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They all take pictures and videos of the bride swinging upside down with her dress hanging over her head as Julian starts to pull her back up.

I spot my sister-in-law Abby and my adorable nephew Nathan approaching in the distance, walking along the old train tracks. Nathan is almost two. He stops to pick up a flower. My heart aches when he hands it to Abby.

I want my own little baby boy too. I can see it perfectly. All the cousins growing up together, hiking and camping in the gorgeous mountains, swimming and fishing in the lakes, just like we did when we were kids.

I just need a man to make it happen.

The girls are taking pictures with Julian when Abby arrives. She’s looking at them warily.

“He’s been good,” I tell her as I pick up Nathan and give him a big hug.

Nathan sees his dad and wiggles out of my arms. I put him on his little feet and he sprints over to his father with open arms.

“Oh my God,” one of the women says. “He comes with a baby?”

Julian scoops Nathan up in his big arms and hugs him as the women let out a collective ‘Awww.’

All of the women watch with envy as he kisses Abby and then hands Nathan back to her.

“Do you ladies want to look at the photos?” he asks.

They all get excited as they follow him into the lodge. We have a motion sensor camera set up down below that catches our customers’ expressions when they’re falling. It’s a good money-maker. So are the company T-shirts, which I’m sure they’ll all purchase from their new crush, Julian.

Abby and I hang back with Nathan, letting him work his magic. When it’s a bachelor party or a group of guys, I’m the one in there doing the selling.

We chat about the usual nonsense, but then she hits me with something new.

“Did you hear about the Keatons?”

I shake my head. “No. Who’s that?”

“They’re new in town,” she says. “Three siblings. Two brothers and a sister.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, well apparently they brought a lot of money with them and are starting to buy up the businesses around town. They own some kind of big corporation.”

“What?” I ask, my stomach dropping.

“They tried to buy the bakery. Trish told them to shove a muffin up their wazoo.”

Abby works at the Warm Loaf Bakery with Trish, who’s constantly reading old romance paperbacks. They have the best cinnamon rolls in the world. My god, they’re good.

And these outsider pricks want to buy them.

“That really pisses me off,” I say, feeling my heart pounding. “This town belongs to the people who built it from scratch and who actually live here. You don’t get to show up with a big pile of money and buy it out from under us. They’ll turn it to shit. These corporate, venture capitalist, vulture-types always do. They’re going to enshitify the Greene Mountains. You watch. They’ll get the Warm Loaf Bakery closed down and they’ll put up a Starbucks instead. McArthur’s, gone. They’ll put up a McDonald’s instead. All the charm will be gone. Our way of life, evaporated. They’ll put their own politicians in and proceed to kill everything good about this place.”

Abby looks at me curiously as my body tenses. “You okay there?”

I grit my teeth as I stare into the distance. A hawk swoops through the sky and disappears into the autumn trees.

“If we don’t protect our town from these blood-sucking hyenas,” I say, breathing heavily, “they’ll rip it from our hands and turn it to shit.”

I’ll die before I let that happen. I want this place to be as charming and pristine for Nathan and for my future kids as it was during my childhood.

“Apparently the brothers are really hot,” Abby says with a grin.

“Ugh,” I say, sticking my tongue out. I doubt that. I hate those stuffy corporate types with their crisp shirts, spotless shiny shoes, and hundred-dollar haircuts. Give me a man in jeans, boots, and flannel over that any day.