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“We can’t go talk to her,” Ares murmurs under his breath. “Her family will not be happy if we just go over there.”

I get what he’s saying. If I didn’t already know about the family rivalry, the way the Carters acted with Ares last night would have shown me pretty quickly. But I can’t walk away either.

We’re close enough to hear Brynn’s sister ranting to Brynn.

“I can’t believe he’s just not coming,” she says. “We gave him a deposit and everything, and he just decides not to come? With no warning?”

“Maybe he had an emergency,” Brynn says.

“Then someone should have reached out to us! Now we have a whole booth about Hope Falls Lumber, and no one representing it. Do you want to stand here all day, telling people to take a brochure about our wood works? Because I sure don’t. That was the whole point of hiring some dude to play the lumberjack for a couple of days.”

“Calm down, Haze. We can figure something out,” Brynn’s brother says.

“Like what, Owen?”

Brynn’s eyes dart around, and it’s like I can feel it when she spots us standing there. She freezes for a second, like she’s not sure how she’s supposed to act around us, but then her face flashes with determination and she comes over.

“Brynn,” Ares says softly.

She gives him a brief smile and then looks at me. “I’m about to ask you for a huge, inconvenient favor,” she says. “And you can say no. I will definitely understand if you say no. But… we’re kind of in a bind here. My sister hired some guy to play a lumberjack, and he’s not here, and she’s freaking out. Which means my parents will freak out when they find out. Is there any way you could maybe…” She trails off, but Tate laughs.

“He does have a lumberjack build,” he says. “It’s kind of perfect.”

Brynn looks up at me with wide, pleading eyes, and I… Fuck. I quite literally can’t say no to her. At this point, I think I would agree to anything she asked me to do. Especially when she’s looking at me like that, and she’s already stressed about being here and her family’s drama.

So I shrug a shoulder. “Yeah, sure. I can do it.”

Her face melts into relief instantly. “Oh my god, really? Thank you so much, Callan. It’s just for today, I swear. We’ll figure something else out if we can’t find the original guy Hazel hired. You’re really saving our asses here.”

Tate is cracking up about it, and even Ares looks amused, but I’m committed now. Brynn takes me to the back room of the nearby community center and gives me a lumberjack outfit to wear.

It’s kind of ridiculous. A plaid coat over a flannel shirt, with jeans and a hat to match. At least the coat is warm.

“All you have to do is swing this fake axe sometimes,” Brynn explains. “And whenever the rep at the booth says her spiel, you just add ‘Hope Falls Lumber Co: Steady, Solid, Dependable’. That’s it.”

I must be making a face because Brynn laughs. “I know. It’s cheesy and awkward, and Tate and Ares will never stop teasing you about it. If you hate it, you can bail, but I really, really appreciate you doing this.”

It is cheesy and awkward, that’s for sure. When I go back to the booth, there are already people there, talking with the rep about projects the company has completed. Before they leave, I swing the fake axe at the very real wooded stump someone has set up and say the line Brynn told me.

People are definitely watching and looking at me. A couple cross the street with hot drinks in their hands and spend the whole spiel looking at me. It’s so far out of my comfort zone that it may as well be on another planet, but for Brynn, I do it.

“You know,” Tate says at one point. “I think this is a good look for you. Plaid on plaid and a whole lot of denim. Maybe you’ll pioneer a new fashion scene back home.”

Ares laughs, adding in his two cents. “You have to get the slogan tattooed on you now. I think that’s how this works.”

I just roll my eyes, letting them have their fun.

The upside of doing this is that Brynn tells her siblings she’ll handle keeping an eye on this booth, so she’s nearby all day. I wasn’t expecting to get to see her so much, and I like that I get to have her close.

It gets easier to play the role as the day goes on too. Ares and Tate wander off to check out the rest of the festival—and to avoid Ares being too close when Brynn’s family comes by to check on things—and I kind of start to get into the whole thing.

I’ve learned some stuff about the company while standing here for the last few hours, and I start reciting facts about the company to people who ask. Stuff about land conservation—Hope Falls Lumber Co believes in being a steward of the land, and a tree is planted for every one that is cut down—and lumber quality—Hope Falls Lumber Co is solid through and through, which means no filler, and no particle board. It’s easy to switch my brain off and just lean into it.

At one point I look for Brynn, only to see her off to the side of the booth, talking to some guy. That wouldn’t bother me much ordinarily. I don’t own her, she can talk to whoever she wants.

But then someone at the booth says something to Brynn’s sister, who’s come back around.

“Isn’t that Jordan Scott?”