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“Somebody is jealous.”

“Sage.” My name comes out low with warning.

My smile fades. “Fine. Since you already know my name. What’s yours?” I ask and he hesitates suspiciously long.

“Ezra.”

“Ezra.” I repeat testing it out. It fits him. Old-fashioned. Severe. Hot in a mildly concerning way. “Ezra what?”

His jaw tightens before he answers. “Ward.”

I blink. Then glance toward the huge WARD FARM sign glowing beyond the bonfires before looking back at him. “Ward?”

Something guarded slips into his expression. “As in Ward Farm?”

His eyes stay on mine. “Yes.”

“This is your place?”

“My family’s.”

“Holy shit.” That explains the brooding. Rich farm boy trauma. Probably generational. “So you’re the boss?”

“One of them.”

“And you spent your own evening chasing people through corn?”

“I wasn’t chasing anyone.”

“You grabbed me.”

“You walked toward me.”

“Victim blaming.”

His eyes close briefly.

I grin. “You’re fun.” I tell him.

“So I’ve been told.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

Something about the way he says it makes my stomach flip.

There. That weird feeling again. Not fear. Something adjacent. The sense that we’re having two completely different conversations.

I lift my wrist. “Seriously, why do you want this off?”

His gaze drops to the red satin, and whatever almost-smile I managed to drag out of him disappears. “Because it shouldn’t be there.”

I glance down at the ribbon. “What does that mean?”

“It means whoever put it in the barrel made a mistake.”

“I thought the Harvest chose me.”