Farm Boy

Kevin Wood had never been shy, but today he couldn’t find the words. He wasn’t even sure why he was risking this. He’d worked hard before—on the field, in school—but never like this, and never under such a precise, demanding taskmaster as the V’ren girl who seemed born to boss his utterly useless ass around a kitchen.

The amount he was sweating from nerves might’ve been worse than the ovens. Thousands of little food bits flying out nonstop? Manageable. Asking out a beautiful, talented girl who made him feel like the dumbest human alive? Not so much.

Mall Kerr terrified and fascinated him. She’d picked up English in record time—everyone said so. Fourteen hours in the neural interface over three nights, just so she could belong. He could barely sit through four thirty-minute sessions. She outclassed him in every single task, and still, she took the time to explain things no one should have had to spell out, even to a rich kid.

And yet, unless they kicked him out for sheer incompetence, he’d keep showing up in that kitchen. Not for the money. For her.
She made him want to be a better man.

“Mall,” he said, smiling in that awkward way he hated but couldn’t stop. “If you don’t have other plans… would you go to the fair with me tonight? It’s going to be right over—”

“I know where it is,” she said, grinning. “And yes. I’d really like that.”

She’d absorbed hundreds of romance novels—compressed into hours, pulsed straight into her brain by the neural interface. She knew how the scene was supposed to go. He asks, she says yes, there’s a smile, maybe a kiss. Her heart fluttered just thinking about it.
She wasn’t sure if she was ready—but she was definitely hoping.

Instead, she reached forward and squeezed his hand.

“Meet back here at seven?” she asked, watching his face closely. When the kiss didn’t come, she tried not to show her disappointment.

As she walked back toward the ship, she glanced over her shoulder.
He turned at the same time, caught her looking, and threw her a wave.

She smiled—again.

Waving wasn’t in the script. Not unless this was The Princess Bride and he was Fezzik.

But she didn’t want a Fezzik.
She wanted a farm boy.