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The light in Haley's room was golden-hour perfect, which she was wasting.
She knew she was wasting it.
The camera was right there on her vanity, and the way the sun came through her curtains at this particular angle in fall— amber and thick, nothing like the flat white of summer— was exactly the kind of thing she used to chase around town until her feet hurt. But the movie wasn't going to watch itself, and Alex had been texting her about it for two weeks, so.
The movie was, so far, pretty bad. She'd paused it fifteen minutes in to tell Alex so, and they'd never actually resumed it.
"We could just watch something else," she said.
"We picked this one together," Alex said, from the other half of her screen. He was in his room, sitting on his bed, which was made, which was more than she could say for hers. He had a protein shake. "We're watching it."
"We picked it because you said it had good reviews."
"It has good reviews."
"From who?"
"From—" He glanced away. "People."
"Alexander Thomas." She said, using his full first and middle name to be sure her displeasure could be heard, even by her meathead best friend.
He looked at his shake. "People who have seen it."
She looked at him for a moment. "Where did you find this movie."
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters a little."
"Can we just—" He gestured at her with the shake. "Press play."
She looked at the shake. "That looks disgusting, by the way."
He looked down at it. "It's chocolate."
"It looks like chocolate suffering."
"I've been doing two-a-days." He pointed the spoon at her through the screen. "Some of us are trying to go pro, Haley."
"Some of us," she said, "have been saying that since eighth grade."
He lowered the spoon.
She smiled.
This was the thing about Alex — he was easy to needle and bad at hiding it, which made him a perfect best friend and a terrible gridball player, probably, though what did she know about gridball. She'd known him her whole life, more or less. Three houses apart, whole childhood spent getting in each other's way, adolescence spent slowly figuring out they actually liked each other. It had taken an embarrassing amount of time.
"Okay, well—" He considered her for a moment, head tilted, doing the thing he did when he was winding up for something. "You're watching a bad movie on a Friday night instead of going out, so."
She blinked.
"Just putting that on the table," he said, and drank the shake with what she could only describe as aggression.
She grabbed a pillow and held it over her face briefly. He was not wrong. That was the worst part. She lowered the pillow and looked at him through the screen with all of the dignity she had left, which was not much.
"Tell me something that happened this week," she said. "Something that isn't protein or protein-adjacent."
He considered. "Shane got into an argument with Gus about the dartboard."
"What?"
"I don't really know, but Shane had a whole thing about it. Gus just bought a new one and moved the old one. I don't think that was the cause but maybe? Anyway, Sam's been banned from it for unrelated reasons." He finished his milkshake, tilted the cup to get the last of it, and looked like he'd enjoyed the thing.
"Sam's always banned from something," Haley answered, picking at a hangnail instead of getting her nail clippers or a file.
Outside, the distant bells from the community center rang the hour. The whole building had been doing something lately; people kept saying it looked different from the inside. Emily had opinions about it. Haley had started changing the subject when it came up.
"Hit Play, Hay." Alex said from the other end of their connection.
She was about to say something biting about not wanting to waste her time with this stupid movie when her door swung open.
Fiona was standing in the doorway.
Haley immediately registered that something very strange was going on if Fiona was here instead of on her farm at this time of day.
It was late enough in the day that it was weird for Fiona to be in town, which meant she'd either finished early or abandoned something. And whatever was going on had flustered the farmer so badly that she was still in her muddy boots. There was soil along the hem of her jacket— dark, rich soil, the kind you got from ground that had been turned and fed and genuinely worked, not the pale, sad stuff that the farm used to have. (Haley had learned about the soil the way she learned about most things; unwillingly. Fiona talked about the soil like other people talked about their kids.)
"Hey," Haley said carefully. "You okay?"
Fiona stepped inside and closed the door with both hands, slow. Pressed her back against it. She had that particular expression she got when something was bothering her — not distressed, exactly, more like she'd been carrying something heavier than expected and was only now admitting it had weight.
"I need to talk to you about something," Fiona said.
"Okay."
"It's embarrassing."
"Okay," Haley was torn between concern and curiosity.
"Like—" Fiona's eyes drifted upward, she stared at the ceiling for a moment, took a breath that made her shoulders rise to her ears and then fall. "I walked here from the farm."
That was significant. The path from the farm was twenty minutes at a normal pace; Fiona usually moved fast, efficient, the walk of someone who had eight more things to do and no time to waste, but even so. Haley sat up.
On the laptop screen, Alex set down his protein shake.
Haley very carefully did not look at him. "What's going on, Fi?" She asked instead.
"You'll laugh." Fiona said, still dodging whatever had driven her to walk here in the evening when she doubtless had other things to do. "But I need to tell someone because I feel like I've lost my mind. It's been going on for a while. I keep waiting for it to just… go away on its own, you know, because I'm busy. I have a lot going on. I really don't have time for this right now—"
"Time for what?"
