The Romance Revival(39)
Knowing I can’t really go anywhere outside without Emery, I decide to poke around the house some more. Part of me hopes there aren’t any more secret vaults, hidden doors, or panels to entirely new rooms, but part of me hopes there are, because without any emotional investment in Luca Martín’s life, there’s an element of all of this that objectively borders on absurd, and in a strange, unhinged way, I’m curious to see how far it all goes.
But an investigation of the living room reveals Emery fast asleep on the sofa, curled up beneath a blanket. Her hair is loose and tangled; her tank top has slid off her shoulder, revealing a stretch of smooth, perfect skin. She doesn’t stir as I carefully limp around the room, and it occurs to me that she probably hasn’t really slept since we got home from the lab.
The fucking lab. With an actual resurrection machine. None of it feels even remotely real.
I quietly poke around the living room, but there’s nothing obviously out of the ordinary. The bathroom is tidy and lacks any apparent secrets, and the kitchen is just a kitchen—although a very well-equipped one. The refrigerator has a box in the back that says EMERY’S MENSTRUAL VITAMINS, but I move it aside and eventually find ingredients to make breakfast, and have a stack of golden, buttery blueberry French toast piled on a plate when Emery shuffles sleepily in around six.
I’d expected the physical echo of the dream to have dissipated by now, but the moment I see her long, smooth neck and bare legs, fire streaks down my torso. She walks over, assessing my expression before cautiously setting a hand on my shoulder.
“Feeling okay?”
I nod, gazing down at her, trying to remain measured and objective about everything, but feeling so goddamn hungry for her touch. “I’m good,” I tell her.
“Yeah?” She searches my eyes.
A new book can wait quietly in the background.
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“Stood up pretty smoothly earlier. No pain in my back today. Leg is better. Actually feeling a little restless.” Tilting my chin to the French toast. “There’s breakfast.”
“Smells amazing. It’s what roused me from a dead-ass sleep.” She stills and lets out a defeated sigh. “What the hell, Emery! Why do I keep saying things like that?”
I laugh. “It’s fine.”
I’m grateful that the scent of butter, vanilla, and cinnamon is strong enough to overpower the subtle aroma of Emery’s skin. I’m aware that it sparks something ancient in me, something feral.
Without thinking, I reach out, straightening the strap of her tank top. It doesn’t cover more this way, but at least when righted it seems to quiet some of the instinctive urges I have to undress her here in the kitchen.
God, this is all so disorienting. No wonder we had sex the first night we met.
“I’m sorry I was out cold in there,” she says, breaking her gaze away.
“What?” My pulse kicks, adrenaline streaking down my limbs. “Why would you be sorry for sleeping?”
“I don’t want you moving around unattended. I don’t want you to need something and have to get it yourself.”
I smile at her, holding my tongue when my instinct is to say, You wouldn’t be apologizing if you knew what I did to you in my sleep.
As if reading something in my gaze, Emery gives me a little smile before walking to the coffee maker and getting a pot brewing.
“I woke up and panicked that you were gone,” she says, turning to lean back against the counter while the machine gurgles, releasing the heady aroma of coffee into the room.
“I’d love to go outside, but I get that it’s probably not the best idea to go alone yet.”
Emery smiles gratefully at this and then turns, reaching for a pen in a cup and writing something on a calendar on the wall next to the coffee maker. I turn off the stove and step closer, reading on today’s date: Have breakfast together
Curious, I scan the rest of the calendar—three months at a time seems to be the system—and from May to July, only today’s square has her handwriting. The rest is what I can only assume is mine.
There are doctors’ appointments, dental cleanings, dry cleaning pickup—which, given that it’s during the daytime, I gather means I pick up Emery’s dry cleaning. Every Thursday is trash pickup; once a month I appear to change the water filter in the fridge and once a quarter I change the filters in the heating vents. In fact, most everything on the calendar relates to some boring aspect of adulting, except the night of my resurrection, which has a heart around the date and dinner reservations for 7:30, and every single Sunday has something penciled in, like Torrey Pines picnic; drive to Laguna and lunch at Las Brisas; brunch at Parkhouse Eatery; 9 a.m. pickleball and 12 p.m. lunch at Madi.
“Sundays were busy,” I note.
I realize, when I look down to her, that Emery had been staring at my face, only inches away from hers. When our eyes meet, she blinks away, licking her lips distractingly, and glances at the calendar. “Oh. Yeah. We call them Sunny Sundays. We do something together every weekend.”
I take a few seconds to read between the lines. “Just Sundays?”
Emery pulls her lips between her teeth and shrugs. “We spent time together at home, too.”
What was our life like? What did she like about it, and what did I? The idea that I saw my wife only occasionally at home and on Sundays feels insane to me, but here I am—married to her, wearing the wedding ring, picking up her dry cleaning, still wanting to fuck her.