Page 20 of The Last Great Omegaverse

She goes, and I watch her the whole way back toward the fence, farther than I probably should. When she’s finally out of sight, I stand there a long while with the smoker going cold in my hand, thinking about my mother, and my father’s ten slow years of losing. A theory about spreading weight out evenly that’s never once accounted for what happens when the weight decides to matter more than the theory ever planned for.

I go back to the hives. It’s easier than the alternative.

Chapter 9

Wren

45 Days To Go

Silas shows up at seven with a roll of wire in the truck bed and an expression that suggests he’s already regretting whatever conversation led to this arrangement.

“Fence line,” he says, by way of greeting. “Whole south boundary needs walking and re-strung before the baler comes through, otherwise we’re both losing livestock to the same gap Brenda found last week. Figured we’d get it done in a day if we split the work instead of each doing half separately.”

“You figured, or Coop figured, and told you to tell me?”

Something unreadable flickers across his face. “Does it matter?”

“Not really.” I climb into the truck before he can decide whether that was an insult or not. Things with Coop have been quiet since the storm. Neither of us has said anything about it out loud, and I’m grateful that whoever arranged today’s pairing didn’t put me back in a truck with him before either of us has figured out what to say.

Silas drives us out to the boundary line without much conversation, radio off, windows cracked despite the cold. I spend the ride watching the fields go by and trying not to think too hard about why it’s easier to sit in silence with him than it’s been to sit in silence with anyone else since I got here.

The fence takes most of the day.

Longer than either of us probably expected, though neither of us says so out loud, both too stubborn to admit the job’s bigger than the morning we allotted for it. We fall into a rhythm anyway, him driving the posts, me stringing wire and pulling it taut, the two of us working our way down the boundary a section at a time while the sun climbs and then starts its slow slide back down.

Somewhere past midday, working the stretch that cuts closest to the thriving patch, I ask him the question I’ve been chewing on since the soil test came back useless.

“Any idea why this corner’s outperforming the rest of the farm? I tested the dirt. It’s the same as everywhere else, as far I can tell.”

Silas straightens, following my gaze to the patch, vines climbing thick and green against a fence that’s falling apart everywhere else along its length. “No idea,” he says, after a moment, and says it like a man who genuinely doesn’t care for not knowing something. “Ran the numbers on this section myself, a few years back, back when your grandmother was still working it solo. Couldn’t find a reason either. Same water table as the rest of the property. Same exposure. Chalked it up to luck and moved on, same as you’re about to do.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“No?” he says, something almost like approval in it. “I don’t imagine you are.”

I don’t know why his approval has me feeling so cozy and fuzzy.

“You’re better at this than I expected,” he says, somewhere around mid-afternoon, watching me twist off a wire tie with the kind of efficient motion that clearly surprises him.

“Because I’m a woman, or because I’m from the city?”

“Because you spent your first week here looking like you’d never held a tool in your life.”

“I was in shock. Give a woman a break.”

That gets a laugh out of him, gone almost as fast as it arrives, though I catch it and file it away the way I’ve started filing away every rare, unguarded thing he does.

“Fair,” he says. “You’ve come a long way from shock, then.”

“I had good teachers. Mostly against my will.”

“We’re not that bad.”

“You showed up at my house day one with a very pointed comment about inheritance clauses. Forgive me if my first impression wasn’t glowing.”

He winces and something about watching him do it, watching him take the hit instead of deflecting it, softens whatever edge I was aiming for. “That was a low moment,” he admits. “I’d been up half the night with the books, and I took it out on you instead of the numbers, which wasn’t fair. You want an apology, you can have one. Been a while since I gave one properly.”

“Is that what this is? An apology?”