Howdy again, my lovelies! Things have been rough lately but I bring to you a new chapter! Hope y'all enjoy! ~Shaymie

Molly

"What're you buyin'?"

Molly burst into giggles, unable to keep up the ridiculous voice for longer than a second. She's been trying out the line all day but the only response she's gotten so far was a confused stare... much like the one Maisie was currently giving her. Chase chuckled softly and looked over at the pumpkins. Molly and Angela spent a good chunk of the morning picking out the best ones out of the bunch. Molly kept a few of the good ones for cooking, and the rest went into the shipping bin.

"What're you sellin'?"

Molly gasped. Chase didn't bother doing the voice but that didn't really matter. Finally, someone got her silly joke! She was ready to give up on it like Angela suggested. Kasey's probably the only other person who'd get the reference and he was getting his pumpkin later. Maisie looked between the two of them, peachy eyebrows knitted together. Molly wondered what she thought of them right now. After a few moments Maisie shrugged and walked off to pick out a pumpkin. Molly smiled up at Chase.

"Thanks for playing along. But, um... Did you really come all this way to buy a pumpkin? You live right next to a farm," she said with a tilt of her head. That's a lot of effort when he could have bought something from a more experienced farmer. She knew how much quality produce meant to him. Angela felt insulted that Chase was one of the few people in town who never bought from them, but Molly understood. She'd go to the farmer's market back in the city when she could because the stuff at the grocery store just wasn't cutting it.

"I'll buy from them when Craig stops being a dick."

"So never?" The words slipped from her mouth before she even realized she was responding. Her cheeks flushed. It was always talking about Craig that brought this side out of her. She didn't like to think bad things about people, but there wasn't a single good thing she could say about him. She still remembered how rude he'd been when she and Angela had first moved here. He clearly wasn't impressed by them and was sure they'd bail when they realized how hard men's work was.

One more strike and Angela's definitely going to be impossible to hold back. Molly probably wouldn't even try to stop her.

"A-Anyway, um... Are you and Maisie going to the circus today?"

It was all Mara and Gideon have been able to talk about since their birthday. Angela and Kasey have been trying their best to keep the excitement high, but it was pretty tough to do when the circus was so close to the anniversary of Mom's death. The day before, in fact. They haven't really talked about their plans for tomorrow. Dad would always visit her grave by himself, while Kasey and Angela watched old home videos all day and visited her together later.

The most Molly was able to do on the anniversary was call Aunt Dee. Her siblings had each other for comfort, but their aunt was all alone. Fritz was a lovable idiot but he's not the kind of kid you can talk to about serious things. Besides, Molly liked having her talks with Aunt Dee. It gave them time to catch up and share recipes. Aunt Dee's also the only one willing to actually talk about Mom.

Even then, she never talked about the bad things with Mom... Nobody talked about Mom's depression, like they thought talking about it would ruin her memory. Would they have kept Molly in the dark about it forever if she hadn't read her mother's diary?

"Yeah... The kid's dragging me out to it," Chase grumbled, reminding her that she was in the middle of a conversation and that now wasn't the time to be thinking about Mom. Chase looked over at Maisie, who had taken her sweater off to attempt to shoo the chickens away from some pumpkins she wanted to look at, and sighed. "She started talking about how our parents never took her to do things and begged me to come with her. I mean, I'm an asshole but I'm not a monster. I wasn't going to tell her no."

"You're not an asshole!" Molly huffed. She thought they'd talked about this already. She didn't understand why he insisted on thinking he was a bad person. A bad person would have made Maisie stay at the inn, or maybe even send her away altogether. If he was a bad person, then he wouldn't have taken care of Molly when she was sick. He wouldn't be so nice and patient with her.

"Freckles, I was joking—"

"Well, it's not funny! I don't like hearing you talk about yourself like that!"

Maybe she was just overreacting. She didn't know why, but she's felt... off for a few days now. Like everything was just too much for her to handle. All her emotions felt bigger than normal. She snapped at Luke earlier for putting a plate in the wrong cabinet. Even her animals didn't want to be around her. Pretzel refused to eat anything until she'd backed away from his food bowl.

"S-Sorry..." she mumbled, cheeks growing warm. She took a deep breath and let it out. "I don't know what—"

Chase putting a hand on her head made her lose her train of thought. She blinked, wondering if she was dreaming. Maybe she'd hit her head again and landed in one of her romance novels. Because... There's no way Chase was actually looking at her like that. His eyes held a warmth that she's never seen from him before. He's always been nice to her but something about it felt different this time.

He felt different now.

"You know, it's kinda hard to take your anger seriously when you look like that." She felt a tinge of disappointment when he pulled his hand away and stuffed it in his pocket. It took a few moments for her to register what he said, a furious pout forming on her face when her brain finally caught up.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"You're... you know... Soft." He let out an awkward cough and looked away. Were his cheeks also a bit pink? She didn't think embarrassment was an emotion he knew. "I mean, you've got that cute little baby-face thing going on. Kinda hard to be intimidated by that."

