Chapter Text
Shane wishes he could undo a lot of things he’s done in life.
He wishes he could go back in time and stop himself from dropping out of university halfway through his final year. He wishes he took the out offered by a friend at eighteen instead of staying with his soul-sapping, bruise-landing parents just to save a buck. He definitely wishes he never took up drinking his feelings away every night of his life.
He wishes that, a little over two years ago, he hadn’t spat at that new farmer girl to fuck off when all she had tried to do was say hello and introduce herself. He really, really wishes he hadn't done that.
In the following months, she’d made her way through the town befriending everyone. Every last person received gifts at random; got a bright grin and a friendly wave as they passed her in the streets.
Every single person in this little nothing of a town, except for him.
Hell, even his goddaughter gets baskets of baked goods and wonky handmade toys. He also has it on good authority that both the old man that lives in a tent up in the mountains and that strange guy in the tower out west are good friends of hers now, too. He is, quite literally, the only person around town who can’t call her a friend.
Actually, it may be a little worse than that even. Not only are they not friends, but she seems to hate him.
She glares at him whenever he catches her eye. Excuses herself from conversations on the rare occasion he’s called over to join. Alters her path to avoid walking near him in the streets.
It seems a little extreme to Shane. He may have been drunk off his ass that night, and the details are rather foggy, but he’s pretty sure all he did was scowl at her and tell her to get away from him. He doesn’t think he said anything more unsavoury than that, and he’s barely spoken ten words to her since.
Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue. It’s not like Shane’s a wildly social guy; he barely talks to anyone outside of Jas and Marnie now that Joja’s closed and he’s no longer forced to put up with Sam’s bubbly ramblings all day. He doesn’t talk to people, people don’t talk to him, and it works.
It works for him. Truly. It’s not like he wants to talk to most people, anyway, so what should it matter that no one wants to talk to him?
Or rather - it would work. It should work. But ever since last fall - since she helped him on one of his darkest days - he wants to talk to her. He really, really wants to.
He doesn’t even remember that night, not really. He remembers clocking out of work feeling like the world was closing in on him, and he remembers swiping far too much alcohol on his way out the door, but after that it’s all very murky. He doesn’t remember staggering through the woods in the dark and the rain, though he must’ve. He doesn’t remember drinking himself to the brink of death beneath a tree, or her finding him, though he did and she had. He doesn’t remember getting back to town from the cliffs, he doesn’t remember being dragged into Harvey’s clinic, and he doesn't remember the express trip to the crisis hospital over in Zuzu City.
All he knows is that when he woke up from his coma, nearly a week later, Marnie told him through tears that he better have a damn good apology and the most heartfelt thank you for the farmer once he gets out.
She saved him. And not even in that metaphorical bullshit sense of the phrase, but honest to goodness saved his life.
He never did end up apologizing to her, or thanking her. He tried to come up with something to say, writing countless drafts of rambling monologues - and letters, should he feel particularly cowardly - but nothing he wrote down ever seemed like enough. It all felt shallow and meaningless. It all paled in comparison to what she had done for him. How could something that boiled down to a glorified thank you note ever be adequate after that night? It couldn’t, that’s the truth of it.
Marnie had chased him about it for a bit, laying into him about making changes and being a better man going forward, but even she let him off the hook once she saw his notepad full of sad, scrapped attempts at putting words to his gratitude to the farmer.
He just– he couldn’t face her. Not after what he’d done. Not after how she’s saved him. Not when she so clearly hated him.
Yet his desire to connect only grew, from a want into a need. He no longer wanted to connect just to avoid being the odd one out of her favour, but because he craved being close to her. To get to know her. To take care of her the way she took care of him. Over the months she became all consuming in his mind, and he found himself unwittingly orbiting around her; locked into her gravity.
No matter how hard he tried, though, he couldn’t go through with it. Couldn’t be the first one to extend a hand; to bare his throat.
Twice he found himself standing at her property line, anxiously cracking his knuckles as he watched smoke coil out of the farmhouse chimney, only to retreat back to the ranch with a miserable sigh.
He nearly approached her a half dozen times in town when he spotted her sitting on her own only to chicken out and turn on his heel before he got anywhere close to her.
In the end, he gave up. She wanted nothing to do with him, clearly, and he didn’t want to make that worse. He didn’t want to put any final nails in the coffin of a possible future friendship if he could help it.
Instead, he started watching her. Nothing creepy or anything, he’s not like that, but he began to notice when she was around. Her glares started to sting; the cold shoulders she turned his way started to make him wilt.
After all this time, he kind of wanted her to like him.
Nothing ever came of it, of course. He’s too much of a coward to try and break the ice, and it’s clear she has no interest in doing it herself. So he settles for what he can get, which begins and ends with being peripherally aware of her at all times.
Now is no different.
