Lunch

ANGELA'S POV

"What?" I ran my eyes over the boy in front of me, my frown turning sour rapidly.

After meaningless hours listening to Maya's internal war with herself about directions, I had decided I had enough with people for the day and called it a night. Because that's what it was. It was night. Maya had brought me home at 3 am, shouting incoherent apologies as she ran around the ranch, herding my animals. It was an amusing sight, and I found that I had forgiven her before she even finished.

Now, however, with only 3 hours of sleep and embarrassing cat pajamas on, I didn't feel so agreeable.

"I said, would you join me for lunch today?" Ocean blue eyes pleaded mercilessly and I scowled. If the circumstances had been different – a better pair of PJs, perhaps – I would have melted at the sight of that platinum blonde hair and fair skin. But, unfortunately, all I could see was a too-bright yellow mop of head and heavy under eye circles. Lovely.

"And you decide to ask me at 6 am?"

"I thought it would be ok, since I sometimes see you bounding around town even before dawn, heh. Is- is it not ok?"

Uh oh, sorry about this, Gill.

"What do you think?" I asked menacingly, leaning forward, taking advantage of my doorframe-to-porch height difference.

"Uh, no?" He chuckled nervously, loosening his collar and stumbling backwards slightly.

"Ding ding ding! That is correct!" I smiled sarcastically, applauding his ignorance. The crisp morning breeze cooled my hot head, but I was too far into the argument to apologize. Damn me and my pride.

"Maybe you'll feel less grumpy after a bite to eat with me, huh? What do you say?" He smiled hopefully, though, in his eyes, I could see only hopelessness.

"I say, ask me again when I'm close to death." And with that, I slammed the door, rattling the doorframe. Time to shop for new pajamas.

GILL'S POV

I had to back away from the closing door quickly to avoid the impending nose bleed. I started my way back to the Town Hall, feeling dejected.

Who knew wooing would be so hard! If Candace, the antisocial butterfly (not to offend of course) could make it work with her complete polar opposite, Julius, then who says Gill Hamilton, future mayor, can't do it too?

ANGELA'S POV

Feeling better little by little, I tried my hand at picking weeds with my bare hands. Goddess knows I can't be trusted wielding a sharp object in my current state. But, despite the simplicity of the task, my eyes would not focus and my head wobbled from shoulder to shoulder. Just one chore, Angela; the plants don't need to be watered today, anyway!

I fought honorably with a particularly stubborn weed before my eyes fluttered close and lost my balance, falling face first into the damned weed. I tried mustering up enough energy to stand up, but to no avail. My eyes closed for a brief moment, headlines flashing in the darkness of my closed eyelids: Rancher extraordinaire, Angela, found dead, Farming legend: a tragic end. I rolled my eyes inside my head. Real soap opera worthy, Ange.

I forced my eyes open. Getting up (with some effort), I drag my half-asleep corpse down the path to waffle town. I could always try to sweet talk Colleen into a free lunch for that batch of vegetables I sent them for free. But, for the second time, pride ate away at my brain walls and nagged away a storm.

Suddenly, a flash of pink and ribbons barreled toward me and nearly knocked me back to the dirt.

"Oops, sorry, Angela! I didn't see you there!" She rattled, her mind obviously preoccupied. "Anissa is in a frazzle because I accidentally sent some cookies I baked to Jin instead of Luna. They shouldn't put a tailoring shop and a hospital beside each other, you know!"

"…Why would you send Luna –?"

"THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT. What's important is that Anissa is PO because she thinks I tried to kill her boyfriend. I gotta go apologize and explain it to her, so gotta go, bye!"

"Wait, Maya, can you buy me lunch?" But she was gone just as suddenly as she had come.

By the time I had made it to the Inn, the sun was high in the sky and was beating down mercilessly on me, as if ganging up with exhaustion to take me down. Beat, I sit in one of the empty benches in front of the Inn, under the shade of a big tree. Little tendrils of hair clung to my neck as my eyes fought to stay open. Maybe a little nap won't hurt.

GILL'S POV

What is that girl doing?

I was on my way to lunch (alone, I thought bitterly) when I see Angela, looking as if hell had broken loose on the ranch, almost literally dragging her frail body to the nearest bench. It was almost a funny sight, if only she didn't look like several thugs mugged her.

My actions must have won over my mind, because I found myself walking quietly towards her, despite the episode this morning. I hovered over her for a moment, and when she didn't look up, I cleared my throat loudly.

She opened an eye at me and smiled weakly, saying, "Get out of the sun, Gill, you're glowing."

She laughed madly, and I questioned whether she was in her right mind. Turning to look her in the eye, I raise a quizzical brow and smiled at her completely-out-of-it attitude.

"Angela, are you alright?"

"I'm just peachy, Gill, how are you?"

"Well, it looks like you've just about gone mad to me."

She didn't say anything, but she looked at me in a weird way, as if I was some new, high-tech invention, released into the hands of consumers for the first time. She stared for a long time, and my tie suddenly started to feel too tight.

"So…" I start, looking at her from the corner of my eye, "how about that lunch, now?" I braced myself for an outburst of hand gestures and oh my goddess, Gill, you're so dumb's, but instead, she giggled. And then she laughed.

Her eyes opened fully and she looked at me with a twinkle in her eye.

"You know, I think that I'm close enough to death that that sound like a great idea."