Cute. She couldn't even feel insulted anymore because he called her cute. She could feel all the blood rushing to her face. He probably didn't mean it like that. He probably meant she was cute in the way you'd call a kitten cute. Still, it was enough to embarrass her. Especially right after he'd looked at her so gently and... touched her. Just a little pat on the head but it's alarming how much she wanted more.

Was it wrong to want more? Surely he wouldn't want her. He'd want someone who didn't feel so lost. Someone who's sure of who she is. Even now, she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. She didn't have the same passion for farming that Angela had. Angela seemed to love farming more than she did, but she's always loved being active so that's no surprise. Farming was supposed to be fulfilling, so why did Molly still feel so empty?

Ballet may have been Mom's dream, but at least it made her feel some sense of purpose.

"Chase, I think I found a good one!" Maisie ran over with a decently-sized pumpkin in her arms, stumbling a bit under its weight. Her tights were covered in feathers from the chickens. Molly was definitely going to need to have a talk with them about harassing guests. She's not sure if you can train chickens in the same way you could train a cat, but it couldn't hurt to try. Chase took the pumpkin from his sister and started looking over it carefully.

Molly was captivated by the way the setting sun lit his features. She knew people normally didn't describe men as pretty, but what else could she call him?

She was snapped out of her spell by Angela opening the front door and calling her over. Chase was preoccupied with the pumpkin and Maisie was busy staring down the chickens so she wasn't really sure if they heard her excuse herself before leaving to see what her sister wanted. Angela rolled her eyes and tugged Molly into the house, slamming the door behind her.

"Could you be any more obvious?" Angela scoffed. She must have been watching through the window. Molly blushed. It wasn't that bad, was it? She just felt like she couldn't keep her thoughts straight around Chase anymore. Especially not if she happened to look into his eyes. They were pretty distracting. She had to get it together.

"Do you think he noticed?"

"No, but that's because he's an idiot." Angela sighed and tightened her brace. It's become her new favorite thing to fidget with and Molly always worried that she'd somehow hurt herself even more. She didn't know how careful you had to be with a sprained wrist. "I know I told you I was going to let you handle this yourself, but this is getting painful to watch. If you like him so much then just ask him out. It's the 21st century. You don't have to wait for the guy to make the first move."

"A-Ask him out...?" Easy for Angela to say. She was tall and pretty and confident. She could dress how she wanted without worrying about how she looked or if she showed too much of her body. And most importantly, Angela didn't have to take handfuls of pills just to be able to function. Molly turned her gaze to the floor. "I can't..."

"Do you want someone else to ask him out first? Better yet, do you want him to go around fucking anyone that offers? You've seen the looks he gets from tourists. Any one of them could—"

"No!"

Molly's voice cracked on the word. It might be childish and jealous of her but she couldn't imagine seeing him with someone else. She hated the thought of it. Angela's eyes widened, her brows disappearing under her bangs. Molly's nails dug into her palms. She felt silly for getting this worked up over a guy. She never even got this worked up over Mark or Ash, but the idea of Chase ending up with someone else...

Hurt. It hurt a lot and she didn't understand why.

She didn't want him looking at someone else the way he looked at her. She knew it was selfish and greedy, but she didn't care. She liked Chase. She wanted him to hold her and kiss her, if he was able to look past all her issues. She wouldn't blame him if they kept him away, though. She was certainly tired of dealing with everything. It's annoying and a lot to handle. There's tons of other girls out there who don't come with baggage like she does.

"You really like him, don't you?" Angela murmured, a soft smile on her face. Molly giggled. She supposed she did. She liked him a lot. A scary amount, really. Her crush on Mark was nothing in comparison, and her feelings for Ash were... different. Purer. She certainly didn't fantasize about kissing Ash. She didn't have dreams about having sex with him. Her feelings for Chase were different than anything she's ever felt before.

Maybe it's because she's older now. Slightly less naive, yet still way more inexperienced than her siblings.

"You don't think it's silly, do you? It feels like I barely broke up with Ash and now..."

"I'd be a hypocrite if I judged you," Angela laughed, brushing back some of Molly's bangs. She definitely had to do something with them soon. They were getting long again. "I was brokenhearted a year ago and now I'm with Luke. It feels like we've been together forever but it hasn't even been half a year yet and I'm sure he's the one for me. Though I do think you could do better than Chase."

"Angie!" She always had to find some way to sneak in some snide comment about Chase. One of these days they'll realize that they're more alike than they thought.

"You'd better get back out there. Don't want to leave him waiting too long, right?" Molly nodded and turned to leave, only to stop when Angela grabbed her arm. "Wait, I almost forgot. Did you ever ask him about that thing? I know you'd like having him along."

