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“You look tired.”
“You look worse.”
He huffs and turns the tablet toward me. “Look at this.”
He shows me the vendor list and the updated map of the farm site.
We work through it together for the next hour while Noëlle brings us coffee refills without being asked and winks at me every time she passes the table. Sam, her wife, is at the counter. She’s giving me looks too.
By eleven, I’ve made a list of things I can do this afternoon that will actually take work off Finn’s plate. He hesitates before agreeing.
“Fox.”
“Yeah?”
“I need to say something, and it’s going to sound bad.”
“Okay.”
“I need you to stay away for a couple of days.”
I go very still.
“Not because I want you to,” he continues quickly, “but because everyone is watching me now. Emmett, Noëlle, even Bastian. And every time you show up with coffee and a smile, someone puts a piece in the puzzle. And I’m not… I’m not ready for that.”
“Okay. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“How long are you staying?”
“Why? Afraid you’ll have to buy me a Christmas present if I stay too long?”
He picks up a discarded piece of his pastry and throws it at me.
“I think we all want to see the festival through, which means we’ll all stay till Christmas.”
He taps the side of his empty coffee cup and mutters under his breath something I don’t quite catch, but it sounds a lot like “So close and so far away.” I really want to reach out and hold his hand, but I can’t, so I grab my own cup to keep my hands busy.
“Thank you for your help today.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
“You’re going back to the farm?”
“Yeah. Bastian wants me to help with a few things.”
“Okay.”
We stand, put our coats on, and walk out onto the street together.
The rest of the day is taken up by fence lines. Bastian and I mark the boundary between his property and the Peterson farm with orange tape, then do the same on the Whitaker side. We walk the whole perimeter of the festival site with Chief Morrison’s diagrams in hand.
We flag off the barns with Gouta following us the whole way, occasionally head-butting Bastian’s leg when she decides he’s been paying attention to me for too long.
Bastian talks about Taylen almost the whole time. Not directly, but he mentions Taylen’s fence, Taylen’s service road, Taylen’s opinion about the parking layout, Taylen’s face when he saw the new lighting proposal. Taylen. Taylen. Taylen.
I let him talk because it’s easier than talking myself and ending up blurting out that I’m in love with his brother.
At one point, he stops in the middle of the field, puts his hands on his hips, and looks out over the land.
