"My brother is the best farmer in the world, no one is better than him!"

Just as those words left her mouth I felt the usual flood of emotions—pride, modesty and awkwardness flow through my system. Compliments were always hard for me to accept because, well… Didn't you have to be someone really important to receive them? It was either that or someone was trying to get something from you or trying to cheer you up. With Cheryl, it was always the latter. Ever since I was diagnosed (non-professionally, of course so there was no guarantee that I was) with depression she'd stepped up her verbal game, constantly going on and on about how I was so amazing the way I sheered the sheep or the best at producing high-quality milk from the cows. It was a sweet attempt at flattery on her part but I knew better than to take the overkill praise from her too seriously.

Besides, I knew that if Cheryl spent more time around Kana or Cam she'd realize just how lame I was.

As she continued to boast about me—loudly, of course—to whoever had walked into the barn, I continued to stroke the cow in front of me, coaxing her to eat more of the feed. She would be due any day now and her calf needed the extra nutrients. I smiled to myself at the thought of another addition to my barn family. These animals were the only ones who didn't have some sort of ulterior motive when it came to their lives. They weren't out to hurt anyone or get something from them.

The cows were always my favorites. Their calm and unassuming demeanor matched my own perfectly and, when I was younger, I often found myself spending long amounts of time with them in preference to human interaction. This, of course, led to some of the village children associating me and my larger size to being a "cow" as well and made teasing mooing sounds in my direction while I ran errands for my mom. The nickname "Cowboy" didn't stick around too long since Cam had threatened to punch the next kid who called me that.

"Is he?"

I looked up from my petting and caught a glimpse of her amused blue eyes staring down at my little sister. It was Lilian, the newest addition to Town Bluebell as of last week. She'd come by before, meeting everyone in town, but I'd kept to myself. I figured she wouldn't want anything to do with me since I didn't have any direct relation to the business my mom and sister tended to.

"Yeah, he is," Cheryl confirmed with a nod of her head. She beamed up at Lillian and I knew that she'd earned her approval. "Just ask him anything about farming and he'll give you some great advice."

I really wanted to say something, to stop her from embarrassing me further, but I knew that I wouldn't be brave enough to say anything in front of a new person. She did seem amused by the whole ordeal so I doubt she took anything that Cheryl was saying seriously. Hopefully she'd leave before she caught sight of me in the back of the barn with a light flush over my cheeks.

"I think that I will," Lillian said, and all traces of amusement in her voice were gone. "I could use a bit of help getting Maribelle to cooperate."

I heard the sound of crunching straw as she approached me, having seen me from the front of the barn and I inwardly cursed myself. Of course she had seen me! I was too large for her not to see!

She stopped on the other side of Cadence, our cow, and patiently waited for me to finish what I was doing.

"Hi," I said quickly—too quickly to where I wouldn't have been surprised if she hadn't caught what I said. "Umm... If there's something that you need, I'd head inside the shop. They should be open in about ten minutes and they'd be able to help you out more than I could."

She didn't say anything for a bit, but she continued to smile. "My name's Lillian," she said, completely ignoring what I had said. "I was wondering if you would help me out sometime? I've been having trouble getting my cow to cooperate with milking. I'm not sure that I'm doing it right, to be honest!" Lillian laughed, sheepishly brushing some of her light brown hair from her face.

I smiled nervously, not sure how to react. "I'm not sure I could be of much help," I said, and it was true. I didn't know the first thing about her cow but I was pretty sure that I could figure it out. "But if you'll give me a little bit of time I could come over and help you out."

"Oh…" she sighed, relief apparent in her voice. "Thank you so much. I've been swamped with all this new information—I've never lived on a farm before and I have a huge amount of respect for what you can do!"

I flushed at her words. She was almost as bad as Cheryl was when it came to flattery.

"I was nervous just talking to you, of course, because I barely know what I was doing and you're awfully cute and I just—Jeeze, now I'm having verbal diarrhea," she laughed again, although this one sounded a lot more nervous and forced. "Anyway, just swing on by after work? I'll be there all day trying to figure it out most likely."

She continued to talk but my mind had blanked out when she'd called me 'cute'. What on earth was she talking about? I was fat—I wasn't cute!

"Is that okay?" the corners of her lips twitched, looking at me for confirmation.

I blinked at her from over my cow's back, having tuned out what she'd said. "Um… This evening?" I asked. "I'll be done at three."

Lillian nodded quickly, removing her hand from where it nervously twisted in her hair. "Great!" she said with a grin. "I'll see you then." She turned out and quickly walked out of the barn, not even sparing a glance to Cheryl as she went.

I sighed to myself as I set down my brush. Why on earth had I just agreed like this? The me five minutes ago would have probably turned tail and ran. Maybe because she seemed as nervous as I was? Because I was…cute? Just thinking of that word in relation to me made my heart skip a beat and cause me to want to crawl into a hole and die. The whole situation was way too embarrassing and, by the look on Cheryl's face, I'd be forced to tell her everything.