Just here for sdv love

❝so here's my heart for you if you want it it's got a couple bruises on it sometimes it breaks down and it doesn't work quite right, but you bring it back to life❞

–Here's My Heart, SayWeCanFly

Hadley stared at the jar of marbles sitting on her kitchen window sill. The marbles reflected and refracted the light, sending blue-green streaks spiraling in fractured designs across her kitchen table. She ran an idle finger across one of the beams, humming.

A half-cold coffee sat on the table beside her. It had been intended to be a mid-afternoon pick-me-up, but it had done little to help her shifting mood.

It had been a little over a week since she and Seb had first kissed, and Seb had spent nearly every night since in bed beside her. They hadn’t even done anything that couldn’t be included in a PG-13 movie. They just… slept. Curled against each other and went to bed with the comfort and security of knowing the other was there. Already, there was another tooth brush beside hers in the cup by her bathroom sink.

But even as Hadley was at the happiest she’d felt in years, it was a daily struggle to escape the kernel of dread that sat like a weight in her stomach.

In her worst moments, she found herself stuck in the memory of catching Andrew cheating on her. She walked into her bedroom in their stuffy Zuzu apartment to see him shirtless, his hands buried in the hair of a blonde woman she’d later find out lived on the first floor. But then the memory would shift, and Andrew would morph into Seb, and an icy jolt would fire through her brain and her pulse would spike and her lungs would betray their natural instinct to breathe.

Her therapist told her, in no uncertain terms, that she had trust issues. It didn’t come as a surprise.

As an exercise, her therapist had suggested she picture a jar, and every time Seb did something to show that he cared about her or followed through with something he said he would do, she should visualize adding another marble to the jar. Except Hadley struggled to picture the mental jar, and she remembered finding an old set of marbles in the hall closet once while cleaning, and so she’d turned the mental exercise into a physical one.

It had only been a week since she’d started the collection, and the jar was nearly full. It calmed her to look at it.

Deep down, though, she knew there was another source to her anxiety — one that couldn’t be solved with mental exercises alone. 

She took out her phone and scrolled down through her messages before she found the thread she was looking for.

Hadley: hey

Hadley: are you doing anything tonight?

She held her breath as she hit send. She stared at the message, reading and rereading it, and waited for the bubble to change to read.

A minute later, it did. But no typing indicator appeared.

She swallowed. She kept telling herself that she shouldn’t be nervous, but the reminder did nothing to quell the anxiety budding in her stomach. She took a sip of her lukewarm coffee and stared out the window instead.

A few minutes later, her phone vibrated, pulling her out of her thoughts.

Sam: Hey!

Sam: Not that I know of. Why, what’s up?

Hadley bit the corner of her lip.

Hadley: would you wanna grab a drink at the saloon?

Hadley: maybe like 5ish?

Yet again, the message flipped to read and stayed there. The typing indicator appeared, disappeared, and then appeared again. It was a full three minutes before the reply came in.

Sam: Yeah sure. Just the two of us, or…?

Hadley: if that’s okay! Just wanted to catch up

Sam: Okay, yeah. Sounds fun.

Hadley stood and dumped the dredges of her coffee into the sink. Five o’clock was an unnerving amount of hours away, but she had more than enough work to do to fill it. She might as well burn off the nervous energy.

⋆｡°✩°｡⋆

Hadley got to the Saloon earlier than she needed to, but she had felt too restless sitting in her kitchen and watching the clock, waiting for the acceptable time to leave.  Now, she was sitting at the bar in the Saloon instead. A fresh cider stood on a napkin beside her, brought over by Emily without her even needing to ask. The napkin was beginning to disintegrate from the condensation, and Hadley watched another bead of sweat drip down the side of the glass.

She fiddled with the hem of her sweatshirt in her lap.

The door to the Saloon jingled, and a shadow appeared over her left shoulder.

“Hey.” Sam sat down on the stool next to her. 

