Chapter Eighteen #3
She jogged over to grab one. When she turned back around, it was to find Hunter holding on to Mercutio’s leash with one hand, and holding his phone up with the other, the lens of the camera pointed at her.
“If you’ve ever wondered what these signs mean,” he said, “you know, the ones that ask you to clean up after your pet? Well, let me be the first to tell you. They mean clean up after your pet. Here, you can see a beautiful, responsible young woman getting ready to do precisely that.”
“Are you filming me getting a poop bag?” she asked, incredulous.
“Shh.” He tilted the camera to get Mercutio and his… leavings in-frame.
She wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”
“Exactly,” he said to the camera. “Bears shit in the woods, but that doesn’t mean your dog should.
If they do, you know what to do.” In a deft move, he shifted his grip on the handle of the leash and took the bag from her.
He filmed himself being a good citizen and tied off the bag.
Then he flipped the camera to selfie mode.
“This has been your daily advice on how not to be a jerk to your fellow hikers.”
He gave a thumbs-up with the poop bag before hitting stop on the recording.
She blinked rapidly. “Wow. You’re actually getting into this. Though I kind of question your choice of topics, not gonna lie.”
“That’s because it’s not literally your job to clean up the trails every day.”
She winced in sympathy. “Okay, that’s fair.”
He grunted as he stood. Mercutio was champing at the bit to get to the dog run now.
There was a trash can just by the entrance, where Hunter deposited the bag.
He helped himself to a generous dollop of hand sanitizer from a dispenser next to the trash can and rubbed it in before releasing an increasingly impatient Mercutio into the play area.
The couple of other dogs greeted Mercutio with yapping delight, despite the fact that he was double—if not triple—their size. Emma and Hunter waved to their owners before taking a seat on a bench and sitting back to watch the dogs tire themselves out.
“So what do you think?” Hunter asked, tapping his phone where it rested on his leg. “Between my knowledge of park ranger history and my opinions about pet etiquette, you reckon I still have the makings of internet fame?”
She screwed up her face in confusion. “Is that your goal? Becoming famous?”
“Absolutely not. But don’t you have to go viral to get anybody to see your posts?”
“It helps,” she allowed. “But you might be putting the cart a few yards in front of the horse.”
“Oh?”
“How about we start by just setting up an account?”
She didn’t want to sound too overeager here, or like she was pushing him at all.
But she’d been having so much fun, both with the bookshop’s account and with her own bookseller one.
Helping Hunter use social media to attract new visitors to the preserve and spread the word about being a good citizen of nature sounded like an exciting challenge.
Hunter mulled it over for a second before shrugging. “I guess that couldn’t hurt.”
She shifted closer on the bench so he could see her phone as she went through the basic setup for him.
He wasn’t comfortable using his real name, so they went with just the initial, H, and chose a username to go with it—@H_ForestRanger.
Something a little snappier might have been better, but they could always change it later.
With that settled, she cropped and edited one of the photos she’d taken of him earlier to use as a profile pic.
“I guess that isn’t too awful.” Hunter frowned. “You’re sure you don’t mind managing it, though?”
“Not at all. It was my idea. But I’ll set it up on your phone, too, just in case you change your mind.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
“I’ll play with it some more tonight. Follow some accounts to help the algorithm figure out what your deal is. Maybe even post that video from earlier, if you want?”
“Knock yourself out.” He shared the other video he’d taken about dealing with pet waste so she could edit that one and post it, too, though she might save that particular pearl of wisdom until the account was a little more established.
She chewed the inside of her lip. “Though you realize that if you really want to reach people, you’re also going to have to film a lot more than two videos, right?”
“Well, that just sounds unreasonable.” He grinned to show he was joking, nudging her knee with his before pulling away.
“We could try to film some more sometime soon. Maybe up in the preserve?”
“This your way of inviting yourself to go hiking with me again?”
She looked up at him, unsure, but the twinkle in his eyes set her at ease. Choosing to be bold, she asked, “And what if it was?”
“Well, then that would be all the more enticing.”
A warm thrill moved through her.
She really didn’t want to get her hopes up. She wanted to be easy and breezy, and able to go with the flow. But he’d also been so adamant about her being clear about her own desires and preferences.
And in her heart of hearts?
She couldn’t help but hope that this was the next step on their way to becoming something more.