The saloon is quiet. Far more quiet than a usual Friday afternoon would bring; with none of the usual dancing or game sounds from the side room, or even any occupied booths. In fact, since Shane arrived an hour ago the only person he’s seen, other than Emily working the bar, has been Elliot popping his head in to pick up some takeout.
No one’s spending tonight in the run down pub, and Shane can’t blame them. It is Valentine’s Day, after all.
She arrives as he’s ordering a refill of his soda. Shaking snowflakes out of her mousey hair with her nose scrunched up, the tip of it bright pink from the cold. “Hey, Em,” she calls, shucking off her coat as she collapses on a barstool with a weary sigh.
Shane shrinks back into the shadows of his corner, tucked into the side of the fireplace, and watches her. He doesn’t think she’s seen him yet; she’d have to actually turn towards the fireplace to spot him, he reckons, and he’d prefer to keep it that way. Something’s different about her tonight. Something’s off, and he doesn’t want her to run before he can fully take her in. Before he can study her.
The bright smile she flashes drops off her face as soon as Emily turns away, her eyes falling to the bartop as her shoulders droop. Her fingers drum on the worn wood idly as she waits for her drink, a small crease between her brows.
It hits Shane with a pang.
She’s sad.
As Emily pushes through the saloon doors with her drink, some clear, fizzy soda, he watches her mask fly back up with practiced ease. Her eyes are bright again, an easy, lopsided grin on her face, and the air of someone whose soul is filled with light. The polar opposite of the woman he was just seeing.
“So,” Emily starts, leaning her elbows onto the bar, “where are you off to after this?”
The farmer cocks her head slightly. “Nowhere, just back to the farm.”
“What, no date?” Emily teases as she rests her chin in her palms.
Shrugging, the farmer sips at her drink. “Nope.”
Shane watches a dozen emotions pass over Emily’s face as she takes in the farmer for a moment before settling on poorly concealed sympathy. For as much as Shane likes Emily, that part of her really pisses him off. Can’t hide her emotions for shit. Nothing worse than wanting to drink yourself into a stupor but being met with that look every time you ask for a refill.
“Well that’s okay!” Emily says, patting the farmer’s forearm.“There’ll always be next year!”
“Sure,” the farmer agrees, but Shane can see her usual chipper demeanour falter. Her eyes drop to her glass and that crease reappears between her brows.
Something strange and only vaguely comprehensible flares up in his chest, nestled right under his diaphragm and burning hot as starfire. He doesn’t want her to be sad. At all. Ever.
An egg timer goes off, ringing faintly from the kitchen in the back of the pub, and Emily excuses herself to tend to it.
Once again, as soon as Emily is out of sight the farmer folds in on herself, eyes down and deflated.
“Hey.”
Her eyes jump up to his, and Shane’s vaguely alarmed to discover it had been him to call out to her. Where did that come from? What happened to sliding under the radar as a silent observer?
“What do you want?”
He chews on the inside of his cheek as her expression hardens, the smallest hint of something softer remaining etched into the lines around her eyes. Fear, maybe? Whatever it is, it makes that feeling in Shane’s chest roar up higher. He wants to fix whatever is upsetting her. He needs to.
She raises her brows at him and shakes her head expectantly.
Shit, he’s meant to answer that. She asked him a question.
“It, uh, “ he starts, clearing his throat. “It sucks to be alone on Valentine’s.”
Her brow furrows as she studies him. “I guess.”
Okay, okay, he needs to say more words. She’s still staring at him. “We could, um, be alone together, if you want?”
Now where the hell did that come from? Shane feels his face flush as he slinks down a little lower into his chair, the only thing keeping him from bolting for the door is the matching flush on her cheeks.
She’s quiet for a moment, her eyes briefly darting to the swinging doors Emily vanished through. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
Shane shrugs, feeling slightly emboldened by the absence of an outright no. It's not a yes, he’s quite aware of that, but it’s a possibility of a yes. He has a chance here. Of what, he’s still not quite sure, but he’ll take it. Yoba, he’ll take it. “We could get some takeout and watch bad movies? Or good movies, if that’s more your style.”
Her eyes narrow and her lips purse. “And what?”
“And nothing.”
Her eyes flick to the doors again. “Fine,” she mutters after a long pause, her voice quiet. “Be at the farm at eight.”
Without another word, or giving him the chance to reply, she slaps some money down on the counter and rushes out the door with her jacket in hand. She doesn’t even put it on as she steps out into the snow.
Slowly, Shane blows out for as long as he can. His heart is thrumming high in his chest and he just–how is he meant to do this? He’s never even had a proper conversation with her, and now he’s going over to her house? For dinner and a movie? On Valentine’s Day?
The clock over the bar says it's a quarter past six. His phone confirms it. Oh Yoba, he has–he has things to do before going over there. He needs to text Marnie that he’ll be out later than usual and ask her to get Jas to bed. He needs to order food to go. With a groan, he realises that he’ll be ordering for her, and he has no idea what she likes.
