Sokeefe AU: The Farmer's Daughter

Part Four

He was strange.

Sophie didn't want to be rude, and she knew that she hardly knew him, but he was. She watched him from her window, sometimes, when she had calmed enough to throw open the curtains and drown in the light of the sun while she tried to forget her constant worries.

He looked like a speck from where she sat on the third floor, perched on her window sill, perfectly still and simply watching him.

She was surprised by him, if she was honest with herself, which she was. He looked a lot like his dad, his stuffy, no good, stuck up dad, but . . . from what Sophie could tell, he wasn't like him, and she found that odd.

Which was a huge assumption, she knew. She had talked to him for less than ten minutes. She had no right to start making guesses and predictions about the farm hand her dad had oddly hired. She didn't know him, and she wasn't going to pretend that she did, even if he intrigued her.

But she could tell, at least, from the few times she had met his enduring father, that he seemed to be different. She could never imagine someone as "dignified" as Cassius doing manual labor, and not on an animal reserve. He didn't strike her as the type.

But maybe she was wrong. She could never tell these days, it seemed, so she never really tried. Maybe Keefe was exactly as his father was, and she just hadn't been around him enough to realize.

She wanted him to be different, though, she realized, after just two weeks of him working at her home and hardly a dozen words between the two of them. She didn't think she could stand to have a mini Cassius working anywhere without ten miles of her, let alone in her own yard. She'd go crazy before she let that happen.

"He's hot," Biana had insisted when she had come over a week later (three weeks into the farmhand's work) as she sat on Sophie's bed with Sophie before her, weaving her blonde hair into an elaborate braid for her day in town.

Sophie rolled her eyes, even as she felt blush appearing on her neck and cheeks. Why, she wondered, was she blushing? "No, he's not," she insisted.

"Oh yes he is. You just only have eyes for my annoying brother, so you can't tell."

Sophie felt her face heat up and did her best to hide it, even if Biana was turned away from her. "I don't even like him," she told her, rolling her golden brown eyes and shifting her head to the side a little.

Biana made a tsking noise with her tongue. "Yes you do, and hold still or I'll never finish."

Sophie stopped fidgeting, forcing her wandering hands back onto her lap once again and tilting her head back. "You have to say that. You're my best friend."

Sophie could practically see Biana rolling her eyes. "Ugh. Whatever, I'm never going to be able to convince you."

"He's just a friend," Sophie insisted, but she felt the weight of the words.

Biana scoffed. "Right. Because just friends go into town together, alone, on his birthday."

Sophie felt her face flame and tried to calm it before saying, "It's just for fun, Biana."

"Yeah, yeah." Biana waved her hand as if swatting an annoying fly away. "Whatever you say, Soph. Anyway, you know that one boy I was telling you about?"

"Which one? I swear you talk about someone knew every week," Sophie teased, though she was being honest.

Biana ignored her. "The one with the black hair?"

Realization dawned, and Sophie smirked. "The goth one?"

"For star's sake, Sophie, I've told you a million times. It's emo." She twisted a strand of Sophie's hair, tugging lightly on it before her hands settled into the motion of the braid again. "And yes, him."