"How about now?" Fritz called out from somewhere behind his little hut.

I stood alone in his crop field, staring at the leaves of the turnips were starting to brown. Fritz's farm wasn't so much his own space as it was a sad an unused part of Georgio's farm that got taken over by a novice, go-lucky kid. Just behind the fence, Georgio's flower fields sprawled out between walls of evergreen trees and made the entire clearing look alive—blooming in puffs of pinks, reds and yellows. Meanwhile, poor Fritz was struggling to keep even the grass green.

"No!" I called over my shoulder.

There was silence, then again, "Now?"

"Nope!"

Fritz's footsteps trudged heavy from out behind me, and placed his hands heavily on his hips. "Damn," he sighed. The hose in my hand stood still and mocking.

"If I ask you a question you promise you won't get mad?" I tried. To be honest, I didn't really have to ask. Fritz never got mad.

"Shoot," he replied.

"Have you been forgetting to water your crops or forgetting to water your crops?"

At first, he just stared at me, trying to piece together the question. Then he smirked, laughed, and shook his head. "What?"

"I mean, have you actually been forgetting or has your hose been broken so you've been purposefully putting it off?"

"Such little faith," he chuckled, throwing his arms above his head and stepping backwards. In an almost clumsy, kind of graceful way, he turned on the ball of his foot and slid off of the line of rocks separating his vegetable patch from the lawn. "This is the first time I have been made aware of it," Fritz went on. "I can hear the water turning on, it just isn't coming out of this end." He pointed at the nozzle of the hose as I dropped it onto the dust.

The late morning sun was pouring over the valley, birds sang around river bed and bees flew from flower to flower in Georgio's garden, sometimes buzzing past us on their way back home. For the peak of the day it was still quiet, and I liked that about this place. Occasionally you heard the swing of a hammer or the call of a voice down by the square.

"Maybe I ask Gunther if he has any ideas," Fritz said to be then, hopping back down from his tool shed to where I stood, waiting. "I've heard he helps Maurice out sometimes with plumbing at the Inn."

"Worth a shot," I added.

Down by the forest, the grass turned to moss, covering the pine-scattered dirt and the boulders lining the trees. I walked toward them, studying the deep forest I hadn't yet traversed. I wondered how far back it went, how thick or how settled it was, how far we were from the nearest village.

_(more)

"Annie!'

I turned at my name, seeing the silhouette of Fritz overlooking the edge of the forest where I stood. I hadn't realized his land was so hilly.

"Does it look like I watered those cabbages down there?" his shadow called out.

I glanced down at the plot of dirt beside me, where springs of green were blooming from the ground, and sighed. "No, it doesn't," I called back.

I couldn't see his face, but I assumed that he was grinning at me when he said, "Oops."

The town center had gotten slightly busier since I first got to town. With the addition of a few new stalls at the Trade Depot, a few new faces graced the sidewalks and benches outside of the local businesses as Fritz and I walked down to the visit the stalls. The local nurse Angela walked by, blushed at Fritz as he said hello, and mumbled a greeting back.

One thing I noticed about Fritz over the past month of being his "best friend" was that he rarely noticed other people's feelings. True, it could be annoying sometimes, and dangerous I was sure, but it was also kind of endearing. It took a solid three minutes with Angela to realize she was head over heels for Fritz. She fidgeted and blushed whenever he spoke, careful to keep her eyes down to her feet. But Fritz rarely noticed, just like he rarely noticed when other people weren't as enthusiastic to speak to him as he was to them. And while sometimes people found it irritating, I had noticed that, sometimes, that annoying positivity actually rubbed off on people.

I noticed it now, for instance, as we stood at the counter of the Guild, Fritz talking Veronica's ear off about one of the fields that would be going up for sale soon. While Veronica held her usual, stony face as Fritz explained what the root crop field would mean to him, and slowly started veering into conversation about this old field he used to play in at his hometown with his neighborhood friends, which then veered into conversations about how his parents were still planning to come and visit soon but hadn't figured out a time that worked yet. The more he talked, the softer she looked. I even caught a smile at one point before he waved goodbye and pushed his way back out into the sunshine.

Beside me, Fritz inhaled dramatically. "Beautiful day, Annie, isn't it?"

"Sure is," I told him, watching out over the lower section of the town where a group of ladies sat fanning themselves in the shade of a willow tree.

