Chapter 6
Beckett
I don’t watch my videos before I post them. Never have. I trim the front, trim the tail, slap on the title card, and let it go. Consistency beats perfection. It’s a rule that’s kept the channel alive and my sanity intact.
Today’s no different. I save the file, queue it to upload, and click through the description by muscle memory. My head’s already somewhere else — out in the snow with a GoPro and a woman who can turn a quiet cabin into a snow day party. She seems like she needs an adventure.
“Ranger,” I say, snapping the camera case shut. “Field trip. Ruby, I’m going to teach you how to operate a snowmobile and use it as an instruction video. You good with that?”
Ruby looks up from the couch. “Oh, my lifelong dream—to be mansplained about snowmobiles by a guy named Tinderwolf.”
I blink. “It’s just a brand name.”
“Sure it is,” she says, standing. “Please tell me there’s a certificate and a parka-patch involved.”
“Only if you pass the practical exam.”
“What’s that?”
“Survive my teaching.”
“Hard pass, but let’s do it anyway.”
Why do I have this feeling that teaching her anything could end with me needing first aid or therapy?
I grab the GoPro and the spare helmet. “Welcome to Snowbound 101.”
We gear up at the door. I lend her my backup goggles and tighten the strap beneath her chin. Her eyes widen, and she doesn’t blink for a full second. I step back like I didn’t feel that.
“Basic throttle,” I say once we’re outside. “Feather it. Don’t yank. You steer with your whole body, not just your hands. Keep your weight forward.”
She nods, absorbing it all like I’m about to hand her a chainsaw for arts and crafts. Ranger zips circles around us, ecstatic to be in his element.
We mount up with me in front for the first pass so I can run her through the feel of it. She listens. She’s good at listening. On attempt two, I swing off and let her take the bars.
“All right,” I say. “Ease it.”
She eases it. For exactly two seconds. The machine lurches forward, spraying a rooster tail of powder. Ruby yelps, overcorrects, and the sled fishtails. I jog alongside, ready. She almost saves it, almost, then buries the nose in a friendly drift and tips sideways with a muffled squeak.
Ranger prances over like this is the best show he’s seen all week. I can almost hear the dog laughing. Probably planning to upload this video before I do.
I kill the engine, plant my boots, and haul the sled upright. Ruby tumbles to standing, laughing and covered in snow like a Christmas cookie that lost a fight with powdered sugar.
“I’m fine,” she says, breathless.
“I can see that.”
“That was…” She laughs again, bright and unembarrassed. “…terrible.”
“Fearless,” I correct. “Which is worse.”
Her eyes spark. “Again?”
We try once more. She’s better. Then a little too confident. Then almost runs over my foot. I catch her by the waist when she stumbles off at the stop, and for a second, the world stills like we’re caught in a snowglobe.
She’s solid under my hands. Warm through all those layers. She looks up, and all the smart things I could say fall clean out of my head.
Ranger barks, tail whacking my thigh, and the moment breaks. Good dog.
“Not bad,” I say.
“Really?” she asks, like a child who’s ridden a bicycle without training wheels.
“Let’s try a few mild maneuvers.”
We do a few calm loops to end on a win, then head back in while our cheeks can still feel anything. Inside, I feed the stove, and the cabin inhales the heat like a living thing. Ruby peels layers with dramatic sighs of relief.
“That was fun,” she says, cheeks pink, hair escaping her beanie. “Dangerous, but fun.”
She bumps my shoulder as she passes to the kitchen. The GoPro footage ticks around in the back of my brain. Pride nudges up against something softer.
I boot the laptop on the table to dump the files … and the notifications hit like a hailstorm. Pings. Stacked comments. Channel dashboard rolling faster than I can scroll. I’ve seen spikes before. This isn’t a spike. This is a detonation.
“What the hell?”
Ruby sets two mugs on the counter. “What is it?”
The top comment stares back at me, smug.
Nice backdrop, Tinderwolf — followed by Santa and fire emoji’s.
Another:
I came for carb tuning, stayed for Santa’s laundry.
Then:
Pause video at 0:42—did Mrs. Claus forget something?
My stomach drops. I squint at the screen.
For a second, I think maybe someone hacked me.
Then I spot the bow. Nope. Not a hacker.
I scrub forward to the wide shot. There I am, center frame, talking spark plug gaps in my best steady voice.
And behind me, on the back of the office couch, festive and cheerful as a crime scene clue are red and white Santa panties with a peppermint bow.
I close my eyes. Then open them. Still there. Still mocking me.
“Ruby,” I say, careful. Calm. “We have … a situation.”
She walks over, curious, and the second she sees the pause frame she snorts. Not a little laugh. A laugh-laugh, hand to her mouth, eyes bright with it.
“Oh, no,” she says, delighted and horrified in equal measure. “Those are absolutely mine.”
“I gathered.”
