Page 122 of The Slug Crystal
He sighs with Italian disappointment but doesn't lecture me on optimal flavor extraction or the rapid degradation ofvolatile compounds in pre-ground coffee, a small mercy this early. Instead, he reaches for the cabinet where we keep the pour-over equipment, muttering, "I'll make a proper cup for everyone else."
"The Emma Special is perfectly adequate," I protest, but I'm already sliding a fresh mug for myself toward him once he's finished setting up his equipment. We both know I prefer his meticulously crafted coffee to the already ground, canned beans.
Marco measures coffee with scientific precision, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Sixty-eight grams for five people, water temperature approximately ninety-six degrees Celsius..." He adjusts the scale, gently tapping the side of the container to level the grounds.
"It's just coffee," comes a grumbled voice from the doorway. Ben shuffles in, looking like he's been dragged backward through a hedge. His dark blonde hair sticks up at impossible angles, yesterday's t-shirt rumpled and inside out. Under his arm is a stack of manuscript pages, edges curling where he's obviously fallen asleep on them.
"There is no such thing as 'just coffee,'" Marco replies without looking up from his measuring. "There is transcendent, Italian coffee and then garbage. Which includes everything else."
His words remind me so much of Luca that I almost laugh. Maybe being a coffee snob is an Italian thing.
Ben ignores him, making a beeline for my mug in front of the coffee maker. Before I can protest, he's swiped it and taken a long swig, grimacing dramatically. "Christ, Emma, how much sugar did you put in this?"
"Enough to counteract your morning personality," I retort, making a half-hearted grab for the mug that he easily evades. This, too, is part of our ritual. Ben steals my first cup of coffee while I pretend to mind and he pretends that he doesn’t put as much sugar in his coffee as I do.
He skirts around the counter and drops the manuscript pages on the kitchen island, spreading them out like a dealer at a card table. Red pen marks cover the margins. They’re my edits from last night before I fell asleep. "You massacred chapter six," he accuses, but the corner of his mouth twitches upward.
"I improved chapter six," I correct him. "Your protagonist was being insufferable again."
"She's based on you, so that tracks."
Jake snorts from his position at the stove, where he's already cracking eggs into a pan. "She walked right into that one."
The sound of a roller suitcase bumping down the stairs announces Luca's arrival. He appears in the doorway looking irritatingly perfect for someone who woke up in the same bed as the rest of us. Not a hair out of place, crisp button-down tucked into dark jeans, pilot's jacket draped over one arm.
"Morning, darlings," he greets us, sliding his tablet onto the counter beside Ben's pages. His fingers swipe efficiently through his flight schedule while he leans over to press a kiss to my temple. "Milan by way of London today. Back tomorrow night unless weather intervenes."
A pang of something like envy and longing hits me—not because he's leaving, but because he's returning to Italy, the place where all of this began. "Bring back those little hazelnut cookies from that café near the Duomo?"
"Already on my list," he promises, accepting the perfect cup of coffee Marco has just finished brewing. His travel bag waits nearby, packed since last night. Luca’s life is still partly in motion, while the rest of us have rooted ourselves here. He wouldn’t want it any other way, though, and neither do I.
I look around our kitchen, our home, taking in the evidence of five lives merging into one improbable whole. The townhouse is a perfect chaos of mismatched furniture and competing aesthetics. My books currently overflow ontoevery available surface, stacked in precarious towers beside Marco's neatly arranged research papers, while we both wait for Jake to finish building organizers that we bought for a shared office. Ben's writing notes are stuck to the refrigerator with magnets shaped like literary quotes, while Jake's practical contributions, like the perfectly organized pantry and the knife rack installed at exactly the right height, slowly bring order to our shared spaces. Luca's presence manifests in souvenirs from far-flung airports, like a carved wooden elephant from Thailand, a delicate glass snowflake from Oslo, and a miniature totem pole from Vancouver.
And everywhere, we have scattered reminders of Italy. A framed photo of all five of us beside a Venetian canal. A bottle of olive oil from a market in Florence. The blue candle from the shopkeeper in Milan, still unlit, preserved as a talisman. And of course, the terrarium with its blue inhabitants. Although it’s no longer the original. We've had to upgrade twice to accommodate the growing colony, much to Marco's scientific delight.
Jake places a plate of eggs in front of me, perfectly cooked as always. Ben steals a piece of toast from the stack, not bothering with a plate. Marco rinses his coffee equipment with methodical care. Luca checks the weather in Europe on his tablet, humming something that sounds suspiciously like an Italian pop song I’ve heard before.
Six months ago, I was desperately searching for answers, believing my life had been derailed by a magical crystal and a blue snail. Now, I'm building something I never could have imagined—a life shared five ways, and somehow perfect in its imperfection.
The morning light strengthens, warming the kitchen as we move around each other with the ease of dancers who've learned each other's rhythms. Different as we are, we've found our balance, our shared orbit. And as I sip the perfect coffee Marco has finally handed me, watching my four menbegin their day, I can't help but think that sometimes the strangest journeys lead exactly where you're meant to be.
Saturday, 8:08AM. The dining table has disappeared beneath a sea of paper, manuscript pages fanning out across its surface like the aftermath of a literary explosion. Ben sits across from me, feet propped on an empty chair, a red pen tucked behind his ear and another between his teeth as he flips through the latest draft of Chapter Seven.
We've been working on a book titled "The Slug Crystal" for four months now. It’s a memoir about our strange Italian adventure transformed into what our agent calls "a genre-defying memoir with fantasy elements and an unconventional love story."
Ben calls it "the book that writes itself," which is a blatant lie. Nothing about capturing our absurd journey has been easy, except perhaps finding the humor in it all.
"Listen to this," Ben says, clearing his throat with theatrical emphasis. He lowers his voice to what he calls his "audiobook narrator" tone, which is really just his regular voice with more gravitas. "Emma stared at the terrarium with mounting horror as realization dawned. She hadn't just purchased a crystal with magical properties. She'd accidentally subscribed to the worst transformation service in history. One star, would not recommend turning your ex-boyfriend into a gastropod, no matter how satisfying the initial shell shock."
I groan at the pun, but can't help the laugh that follows. "The shell shock line stays, but we need to cut the subscription service joke. It's anachronistic to the rest of the chapter."
"It's funny," Ben protests, though he's already making a note in the margin. "Everyone gets subscription jokes. Very relatable content."
"And very 2023," I counter, leaning over to tap a paragraph further down the page. "This part where I'm crying inthe Venice hotel room, needs to be more raw, less quippy. We can't undercut every emotional moment with humor."
"Disagree. Undercutting emotional moments with humor is literally my entire personality." Ben chews on his pen cap, leaving teeth marks that match all the others. "But fine, I'll dial it back. Slightly."
Marco looks up from his laptop at the small desk we've wedged into the corner of the dining room. It’s his designated workspace until the office Jake is working on is completed. We discovered early on that he can't concentrate in his university office because, in his words, "the undergraduate chatter creates a cognitive dissonance that's incompatible with scientific thought." Or, as Ben translated: "Kids these days are too damn loud."