"It's kinda last-minute..."

The other day Angela got the sudden idea to spend the end of their vacation on a day trip to the city. Well, probably a two day trip. She wanted Luke to experience at least a little bit of the city before they came back to Castanet. Molly figured it could be fun to surprise Ash with a visit in the same way he'd surprised her. Hopefully he'll be past the worst part of his surgery recovery by then.

"Last-minute would be waiting to bring it up until just before we leave Oak Tree. Couldn't hurt to ask, right? Maybe you can introduce him to Clement or something."

It was easy to forget that Clement was some world-renowned chef when she only knew him as the eccentric man who made her birthday cakes every year. She... knew a few famous people, didn't she? The thought never really occurred to her. Klaus and Allen were at least notorious enough to have a PR list to put her on. Back when she used social media, she somehow had Lanna, the world-famous pop star, as one of her followers. They didn't really talk, but Lanna only followed around 50 people.

Even now she didn't have a clue how she ended up one of them.

"If I have to ask him out myself, then you can invite him yourself," Molly decided, letting out a tiny huff. No way was she letting her sister make her do everything. Angela's the one who wanted Chase to come along, probably so she could meddle some more. If she wanted to continue to butt into Molly's life then she could do it herself.

Molly's an adult now. She didn't need Angela or Kasey or even Ash trying to supervise her relationships.

"Fine. But you'd better actually ask him out." She looked up at her sister. The way Angela said that made it sound like a challenge. Did she think Molly wouldn't go through with it? Because she absolutely will! Just... when the time's right.

No need to make things weird with Chase...

Molly hummed to herself as she looked through her pictures, only partially paying attention to where she was walking. Luckily Harmonica Town was small and she knew it well enough that she didn't need to watch where she was going. There would be days where she'd space out while making deliveries and somehow find herself exactly where she was planning to go.

Molly's gaze lingered on a picture she happened to catch of Chase feeding Eunice the giraffe. The soft smile on his face was something she'd like to see more of. To her, it felt like he was always... serious. Always working or cooking. She only really saw him take some time for himself when he played his flute (which she was lucky enough to be allowed to sit in on a few times). She thought he would have started taking it easy since Maisie was here now but he's still at it.

At least Thanksgiving's coming up. He'll have to slow down then. With no work to keep him busy, there'd be no distractions. Maybe she really could...

Ask him out.

Angela's suggestion from earlier rang in her ears. She made it sound so simple. Just ask him out before anyone else does. The worst he could do is say no, right? Or maybe he'd not want to be friends with her anymore and she'd have ruined everything because she couldn't keep her stupid feelings to herself. Was it worth potentially losing one of her best friends? He's the only person who doesn't baby her or treat her like she's made of glass. She needed someone like that in her life or she'd probably lose her mind.

Molly shook her head to clear it. She's going to give herself a headache if she worries about this too much. Things are fine now. No need to complicate them. Right now she should focus on what she originally came out here to do in the first place: getting a new memory card for her camera. She meant to do it earlier since she wanted one with more storage before the circus, but she'd gotten distracted.

Mara and Gideon came over to play while Kasey and Angela talked about their plans for tomorrow and it was hard to think about anything else when she had to keep two kids entertained.

Gideon was easy enough to distract, but all the crafts in the world wouldn't have been able to stop Mara from constantly glancing over at Angela's closed door. Kasey said she was very empathetic and sensitive to people's feelings. Maybe she could tell they were discussing something serious and wanted to know what it was. She's too polite to ever actually ask about it, though.

"Just the girl I wanted to see! Got a moment, Molly?"

She looked up from her camera and blinked. Hayden was cleaning the windows at the bar while he talked to Selena, who had some luggage next to her. Was she going somewhere? Molly tucked her camera into her bag and headed over, cheeks flushing when Selena winked at her. They weren't... hooking up anymore, but Selena was still flirty with her. She guessed old habits were hard to break.

Selena explained that she'd be out of town for a while. Her father fell off the roof while doing repairs to the inn and injured his back. He's fine, but Sue needed some help running the inn until he recovered. Molly looked between Selena and Hayden, confused about what she had to do with any of this.

"Um..."

"Ah, right. Molly, how would you feel about performing in Selena's place? I mean, you mess around on the piano all the time anyway. Might as well get paid for it," Hayden chuckled. Molly froze at his words. Playing the piano at the bar was just that—messing around. There were very few songs she actually had memorized. She wasn't anywhere near a professional! But then again... She supposed neither was Selena.

Selena was self-taught but Hayden hired her right when she showed up looking for a job. Clearly he didn't have too high of a standard. Besides, if Hayden was asking then he clearly wanted her.