He’d only been sitting for a few seconds before Emily arrived, placing down two coasters, a glass of water, and a fresh beer. Sam grinned at her.

“What if I wanted something different?” he asked.

Emily snorted. “Then you’d order it and drink both.”

He laughed. “Touche.”

“Can I get you anything to eat?” she asked. “Fries? Burgers?”

“Just drinks is fine,” Hadley said. The words had to drag themselves out of her throat.

“Alright. Well, holler if you need me.” She slung her bar towel over her shoulder and wandered back down to the other side of the bar, where Shane was nursing a beer.

With Sam here, Hadley finally reached for her glass and took a hefty sip. She could use some liquid courage.

Sam took a sip of his own drink. “So, what’s up?” he asked.

“Just… wanted to get out of the house, I guess,” Hadley said. “And I hadn’t seen you in awhile.”

He nodded. “How’s the farm? Getting along well with the change of seasons?”

“Yeah, actually. You should come by sometime. I don’t think you’ve seen it since the barn was built. I have all kinds of animals now.” She took another sip of her drink and suppressed a smile. “Abi even made me name a cow after her.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Is she aware that’s kind of an insult to herself?”

Hadley nearly choked on her drink when she laughed. “I hadn’t looked at it like that.” She wiped her mouth with the side of a napkin. “How are you?”

Sam shrugged. “Same old, mostly. But I’ve been talking with Gunther about maybe going to work for the museum.”

Hadley blinked at him. “What?” she asked. “That’s amazing.”

“I have a history degree,” he said. “Just, with this job market, I’ve never really had the chance to do anything with it. But I guess they just had a bunch of donations from some guy out in the desert, and Gunther needs help cataloging everything, so…” He gave another small shrug. “It’s better than the JoJa gig, and it’s something I actually kind of care about.”

“That’s great!” Hadley said. “I’m proud of you.”

Sam smiled. For a moment, she could remember how the version of herself from last spring had felt towards Sam, and how she’d delighted when that smile was directed at her.

But she thought she understood it now. Sam was easy to talk to, and after everything that had happened, she’d been desperate for kindness, desperate for someone to actually pay attention to her. He’d fulfilled that need at a time where she felt like she might disappear without it. 

She did love Sam, but in the same way she had grown to love Abi. And sitting next to him now… she realized that, though she knew she had once loved kissing him, she could no longer find that version of her inside herself. When she tried to picture what it had been like to kiss Sam, she struggled to keep the memory in place. It would bleed instead to another memory of another night, with another guy, and another set of lips against hers.

She took another sip of her drink, mulling over her thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” she said. The words sat in the air for a long moment. “I don’t know if I ever said that.”

Sam paused mid sip and put his drink back down. He turned his body to face her. “What?” he asked.

Hadley toyed with her fingers in her lap and stared at a random corner behind the bar. “I know I kind of led you on, in the spring. I didn’t mean to. I was dealing with so much at the time, and it was unfair to you how I handled it. Which isn’t an excuse, but… I just thought you should know. I really am sorry.”

Hadley made herself look at him, bracing for his face to be twisted in disappointment or worse, anger. But his eyes were gentle.

“It’s okay, Hadley,” he said, his voice soft. “I’m not mad about it. I’m probably just as much at fault for all of it as you were. I should have listened more and not tried to force you into something you weren’t ready for.”

“You weren’t forcing me.”

“Maybe, but you still don’t need to apologize. You didn’t actually do anything wrong.”

“I just…” She trailed off. Beneath the lights of the Saloon, she felt overly warm, and the cider probably wasn’t helping. She visualized the next words she wanted to say, and her stomach tightened. Her mouth went painfully dry. She took a sip of water in the hopes that it would help. It didn’t. “There’s… something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

Because this was part of what was holding her back; this last line in the sand she would need to cross. But, she thought, maybe it was possible to build a bridge over it instead.

Sam waited. For once, he didn’t rush her.

“I…” Hadley started. She forced herself to look at him, hoping it would help the words to come, but they were still lodged in her throat.

