Dedication: This chapter is for LilyLaverick. Thank you for inspiring me to keep writing this story, and our conversations about Stardew are making me want to give Haley x Farmer an enemies to lovers arc ;)

Chapter Four

~ A City Girl Making Enemies ~

I turned around slowly.

A slim woman with a figure I would die for and beautiful blonde hair stood in the path behind me. She hadn't been there before, but as I looked at her I realised I'd just passed her house.

"Haley," I greeted, looking into her cornflower-blue eyes. And then my brain caught up with me. "Did you just throw something at me?"

"No," she said. She flicked her wrist, and I felt a second ping against my skull.

I gritted my teeth, ignoring her attractiveness. "What was that for?"

"Just, you know." She shrugged, a wicked smile on her face.

"No, I don't know." Whatever game she was playing, I wanted no part of it.

She disliked me from the moment I moved here, but she wasn't the only one. Half the town seemed to hate me. However…

Did she see me with Alex? It was obvious she liked him. I'd barely been in Stardew for three weeks but she was always hanging around him, following him everywhere like a lost puppy. Her house had windows over-looking the square, so it was possible she'd seen our exchange. I was almost impressed she was awake this early. I'd never seen her out and about before 10am before.

She looked me up and down slowly, wrinkling her nose. "You're wearing blue," she said scathingly.

"Yeah, so?"

"Blue is my colour."

"Your colour?" I almost choked on disbelief. "No-one owns colours!"

"Oh, City Girl." She shook her head and clicked her tongue, almost sounding like she pitied me. "You really don't know anything, do you?"

"That's rich," I hissed through my teeth, "coming from you."

She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "I am rich, and I was born in blue. You threw it on thoughtlessly."

I decided she didn't need to know she was right.

"We can both wear blue," I retorted. We weren't even wearing the same shade. Her shirt was a bright, gaudy shade that matched her eyes. My blouse was pale and light.

She glanced down my body. "No. We can't."

I looked down too. That's when I saw it.

My skirt was the exact same blue as her shirt. If we were standing next to each other, we would look like puzzle pieces that should fit together, but stubbornly refused to connect.

"What do you want me to do? Strip down to my underwear in the street?"

The barest flicker of a smile quirked her lips up. "That would be a sight," she mocked. "City Girl in her underwear. You might finally cause Lewis to allow a mall to be constructed here."

"I'll have you know, I look incredible without clothes on." Once again, my tongue leapt ahead of my brain.

Damn beers. I'm never drinking again.

Haley smirked. "Really?"

If this was a game of chicken, I refused to lose.

But if I took my skirt off, would I be the winner or the loser? If someone saw me – if, forest spirits forbid, if Lewis saw me, he'd have me on the next bus out of here before I could say 'my grandfather wanted me here'.

I was saved from answering by heavy footsteps padding up the path behind me.

I breathed a sigh of relief and glanced over my shoulder – and suddenly, I wished taking my skirt off was a trade for the person behind me being Lewis instead of him.

"Hh." His utterance was barely a word. Barely even a sound.

But it resonated in my brain like a rock ricocheting off cave walls.

He wore the same clothes as yesterday. Green Joja shirt under an open, tattered blue Joja hoodie.

He's wearing blue, I almost said to Haley.

But his hoodie was a darker shade than the colour she claimed, and his dark violet eyes promised a storm of trouble.

He kept walking, his eyes slipping past me to look straight ahead.

Haley barely acknowledged his presence. She turned her nose up higher, a disgusted look twisting her otherwise pretty face.

It was a shame. Haley would be the most beautiful girl in town if she just learned how to be kind. Instead, she favoured grimaces and glares over smiles and laughter. The only person I'd seen her smile around was Alex.

Alex, who I have a date with this evening.

Not a date date, I reminded myself. We would be having dinner at the same table, yes, but his grandparents would be present. Not exactly a typical first date…

Because it's not a date.

I didn't want to think about that right now.

"Hi, Shane," I said as he passed next to me. "You're up early."

He gave me a cool glance. Last night his eyes glittered like starlit obsidian. This morning, they were as dull as shaded rock. But he did dignify me with a response. "I have work."

"Ooh, work," Haley cooed. "Aren't we a good boy?"

I shot daggers her way. "At least some of us earn our keep, unlike others who coast on their parents' money."

That's right. Emily told me how your parents pay for everything you have while they're off travelling the world.

Haley gasped, her cherry lips forming a perfect O. "You've done it now, City B-"

"Calm down," Shane drawled. "If you can't change the truth, least you can do is accept it."

I cast a curious glance his way. My devious tongue got the better of me and I said, "You're so good at accepting truths, aren't you, Shane?"

He glowered at me with eyes so dark I wished I had an oil lamp handy to illuminate his emotions.

It was possible he was completely void of emotions. He hadn't acknowledged the moment we shared last night, and after what I'd just said I didn't expect him to. The blackness in his eyes was exactly what it seemed: a void.

His lips twisted into a scowl and he hurried onwards, passing Haley without so much as another look.

Haley huffed and flicked her long blonde locks over her shoulder, turning away from me.

I expected her to vanish back into her house without another word, but she paused and turned back to me with one foot inside, one foot still out.

"You should try working for your keep," she said snootily. "Maybe if you do, you'll earn the colour blue."

What the hell does that mean?

The door closed behind her before I could come up with a clever response.

I sighed heavily and began to walk towards Marnie's ranch.

These people and their problems would never make sense to me.