Chapter 23 Emery
Looking at Luca Martín, one might think he’d never been let out of the house before.
“I’ve never seen anyone so happy about being chauffeured around in a ten-year-old Camry.
” I grin over at him in the passenger seat before taking a sip of my first iced coffee of the day.
Normally I’d need at least three of these to be out of bed this early on a day off, but Luca’s palpable joy is rubbing off on me.
I’ve done some work from home, checking in with Claire to make sure everything is going smoothly in the lab, and catching up on emails.
I’ve written pages and pages of notes documenting Luca’s recovery, but I haven’t been to the office since my crack-of-dawn espionage trip on Monday.
The longest I’ve taken off in the past ten years is the four days Luca and I spent in Santa Barbara for a belated honeymoon, and even then, as soon as he fell asleep every night, I pulled out my laptop.
It’s yet another realization that feels like an anvil falling on my head, something about myself I see only from the distance of Husband Dying in My Arms: My priorities were completely broken.
Annie, Claire, and Tom have kept an eye on Vince, but so far, nothing suspicious has come up.
Claire gives me a daily rundown of his comings and goings, and wouldn’t you know, all the random mishaps or accidents that had been occurring have suddenly stopped.
If Vince—or someone else involved in BioNEX—is behind any of this, they’re playing it safe and know they’re being watched.
We’d planned to give Luca’s leg and energy levels a couple more days to heal, but we were both feeling restless this morning. Maybe for different reasons. I’m eager to start from a clean slate: Emery and Luca as the most important aspect of my life.
I suspect Luca just wants to get out of the damn house.
But I’ll take it.
And I was glad to get out, too, constantly dreading the possibility of Busybody Betty knocking on the door or walking the trash to the backyard and seeing her watery blue eyes staring at me through the gap in the fence.
Unfortunately (for her), she can’t do that anymore.
Yesterday I had Crash plant half a dozen new trees on that side of the yard, and Betty can’t see a thing.
I’m sure it looks highly suspicious, but I can’t bring myself to care. I have bigger things to worry about.
Next to me, Luca shifts in his seat to buckle his seat belt, and I’m relieved that he seems to be in less pain today.
“I’m excited to see the area,” he admits, which, honestly, is so surreal to hear. Luca knows Southern California from Orange County to San Diego so well that he can direct people to individual streets within a hundred miles without consulting a map.
Will this come back quickly? If I let him drive, would he be able to get us to Necessity Coffee without prompting? Would he know where the gas station is, the car wash, his favorite running trail? If I had to guess, I’d say yes. It would be a fascinating display of his implicit memory kicking in.
The wife in me tells the scientist to shut the hell up.
“I bet,” I say, navigating through the neighborhood. It’s weird to drive with him next to me—he loves driving, hates being a passenger, but even though he seems alert and steady, I’m not ready to put him behind the wheel yet.
Luca stares out the window, eyes wide, gaze scanning like he’s trying to memorize or recall everything.
Drivers fly past us, but I’m happy for once going the speed limit.
The ocean is a stormy blue blur to our right, and I love seeing this spectacular view—one I usually take entirely for granted—through Luca’s eyes.
He leans forward to peer out the windshield. “It’s definitely going to rain.”
I lean in, too, following his attention up and overhead. The sky is calm, clear, and dotted only with fluffy clouds. “I didn’t see anything about rain this week.”
He lifts a shoulder. “Just wait.”
A spark of joy ignites in my chest. “You always do this.”
“Forecast the rain?”
“Forecast everything. Not a cloud in sight and you’d insist we were going to get some freak storm.”
“And was I right?”
“Usually.” He grins proudly at this. “You’ve been a surfer since you moved here,” I tell him. “I always assumed you learned how to read the sky and water in a way I never did.”
Luca goes quiet, and I glance over at him. “You okay?”
He nods, staring out the window. “Just—still weird to hear things about myself that I don’t know.”
“Sorry.” I squeeze the steering wheel, getting the twisty feeling out of my gut through my hands. “I know we’re supposed to be starting over.”
“No, no. I don’t expect you to act like you don’t know anything about me.”
“But I like the idea,” I tell him. “So when we get to where we’re going, let’s do it. Let’s start over entirely. Like we’ve just met on Hinge.” He looks at me, and I explain, “A dating app.”
