Page 87 of Mountain Wood

“What a beautiful thing,” Grace says sweetly. “To be so loved by a man like him.”

Iam a man like him.

My gaze drifts to hers, but the words catch in my throat. Before I’m able to say them, my cell goes off in my pocket.

I ignore it.

It goes off again.

Grace cocks her eyebrow at me. “Are you going to answer that?”

Snapping out of my emotions, I fumble for my phone and pull it out to see it’s Nick. “Yeah?”

“You’re trending.”

“Huh?”

“You’re fucking trending, bro. Check your account.”

I hit the app and…. There are so many notifications, there’s a dot in the number. What the hell?

Grace looks down and she gasps, covering her mouth. “Oh shit. Oh shit, shit,shit! I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

I open the video I posted this morning, and the flow of comments is insane. But the one that’s at the top, with the most likes and comments, is Grace Finch.

With the verified blue check mark next to her name.

“I forgot to toggle over to my dump account before commenting!” Her eyes flash with panic. “Oh my god, Dean. I’m so sorry!”

I still have no idea why she’s apologizing. Scrolling through the comments, I skim several before clicking on the tags next. The post has been duetted and stitched a lot. The number of followers I’ve gained is… unreal.

“I have over four hundred thousand new followers.”

In a matter of hours.

Is that even possible? Maybe there’s a glitch.

Hitting the first tagged video, a woman’s face takes up the screen. “Besties. BESTIES!” She leans into the camera. “I think tea’s brewing.” She grins like a maniac. “Check this out.” The young woman leans to the left and the green screen behind her is a screenshot of me shirtless in the snow in my latest good morning video. Then it cuts to a screenshot of the comment section, and she’s got Grace’s circled. “I think there’s a romance going on. I mean... it could be nothing. Or it could beeverything. Can you imagine Grace Finch withthatman?” She fans herself.

I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.

“They’d the hottest couple on the planet!”

Flattered then.

“Mountain Wood is like thehottestlumbersnack on the internet.” She leans in even closer and whispers, “I bet his log is so big, it needs a permit.”

I quickly close out of the video, mortified and slightly proud.

Gulping, I scroll through more stitched videos. More comments. More attention.

Grace looks like she’s scared to death. “Are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?” That makes zero sense.

“Because this is blowing up.”

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