He pulls the collar of his shirt up to his nose and inhales deeply. Okay, at least he doesn’t reek. His clothes are clean and he still smells faintly of his body wash. It’s nothing special, nothing too nice, but it’s clean. That’ll have to be enough. He can’t risk going home to douse himself in cologne; Marnie will ask too many questions.
His head snaps up as Emily steps back out to the front of the pub, wiping her hands on the hem of her apron.
“Oh,” she says, frowning at the now empty seat the farmer had been occupying, “she left already?”
Shane hums a non committal noise in the back on his throat, keeping his eyes down.
“Huh,” Emily says, gathering up the coins the farmer had left, “I hope she’s okay. She seemed off today, did you notice?”
“I, uh, I did, yeah,” Shane says, a little gruff. His eyes flick up to Emily and he sees that pitying look on her face again. “Wait, do you know why?”
Emily shrugs, picking up a rag and wiping down the bartop idly. “I don’t know for sure, but her aura was awfully dull.”
Shane blinks at her and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t believe in this aura business, but maybe some of Emily’s guesses will hold some water. After all, she has to pull these feelings about auras from somewhere, right? Maybe she’s picking up on something accurate on a subconscious level. “What does a dull aura mean?”
“Well,” Emily starts slowly, tossing the rag aside and making her way to the end of the bar closest to Shane, “usually it means there’s some major unfulfillment. Some base need in life is going unmet. In my studies it’s usually talked about in terms of neglect or abuse, but it can also be bodily needs like starvation. Anything that’s needed to have life feel complete, you know?”
Humming, Shane leans back in his seat and runs his fingertip around the rim of his glass, sticky with drying cola. “What need do you think she’s missing?”
Emily shrugs with a chuckle. “If I could read people that well, I wouldn’t be working as a bartender,” she jokes.
Sighing, Shane huffs out a small laugh as well. “Fair.”
She disappears into the back again, and Shane continues to nurse his drink. It’s warm and flat now, and really rather disgusting, but it occupies his hands and his mouth. It doesn't do anything for his mind, unfortunately, but that’s part of giving up drinking. No longer is the option to simply turn off his thoughts with alcohol one he’s permitted to take.
It’s a thirty minute walk to the farm from town, he thinks. He should probably give himself a few extra minutes since it’s dark out. The last thing he needs is to be stuck gingerly picking his way along the path and leave her thinking she’s been stood up. Yoba, there would be no salvaging anything from that, would there?
“Hey, Em?” he calls, pushing up from his seat.
Emily pokes her head out from the back. “Yeah?”
“Can I get, uh,” Shane stalls, trying to figure out what the farmer might want from the menu. He’s never paid too much attention to what she orders, preferring to watch her face instead and get lost in her eyes - a pretty shade of dark bluish grey - from across the room. Probably something chill and easy to eat is the best option, right? Something with a ‘this is a day all about love and it sucks to be alone on it, doesn’t it?’ vibe. “Two burgers? To go? With all the fixings, please.”
Emily raises a brow at him, the corner of her mouth turning up slightly, but she just nods and disappears into the back. “You’ve got it,” she calls, her voice echoing from down the hall.
Shane falls back into his seat with a huff, dragging his hands down his face. Pierre’s is open for another twenty minutes, should he go get her some flowers? Is that too much? Would she even like that, given that this isn’t a traditional Valentine’s date? Maybe it would be nice for this to feel like a date, even if it isn’t.
Groaning, knowing now that it’s in his head he won’t be able to drop it, Shane stands again and pulls on his jacket. “Emily? I’m running an errand but I’ll be back for the food in a bit.”
She calls an acknowledgement from the back, and Shane shoves out the door and into the night.
It’s cold and snowy, with the wind blowing hard enough to bite at any exposed skin. Turning his collar up and jamming his hands into his pockets, he jogs across the courtyard to Pierre’s as fast as he can manage. This is nearly blizzard territory, and a fleeting thought crosses his mind about how the animals are faring back at the ranch. Particularly his flock of Blues, being the sensitive little things they are. Hopefully Marnie turned their heater on when she tended to her own animals.
Does the farmer have any animals? It occurs to him that he doesn’t know. He’s never set foot on her farm, and even though he’s stood at the edge and looked across the land, he knows he can’t see everything. She could have all sorts of surprises hiding there.
Pierre’s is not as empty as he expected it to be. In all honesty, he expected it to be just as dead as the Saloon, but he counts no less than a half dozen people milling about. Most are grabbing cards and flowers, but a few seem to have usual grocery items in their carts.
Shane snorts as he brushes past Alex, who has nothing but a thirty six pack of condoms in his basket. He’s sure that Alex gets around, being the handsome gridball star he is, but that’s still excessively optimistic in Shane’s humble opinion.
The floral section has been picked through pretty thoroughly, but Shane manages to find a small, yet pretty, bouquet of multicoloured tulips near the back. There’s also a bundle of white roses, but that feels a little too on the nose. Better to play it safe with something less…classically romantic.
