CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The house was so fucking quiet. Shy sat at her kitchen table and cupped both hands around the comforting warmth of her favorite coffee mug. She ran a calloused thumb along the smooth curve of the handle and stared through the steam at the empty seat across from her. She could practically hear the morning sunbeams streaming through the trees outside the window. It was so quiet, in fact, that she could hear Thisbe’s laugh perfectly in her memory. She lifted the mug to her lips and downed the hot coffee too fast, swallowed too much, and it scorched its way down her throat to her belly.
“Fuck!” Shy gasped. She pushed away from the table and stood up, cursing a few more times for good measure.
Of course it had been too much of a good thing. Too big a coincidence. Gorgeous, charming lesbians with a passion for great literature and a talent for creating pastries didn’t just fall out of the sky in the middle of goddamn nowhere. They didn’t accidentally end up on the wrong farm half a hemisphere away from their intended destination. They certainly didn’t fall in love with reclusive goat ranchers.
“Oh, fuck me!” Shy slammed her mug down on the counter and seethed. I am not going to moon over a liar like some heartsick teenager. I am not—
“Fuck you? Shy, I know full well that I am a sexy little farmhand whom few can resist, but that sort of demand is… deliciously inappropriate for the workplace.”
Shy jumped—just a little—at the intrusion and turned around to find a tall, lanky figure in purple jeans and black corduroy standing in the doorway. The relief she felt was palpable.
“Wallis! Thank fuck you’re here.”
“Something the matter, boss?” Wallis raised one eyebrow as if to say they already knew damned well what happened, but they wanted to hear it straight from Shy’s mouth first.
“This week’s storm has us way behind on… everything, is all.” Shy hedged. “I could really use your help.”
“Shoot, I could see that just from the look of things on my way up the drive. What a mess. Are the droids still acting up?”
Wallis grabbed a mug from the cupboard and helped themselves to a cup of coffee. They leaned up against the kitchen counter, brushed a shaggy lock of blonde hair from their eyes, and gave Shy a long, assessing once-over.
“You look like you haven’t slept in days. And is that… eyeliner smudged around your eyes?” Their own eyes widened gleefully. “And glitter eyeliner at that?”
“Yes, it is,” Shy said testily. “So I wear makeup sometimes, so what? You’ve got eyeliner on right now.”
“Yes but I am not you, boss. Anyway, I’m just messing with you. I already know why, so no sense in trying to cover up anything. You and your scorching hot lady friend were all over social last night.”
Wallis held up their phone and projected a cheap 3D video recording of precisely the worst part of last night. She saw herself angrily storm out and winced when a distraught Thisbe chased after. She looked away, suddenly interested in refilling her coffee.
“So?” Wallis prompted.
“What?”
“What? What the hell was that? Why were you at Galactica with Thisbe Vandergoss of all people, and why did you storm out on her?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, alright? I’ve popped three hangover pills and my head still feels like it’s filled with angry demon bees. We’ve got a lot of work to get to so can we just—Wallis? Wallis!”
Shy chased after Wallis, who had turned on their heels, coffee in hand, and stalked out of the room like a cat prowling for mice.
“Shy, if you cannot be straightforward with me, my curiosity will have to be self-satiated. You can’t just show up on video like that and, oh!”
Wallis froze in the foyer and pointed a finger at the shoe rack. They pointed to the pair of sleek white kitten heels that Thisbe had been wearing the day she showed up.
“What are those!?”
“Shoes!”
“If I go over and look inside those particular shoes, I’m going to confirm they are not your size, aren’t I?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Was she staying here with you? Was Thisbe Vandergoss living here on Starfall Ranch? Since when?!”
“Since the day the storm rolled in! Goddamn you and goddamn her! Get out of my house and get to work!”
Shy didn’t realize she had started crying until Wallis’ arms were suddenly around her shoulders and she was being handed a handkerchief.
“Shiloh! Oh goodness, come on. Come over here and sit down and tell me what happened. Do we need to stab a bitch? I am a full-service farmhand and you will find that stabbing rich bitches who fuck with my boss is included in my work contract.”
Shy laughed in spite of herself and shook her head.
“No. Well, not yet anyway. Maybe.”