Sam tilted his head, studying her. The corner of his mouth quirked.

“Ah,” he said.

The word pulled Hadley out of her panic-induced concentration. “What?”

Sam dipped the tip of his finger in the condensation that had collected on the bar and drew it into a lazy circle. “Would it be rude of me to try and guess?”

“Guess?” Hadley echoed.

“What it is you’re trying to say.” He looked up at her and cringed. “Sorry, I’m trying to work on not being so… direct, sometimes.”

“You’re fine,” Hadley said. “Just, what are you…?”

“My guess,” he started, choosing his words carefully, “is that you asked me here because you finally managed to figure out that Seb likes you — a fact that I think you were the only person blind to, somehow — and now you’re worried you need my permission because you don’t want to upset me.”

“I…” Whatever Hadley was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. She pulled back an inch. “What?”

He gave her a gentle smile, and the lines by his eyes crinkled. “Am I wrong?”

Hadley studied him, her eyes flicking back and forth between each of his, struggling to piece together something from the expression that lingered there. She suddenly felt uncomfortably close to tears, but she swallowed them back. When she spoke, her voice came out low and scratchy. “No.”

Sam nodded to himself. He took a musing sip of his drink. “I was kind of wondering how long it would take.”

“How did you…?”

“Seb has been my best friend for nearly three decades. But even then, it took me… an honestly embarrassing amount of time to realize he liked you.”

Hadley’s cheeks colored. That, at least, she could relate to.

Sam continued. “You, I wasn’t as sure about. Not until the other night, when you finally beat him in pool.”

She looked across the Saloon to the pool table. Seb had picked her up and twirled her around after she finally secured that win. It had happened so fast, so genuinely, that she had barely thought twice about it. She’d figured Abi had teased her about it because, well, it was Abi. But now she tried to look at the memory from everyone else’s point of view, and she saw the things she herself had been too in denial to notice. Seb’s hand on the square of her lower back, the brightness of his wide smile that seemed only reserved for her, the lilt of both of their laughs echoing across the Saloon. She was so used to that version of Seb that she’d forgotten it was a side of him the rest of Pelican Town didn’t really know.

It made sense to her that Robin had noticed; she was his mother. It just hadn’t really occurred to her that half the town would see them and draw their own conclusions.

She took a steadying breath, trying to quell the anxiety that thought gave her.

“The way you looked at him,” Sam continued, pulling her out of her thoughts. “You just looked… happy. And I’ll tell you what I told him: I don’t want to be the reason you won’t let yourself be happy.”

Hadley’s heart skipped a beat, but not because Sam was seemingly giving her the confirmation she needed; it was because Seb never mentioned he had talked to Sam about any of this. 

It shouldn’t surprise her that he had — he and Sam had been friends for decades, after all. It also shouldn’t surprise her that Seb wouldn’t bring it up to her himself. Besides the few sentences they’d shared at the lake the night they’d first kissed, they’d done little more to talk about what they felt or what they were doing. They’d settled into a quiet companionship consisting of morning coffee, continued Buffy marathons, and late night conversations about anything and everything. Everything, that is, except their feelings. It didn’t worry her, though, not the way it might have with someone else. 

She knew Seb well enough to know that he wasn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve. Talking about emotions was not something that came easily to him, so it was surprising that he had talked about her with anyone at all. Part of her was proud of him for it. She couldn’t tell if the other half felt honored or terrified.

She knew that whatever was starting between her and Seb was serious — they’d both said as much that night by the lake. It was why she was here, trying to explain that to Sam. Yet Seb, at some point, already had?

It made everything feel so much more real. It made the way Seb felt about her feel so much more real.

“He… talked to you about it?” Hadley asked.

Sam set down his drink. “Ah, um… that’s one way to phrase it.”

Hadley raised her eyebrows and waited.

“I figured it out back when you and I were…” Sam trailed off and waved a hand, “involved. And admittedly, I, uh, probably could have handled it better.” At this, his cheeks took on a hint of pink. “Seb and I didn’t really speak for a few weeks. When we did… it started out as more of an argument than an actual conversation. I… kind of cornered him and made him admit it.”

