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His chest is soaked with sweat, his handsome features straining with every lift. His forearms flex around the trunks, veins standing out, and I have officially formed a policy position: manual labor should be performed shirtless, year-round, by law.

He catches me staring and of course, he just squeezes his stomach tighter.

Menace.

"So, Audrey," Susan says, appearing beside me with a fresh cider. "How long have you two been together?"

"Oh—" I swallow and try not to look offended. "We're not… together. I'm the Wildcards' liaison. Temporary liaison, actually. I organize the teams schedule and make sure a group of grown men get to where they're supposed to be on time."

"Mm." Susan sips her own cider. "I know what that's like."

We both share a laugh as the men keep at it.

"He's never brought a woman here," Hunter announces from the trailer, entirely unprompted but clearly listening into every word we've said. "Not once in twenty-nine years."

"And she's wearing his coat," Will adds, walking past with a smaller fir. "The good coat, too. He wouldn't let me borrow that coat when my truck heater died."

"Your truck heater died because you're an idiot," Miles calls from the field. "Now shut up and leave her alone."

"The coat, Miles! She's in the coat!"

I bury my face in my clipboard.

Greg wanders over during a break, curious now that he's heard about my job. He asks about the resort, about the entertainment work, about the roadside shop and whether people even want to buy trees in person anymore.

I answer honestly, and I keep my biggest thought to myself.

Because privately?

This farm doesn't lack beauty or personality. It just hides both behind a tired sales shed and assumes customers only want a tree.

Meanwhile, up the mountain at the new resort, families are paying obscene money for the experience of Christmas.

Sleigh rides. Festive food. The smell of Christmas and a photo they'll frame forever.

As my mind begins to race the way it always does, I spin to see some headlights turning into the drive. A family climbs out of a small van beside the supposedly closed shop. There are two parents and two kids who are already sprinting toward the small trees.

Greg's head snaps up. "Boys! Customers! Quick! Strip their wallets so we can eat next week!"

Susan slaps his arm with the back of her hand. "Gregory. Don't terrify them."

But over the next five minutes, something incredible happens.

Three exhausted, sap-covered, stressed-out men transform into the most charming farm boys I've ever seen.

Miles crouches beside the little girl and helps her compare branches with the gravity of a jeweler examining precious diamonds. Hunter sells the parents two bottles of cider without technically saying a word about buying them. Will slips candy canes to the kids when the parents aren't looking.

And Greg?

He's in his element.

He tells the entire farm's history in about three seconds flat. He explains how his family has been here since 1947 and points at the exact hill where the first tree grew.

The children look up at that hill like it's Santa's fucking Workshop.

Before long, Miles lifts the chosen tree one-handed, ties it to their roof, and waves the kids off with a fist bump each. The family drives away glowing, and I stand there in awe, seeing what the Stratton family can't because they've lived inside it for too long.

That visiting family just didn't buy a Christmas tree.