The checkout line chugs along slowly, Pierre taking his sweet time making small talk with everyone as he scans their items. It grates on Shane’s already strung nerves and he taps his foot on the floor anxiously as he inches towards the till.
Jodi is just ahead of him, and to Shane’s dismay pulls out a bundle of coupons as she greets Pierre. He’s not one to judge, Yoba only knows how much he relied on coupons to feed Jas back in the city, but tonight’s not the night. He’s got places to be and farmer girls to embarrass himself in front of.
Nevertheless, he bites his tongue, scrunches up his nose, and continues impatiently tapping his foot while Jodi meticulously sorts through her coupons. The last thing he wants to do is cause a scene.
Finally, and mercifully, Jodi finishes paying and heads off with her bags.
“Evening, Shane,” Pierre greets, annoyingly chipper, “just these for you?”
Shane nods, keeping his eyes down in the hopes of avoiding any small talk or, Yoba forbid, any question as to who these flowers are destined for. “Yep.”
Pierre hums, but mercifully doesn’t try to coax any more conversation out of Shane as he rings up the bouquet without another word, wrapping them up in some plain, brown paper as Shane taps his card to the reader.
“Night,” Shane mumbles as he turns to leave, wrinkling the bridge of his nose and staring resolutely at the ground as he spots Caroline shooting him a curious look. He can see the question on the tip of her tongue, which is his cue to get out of here as quickly as he can.
Back out in the howling and icy wind, he tucks the flowers into his jacket, being careful to not squish them, and trudges back to the saloon.
“I’m back,” he calls as he pushes through the door, shaking his head to dislodge the snow that’s accumulated in his hair. “How are those burgers coming along?”
“Give me two minutes!” Emily calls cheerfully from the back.
Sighing, Shane drops onto a barstool and raps his knuckles on the counter. His nerves are setting in now. What should he expect from tonight? He offered up dinner and movies, but what if she doesn’t want to do that? Should he be coming up with a plan B? Plan C? How many backups can he reasonably come up with before he’s knocking on her door?
A strange tremor runs over his body as it occurs to him that maybe she’d want more. He doesn’t–there’s no way she would. It’s not something he needs to seriously consider. She barely agreed to this at all, there is no chance she decides she actually wants to sleep with him, right?
Yoba, maybe Alex was onto something buying condoms today.
Shane gives his head a firm shake and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. This is just his imagination getting away from him, she’s not going to want that. And if she does, he should probably call Harvey because she must’ve hit her head. She loathes him, and she doesn’t strike him as the type to be into hate sex.
“All ready!” Emily chirps, shouldering her way through the swinging doors leading to the kitchen with a takeout bag held in her arms.
“Thanks,” Shane says, a little hoarse as he pulls out his wallet and hands Emily a few bills in exchange for the burgers.
She grins at him. “Have fun!”
Blushing furiously, Shane scoffs and heads back out into the snow. Turning up his collar once again, and with a final check to make sure the tulips are safe and secure, he heads west. Out of town, past the bus stop, and to the farmer’s lands.
~~~
The fields stretch out before Shane, blanketed in snow. If he didn’t know this was a farm, he'd think he’d found himself in some sort of magical clearing. Someplace deathly silent, where both the ground and the air sparkle in the moonlight.
Yet he does know this is a farm, and he can see the signs buried beneath.
The rows of trellises, sure to hold green beans come spring, that barely poke up through the snow drifts on the sides of the few cleared paths. There’s fencing in the distance, and the faint glow of light from within a small barn.
Swallowing, he turns to the house. It’s small, and by all means fairly run down, but he can tell she’s had some work done on it since she moved in. The porch looks new, as do the front windows. She’s even painted, last he saw it this place had been a pale yellow, and now it’s a muted, mossy green.
It suits her, he thinks. She seems like a mossy green sort of girl.
The porch steps are shovelled and salted, and he pauses to dust the fresh snow off the hand rail on his way up. Partly because it feeds that little feeling in his chest to do some mundane chore for her, but mostly to buy himself a few extra seconds to steel his nerves.
He knocks a little tune by habit, wincing at himself as he cuts off the final knock. The only place he ever knocks these days is Jas’s room, and she likes the tune, okay? It makes her laugh, and that sound is a strong contender for his favourite sound in the world.
Finally, the door opens and Shane takes a deep breath. This is happening.
“Hi,” she says, a little guarded, not that he can blame her. To her, this is all probably very strange and feeling vaguely like some sort of trap.
“Hi,” Shane says back, his voice very weak. He clears his throat and tries again. “Hey.”
There, that was mostly audible. Totally normal speaking tone, to boot. He’s nailing this.
“So,” she says slowly, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Shane blinks, then swallows. He’s meant to do something here, right? “Oh! Here,” he says, holding the paper bag from the saloon out to her. The bottom of it is beginning to soak through with grease, and he grimaces.
