Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
During breakfast the next morning, with room service trays stacked precariously on the table, Luca sleepily gazed at me with adoration.
“Luca?” I asked through a bite of pancake. It felt like there was a panicked bird trapped in my chest. Something fluttering, anxious, desperate to get out.
He hummed in response, completely calm.
“Am I crazy?”
“No.”
“What’s happening here?”
He lifted his coffee to his lips, blowing across the hot surface. “I think you know.”
I think I did.
* * *
Strange, maybe, that though we met in Vegas, our whirlwind wedding didn’t take place there. It was a couple of months later in our shared hometown of San Diego, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with his parents and sisters, my grandmother, cousin, and aunt, and a scattering of our friends who could make the last-minute trip to California in attendance.
I struggled with the decision. Not the decision to marry Luca—I’d known from that very first night that I would do anything to keep him. No, I struggled with knowing that I could never be totally honest with him.
For his safety, and for mine.
But I’d make it work. I assured myself that I’d always been able to accomplish anything I put my mind to. I could love him enough to make up for the secrets.
We wrote our own vows, promising to encourage each other’s passions, growth, and independence, though we did keep some things standard.
For better, for worse.
For richer, for poorer.
In sickness and in health.
To love and to cherish,
’Til death do us part.
I would rewrite that last part now if I could.
’Til death do us part…
And luckily death is no match for me.
1 EMERY
THREE YEARS LATER
I can’t find my keys.” I limp down the hall in one shoe, and with my favorite navy pin-striped dress only halfway zipped. “Or my blazer.” I peek in the bathroom for my lost items. Nope. “Or my other shoe.”
Wordlessly, Luca hands me a steaming mug. Despite the missing keys, blazer, and shoe, my husband knows the priorities well in this moment: I am barely functional before nine in the morning and multiple cups of coffee.
Which is unfortunate, frankly, given that the biggest presentation of my life is happening at six o’clock on this hellfire day, a time that works for the executive team and investors in San Diego, Chicago, New York, London, and Basel, but definitely not for my stubborn circadian rhythm.
“Keys are near the microwave,” Luca says, trailing behind and zipping me up. As a scientist, I believe in probability, not luck, and this dress has yet to let me down: I have never had a bad day while wearing it.
My husband’s eyes are also glued to my boobs, still more evidence of the dress’s power.
“The blazer is in the dry-cleaning bag hanging on the dining room chair,” he says. “And did you check under your side of the bed for the shoe?”
Luca has a seemingly endless well of patience, and I peck his stubbled cheek in thanks before jogging into each room to collect my things. The clock on the microwave reads 5:00 a.m., which feels like a time suitable only for owls and infants and people with a sunrise kink like Luca to be awake.
For as long as I’ve known him, Luca has always been a morning person, up for a run before sunrise, well into his workday by the time I’m barely climbing out of bed. Because my brain doesn’t fully turn on until after lunch, my best work is always done after midnight, fueled by coffee and adrenaline and whatever scraps of junk food I can find in the break room at the office. In fact, I was up until only a couple of hours ago putting the finishing touches on my presentation when Luca shuffled sleepily in and made me get at least an hour or two of rest before my big day.
It’s been three years, but Luca and I still don’t make much sense to people. I’m not unattractive, but Luca is absolutely gorgeous. Like, golden skin and muscles and toothpaste-commercial-smile kind of gorgeous. You may think I’m biased, but I once watched a grown man ride his bike into a tree because my husband was working in the front yard shirtless.
Our sleep schedules are still totally different, our jobs are worlds apart, and our temperaments opposite—I can be intense and driven, occasionally lost in a silent brainstorm related to work even when surrounded by people, while Luca is social and playful and always smiling—but I love that about us. I like that Luca is everything that I’m not.
And, also, because without my happy, easygoing, early-riser husband I would have overslept and arrived half dressed, shoeless, and via Uber to the most important day of my career.
Luca stands, holding the front door open for me, wearing his running shorts and socks, a fitted T-shirt and baseball cap, looking tanned and relaxed, ready to leave for his run after he sees me off.