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“Yeah, sooo,” I start, and at the same time, he says, “I just—” We both laugh quietly as we retreat from one another.
“Guess I’m not drinking out of that now.” I step over the metal ring and bend to retrieve my now-muddy cup.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to scare you, but you must have been a million miles away to not have heard us running over.” He jumps over the ring and crouches. “Here, let me grab that for you.”
He rinses it off and holds it out to me, and I thank him.
The cattle dog hurtles the metal ring too, drops a ball at Luca’s feet, and barks.
Luca picks it up. “All right, Frankie.” He scratches the dog behind her black ear. The other is white, and she has one blue eye. Her entire body is giddy with anticipation as Luca rears back and launches the ball a good distance into the empty field. Frankie leaps from her still position over the ring and darts after it.
Luca sits on the ring, his boots crossed before him. He looks up at me with his hands shielding his eyes at the brim of his cowboy hat. “You were kind of spectacular back there while tending to Nathan’s ankle. You seemed to know exactly what you were doing.”
I sit next to him with my feet outside, watching Frankie as she runs a grid pattern in the distance searching for the ball. “I suppose that’s thanks to growing up with doctor parents and having gone through a good deal of preparation for that career myself.”
“Really? So, how did you end up working for a fitness device company?”
With both hands on the ring at my sides, I take a deep breath. Is this something I want to explain to a stranger? At length, I decide to keep it simple, factual. Vague. “I went to college to follow in their footsteps. Even got my BS in Bio-Sciences from Berkeley with a 3.9 GPA.”
To his credit, Luca doesn’t give me the standard brows-raised-and-lips-pursed nod. Instead, he waits patiently for me to continue.
I shrug one shoulder. “But I never really knew if that was me. So, after a year of medical school at UC San Fran, I changed directions and entered the MBA program.”
He stares at me for several more minutes until the hairs on my arms stand up and I have the strange urge to cover myself. I raise a hand and rub the back of my neck, chuckling softly. “What? Not the story you expected? What about you?” I nudge him. “Emma said you lived in California, so what brought you all the way out here?”
Luca
The question shouldn’t surprise me,but it does. I find myself wanting to hear more about Jack rather than talk about myself. Does she regret her decision to not study medicine? Is working at LivFit fulfilling? How does she handle the disappointment from her parents for not following in their footsteps? Orarethey disappointed? Maybe not all parents are like mine over their children’s choices to put aside a lucrative career. I take a deep breath to rid myself of that thought and size Jack up for a minute.
If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that getting to know someone involves reciprocation. I haven’t always been good at that, but it seems I’m going to have to share too.
“I roomed with Wyatt at university.”
“University?” Jack interrupts with a scoff. “I didn’t have you as . . . ah, no matter.” She waves a hand like she’s waiving off the thought. “Where’d you go? Santa Barbara? Maybe, So Cal?”
I glance at her. Behind her kind eyes, there’s what she thinks is a serious question. But those are party schools, and we were serious back then. Perhaps too serious. Despite her stereotyping, she seems to be genuinely curious.
She’s also pretty smart and puts two and two together quickly. Her eyes widen when she obviously realizes what she’s done. “Oh, I didn’t mean any offense.”
“None taken,” I say, continuing to look at her. “Stanford. That’s where I met Wyatt.”
Jack removes her hand from her hips and pushes my shoulder playfully. “You went to Stanford?”
“Yeah. I studied software engineering and then landed a job at Google. They put me through an additional two years of business school, and well, I worked for them for a few years afterward.”
Jack doesn’t hide her surprise. “That’s a top-notch company, Luca. I’ve actually been eyeing a couple positions there in their wearable product development teams.” She chews the inside of her lip for a moment and adds, “I’m still confused how you ended up here.”
Jack leans in, although I don’t understand why she’s interested in my backstory. Her knee brushes up against mine, and I can’t help but feel a jolt of electricity.
“I won’t bore you the details,” I say, “but I realized I wasn’t cut out for the corporate world. Wyatt and I have been best friends since university and kept in touch. When he told me he and Emma were getting married and moving back to New Mexico and take over her family’s business of ranching, I was floored. I visited every year, and it was the best week of that year. So, when he mentioned they needed help running the place, I jumped at the opportunity.”
I decide to leave out some of the details. Like my five-year relationship with Viveka, who I worked with at Google and that couldn’t make myself propose. I also don’t tell Jack about the ultimatum Viveka gave me and how relieved I was to have the exit. I should never have wasted five years of anyone’s life, but the fact that I couldn’t get excited about our relationship niggled beneath my skin. Hopefully, Viveka doesn’t see it as a waste. One of my ex-employees on the Software R&D team called and let me know she was getting married a few years ago, and that’s the last I’ve heard of her. In truth, I’m happy she finally got what she wanted.
My parent’s disappointment is also part of the story that I leave out. They couldn’t believe I walked away from such a profitable career to join Wyatt and his bride in the middle of nowhere. I believe Dad’s exact words were, “You’re throwing your life away, son.”
I suppose I had attained the greener grass in his mind, because he always told me turning wrenches wasn’t a life at all. From what I remember about my parents, they never brought work into their house. Home was only about family, and that’s the way it should be.
Luckily, my mom and dad’s disappointment were short lived. My younger sister, Lettie, didn’t let them stay disappointed for long. The first Christmas I was here, she convinced them to come stay with us for our first country holiday, and once they saw me in my element, they realized that I was meant to be here. Ever since, it’s been only support from them.
