City Girl Pt. 08

"Huh, I drive past there on my way to and from work." He thought out loud, somewhat surprised to learn that she worked there and he'd never known.

"Really?" Sarah replied, "I don't remember ever seeing you drive by."

"Well, what hours are you there?" He asked.

"Stacy and I don't get there until right before 7:00 when she opens, and we leave right after 3:00 when she closes." Sarah explained.

"That's probably why," he said, "I go by there around 6:30 in the morning and don't go by again until about 6:00 in the evening."

"Sheesh, what kind of hours do you work?" She asked, obviously surprised.

"Well before this happened," he held out his injured arm and gestured to it, "I was working 7:00 to 5:30 Monday through Saturday."

"That's what, sixty-three hours a week?" She asked, clearly still surprised.

"Sixty." He explained, "I get half an hour for lunch every day."

"Still, screw that." She replied.

Chase chuckled, "Why's that?"

"Just too many hours." She replied. "I need my home time."

"So you're a bit of a homebody eh?" He asked.

"Yeah I guess." She replied. "I mean I go out from time to time and, when it's not winter, I usually go out for a jog in the afternoon when I get off work. But still, I like being at home, it's quiet there."

"I hear that." He agreed. Simultaneously taking note of the fact that she supposedly runs on the regular, which explained her athletic build and also probed his curiosity about what her legs and ass looked like. He looked at the temperature gauge on the dash of his truck and saw that it had moved, indicating that the engine had warmed up. Seeing that, he released the parking break, put the truck in reverse and back out into his driveway to start the drive to Randy's.

He pulled out onto the main road form his driveway and worked his way though the gears until he reached his cruising speed. As he did so, he happened to look over to find Sarah looking intently at his hand on the gearshift.

"What are you looking at?" He asked, genuinely curious.

She looked away, clearly a bit flustered. "Well, it took me until thirty seconds ago to realize you drive a manual." She said.

"Ok so what were you looking at?" He asked. She hadn't let him dodge that question earlier, so he wasn't about to let her dodge it.

She just looked at him briefly before turning to look out her window. In the brief moment she was looking at him, he noticed that her face had turned red. At that point he looked at his hand thinking that maybe she was looking at a scar or something. He still had some marks on his hand from work, but none of them were particularly bad, and most of them were healing anyway.

He still wanted to know what she had been looking at, but since she was apparently embarrassed, he decided to let it go and finish driving to Randy's. He spent the rest of the drive listening to the radio, and before too long he was pulling into Randy's driveway.

"Alright." He said. "Here we are." He killed the engine, set the parking brake, and put the gearshift in crawler gear before they both got out. He waited for Sarah to make her way around his truck before following her to the front door and into the house.

"Hey, you guys made it." Randy said as he noticed them walking in. He was sitting at the dining room table absentmindedly shuffling a deck of cards.

"Yep." Chase replied as he manage to take his jacket off, despite his shoulder throwing a bit of a fit. Sarah managed to get her jacket and shoes off before he did and as she walked over towards the table she was quickly greeted by Stacy, who had appeared from around a corner. Meanwhile, he reached down to untie his boots and, instantly, his shoulder started hurting so he resorted to just leaving them tied but pulling the bow out of the hooks.

As he walked over to the table to sit down, he rubbed his shoulder a bit to try to ease the pain.

"Aren't you supposed to be in a sling still?" Randy asked, having noticed that he was rubbing his shoulder.

"Yes." Sarah answered.

Chase and Randy both looked in her direction to find her looking at Randy with a smug smile on her face. Once she noticed Chase looking at her, she instantly turned back to her conversation with Stacy.

Randy and Chase returned their attention to each other. "Well I guess that answers that question." Randy commented, poorly hiding a grin.

Chase shook his head and sat down next to Randy at the table.

"Are you two ready to start?" Randy asked.

"Hang on," Sarah responded, "I need to use the bathroom."

"End of that hall, on the right." Randy said, pointing to the hallway he was evidently talking about.