"I'd love to!" Molly beamed. Her head shot up at the sound of Trunks the elephant trumpeting loudly. Her family was probably wondering what's taking her so long. She gripped her bag and gave the two of them a smile. "I don't mean to be rude leaving so soon but I should really get back to everyone before I miss the performance. Thank you for the opportunity, Hayden, and I hope your dad gets better soon, Selena."

"Of course. You wouldn't want to keep Chase waiting, right?" Selena had the same knowing expression on her face that Angela would have sometimes. Did everyone know about her crush? God, what if Chase knew and just wasn't saying anything to spare her the embarrassment? Angela said he didn't know but she probably just said that to make Molly feel better. Even Mara and Gideon knew!

Molly was so flustered that she forgot all about getting the new memory card. If anyone asked, she'd lie and say that Simon was out. She could just record the big finale of the circus on her phone. It wouldn't be exactly the same but it's safer than using her camera and running the risk of running out of storage. She'll try to be better prepared for the next time the circus comes around.

"I tried to tell you he'd be closed," Chase said with a roll of his eyes when she came back. He brushed his hair back from his face and gave her a smirk that caused butterflies to erupt in her stomach. "You ran off before I could stop you. It's Sunday, remember? Whole town closes down?"

Oh. Right. She didn't even need to make up an excuse for not getting the memory card. Her lie would have been the truth. Molly let out a short giggle. This crush was really messing her up. She'd never claim to be some sort of smooth operator when it came to relationships. She was meek and nervous with Mark, and even after dating Ash for two years, she could sometimes be awkward around him.

But it felt different with Chase. Not even her crush on Ash gave her butterflies this strong. She's thought that Chase was handsome from the day she first saw him. Even when they were just barely strangers, she found herself captivated by him. It was always embarrassing to be caught staring at him and she never had a good excuse as to why. He probably thought she was a freak.

No... What was it the Wizard said? Chase thought she was intriguing, whatever that meant. Molly should have asked more questions when she was at the Wizard's house.

She flinched when Chase suddenly put the back of his hand on her forehead.

"W-What...?"

"You're not running another fever," he mumbled, an eyebrow raised curiously down at Molly. She swallowed nervously as he leaned over to get a closer look at her. "What's going on, Freckles? You've been acting weird all day."

"Maybe the brain damage is finally having more of an effect on me." It was meant to be funny, like when Kasey made jokes about his depression, but it didn't seem to have the same effect. Chase's only response was an unamused stare. Then again, nobody really laughed at Kasey either. And maybe it's different when it's something that could have been prevented rather than a disorder that was most likely inherited from their mother.

Kasey couldn't do anything about the way his brain was wired, but Molly definitely could have avoided the accident that changed how hers was.

"Is everything alright over here?" Speak of the devil... Kasey found his way over to them with Gideon perched on his shoulders. Molly expected Chase to take a step back so her brother didn't get the wrong idea, but he stayed right where he was. Leaning in so close she could practically count his eyelashes. So close she could smell his soap. So close she could kiss him if she wanted to. God, did she want to kiss him. Maybe even do a bit more.

"You tell me, Freckles. Are you okay?" Chase's voice was soft and smooth. He didn't seem embarrassed at all to be doing... whatever this was in front of Kasey. She thought it was hard to think straight before but he was making it near impossible to focus. Her mouth felt dry.

"I-I'm fine," she stammered out. She couldn't handle the eye contact and looked away towards Kasey. She could see that familiar vein in his brow twitching. His eyes gleamed with fury behind his glasses. Molly forgot how protective Kasey could be sometimes. He'd never jump into action like Angela but he could give someone a mean glare. Just like he was doing now.

This was definitely going to be an odd thing to explain.

"...Just remember what I told you," Chase said as he straightened up, hands back in his pockets. "It doesn't have to be me, but you should talk to someone when there's something bothering you. Keeping things in isn't good for you."

Hadn't he said that when he came over during the Firefly Festival? That felt like it was ages ago even though it was just months ago. How could their relationship have changed so much in such a short amount of time? How could her feelings towards him have changed so much? This crush came at her out of nowhere. Maybe that's why they call it a crush, because it hits you like a truck. And if she was rejected then it'd certainly feel like she got hit by a truck.

"Chase..."

"I should go make sure Maisie isn't pestering the ringleader for an interview or something. Found out she has a YouTube channel and thinks she's some kind of famous reporter." Chase rolled his eyes, but Molly could see the fondness in them. It didn't take long for him to start caring for his sister like they've known each other their whole lives. "See you at the grand finale?"

"Yeah..." Molly gave him an anxious smile and waved as he headed across the church grounds, pausing only to pat Eunice's side. She could finally let herself relax when he was out of sight. What was that all about? Why did he suddenly get so... close to her? God, she's going to be thinking about this for days. She nearly forgot about Kasey standing there until Gideon piped up, breaking the silence.

"Were you two gonna kiss?"