"I have a crush on someone." Fiona's entire face blushed, even the tips of her ears were pink. She blew out a breath and then continued on. "And it's so dumb."
"Who is it?"
She made a sound that wasn't a word.
"Fiona."
"Okay. Okay." She dragged her hand over her face. "You know how this season has been going, right? I told you about the pumpkins."
Haley searched her memory. "The good pumpkins?"
"The spectacular pumpkins. I finally figured out the fertilizer ratios I've been messing around with for like two years, and the soil in the east field finally turned over right, and everything just — came together." Fiona's voice did something complicated. "This was the first season where I felt like I actually knew what I was doing. Like I didn't have to fake it or just hope for the best, I just — knew. The timing, the layout, what to plant where, I knew."
"That's good," Haley said. "That's really good, Fi."
"It was really good." She slumped slightly against the door. "And then I started having feelings about someone, and now half my brain is taken up by that instead, and I've been making mistakes I haven't made since year one. I miscounted seed inventory twice. I forgot to close the coop one night — the coop, Haley, I've had that routine down cold for ages—" She stopped. "I just want to stop thinking about this person so I can think about my crops."
Haley looked at her with something that was almost tenderness. This was very Fiona. Most people would lead with the crush. Fiona led with the yield data.
In her peripheral vision, Alex had gone very still. He was leaning forward slightly, elbows on his knees, the way he sat when a game went into overtime.
"Who is it?" she said again, gently.
She made a sound that wasn't a word.
"Fiona."
"I'm getting there." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "He's — okay. He's annoying. He's so annoying, Haley, he's completely unbearable at least forty percent of the time—"
"Okay—"
"—and he says things that are kind of dumb but he doesn't know they're dumb, he's just completely sincere about it, and somehow that makes it worse—"
"Right—"
"—but he's also." Fiona stopped. Let her hands drop. Got the look of someone who had been trying to close a door and found they couldn't, quite. "He's kind. Like, actually. Not performatively. He'll just — do a thing, without making it a whole thing, and I'll see it and it just—" She made a small hopeless gesture. "I see it and it just absolutely ruins me, every time."
Haley had gone still.
She was listening, but she was also — without quite meaning to — looking at the screen. Just a fraction. Just enough.
Alex had his elbows on his knees. He was watching Fiona with an expression she couldn't fully read — careful, something working behind it.
"And he's funny," Fiona continued, apparently now unable to stop. "Not always on purpose. Like he'll say something that I don't think is meant to be funny and it makes me want to laugh so badly but I can't because then I'd have to explain why I was laughing and I don't have a cover story prepared—"
"You need a cover story?"
"I can't just laugh, Haley, that would be suspicious—"
"Suspicious of what—"
"Of — the thing! The feelings! I've been very careful." Fiona sat down on the vanity stool with a thump. "I've been extremely normal about this. I don't think he even knows I like being around him. Which is good. That's what I want."
Haley looked at the screen again.
Alex's brow had done something complicated. He was still leaning forward, still watching, but there was something new in it now — less careful, more uncertain. Like he was doing math he hadn't expected to have to do and wasn't sure he was getting the right answer.
"What does he look like?" Haley asked. She wasn't sure why she asked it. Maybe to confirm what was already settling in her chest like a stone.
"That's—" Fiona started, then laughed, short and embarrassed. "That's not relevant."
"Humor me."
"He's—" She looked at the wall. A small, involuntary thing happened to her expression. "He's tall. He's got this—" She moved her hand vaguely near her own face. "He's very, you know. He's a lot to look at. Not that I'm looking. I'm not — I don't stare. I'm being normal."
"You just said that twice."
"Because it's true twice." Fiona stood back up. Sat back down. "I hate this. I want it to stop. Do you know how much easier my life would be right now if I just didn't feel like this?"
On the screen, the math had finished. Haley could see the exact moment it landed — Alex sat back, almost imperceptibly, and looked at Fiona with an expression she'd never seen on him before. Not embarrassment yet. Something quieter and more surprised than that.
He had not, she realized, considered the possibility.
Because Fiona was always a little short with him when their paths crossed — polite, but brisk. Efficient. The kind of careful friendly that didn't invite more friendly back. Alex had mentioned it once, offhand, the way he mentioned things that had landed and he was trying to pretend hadn't: I don't think the farmer likes me much.
Haley had thought he was being paranoid.
She was revising that now.
"Who is it?" she said again, gently.
Fiona looked at the floor.
"It's Alex," she said.
The room went quiet enough to hear the clock in the hallway.
Haley did not look at the laptop.
She was aware — the way you are aware of a glass on the very edge of a table — that Alex was on the other end of the call. That the call was active. That her speakers weren't muted and never had been, and that Alex, who was sitting in his room in his grandparents' house next door to Pierre's, had been there this whole time.