"Randy," Stacy began, "do you mind if I make a PB&J? I haven't had lunch today."

"Yeah sure." Randy replied.

"Thanks." Stacy replied. "Hey Sarah," she added, "do you want a sandwich?"

"Sure, I'll make one when I get back." Came the reply.

Randy gave Stacy an obvious "are you serious?" look. To which Stacy shrugged and gave a mischievous smile. Randy then smiled and rolled his eyes before looking back to Chase.

Chase couldn't help but grin in response to what had just happened. Randy shook his head and rolled his eyes again. Before too long, Stacy had finished making her sandwich and had picked out her seat at the table, across from Randy. A couple seconds later, Sarah emerged from the hallway.

"Above the sink, third cabinet to the right, paper plates are in the fourth." Stacy said.

"Ok thanks." Sarah said. "Here, can you put these with my jacket please?" She added, tossing what Chase assumed was a pair of sweatpants on the counter.

Stacy got up from her chair and went to do as she was asked. Meanwhile, Chase had realized that those sweatpants were the same ones Sarah had been wearing all day. His curiosity got the best of him and he looked to see what she had been wearing underneath.

He looked her way just in time to see her standing up on her toes to reach the stuff to make her sandwich. She was in some kind of skin tight pants, either yoga pants or leggings, something along those lines. The pose made the muscles in her legs and calves flex, revealing that he had been extremely correct when he had guessed that her legs were well toned. Her ass also seemed to have better shape to it that he'd guessed, although that could have been either the pose or the fact that he'd never paid much attention.

"Has not being able to use your right hand started getting to ya?" He heard Randy say quietly, obviously trying to call him out without making a scene.

Chase turned to look at Randy to find a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Fuck you." He mouthed while shaking his head, failing to hide a smile. Randy barely managed to hide a laugh in response.

"Seriously though," he thought to himself, "how the hell did I miss *that* last summer." He heard footsteps and looked up just in time to see Sarah walking over to take her seat. Stacy also returned to the seat she had been sitting in.

"Ok," Randy said, "are you two good with blackjack to start off?"

The two women nodded in response, both in the middle of chewing a bite of sandwich. At that point Randy dealt everyone in and the game started.

After a few rounds, the game was interrupted by a phone ringing.

"Hello?" Randy said, having picked up his phone.

"Oh hey Jason."

At that point Chase knew that he was talking to their boss. He probably had called Randy to tell him not to worry about work tomorrow.

"Yeah I'm doing alright."

"Alright, I'll see you when we go back in then."

"Oh I will." With that he hung up the phone. "Welp, I don't have to go into work tomorrow."

"You too huh?" Stacy asked, a hint of a grin on her face. "Looks like I might be sticking around tonight."

"Oh boy." Randy responded, adding a wink.

Chase rolled his eyes at the innuendo as the two partners shared knowing looks with each other. After looking back and forth between the two of them, he turned his eyes towards Sarah to find that her face had turned red. She looked over at him and almost instantly looked away, the red on her face deepening. He turned his eyes back to Randy who had apparently been watching the exchange. Once Chase had looked at him, he gestured subtly towards Sarah before giving him a look like he was expecting him to say something. Unaware of what he was supposed to be noticing, he shrugged in response. Randy gave his disappointed "are you serious" look. Chase shrugged again, apparently he'd missed something.

"You guys ready for poker?" Stacy asked.

"I'm ready if you guys are." Randy replied.

"Works for me." Chase added.

"Same here." Sarah agreed.

"Good." Stacy said, standing up from the table. "Chase," she added, "would you mind getting the chips down? I don't think I can reach them."

"Sure." Chase agreed, getting up from the table himself. He proceeded to follow Stacy downstairs to where Randy kept his poker chips.

"So..." she said as they reached the bottom of the stairs, "what do you think of Sarah?"

That question immediately raised suspicion in his mind. Between that and what had just happened with Randy, he was suspecting that something was up. "What about her?" He asked, his suspicion evident in his voice.

