"AI," he says.
"That is a very direct way to say it."
"Is it inaccurate?"
I make a face. "No. It's exactly accurate. Which is why I need to find things the algorithms can't replicate. Real human perspectives. The feeling of somewhere, not just its rating. A story that's actually mine." I look at the reindeer photo. "This place has that. There's no version of this that a chatbot generates."
"No," he agrees. "There isn't."
He's still watching me when I look up. That steady, present attention. It’s almost like he's listening to something underneath what I actually said. It makes the back of my neck warm in a way that has nothing to do with the fireplace. He’s attentive and listening in a way that tells me he wants to hear what I’m saying.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing." He picks up his bourbon. "You're going to write something good about this place."
It's not a question, either.
Holly, having returned and taken her seat across the table, is doing absolutely nothing to hide her smile.
I kick her under the table.
She doesn't even flinch.
Later that evening, after gingerbread panna cotta that I photograph and then eat in about four seconds, after Marco leaves with the theatrics of a man who never actually wants to leave parties, after Holly falls asleep on Justin's shoulder and gets gently steered to bed, it's just the two of us in the small lounge off the atrium with the fire going.
I don't know exactly how that happened. I wasn't tracking it happening.
He's in the armchair. I've tucked my feet under me on the sofa. He has bourbon. I have the last of the wine.
"Tell me about the ranch," I say.
He looks at me over the rim of his glass. "What do you want to know?"
"You and Holly mentioned you have a rehabilitation facility. What are you running right now?"
"About forty animals. Elk, mule deer, a pair of foxes, a bear cub we're overwintering. He came in underweight in October."
"A bear cub?" Did he say a bear cub?
"He'll go back in the spring." He says it simply, like this is just a thing that happens in a person's life.
“Do you cuddle him? Read him bedtime stories? More importantly, can I cuddle him?”
He laughs then, a genuine laugh, and the sound fills me with more warmth than that of the roaring fireplace.
“Absolutely not. The idea is to rehabilitate the animals back into the wild. We keep handling to a minimum. A bear comfortable with humans ends up being a dead bear later. I do everything in my power to make the animals healthy enough to go survive and have long, happy lives in the wild.”
There it is again. That thing where someone talks about something they genuinely love, and it shows whether they want it to or not.
I ask about intake processes and he explains them. I ask about specific reindeer care requirements, I have that Arctic Circle research somewhere in my brain and I'm genuinely curious. Something shifts in his expression when I ask the right follow-up questions. Like he wasn't expecting to find the questions interesting. I’m not placating him, I’m actually quite fascinated by everything he’s saying.
"Do you take visitors who won’t touch the animals?" I ask. "For educational purposes. Or content purposes."
A deliberate pause. "Occasionally." He looks at me. "You could come out this week. If the reindeer photos were useful, the orphaned elk alone would be —"
"Yes," I say, before he finishes.
He pauses.