“I need you to be honest with me, Shy. Was this, in fact, the first time you’ve ever cried in your entire life? Or just the first time in front of me?”
“Fuck you,” Shy laughed through her sniffles. Wallis winked.
“I mean either way, I’m honored—and a little freaked out. Okay, but seriously now. What happened?”
✽✽✽
Shy had to admit it: she felt a lot better after unloading some drama on someone else’s ears. Wallis was a good listener and the fact that she didn’t know it after two years of working beside them made Shy feel a level of guilt that threatened to bury even her anger at Thisbe. She smoothed a lock of hair back behind her ear to cover any shift in her expression and cleared her throat with a sardonic smile.
“Anyway, it’s obvious that she was sent here by her family to soften me up so that I would sell the mining rights to them instead of the Havers.”
Wallis raised one impeccably groomed eyebrow and poured them both another cup of coffee.
“How do you figure?”
Shy snorted derisively, but Wallis’ eyebrow remained aloft.
“Come on, Wallis. I raise goats and grow apples. It was hardly lucrative even before the droids started acting up and the orchards got hit with blight. Now I’m barely breaking even. I have no social life to speak of. I’m not exactly billionaire bait by any stretch of the imagination. but somehow this one blows in with the storm because she misread her ticket itinerary? And then on top of everything else she’s actually attracted to me?”
“Okay, so yes, you are correct: you’re an anti-social asshole living on far more land than she needs.”
“Hey!”
“But, hear me out, Thisbe Vandergoss really did stumble onto Starfall Ranch by accident.”
Shy narrowed her eyes.
“You know this for a fact?”
Wallis scoffed and pulled up an audio news clip on their phone and an authoritative London-accented voice filled the room.
“…This is Diona Pond for Station Nineteen News. The heir to the Vandergoss dynasty is still missing, nearly a week since her parents broadcast a plea—and the promise of a hefty reward—for her safe return. Thisbe Vandergoss’ disappearance is shrouded in unanswered questions. Has she been kidnapped? Incapacitated in an accident? Is she lost? Or is this simply all a hoax and a sad cry for attention? For more analysis on the Vandergoss situation, we turn to Carl—”
Wallis clicked out of the recording and put their handheld away with a triumphant flourish.
“She’s a runaway. A woman like that, all grown-up and running companies like some kind of pirate queen of yore, does not just up and disappear without a trace from a whole planet. Her parents are offering a fortune for any information on her whereabouts. That means she did not inform them of her very expensive trip to our fair Sirona.”
“I don’t know…”
“She could have come up with so many other stories to get you to let her stay here without hiding her identity, if she’d wanted to! Why lie to you from the beginning if her whole big plan was to try to buy you out in the end? Undermining a mark’s confidence from the get-go is the exact wrong way to handle a mark!”
“How do you know so much about confidence scams?” Shy asked, diverting. Wallis pursed their lips together cryptically.
“No one migrates to Sirona without leaving a lot of old baggage behind on Earth,” they answered. “Anyway, that’s best left in the past and lightyears beyond. What’s more important right now is your mystery heiress.”
“She’s not my anything,” Shy snapped.
“Mmkay, sure.”
“In the end, it’s true. Whether she lied to me or not—and for what it’s worth my money is on yes. Nothing happened between us. I gave her a place to stay for a few nights and in exchange she helped with some of the farm chores.”
“Weird how heavy makeout sessions have never come up on my list of ranch duties.”
“What?”
Wallis held up their phone again with a lazy smile. Shy felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at a low-light image of herself from the night before at Galactica. Thisbe was straddling her lap in the picture, hips grinding against hips, their mouths locked together in a passionate kiss.
For a moment, she was there, back in the bar and Thisbe was in her arms and the DJ drowned out the world beyond them just enough. For a moment, that kiss was enough. Shy shivered and looked away. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t—let her emotions cloud her judgement. Not again.
“Wait, so now I’m all over the news, too?”
“Not yet, but you certainly will be as soon as Earthsider news sharks get this transmission.”
“Who took that?” She didn’t know why she bothered to ask.
“Vayne Yoon,” they said in unison. Wallis shot shy a finger gun.
