Page 15

FOURTEEN

“What’s the market for this?” Dad asked, pointing his tasting stick at the jar of beech syrup on his desk. “This isn’t something you see on the average grocery store’s shelves.”

“It’s definitely a specialty item.” Jason’s knee bounced as he sat in one of Dad’s visitors’ chairs. “Most producers of beech syrup I’ve spoken with sell direct to restaurants and at farmers markets. We could sell it at the shop and on our website too.”

“Hmm,” Dad said noncommittally.

From the chair on Jason’s left, Brie shot him a get it together look.

He stilled his knee. “Economically, beech trees have little value and they’re not palatable to deer. You know this. Remember a few years ago? You tried to have them removed from the property.”

Dad sat back in his office chair and threaded his fingers over his stomach. “I remember.”

Jason had lobbied against it—unless they were dying or a hazard, he was never a fan of needlessly chopping down trees—and he’d been beyond gratified when a local tree removal specialist’s quote had come in three times higher than what Dad wanted to pay.

“It’s the root sprouts, sir,” the specialist had said. “They’re prolific.”

So the trees had stayed.

“It’s a good thing you kept them,” Brie said now. “Because Jase found a use for them.”

“Accidentally,” Jason added. “In the course of my thesis research.”

“Talk to me about costs,” Dad said. “What’s the value of beech syrup compared to maple?”

The discussion about costs lasted almost an hour, because Dad was nothing if not a businessman at heart. There were startup costs to consider, and Dad wanted to see Jason’s analysis on net profit margins and he wanted to hear Brie’s ideas on marketing. Jason was talked out by the end of the hour, though it had been satisfying to see Dad’s eyes widen when he’d told him they could sell a gallon of beech syrup for upwards of $500—more than eight times what they sold a gallon of maple syrup for.

“Okay,” Dad eventually said, clicking his pen closed on the desktop. “If you think it’s a good idea, let’s do it.”

Forcing himself not to whoop, Jason clamped his hands on the arms of his chair. “Really? But... it might fail,” he felt obligated to point out.

Dad laughed like he’d made the funniest of jokes, the booming sound echoing around the functional space. “Of course it might. Any new business could fail. Hell, established ones could fail too. I don’t see why that should stop us. If I never started anything because I was afraid of failing, Moon Meadows wouldn’t exist. What do you need from me to get started?”

“Ah...” Jason exchanged a look with Brie. She shrugged. “Nothing at the moment. There isn’t too much research out there yet about turning beech sap into syrup, so I’ll need to experiment with tapping at various times of the year to see when we get the best sap yield. I made that—” He nodded at the jar on the desk. “—last spring, but I don’t know yet if that’s the best timing for beech tree sap flow, so I’ll tap a few of our trees and experiment.”

“Haven’t you tapped a few already?”

Brie snorted a laugh. Jason clacked his mouth shut. “You know about those?”

Dad raised a dark eyebrow. “Son, there isn’t much that happens on this farm I don’t know about.”

“You never said anything.”

“I figured they were tapped for a reason. Given the subject of your thesis, I put two and two together and came up with Jase is doing research .” Dad rolled his chair back, clearly preparing to end their meeting, but Brie held up a finger. “One more thing, if you have another few minutes.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Jason said, rising.

“Stay,” Brie ordered. “I’d appreciate your thoughts on this.”

“Uh... sure.” It wasn’t often Brie wanted his thoughts on marketing-related things, so Jason sat back down.

“I spoke with Bellamy’s agent a couple of days ago.”

Dad’s eyebrow went up, the other one this time. He stabbed his pen in Jason’s direction. “His Bellamy?”

Oh wow. Jason hadn’t expected to go all soft and squishy at Dad calling Bellamy his , but damn. He’d be a puddle of goo on the floor any second.

“His Bellamy,” Brie agreed. “She had a proposition for us.”

“Go on,” Dad prompted, rubbing his jaw.

“She’s looking for local sponsors for Bellamy, because apparently having local sponsors will help endear him to local Trailblazers fans, and as a new trade, he needs that. She’s proposing partnering with Moon Meadows—he can post photos and videos of himself using Jason’s new syrups, which will help sell them and which will also make him more appealing to fans. It’s win-win.”

“The problem,” Jason began, settling into the argument he’d made to Bellamy on the drive to Burlington the other night, “is that I don’t know when we’ll have enough beech syrup to sell. That jar is one of three that I made last year. I just don’t know what seasonal sap-flow timing and yield will look like yet. It might be a year or two before I figure that out, and if Bellamy needs a local sponsor now , which he does, he can’t wait that long.”