“I meant to put them away.” She winces.
I look at the numbers. Views are climbing. Comments multiplying. I scroll past a dozen variations of Does Santa wear lace? and saucy North Pole comments.
“Okay,” I say, because this is my job and problems get fixed. “You’re going to have to give an explanation on the channel.”
She blinks, then straightens, unbothered. “No problem.”
I point at the screen. “I mean a real one.”
“It is real.” She leans her hip against the table.
“I’m a lingerie and intimacy boutique owner, remember?
I’m not ashamed of it. You don’t have to be either.
Let me write a quick line, we add it to your description, and I’ll reply to the top comment with the link to my shop so they see the connection and know for sure. ”
I stare at her. She stares back, cool as a snowdrift.
“You want to plug your store under my carb video.”
“Shamelessly,” she says. “With a candy cane emoji.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Ranger rests his chin on my knee like he’s voting with her.
“It’s either that,” she adds gently, “or your comments will run wild inventing their own story. I’d rather give them the true one.”
She’s not wrong. I hate that she’s not wrong.
“Fine,” I say. “Short. Clean. Nothing graphic.”
She salutes. “Scout’s honor. Hand me your keyboard, Captain Snowmobile.”
“Pretty sure scouts didn’t sell lacey things, only cookies.”
“Uh … I have some special cookies … just for Santa.”
I watch her type. She’s fast. The line she drafts is simple: “Unintentional cameo by Ruby Garland, owner of Sugarplum Secrets (Cady Springs + online). Support small business, keep warm, and please keep the comments respectful.” She adds the link, one snowflake, one candy cane. It’s disarming. Human.
I read it twice, then paste it into the description and pin a matching comment with a note about filming in a shared office during a storm. My jaw unclenches by half.
“Thank you,” she says, softly. “For not making it weird.”
“It is weird.”
“Okay, but not shamey.”
“That word offends me.”
“Noted.” She grins. “Want cocoa? Or are you strictly coffee and grit?”
“Whiskey,” I say before I think better of it.
She arches a brow. “Two fingers?”
“Three,” I hear myself say.
Evening settles early, as winter likes to do. The storm loosens its grip, but only enough to show more gray. We sit near the fire with twin glasses, Ranger stretched between us like a line we haven’t crossed.
She asks about the channel, not like a fan, like a person trying to understand. I tell her about building the cabin one paycheck at a time, about learning to fix what other people threw away, about how the solitude got addictive after a while. She listens without trying to fix it.
“You don’t get lonely?” she asks.
I watch the flames leaf through a knot of wood. “I’ve got the dog,” I say, and it’s almost a joke. Almost. “I talk to the camera. Then I turn it off.”
She nods, thoughtful. “I’m around people all day, laughing with customers, hyping products, wrapping orders. Then I go home and there’s no one to ask how it went. No one to say, ‘You were funny today.’ Or, ‘You look tired. Sit down.’”
I glance at her, the curve of her cheek in the firelight, the honesty worn like a favorite sweater. “You were funny today,” I say finally.
She smiles into her glass. “You look tired.”
She says it with a softness that makes me feel anything but.
The heat of the fire, the whiskey, and her presence combine into something that feels like I’ve been out in the cold longer than I admitted. She tucks her feet under her, closer to Ranger’s warmth. He sighs, pleased with all of us.
“About earlier,” I say. “On the snowmobile.”
She waits.
“That was … not terrible,” I finish.
“High praise.” Her eyes lift to mine. It’s an invitation to laugh, but we don’t. We just look. And the look says everything we’re not going to.
The attraction sits there, uncomplicated as gravity. It wants what it wants. I’m not nineteen. I know what happens when you open doors you can’t close.
I take a slow sip and set the glass down, deliberately. “I don’t do complications,” I tell the fire, which is easier than telling her. “Storms pass. People go home.”
For a moment, I think I’ve ruined it. Then she nods, like she respects the rules even if she doesn’t agree.
“Okay,” she says softly. “Then we won’t be complicated.”
The problem is, nothing about her is simple. Not the way she laughs, not the way she calmed the internet with a candy cane, not the way Ranger has claimed her feet like they were always his.
Later, when I check the laptop, the comment section looks…better. Still loud, but warmer. A handful of regulars defend her. A few women say they’re ready to shop. The algorithm gods love a scandal. They might love an honest one more.
I close the lid and bank the fire. On my way down the hall, I pause at the office door. The couch is neat. The blankets folded. The peppermint-bow disaster is gone.
“Night, Ruby,” I say, low.
“Night, Beckett.”
Ranger hesitates, then follows me. Traitor. Or maybe he knows what I’m trying to pretend -- that this is temporary. That it’s safer that way.
I lie in the dark and tell myself to sleep. I tell myself storms pass. I tell myself I don’t do complications. The problem is, my cabin doesn’t feel complicated right now.
It feels alive.