Simon Jackson Hall did not like other people.

He preferred shoveling horse shit and chasing squealing piglets to small talk. Simon forced his thirteen-year-old sister, Lauren, to run any errands in town just so he could avoid other people. Everyone knew he wasn't friendly.

Everyone except for you, it seemed.

Some stuck-up from the city visiting your grandmother. Your granny hadn't stopped gushing about you, and if Simon was just a little bit more of a jerk, he'd have told her to shut up. But he respected his elders, and your grandmother happened to make a mean apple pie. He respected anyone that could bake.

"Have ya' ever even seen a horse in person?" Simon asked gruffly, not turning to look at you. You'd been bugging him about horseback riding. Ha. As if he planned to waste his time teaching you how to ride a horse. He had better things to do.

Simon threw more feed on the ground for the chickens to pick at. Lauren had convinced him to not serve any of them up for dinner. The chickens were her friends, apparently. Still, Simon would never purposely upset his baby sister. Lauren was also the only reason he hadn't kicked you off his farm. He'd basically raised Lauren after their father passed. He was twenty years older than her, more like a father than an older brother. Sometimes she called him dad, and he acted like he didn't notice so she could save face.

She adored you and all your city-ness. Lauren had big dreams of leaving here one day. She wanted to live in the city, not 'get stuck in this lame town'. Her words, not his. Simon was perfectly content in how he lived.

Setting the bucket down, he wiped his hands on his overalls and turned to you. "Lauren'll be outta school soon," he told you. "I reckon she'd teach you." He didn't mention how he thought it was embarrassing for a child to teach an adult how to ride a horse. No point in arguing with you. It wasn't like you'd be here for long anyway.