“See, that makes more sense than him admitting it outright.”

Sam’s mouth quirked. “But really, don’t worry about me. I’m happy for you. Both of you.”

Hadley stared at the mostly-empty glass in front of her. Something deep in her bones felt like it had finally settled.

Beside her, her phone lit up with a new text message from Seb, asking if she wanted to watch Buffy again tonight.

She smiled at the message, and when she turned back to look at Sam, he was smiling too.

⋆｡°✩°｡⋆

Hadley woke to the feeling that the light in her bedroom was all wrong — much too bright and hitting the wrong corner of the wall. She knew immediately that she had overslept.

When she’d first moved to the farm, she’d kept herself to a fairly rigid schedule of waking up at six, but when her insomnia returned, her sleep schedule had disintegrated, and so did any hopes of sticking to that schedule. Often, she was still awake when six o’clock finally rolled around, or she had otherwise only fallen asleep an hour before. 

Now that she was actually sleeping again, she’d been setting her alarm and rediscovering what it felt like to see the other side of those morning hours. She was used to seeing the barest trickle of light hitting her bedroom wall when she woke, not enough sun to light the entire room.

She sat with a start and grabbed her phone. It was past ten already. She’d lost so much daylight.

The bed beside her was empty. It shouldn’t have upset her — it was already ten, so it was no surprise that Seb probably needed to leave — but she couldn’t fight the latent desire that he would have at least texted or woken her up to say goodbye. 

With a sigh, she pulled herself out of bed and changed into some clothes she wouldn’t mind getting dirty. 

When she walked into the kitchen, she was hit with the smell of fresh coffee. For a moment, all she could do was stand there like an idiot until the surprise wore off. She wandered over to the counter, and there, in the same place she had left them for Seb last week, was a mug and a note of his own.

Don’t hate me (you’re going to hate me) but you slept through your initial alarm and I turned it off to let you sleep. You’ve been working so hard lately, you deserve the extra rest. I’ve got it covered. Enjoy your morning. X Seb

Hadley had to read the note twice before it settled with her. He was right that her initial reaction was something between annoyed and frustrated — there was a never-ending list of things to do on the farm, and even if she did need the extra sleep, what did it matter? 

But then her eyes scanned back over the words “I’ve got it covered”. And then she heard the music.

She opened the front door, and there he was, out in the fields with a speaker playing 2000s emo as he tugged weeds from a line of crops and threw them into a bucket that was already overflowing with them.

She hadn’t had her coffee yet and was still half asleep. She had no idea what the hell she was meant to do about this.

She threw open the screen door and hurried over to him.

Seb looked up at her as she approached, one hand cupping his eyes to block out the sun. He stood and brushed the dirt from his hands.

“Good morning.”

“What are you doing?” Hadley demanded.

“Weeding.”

“Seb-”

“I know, I know,” he said. “But you’re going to overwork yourself and burn out if you’re not careful. And you just started sleeping again. I don’t want you to overdo it.”

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“The water troughs are refilled, the barns are raked out, the crops are watered, and I’m nearly finished with weeding out everything.”

Hadley’s heart hurt. She wanted to be angry with him, but she couldn’t bring herself to be. Every day, he found new ways to show her how much he cared about her, and she didn’t know what to do with them. He was right that she was overworking herself, right that she should be careful about her sleeping schedule when she had only just started to get it back under control. And yet…

The anger in her voice faded. It dropped to something quieter. “You don’t have to do all that,” she said.

“I know. I want to.”

“It’s my responsibility,” Hadley said. “You’re my boyfriend, not some farmhand I hired.”

She realized her mistake the moment the corner of Seb’s mouth quirked. It spread quickly into a crooked grin.

“I’m your what?”

Hadley’s cheeks burned beneath the morning sun. “You know what I mean,” she said. “You just… don’t need to be doing actual physical labor on my behalf.”

