I may not remember all the details of who I am, but I know I would never agree to my wife sleeping on the couch while I have our entire bed. That said, Emery does have a point; I’d be arguing for the sake of my ego. “Fine,” I say. “But I reserve the right to renegotiate at a later time.”
Emery grins and the uneasy thing in my stomach unwinds, just a little.
It’s clear our marriage wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But if there’s one thing I’m certain of already in this new life, it’s this: Emery loves me enough that she literally kept me from dying. For that, she deserves another chance, too.
23EMERY
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 lookshighlysuspicious, 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 happyfor 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.”
