“What do you guys say?” Sierra clapped her hands together, startling all our gazes away from the poster she’d laid in front of us.

“I’d say definitely not.” Noah gives a disappointed shake of his head. “Barn dances are for 23-year-olds in an awkward situationship and 50-year-old couples trying to save their marriage.”

She scowls. “And why do you know this?” 

Noah grimaces. “I was once that 23-year-old.”

“You’re 23 right now, Noah.” Sierra rolls her eyes at him.

“I know.” He takes off his hat and fans his face with it. “Never said that situationship ended.”

My eyes scan Sierra’s grinning face,  Noah’s frown, and Weston’s. He almost looked like he was smirking, but I dismissed the thought. How could someone smirk if they couldn’t even smile? I, on the other hand, probably looked like a cow up for slaughter. 

“I cannot go out.” I violently shake my head. 

Sierra laughed. “And why not? I’m sure you’d have something to wear, mija.”

“It's not about that.” I allow. The words trigger a memory of spending the day in the LA Fashion District with Demsi. God, why did that memory have to be so fun? “I—I just—“

“Don’t you have to have a date to go to a barn dance?” Weston finished for me. 

The words were like a life raft thrown to a drowning person. Relief flooded through me so completely I could almost feel my shoulders untense. I nearly jump up and hug him. The thought came so fast it startled me. No. Bad Haven. You do not hug people. You especially do not hug him. The warning bell of my own mind was loud and sharp, and it yanked me back to myself.

“That’s the best part!” She practically squeals. “Weston’s with you, I get Noah, and we have the best time of our lives!”

“Sierra, you’re way too old for me.” Noah grimaces. 

“I’m 27, Noah! Only… 4 years older! It’s just the entry price! Come on…”

My eyes widen at that. Twenty-seven? I was almost twenty-nine, and here Sierra was with two kids and a figured-out life. Something like jealousy radiated off of me at that, her words trailing off as I looked around the room.

 I suddenly noticed how close Weston and I were, and I jolted away, crashing into Sierra.

“See!” She slings her arm over my shoulder. “Haven thinks it's a great idea!” 

I tense at the physical touch and push away. “I don’t.”

Sierra sighs. “Will you guys at least think about it?”

“Fine.” Noah and Weston say simultaneously, walking away.

She sighs, rubbing her furrowed brow. “Why…”

I look at Sierra's sad face. “It's a nice idea, Sierra, I just don't know if it's something I’d do right now.”

She shakes her head. "I'm not talking about the dance, Haven." Her voice is soft, but it holds a note of concern that makes me wince. "What was that? Just now? You were completely fine, and then you just... flinched." She gestures vaguely to my shoulder, where her arm had been just moments earlier. 

I step back, defensive. “What’s it matter to you?”

“Haven!” She laughs out a breath. “I’m not saying it against you! How do you expect people to care about you if you won't let anyone in?”

“How do you expect me to tell you anything when we met a week ago?!” I retort, leaving Sierra silenced. “I’m going out to the barn.”

 I stomp my way out but pause at the back door. How do you expect people to care about you if you won’t let anyone in. As the phrase repeated through my mind, it sounded more like a statement than a question. And the voice saying it didn’t sound like Sierra.

“I thought you liked me! I thought you cared about me! Didn’t we work?” Ray had yelled at me that night, 

“I do! Of course, I just can’t do something like that! Not now—“

“Then when, Haven? When will you be ready to show you like me, because this all seems like such a waste?”

“I don’t know, Ray.”

“…Then I don’t know why you’re still here.”

I wipe my glossy eyes and swing the back door open, and march straight for the barn. I was not going to cry today. Nope.

Walking into the barn, it seemed like something out of some stupid fairy tale. Soft chattering noises from all the animals, this time friendly and gentle, all events from last night seemed so long ago. 

Even with the happy facade, I had to see. I had to see if the horse was still there. If her baby was still alive. 

I force myself to walk naturally and leaned on the doorway as relaxed as I could pretend to be, looking at Weston, Noah, and Robert inside. The three men were circling a tiny shape, and my heart sank. I barely knew the thing, and the thought of it dead sickened me. 

“Did it die?” Apathy was laced in my voice. The three jumped at my voice, no clue I was even there. Finally, Robert stood after they talked in hushed voices. 

“The filly’s alive, Haven.” He nodded as I passed him and looked at it. The horse was asleep on a hay bed, but somehow, something was wrong. It’s built perfectly healthy, its mane already growing, but its legs. Or, one in particular. 

“What's wrong with its leg?” 

“Her.” Weston finally stood and turned to me, scowling. 

“What?”

“The horse is a girl. Now stop addressing her as an object or something.”

“It’s an animal, is it not?!” I laugh. “If it were a human being, I'd address it as one, but news flash, it's not.”

“Well, maybe—“

“Now stop that, you two!” Robert interrupted, glowering. “Now, Haven, she has a cleft foot.”