“Got it, got it.” He nodded to himself. “So you don’t want me to be your boyfriend.”

“That’s not-”

“No, no. I understand,” he said, his tone lilting. “I know when I’m not wanted, and I can just see myself out.”

He took a step past her. Hadley grabbed his wrist.

“Seb.”

He turned to her, waiting.

“I…” Hadley started.

Seb raised his eyebrows.

She was burning. Her cheeks, her neck, her ears — everything was red hot and causing her to overheat. Her throat was desperately dry and swallowing was near impossible, but Yoba, he was going to make her say it. 

“I want you to be my boyfriend,” Hadley said, her voice small.

Seb stilled. For a moment, all he did was stare at her.

“What?” he asked.

Hadley thought he was just teasing her, forcing her to repeat it, but then she saw the look on his face and realized he seemed as dumbfounded as she felt.

He… doesn’t believe me, does he?

She took in a breath and stepped towards him. “I want you,” she said again, “to be my boyfriend.”

He kissed her.

His hands were caked with dirt from the morning he’d spent at the farm, but she found she didn’t mind as he pulled her against him. His mouth was hot and hungry against hers. One hand lifted to the back of her neck and tugged her even closer.

A low groan escaped the back of Seb’s throat, and Hadley answered it with one of her own. She was dizzy with disbelief and lust and a lack of oxygen. 

She pulled away with a soft gasp and rested her forehead against his. She breathed in the smell of him mixed with the smell of the earth.

“I… never thought I would actually hear you say that,” he whispered.

“Well, it’s true.”

Seb pulled away just far enough to meet her gaze. “You are… unreal,” he said, his tone reverent.

“And,” Hadley said, “I think, I’m also your girlfriend.”

Seb laughed, warm and thick with happiness. Hadley could live forever off the sound of that laugh.

❝if you knew how much i loved you would it all excite you or would you run away?❞

-I Could Stare At You For Hours, The Happy Fits

Hadley lay against Seb’s chest, curled up beneath a blanket on her bed, as another episode of Buffy played on the TV on her dresser. His heart beat a steady rhythm beneath her, if a little fast, and though it was early for them — only a little past ten — she felt the gentle, repetitive beat of it begin to lull her to sleep.

There was just something about him.

On the TV, the end credits began to roll, and Seb shifted to look at her. He hooked a lock of hair beneath his finger and pushed it out of her face.

“Tired?” he asked, his voice low.

She looked up at him. His face was soft and honest, and maybe Robin had been right — there was a lightness to him now that she wasn’t sure she’d fully seen before. 

“A little,” she admitted. She was used to crushes feeling like this nerve-wracking, soul-shattering, life-ending thing, but instead, she just felt… safe. 

“I can head home,” Seb said. “Let you sleep.”

Hadley’s eyebrows furrowed. 

Seb hesitated. “What?” he asked.

“I…” Hadley began. After all of this, and he was still this dense?  She pushed herself up and propped her elbow up beneath her. “You can… stay.”

“Unlike when you come to watch Buffy, I’m not wearing pajamas. I’m in jeans.”

Hadley’s face heated before the thought even finished forming. “You could…”

Seb waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, the corner of his mouth quirked, and he leaned in a fraction of an inch. “I could… what?”

She met his gaze, her face burning. But she saw the pink reflected back at her in his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

She buried her head in his chest so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “Shut up,” she said. “You just… you can take the jeans off, if you want.”

There was another pause. She could feel his chest move as he took in a breath.

“Are you sure?” he finally asked.

She pulled back an inch, and before she could second guess herself, tugged his mouth down to hers. Seb let out a small gasp, and she swallowed it greedily.

“No,” she murmured into his lips. But she knew he could feel the smile on her face when he kissed her.

When he pulled away, his face was even redder than before, but his eyes were shining.

“I was just checking,” he said.

Hadley smirked.