Her brow furrows, but she does take the bag from him and heads deeper into the house. Assuming that’s his cue to follow her inside, Shane slips through the door, closing it behind himself and kicking off his boots. He lines them up neatly next to hers and ignores the flutter in his chest, scolding himself for it. They're just boots. Boots sitting next to each other. It—it's not anything. His boots don't live here, they're just visiting. They'll be leaving soon.
The interior of the house is plain, but lived in. The kitchen has a pile of dirty dishes next to the sink, and there’s mismatched throw pillows on the living room sofa. The walls are bare of art, but there is a small, wire figurine of a dragon on the dining table.
“Here,” she says, reappearing at his side and pushing a plate with his burger and share of the fries to his chest. As soon as he has a good hold on it, she turns and marches into the living room, sitting on the floor with her back pressed against the sofa.
Shane rolls his shoulders as he picks his way across to her. Should he sit on the floor too? Or is she doing that to put more distance between them than there would be on the couch? Oh, Yoba, she doesn’t think he’d try to make a move on her if they sat together, does she?
After a moment’s deliberation, he gingerly sits on the far edge of the sofa, giving her as much space as he possibly can.
She turns to look at him, frowning. “What are you doing up there?”
“Uh,” Shane stammers, “I thought–don’t you want some space? I don’t want to crowd you.”
Her eyes are rolling before he’s done stuttering through his reply. “It’s Valentine’s,” she mutters, exasperated, “that’s a floor day.”
“Oh–okay.” Shane awkwardly wiggles his way to the floor as best he can without spilling his food. It should be easy, hell, he’s gotten around much more gracefully than this when he’s been utterly shitfaced, but having her eyes on him seems to have disconnected his limbs from the rest of his body. He feels rather like a marionette puppet now.
She watches him slither down with a puzzled expression on her face, huffing when he finally settles on the floor. “So what’ll it be?” she asks, turning on the TV and opening a streaming site. “Pick your poison.”
Shane frowns at the screen, quirking his mouth to the side. If she’s sad, he should try to make her laugh, right? However, he doesn’t know her sense of humour. What if he picks something she thinks is weird? Or in poor taste?
With a shaky breath, he holds his hand out for the remote, then flinches as a loud crinkle sound fills the otherwise silent house.
“Oh, shit,” he mutters, quickly unzipping his jacket, “I, uh, I got these for you.”
The tulips have been slightly flattened, and a few of the stems are snapped, but he holds them out to her anyways with the best smile he can muster. Based on the look she’s giving him in return, though, he fears it may be coming across more akin to a grimace.
“Thanks,” she says quietly, swiping them out of his hand and standing, heading back to the kitchen.
Pointedly avoiding watching her walk away, Shane brushes his palms on his thighs to try to dry the sweat before grabbing the remote and clicking through the titles until he finds a movie that’s so outrageously bad she’ll at least laugh at it, if not with it.
“How much did you pay for these?” she calls from the kitchen, making Shane flinch again.
He turns around to see her arranging them in a vase, her head cocked to the side and the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth. “Uh, like thirty? Thirty five? I wasn’t really paying attention, to be honest.”
“Thirty?” she snaps, her eyes flashing as they jump up to him.
Shane sinks down until he figures just the top half of his head is visible from behind the sofa. “Yeah.”
She laughs, humourless, and shakes her head. “That crook. I sold him five times this many for forty five.”
“Huh?”
“These are my flowers,” she says, gesturing to the rather sad looking bouquet now sitting on her counter, “I grew them over the winter in my greenhouse specifically so I could make bank on fucking Valentine’s, only for Pierre to undercut me this much? Next year I’m selling to people directly, fuck this.”
Shane chuckles weakly, turning back to the TV as his heart hammers in his throat. “Yeah, fuck that guy.”
She returns to the living room and plops back onto the carpet with a sigh, balancing her plate on her knee. Shane watches her pick up the top bun of her burger and carefully pluck off the pickles before replacing it, nudging the pickle slices all the way to the edge of her plate with the tip of her pinkie finger. “Alright,” she says, taking a massive bite out of her burger, “go for it.”
Shane clicks play and picks at his meal. Truth be told, he hasn’t had an appetite since the moment she walked into the Saloon earlier, and watching her is far more interesting than watching some trash movie.
She gobbles her burger down, her eyes not leaving the screen, and she makes it halfway through her fries before the first twist happens.
“Did–” she starts, her eyes narrowing as she sets her plate to the side, “did his dick just get cut off?”
“Uh, yep,” Shane says, trying to ignore the heat he can feel in his cheeks. Perhaps this movie wasn’t the best idea, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to survive listening to her talk about dicks for the next ninety minutes.
“That’s the premise? That’s the plot? Getting bro’s dick reattached?” She points a fry at the screen as though she’s scolding it as she barks out a laugh.
