The Romance Revival(96)
The truth is, I want my life to look like this: long days spent hiking, eating, meditating, socializing, sleeping, making love, focusing on my family. That’s right: family. Honey has a little sister on the way.
As if Luca has the same thought, he comes up behind me, his big hands cupping the firm swell of my belly.
“She kicking much?”
“I think she’s napping,” I tell him. “But as soon as I eat, she’ll turn back into a ninja.”
I’m still allowed to fly, but not for much longer, which is why this perfect summer has to come to an end. I’m sure Betty and Honey are watching Betty’s porch cameras religiously to make sure we get back to San Diego by my doctor’s deadline. I’m not confident Crash and Annie are going to be the best influences on this baby, but one thing is certain: Betty is going to make an incredible surrogate grandma.
And Luca’s sisters are going to make amazing aunties. His parents continue to be unreliable and self-absorbed, but we’ve poured ourselves into reconnecting with Ana and Sofia, discovering that family—even when exhausting—is everything. Ana is even expecting a baby only a couple months after I’m due, and she and her new husband are planning to move back to San Diego.
Luca leans into my neck and gently bites me, following it with a whispered “I love you” against my skin. On paper, we still don’t make sense, but it turns out love doesn’t happen on paper.
In person it’s abundantly clear: Our two lost souls found their home in each other. Every crazy decision, every risk, every step into the dark unknown was worth it because Luca is here with me. I couldn’t imagine being more in love.
After I was home from the hospital and everything settled down, Luca and I began therapy. With his memory back, he had a lot of feelings of abandonment and resentment to work through; I was drowning in guilt and fear that he would leave me.
For a year, we went every week. Then for a year we went twice a month. Once we get home, I imagine we’ll continue to go, because rumor has it that parenthood can be stressful for a marriage. But honestly, I can’t find it in me to be nervous. Luca is going to be the most incredible dad.
We wander away, down the beach toward our favorite local restaurant. Luca threads his fingers with mine, squeezing. “You ready for a return to normal?”
“I don’t even know what normal is anymore,” I say, laughing and looking up at the lush cliffside, the crashing turquoise surf, the white sand beneath my feet. “This feels normal.”
“That’s good,” he reminds me. “That’s what this summer was for. You aren’t a robot, you don’t need to work constantly, you can turn that part of you off and just live.”
I take a deep breath, nodding as I exhale. “I know.”
“I can barely remember that version of you,” he says, squinting down at me like he’s trying to picture it: my long hair in a tidy bun instead of wild and windblown down my back; my skin pale from being indoors instead of golden, shoulders dotted with a scattering of freckles. “I think I’d do a double take if I saw you in a blazer.”
I shake my head, laughing. “No more blazers. No more tailored suits. No more seventeen levels of security to enter a building.”
“To be fair,” he says, grinning at me, “that doesn’t narrow your options down very much.”
“I could become a chef,” I say, and he winces playfully. Even with more time at home, my cooking has stayed at a solid edible if you’re desperate. “A painter?” I suggest instead.
“Why not?” Luca shrugs. “If that sounds fun for you, go for it.”
“A biology professor? A photographer?”
“I feel like those are two very different things.”
“I could open a coffee shop.”
He looks down at me, his dark brows raised. “Now that one has legs.”
“We’d call it the Bean Scene,” I say, rubbing my belly, “and it would be dog-friendly.”
“Obviously.”
“We’d figure out the recipe for the black-and-white cookies.”
He scoffs. “We’d make our own amazing cookies.”
“Yes, you could make the cookies,” I say. “Crash could be the shirtless barista.”
Luca laughs. “Annie? What would she do?”
“Are you kidding? We’d just hang out and gossip all day while you and Crash did the work.”
Luca holds the door to the restaurant open for me. “Sounds pretty good to me.”
“Yeah? You ready to go into business together?”
“As long as we’re never open on Sundays,” he says.
I pretend to look offended. “I would never encroach upon tradition.”
He bends to kiss me, and his lips linger on mine for a long, content beat. “Actually, Emmy, it wouldn’t matter. Every day feels like a Sunny Sunday with you.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are so happy to be releasing a new book, y’all! It’s been over two years since The Paradise Problem came out—how crazy is that? And while we might have said that we took that time off, we absolutely did not take any time off from writing. In fact, we wrote a whole book to release in 2025, but in the end, while we loved the characters and the story, we weren’t absolutely in love with how we’d executed it, and we realized that it would need more time and energy than we had to get it to that CLo sweet spot.