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At the cross-country table, the current team members explained that practice took place on the field after school and would involve a significant time commitment. Maribel didn’t shy away, and therefore, neither did I, though I did pause a moment on the estimated cost of joining. An asterisk beside the amount brought my eyes to the bottom where there was a note to inquire about financial assistance.

I looked at the girl on the other side of the table to get details, but she’d been replaced by the prettiest boy I’d ever laid eyes on. He had hair halfway between blond and brown, and his eyes were an unfair shade of bluish silver, like a cold sky flecked with sparkling snow. His face and limbs were thin, as if he’d recently gone through a growth spurt, but it didn’t detract from his inherent beauty, or the wonder in his stare.

My breath disappeared, stolen right from my body, and the surrounding crowd turned to mere shadows as we gazed at each other, unmoving.

“Hi,” I said, though it was more a breath of air than an actual word.

“You joining up?” he asked, motioning toward the sign-up sheet. “I hope?”

“Oh, yes. I think so. I was just going to ask about the fin⁠—”

“Camden,” said a man behind him.

The boy’s expression morphed from fascinated interest to nonchalance in an instant, and he turned toward an older man. “Yes?”

“Let the others help with sign-ups,” the man said. “I’ve some people I want you to meet.”

Camden glanced at me with a tinge of regret, then nodded. The man’s eyes landed on me, and a chill chased down my spine. “Sorry, miss. He’s a little busy to chat right now.”

“Oh. I—I’m sorry.” Under his stern look, uncomfortable warmth snuck its way over my cheeks.

“Cross-country is a little demanding,” he said. “Perhaps you’d find something else more your speed.”

“Dad,” Camden said, soft but censorious.

An arm slipped through mine. “She’s already signed up, sir,” Maribel said. “Sorry!”

The man merely dipped his chin and walked away with his son.

“What the heck was that?” Maribel asked.

“I have no idea,” I whispered, still chilled.

Maribel tugged me toward the Better Tomorrow table. “Well, I don’t know what you did to him, but that guy doesn’t like you.”

That guy still didn’t like me, and that council meeting several weeks later definitely didn’t help matters, but at least I was mature enough to let it roll off my back now.

Sort of.

The Director of Sales, a dark-skinned man with a full beard and a cheerful smile, joined the four of us in the small conference room. I shook his hand when he sat beside me, introducing himself as Ryan Henderson. From the seat across from me, Booboo passed out hard copies of the agenda he’d emailed to us earlier that morning. I held my tongue at the waste of paper. Why was there no projector in this room?

Xavier and Edmond sat on Booboo’s side of the table. The arched windows behind them cast golden midday sunlight into the room, and the blue sky proved a pretty backdrop for the trio of unsmiling men. Camden entered shortly after and, once the door was closed, took a seat at the head of the table. “Morning, guys.” He paused and glanced at me. “And…gal. Thanks for coming. I know this is out of the ordinary, but these are desperate times. Shep has spoken personally with Bobby over at Gray-Freeman. If we can’t get this under control soon, they’re pulling out. We really don’t want that to happen, okay? We’ll have these meetings weekly until things turn around.” He turned to Booboo. “Care to start us off?”

“Alright, then.” Booboo pulled up some handwritten notes. “Our priority at this point is disaster cleanup. We’ve already removed the ad from all our pages and canceled any contracts for the ad on each platform. Now we just have to manage the fallout.”

Camden nodded. “What are we dealing with so far?”

Edmond passed around copies of the current stats—number of email unsubscribes, lost followers on various sites, vendors who had pulled out. Luckily, that last number was the least daunting. Of the thousands of establishments that carried Henley bourbon, only four had taken it off the menu.

“We haven’t seen the full effect on sales yet,” Ryan said. “But numbers are already falling.” He gave a quick rundown of the current figures.

With a sigh, Camden turned back to Booboo. “What are we doing about it?”

Booboo gestured in my direction without looking at me. “Isn’t that what you did about it?”

Cam frowned. “Miss Honeycutt is one piece of the puzzle, but I hope you’re not relying solely on her?”

Booboo straightened, expression darkening, but Xavier spoke up. “Why don’t you tell him your idea, Shay?”