Swallowing, Shane sets his plate down and chews his lip. “We can watch something else, if you–”
She hums, cutting him off. “No, it’s fine. You said dinner and bad movies, so.” She gestures to her plate and nods towards the TV. “You made good on your promise.”
Over the course of the movie, Shane slowly relaxes as the farmer holds a running commentary. He’s never heard her talk this much, and she’s funnier than he thought she’d be. Her quick wit has him laughing even more than the absurdity of the movie, and by the time the credits are rolling he’s settled enough to stretch his legs out and look at her freely.
“Another?” she asks, reaching for the remote.
A happy little glow springs to life in Shane’s chest. “Yeah, let’s do it.”
She selects some old movie Shane hasn’t seen, but only a couple minutes in she turns to face him, seemingly uninterested in watching it.
“Why’d you bring flowers?”
Shane sits up straighter, his nerves returning. “It’s Valentine’s,” he says with a weak chuckle. “Seemed fitting, you know?”
She narrows his eyes at him. “Yeah, but that—that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Well,” Shane starts, frowning slightly, “yeah, it does. That’s just what you do on Valentine’s. I got flowers for Marnie and Jas, too.”
Her eyes narrow further for a moment, then she sighs. “I guess.”
“Come on,” he jokes, strained. “Aren't flowers, like, the bare minimum? Imagine showing up to a Valentine’s date with no flowers, that would be just an immediate end to the night.”
She scrunches up her nose, looking away as she scoots around to face the TV again. “I mean, sure. I guess, yeah.”
Shane cocks his head. Her reaction isn't making a lot of sense to him here; surely he’s not some outlier who thinks flowers should just be a given on Valentine’s, right? He feels like he’d know by now if he were, thirty-two is awfully old to get before you learn some basic date etiquette. “Wait,” he says as another idea occurs to him, “you have been given Valentine’s flowers before, right?”
She scoffs, immediately whipping back around to face him with a scowl. “And what if I hadn’t? What then?”
“Then I’d say the guys you were seeing were assholes,” Shane says gently, recognizing the look in her eye. It’s the same look Jas used to give him after she woke up from her nightmares when she first came to live with him; feeling cornered, defensive, and ready to lash out until she realized it had just been a bad dream.
The farmer sets her jaw, though that hesitancy and fear remains in her eyes. “And what if there hadn’t been any guys?”
Now that gives Shane pause. “You haven’t dated?”
She clicks her tongue and pulls her knees up to her chest. “It—it just hasn’t happened for me, okay?”
“I’m not judging,” he assures her, just as gently.
“And I’m not some blushing virgin either,” she snaps, “I’ve gotten around.”
Shane’s cheeks burn. “I believe you.”
“Good,” she snarls, turning her head away.
“Can I just—” he starts, flinching when she whips back around to glare at him. “Can I ask why you agreed to this then? If it’s—you know, a sore spot or whatever.”
She regards him for a long moment, eyes narrowed, before she sighs and deflates. Wordlessly, she stands and walks to the kitchen, grabbing a mug out of the cupboard and switching the kettle on. “Sometimes it’s just nice to pretend, you know?” she says, so quietly that Shane has to strain to hear her. “Trick my mind into believing that I have it for just–for a night. Or an hour, or whatever. However long it lasts.”
Shane watches the sad slope of her shoulders as she makes up her tea before she returns to the living room and drops to sit cross legged on the rug once again.
“It?” Shane asks, inching just a hair closer to her.
She shrugs, staring into the steam coiling out of her mug. “You know,” she mutters, taking a sip. “Someone who wants me, or cares about me. Love.”
She spits the word out like it’s sour on her tongue, her brows pulling together as she takes another, longer drink.
Shane watches her with his brow furrowed. That look still hasn’t left her face - the one that tells him all this venom is being used to keep him at a distance. Has she really not had anyone who loved her? Actually, nevermind love, did she say she’s never been with someone who wants or cares about her? Is—is the bar really that low?
“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment, voice low and subdued. “You deserve more than that. You deserve to not have to—to pretend that people care about you.”
“Yeah, well,” she scoffs, finally meeting his eyes again, “I can’t control people’s feelings, can I?”
“No,” Shane agrees with a half shrug, “but you still deserve more.”
She snorts, turning back to the movie. There’s a slight glassiness in her eyes that breaks Shane’s heart.
“You can—” he starts before cutting himself off and clearing his throat gruffly. “You can pretend with me, though, if you want.”
The glare she shoots him makes him shrink back and avert his eyes. “And why exactly would I want to do that?”
Shane shrugs again, keeping his eyes downcast. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Just thought I’d offer.”
She watches him for a long moment, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, before she huffs and inches a little closer to him. “Fine,” she says quietly, “we can—we can pretend, or whatever.”
A thrill runs along Shane’s nerve, sending electric tingles shooting down his limbs. There’s still several feet of space between them that he dares not breach, but she moved closer. That’s got to be something, right?