Seb slipped out of bed, and Hadley looked away from him, focusing instead on the TV, which had bounced back to the title screen. She watched the animation loop and tried to ignore the metallic click as Seb unlatched his belt. She heard the brush of fabric and a small thunk as his jeans and belt hit the floor.

She swallowed, her cheeks heating.

He said nothing as he slid back into bed beside her. Only once he pulled the covers back across them did she dare to look at him again. His face was raw and honest, and it was a struggle not to kiss him again because she knew if she did, she wouldn’t be able to stop, and she didn’t want to rush things. Not with him.

She curled up against his side and rested her head back against his chest. He was warm and comfortable and everything she had ever wanted in another person without realizing it.

Seb wrapped an arm around her shoulder and tugged her closer. He pressed a kiss against her temple, and Hadley let her eyes flutter shut.

⋆｡°✩°｡⋆

Hadley woke sometime after dawn. She was facing the window of her bedroom, but she could feel Seb behind her — a steady weight against her back. He had his arm thrown protectively around her middle. His breath formed a steady song as it fanned across the back of her neck, and it took everything in her not to stay in bed just a little longer.

But the farm was her livelihood, and she had things to do.

Slowly, she lifted up the heavy weight of his arm and slid out from under it. He stirred slightly, his eyelids flickering, before he settled back into sleep. Hadley watched him for a moment. He looked so peaceful, hair sprawled across his forehead, his face soft and unmarred by worries. She pushed away the desire to kiss him awake and forced herself to walk into the kitchen.

She had things to do, and unfortunately, the half-naked emo boy in her bed could wait.

Not that phrasing it like that to herself helped. At all.

She sighed and got to work.

⋆｡°✩°｡⋆

Seb drifted awake sometime after ten. He blinked a few times as he woke, his sleep-addled brain trying to remember where he was and why. The pieces slammed back together in startling clarity, and he sat up, his heart stuttering.

But the bed was empty beside him.

He stared at the rumpled sheets where Hadley had slept, and his thoughts drifted in and out of focus. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he was awake and not in the middle of a dream. It all felt too surreal — that he was here, in her bed, and that the night before had actually happened.

He’d kissed her.

But it was more than that.

He could hear her voice so clearly in his mind, see the way she’d been afraid to meet his gaze, even as the words came out rushed and nervous.

This would be real for me.

He’d never allowed himself to think this far, never allowed himself to consider a world where things could actually work out. He felt like a walking contradiction — somehow both knocked off kilter and more steady than he’d ever been.

He stood and searched for his hoodie, but it was nowhere to be found, so he pulled his jeans back on and headed into the kitchen.

It was, predictably, empty. But the smell of freshly-brewed coffee filled the air, and there was a mug set beside the coffee maker. He approached it.

A sticky note sat beside it, written out with Hadley’s flowing script.

Morning :)  I’m out working the farm. Help yourself to coffee and whatever food you’d like. You’re welcome to hang around, but no worries if you can’t. ♡ Hadley

He folded the note with more precision than necessary and slipped it inside the front pocket of his wallet.

He made his coffee and stepped out into the morning chill. The brisk air felt good against his skin. The sun cast a pleasant light across the front porch, and he stood there a moment, letting it warm his skin.

He’d spent the vast majority of his life living beneath this same sky, and yet the air felt changed, somehow. He was so used to the damp chill of his basement bedroom, of living mostly in the hours after the sun had already set because it meant he didn’t have to deal with the judgment of every soul in this town. He was used to over-working himself to line his pockets with money to run away, only to second-guess himself every time his mom asked about his future plans with a nervous tilt to her voice. He’d always viewed the Valley as too small — a forgotten corner of the world that was good for nothing except getting out of one day.

But he stood here now, the steam from his coffee rising up to meet his face, and for once, it didn’t seem so hard to breathe.

He was struck with the thought that maybe the Valley itself had never really been the problem. 