She kept her face neutral.
"Alex," she said.
"Yes." Fiona pushed off the door and started pacing what little space the room allowed. "Okay? Yes. I don't even know when it happened. I've been in town more, trying to actually be part of things here, because this is my home now, I chose this, and somewhere in the middle of that I started—" She waved a hand. "—noticing him. And then I started timing my evenings around when I knew he'd be around. I'd finish my end-of-day stuff and have that little window before dark and instead of using it sensibly I'd just—" She made a helpless gesture. "Come into town."
Haley allowed herself one more glance at the screen.
Alex's ears had gone red.
Not pink, not flushed — red, distinctly, all the way to the tips. He was staring at a point just off camera the way people stare when they're trying very hard to arrange their expression into something neutral and not quite getting there.
She looked back at Fiona.
"How long?" she said.
"A while." Fiona sat down on the edge of the vanity stool, uninvited, the way she'd long since stopped asking permission before doing. "Maybe two months."
"Fiona."
"I know." She put her face in her hands briefly. "I know. It's — the pumpkins were fine, ultimately, but two years ago I would not have been making mistakes like that. I've worked so hard to get to where I am and now I'm forgetting to close the coop—"
"Maybe," Haley said, carefully, "instead of trying to think about him less, you could just — tell him."
Fiona looked up at her.
"So I can think about him more?" she said. "And also have it be humiliating?"
"Or so it stops being a distraction."
"It won't stop being a distraction if he knows, it'll just become a different kind." She stood back up, apparently unable to sit still. "He'd get weird about it but try to be nice and that might kill me. You know how he'd be — all—" She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, dropped her voice— "yeah, I mean, don't worry about it, you're not the first—"
Haley glanced at the screen.
Alex's ears had somehow gotten redder. His jaw was tight. He was looking fully off-camera now, at the wall, like he was reading something very important written there in small print.
"—and then I'd have to figure out how to reorganize my whole town schedule so we're not running into each other at Pierre's, and I've already done the math, he goes Monday mornings, I can do Tuesday afternoons, it's workable—" Fiona stopped pacing. Blew out a long breath. "I just needed to say it to someone. Out loud. That's all. Now I've said it."
She straightened up with visible effort, the same expression she probably got when she decided a crop wasn't going to save itself.
"I'm going to go home."
"It's almost dark," Haley said.
"I know. I'll run." She reached for the door handle. "Please don't tell him. I mean it. I finally have a good season going and I cannot afford the emotional overhead right now, I just needed someone to know—"
"Hey."
The word came from the laptop, quiet and clear.
Fiona's hand stopped on the door handle.
The silence that followed had weight to it.
Haley watched her turn — slowly, the way you turn when you're hoping the turning will somehow change what you find — toward the bed. Toward the screen.
Alex was sitting very still. He'd turned back to the camera at some point, and the full picture was worse than the peripheral glimpses she'd been catching. His ears were red, his face was red, a blotch of color running up his neck and across his cheekbones. He had the expression of someone who had not planned to speak but had done it anyway, and was now committed.
He was also, she noticed, sitting up very straight, which for Alex meant he was nervous.
Fiona turned back to the door. Pressed her forehead against it.
Haley stood up, collected the laptop, walked it across the room, and held it out. Fiona took it automatically, the way you take things before your brain has caught up to what's happening.
On the screen, Alex was already standing up.
"I'm going to go have soup," Haley said. "Emily made some—"
The call dropped.
Both of them looked at the screen. The little window where Alex had been sitting — red-faced, straight-backed — was gone. The movie was still paused behind it, right where they'd left it, the frozen frame sitting there uselessly.
Fiona stared at the laptop. "Did he just—"
"Yeah," Haley said.
"Did he hang up?"
"I don't think he hung up, exactly." Haley picked up her camera from the vanity because the light wasn't gone yet. "I think he left."
Fiona opened her mouth. Closed it. She looked, Haley thought, like someone who had just checked the weather forecast and found something completely unprecedented. "He — left?"
"Mm."
"Where did he—"
There was a knock at the front door.
It was not a patient knock.
Haley looked at Fiona. Fiona looked at the laptop, then at the door to the hallway, then at Haley, with the expression of someone whose contingency plans had just become completely useless.
"I'll get it," Haley said.
She went downstairs. She took her time.
When she opened the front door, Alex was standing on the porch breathing hard, like he'd run the whole way from his grandparents' house without stopping. He had. His jacket was half-unzipped. His ears were still red.
He looked at her. "Is she still here?"
Haley leaned against the doorframe. "Soup's on the stove," she said. "Emily made it."
"Haley."
She stepped aside.
He was already moving past her before she'd finished, taking the stairs two at a time, not quite running but close. She listened to him reach the top, heard the brief pause outside her door — just a second, just enough to knock — and then the sound of it opening.
She went to find her soup.