Swallowing thickly, he sits up straighter and clasps his hands in his lap. Okay, he can do this. He’s done the whole Valentine’s romance thing before, he can do it again. All he has to do is shake the rust and nerves off. “So, um, what do you—what do you want?”
She shrugs again, keeping her eyes resolutely on the TV. “I don’t know, what have you done on other Valentine’s dates?”
Clearing his throat, Shane wrings his hands in his lap to try and quell his nerves. “It’s—it’s varied with different people.”
“Explain my options, then.”
He winces at the sharpness in her words and takes a deep breath. “I’ve only had three Valentine's dates,” he says with a half shrug. “One was in a longer relationship, and I took her out to a nice restaurant before we went back to her place and, uh…”
“Fucked,” the farmer says, finally turning back to him with her cheeks flushed.
Shane winces again, blushing fiercely. “Well—yeah.”
The farmer watches him for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “What are my other options?”
“The next one I went on was in a relationship we both knew wasn’t going anywhere, so we just got sloshed at a bar and then—”
“Fucked,” the farmer says again with an exasperated sigh. “Please tell me one of these options doesn’t include fucking.”
Shane drops his eyes to the rug, scrunching up his nose. Of course he had assumed she wouldn’t be interested in anything like that with him, but it would be a lie to say he didn’t have this teeny tiny flame of hope deep in his belly. Or rather, had. She’s done a very thorough job of extinguishing it now. “The last one was early in a relationship,” he says quietly. “I really wanted to impress her, so I ordered in from her favourite place and set my apartment up to be all romantic. You know, with candles and rose petals and shit. Then we danced for a while and kissed for the first time. Then she went home, no fucking.”
The farmer stays quiet for a while, staring into her tea with a frown. She stays quiet for long enough that Shane braces himself to be kicked out, having surely touched a nerve or crossed some line he was unaware of.
However, just as he’s mustering the resolve to excuse himself and call time of death on the evening, she clears her throat. “That one,” she whispers. “The dancing one.”
“I– okay,” Shane breathes, wiping his hands on his pant legs once again before fishing his phone out of his pocket. “Let me just find some music.”
He scrolls through his playlists until he finds something reasonably suitable; all soft, melodic ballads and pop songs with a few acoustic versions mixed in. After raising his volume, he sets his phone down on the sofa and stands, holding a hand out to her.
She takes it after a brief hesitation, and Shane prays to Yoba that his palms are neither sweaty or clammy. Giving her a shaky grin, he pulls her to her feet and guides her a little ways away from the sofa so they have room to move.
Her hand is shockingly soft in his. He had assumed the months of running the farm all on her own would have them calloused and toughened, yet they simply aren’t.
“You must have really nice gloves,” he muses, his thumb brushing over her knuckles.
“What?”
“Oh, um,” Shane scrambles, scrunching up his nose, “your hands are soft. I didn’t think they would be with all the, uh, farm work and stuff.”
She narrows her eyes at him, head cocked slightly to the side, then steps closer and lays her free hand on his shoulder. “I do have nice gloves,” she says quietly as they begin to sway. “I get too many blisters if I don’t wear any.”
Shane hums, not trusting himself to speak. His heart is rabbiting in his throat and his other hand, the one not linked with hers, is burning on her back. He’s pretty sure if he opened his mouth now, all that would come out is steam and, quite possibly, his soul.
They sway awkwardly through a couple songs. She doesn’t press closer to him, doesn't rest her head on his shoulder, doesn’t even speak to him. They just sway, with Shane’s eyes locked on a potted plant on the far side of the room and the muscles of his arms tensed to ensure his hand doesn’t subconsciously relax and fall to her waist.
Then, either by some miracle or an act of Yoba, she leans in slightly. Shane goes very still, alarmed in the same way he gets when deer approach him around the ranch, keen on searching his pockets for grain in the same way Marnie has accustomed them to. The farmer pauses a hair’s breadth away from the fabric of Shane’s hoodie, then slowly leans against him.
Breath stalled in his chest, Shane closes his eyes and wills himself to continue swaying as though he doesn't feel on the brink of a cardiac event. He can do this; he can dance with the farmer in her living room on Valentine’s day. He’s a grown ass adult man, not a pre-teen at his first co-ed party.
“Your heart is racing,” she murmurs after a second, turning her head to the side to rest her ear fully to Shane’s sternum. “Nervous?”
Shane opens and closes his mouth several times like the trout schooling in the river that flows through town. “A little,” he admits, hoarse.
The farmer hums, leaning more of her weight on him. “Me too, I think.”
Knowing that he’s not the only one feeling a tad out of his depth here soothes the frayed edges of Shane’s nerves, and he relaxes slightly. They’re in this together, whatever this is.