"Just, what do you think about her? You've been neighbors with her for a few months. Plus, she told me she's been helping you out the last two days." Stacy replied.

"Well," Chase began, still suspicious, "she seems plenty quiet, not that being generally quiet has stopped her from telling me off a time or two. She' also been pretty helpful the last two days, hell she even ran me to the hospital the other day when I hurt myself. I don't know, overall she seems pretty friendly."

"Mhmm." Stacy replied as they arrived at the cabinet. "The chips are in the suitcases up there," she told him, pointing to the suitcases she was referring to.

As he reached up to grab them, a sudden pain in his bad shoulder forced him to switch to using his left hand. After he'd grabbed the first case and handed it to her, she asked another question. "What do you think about how she looks?"

He stopped mid reach and gave her a suspicious look.

"Don't look at me like you weren't just eyeing her down," she replied, a sassy grin on her face, "did you like what you saw?"

"Fuck..." he thought to himself, realizing he'd been caught. He pulled the other case down, never losing the suspicious look on his face. "She's definitely not hard to look at," he admitted.

The smirk on Stacy's face revealed that she had evidently gotten whatever it was she wanted out of him. She then turned and led him up the stairs, turning off the lights behind them.

The two of them returned to the table, setting the cases on the table and Randy began dealing out chips to everyone as they returned to their seats. Once everyone had their chips and had been dealt in, the game started. Randy quickly ended up taking the lead, partially because Chase wasn't exactly on his A-game. He was too busy trying to figure out why Randy and Stacy were acting weird.

"Not really weird," he thought to himself, but something was definitely going on. Judging from what he'd observed from the two of them, he'd clearly been missing something that must have been fairly obvious. He also assumed that it was something to do with Sarah, although he still had no clue what.

After a couple hours, Randy had ended up mopping the floor with everyone. Stacy also had done pretty well. After they had all put their chips and cards back into the cases, Stacy asked Chase if he was willing to put the poker chips back, since he knew where they needed to go. He obliged and took the two cases of chips back downstairs and returned them to the top of the cabinet despite the protesting coming from his shoulder.

When he returned upstairs, he walked to grab his boots and began to lace them back up when Randy's voice drew his attention.

"So Chase..." He began. Chase looked up from lacing up the boots he was working on to find both Randy and Stacy standing there looking at him.

"Ok," he said, "you two have been acting weird all afternoon. What the hell is going on?"

"Hey!" Stacy chimed in, "He finally picked something up!"

"Yeah, no kidding." Randy replied. "So Chase," he added, "have you noticed anything about your neighbor?"

"Sarah?" He replied, still trying to process what Stacy had said.

"Yes." Was the reply.

"What about her?" Chase asked.

"Good lord." Stacy cut in, clearly exasperated. "She's been over at your place helping you in the barn last night and this morning, right?"

"Yes?" He answered.

"Ok, well I'm gonna tell you right now that a city girl like her didn't come over to get dirty and smell the chaff and dust." Stacy said, a hint of impatience evident in her tone.

"... and?" He replied.

Randy ran his hand over his face in frustration. "That was her trying to tell you that your neighbor has the hots for you, you dense bastard."

Chase gave them a dubious look. "What the hell does she see in me?" He asked no one in particular.

"Well, have you looked in the mirror lately?" Stacy mumbled, just loud enough for him to understand.

"Hey!" Randy piped up.

Stacy glared at him for a moment before replying. "Umm, who's the one here I'm sharing a bed with tonight?" She asked, with a noticeable amount of sass.

Randy huffed and looked back at Chase.

"That's what I thought." She added before also returning her attention to Chase. "The point here is," she added, "Sarah's had her eyes on you for a while and I can't get her to make any kind of move, so now I'm letting the cat out of the bag so you know you need to do something."

"Ok so what exactly do you want me to do?" Chase asked, still not having fully processed the fact that Sarah was into him.

"Make a move genius!" Stacy said, exasperation evident in her voice.