I examined it more closely. “Horses have that?”

“It's rare, but yes. I believe it might be a reason why Sunset died in childbirth.”

“Huh.” I nod, my heart breaking for the thing, but I hold my poker face. “Can you fix it?”

“Yes!” Noah jumps in. “But, it's..” 

“Impossibly expensive,” Weston growled.

Robert nodded solemnly. “I called my dear friend Greta, who specializes in animal surgery. She estimated the cost for surgery, physical therapy, and a boot would add up to $5,000.”

“$5,00!?” I blurt, breaking my facade.

Weston eyes me, waiting for an explanation to my outburst.

 “Sorry, that's just a lot.” I shrug off. A shiver went up my spine, right through the long burn scar my milky gray blouse concealed. And I wasn’t lying. How could something be so expensive for something so small?

After a long, awkward silence, Robert turned to me. “Will you watch her for me, Haven? I have to head back to the clinic.”

My eyes widened, startled. “Me? But— couldn’t you bring her to the clinic?”

“Not without reason.” 

“But—“ I try to think of a reason to get out of the responsibility. “Why not pick on someone who actually knows how to take care of a baby horse!?”

He lets out a gruff chuckle, wrinkles creasing. “You’re here, you’ve got the time, and sometimes animals need fresh hands more than perfect ones. I’m not picking on you, just asking for help.” His eyes scanned the two other men and me. “Weston can help you bottle-feed her.”

Noah smirks and leans in to whisper something to me. “I suppose Sierra wasn’t totally crazy, huh? What a cute couple.” 

My cheeks immediately redden as he saunters out, leaving Weston and me to the filly. 

“How do we feed her?” I tense up, looking around at the few cabinets of feeding supplies in the stand. 

“Her?” He questioned. 

“What?”

As I turn to see his face, he has an eyebrow raised and something of an upside-down smirk. “She’s a girl now, Haven?”

I shudder as my name slips out of his mouth. “So what? I’m getting tired of calling her it. If she is a female, I can’t control it.”

Weston walks up to me and reaches into a fridge over my head, painfully close. 

“Here’s the milk.” He sets down a glass jar and a baby bottle in front of me. “Want to prep it?”

“How do we have horse milk?” My eyes never leave the jar. 

“It’s goat milk.” Weston shook his head, reaching over me to unscrew the cap of the jar. 

Out of reflex, I slap his hand away. “I can open it.”

“Fine!” He huffs. 

As I attempt to screw it open, I talk to fill the silence. “Why goat's milk?”

I turned, clutching the bottle tightly, and my eyes fell upon Weston, who sat at the foot of the foal. The soft morning light filtered through the barn window onto the two. “No mare has milk, and goat milk is an okay substitute.” 

“Oh.”

And the silence filled the room once again. 

“Okay, can you tell me what I did?” I poured the milk into the bottle and handed it to him, our fingers grazing.

“Nothing yet.” His mouth moves upward in what I’d guess is his attempt at a smirk, but my frown doesn’t waver as he sets the bottle down and turns to me, still sitting. 

“Did Clara wrong you in some way, so you’re associating her evil with me? Because if she did, count me in. It's not like I could hate her more.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t like Clara?”

“Despise with my entire soul is the nicest way to put it. I thought you knew that.”

“No?”

“Oh.”

He stood up, and I stepped back to keep us at a reasonable distance. Much like our relationship. Distancing myself is the safe way to go, the logical way, so why was I questioning him like this? Didn’t I want him to hate me? 

Almost reading my mind, he crossed his arms. “Why are you so upset with me? Can you not handle that I don’t like girls who think they can just show up with no skills at all and act like they own this place?”

“I have skills!” I cry, more hurt than he probably meant to make me. “ You think I came here for a job?!”

“Why else would you come to Arizona?”

“It doesn’t—“

“It does matter. Why?” 

“There was nothing there for me anymore, I guess.” I struggled to get out, eyes darting everywhere around the room. 

“What about the financial job with the influencer?”

I stare at him. He remembered that. But why? I feel oddly touched by it, as if he offered me a bunch of roses. A sign he isn't as cold as he presents himself to be. 

“It’s not about the job,” I repeat. 

 “Why do you keep asking me questions if you can’t even answer the ones I say to you?!” He sighs loudly, exasperated.

I stand there, unable to answer, my eyes darting away from him. The silence is heavy, but a soft, frantic whimpering from the hay bed suddenly breaks it. The foal shifts, its tiny legs twitching.

Weston’s head snaps toward the sound, his frustration melting away instantly. He drops to his knees, his focus completely on the foal, picking up the abandoned bottle.

 I watch, a knot of confusion and frustration still in my stomach. I walk over. 

“Can I help?” I stand there, feeling like a scared little kid, and probably looking like one too.

He stands and shoves the bottle in my hands. “Just feed it. I have better things to do than babysit.” And just like that, he leaves the filly and I in silence. 

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