“The other issue,” Brie jumped in, “is his reputation. In the interest of being upfront with us, Maggie—his agent—admitted that a new small business in the area pulled back their sponsorship of him because they’re worried his reputation will have a negative effect on theirs.”

Both eyebrows went up this time. “What’s wrong with his reputation? Is he a criminal?”

“What?” Jason snapped, offended on Bellamy’s behalf. “No.”

Dad raised a placating hand. “I’m just trying to get all the facts.”

“It’s the rivalry,” Brie said. “The other business was worried it would reflect badly on them.”

“Okay. And aside from the rivalry, what’s his reputation like?”

“Great, honestly.” Brie took out her phone. “His Instagram is mostly photos of his teammates, food, or him at the gym, interspersed with the occasional community and charity work. His stats are better this year than last year, and articles about him are generally positive. Any potshots he takes at Ryland are done through the media, and always in response to something Ryland’s said in an interview or on social media. There are the fights with Ryland when their teams play each other, but those don’t get as much airtime as they used to. Plus, most people tend to chalk up brawls as normal, regardless of which teams are playing, so...” She shrugged one shoulder.

Jason squirmed in his chair, uncomfortable with the topic of conversation. It was weird to be discussing Bellamy in this context, and it felt wrong to be doing so without Bellamy in attendance.

He was about to argue that Bellamy hadn’t actually responded to Ryland’s two previous posts when Dad said, “We’ve already established that the syrups won’t be ready in time, but we could switch gears and have him promote our existing products. What’s your expert opinion on his reputation, Brie? Is it going to harm us?”

Jason rose to leave—he really shouldn’t be here for this—but Brie snorted inelegantly and said, “I doubt it. There are professional athletes who’ve done far worse than roast another player, and they still have the sponsorships and the fans. And if anyone’s slammed the business for still sponsoring that player, it’s buried so deep in the comments that no one’s noticed it. Frankly, we could do a lot worse than Bellamy. I don’t mean that as an insult,” she said to Jason as he was about to tell her to fuck off. “If we wanted to sponsor him, I honestly think it would benefit both of us. Not that the farm needs this, technically—Bellamy needs this more than we do right now—but I don’t think it’ll hurt us either. If you want to go this route, I can work with Maggie on a contract, although I’d suggest not going public with this until Ry knows about Jason and Bellamy’s relationship and has had time to cool down.”

Frowning, Dad stroked the dark stubble on his jaw, then drummed his fingers on his lips. “Let me think about it. I do have a question: Do we need an official contract?”

“Dad,” Brie said, condescending as shit. “If we’re going to officially sponsor him, we need an official contract.”

“What I’m saying is that, at some point, probably soon, Bellamy or Jason are going to post a photo of themselves on their social medias—or maybe a photo of them at an event will be posted to the Trailblazers social media—and that will do the work for us without us ever putting our products in Bellamy’s hands.”

“Huh,” Brie said.

“Huh,” Jason said.

That was... weird. Jason hadn’t considered that as the partner of a professional hockey player, he’d probably become recognizable to die-hard fans at some point. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He wasn’t opposed to it; it was just... odd.

And the fact that they might sell more products or have more visitors to the farm and that Bellamy would—possibly—endear himself to local fans just by virtue of them dating was even more bewildering.

Jason wanted to make syrup and Bellamy wanted to play hockey. Why couldn’t they just do that?

“There is no just in professional sports,” Bellamy said over the phone later, after Jason had told him what he could of their meeting. “I’ve learned it comes with strings attached. Not all of them are bad, but some of them do make me want to pull my hair out.”

“Are there strings attached to being a professional athlete’s partner?” Jason asked. Lying on his bed, he propped one arm behind his head and closed his eyes.

“Not that I know of. Except for don’t call attention to yourself . Bad attention, I mean. Although that goes for players too.”

“Says the guy in a rivalry.”

“Yeah, I realize how that sounded,” Bellamy said with a laugh that touched every one of Jason’s nerve endings. “We haven’t talked about it—coming out as a couple. We won’t do that until we’re both ready.”

“I’m ready whenever you are.”

“You . . .” Bellamy coughed once. “You are?”

“Sure,” Jason said, because admitting that in the safety of his own bedroom when he couldn’t see Bellamy’s reaction was safe. “I like you. I want everybody to know it.”

Jason would take the delightfully pleased sound Bellamy made to his grave.