"Hey," Randy told her, patting her on the shoulder, "he just now found out that she likes him, give him some time before that step."

Stacy huffed. "Well next time she touches you, can you maybe do something besides ignore it?"

"Wait," Randy said, looking towards Chase, "she's touched you, as in 'went out of her way' to touch you?"

"Yes." Stacy said, beating Chase to his response. He glared at her, with her smugly smiling in response.

"And you just brushed that off?" Randy asked.

"Also yes." Stacy chimed in again.

"Stop helping." Chase told her.

"Make me." Was her reply, accompanied by a grin.

Randy hushed her before returning his attention to Chase. "You do realize that, if a girl touches you, that's basically a dead giveaway that she's into you right?"

Chase was silent for a moment. He definitely felt like an idiot once that had been pointed out to him. In that same moment he remembered that Sarah wasn't particularly outspoken. Hell, that could have been her trying to make a move, and he'd basically shot her down. After a couple moments of contemplation, he wasn't able to think of any words to say so he simply shrugged.

Stacy huffed again. "I'm gonna go take a shower." She said as she turned and left the room.

"Ok." Was Randy's response to her. Once she had left earshot, he lowered his voice a bit and kept talking to Chase. "Speaking of touching," he said, "I wanna add that I'm pretty sure she want's a little more than just totouch you. After seeing her reaction when Stacy brought up sex earlier, I'd say that's definitely something on her mind when it comes to you."

"I haven't even given her a hug yet," Chase admitted, "I'm nowhere near ready to take that plunge. It's not like I'd know what I'm doing anyway."

"I know, you're not one to touch people you don't know too well, especially women." Randy told him. "But, she can still dream. And I think you should really consider letting her into your life. You could use something to devote your time to other than work all the time."

Chase found himself only able to stare as the full meaning of what he'd just been told sank in.

"Look man," Randy continued, "you don't have to move fast, but if you don't let something happen, nothing's ever gonna happen."

"I mean," Chase struggled to find the right words, "you're right, but I have no clue what to even do."

"Well you can start with a hug next time you get the chance." Randy said, clearly both mocking him and being serious at the same time.

"I guess..." Chase finally admitted. "Can we be done here? I need to get going."

"Sure can. Plus, if you actually let things start to happen, you won't have to sit through a lecture like this again." Randy replied.

"Gee thanks." Chase said rolling his eyes. Randy smirked and walked away from him as he returned to lacing up his boots. After doing so, he put on his jacket and walked back out to his truck to head home. As he climbed in, he was greeted by Sarah's voice.

"I was wondering if you'd show up." She said as he sat down and closed the door behind him.

"Sorry," he explained, "got busy talking."

"Hmm." Was the only reply.

Glad that he didn't have to explain everything that had just happened, he simply started his truck and started the drive to drop Sarah off at her house. The whole time his head was halfway to spinning with thoughts about the conversation he'd just had. For the time being, he decided to focus on driving and make sure he got Sarah and himself home safely. He'd probably have all day tomorrow to think about it anyway.

After dropping Sarah off, he returned home, headed inside, and took his clothes off to shower. As he did, questions from his conversation with Randy and Stacy kept crossing his mind. What did she see in him that she liked? What exactly was he supposed to do with the information that she liked him? Was he really ready to open up to her, especially about his dad? Would finding that out drive her off? He knew Randy had a point about him working too hard, hell his grandpa had told him that too. But, was he really in a position where he could afford to compromise on that? He was going to be out for at least a couple weeks before he could get back to work, that would put him a month behind. Hell, would she be able to cope whenever he was tied up with fieldwork? Would she even like the lifestyle associated with living on a farm at all?

The questions just kept coming and, after he got out of the shower, he went to bed and just laid there thinking endlessly about them. After a length of time, he had no idea how long, something clicked in his head and he realized one simple thing, if he never made or let anything happen, he was never going to find out the answers to any of his questions. With the final thought on his mind, he gradually drifted off to sleep.