Page 47 of The Last Great Omegaverse

“Your grandmother would be proud.” He glances, briefly, at the marks along my neck, and something in his professional demeanor almost cracks into a smile. “I suspect she’d be proud of quite a bit more than just the harvest, if I’m honest.”

My heart could not be fuller.

The display pumpkin sits in the place of honor out front of the town hall by midday, the biggest one I’ve ever grown, pulled from the same stubborn patch near the south fence that’s been thriving since the week I arrived. I stand in front of it a long moment, hand pressed flat against the ridged orange skin, thinking about a grandmother I barely knew who apparently understood something about this land and this town that took me the better part of two months to catch up to.

“She’d have loved this one,” Coop says, coming up beside me, quiet for once, genuine grief and pride tangled together in his voice. “Biggest one we’ve had out front in years.”

“I like to think she’d have had opinions about the shape.”

“She absolutely would have. Very particular about shape.” He bumps my shoulder affectionately, and nods toward the far side of the square, where a cluster of townsfolk have gathered around something. “Come see. Committee’s doing the pie announcements.”

Asher’s holding court near the announcement table, and it takes me a second to realize he’s being thanked, publicly, by a councilman I don’t recognize, something about the Harvest Day sponsorship and the volunteer turnout that apparently broke records for the town.

“Couldn’t have organized any of it without Reyes here,” the councilman says, clapping Asher on the shoulder. “Man spent weeks working the committee. Half the reason the farm made its deadline at all.”

Asher catches my eye across the crowd, something unguarded and a little disbelieving in his expression, like he still isn’t fully used to being credited out loud for the parts of himself he usually keeps hidden behind a joke.

“Told you,” I mouth at him, and he grins, wide and real. I watch something in his shoulders relax that’s been carrying tension since long before I ever met him.

Silas finds me not long after, looking lighter than I’ve seen him look in weeks, a folded piece of paper in hand that he passes over without much ceremony.

“Bank confirmed it this morning,” he says. “Co-op signed off on the delivery weight last night. Combined tonnage, both farms together, cleared their minimum by just under two hundred pounds.” Something eases in his face that I don’t think has fully settled there once in the eight weeks I’ve known him. “Balloon payment’s covered outright. Didn’t even need the reversion clause sitting there as backup.” He shakes his head, something almost disbelieving in it. “Your farm didn’t just make its own deadline, Wren. It’s the reason mine’s still standing too.”

“You say that like you weren’t sure it’d work.”

“Didn’t let myself believe it could, is more accurate. Spent weeks doing math that only ever had one of us winning in it.” He takes my hand, lacing our fingers together, easy in a way that would’ve seemed impossible the first week I knew him. “None of this, the farm, the loan, any of it, that’s not why I’m standing here today. Figured that was worth saying, out loud, on a day like this.”

“I know, Silas. I’ve known for a while now.”

Cal I find last, and differently than I expect, not hovering at the edge of the crowd, but right in the middle of it, laughing at something Dot’s said, an arm loose around Coop’s shoulders, more present in this town square than I think I’ve ever seen him anywhere.

“You’re not at the fence line,” I say, coming up beside him.

“Nowhere to watch from a distance today.” He pulls me in against his side, easy, unguarded, pressing a kiss to my temple in front of God and Linda Pruitt and half the county. “Figured it was time I actually joined the thing I’ve spent years standing at the edge of.”

The afternoon dissolves into the easy chaos of a small town fully committed to celebrating itself. I lose an hour to the pie contest, judging alongside Dot despite having no qualifications for the job beyond enthusiasm.

Coop wins the pumpkin-carving contest with a design so ambitious it takes him the better part of an hour and results in a scarecrow-adjacent creature none of the judges can quite name but everyone agrees deserves the blue ribbon anyway.

Asher gets roped into three separate conversations with committee members who want to discuss next year’s festival budget, clearly delighted by all of it despite faking mild exasperation for my benefit.

Silas actually smiles at a stranger’s joke, which Coop insists on documenting with his phone as historical evidence.

Cal dances, badly, when the fiddle player strikes up something quick near sunset, and laughs at his own lack of rhythm in a way that undoes something heated in my chest every time I catch it.

Dot finds me near the cider stand as the light starts turning gold, refilling my cup without asking, same as always.

“Your grandmother used to stand right about here,” she says, “every Festival, watching the whole square like she couldn’t quite believe her luck, having a town this good to belong to.”

“I think I understand that feeling a little better than I did when I first arrived.”

“I’d say you understand it completely, judging by the marks and the general glow you’ve been carrying around all day.” She pats my hand, tender, unhurried. “Eleanor would’ve loved this. All of it. The farm, the town, especially the particular chaos you’ve assembled for yourself.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it keeps being true.” She winks, moving off to refill somebody else’s cup, and I stand there a moment longer, watching the whole square glow orange and radiant under the string lights finally flickering to life, thinking that maybe some things really do get to be exactly as good as they look from the outside.

We end up back at the farm after dark, the five of us, the noise of the festival still faintly audible carrying across the fields, a fire going in the pit near the barn, cider passed hand to hand, the whole property lit softly by string lights Coop apparently strung up sometime during the chaos of the day without telling anyone.