits for me to catch on.
I pass the sugar, having already told him how he likes his coffee.
Two sugars, lots of cream. I also made him a list of his favorite things at the grocery store, nearby restaurants, ice cream flavors, the movie quotes he uses over and over, and where he likes to run, which is when it hits me: Luca didn’t know something as basic as how he orders his coffee.
Starting over with the get-to-know-you game might be harder than we thought.
“Ahhh,” I say.
“Right,” he says, his foot absently resting between both of mine under the table. “So instead of telling you who I used to be, I want you to know this me. Who I am now. Like how you didn’t order for me at the bar.”
I grin at him. “I love this idea. Do you know where you want to start?”
“I think so? In bed, you asked what I felt like doing today. I think that if I met you somewhere, like, ran into you at the grocery store, I’d want to make you dinner?”
“Well, this is a win-win for me,” I say, smiling at him over my mug.
“Maybe. Who knows if I can figure out how to cook.”
“I think I can help with that.” Standing, I walk to Luca’s recipe box and set it on the table in front of him.
“What’s this?” He lifts the hinged lid of the little plastic box.
“You and your aunt took a cooking class together when you were in grade school. I think it was a way to help you learn English.”
He laughs, holding up an index card decorated with stickers.
“That would explain the Ninja Turtles.” His eyes are wide as he carefully sorts through the worn index cards, folded magazine pages, and handwritten notes.
Some of them have to be decades old. “Cinnamon meltaways, snickerdoodles, pizza twists. Definitely American cooking.” But then he unfolds a sheet of yellowed notebook paper, the edges stained with what I assume is butter. “Is this my aunt’s handwriting?”
He turns it toward me, a recipe for short-rib ragù, written in a loopy cursive familiar from so many Christmas and birthday cards. “Your nonna’s,” I correct. “But your family loved that you mastered it.” I tilt my head, watching him. “Do you have any desire to call them?”
“My parents? How often do I talk to them?”
“You usually call them maybe once a month. Your sisters, usually weekly or every other week.”
“I call them, huh?” He slides his gaze to me, giving me a sardonic smile.
I nod, wincing at this truth… although there’s a part of me that loves this amnesiac Luca, in whom it isn’t ingrained to forgive his parents’ flakiness.
You might think that losing my parents would mean I’d encourage him to make a relationship—any relationship—work with his, but I’ve seen how dismissive they can be, and how he feels after visits. It’s rarely good for him.
Protectiveness flares in my rib cage. “You’re a really good son,” I tell him. “They don’t deserve you, but they’re lucky to have you.”
You don’t deserve him, either, a shadow voice reminds me. And you’re also lucky to have him. He shouldn’t forgive you, either, unless you deserve it.
“I think I’ll wait for a bit,” he says. “Maybe until I know myself a little more.” Frowning, he studies the paper in his hand. Slowly, his face relaxes. “Wait. I know this,” he says.
“Like you remember it?”
“Not exactly, but I’ve made it before. I think I could even do it without the recipe.”
“You think so? That would be awesome.”
While he goes over the recipe again, I grab a notebook from a drawer and scribble down a note to tell Annie later.
“Do we have a Dutch oven?” he asks.
“Is that a kind of pot?” I ask, moving back to the kitchen.
He laughs. “Yes.”
“I think we do?” I should know this.
Luca joins me to look. Almost on instinct, he opens the lower cabinet door next to the stove, and there it is. “Good guess,” he says, lifting it to the counter. “I wonder if we have everything.”
We hadn’t planned for him to make this, but luckily, he finds almost everything he needs.
There’s tomato paste and olive oil in the pantry, tomatoes and onions from our garden in a bowl on the counter, fresh garlic he’d blended and stored in Ziploc bags, and a package of short ribs, a ball of homemade pasta dough, and a Parmesan rind in the freezer.
My contribution is the red wine from the bar, from which he measures out what he needs for the recipe, saving the rest for us to have tonight, and a soundtrack of some of his favorite songs.
I’ve watched him cook for the entirety of our marriage, but there’s something fascinating about seeing him do it now, entirely from instinct.
I defrost the ribs while he chops. Luca sautés vegetables while I play with Honey.
I watch with hearts in my eyes as he sears the meat, carefully scraping up every delicious brown bit as he deglazes the pan.
I was right. The scientist in me is fascinated witnessing his implicit memory kicking in. The wife in me is smitten and proud, relieved and scared and obsessed with everything he does. And wildly in love. That, too.
Luca barely looks at the recipe. He tastes and adds salt; another taste and he reaches for more wine. I can see how comfortable he is, how easily he moves around the kitchen. He’s confident and happy, humming to himself as he stirs, or pretending to crowd me when he needs something overhead.
I can’t let myself think of how many nights I worked late and missed this, because I know it won’t happen again. Whatever the future brings, my days of prioritizing my job over my marriage are done.
I’m drying the last of the dishes when Luca sets the timer, telling me it won’t be ready for hours. “Now what?” I ask, awaiting further instruction.
“Now we wait.” Luca tosses a dish towel over his shoulder and uses it to wipe his hands. It shouldn’t be sexy, but the man just threw together what’s probably a five-star meal from scratch, and it’s not even noon. I’m pretty sure he’s never been hotter. His tight T-shirt isn’t hurting, either.
Honey’s tail gives a thump where she’s stretched out on the rug, enjoying the breeze coming in through the open back door. I sit down next to her to smother her in love.
“Anything else you want to do?” I ask, kissing Honey all over her perfect nose.
I imagine he’ll want to watch a movie or even go for a drive. Maybe we could make out—wishful thinking on my part, I know. We could go through the papers in my office? Not my first choice, but a promise is a promise.
What I don’t expect to hear is: “I think we should do some work in the yard.”
Yet another sign that he’s lost his memory. “ ‘We,’ as in both of us?” He nods and I scrunch my nose. “I’m not particularly… helpful? When it comes to that kind of stuff.”
Luca leans back against the counter and crosses one foot over the other. I’ve truly been blessed, because he’s wearing shorts again today.
“I’m not sure I believe that.” He laughs when I pretend to scowl. “And I think it’d be fun. I also think it’d be good for Betty to hear us outside together, just… being normal. If she tries to talk to us, we’ll just pretend we can’t hear her.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what, Luca Martín: It is not normal for me to be gardening with you.”
“I’d really like to garden with you, Emery Martín.” He looks down at me, smiling with those smug blue eyes. I’ll do anything for him, and he knows it.
I sigh. “Fine. I accept your proposal. I will sit outside with you while you get your hands dirty.” I motion to the sauce simmering away. It already smells delicious. “You’re clearly a natural at whatever you do, and I have a thing for competence porn. Something tells me I’m in for plenty.”