Lovelight Farms

Stella gives Evelyn a tour of the farm before they have a homemade dinner with Luka. Stella learns more about Evelyn and how she likes to travel but hasn’t liked social media as much lately because she feels like the stories she tells there are often fake. At dinner, Evelyn asks how Stella and Luka started dating, and Luka tells the story of how they met but includes additional details about his feelings for Stella that she didn’t know about. Stella similarly mentions how, when she met him, she felt as if her recently deceased mother sent Luka to her because he was exactly what she needed to pull her out of her grief. Once Evelyn leaves, Luka asks Stella if what she said is true. She confirms that it is, and they have sex, which is better than Stella imagined it would be. 

When she wakes up the following morning, Luka tells Stella that he has accepted the nearby job and asks her for help moving him out of New York next week. He mentions the idea of them having sex at his new place, causing Stella to panic. She believed that after their trial period this week, they would go back to being friends, and she thinks that Luka is suggesting they should be friends with benefits. Luka clarifies that that is not what he wants and that he wants an actual relationship with Stella because he is in love with her. Stella tells him that he isn’t actually in love with her and that it is just the sex making him think that, leading Luka to believe that Stella only cared about the sexual aspect of their relationship. Luka leaves disappointed, though he promises to return later, as they have plans to cut down a Christmas tree with Evelyn.

Stella is left feeling hollow and confused because she is also in love with Luka but still does not want to jeopardize their friendship. She wanders through the sick trees, rehashing their argument, before she runs into Evelyn, who was looking for her to show her the promotional material she shot for the farm. Before she does, Stella knows that she must tell Evelyn the truth about her and Luka. However, she is surprised to learn that Evelyn had already gathered that they weren’t in a relationship based on the town gossip and betting pool about the new couple. Despite knowing the truth, Evelyn sees the way Stella and Luka look at one another and knows that there is something between them.

Even so, Evelyn tells Stella that she has to disqualify her from the competition and the prize money because she had falsely claimed that all the information she had submitted for the contest was true. Yet Evelyn still feels that there is a story about the farm that needs to be told, and she plans to feature the farm on her social media. She shows Stella the video she made, and in it, Stella sees all the small ways in which Luka cares for her, coming to the conclusion that he really is in love with her.

Stella wanders dazedly into the bakehouse, where Layla and Beckett are getting ready for the day. She admits that she messed up and that Luka is in love with her, something both of her partners recognized a long time ago. Stella says that she never noticed, but Layla believes that she was too scared to let herself notice because it would change everything for her.

When she returns to her cottage, Luka is waiting for her outside. He apologizes for having left the way he did, as he knows that one of Stella’s greatest fears is being abandoned. He tells her that after the first time he got one of the pine tree air fresheners from the local gas station, the way her face lit up made him buy them in bulk in a recurring order, so he offers her all his extras. Though he admits that he is hurt, he promises to be Stella’s friend for as long as she wants him around. Instead of responding, Stella goes to her closet and pulls out a box where she has saved the hundreds of air fresheners he has brought her, and she tells him about all the times she recognized her feelings for him but was too afraid to admit them. She admits that she purposefully wrote that she had a boyfriend on the contest application because she wanted to know what it was like to have Luka as her boyfriend. She tells Luka that she is still scared about what will happen between them but that she loves him, and the two reconcile.

Told from Luka’s perspective, the Epilogue details how his initial plan was to slowly convince Stella that he was in love with her before she mentioned the fake boyfriend idea. Luka knows that the farm will be fine with the installments that Mr. Hewett has to pay. Luka also received a text from Charlie earlier that informed him that Elle is leaving his father because he had been having an affair. Charlie plans to buy all the sick trees from the farm and leave them at his father’s doorstep, and Luka can’t wait to tell Stella. He thinks of something that his father had told him about continuing to do something even if you don’t have a plan, and Luka commits to continuing to love Stella for as long as she will let him.