2. Kendall
KENDALL
He comes back the next morning.
I’m restocking the trail map display by the entrance when the light shifts in the doorway and I look up. Same guy from yesterday. The fire district order. Big, broad, tattooed from his wrists to wherever the ink disappears under his shirt. He filled the doorway yesterday, and he fills it now.
I noticed him then. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t. But noticing a guy and doing something about it are two very different things, and I have a store to run.
“Morning,” he says.
“More gear already?”
“Not exactly.”
He steps inside and looks around the store with that same slow attention he had yesterday.
Like he’s reading the place instead of just seeing it.
His eyes land on the trail map rack, the condition board, the handwritten closure note I updated an hour ago.
He’s taking inventory, and he’s not being casual about it.
“My captain wants me to learn the local terrain,” he says. “I’m new to the district. I don’t know the access points, the ridgelines, where calls come in, where hikers get lost. I need someone who knows this mountain.”
I wait.
“After watching you yesterday, I figure that’s you.”
Something in my chest pulls tight. I’ve heard variations of this before. Guys who think asking for directions is the same as respecting your knowledge. Guys who smile and nod and then do whatever they were going to do anyway.
But the way he says it doesn’t feel like flattery. It feels like a statement of fact, the same way you’d say the sky is blue or the elevation above the tree line is eleven thousand feet.
I set the trail maps down on the counter. “What exactly are you asking?”
“Terrain orientation. The trails, the backcountry access, the spots where things go wrong. You’d be showing me what I need to know to do my job out here.” He pauses. “I’d rather learn it from someone who actually knows it than figure it out the hard way.”
The smart thing to say is no. I have a store to run.
I’m already doing the work of two people most days because corporate won’t approve the hours for another full-time employee.
I don’t have time to walk a firefighter around the mountain teaching him things he should have learned before he transferred.
But my brain is already going in a different direction.
A formal terrain partnership between the outfitter and the fire district.
Not just one guy learning the trails, but a relationship.
The kind of local, community-embedded initiative I’ve been pitching to corporate for two years while they send me seasonal planograms designed for a store in Denver.
If I can frame this as a district partnership, if I can show corporate that this location has value they can’t replicate from a regional office, it changes everything.
It changes what this job is. It changes what I can build.
“You’d want this to be ongoing?” I ask. “Not just a one-time walkthrough?”
“The terrain up here changes with the weather. I’d need to learn it in layers. Access points, seasonal conditions, where the exposure is worst, how the trails connect to the backcountry.” He shrugs. “That’s not a single afternoon.”
I study him. He’s standing with his hands at his sides, patient.
Not fidgeting, not filling the silence. He asked and now he’s waiting.
Most guys I deal with in this store don’t wait.
They talk, they explain, they tell me what they need and then tell me again in case I missed it.
This one asked a question and he’s letting me think.
“I’d want to formalize it,” I say. “A terrain consultation partnership between the outfitter and the district. Not just you and me hiking around.”
“Works for me.”
“I’m serious. I’d put together a resource guide. Trail access, gear recommendations by route and season, hazard profiles. Something the whole crew can use.”
“Even better.”
He says it like I just made his idea smarter, which I did. But he doesn’t look surprised. He looks like he expected it.
Warmth moves through my stomach, and I put it away. This isn’t about him. This is about what I’ve been trying to build for two years. He’s just the opening I’ve been waiting for.
“I can do Saturday,” I tell him. “It’s my day off.”
“I’ll be here at seven.”
“Not here. Trailhead at the base of the north ridge. Do you know where that is?”
“No.”
“I’ll text you directions. Give me your number.”
He pulls out his phone and I give him my number. When he texts me so I’ll have his, the message simply reads Drew Hartley. No emoji, no joke. Just his name. I save it.
“Drew Hartley,” I say, reading the screen.
“That’s me.”
“Kendall Cross.” I extend my hand across the counter, because this is a professional arrangement and I want it to feel like one.
He takes it. His hand is rough and warm and large, and when his fingers close around mine, something moves through me that has nothing to do with trail maps or terrain guides or proving anything to corporate.
I let go first.
“Saturday at seven,” I say.
“Saturday at seven.”
He holds my gaze for one beat longer than he needs to. Then he turns and walks out of the store, and the doorway looks normal-sized again.
I pick up the trail maps and stand there with my hands full, not moving, not restocking, not doing anything productive. The partnership. The resource guide. Calling corporate on Monday to frame this as a local initiative they should support. That’s where my head should be.
Not on the way his hand felt around mine.