“Ah.” Nodding, Luca says, “Okay, perfect. So pretend I haven’t noticed you need four cups of coffee to function, or that you’ll devour the pack of cherry tomatoes in the fridge but pick diced tomatoes out of your salad?”
I grin, gleeful that he’s noticed anything about me.
“Exactly like that. There are so many tiny things we learn about people and then just file away. I know it’s probably so frustrating that you don’t remember them all, but I’m excited to get to know you again, too, to see who you want to become.
” I peek at him. “You know, I told you how we met and that we had sort of an unconventional start, but I haven’t told you about the first time I went to your apartment here in San Diego. Do you want to hear it?”
He nods once, enthusiastically. “Absolutely.”
“Okay,” I say, relishing his attention. Although I’ve always been obsessed with my work, the discovery of Compound Y and ramping up of the research has meant that I’ve been single-minded for the past two years.
But being with Luca like this, being forced to distance myself a little from what’s happening in the lab, means that I get to remember just how much I love when it’s only the two of us.
“We were coming back from our first official date,” I say, “and you’d just parked. We were passing the dumpster—”
“Oh, the dumpster. Romantic.”
Laughing, I continue. “We were passing the dumpster, and you saw this sad little plant someone had thrown out. I hadn’t even noticed it, and if I had, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but you immediately picked it up and took it upstairs.
” I glance at him again. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed the plant in our bedroom in front of the window? ”
“The fiddle-leaf fig?” He looks at me, surprised. “That’s the same one?”
I’m amazed all over again how some information is still hardwired for him. He knows the fiddle-leaf fig but not what movies he likes.
“Yeah, that’s the same plant.” I reach over, tentatively squeezing his uninjured thigh. God, he has great thighs. A flush runs through me. “Someone gave up on that spindly little thing, but you nursed it back to health. You never give up on anything.”
I realize I’m getting a little choked up.
I’m not an overly emotional person, but it’s happening a lot this week.
For so long I’ve promised myself that as soon as this project is done, or the next trial is complete, or the next milestone is hit, I’ll be more present, more of a partner for Luca.
But I hadn’t, not until it was almost too late.
Still, he never gave up on me, and he’s not giving up now.
I want to express how grateful I am, but I know, too, that it would mean admitting to him that he deserved so much more than what I gave him, and that might be the one truth I’m most afraid of.
We stop at Necessity Coffee for another hit for me and a cookie for Luca—his favorite, a black-and-white monstrosity that he used to take down in about three bites. He holds it, staring, before shrugging like Why the fuck not and digging in.
Finishing it in three bites.
I grin again, steering us out of the parking lot and heading somewhere very specific. “How’s the leg feeling?” I ask. Luca hasn’t had any pain medication today—said he wanted to try to go without it now.
He runs a hand down the thigh of his shorts, and I swallow the veritable flood of saliva the action triggers. “Good. I’d say about a two, if that. It’s more of an ache.”
I drag my focus away from the image and concentrate on the road, my hands gripping the steering wheel. “Think you’re up for some walking today?”
“I’d fucking love to do some walking today.”
I take the familiar turn, and Luca follows our progress out the window, trying to piece together where we’re headed.
After a few minutes, I turn into a paid lot across from Powerhouse Park.
Luca would usually run to the beach, but he isn’t going to be running anywhere for a while and, frankly, I would only run if a serial killer was chasing me.
“The beach?” he asks.
“If we’re going to start over, I thought we’d do it where we had our first real date.”
Parking here is usually a nightmare, but we’ve timed it just right.
This isn’t really known as a surfer beach, and the crowds haven’t shown up in a big way yet.
Luckily, I’ve only driven down one row before eyeing an open spot just on the left.
Hopping out, I round the car to help him, but he’s already rising from the seat, no grimace of pain to be seen.
Grabbing the cane from the back seat, I see the way he looks like he wants to refuse, but he takes it.
He doesn’t really need it at the house, but those are short distances, and on even ground.
Besides, Luca doesn’t only have to get to the beach, he has to be able to make it back to the car.
Even hunched slightly with his limp, he still towers over me, big and solid and commanding and here. I’ll never take it for granted again.