It wasn’t like having a shithole apartment in Zuzu with three roommates and a soulless corporate job was a big life goal of his; he’d just been desperate to shake the monotony of his endless days in the Valley, desperate to feel anything but empty all the time. And maybe that was also part of why he had never been able to make himself leave — it was easier to cling onto the daydream of a better life than actually move to Zuzu and learn the truth; that the Valley wasn’t the problem.

He was.

It wasn’t the Valley he was trying to outrun, but his own shadow. 

Whatever weight had been crushing his chest all these years didn’t feel as suffocating anymore. And maybe he should finally listen to Abi and go to therapy for the first time in his goddamn life, but… the thought of doing that didn’t feel as terrifying anymore, either.

He took a sip of his coffee and looked out at the farm — the rows and rows of neat plots, damp from the newly-installed sprinklers; the barn, coop, and silo with his mother’s handiwork written all over them, standing tall against the fields; the carefully-laid stone paths and freshly-painted fences. 

Years ago, he’d stood where he was standing now with Abi and Sam and passed joints back and forth as they looked out at the overgrown land. He tried to call forth a mental image of the farm as it looked back then, or even how it looked this time last year, but he found that he couldn’t.

Hadley had rebuilt so much with little more than brute determination, and if she could do that to the farm, why couldn’t he do the same to his life?

He finished the rest of his coffee and set the mug aside. He headed out onto the farm.

A small hatch was open on the side of the barn, and Seb ducked his way inside. 

Hadley was refilling the water trough, holding the hose in one hand and stroking the muzzle of one of her cows with the other. She was speaking to it in a low, soothing voice. His stomach did a small, pathetic tilt when he realized she had put his hoodie back on.

Ah. That would be why he couldn’t find it.

He leaned against the wall of the barn and watched her for a moment. Dirt marred the knees of her jeans, and there was a smear of it across her cheek. Her bangs clung to her forehead from sweat, and multiple strands of hair had come loose from her bun. She must have been awake and working for a few hours already, but she didn’t show any signs of tiring. Her face was bright and she was smiling from ear-to-ear at her cow. She just looked… happy.

She turned the hose off and returned it to its place on the wall. When she reached to grab a hay bale, Seb pushed himself off the wall.

He got there a beat before she did and reached around her to pick it up.

Hadley jumped.

“Yoba,” she hissed, taking in several breaths. “You scared me.”

“Sorry. Where do you want this?”

Hadley pointed. “Where you see mostly-eaten pile of hay over there.”

Grunting slightly from the weight of the hay, Seb lugged it across the barn and deposited it where Hadley had indicated. He smacked his hands a few times to shake the dirt from them.

“Good morning,” he said.

Hadley looked up at him, and when she met his gaze, her cheeks turned pink.

“Hi,” she said.

Seb took a few steps towards her. “How did you sleep?”

“I…” she paused, and Seb got the distinct impression that she was debating if she should say something or not. “I always sleep better, with you.”

His heart stuttered in his chest. He’d been unconscious by eleven. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fallen asleep that early, let alone slept fully through the night.

“Me too,” he said, his voice low. Without meaning to, his eyes flickered down to her mouth. He’d spent so many months barely daring to imagine kissing her, and now that he actually could, he was torn between wanting to kiss her every chance he got and being afraid of overwhelming her. There was a part of him that was still terrified she might change her mind.

Hadley leaned in an inch, then two, before she pulled away. 

Seb’s heart hammered wildly in his chest. A seed of fear took root in his stomach.

But Hadley took a step back and motioned at herself, her cheeks turning a shade of red that Seb was beginning to love. “I’ve been working all morning.”

“So?” he asked.

“I’m gross,” Hadley said.

Seb snorted and it turned into a laugh. He took a step forwards and kissed her.

⋆｡°✩°｡⋆

Seb’s mouth crashed into hers. 

For a moment, all Hadley felt was panic. She probably smelled like cow, and she was covered in dirt and sweat and Yoba knows what else. She had hoped to finish up her work and take a shower before he woke up, because there was a part of her that was terrified he’d see what working on a farm was really like and be disgusted by it — be disgusted by her.

