“Oh, right, of course. All you’d need to make the stickers is a design, some clear sticker paper, and a printer. You can ask Greta to use her printer, and I can totally make a design for you. Then, you have six months till tourist season, which is plenty of time to save all your jars. You can ask people in town to save theirs for you too. It’ll look cool if they’re all different. More bespoke. I mean, if you want?”

Ash blinked owlishly at him. “You’d really want to do that?”

“Make you a design for stickers? Yeah, of course. And as for the signage, that’s easy.”

Truman explained how he could use recycled materials, repurpose stock, use a profit-sharing model with artists to sell merchandise in the store. The ideas fell into his head, one after the other, like raindrops.

Ash was nodding, eyes wide.

Finally, Truman forced down his excitement at giving Ash multiple new income streams and focused on Ash’s unblinking eyes.

“You look overwhelmed. Are you overwhelmed?”

“I’m… Yes. I’m overwhelmed.”

Truman dropped onto the couch beside him and forced himself not to spout off any more ideas, even though his mind was spinning with them. Flower crowns for summer tourists’ children, and winter greenery wreaths for the holidays, and a partnership with a local restaurant to provide centerpieces for tables, and…

“Well, the trick is to just break each thing down to its component parts, make a to-do list, and do one thing at a time.” Truman jumped up again and grabbed one of the blank notebooks he kept for just such occasions. “Here, this can be yours.”

Truman sketched the Thorn logo on the front of the notebook, outlined it with his favorite Micron 0.2, shaded it in with his 0.5, and started to add Ash’s name with a 0.8.

“What’s your last name?”

“Sundahl,” Ash said. “But you really don’t have to—”

Truman added it to the cover, then drew a flower next to Ash and a sun next to Sundahl.

“Okay, so we can write down all the component steps to each project and then go from there. Ready?”

Ash gulped.

“So, how about—”

“No. I’m…” Ash got jerkily to his feet. “I’m not ready. I’m really sorry, Truman. I’ve gotta go.”

Truman knew not everyone had the yen for brainstorming that he did, but really, they were just getting started.

“Oh. Okay. We can pick this up later if you want?”

“It’s not… This is… You’ve been so kind, but I just…I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry.”

He had his coat and boots back on before Truman rose.

“Ash, I—”

“Sorry, Truman. Sorry,” Ash said with an agonized look. Then he opened the door and strode quickly out into the darkening evening.

Truman shivered even after the door was closed.