“Gossip columnist to the most boring community on the entire moon. Just came through his feed.”
Shy groaned and buried her face in her hands. Just what she needed: a wannabe newshound leading real reporters straight to her ranch. More distractions from the work of actually working the land. More opportunities for others to swoop in and steal it all out from under her.
An idea burst to the forefront of her sleep-deprived mind: it was still her ranch, after all. She sat straight up and held up a hand, a wicked glint in her eyes. Wallis, who knew the look well, steeled themselves for a battle.
“Okay.”
“Shy, no.”
“You haven’t even heard my—”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Wallis!”
“Shy!”
“Just hear me out!”
“Okay, alright Shiloh. I will sit quietly and I will drink my coffee and I will listen attentively to your plan—”
“Thank you!”
“—Only if you can promise me that your plan does not involve rigging all of your adorable little farm bots and droids and drones with a cartoonish assortment of nonlethal weapons to deploy at the gates against any visiting paparazzi.”
Shy stared at Wallis in unblinking silence for the span of a long, slow breath.
“I’m making an apple cannon and you cannot stop me.”
“Shy!”
“Starfall Ranch isn’t going to save itself! This is my home, Wallis. My sanctuary. I can’t let some rando’s family drama threaten that any more than it’s already being threatened.”
“That rando’s things are still here waiting to be collected.”
She’d forgotten about that. Thisbe’s suitcase was still up in the guest room. Some of her clothes were still in the dryer. Her toothbrush and lotions were sitting next to Shy’s in the bathroom, like they’d always been there. Like she’d always had room for someone else’s private life in her own. She blinked, pushing the unwanted thoughts out of her mind.
“Can you drop them off in town when you go home tonight? She’s probably staying at Hotel Moonflower.”
“Not unless you’re paying me overtime,” Wallis said, not missing a beat.
Shy snorted.
“In that case, she can collect her stuff from a box on the porch. I can barely afford to pay you as-is these days. And speaking of which, you’ve got some goats to tend to.”
Wallis finished their coffee and set the mug in the kitchen sink.
“Right. I’ll go attend to all of my babies, who have probably missed me almost as much as I’ve missed them, and you really should go get yourself a shower and take care of yourself.”
“I’ll be fine until tonight after work,” Shy waved off any further admonishment. “I’m taking the truck to the outer orchards to round up a few unresponsive bots that didn’t report back to their charging stations last night.”
At the kitchen door, Wallis paused and gave Shy a long, assessing look. Long enough that Shy worried they might push the issue of self-care or—worse—insist that she not be alone for the rest of the day. Shy didn’t think she could handle that much “support” from anyone. Fortunately, Wallis eventually shrugged and turned to leave.
“You’re the boss, boss. Good luck with finding the bots.”
✽✽✽
The too-quiet loneliness rushed back in the wake of the screen door slamming carelessly against the frame. Shy scrambled for her headphones and pulled up a playlist that she hoped would be sufficiently rowdy enough to banish all thoughts of Thisbe from her head.
The sky was dusty gold, an effect of the rising sun hitting the glimmering curve of Bel on the far horizon, and every leaf drifting in the breeze seemed to shimmer in that gilded light. The autumn morning held a sweet quality to it; a rich ripeness in the air that carried the crisp perfume of apples and sun-warmed grasses. Shy drove her truck slowly down the dirt paths of the ranch, feeling a fierce surge of protectiveness in her heart.
Starfall wasn’t even a decade old and already the financial powers-that-be were creeping in, encroaching, determined to turn Sirona into a smaller version of Earth in all its fucked-up glory. That was the trap, of course. She’d known it when she’d read the ad, when she’d signed the papers that bound her to the new world, when she’d hammered in the last nail of the sign at the gates.
“This is just the Devil, come to collect his due, I suppose,” she said aloud over her music. She wasn’t religious, but the old metaphor seemed apt in the moment. “Well fuck the Devil, and fuck the Havers, and fuck me for a fool for thinking I could just walk away from all that bullshit and live a peaceful life.”
She saw a glint of metal in the ditch along the side of the road and pulled over to collect the bot. Hopping out of the truck, Shy turned the volume up on her headphones and let the waves of janglepop synth wash over her for the rest of her work.