But instead he’d just laughed and kissed her.

He tasted like coffee and sleep. And once the initial panic faded, she pulled him tighter against her and kissed him like she was drowning and he was the only air left in the world.

When they finally parted, Seb rested his forehead against hers and let out a small laugh.

“What?” Hadley asked.

Seb shook his head, wordless. “Just… you.”

“Me?”

He pulled away just far enough for Hadley to see the glow that filled his eyes. He raised a gentle hand to cup her face and ran his thumb along her cheek. He gave her a soft kiss.

“You.”

Behind them, Hadley’s cow — the one she had jokingly named Abigail, at her friend’s insistence — let out a loud, prolonged low.

Hadley snorted.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing Seb’s hand and tugging him towards the door of the barn.

“What else do you need to do?” Seb asked as they stepped back out into the sunlight. “How can I help?”

Hadley stopped walking. “What?”

“How can I help?” Seb repeated.

“You…” she started. “What?”

Seb smiled. The sun turned the tips of his hair golden and lit the planes of his face. He was so beautiful it hurt to look at.

His voice dropped into something soft. “Let me help,” he said.

Hadley stared at him a moment, her gaze flicking back and forth between each of his eyes and the adoring expression that was held within them. She swallowed.

She hated asking for help. She was so used to doing everything herself, always. It was so much easier that way. So much easier than having to trust other people to do things for her, because why would they?

But she wasn’t asking — Seb was offering.

She took in a deep breath and held it, letting it settle something deep within her. She cracked a small smile.

“Okay,” she said. She grabbed his hand again and tugged him along. “I need to pack some produce into crates before the truck comes this afternoon.”

Seb’s hand tightened around hers and gave a reassuring squeeze.

⋆｡°✩°｡⋆

Hadley pulled on an oversized t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. She finished tying the ends of her wet hair into a braid as she walked back into the living room.

“Shower is all yours,” she said.

Seb nodded and brushed past her in the hall. The bathroom door closed behind him, and a moment later, the shower turned on.

Only twenty-four hours ago, she was standing in this same spot, fresh out of the shower, getting ready to go over to his house for dinner. It was dizzying how much had happened since then — how much had changed.

She thought back to the night before, sitting by the lake, and the moment Seb leaned in and kissed her. Her pulse quickened at the mere thought of kissing him, as if it wasn’t something she had done several times since then.

Yoba, she was so pathetically head-over-heels for that man.

She thought she’d had it bad before, but kissing him had only made it worse. She was a bundle of live wires now, a mess of loose energy with nowhere to go.

She closed her eyes and remembered the feeling of her palm flat against his chest, his heartbeat racing beneath her touch.

It has always been real for me.

It was easy to look back on all their stolen moments and see the truth of those words. Easy enough that she wondered if she’d been blind.

But had she been? Or had she willingly pulled the wool over her own eyes?

One moment kept coming back to her. She’d thumbed over it so often the past few weeks, but now she looked at it through a different lens.

She saw herself, reaching up to wipe the motor oil and dirt from Seb’s face. It had been the first time she’d been close enough to see the gold in his eyes and the freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose. She’d steadied herself on his arm, and he’d grown still beneath her touch.

She always remembered him stepping back abruptly. But the shame and judgment she remembered feeling afterwards had never been from him; she’d cast that onto herself.

Now, instead, she remembered the look in his eyes in that moment, and how unsteady he’d been on his feet in the moments after.

It all hit her then.

He’d fixed her car. Left a date and drove to come get her when she got stranded on the side of the road. Took a punch to the face for her while beating up her asshole ex. Time after time again, he was always there, showing up when she needed him. Just like this morning, she had never really had to ask; he was always stepping up, willing to help.

Her eyes watered. She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice Seb until he was standing right in front of her.

“Hads?” he asked.

His brows were tilted in concern, and she almost said it then. The words floated on the crease of her lips.

She threw her arms around his neck instead, tugging him into a tight hug. She buried her head against his chest.