Summer was on its way, that was for sure. The breeze blowing over the hills was warmer, the sun was stronger, the flowers were finally in full bloom. I was looking forward to it, to be honest. Although I would need to find more suitable clothes.

"Raeger! Over here!"

I tensed.

While I did usually appreciate Fritz' obliviousness, the one time I didn't appreciate it was literally any time Raeger was in the vicinity. I turned into Angela then—palms sweating, knees weak, eyes glued strictly to the cobblestones. Across the way, Raeger was fiddling with the lock at the restaurant. When he heard his name he looked over, nodded toward us with a smile and slipped the key back into his pocket.

"Afternoon Fritz. Annie." Raeger nodded at each of us once he got closer, stopping in front of us and digging his hands into the pocket of his apron. Sometimes, on his way out, he would forget to take it off and end up wearing it around town. I always thought that was cute.

"Don't tell me you're closing up already," Fritz asked him as he glanced back at the empty outdoor seating area.

"No, don't worry, we'll be back open in a few. I just have to run down to the Depot to pick up an order from one of the vendors," Raeger said.

"Perfect timing," Fritz chimed. "We were just on our way there, we'll walk with you."

As we headed down the stairs to the lower town, Fritz filled the silence with whatever was floating around in his head. He talked a lot about his crops, which he liked to let Raeger thing were positively prospering, and explained to him the cool meals he'd learned to make over the last few weeks. All of which, I was sure, Raeger found boring, but smiled at and acted interested in none the less.

Let me be clear, I wasn't in love with Raeger or anything. I just had this unexplainable knot in my stomach absolutely every time he came around. He just had this calm, kind heir about him that made every part of my being freak out. The first time we met I had been walking through town stumbling over my own feet in a hurry to reach the Depot before the vendors left. With neither of us paying much attention, we almost ran into each other on the deserted path. He smiled warmly, introduced himself, and told me in the always polite way of his to stop by any time.

I rarely did.

The Depot was bustling with its usual afternoon business. Business being a relative term that is. There was about a dozen people wandering around, going between the three stalls that had popped up to bargain off their goods. I glanced around to see where I wanted to start while Fritz begged Raeger to show him how to make the pot-pie he had a few weeks back.

"I can't, man, it's an old family recipe," Raeger chuckled as Fritz clasped his hands together, begging.

"Oh come on Raeger! I've been having dreams about the stuff since I ate it."

"Well then, stop by whenever you want to and I would be thrilled to whip you up another one," Raeger chimed.

"I'll win you over yet, sir."

We had stopped in the middle of the circular foundation, right in the line of the traffic flow. From the northern side of the square, Asche at the Silk County booth was smiling kindly at a customer and filling a worn out basket with goods, laughing at something the man had said. Marielle was stroking an assumedly sold cow's nose, waiting for the new owner to stop by and pick it up while a few women chatted around her booth.

Now that the spring was coming to a close I would have to start thinking of what I was going to plant for the summer. I hadn't quite found my niche yet—I was just as neutral at growing veggies as I was at growing flowers—but I found myself gravitating toward the former.

"Raeger!"

The three of us glanced over Raeger's shoulder toward where the Cabin County vendor was smiling in our direction, hand shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun.

"Op, that's for me," Raeger said as Marielle called out to him again with a large waive. "I'll see you later Fritz." He smiled at me and nodded. "Annie."

"You know," I said to Fritz as I watched for too long as Raeger headed over toward Marielle's stall. I tried to look away quickly, shaking my head and hoping that Fritz didn't notice as we moseyed toward Asche. "I'm going to have to pick up my summer seeds soon if I want to be prepared, which means I'll probably have to do that before I actually sell the spring harvest."

"Think you're gonna have enough?"

One thing I did appreciate about Fritz is that he understood the plight of the poor farmer. His farm having yet to take off, he was used to that season-to-season living, wondering if you'd ever have enough to live on. The different between us, though, was that he seemed to thrive in that middle ground.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I have enough to start out I think, but I'd rather do all the planting at once. It would help me keep the timing of everything straight, you know?"

Asche greeted us with a gruff hello when we reached her, pushing her basket of seeds toward us and pretending it wasn't on purpose. Fritz flicked through the packets and made faces at each one, clearly not interested in any of his options.

"We'll figure it out, Annie," Fritz said, tossing an arm lazily around my shoulder and glancing up toward the bright spring sky. "We always do."

Whether it was because I wanted to see it or it really did happen, I could have sworn that I saw Raeger glance over at us then.