Emboldened the slightest little bit, he wraps his arm around her tighter and sighs, letting his cheek lightly rest on the crown of her head. Somehow, for some reason Shane cannot even begin to fathom, she doesn’t leave. She doesn’t shove him off with a snarl, doesn’t shoot him a withering glare, none of it. Yet another miracle in this farmhouse this evening, it seems.
They stay like that for a while, long enough for the playlist to loop back to the first song again. Only then, with the velvety voice of some Galdorian pop star warbling out of Shane’s phone, does she pull away.
Her eyes are downcast and her cheeks pink as she backs up a step; far enough to look Shane in the eye yet close enough for his arm to still hold her around the waist. “That was—”
“Yeah,” Shane breathes, feeling dizzy.
“You also said something—” she cuts herself off with a wince, clearing her throat. “Something about a kiss?”
Shane swallows thickly, blinking at her as his brain reboots. “I…did say something about a kiss, yeah.”
Her jaw trembles briefly, then she meets his gaze with a challenge, her confident mask flying back up in an instant. “If we’re pretending, may as well go all in, right?”
When Shane only continues to blink at her, she continues. “So come on then, show me how you kissed that girl on your date.”
Shane doesn’t know what to do. Well, he knows to kiss her, obviously, he’s not that obtuse, but should he announce it? He didn’t that night with the other girl, but they had– they’d been inching towards it all night. It had been all nervous laughs and fleeting glances at lips and little gasps whenever they got a little closer than they had been before. It had been the natural, easy progression.
Now, though, with the farmer? With her asking for it and staring at him like that? In that way that makes him cower and turns him on all at once? It’s short-circuiting him.
“Well?” she asks, raising her chin slightly as she narrows her eyes.
Shane swallows thickly, running his tongue over his lips to wet them. Here goes nothing.
He leans in very slowly and gingerly presses his mouth to hers. It’s barely even a kiss, but it sends zaps of pleasure down his nerves nonetheless.
Second pass with them staying just like that - not even actively kissing. A little part of Shane’s mind winces away from it, knowing that he can kiss better than this. Whatever he’s doing here is an embarrassment, honestly. Even his first kiss ever had more finesse than this.
Another long moment passes and Shane pulls away. Man, he really shot this night right in the foot with that–well, he’s not even sure it can be counted as a kiss, really. Fuck.
Worriedly, he meets her eyes and opens his mouth to apologize, but she closes the distance between them and kisses him again.
Holy shit.
Shane sucks in a breath, actually kissing her properly this time. It’s still chaste, still restrained, but at least they’re actually moving now.
This kiss doesn’t last long and she pulls back after only a couple seconds, but there’s a change in her eyes that has Shane’s skin feeling too tight.
Her eyes are lidded and dark. Her lips are parted and shining as she breathes a little faster than what’s probably normal for her, and as soon as the corners of her mouth tick up slightly, Shane’s lost.
He walks into her, crowding her along until her back hits the wall, then cups the back of her head with one hand, holds her close by the waist with the other, and kisses her hard.
It’s messy, uncoordinated, and by all accounts a bad kiss, but Shane’s knees go weak and he thinks he could die a happy man right this second. Panting into her mouth, he holds her tight, tangling his fingers into her hair and nipping at her lower lip.
She moans against him, pushing up onto her toes as she loops her arms around his neck, holding him close. For a brief moment, Shane swears he can feel the rapid thumping of her heart beating where it presses against his.
He licks into her mouth with fervour, savouring the taste of her tongue and mapping out the ridges of her teeth like the knowledge of her is all that can sustain him. With the way he’s feeling right now, it very well might be his lifeblood for the next eight to ten business days, and it definitely will be the heart and soul of his spank bank for Yoba knows how long.
Shane could very well live right here, in this moment, forever. He could drink the taste of the farmer’s lips, ground himself to the curve of her hips, merge their bodies into one. The rest of the world, of Pelican Town and even the farm just outside, may as well not exist. They could stay right here, pressed against the wall, endlessly.
So when the farmer pulls back with a sigh, her hands dropping to rest on Shane’s shoulders as she pushes him slightly back, he wilts.
“It’s late,” she whispers, not meeting his gaze. “I need to be up early.”
“Oh,” Shane says, quiet and desperately trying to keep his disappointment out of his voice. “Right. Of course, farmwork waits for no one.”
The corners of her mouth tick up into a slight smile, though she still refuses to meet his eyes. “I guess I’ll, um, see you around.”
Shane swallows thickly, backing up another step. “Yeah,” he breathes.
She stays by that wall, arms wrapped around herself while he slips on his jacket and boots, eyes still firmly on the floor no matter how desperately Shane wishes she would look at him. He hesitates for just a beat, the briefest moment, with his hand on the handle of the front door. Brows pinched, he exhales slowly as his eyes jump around the little bit of her face he can see.
She doesn’t look up, though, and Shane is left with no option but to open the door. “See you around,” he says softly, then steps out into the snow and ice of the midnight blizzard.